Brown Butter Bourbon Blitz

Well everyone, I am back in the States… for those of you that didn’t know, I have been in Canada, more specifically Montreal since last Wednesday. While there I did a ton of exploring, bought way too much tea, and got to meet up with a tea friend!

Saturday I got to meet the amazing and sweet @Roswell Strange AKA Kelly. We did a little snack swap and she was so kind and threw in a ton of teas for me to try! So… since I have kinda a slow, boring, and kind of uneventful day of work today (got the surprise that I’m the only one on today…), I decided… why not try a few teas that she gifted me as well as a few that I snagged while we were at Camellia Sinesis and throughout the city! When in doubt, drink tea, you know?

First, I decided to try this blend because it was bagged and easy to take to work because desk job = not a ton of space. I had heard of almost before, I used to get Universal Yums and I think they had the same parent company because they sell their teas on their site (but not in their boxes… boo). So, I was really excited about this one. I love dessert teas so I knew these would interest me, I just never got around to ordering because of the crazy sipdown year I had… I think I got my collection to less that 20/30 before the last few weeks… then I went a little crazy (I went to DAVIDsTEA 3 times while in Canada…I blacked out and it was a hefty haul).

On to this tea:

I absolutely loved this tea! I was shocked to see that it was a pu’erh because it’s not often that I see bagged pu’erh blends aside from DAVIDsTEA and it was a pleasant surprise. This blend was certainly desserty and full of the brown-butter/caramelized flavor. However, what I liked the most was that I could still taste the pu’erh in it all. Sometimes, I think pu’erh can get lost in flavorings and blended ingredients and its nice to have such a great balance. Perhaps when I recover from the craziness that was my three-tote bag haul of tea… plus a Murchies order that arrived while I was gone (I forgot I placed it)… I’ll have to order some of this!

Thank you again to Kelly for sharing this and all the amazing snacks with me! I can’t wait to keep trying everything! I’m also happy to update everyone that I am officially going back to Montreal in October… so I’ll likely be making more bad decisions tea-wise then…

Been curious about Almost Tea for a couple months now when they first started popping up on a handful of different food and beverage focused trend (not tea specific) publications that I follow. Shortly after that they seemed to pretty quickly make their way into a lot of my IG tea friends cupboards by way of some seemingly really effective targeted ads, and then it wasn’t long after that they popped up here on Steepster too…

I probably would have ordered sooner but shipping to Canada just sucks, so I waited until there were a few boxes out so I could maximize my order by grabbing a bunch at a time instead of paying the monthly shipping fee…

This was the first one I made. Brown Butter is definitely having a moment right now in the food world and it’s cool to see that cross over a bit with tea. The blend just honestly sounded really good! Steeped up, it was very nice. Definitely on the simpler side but I found the pu’erh base really good quality for the price bracket this is in – especially given these are tea bags. It doesn’t really taste like brown butter or bourbon to me, truthfully. I’d likely call it butterscotch or maybe, like, a butterbeer? Sweeter and with those slight caramel-y notes for sure.

I’m excited to drink it again though! Name accuracy aside, it’s a very nice tea and since it looks like Tazo has discontinued their Butterscotch Blondie tea (which I ADORE) this could be a pretty solid replacement option for me…

Sipdown! (44 | 447)

Figured I should finish off these Almost teas, since a new package of six should show up any day now.

This one is pretty good. The puerh is only noticeable for me at the very beginning of the sip, where it has a wet potting soil sort of earthy note. From then on, it tastes like a rich and buttery caramel sauce. Almost butterscotch-y, really. I don’t get much in the way of bourbon, not that I miss it.

I would say for someone who likes flavored puerh and/or caramel teas, this would probably be a hit. I could imagine it being scrumptious as a latte. I would maybe consider buying some if it were on a black base, but I don’t reach for caramel teas often as they can be a bit cloying for me. But I would recommend it for caramel lovers!

I gave up on my advent tea a few days back. Now I get to focus on Xmas teas! I got the small subscription to Almost. This is a branching off from the Universal Yums box from the same company that we have had a subscription to off and on for the past three years. In that box they pick a different country for each box and choose snacks and treats that are well known in that country or are unique to that country. That subscription has entertained the entire house! When they decided to do tea, I was really excited. The thing for this subscription is they pick a favorite dessert maker of theirs, have samples sent to their tea blenders and try to match the flavor of the tea to the sweet. I thought it would be six treats from different companies that the teas were blended to match per month, but it’s six sweets from one bakery. The tea is on the pricey side, but fun for a gift. The small subscription is two tea bags of each of the six tea. The bigger one is five bags of each of the six flavors. For this mix they have two blacks, two rooibos, one puerh and one honeybush. They come in pyramid bags without a string.

This smells really good dry, steeping and in the cup. The instruction said to use boiling water, I ignored it. The flavors were a little more intense when first steeped and seem to loose a little of the magic as I write about the tea and let my cup cool. The sip is very blond brownie like, but light. It’s a little buttery and a touch underwhelming. Then the finish arrives and the brown butter richness really kicks in. I’m betting this would taste amazing with a little sweetener to round out the flavors and make it super brownie like. I think I can pick up on the bourbon part, but that is one of the flavors that eludes me a little unless it’s overpowering. I’m having a hard time picking out the puerh on it’s own. I think it’s making for a nice depth to the cup without standing out with that earthy damp flavor that puerh has. Adding sugar amplifies the flavors! It’s making whole thing more rich, especially the butter part. There is something distracting at the start of each sip, but it passes so quickly that I can’t pin point it. The sugar really makes it more decadent and full.

There is a little pamphlet that comes with the tea giving info on the maker of the dessert these are based on and it’s tempting to order some of the brownies to see how well they match the tea. They have a little QR code and I wish it took you to a page with all the flavors of brownies represented in these teas in a premade sample pack. It looks like they have a lot of seasonal and rotating flavors and two of the flavors of corresponding brownies were not available. If this box picks up in popularity it would be an interesting way to cross sell desserts and teas between companies.

I’m really enjoying this cup. I’d gladly drink another cup any time, but the price point of $30 for 30 sachets if I wanted to buy more is a little on the pricey side. If I really loved one of their teas I’d be more likely to consider buying more if it was 15 for $15 or if they had a mix and match $1 per bag with a minimum of 10-20 bags. As it is, I think two servings in the subscription to try out a new tea is perfect for this tea fanatic.