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Just wanted a very nice mug of straight black tea to sip on at the start of Sunday morning and something about the tin of this one was just calling out to me. Smooth and full bodied, with malty notes of dark chocolate, peated whiskey, and just a tiny touch of fruit.

No complaints – just good tea.

Strange VariaTEA TTB: Tea #10

Another Deb blend added in by VariaTEA that I wanted to try since the opportunity presented itself. I’ll be honest, I have actively avoided this tea – not because I think it would taste bad but because something about the word “Bundt” sounds revolting to me. I feel like I get the same almost gag like reflex some people seem to have with the word “Moist”. It’s the same reason I wont touch Deb’s flan inspired tea, or the “Lemugar” tea from Bird & Blend. The words just… don’t sit right.

So, sipping on this one earlier today I had to very actively try not to think of the name as I sipped it – but when I was able to block it out I actually enjoyed the taste of this tea a lot. It’s definitely lemony, but very soft and light. What I didn’t expect so much was the cinnamon that I got throughout the sip – also lighter, and very pastry-like in its sweetness. Kind of lime cinnamon sugar donuts, but if the donut base was mildly lemon flavoured.

I think, if this tea had another name, I could see myself really getting into this one.

Gongfu!

I had completely forgotten I still had part of this sample left, so it’s nice revisiting. This bamboo aged sheng is much sweeter than I remembered with bright syrupy stonefruit notes and the refreshing, light taste of bamboo on the tail end of the sip! Pushing steeps, it gets just a touch astringent but this draws out more bamboo/sweet woody notes from the tea! It was a nice choice to break in a new tea set – especially given the peach patterning on the set.

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/COnpvHdAO1u/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei-x8QC_5-0&ab_channel=DavidDeanBurkhart

Sipdown (1388)!

Finished this one off Western style, since I didn’t have enough of the sample left for a proper session, on the weekend during hamster cage cleaning day! It was a nice reward for myself afterwards because it was so very and fruity, with some very syrupy redfruit and peach notes alongside a slight greener edge and notes of sweetgrass and hay.

This wasn’t a standout favourite of mine, though I liked this Western cup possibly more than I enjoyed this brewed Gongfu, but it will still be missed and it had some nice sweet elements to the cup.

Sipdown (1389)!

This was really tasty so I’m glad I got to try it, but it’s super similar to DT’s Chocolate Macaroon as well so I’m also glad I only had a single cup’s worth of it. Very sweet, and more of a boozier chocolate liqueur flavour mixed with the shredded coconut. Was just missing some of the nuttiness of Chocolate Macaroon and then it would practically be a dead wringer for that profile.

Also – fun fact – did you know the beloved Alan Tudyk was the voice of Hei Hei!? I did, and as I was drinking this mug it was very, very hard to think of anything other than this brilliant clip of him doing the voice acting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaGYXjMwS60&ab_channel=WaltDisneyAnimationStudios

Made this as a hot cuppa over the weekend.

Surprisingly I found that I was getting very little of the maple-y pancake/buttery notes that I usually get from Anne’s “Pancake Breakfast” inspired teas – it was almost just fresh and bright strawberry. I was craving more of the maple though, so I added in some maple flavoured agave and that gave this some of the sweetness I was craving. Obviously the maple was a nice compliment to the strawberry too – it was just like a more amplified version of this tea’s usual profile.

Cold Brew Sipdown (1390)!

This sample came to me by way of the subscription that VariaTEA gifted me for my birthday! I’m not familiar with that fandom it was inspired by, Charmed, outside of just a very baseline knowledge of what the show is about – but I did enjoy the tea!

It’s got glitted/luster dust in it so it does have a nice shimmer to it – but maybe a little on the lighter side compared to some of the other shimmery teas I’ve seen lately from Indie brands. That’s fine by me – the glitter is a cool bonus but not the selling point of the tea for me. Taste wise, this falls squarely in the realm of flavour profiles I really like though: berries and cream!! Even though most basic interpretation of a berries and cream blend is usually still pretty enjoyable to me – so no exception here. I found this more blueberry than anything else, but a more tart blueberry with some of those tangy sweet notes of the hibiscus. The black tea base added body and was a little present in the mid sip, and then the finish was creamier and more mellow.

Very refreshing as a cold brew! Good for the summer, too.

Okay, out of all the matcha and hojicha from 3 Leaf Tea this is hands down the most unique of all of them and I fully expected it to not work.

I don’t have the warmest of feelings towards the Lemonade Matcha so I expected the lemon flavour here to be similar to that one – and I didn’t see how that could possibly be complimentary to the dark roast and caramelized nutty flavours of the hojicha. Thankfully, the lemon flavour itself is much better than what is used in the matcha. It’s actually very bright and lively, and almost has a playful tartness to it.

It’s certainly really strange to have such a sharp high note contrasted against all of the deep low notes and cozy flavours of the Hojicha – the juxtaposition is crazy. My first impression was only confusion, and after more sips and more mental processing I decided that as weird and harsh as the contrast is… I like it a lot!

They’re like foils of one another with the initial wave of sweet and punchy lemon highlighting the toasted grain and sweetly caramelized nut notes of the hojicha and those more mineral and bake-y dark roast notes pushing the sunny qualities of the lemon even higher and more to the forefront. On top of the unique taste, this is just really more of an experience and I like teas that excite me and make me feel like I’m trying something brand new a lot.

This one didn’t land for me…

The hojicha powder base is tasty here because it’s the same one used throughout, but the chocolate is barely a whisper – and for how mild and easy to miss it is you really might as well just be drinking the plain hojicha powder. At least it’s more of a cacao chocolate though versus waxy dollar store chocolate. Some semblance of a win there…

I didn’t have great expectations purely because I found the normal chocolate matcha painfully underwhelming, so at least I wasn’t surprised here.

I had very high expectations for this hojicha powder, but it totally lived up to them.

The banana flavour is lighter/milder than the regular banana matcha, but that makes sense because the flavour of the hojicha itself is strong and more dominating. Combined, there’s this very lovely and cozy profile that reminds me of banana bread but with the roast factor of the hojicha. The natural nuttiness of the hojicha really leans well into that too – and it just makes the illusion stronger.

So delicious, and I’m dreaming of a latte so badly right now!