Nik select Send Message

RoT’s 12 Days of Sipping, day 6.5. Quickly prepared the second cup, this time with oat creamer and stevia. It’s still pink, but not as pretty with the creamer. The creamer and the sweetener do a great job of cutting the tartness, of course, and the result is somewhat reminiscent of Fruity Pebbles.

I’m still not sure about oat creamer: no matter how little I use, I taste it too much. That said, it worked well here.

Still not for me.

RoT’s 12 Days of Sipping, day 6. It’s a pretty pink. And it’s tart, as expected—thanks, hibiscus! Not for me.

Got two sachets of this in RoT’s 2020 12 Days of Sipping thing. I had one plain and one with oat creamer and stevia. Both were nice, although the flavour was a bit too muted by the creamer. The tea’s fragrance is better than the flavour. I tend to like really bold flavours, so I had high expectations upon sticking my nose in my steaming mug. Ah, well. It’s nice, especially for a bagged tea, but not much better than nice. The spices do make it warm and comforting, though, so it lives up to at least half its name.

Got two sachets of this in RoT’s 12 Days of Sipping advent calendar thing. Drank one plain and one with oat creamer and stevia. Both were good, but the sweet ‘n’ creamy one was better. It’s all peach, no real ginger to speak of. Were I willing to take the time and less lazy than I am, adding freshly grated ginger to the steep and straining it out before drinking would’ve really improved the boldness of this blend.

There were two sachets of this in RoT’s 2020 advent calendar. I should’ve saved one to steep differently. As it is, I drank it plain and it was pretty good: clean and smooth, not cloying. It’s the kind of flavour that calls for some sort of creamer and sweetener, though.

Predominantly spearmint. Can’t really taste anything else. As spearmint teas go, this one’s pretty good.

Mild candy cane flavour with a hint of something else: something papery, maybe the tea bag? If you like peppermint, there are much better peppermint teas out there.

I was born and raised in New York City, but spent enough time in India to consider both places my home. That’s one thing you should know about me. Another thing you should know about me is that mango is one of my favourite things on this planet.

So. When I was little, we used to go to India a lot during the winter, because Mum and I always had long winter holidays (she was a teacher). One year, we decided to go during the summer for whatever reason, and that was one of the most memorable visits of my life. I had never experienced a proper monsoon season before, and it was incredible! Okay, yes, it was a tad inconvenient that your clothes are never dry, no matter what, for two months; the constant dampness can feel a little icky. But the way the rain transforms the landscape, wow, it’s just beautiful. I really wanted to take some video (I was obsessed with my camcorder around that time), but there was no way for me to keep it dry, so I just have my memories.

Anyway. My uncle was really thrilled that we were there during the summer. Do you know, he exclaimed, that we have over 40 varieties of mango? And I’m going to get them for you. And he took his shopping bag and marched out of the house. He didn’t exactly return with 40 varieties, but he did find quite a few during his short expedition around our Bombay neighbourhood. There were little ones that you eat regularly, there were fibrous ones and non-fibrous ones, and there were even huge ones the size of a papaya that were so juicy that you consumed them by sticking in a straw and simply squishing the mango as you drank. And I’m sure you can guess what happened next. Yes, exactly: I ate them all.

The next morning, I was brushing my teeth and I glanced up at the mirror. I’m not given to surprised exclamations, and wasn’t even at that age, so first my eyes got wide as saucers, and then I burst out laughing, and then I ran off to find my mum. You see, I was orange. It wasn’t until years later that I learned about the science behind that in school; at the time, I was just thrilled that I was orange all over. My uncle, who has the deepest dimples you’ve ever seen and laughs like Ernie from Sesame Street, burst into his typical khee-khee-khee-khee laughter when he saw me, which only set me off again. Mum, mind you, was less than amused, and wouldn’t let me eat any more mangos.

Thus endeth my best mango story. Now I reckon we should talk about this tea, eh? =)

Monosyllabic summary: Wow.

Somehow, Butiki Teas have made a vegan rooibos blend smell and taste like mango lassi. As far as I’m concerned, Stacy is some sort of magician. The fragrance and flavour are spot-on, not just for the mango flavour, but for mango lassi. There is no chemical note to the mango, it smells and tastes like either the fruit or a candy (sometimes like one, sometimes like the other), but natural in both cases. I don’t have any complaints about this one. The only thing I want to try next time is adding a bit of milk to bring out that creaminess even more.

I only have an ounce of this, so it must have been a freebie with one of my orders, during one of Butiki Teas’ “free ounce of your choice” promotions. I must reorder it so I can guzzle this without guilt, and with the reassurance that there’s more in the cupboard.

