4378 Tasting Notes
Always happy to try another Kusmi blend! This one is a sample that Nicole was kind enough to send me (thank you!). I’ve tried their other earl grey teas (“Russian Blends”) and enjoyed most of them, so I’m happy to try this one as well. This is an earl grey with lemon and lime flavors added, which sounds lovely and possibly similar to Anastasia (lemon, lime, orange). Dry scent is strong bergamot with some citrus accents.
First off, I will say that the base tea here is a bit earthier than I would like, which detracts a little bit from the experience. However, I do enjoy the flavoring. It’s mostly bergamot, but I can also taste the lemon and especially the lime alongside it. I added a little bit of raw sugar to the second half of my cup to see if that would help smooth out the earthy taste. It did help a bit, but I think I would prefer to stick to Anastasia or even Troika if I want an earl grey with extra citrus kick. :)
Flavors: Bergamot, Earth, Lemon, Lime
Preparation
Dammann Frères Advent Calendar – December 2nd
Yay, another tea from the calendar! I’m still really excited to try all of these, and it makes my heart happy to open another little door and see what my surprise tea is for the day. Totally worth my $40-ish!
This tea doesn’t have ingredients listed on the package, so I guess it really will be a surprise! Opening the packet, I can see small black leaves along with pieces of orange peel and a few flower petals inside the sachet. Dry scent is rich and tantalizing citrus – mostly orange with a touch of lemon. I can also smell a touch of spice, possibly clove, so I guess this much be an orange spice-type tea.
Mm, the steep tea smells like yummy, sweet orange with cloves, along with an additional sweet note that causes the aroma to remind me of orange sweet rolls. Yum, this is quite good. I can definitely taste the gingerbread spices, but they’re matched quite evenly by a sweet yet tart orange oil-esque flavor (sort of like orange peel). The orange flavor is very lovely and lightening and makes a lovely top note. There’s perhaps a touch of pastry flavor here, after all it is supposed to be gingerbread. For a split second in the middle, it tastes like bubblegum, which is kind of odd but not altogether unpleasant. Random! Overall, this is quite tasty, as I’ve come to expect from DF!
Flavors: Clove, Cookie, Ginger, Orange, Orange Zest, Sweet
Preparation
My last sample from Ost. This is a tea I’ve been curious about for a while now, as I generally love maple things. I’ve tried a couple of other maple teas, and they’ve been decent but not amazing.
This one also falls into the “fairly good” category. I would really like more maple flavor, as I can mostly taste it in the aftertaste and as a slight building flavor when I drink multiple sips. Mostly I taste rooibos.
Flavors: Kalamata Olives, Maple, Sweet
Preparation
Have you tried their Birthday Cake? Oddly enough, I swear that one is heavier on the maple. It’s like maple-flavoured icing.
Ooh, sounds yummy. I’ll have to keep that in mind for swaps. :)
I’m pretty sure it’s permanent too. You don’t have a David’s anywhere near you, eh? I take that for granted, I guess. :)
I think the closest one is about 4 hours away. Womp womp… :P
Wow, what a bummer. Well, if we ever do a trade, I could always send you some since I’m surrounded by them haha.
And to be warned though, it’s one of those teas that leaves a nasty scum ring from all of the flavouring oils. Guess that’s what David’s has to do with their rooibos in order to make them taste like more than just wood.
Agreed, Birthday Cake is a better version of maple than Oh Canada! :)
Another sample from Ost. Love the cute snowflake sprinkles!
I’m not sure what I did wrong here, but this basically tastes like straight rooibos to me. Perhaps it needed a shorter steep. However, I can’t imagine it making much difference when my cup barely has any spicing at all, and certainly no cream. Withholding rating. :/
Flavors: Kalamata Olives
Preparation
Rooibos and you don’t seem to get along. Just like me and green tea don’t generally get along. xD
Sorry you didn’t like it though!
I do like rooibos, in fact I like it a lot. But if I wanted plain rooibos, I would buy plain rooibos. :P
Weird! This one, at least the batch I have of it, is quite creamy and delicious.
This is a sample from Ost. I haven’t really enjoyed Della Terra’s teas in the past, but their flavors always sound so good that I want to try more anyway. This one is supposed to be marshmallow and caramel, and the tea leaves are mixed with mini marshmallows and cute little colorful sprinkles. Dry scent is sweet but somewhat artificial.
Nope, this one’s not for me. It tastes like generic, somewhat woody black tea mixed with artificial dessert flavoring. I guess it could be caramel flavoring, but the artificial quality of it is making me go ick. :(
Flavors: Artificial, Caramel, Sweet, Wood
Preparation
Aw, that’s what I was afraid of.
Other people seem to really enjoy their teas, so maybe I’m just overly sensitive to something in their flavoring.
I’m kind of on the fance about them, too. Their blends are pretty unique, but not particularly well-executed.
To be fair, I’m steadily becoming more and more picky with flavored teas…
Oh man, their stuff is just WAY too sweet for me.
I never picked up on the hype about this one – just didn’t work for me. But I do quite like some of there stuff, for whatever reason.
