1295 Tasting Notes
I got an ounce of this as part of the green tea sampler from Argo’s pre-Black Friday promotion. I used most of it to make tea for my family yesterday. They liked it well enough. But then they’ll drink just about anything minty I put in front of them, so I take their opinion with a grain of salt.
As for myself, I find it pretty mediocre. The mint is quite lovely and refreshing, but the base tea is meh. It just completely fades into the background in the first steep. The second steep is substantially better in that at least some dryness and woodsy notes come out to convince me that there even is any tea in here. The mint is very nice, but the base just cannot hold its own. Drinkable, but nothing I’m interested in seeking out again. Except maybe as a breath freshener – the mint really lingers!
You know, I quite like this. The smell of the leaf is all cherry. The brew is a nice deep red. This tastes like warm cranberry juice with a cherry finish. It’s not as heavy as cranberry juice, but it doesn’t feel thin either. This would be a good winter evening tea for me. It just makes me think of curling up by a nice fireplace for some reason. I can see this being great as an iced tea, too.
Thanks for the taste, greenteafairy!
Hard apple cider. That’s what this tastes like to me, down to the fizziness. Yummy! The resteep tastes the same as the first but weaker no matter how long you steep.
I have fickle tastes where DavidsTea is concerned. This one falls squarely in the “like” camp. I’m not picking up on anything pie-like, though, so “apple pie” seems like quite the misnomer.
Nom nom nom. Finishing off the sample that Stephanie sent me (thanks!). I love the pumpkin/spice combination. I tried it with some brown crystal sugar this time and it definitely adds depth and a touch of creaminess to the tea. It also resteeps quite nicely. What I’d really love to see is a combination of this and the Pumpkin Milkshake. Like a really creamy pumpkin tea with a spicy kick. If I had more leaf I might experiment with a half creme brulee/half milkshake brew. I added a tsp of the Pumpkin Milkshake to the resteep at 185 F for 4 minutes. It worked out pretty well, but came in rather weak at the end of the sip. All in all, still a tasty cup.
Hmm…
The first steep smells wonderfully of maple. Distinct but not overly sweet. The initial sips are quite maple-y. As it cools, more of the pecan flavor comes out.
I made the second steep with a few grains of brown crystal sugar. It tastes predominantly of pecan with a touch of sweetness at the end of the sip. The base tea has a bark-like quality that I’m enjoying. The maple aftertaste builds slowly, pleasantly. It also comes to dominate the sip as I hit the bottom of the cup – not sure if that’s because the tea has cooled or because sugar disproportionately settles at the bottom of the cup.
Mmm! I did the third steep at a higher temperature, around 204 F. It brought out a perfect balance of maple and pecan. No sugar needed! Is there a way to just skip straight to the third steep? The other two were ok but not quite hitting the spot. This one is juuuust right.
Thanks for the sample with my last order, Stacy! I’d like to play around with this tea a bit more, so I’ll probably be placing my Black Friday order on actual Black Friday in order to get the free ounce. I’m so excited!
The only thing that makes me sad about this tea is that I am drinking it from my travel mug and thus depriving myself of the wonderful smell. It just smells and tastes exactly like biscotti, from dry leaf to aftertaste. I’m super happy about the green tea base, too. Thanks so much for including this in my Secret Pumpkin, BrewTEAllySweet! It looks like you haven’t tried it yet yourself – get on that! You won’t regret it.
The first time I made this, I steeped for 3 minutes. Ugh. It came out astringent and thoroughly unpleasant. I didn’t even want to drink it again, but I needed the sipdown. So I brewed up some fresh leaf (which includes stems and fannings as well as leaf, not cool) at 180 F for about 1 minute. Big improvement! No astringency or bitterness. Light and vegetal. Two solid steeps. Rather mediocre though. A year ago, I thought Tea Forte was the best out there. Now that I’ve really gotten into tea, I find myself less impressed. Oh, well. Sipdown!
I so don’t want to be the first one posting a note for this tea! The pressure!
Well, I only have the one cup’s worth, so I guess it’s now or never…
The nuttiness is prominent here, with a strong vegetal undertone. This is quite savory. It held up solidly for three steeps. Oddly, some honey notes came through in the second steep but not the first or third (both of which tasted about the same). The honey notes really balanced out the other flavors and made it an enjoyable cup. I can’t quite articulate it, but there’s something about the balance of nuttiness and vegetal notes in the other two steeps that is not really working for me. The aftertaste is dry and increasingly seaweed-like. Three minutes after I’ve finished the cup the taste of seaweed in my mouth is still getting stronger. It’s rather unpleasant, actually.
Glad to have tried this in my ongoing mission to taste all of the Butiki teas, but this one was a miss for me. Thanks for the sample, Stacy!
I finished off the last of this last night. Thanks for the sample Short Sorceress!
First off, this smells wonderful. Just exactly like warm carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Alas, as many have already noted, the flavor doesn’t live up to the smell. It is tasty, but doesn’t quite hit the mark. I steeped my final cup for a good long time with a grain of crystal sugar. I can taste carrot and spice, but mostly it tastes like rooibos. A little bit of creaminess comes in at the end. Not a bad cup, but nothing I’d write home about. Which is fine because this is a sipdown.
UPDATE: Turns out I didn’t finish my mug, so I got to try some of this cold. So. much. better. It actually totally tastes like carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. The sip starts spicy, with a full carrot flavor coming in soon after, and a lingering creamy frosting aftertaste. But who wants cold carrot cake? I would absolutely love this tea if it tasted like this when it was hot. I’m actually giving it a rating bump to reflect the awesomeness of the cold flavor.
This comes to me courtesy of a Secret Pumpkin package from Short Sorceress.
I’ve been longing to try a 52teas cheesecake blend for some time now, so I was pretty stoked that Short Sorceress sent me a few cups’ worth. Apparently I’ll have to keep longing though, because this blend is not very cheesecake-y. After a lot of experimentation, I found that this is most enjoyable for me brewed at 200 F for a long period of time (7+ minutes). The ginger isn’t overpowering, but it is most of the flavor. There’s some cinnamon flavor as well. Pumpkin is nowhere to be seen. The closest I could get to cheesecake was by adding one piece of rock sugar – it brought out a creamy texture without altering the taste. Still, creamy =/= cheesecake. Glad to have tried, but equally glad to call it a sipdown.
Oh and the 1-oz bag isn’t resealable, which I find quite irritating.