277 Tasting Notes

Our Tea of the Week for March 2, 2020! This tea was crafted in honor of my mom – her birthday is at the beginning of March, and I wanted to create a tea for her birthday.

Date! Orange! Ginger! Even a touch of cake-y flavor. This blend comes together the way I hoped it would. The orange & date are a bit softer so that the flavor of the dates could be front & center. The orange is sweet & bright – complementing the notes of date very nicely so that the sweetness of the date does not become a cloying taste. The ginger is gently warm – a warmth that starts off in the back of the throat & slowly develops. It’s nice – not too spicy – but contrasting the sweeter notes of the fruit & cake just enough to keep things interesting for the palate.

tea-sipper

A great idea for a blend – sounds delicious!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

This one is on the website now, but there are very limited quantities of it remaining. I love this blend – I realized that I consumed all of my stash (save for one serving) before I managed to get it on the website (I really thought I had already added this one) – but apparently I was writing tasting notes in my head and not on Steepster. Fortunately, I did have just enough to snap a photo of the tea & then enjoy my last cuppa.

I love the way the apple & the gingerbread play in this. I don’t taste much from the honeybush or rooibos – what they do contribute to the taste melds with the gingerbread notes and it plays off as a mildly nutty, honey-ish taste to enhance the molasses-y brown sugar notes from the gingerbread. The spices are mild but they play to a warm spice set for the gingerbread. Every few sips, my palate notices more apple than gingerbread, so it comes off as a warm apple cider taste. Really nice.

Flavors: Apple, Ginger, Honey, Nutty, Spices, Sweet

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 8 min or more 4 g 12 OZ / 354 ML

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

I just got back from the tea studio where I did a final inventory count of this tea (& I just finished posting those numbers) – so I thought I’d bring my stash of this one to my pantry & enjoy it. I didn’t keep a lot of it aside for me because I didn’t make a whole lot of it and I had quite a few customers who had asked for it so I wanted to make sure that they got some of it before I indulged myself – because – truth be told, I do have quite a bit of tea for me to indulge in.

I really like how this one turned out. The grapefruit is bright and juicy – but not too tart. I am not particularly fond of tart (which is why you don’t catch me working with hibiscus too often – way too tart for my liking – and when I do work with it, I use just enough to add some body and color but not enough to lend it’s syrupy tartness to the cup.)

But I love grapefruit. Generally, when I indulge in a grapefruit, it isn’t with brown sugar (but I bet that’s really nice) – I tend to sprinkle the top of the grapefruit half with salt which tends to reduce the bitter tartness of it to my palate’s liking.

But I like how the brown sugar essence here tames the tartier notes of the grapefruit just enough so that you know that you’re tasting grapefruit but you’re not getting too much pucker — & you’re not getting too much cloying sweetness from the brown sugar either. A really nice balance.

Anyway, this one’s almost gone so – if it’s one that you’ve been waiting for – please be sure to stop by my website & grab some! I won’t be reblending this one for quite some time!!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

drank S and S Green Tea by 52teas
277 tasting notes

I just added this tea back to the website – it was reblended by request from one of my customers. This is one of those teas that I’m surprised that turned out the way I hoped it would. Sometimes, I’m sure that a blend will work out just fine (and it doesn’t!) which can be frustrating, but it sure is nice that it happens the other way around too!

Sweet, fruity and really different – the strawberry & pear taste so good together. The cream cheese notes add a creamy & tangy element. The pepper doesn’t hit the palate with every sip, so when it does, it’s like a pop of heat that is unexpected but also quite nice. It reminds me very much of the ice creams that inspired the tea – especially where the pepper comes in – because I don’t get pepper with every bite of the ice cream, so when I do taste the pepper, it sort of kicks me in the back of the throat as a really nice contrast to the strawberry flavor.

Yum!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

drank Coconut Cake by 52teas
277 tasting notes

It’s nearing the end of a busy day for me and I decided to unwind with a cup of white tea. I love this blend that I crafted for February. Lots of coconut flavor with notes of cake. It tastes a lot like – well – coconut cake. And white tea. It’s really quite creamy and luscious. A lovely dessert-y tea.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

drank Chocolate Orange Cannoli by 52teas
277 tasting notes

OK, so those of you who pay attention to my posts in the forum and/or my posts on facebook – you’re probably aware that I crafted the teas for Amoda Tea’s subscription box for December. This is one of those teas – and I’m finally adding it to our website (for a limited time – only while supplies last).

