1711 Tasting Notes

I had a cup of this the other day with cream and it seemed much more chocolatey than the cup I’m currently drinking straight. I can smell chocolate notes, but can’t pick them out in the flavor. What I am getting is a dry malt. It’s a little tart at first on the sides of my tongue, then turns malty, leaving my mouth dry. It’s almost a little ashy, but the overall flavor is light. It’s interesting, but I haven’t figured out how I feel about it. More cups are needed!

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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drank Coconut Joy Bites by Almost Tea
1711 tasting notes

I can’t recall the last time I had a Joy bar, but I’m a little confused because I clearly recall the advertisements saying “Almond Joys have nuts, Mounds don’t.” so shouldn’t this be more of a Mounds tea since the coconut is the main focus? Or are Joys just a general term for a type of candy and some candy company in the 80’s was killing it on the misleading advertising?
Anyways… the instructions for all this tea say to use just cooled boiling water and it makes me wonder how much R&D they did on their teas. I steeped this at 175F instead. The bag smells both chocolate like and artificial at the same time, but I couldn’t tell you what is making that impression. There is a light sheen of oil on the top of my tea, which I’m not a fan of. The cacao shell flavor is what comes through strong. There is a hint of something fruity in there, but it’s very fleeting. The coconut is hard to find. The green base is undetectable. This tea isn’t bad, but it doesn’t have much of anything going for it either. It’s quickly forgettable.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 0 sec
gmathis

Almond Joy was the trademarked name, the jingle started “sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t,” and the only difference between that and Mounds was one almond on top of each half :)

Shae

Oh I love Mounds bars! I always preferred those because they are coated in dark chocolate. I think Almond Joys might be coated in milk chocolate, but it’s been so long since I’ve had either one that I can’t remember for sure.

Roswell Strange

I’m pretty sure the emphasis on coconut in the name is just their way of skirting the trademark on “Almond Joy” – there’s definitely almond flavouring in the blend itself, which may be what you’re tasting as fruity (almond flavouring sometimes ready like sweet fruit/cherry to people because of the overlap in many flavour compounds).

Dustin

I’ve for sure gotten that almond/cherry crossover in flavoring, but I don’t think I’ve ever noticed a coconut/cherry crossover!

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This reminds me of a T2 blend. They are both a chai with coconut that for some reason make me think more of a curry than a chai. I had a cup of this yesterday and it was very enjoyable, but when I resteeped today I added another scoop of fresh tea and it ended up being too strong and a little bitter in the sip. I could add some creamer to dilute it a little, but that involves going all the way to the kitchen and I’m not doing that right now. The finish has a mix of spices that are hard to pick out on their own and a nice mingling of mango and coconut. So far I’m liking this one, but feel like there is more room for my relationship with this tea to develop and flourish.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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This is smelling very perfumy when I open the pouch. Once it’s steeped my first few sips were very baby powdery. That taste would fade at the back of the sip and spiced apple would creep in the finish. The powder went away a few sips in, but there is something very perfume like that flashes at the start of the sip. I can pick up on the caramelized part of the apple, but the white chocolate flavors are eluding me at the moment. As it cools the perfume comes in a little stronger and the powder came back when I started sipping again. It’s very light and airy and I’m not getting white chocolate in there at all, but I think it’s likely a hard flavor to nail down in a tea. This is a really weird cup and not in a fun way, but an “I don’t know what to think about this” sort of way.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 4 min, 0 sec

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drank Crimson by Chroma Tea
1711 tasting notes

I recently purchased several Chroma teas after sampling one and really liking it. So far most of them are falling flat for me. This is a nice roasted tea with a little nuttiness in there and a touch of grass, but it feels like there is room for more pizzazz. I don’t believe I’ve ever used the word pizzazz when describing a tea, but there you go. I keep waiting for there to be something that stands out and makes this cup spectacular, but it’s just it’s mellow well rounded modest self. There is nothing offensive about it at all, but I was hoping for more.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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drank Raspberry & Pistachio by Almost Tea
1711 tasting notes

I’m noticing that each month’s release of teas is photographed in a different shape which is a nice way of grouping them visually. After much back and forth with customer service we finally figured out why I didn’t get the teas from last month. When it was ordered for me the gifter had the option of choosing the teas from the first or second month selections as my first delivery and chose the first meaning I didn’t get the second and skipped to the third. I’m glad it is resolved and nothing was lost in the mail, but it felt like pulling teeth getting the answer.

This tea was tasty hot and I had to set it down after drinking half the cup mindlessly and came back to it after it had cooled and I had more time to focus on it. It reminds me of Lupicia’s Framboise Chocolat. The taste is similar with the raspberry standing out with something deeper behind it. It was pretty smooth while hot too. When I came back to it cooled the hibiscus stood out more giving the raspberry a natural tartness that the fruit has. It’s not so much that I’m getting that metallic grossness that hib often has, it’s just enough to round out the fruit and bring out the chocolate notes which were harder to detect when hot. The front of the sip is the berry, the back of the sip is cacao and the finish is a little alkaliney with cacao. I’m really struggling to pick out any pistachio. I love pistachio and I’d really like to be able to taste it prominently instead of searching through the other flavors for it in vain. I like it, I’d drink it again, but Framboise Chocolate has a permanent spot in my cupboard and I don’t need such a close match.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec
Sakura Sushi

Frambois Chocolat, eh? Good to know – I’ll be putting that on my wish list!

Dustin

Do it! It’s a good one.

