Barbarian Librarian Send Message

I love how this smells, it’s absolutely juicy strawberry goodness that makes me think of plump Amaou strawberries glistening in the sun. There’s not much sweetness straight and your brain kind of is expecting a sweetness simply due to the smell, so I like to add a skosh of honey. Maybe I should’ve tried rock sugar instead because I feel adding the honey kinda brings out it’s astringency more- like if you dragged your fingers across the surface of a dry balloon, that’s how your tongue will feel :/ Kind of unpleasant. I still love the tea, but maybe I would appreciate the green tea more? Not sure if there’s any left in the online store, so alas! I will have to wait until next year…

I love little decadent pastries, so I was all “why not?” while I was restocking some old favorites for my cupboard. The smell is heavenly, you get this buttery richness along with the sharpness of the lemon, it immediately makes me think of freshly baked shortcrust pastry.

Once steeped, I drank it straight and you get a bit of luscious, lemony tartness but the butter/pastry is what holds it all together. I have no idea if the rice puffs truly add anything or what, this is the first time I’ve had them in a tea.

They suggested milk and I was like “OKAY, YES” expecting the same kind of dessert-in-a-cup experience as Harney’s SoHo blend with milk added, but it honestly just watered everything down and kinda ruined the first cup for me. Definitely still get the lip-smacky lemon peel aftertaste, but everything else just got dulled down way too much by the milk.

I also keep making the mistake of using my super huge mug because I like to hold it between sips and get all cozy, so if I used the standard amount of water, then maybe the milk wouldn’t have vaporized the complexity.

Had High Tea brunch with my mom back when I lived in Rochester. The Queen of Hearts tea The Mad Hatter Tea Room serves pairs well with their little sweets and tea sandwiches. Has a very mildly sweet berry flavor, but there is some creaminess balancing out the black tea. The liquid is a reddish-amber color.

I tried at 3 minutes and it was nice, but on the okayish side. At 5 minutes, this was blowing my mind. It definitely think it’s one of those teas you don’t have to be exacting about steeping, since there’s just more chocolate and coconut goodness coming out of the leaves. And I LOVE coconut (why do those who dislike coconut try it and expect anything different? who knows). The amaranth came through mostly when I opened the tin and smelled the dry leaves, but I think there’s a pleasant amaranth bouquet that pops up in the aftertaste- The chocolate and coconut is much stronger, though.

I am not a huge fan of chocolate normally but the amount of chocolate in this is heavenly paired with the coconut. I decided to add a little bit of milk and felt like I was enjoying a slice of cream cake, very decadent.

I’ve never super been into peaches or peach tea (my only other experience w/ anything
like it is Bigelow’s peach-flavored green tea, which I did not like), but this seemed interesting. Very nice creamy/vanilla base and just slightly sweet from the rock sugar. The peachiness was prominent more in aroma than flavor, which I liked/think is as advertised.

It was a gift from a friend that I forgot in my cupboard, so the tea bags were already past date (August 2020), but since I hadn’t opened the bag before, the aroma and flavor seemed preserved enough? I wonder if it would have been an entirely different cup if I’d managed to get to it before then.

I might have used too much water since I was using a large mug.