Kaylee Send Message

I overleafed this time. Now I only have enough left for a small cup :-( Which isn’t really such a terrible thing. I need to keep cutting down my cupboard count and I still have plenty of Pistachio Ice Cream left. I only really need one creamy nutty Butiki green tea. And I do like the Pistachio Ice Cream better.

This is lovely, though. The leaf is beautiful. Charming little pink flowers contrast nicely with the green leaves. See previous tasting note for more detail on actual, you know, taste.

So this is terrible. There are only two flavors: cinnamon and sweet. And they don’t mesh well. The sweetness is weird – not sugary or honey, but not quite artificial either. I made the rookie mistake of ordering this without checking out the Steepster reviews. Reading the comments after drinking this filled in the blank for what’s off-putting about this tea. It tastes like frickin Big Red gum. Exactly like a stick of gum. I am actively angry about the fact that I spent money on this. Which is completely ridiculous, I know. Bad purchases happen. But it’s still making me cranky. Plus I already put it all in a tin and the bag is gone, so I can’t just put it up for swaps.

I’m honestly surprised. I really like a lot of Della Terra’s teas. I don’t know what happened here. But this is a serious miss.

The smell of this one punches you in the face as soon as the bag opens. Equal parts cream and lemon, and strong. Brewed, this reminds me of Della Terra’s Lemon Chiffon. The creaminess is more of an undertone here though. It’s not as cakey. Basically this tea tastes exactly like its name. Except the flavor is lemon, not lemongrass. I like it. As evidenced by the fact that I just got it tonight and have already had three cups.

Finishing off my sample from moraiwe. Thanks! I received this 8 months ago and it is a little worse for age. Still, this is a lovely breakfast tea. See prior notes for details.

There’s a kid coughing uncontrollably right behind me. .. Tea has antiviral properties, right?

Pros:
This thing is adorable! Seriously, beyond cute. My cat likes it too. He tried to paw at the dangling tank while I was filling the actual infuser.

I like that this is silicone and dishwasher safe. It’s fairly easy to fill and clean, though it takes a little more effort than a basic steeper. I used this to brew some flavored green tea and had to stick my finger into the infuser to get the last few leaves out.

Cons:
The main disadvantage here is a really big one: the holes in the infuser are too small. The water doesn’t circulate very well. As a result, the leaves don’t expand fully. Also there’s not much room for expansion. I only filled it about a third of the way in an effort to adjust for the limited space, but the tea didn’t even fill up the entire space because of the poor circulation. The tea ended up tasting fine, but not as flavorful as usual under the same parameters.

This could be good for a fine tea that doesn’t expand much, like rooibos.

Noooo! I’m out! But that’s ok, because I have more on the way.

This really is a perfect winter tea. Just a bit of sugar really brings out the maple flavor. I’m making a new note because I managed to overbrew the last of this. The timer went off and I just completely forgot to actually take the brew basket out. The risks of brewing when you’re trying to do eight other things and make it out the door in time. Anyway, the point is that this ended up steeping for about 8-10 minutes. Don’t let that happen. It ends badly. The result was very bitter. I would have poured it out except I needed the caffeine pretty badly and I was already out the door. So. Lesson learned.

I picked up some more of this during BrewTEAlly Sweet‘s stash sale. So, so tasty. I still find that it tastes just like tiramisu. Definitely one to be kept in regular rotation. I also just learned that it’s fantastic iced. It tastes like a latte, without the calories. Good enough to make me rethink my position on teas that taste like coffee.

Of course I had to pick this up when I saw it at David’s. I had to know how it compares with my beloved Butiki Pistachio Ice Cream. As it turns out, these two teas, while similar in concept, are radically different in execution.

I should note that this blend does not age particularly well. I bought it on Oct. 15, 2013. I quite liked it, so I kept hoarding it and only finished it on February 28, 2014. That was stupid. The tea completely changed flavor over time (and not for the better). However, I remember my initial impressions quite clearly. My rating is based on those first impressions.

Once upon a time I worked in a different office. On the way to work, there was a diner where I liked to pick up breakfast when I was feeling indulgent. They had the most fantastic pistachio muffins. These muffins tasted like bready marzipan with pistachios and green food dye. Ok, I couldn’t taste the dye. But this tea brews up the exact same color. More importantly, it tastes exactly the same. Pistachio-inflected marzipan. So tasty! Really, really wonderful. But it is to be bought in small quantities and consumed promptly. The most recent brew came out sweet and berry-like, with nary a hint of pistachio. Basically it just tasted like mulberry tea. Meh.

Another sipdown that doesn’t improve my tea count because it never made it onto the list in the first place. Oh, well.

Sipdown. Sadly, it doesn’t actually lower my tea count because it somehow never made it onto my list in the first place.

This one is ok. Nothing amazing, but not terrible. The brew smells like equal parts ginger and peach. It doesn’t smell artificial, but it doesn’t smell juicy either. The actual taste is more ginger than peach. The ginger tastes nice and sharp. The peach tastes a bit fake. The green tea and matcha don’t come through at all, except to leave a somewhat unpleasantly dry aftertaste. Afterfeel?

I bought this because I ran out of tea at work and needed a caffeine source. It served adequately in that regard. Won’t be a repurchase, though.

Thanks so much for this one, MissB! Sweetness, peppermint… dead on for a candy cane! I still haven’t decided whether I like this one or Tiesta’s Minty Winter Wonderland better. They’re similar enough that I don’t feel the need to regularly stock both, but one of them definitely needs to be on hand.