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I’m back…again :)

Thank you, thank you Angel from Teavivre for this free sample!!!

For anyone that has not tried Teavivre, I highly recommend it, their teas and customer service are amazing.

So life has been getting in the way of tea, what a bummer :(

OK on to the review…

This dry tea smells like pickled cabbage to me. Delicious, just delicious.

The recommendation on the package for this tea was to steep for 3-5 minutes. But I don’t like my green tea too strong, so I brewed only for one minute. The brewed tea is a very light hay-like colour. The taste is quite light. In hindsight, I could have steeped for longer.

The brewed tea has the vegetal, cabbage, bean greens type flavour. It is smooth and very slightly sweet. Even though it is smooth, there is definitely a crisp and clean taste to this tea. This is my favourite type of green tea. Reading the description on this one, it says it is a high mountain tea. I quite like high mountain oolongs, so I am going to make an assumption that I will like high mountain greens.

Thank you again Teavivre!

Edit: A two minute steep yields a thicker liquor, the flavours are a bit stronger but not by much.

GCTTB3

I didn’t realize this one was a herbal blend until I made it. For some reason I was thinking it would be a white or a green blend.

This one is ok. The dry tea is quite artificial and it does have the alcohol type smell to it. The brewed tea does have some pistachio flavour. There is a creamy flavour and feel to the liquor. I am getting some nuttiness, but it is almost like the nut flavour it bitter or astringent (almost like a nut that has gone bad).

This one is ok. I am definitely tasting the chamomile in the blend and I would prefer not to.

So I just realized a few days ago that I never reviewed this one on steepster.

This one is a good blend. It is very lightly smokey. There are large, LARGE, chunks of dried fruit in the tea blend. However, they mostly look like cranberries. I don’t get much fruit flavour out of this tea. But the fruit does add a light sweetness to the black blend.I was hoping for a bit more “tart” out of this tea. But it is still a decent blend.

Iced tea of the weekend.

You all already know I love root beer. And there is nothing better than a fresh root beer float with vanilla ice cream.

Made this as per usual package directions. Added 1 tsp of brown rock sugar.

I definitely get root beer. Not thick and foamy rootbeer, but more thick and cloying rootbeer, if that makes sense. It is a bit sharp. Like some other reviewers I am not getting much float part. Next cup I may try to add a bit of milk or cream to see if that brings out any of that float flavour. I think it may also need a bit more sweetener.

I have had 52 teas Root Beer Float and Butterbeer and I think that both were better, hot and iced, than this SBT version.

So I found this in an old word document that was saved to my desk top. It is back from before October 2013.

I received this in round 2 of the Secret Pumpkin swap from Darby. It is also on my shopping list so thanks so much for sending a sample!

I have been trying to post about this tea for a while but have been having trouble, steepster won’t let me log this specific tea for some reason. So here is what I remember.

The dry tea smells very fruity. I immediately thought black currant.

The brewed tea tastes similar to merlot. But not a “real” merlot. It really reminds me of Arbour Mists Blackberry Merlot (read: wine that really tastes like juice). It is sweet but not overly sweet without adding any sweetener. I would say it is a bit disappointing in the sense that is lacks the body and flavor profile of wine, but that said, it tastes enough like merlot to not have to question the description/name of the tea. It is also missing that bit of dryness or astringency that you get with wine. Definitely better as is cools, the sweetness becomes a bit stronger as it cools.

GCTTB2

I feel like I am on the wrong page as there are no other reviews for this one…

I had this one a few days ago and forgot to review it but kept meaning to. It smells like a genmaicha. Seaweedy green tea with a popcorny scent.

The taste is ok. It is a what I would describe as a basic genmaicha. The green tea is strong, not bitter, but I would like it to be a lot smoother than it is. There is a definite popcorn flavour, and distinct from the popcorn there is a buckwheat type flavour as well. I think this tea is missing just a bit of smoothness and sweetness.

GCTTB2

This one didn’t appear to be in the steepster database, so I added it. I am hoping it wasn’t somewhere else under a different name.

I quite like ginger peach teas. I don’t think I have ever had a white blend before though. This one was pretty decent. Definitely a nice ginger peach flavour. The ginger was just spicey enough but not too powerful, a bit sweet. The peach was juicy and sweet, like candy. The white tea worked well with the flavouring. I was a bit surprised because the white tea was a bit bitter like dandelion greens. But it worked with the tea.

Rooibos (and honeybush) and I mostly don’t get a long. I am very sensitive to the metallic and peppery flavours in both. Every once in a while I taste a rooibos tea that is just super excellent. But I don’t know what it is. I have not yet found a pattern between low quality, high quality, low price, high price, etc., that gives me a consistent good tasting tea.

In saying all that above, I had to try this tea because it is root beer. I like to think of myself as a rootbeer connoisseur. I have never found a root beer that I didn’t like. Although A and W still reigns supreme. This dry tea smelled pretty good. Like a strong root beer. Almost like a root beer candy. So I had to try it.

The brewed tea however, is just full of pepper. (sad face). There is definitely a root beer flavour. More like a watered down root beer float. So the taste is there, it just isn’t strong enough. The problem is, if I would try to make is stronger by steeping longer or using more tea, then it would be a mouth full of pepper. And not the spice that comes a long with pepper, but the actual taste of black pepper.

GCTTB2

Ummmm….No. Sorry Butiki. I am just not liking this one.

To me, the dry tea smells like a kind of green oolong.

After brewing it up, it still has the sweet oolong smell. I have tried a few black Kenyan teas and they have a similar sweet smell.

I am not sure if I did something wrong with this tea. Also, it was close to the end of the little package that has been travelling around in the box so it may have gotten crushed up to dust a little bit as well. I can’t even describe the taste but it is just not good on my tongue. There is a very sweet dark oolong-y but also malty aftertaste.

There is enough for one more cup in the package. I may try again or just pass the rest on.

GCTTB2

I quite like lychee’s and lychee flavoured things, including tea, but it has to be done right. There is a very thin line with delicious lychee flavour and super chemical tasting.

Like some other tasting notes on this one state, this is quite a mild tea. But it is good. There is very minimal lychee flavour but it is there underneath the black tea.I am getting a slight bitterness with the black base but it is not in a bad way. I also feel like I am getting hints of coffee bean. Not sure if it is the tea or some contamination from the box, it is most likely not contamination from my house, but who knows. The lychee flavour definitely starts to pop more as the tea cools. I would love to try this one iced.

Edit: Iced, this one is really good. It is totally different iced than it is hot. I would say not much much lychee flavour iced, to me it is almost like an apple cider but without that tart apple. Not sure if that is making sense. Lychee cider maybe, ha ha. I brewed 2 tsp tea with 1 cup water for 3 minutes, added ice to make 2 cups then chilled in fridge for about 4 hours. I added 1 tsp of white sugar. It is hardly sweet at all and I am liking that.