Big Easy

Sipdown! (48 | 145)

From my August Sips by box. Gotta admit, I giggled a little bit when there was a tea from August Uncommon in my August subscription box. Well played, Sips by…

This smells amazing, but the steeped tea is super thin and weak. It does have pleasant buttery cake and caramelized pineapple flavors, which I really enjoy. But it might as well be a fruit tisane for how much I can taste the green tea. And I used a lot of tea, half of the pouch or about 7 grams for a 16-ounce pot.

Yet it tastes like slightly sweetened pineapple-upside-down-cake-flavored water. And the longer I sip it, the more the flavoring becomes artificial and cloying to me. Love the concept, but not the execution unfortunately.

Very smooth consistency. Lemony flavor.

I ordered about 10 more August Uncommon samples. I’m trying to work my way through their entire collection. I can’t say this one is my favorite. The balance of flavors is really strange, and there’s a very odd scent. I think it’s the barley that is working against the pineapple. I’ll finish the sample, but I don’t think I need to repurchase this one.

This has surprisingly turned into possibly my favorite caffeinated tea currently in my stash. Even when I oversteep it, it doesn’t turn bitter. The ingredients truly go together so well. The pineapple is sweet, and mixed with the lemongrass and flavoring, it ends up cakey, caramely, and delicious. I’m bumping up my rating for this one even more. I’m not a huge green tea fan, but I’m sure I’d be a bigger one if there were more blends like this!

I can’t decide if I like this or not. It’s sweet and distinctly pineapple but there is a candy-like quality here that comes off artificial. Don’t get much from the lemongrass or barley though. I think I enjoy it but maybe not one to keep permanently stocked.

Strange tea. At first, I was stoked by the chunks of fruit, lemongrass, and sweet vanilla scent of the dry leaf. Steeped, it smells just as intriguing.

The initial sip, I was like, “Score!” because it was a blast of caramel. Then the sweet pineapple follows, but this is where things get strange. The caramel fades and the sweetness from the pineapple strengthens, only the sugariness, not the pineapple itself. But then the sweetness, which is artificial as it is at this stage, morphs into a plasticky note. As this cools, I am getting a little roastiness from the barley, which is helping to cover up some of those plasticky undertones but it just isn’t enough to truly enjoy this.

Upside is the sencha base didn’t go bitter and it isn’t too grassy or vegetal either.

Hmm, it’s like drinking a plasticky pineapple caramel genmaicha.

I have strong thoughts about AU’s marketing, but this is a sipdown and I want to get the tasting note down now. I’ll get into the marketing another time.

This blend tastes like sweet pineapple and lemon to me. I’m not picking up on caramel, pastry, barley, or the base tea. I’m a little disappointed that the sencha base is so thoroughly drowned out by the pineapple and lemon flavors. On the other hand, those fruit flavors are distinct, gently tart and not cloyingly sweet. I actually think this would have been delicious as a cold steep but I didn’t have enough leaf or patience left for it. It’s nice as a hot brew too, just nothing special.

Wow, hi guys. First review in a long, long time.

I’m in the process of moving so I don’t have all of my tea gear with me. It’s the ol’ tap water in a microwaved mug method for me. (The horror, the indignity!) I got a few samples from AU in the mail recently and didn’t feel like hunting through my boxes and half-packed belongings.

I haven’t been drinking a lot of tea lately. This is the first tea order I’ve placed in…a year, at least. My honey is trying to lead a healthier lifestyle and this means more tea, less coffee. Sounds like a win win win to me. (: Gives me an excuse to drink more too! My tea stock has dwindled slowly down to one little bin of old favorites and random samples I still haven’t tried.

On to the tea. This is so not what I was expecting. Like Dex, I thought the barley would give it a nutty, toasted genmaicha quality. I can’t really pick out the flavor on its own. The green tea doesn’t have a strong flavor of its own, either. Most of what I’m tasting is buttery, cake-like or donut-like pastry. It’s heavy but it’s smooth. There’s a lingering caramel sweetness. I’m a little picky about pineapple in tea and I prefer it blended with other strong flavors. (Butiki’s pineapple cilantro oolong was a good one.) Here the pineapple has a sour, kind of acidic quality that tempers the sweet pastry notes. It’s a little strong for me. I can see how others would love it; it’s like a pineapple-lemon pound cake. Dessert in a cup. The blend leaves a slightly sour, puckery taste in my mouth that I’m not fond of…so maybe I’ll try it with milk next time. Not as unusual as AU’s other offerings, but it’s alright. There are others I like better.

I’m a little rusty at this, so hopefully I did okay!

Wasn’t planning on drinking this one tonight, but when I went to dig through my sample box on the shelf to find the tea I did plan on drinking I saw this in there and went “Fuck it, I can drink two teas at once!” so I grabbed both and brewed them both up…

It’s been a while since my first tasting of this one, and honestly I’ve put off trying it again not because I didn’t like it the first time but because I’ve been scared that the second cup wont come close to tasting anywhere as good as the first one did. I should have had faith though because this one was also gentle and delicate buttery pineapple with rich caramel sweetness! I mean, I look at the ingredients list and I feel like this shouldn’t taste the way it does at all but it’s so pastry like with that golden, complimentary pineapple note and I don’t know how AU is doing it!

This just reconfirmed that I’m in love with it though and that my first cup was not a fluke. Knowing that, I can seriously see this being something I’d want to order more of from AU in a larger quantity – and that’s a serious statement because I don’t know when I last said that about a green tea that wasn’t matcha.

Mmmm!

NOMS. dexter sent this one my way along with a number of other samples i’m excited todive in to even if i’m really close to 100 again. My weight is still under what i was hoping for the end of year so i’m laughing. :)

I really like this one. It’s, as dex mentioned, not as out there as other AU blends i’ve had but i love this a lot more than i thought i would. probably because it doesn’t come across as a green tea lol this is really much more pineapple, caramel donut….not as light as like an angel food cake with pineapple..but it’s very dessert like. am a fan!

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