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Tea Theme (Not a sipdown yet): Tea with Honey

So the owner of Call Me Sweetea, Dani, finally closed shop for the foreseeable future. I am glad she is pursuing her future career aspirations but dang, I had just grown so attached to some of her blends: Believe, Cute, and Yum Cookies. I really dig the way she blended her teas with cocoa shells in black or herbal teas apparently. Anyways, I will probably sipping down what is in my stash this year and next year and morning my loss of them a little.

Preparation: Western
Tasting Note: The tea has some oolong, honey crystals and lavender in it and is pretty herbaceous. I think the honey crystals provide some extra floralness to the tea but it is not overly sweet. I am not particular fan of this type of oolong (I prefer more green or roasted oolongs, especially when they have floral or cinnamon or pastry notes). I haven’t done a second steep of the same leaves which could be better but I think it would lose most of the honey flavors.

Sipdown Theme #1: a Chai

I have so many chai tea variants in my tea cabinet right now that I will definitely need to work on some sipdown for this one this month. Other than that, on my breaks, I have been playing a new game that came out on switch today called ooblets. It is really cozy and great. Kind of like animal crossing or stardew Valley but with a simple card game thrown in the mix. Would highly recommend if you are into cozy switch games.

Preparation: Western
Tasting Note: I got this as a sample from deb. It surprised me. I didn’t think I would like a christmas, thanksgiving cranberry salad chai type tea and I was really wrong. It isn’t very strong hibiscus or cranberry so if that sort of tartness throws you off this will be ok. The spicing is good and isn’t overpowering but is still there. It smells like this cranberry christmas mead I bought from a local meadery in MN not too long ago and it really scratches that itch of having that again. I might change my mind on this tea in the future but I think it is certainly worth a try if you want some lighter christmas vibes in September.

It feels like one of those “Not quite fall but close enough” days. Was rumaging through my herbal tea cabinet and I found this little guy hiding away. ;)

Preparation: Western
Tasting Note: The smell of this tea is wonderful, its like vanilla icing with cinnamon and the slight apple juiciness. Taste is still really good just not as strong as a real cider with vanilla whip cream but still good. I would say that the cinnamon is a sweeter lighter cinnamon which doesn’t overpower the apples. In all, its a really nice drink that definitely conjures apple dessert vibes. I will continue to purchase this as long as I can.

Preparation: Western
Tasting Note: I was surprised by the robustness of this base. I kind of went in thinking “3 tsps for an 8-10 oz mug is good, right?” since my last few DBD blacks are light tasting. It was much bolder than expected, almost enough to overwhelm the other notes of the tea. I still got a little sweet peach and a slightly different sweetness from the almond (an aftertaste or maybe I am imagining it? haha).

In short, I am glad this isn’t overwhelmingly peachy or perfumey. It is a nice brisk cuppa.

Sipdown: Indian tea- a chai

Second to last sipdown for this month’s sipdown themes. I am not sure if i will be able to finish my 100 g bag of watermelon sorbet from dessert by deb in time so I may just switch over to 52teas watermelon raspberry. Then i can enjoy some more cold brews from deb for a little longer.

I just went to a japanese market called ebisu that opened in the Mall of America recently. I found out that they were selling a small amount of lupicia tea there. The line was pretty long for this market so i didn’t buy anything yet but i am excited to get to try some lupicia more locally. Such a cool find for the midwest.

Preparation: Western
Tasting note: I really like this chai, it still has this slightly sweet, slightly smoked flavor to it. Like a really good vanilla liquor. (Bourbon, whiskey?) It’s been pretty good on my stomach too.

Sipdown theme: Ingredient of a trail mix: Raisin
Been a little while since I have wrote a tasting note. Wedding crunch time

Preparation: Western
Tasting note: I have a sample of this one so I don’t have brewing instructions readily available on the package. I brewed at 209F for about 3-4 minutes. Tastes lightly of vanilla and delicate sweetness. I have never had a Panettone cake so I am not a good judge whether there is a likeness to the real thing. I didn’t get a lot of raisiny taste from this tea so I am not sure this is accurate. It’s not bad just not enough distinct flavors to be great.

So a couple weeks ago I finally got my large order of Dessert by Deb teas, I have been actually rather slowly getting through these as I was trying to finish some other teas off.
This is one of the first green ones, I got to.

Preparation: Western
Tasting Note: I went over some of the notes that were posted for this blend to see if I had any differing tasting notes about this blend. I have realized that I don’t have a whole lot else to say about this tea that hasn’t been said already. That being said here are my top three thoughts: 1) I think this is a good floral strawberry tea, the green base is buttery and the fruits blend really nicely to mimic a sweet mild strawberry 2) I don’t think it reminds me of a sakura blossom tea (I have had a couple imported ones and if memory serves they were a little more plum-y tasting), but it isn’t a cloyingly sweet rose tea. 3) This tea is really similar to strawberry jam and toast because of the base but I prefer the strawberry jam and toast because the toasted rice really rounded the tea off nicely. I think if you really like rose florals though this blend might be for you.

Sipdown July theme: a mango tea

I spilled probably a cups worth of this one on floor just right after i opened the bag. Stupid exertion based clumsiness. :( I really liked it too.

Preparation: Western
Tasting Note: I sipped this one down pretty quick after first trying it. Its pretty much like orange mango juice but that is really nice. No stevia or caffeine so a nice afternoon drink (if you need to stop drinkint caffeine at a certain point that is.) I will probably order this one again at some point.