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Drinking this tea this morning and it’s the last of a sample I got from my first TTB.
I need more of this tea in my life. Let’s go check out the website and… what…
Della Terra… closed…

;_; Don’t suppose anyone has a stash they don’t love eh?

Pass the Stash TTB #2

This is delightful! The smell is incredible and the flavor is fantastic. I suppose it’s supposed to be nutty. I have no idea what this smells like to me, but I love it. It’s just so… different and delicious. I like. Very like. Wow. I keep this. :)

Pass the Stash TTB #1
This is not bad. I smelled it in the bag and thought it would be great. Steeped it, smelled again and thought I’d made a mistake. Tasted and was pleasantly surprised since I’d come to expect it to be as bad as it smelled steeped, but it tasted better than I expected which was not as good as I’d hoped when I smelled it in the first place.

Pleasant enough white tea with light spice and mint flavorings I think. It’s not the best thing I’ve had of the type by far, but it’s drinkable. I would not be sad if someone served this to me, but I don’t think I’ll rush out to buy any.

I believe I’ll put this one back in the box. Sampled, but not kept.

You would never know the delicious strawberry banana smoothie sitting on my desk this morning was full of incredible health benefits as imparted by matcha green tea powder! Going off the recommended dose, I started with 1/2 teaspoon as I’m caffeine sensitive and would rather try the low dose before the high dose. The scent of the matcha was vibrant and vegetal, just as it should be. The matcha powder had a soft, silky, powdery texture, and the color is jade-like green. It looks like high-quality matcha to every scale I’m familiar with. To be fair, I’ve only ever had flavored matcha before, namely from Red Leaf, but I at least know that “matcha flavor” and I can definitely sense the hint of green tea deliciousness in my smoothie. That said, it’s not a bitter or astringent taste that I’m catching. Not at all. In fact, I get only the sweet of fruit and the green tea taste I was hoping for. The matcha hasn’t taken away from the tastiness of my smoothie at all! And I was worried about that because other green tea I’ve tried has often been astringent or bitter. I don’t get that here!

I’ll have to try this matcha in other ways. I will try it as a latte to compare to my experiences with Red Leaf, for sure. But for now, I’m going to have to give this matcha my seal of approval. It’s delicious, smells wonderful, and the price is amazing for such a large pouch! Gotta say I was quite surprised to find that the pouch was so big! It certainly is a lot of matcha for the price! :)

Delicious vanilla flavor and rich Oolong. Just like I expected. After trying Almond Oolong I figured this would be the same just with Vanilla. I was right. I can’t complain. I tried it with a bit of sugar and cream one go round and it was delightful (tried it before adding cream too and also good! I just like vanilla teas with cream!). Then later, had it again with truvia and milk and it was overwhelmingly sweet that way. So next time I’ll stick to normal sugar and cream.

Served this when my friends were over this weekend and it was sooo nice. I made a 32 ounce pot in my Iced Ingenuitea and served it in my new tea cups with saucers. My friend has a dietary restriction so she has to use Truvia. I poured my cup first then sweetened the pot for her so she could log the amount. (She will drink more tea than me in a sitting so it worked out fine.) I added a little milk to the pot of tea too as this tea is really best creamed. My friend enjoyed every last sip of it, drinking the entire pot minus my one cup (which is all I was in the mood for at the moment, but it was soooo good).
I still love this tea so much. I come back to it again and again. With my intense love of decaf blacks that still have good flavor, I really will end up buying this one again when I run out or low. I really must keep it in stock at all times.

I bet it’d be a good candidate for something iced or maybe the tea pop thing. I wanna try that. I bought sparkling water for the purpose, but which tea to start with? The selection may affect whether or not i end up liking the tea pop concept so I really want to make sure it’s good. I may try it with this since this is one of my favorites.

Meh, just not my thing I guess. I did my first gong fu styled brewing with my new tiny teapot and my new teacups. I tried three steepings of it and every one tasted the same… vegetal, almost flavorless. Maybe my pallet is just too unrefined but it tasted like grass-water.

Update on me
Nothing but the regular stuff lately. I have been on a decline again and my health has been keeping me out of the kitchen. Hoping to be better again soon, but my finances are in shambles and stuff just doesn’t seem to want to work out for me. I try to keep busy and keep positive but sometimes it’s so hard.

I did find that antique tea set at a yard sale the other day that I posted about on the forum. (http://steepster.com/discuss/8144-antique-tea-set-find) And that cheered me up a bit. But lately has been so hard. I want to start tasting the free teas I got from … Oh now I can’t remember. A company sent free tees for reviews. I’m going to start tasting them and reviewing them soon. I just haven’t had energy the last few days.

Regarding that, I’m hesitant about posting this here, but I really have to try to get the word out and I don’t have a lot of channels. I started a fundraising campaign over at YouCaring.com with the hope of managing to raise the funds I need to actually receive the medical treatments I need. I’ve been hesitant about doing this for a long time, but I’ve exhausted other options. With my health getting worse, it’s become less and less possible for me to make the money in other ways and now I need treatment badly.

So if anyone here is interested in donating to help a fellow tea-lover who has been through hell, or if you can’t donate, if you could at least share my campaign, I’d really appreciate it. Regardless, thank you for reading this, and sorry for bothering you here.

http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/hope-of-recovery/206559

A sample from a friend, his own blend.

First thoughts: Black and white tea don’t usually go together very well because of their basic brewing requirements. Black tea is best brewed at 212 degrees for 2-3 minutes while White tea must be brewed at lower temperatures for less time. Typically white tea is brewed for 1-2 minutes at 180 degrees F.

So that said, I went ahead and brewed it according to the recommended time on the custom blend’s page at the recommended temperature.

The smell is sweet, slightly floral with a hint of bergamot.

The taste is interesting. I don’t get much of the bergamot from the Earl Grey. I do get the cream and a little floral note in there. I’m not sure I can really name the rest. It’s a sweet, round flavor and the bergamot kinda sneaks its way in on the tail. Not bad at all.

I tried it hot and then drank some more after it was cooled off. Both ways it’s pretty nice. It’s not a bad flavor at all.

I guess if anything it has too many flavors for me to be sure what to make of it.
The rose hip is mild but still I don’t like rose hips personally and would probably like it better without them.

I’m not sure it’s a tea I’d particularly go looking for, but it’s certainly a tea I wouldn’t turn down if offered a cup.

Thank you very much for the sample, Robert. ^^

Backlog 14/67

From Stephen Hockman.

No… This is tangy, berry-fruity, sour to me. It’s a fruit tea that isn’t sweet which almost always means I hate it. I don’t like Rosehips, so I expected this to be a no. The Rosehips are what really kill it. I think it smells amazing, but that sour tang just ruins it for me.

I tried it warm. Tried it sweet. Tried it iced. It’s not for me.
I do love how it smells tho. I wonder how it’d be without the Rosehips. As always, Rosehips is my arch nemesis!