Marzipan select Send Message

I like ginger a lot. I used to bring my Thanksgiving turkey in this wonderful brine that had fresh ginger in it, and it was my very favorite part of the holiday. It smells so great! We don’t eat turkey on Thanksgiving anymore – we created our own new tradition, but the smell of ginger still takes me back there.

I woke up with a very stuffy head on Saturday and decided that this tea would be just the thing to help. It’s a nice light black base that doesn’t overpower the flavors in the tea. I definitely taste the ginger, and then get a bit of orange/citrus around the edges. They are both there, but really well balanced.

If you like ginger, you will like this one.

As a side note to my Canadian friends, we just launched some $40 secret shops in these major cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, QC, Halifax. If you’re interested send me a PM! All you do is go pretend to be shopping for a car and then fill out a report online afterward. We also have some where you can get a free oil change if you have a Hyundai, VW or Toyota.

The first thing I noticed when I opened this is that the sticker on the tin said, “Best by 3/2015”…seriously, less than six months? That seems super short for a black tea. I emailed them to see if something about this one makes it fade fast or if I got an old tin.

The dry leaf smelled really great, like fresh oranges. Brewed it was the same. The kumquat flavor is very bright and I really enjoyed the cup. I guess it’s a good thing if I have to drink it down by March!

Fed ex came at 10 am, which is possibly a record. Usually they bring our packages around 4 pm. Both of us were excited to see them today. Me since I had Lupicia coming, and my husband because he ordered a bunch of new board games.

It’s yucky and cold today, one of the first days that absolutely feels like fall. So I tore right into that package and pulled out Cookie. For some reason I had it in my head that this would be similar to Brioche, but I was really wrong.

The leaf smelled a lot like coffee. Uh oh. Wasn’t expecting that. Brewed, still coffee, and a very dark caramel. This is definitely roasty. At first I wasn’t in love with it at all, but I like it more as the cup progresses, and as it cools more. It’s actually not too bad. Next time I think I will try it with some milk though.

Something about my three Teavivre tins standing tall on my tea tin shelf makes me really happy. And, on mornings when I want a sure-fire good tea, I go to one of those.

I don’t think I have ever been disappointed by a Teavivre tea. How do they do that?

I can’t remember if I have reviewed this before. I think I might have opened it when the site was being wonky and didn’t write anything up. It surprised me. I got a very strong muscatel smell from the dry leaf – at least I think it is muscatel. I see other people have described it as fig, and I could see that too. I don’t have much experience at all with figs so I can’t say for sure.

That flavor carried over to the brew as well. Somehow it managed to be both malty and fruity at the same time, which was nice since most of my golden teas are just malty. I’m really glad I have an obscene amount of this one.

True story. After my happy mishap the other day where my black tea tasted like this because I didn’t rinse the gravity steeper well, I emailed Lupicia and told them that I think they should put their awesome melon flavoring in a black tea. And, I plan to not rinse the steeper well tonight and have another black tea in the morning.

I actually really like this one. After reading some of the reviews on here I wasn’t sure what to expect. Recently I ordered five tins of different flavored black teas from Nina’s, and this is the only one I hadn’t tried until today.

I don’t get a lot of chocolate, I get some orange and I get some cream. I like the way it all comes together though. I get a really nice and interesting sensation of the tea coating my mouth like cream would, and I’m not really sure how to describe that any other way. It’s sort of that buttery, creamy feel that eating decadent things gives (but this does NOT taste like butter). But, it’s not leaving me feeling heavy or yucky.

The orange flavor isn’t super strong or tart, and that’s ok with me since two of the other teas I ordered from Nina’s have a much more foreground orange taste. I think this is really well balanced.

I think if you like vanilla or cream flavored teas with a hint of orange, you should definitely try this one.

I love this tea and have reviewed it ad nauseam, so this is going to be more of a personal note.

You know I love tea, and most of you know that I love my cat like crazy.
Here he is in case you don’t know him yet! http://imgur.com/a/Og5b3

So it only made sense last night when tea and cats collided in my dream. I had the funniest dream, where I found this adorable kitten. Instead of regular kitten fur, his fur was curly like bi luo chun. I really want a cat like that!

So, funny story.

Continuing on my What-Cha streak, I pulled this out to try today. I have never had a tea from The Azores before, and that intrigued me. The leaf had several different colors in it and looked really interesting. The scent was hearty black.

Much to my surprise, there was a really interesting top note to the tea. I am really bad at identifying those so I had my husband taste it and he thought it was berry. After a while I figured out that it is honey dew melon. And the way I know this is that yesterday I had Lupicia’s Golden Honey Dew and apparently didn’t rinse my steeper well enough, so that flavor was with this tea.

But you know what, I absolutely loved it, enough that if I could buy it, I would. In the meantime I will have this again next so I can tell you what the tea itself tastes like.

I like for my first tea of the day to be an unflavored black. So as I reached into my unflavored black stash, I started to think about how lucky I am that I have SO MANY great teas to choose from. I have you guys to thank for that, because when I started my tea journey, I thought bad tea was good tea. But through the magic of Steepster people and traveling tea boxes, I have learned the difference between “trash” tea and the good stuff. I’m sure there is still more of that journey to be had, but today I was just getting the feels.

So anyway, this tea. I picked it mainly because yesterday I had a Chinese golden tip, and right next to it was this Ceylon golden tip, and I thought the first one was fresh enough in my mind that I could compare then well.

There is fairy dust here, and the tea smells great. It looks different though, this is more the little crescents that i have seen most in white teas (this is a black though) versus the twisty spider leg type of black that I expected, so that was interesting. The leaf is a bit lighter in color as well. One thing that surprised me is that the package suggested 185 as the temperature. Hmm…. well, Alistair knows best so I went with that.

My first sip seemed really low on flavor. But I think that is because I was expecting something huge and bold. The next sip, I found all of the flavors I was looking for. Malty, sweet, black, Yunnan-y. Beautifully smooth and understated, not a tiny bit bitter or astringent. Instead of a tea that knocks you over, this is a tea that waits quietly for you to turn around and notice it. But, I did notice it and it was great!

The biggest issue with this tea is that I can’t remember the name to save my life. Ok, maybe that’s an issue with ME, which makes this tea AWESOME.

I blame Cheri, because I opened my previously sealed package of this so I could send her a sample, then I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about how good it smelled. Now I have had it for every cup since.

It’s a total fairy dust tea, you know that brown Yunnan dust? What is that anyway? Oh right, it’s tea crack. Right.

Malty, hearty, hug in a cup. You should buy this NAO. It does make my husband look at me funny because I say, “MMMMM” after every drink.