Tea amount: 1.5 tsp/~7g
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: 1 tsp/~4.75g Demerara sugar

Mum, by the way, liked the tea, but neither smelled nor tasted mango lassi. Considering she has sharp senses while I often feel like mine are quite dull, I don’t understand how that’s possible, but there y’go. So in spite of my enthusiasm and conviction, I have to add that your mileage may vary.

It’s funny how different people perceive different things in the same tea. Bonnie felt that this is pretty much a strawberry tea1. Meanwhile, I’m having trouble detecting any strawberry at all, and am smelling and tasting only chocolate. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The fragrance of the dry leaf is that of baking chocolate. Like if you went to the baking aisle, grabbed a bag of chocolate chips, opened it, and stuck your nose in. I don’t smell any tea or any strawberry, just baking chocolate. I thought okay, it kind of makes sense, I guess. If there are dried strawberry bits in here, I should steep it so they can plumpify and release their luscious fragrance and flavour. I am half right: steeping the tea does make the brew smell like chocolate and strawberries (I still don’t smell any tea).

Unsweetened, the tea tastes chocolatey, but not in a Lindt way, more like in a dolla store chocolate way, y’know? So I sweeten it. This has improved the quality of the chocolate flavour, but only slightly. I still taste nothing else, so it tastes like watery hot cocoa made with baking chocolate. It’s possible that it’s too hot to really get the full flavour. I slurp it, experimentally, and I get a tiny, tiny bit of the sourness Bonnie mentioned. Normally I’d disapprove, but at this point I’m happy to taste any strawberry at all, sour or otherwise. There’s also a very tiny bit of bitterness, although I’m unsure whether it’s from the black tea or the type you might get from dark chocolate. If I were blindfolded, I still wouldn’t guess that there’s any tea in here at all.

As I continue to slurp, the aftertaste is a little bit fruity. At this point, I may after all guess that this flavour is “chocolate-covered something,” but I still wouldn’t be able to commit to strawberry. And this brings me back to the beginning of this note, in which I wonder about how we perceive things differently. Is this because of our different experiences and palates and expectations, or because the blend wasn’t well distributed in the teaspoon I used, so I just ended up getting basically a scoop of chocolate chips? While the former is interesting conjecture, currently I’m inclined to think it’s the latter. I’m going to hold off on my rating until I’ve tried another cup or two, paying better attention to leaf/berry/chocolate distribution next time.

Tea amount: 1 tsp/~4.75g
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: ¾ tsp/~3.5g Demerara sugar

[Edit, the next day] The caffeine was causing trouble last night, so before I reached the point of no return (a Bad Place), I put my mug aside and finished it this morning. I was hoping that being cold would bring about some improvement in the flavour, specifically the strawberry bit. It did, but only a very little: I felt that strawberry tartness at the back of my throat, but I can’t say that I actually tasted strawberry. I hope my next infusion is better; otherwise, into the swap bin it goes.

1 http://steepster.com/bonniejohnstone/posts/140215

A family elder passed away recently. Today, I drove Mum up to NY so we could attend the wake, an ordeal that was far more emotionally trying than I expected. I took two mugs of Ocean of Wisdom, one for Mum ‘n’ one for me. I so very much appreciate that I just don’t have to think about brewing this because it’s so forgiving. Rushing out and don’t have 7 minutes to spare? Need to grab it and go after just 5? That’s fine. Forgot about it and let it sit and steep for 20 minutes? That’s fine, too. I also really appreciate the quality of my mugs, which kept our tea hot from when I made it at 10:30a through when we finished drinking it on the way back down from NY at 6p.

I hope Samovar warn me if they ever decide to discontinue this blend, so I can buy mountains of it.

Tangent: I see a lot of tasting notes in my feed that say “see previous notes.” I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually gone looking for the previous notes because it’s such a pain in the butt to find them. You know how when you read a tea’s tasting notes, if a person has several, there’s a button that says “show 5 more notes” or something like that? I wish the Steepster folks would copy that code and paste it so it appears on our dashboards. That way, when I’m reading my feed and someone tells me to check out their previous tasting notes, I can actually do that because the button is right there. [/end rant] No, I haven’t suggested this to them. The last time I suggested something they basically said yeah, thanks, that’s not going to happen. They stopped just short of outright saying that they’re not interested in suggestions for improvements or new features, just critical bug reports and duplicate entry reports. So I won’t be sending them more suggestions, just sharing potentially interesting ideas with you. =)