Lala Send Message

This one quit a strong smell in both dry and brewed form. I feel like it smells like tart apples.

I am tasting lots of orange and orange peel. There’s a very strong tart Apple taste but I am wondering if that is supposed to be the pineapple. There is a strong undertone of safflowers.

Have you been to Starbucks lately…because I have.

So this one is Tim Hortons Peach Drink meets latte. The penultimate Canadian beverage, after anything maple that is.

http://starbucksmelody.com/2015/02/22/blossoming-peach/

So this is a new Starbucks drink, only in Canada apparently. It is delicious. I did not realize at the time but it is basically an earl grey latte with peach syrup added. I didn’t even realize it was an earl grey. Mine didn’t come with whip and a candied peach topping but whatevs, it was so super delicious. My new fav.

GCTTB3

I pulled this one out of the box for one very specific reason. A few years ago, in a sample pack of Tea Forte, I had tried Moroccan Orange Blossom tea. I absolutely loved it. Even if I am the only one on the internet to give it a good review, I still maintain it was delicious. I have not been able to find a suitable alternative with any other tea companies.

I pulled this one out of the box because it was Tea Forte and had orange in the name. But I failed to look at the description. It describes orange with cinnamon. I just don’t see how orange would ever go with cinnamon. Maybe orange peel, but not orange.

The tea bag, once unwrapped, smelled strongly of sweet cinnamon. The brewed tea smells like cinnamon hot lips.

The tea tastes like a very strong, somewhat bitter black tea. The cinnamon is very flat, not much bite to it. I am not picking up too much citrus but there is a sweetness to the tea which could be reminiscent of citrus.

I have never really thought much of Tea Forte, except for the moroccan orange blossom of course. This tea falls into the not think too much of it category.

GCTTB3

This is a nice smooth, mild black tea. There are light hints of sweet citrus. Thinking orange peel without the bitterness. There is a mild creaminess to the tea. The tea smells roasty and malty. I am getting a bit of roast in the flabour but not so much malt. Very nice black tea.

GCTTB 3

This. Is. Delicious.

It is surprising because it is just a generic tea bag. But th flavour is quite good.

There is thick burnt toffee flavour. It is creamy. Only slightly sweet, it isnot overly cloying which is nice. The black base underneath the toffee flavour is bold but not astringent or bitter at all. It lets the toffee shine through. This one tastes very nice, quite a pleasant surprise.

On a side note, this one, to me, smells like roasted carrots. But in case you are wondering, it does not taste like roasted carrots. Not sure how I would feels about roasted toffee carrots…

I received a free sample of this from a trade show a while ago.

First I was a bit disappointed, it was in a nice pyramid sachet. But there was only about 1/2 teaspoon of tea in it. Not a very large sample and not enough for a full cup. My opinion, anyway.

This tea screams hibiscus. I was anticipating that based on the fact it was a “fruit blend” and on the large amount of hibiscus and rose hip in the dry blend. So it is hibiscus tart, there are hints of citrus. Nothing I would describe as orange or pineapple. I can understand the whole point of the use of “cooler” in the name. I bet this one would be not too bad as an iced tea. Brew up and iced, then quite a bit of sugar added, would taste like a sweet and bitter juice drink. Oh well, I definitely didn’t have enough sample for that.

From the GCTTB3.

This one came in bag form. I was anticipating it to be either bitter or astringent.

But it wasn’t. It was actually quite smooth. The black base is very bold and strong, with only a slight but of astringency. There is a creamy quality to the tea, which was nice as I was anticipating having to add some milk.

Better than I expected for a tea bag.

From Sil via the GCTTB3.

This dry tea smells very fresh and clean. I am getting very light hints of malty cocoa and maybe vanilla. Slightly sweet. The leaves are quite large and long, making it hard to scoop out of the bag with my tea spoon. So I instead just poured enough out that seemed to be a good amount to brew for one cup.

The brewed tea is very smooth. The liquor is thick. Definitely creamy but no cloying. There is a very light citrus flavour. The slight bitterness of the citrus is in contrast with the creamy flavour but they somehow work together. I am not getting any cocoa or vanilla flavours that I got in the smell. The black tea base is smooth with no bitterness or astringency. There is a slight roastiness to the tea.

This is a very good tea. Thanks Sil. I am curious as to why it is called Georgia Old Lady though…

So I think this is the right place to review this tea. Taking a bit of a guess.

I was visiting a relative today. This relative is aware I really like tea, but that is the extent of it. So she says to me that a friend brought her some real tea from England. It is English tea and I just have to try it. She says it is English Darjeeling. So at this point I am already not looking forward to this because 1) I dislike Darjeeling but I don’t want to say that because she is so excited for me to try this tea, and 2) There was a lengthy discussion in which she was adamant that this was “Darjeeling made in England” even though I tried my hardest to explain that it was not grown (or made) in England.

Then she proceed to tell me where the tea was and asked me to make us both some because she didn’t know how to make it.

The package read “Fresh Hand Picked Darjeeling”. It recommended 1/2 tsp per 8 oz, in boiling water. There was no other info about the tea on the packaging. It was clearly a green Darjeeling.

So I brewed up 3 cups (a second relative arrived while I was making the first two cups). Let me start by saying all Darjeeling tastes like ashtray to me. It doesn’t matter if it is high or low quality, 1st or 2nd flush, green or dark, or what steeping parameters are
used, it all tastes like ashtray.

The ashtray this time was a bit more floral from being a greener variety. It was ok. It was quite dry and could have used a bit of sweetener.

I falsely told my relative I thought it was good.

Steepster, I seriously HATE you right now. HATE, yes in all capital letters. Since when does backspace mean “go back to the previous browser page”. The answer is: NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!! I wrote a giant 10 minute long post and hit backspace to correct a spelling mistake and VOILA – completely lost review. Hate, that’s right, HATE.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So here goes an even longer story that no one saw the first time. I normally sip a lot of my teas on the weekends. The weekdays are for guzzling tea to get me through the work day. For the last several weekends I have been really busy so I haven’t been able to drink a lot of tea. I have been trying to make sure I make tea to go so I can take it with me on my travels. But I have a major issue (other than hate…), I often forget to bring the travel mug with me. This is not a new problem. I have been doing this for years.

So yesterday after I brewed up a giant travel mug of this tea, I loaded up the car and locked up the house. Then I had to come back into the locked house, twice no doubt, because I kept forgetting things. I was well into my travels before I reached out to grab my tea and only grasped at the empty air in the cupholder. So when I got home 11 hours or so later, I couldn’t bear to throw this delicious tea away. I ended up sticking it in the fridge over night.

This wasn’t brewed with the intention of being a cold brew so it didn’t turn out too great. (Brewed 1 sachet, 10 oz, 195F, for 2 minutes). There is very strong cinnamon flavours. There is also strong apricot with a lot of sweetness. But the liquor is quite thin. There is not much to the rest of the tea. It is like very watered down cinnamon-apricot juice I think I will stick to this one hot.

Still angry steepster, still angry!

!!!!!!!!!

!