This is really yummy. It starts with a yunnan base (Golden Monkey & Yunnan Imperial – both are organic!) and to that I added oranges, cacao nibs & shells and some allspice for just a hint of warmth. I really love this blend. Super yummy!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

drank Winter Mint Oolong by 52teas
277 tasting notes

This tea was our 8th Tea of Christmas for 2019. A fairly simple recipe: Wintergreen essence, vanilla extract & spearmint leaves with a lovely green TieGuanYin. I had originally obtained this TieGuanYin to reblend the Maple Cheesecake TieGuanYin. However, after I tasted the TieGuanYin on its own as well as another Oolong I ordered at the same time (Qilan), I determined that the Qilan would taste better with the Maple Cheesecake flavors so I did a slight alteration to the Maple Cheesecake recipe which left me with some TieGuanYin that I didn’t have plans for – so I created this recipe to include in our 12 Teas of Christmas box.

I love the way it all turned out. The Maple Cheesecake Oolong is really good with the Qilan Oolong (I think I prefer it with the Qilan – it has a darker, roasted flavor that just works better with the maple notes) & this tastes simply amazing: it’s sweet, it’s creamy & there’s just enough crisp mint to it to give it a lovely winter-y kind of flavor.

I found myself wondering why I didn’t keep more of this tea to myself – but then, I remembered that I have a whole tea studio filled with tea.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

Taking a tea break – and I grabbed this tea because it happened to be handy. Even though I just blended this one only a couple of months ago, I guess with all the hustle and craziness of the holidays (I did, after all, blend 33 teas in a matter of 3 months) I had forgotten just how yummy this is! The tart of the raspberry offers a really nice contrast to the sweetness of the marshmallow. A really nice pick-me-up.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

drank Blue Star by 52teas
277 tasting notes

I was crazy busy before New Year’s Eve doing my level best to get December’s Teas out before that day – which I’m happy to say that I did manage to do, but not with much time to spare. It seems like every time I get close to getting caught up, I end up having to tweak a tea or something and it throws me behind schedule again. I’ve come to realize that it’s probably going to be a never ending process because I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my teas (or so I’ve been told).

Anyway, those same people who tell me that I’m a perfectionist when it comes to my teas have also ordered me on a bit of a vacay so that I can catch my breath. Tonight, I’m back at it full-time – so I decided that i needed a pot of tea to get things going. This is the tea that I grabbed.

I am really in love with this tea. It came out just the way I wanted it to. A really great passion fruit flavor, just enough cayenne to add a bit of warming to it without being too spicy – and the cacao is just enough to add a pleasant touch of chocolate without interfering with the passion fruit. It reminds me a lot of the donut that inspired it – except that this has a bit more chocolate flavor to it because with the donuts, you just get the cacao nibs – and because they aren’t infused into the flavor and serve as “sprinkles” to the donut, you don’t get a strong chocolate flavor – instead, you get some chocolate-y notes with some texture that actually nicely contrasts the cake-y donut.

But since I have yet to discover how to make a tea crunchy and still smooth and sippable, you just kinda have to imagine the crunchy texture of cacao nibs with this tea. Or I guess you could nibble on some cacao nibs while you drink this tea. But you really SHOULD drink this tea because it’s totally yummmm!

tea-sipper

I hope whatever bit of vacation you had was lovely!

52Teas

It was really just a few days that I was “ordered” to take off because I had a very busy October through December … so basically, a few days off that I took at home so I was still responding to correspondence and such, I just wasn’t allowed to go to my tea studio to work. But, I think it was beneficial, because I was able to go in there last night with a clear head so that was definitely nice.

tea-sipper

I figured it wasn’t a VACATION vacation, but hope it was nice anyway. :D

52Teas

Thanks – it was! I love what I do, but when you have so many deadlines coming up all so close together as I did in that three month period – it got a bit stressful. So, I was glad to take a breather for a few days.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

drank Earl Grey Cupcake by 52teas
277 tasting notes

So, my countdown is all messed up by now and at this point, since it’s Christmas day, it’s a bit unnecessary. So a big thank you to all those who kept up with the countdown! :) This is the Eleventh tea in the 12 Teas of Christmas box, and I just grabbed this one because I was looking for a caffeinated pick-me-up after the holiday dinner and dessert and this was the first one I grabbed.

Not that I’m complaining – I’m loving this. I love bergamot and since I do love it, I can usually handle a strong bergamot flavor but I also like this where the bergamot is subdued because of the vanilla notes and the cake-y flavors. Very tasty and a nice way to regroup after the holiday happenings.

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday and that you’re staying warm and cozy with a hot cuppa!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

Profile

Bio

52Teas offers you high-quality, hand-crafted, small batch artisan tea blends – a new flavor every week!

<><><>

Full Disclosure: The individual operating this UserID is the Mad Tea Artist who creates these blends every week. I’m aka LiberTEAS. I took over the 52Teas brand from Frank of Southern Boy Teas. I’m keeping both accounts active at the present time because I still have some tea reviews to post and I didn’t think that I should do that as 52Teas!

Location

Vancouver, Washington

Website

http://52teas.com

Following These People

Moderator Tools

Mark as Spammer