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drank Honey Hive by Almost Tea
1711 tasting notes

This is a pretty tasty chocolate tea. I could see the cacao bits in the bag and it tastes very similarly to a cacao shell tea I have. The flavor is very natural with a slight bitter tang that dark chocolate can get. It’s good, but it doesn’t seem to have anything else going for it other than chocolate. With a name like Honey Hive I expected the taste of honey in there somewhere and I get zero. It says this is decaffeinated, but now that I’m sipping it in the evening I wonder if they just meant the tea. How much caffeine do the chocolate bits have?

In the steeping guidelines on the wrapper it asks you to think about your most memorable bee sting and concludes that they are all memorable. What an unpleasant thing to ponder while waiting for a relaxing cup of tea. There are plenty of bee stings that I don’t remember and then there is the one that is clearest in my mind where I realized I was now allergic to bees, broke into full body hives and welts, my face started swelling and my partner stabbed me in the leg with an epipen with all the might he could muster like he was John Travolta in Pulp Fiction…. in the middle of the pandemic. What a weird thing for a tea bag to ask me to recall.

Cameron B.

Somewhat related, the Honeycomb chocolate bar from Chuao is super delicious if you like honey & chocolate! It has crispy honeycomb bits in it, nom nom.

Kelmishka

As someone with a phobia of bees, I would… not appreciate being asked to remember any of my bee stings while making tea! How rude!

Dustin

I think I’ve had that bar before. Firecracker is my favorite of theirs.
Pondering a bee sting is an odd request of a tea company! LOL!

tea-sipper

oh no… you can suddenly acquire a NEW allergy to bee stings?!

ashmanra

tea-sipper: my eldest brother died of anaphylactic shock from yellow jacket stings. Another man died the same way the same week. The ER doctor told us that their beta blockers for high blood pressure had sensitized their blood creating an allergy to bee stings. But I think allergies can come and go. A friend was severely allergic to most fruits and always had to carry an epi pen. She had a traumatic injury that required many surgeries and reconstruction. Apparently her body reset to factory settings and she can eat fruit now. Still carries the epi pen just in case.

tea-sipper

All of this is bizarre info, ashmanra! I’m very sorry you lost your brother like that.

ashmanra

Thanks, tea-sipper. I will plant whole gardens for the bees, because they are wonderful and so needed, but for wasps and yellow jackets I have no mercy.

Dustin

Oh yes, yes you can. Beekeepers often want to get stings regularly so their body becomes accustom to them, but you can suddenly become allergic to anything or loose an allergy. I had a friend who was severely allergic to walnuts, then had a baby and was no longer allergic to them. I guess I’ve been a little too caution in not getting stung, so now I’m doing allergy shots so I don’t die beekeeping.
That’s awful, Ashmanra! I agree, wasps and yellow jackets get no sympathy from me.

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This smells really juicy! It doesn’t taste as strong as it smells, but it still has a good amount of flavor on this green rooibos base. The passionfruit takes the main stage with banana in a supporting role. There is a little bit of tang in the sip which rounds out the passionfruit well. There is only mild rooibos mouth drying feeling here, which I appreciate. The finish is a little dull which leaves me wanting another sip. I like this one and I’d drink it again. Probably wouldn’t add it to my cupboard.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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drank Corn Brulee Bar by Almost Tea
1711 tasting notes

This tea is from the February ‘23 subscription. My feelings about this subscription are starting to be colored by having not gotten the January teas. Customer service didn’t help me with looking up if it had been sent or not, just referred me to tracking notification emails I never got. It makes me wonder if customer service has been farmed out to a third party who doesn’t have access to account info, just generic canned answers.

Anyways… it looks like this months teas are based off a chocolatier’s creations. The tea smelled lightly of caramel and strongly of sugary cereal, the kind that coats the roof of your mouth with a waxy substance. I’m glad to see it’s a green rooibos base. These subscriptions seem to be heavy on the rooibos. There is a light oil sheen on the surface of my tea. There wasn’t much there on the first sip. It was mostly in the finish that I got any caramel corn cereal hints. Sipping further gives me hints of banana, something I’ve never associated with corn before! The flavors are light and puzzling, but I feel like the whole thing is well balanced for being light and puzzling. It is very corn cereal like, which is strange for a tea. If I start sipping with more frequency there is almost a soapy taste to this cup on the sides of my tongue. I’m still unsure how to feel about this cup, but this is for sure a tea I would not order.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 4 min, 0 sec
Cameron B.

Aww, and it sounds so interesting too. I would love to see a kids’ cereal-themed tea collection!

Dustin

That would be really cool as long as it wasn’t cereal from my sugar free childhood! Otherwise we are looking at a really loud grape nuts tea, shredded wheat and granola!

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drank Sunburst by Chroma Tea
1711 tasting notes

I tried this hot and was not a fan. I don’t recall why, but I thought it would be good cold steeped so I dumped the entire bag into a mason jar and stuck it in the fridge for a few days. This mix is really frustrating because the pineapple bits are huge and light, so they rise to the top of the bag and all the other ingredients fall to the bottom. It was hard to get my spoon past the pineapple and get an even mix of ingredients, so I think the dump it all in the mason jar was really the right way to go.
It’s has a very bright and cheery taste. The sip is juicy, fruity and tangy. Pineapple is woven with the lemongrass. As those flavors fade, the cinnamon pops out. I wasn’t getting cinnamon in the hot cup at all. I didn’t think I really liked it at first, but the more I sip the more I appreciate this. I’m not sure if it’s something I’d buy again, but it is something I’m enjoying. My only regret is not saving it for warmer months when I want something cool and refreshing to enjoy.

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Bio

My name is Dustin and I like tea.

I’m an added flavor kind of tea fan, but have had a growing appreciation for plain. I want my tea to remind me of cookies and cakes with coconut and almond slices with a hint of chocolate drizzled on top. I want dancing ponies and flying monkeys shooting off fireworks! And no hibiscus. Hibiscus is the devil.

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