Time to start drinking all of my samples again! This was one of the David’s winter blends that I still haven’t tried. I do enjoy roasted oolongs, which is what the base of this looks like. There are a lot of chunks of fruit and stuff. Dry scent is heavy on the cinnamon with a strong nutty presence.
Hm, this is just okay for me. The strongest flavor is the cinnamon, but even it is kind of muted. There are some fruity and nutty notes, but mostly this is a cinnamon tea (sort of like Snickerdoodle was). Thanks to Roswell Strange for the sample. :)
Flavors: Cinnamon, Fruity, Nuts, Sweet
Preparation
Dammann Frères Advent Calendar – December 1st
Wee, so excited to finally start this thing! I’ve been giving it longing looks since it got here (clearly I should’ve put it somewhere where I couldn’t see it).
This is a sencha tea with passion fruit, peach, strawberry, and pineapple. There are some colorful flower petals mixed in, making it quite attractive. Dry scent is definitely fruity and sweet, and it’s heaviest on the peach. I did a shorter steep since I find most flavored green teas get bitter rather quickly, hopefully that wasn’t a mistake.
Whoa, this sencha is really grassy and… leaf-y tasting. Maybe a touch like eating raw spinach? Or wheatgrass. I was not expecting it to have so much oomph. The fruit, on the other hand, is far more subtle than I expected! I can taste the peach slightly, and more so in the aftertaste, but not much else. Overall, it’s not bad, but not what I expected. The focus is definitely mostly on the base tea here, and it’s perhaps the grassiest base I’ve ever tasted.
Flavors: Grass, Peach, Spinach
Preparation
Time for another David’s winter tea! This one is super chunky, with whole golden raisins and big pieces of apple. It smells very creamy and vanilla-esque, but I can smell apple as well. Looking into the pouch, it didn’t look like enough for two cups to me, so I decided to use the whole 10 grams (somewhere between 2 and 3 teaspoons I think) and made a 12 ounce mug. I have to say, this tea made me quite cranky before I had even tasted it… For some reason, I didn’t realize that there’s chamomile in here, and made the mistake of steeping it in my usual brew basket. Of course, now there are a bunch of teeny chamomile pollen pieces stuck all over the inside of the mesh (chamomile seems to be the Finum brew basket’s sole weakness). Harumph.
Honestly, I’m not finding this tea all that flavorful… Perhaps I should have only made a 10 ounce mug with the sample (which is really quite sad). I can taste vanilla and some creaminess, and there also seems to be some kind of sweetening element here (which I don’t see listed). I can barely taste the apple, mostly just at the end of the sip. Overall, it’s fairly meh for me.
Off-topic, the boyfriend and I are going to his sister’s for Thanksgiving. Her husband has to work and she has a 3-year-old along with a new baby (about 10 weeks I think by now?) so we’re going on Wednesday to help her with all the cooking and such. I volunteered to bring the pies, so I’ve been perusing the web for interesting recipes! Here are the ones I decided upon!
http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/07/04/salted-caramel-apple-pie/
http://sweetpeasandsaffron.com/2014/09/bourbon-pumpkin-pie-with-salted-brown-butter-pecan-streusel.html
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2013/09/french-silk-pie-step-by-step/ (adding amaretto and using an amaretti cookie crust!)
So excited! I’ll be making them tomorrow. :D
Flavors: Apple, Creamy, Sweet, Vanilla
Preparation
This was one of the smaller samples I got in the Bluebird Tea Co. group order. It’s not something I would have chosen on my own, though I do like strawberry and chocolate. The rose, on the other hand, is not one of my favorites, so hopefully it’s not overly strong in this blend. There are cute heart-shaped sprinkles mixed in with the tea, dried strawberry, rose petals, and pieces of crushed cacao shell. Dry scent is sweet and creamy chocolate with strawberry.
I actually quite like this, even though I can taste the rose involved. It blends quite nicely with the strawberry, and together they are almost like one cohesive flavor. The chocolate is definitely present, though it’s darker and more bitter than I expected. It’s a nice counterpoint to the sweeter, fruitier strawberry/rose. This one would definitely be delicious with milk and sugar added.
Flavors: Bitter, Dark Chocolate, Rose, Strawberry
Preparation
Yay, another one from the Bluebird Tea Co. group order! Honestly I don’t even remember what flavors this tea is supposed to contain, heh. Just poking around in the dry leaf, I see some dried apples and a few of those lame caramel cubes, along with possibly cinnamon bark and some decorative red flower petals. It smells deliciously caramel appley!
Yum, I quite like this one! There’s just a little bit of smoky character (I assume from some lapsang) and it goes very nicely with the burnt sugar, toffee, and sweet apple flavors. I’m also getting some mellow wood and malt notes from the base tea. Perhaps there’s a little hint of cinnamon here as well. Overall, yums! I’m really liking Bluebird so far.
Edit: Forgot to mention that this was the inaugural run for my new Christmas mug from Target! http://instagram.com/p/vwF4hrGgPI/
Flavors: Burnt Sugar, Cinnamon, Malt, Red Apple, Smoke, Toffee, Wood
