83 Tasting Notes
I bought the small christmas sampler when I placed my first order, so this is my first time drinking the Christmas blends. It came in a cute bag with lovely pictures for the three blends. They don’t really sound like Christmas blends, which is nice. I tried this first, though I was unable to use boiling water to brew it. it smells and tastes like strawberry candy, and was rather mild, but in a good way. I would consider buying it though I hope it brews stronger than my first cup.
I’ve moved onto Jingle Bells, which also smells lovely, and I look forward to trying white Christmas.
I’ve realized that this tea is more like the tea I would imagine Sarah Crewe or Anne Shirley would drink with Alice and Wendy Darling if they had tea together.
So, I got this in the monthly TTB club from skysamurai’s box. It smells like a chocolate truffle out of the bag. (It’s a tea bag, which I’m learning is much more convenient when you want to cram a lot of tea into a small box.) I was on the Lupicia page looking at teas, when I realized that I hadn’t tried this yet. I wanted to know if I would prefer the Marron Chocolate or the Au Chocolat, but to figure that out I have to try this tea first.
The tea is dark and smells of cocoa and raisins. I opened a splenda packet before trying the tea, so now I’m waiting for it to cool and trying not to spill the splenda all over the table before I sample the tea unsweetened. In the meantime, I guess I could figure out the teas I do like at Lupicia.
I was actually on the site to see if they had more Napa Blanc, which they did. I’m excited about that. My tea journey has been a bit incongruous, but I’ve gone from unflavored and unsweetened to flavored and liberally sweetened and back. I don’t drink many sweetened teas, but I know that certain flavored teas cannot be fully appreciated without the addition of something like splenda or sugar. I tried the decaf muscat for instance, but wasn’t enamored by it. I like the grape flavor, but when I brewed that I probably left it in the water too long. I think the potential for bitterness is too high with a black tea, but in the Napa Blanc, you don’t have that overpowered flavor from the green tea. Plus, it’s green tea.
I haven’t really had much green tea in a while, as I’ve found out that I prefer black teas on most occasions. I tried the Te De Frutas as well – a black tea. I don’t know if I enjoyed it as much. Perhaps I should consider what sample to get once I order the tea…
Anyway, this tea has a strong cocoa flavor that’s enhanced by a sweetener. I think I might prefer the chestnut flavor in the Marron Chocolate. I like this tea. It might be better if I steep it less – It turned the water dark as soon as I poured the water, so perhaps it doesn’t need to steep for very long. It’s pretty satisfying, though. It might be good with milk too. I ended up buying the Marron Chocolate, however.
This tea smells like fresh peach with a hint of rose. It smells more like real peach than other teas. Unsweetened, it’s mild with a hint of peach at the end, with floral notes. Sweetened, the peach and rose flavors are not that strong, but they are recognizable. It has a similar taste to the Napa Blanc with its balance of fruits and florals, though I find that I prefer the latter. It’s a fairly good rose tea, but now that I’ve consumed several rose teas, I think I might not enjoy them as much as I thought I would. If the flavor was closer to the smell, I think I would enjoy it more.
It tastes like a vanilla rooibos with perhaps a hint of fruit, but perhaps I’m just willing it to be there. This tea is about as dark as a black tea, but the rooibos is the most obvious flavor. I wouldn’t buy this, but for a rooibos, it’s drinkable. This was also in Skysamurai’s TTB.
This tastes exactly like eggnog. I mean, if it tasted any more like eggnog, then it would have be eggnog. It has a creamy taste that isn’t cloying or thick like actual eggnog, which is good, because I don’t enjoy eggnog, but it has a taste similar enough to milk that I don’t even see a reason for adding it. I did sweeten it with splenda, so I don’t know how it tastes unsweetened, but the splenda tastes natural in it. I wouldn’t drink it often, but i would definitely take this over real splenda if I were in a Christmas-y mood. I thought this was something else when I brewed it at first, so the spices threw me off, but then I realized that it was supposed to be eggnog flavor, and it made sense. This came in Skysamurai’s TTB.
I was thinking this was a similar tea, but after drinking it I realized that it is the same tea as the Fig Rose. There’s no flavor difference between the two, even if there is a minor difference in ingredients. I do taste the fig more, though I’m confused by the caramel flavor.
Tastes like a weak strawberry candy with a hint of a light oolong in the background. It reminds me of the flavored oolong that I tried previously, but this tastes a bit more bitter, like the sour aftertaste of strawberry and the tea isn’t very prominent. The color was lighter than expected. I liked this well enough, but I definitely preferred the flavor of the Fig Rose that I had the night before.
This has a nice buttery flavor with the fruity notes. I wouldn’t say that it tastes that much like figs, but it doesn’t taste too much like apple either. I prefer this over other fruit teas that I’ve tried. I would probably consider buying it, but not anytime soon. I tried this in a TTB.
I tried this tea from a traveling tea box. From the name, I assumed it was a white tea, and I thought that even after drinking it the first time. It’s light for a green tea, close to the color of white grape juice or white wine. The green tea is very subtle, so I could have mistaken it for an oolong or white tea. I haven’t really drunk enough of those to tell them apart from the more floral green teas. Once I drink more white tea, I will probably be able to distinguish between them, but I found it easy enough to believe this tea to be a white tea. It doesn’t get very bitter, and I think it tastes good with splenda. I don’t always add splenda to teas since not every tea seems to taste as nice with it added. It doesn’t have a strong vegetal taste, but I suppose it has a more defined flavor than the few white teas I’ve drunk in the past. The tannin in the green tea may be strong enough to contrast the grape and to give it that wine flavor, and I doubt white tea would be noticeable in its place.
I don’t drink much wine, but I would say the taste is comparable, though not as strong or as astringent as white wine. The grape is more obvious than the jasmine, but I think they work well together, and I wouldn’t describe the taste as artificial or overpowering. I would buy this tea when I next buy tea from Lupicia. I already have a growing list of teas to buy.
