52teas

ok no. Steepster MUST have eaten my tasting note on this tea. Right? Am I losing my mind? I could swear I’d already written a note for this. Which is why I didn’t take notes when I did a sipdown of this earlier today. Just know that I liked this one a lot. Coconut is a good combo with the marshmallow genmaicha flavor profile. Overall just a nice creamy, roasty drink on a cold day.

TeaTiff TTB #7

Mmm, this is nice! Lots of natural honey flavor with a hint of bright citrus and notes of warm hay coming through from the white tea base.

Homemade Advent Exchange Tea #14

I’m behind but will eventually get all of my tasting notes uploaded! (they are written in a notebook)

This has a lovely strong maple scent. The brew is flavourful and the green tea comes through a lot. There are vegetal green notes and some maple. I get a hint of dried apple, as well. I would have liked a bit more vanilla and cakey/buttery flavour or maybe some apple butter/caramelized sugar notes. If I didn’t know any different, I would think this was just a maple apple green tea.

AJRimmer Advent Day 24

I really enjoyed the cranberry flavor in this tea! I feel like most cranberry blends I’ve tried use hibiscus to capture that tart, red flavor and I usually find myself disappointed. But this one had a very natural sweet/tart cranberry flavor with no hibiscus that I could detect. I wouldn’t have minded a bit more almond, but it was a lovely, refreshing tea for Christmas Eve to balance out all the sweets!

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas – Day 12

I didn’t finish this year’s advent with Kiki since she went to Ohio to see her family before Christmas. She’s a coffee drinker at heart, and winter was rather mild this year so her desire for hot tea wasn’t as strong as in winters past.

Oh this is nice. It’s almost like orange creamsicle but really subtle with the marshmallow root creaminess and with sharper, fresh and juicy-sweet mandarin/peel. Am I also getting lime? The spearmint shows more in the finish, pleasant, if a bit dry. Overall, the flavors are really well balanced and carried well by the mixed green tea base which gives a bit of an unctuous yet brisk body. Bright taste tethered by an umami and a little dry grassiness. Kinda sweet, kinda tangy, kinda comforting, kinda refreshing!

This was my first time getting the 52teas advent. Anne definitely has a touch for flavoring and blending teas. She knows what base teas work well for her ideas. Looking forward to the 2024 set!

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas – Day 11

Neat tea. It bends my mind and tongue. I like how the lemon (reads mostly lemongrass to me) melds with the soft vanilla meringue flavor and smooth chai spices (heavy on the cardamom and ginger for me). A little wood and malt barely poke through to ground it all. Almost sassy but mostly a sophisticated blend.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!
This is the 12th and last day of the 52teas advent calendar, a festive variation on the Graveyard Mist blend. I found the first and second steeps pretty different. In the first steep, orange was the dominant flavor and it was hard to make out the marshmallow note. In the second, I got lime and marshmallow, but no orange – go figure! In both steeps, the grassy, savory base complements the flavor very well. It’s not a bright, fresh grassiness. More of an umami grassiness that’s lifted by the citrus.
Overall, I’m really glad I got this advent! A couple of the teas were misses for me, but most of them were really really tasty! Even the misses weren’t bad, they just didn’t quite live up to the promise for me. Plus it let me try the dole whip blend that I missed out on when it was first released. Fully expect I’ll be getting this next year too.

ETA: Turns out there’s no lime/lime flavoring in here, so my palate must really be all over the place today!

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas 2023 – Day 9

First steep is a bit more robust and malty, layered with thick nut butter and sweet red berry jam/jelly. Second steep was less bold and more creamy sweet. It’s the perfect wake-me-up breakfast tea.

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas 2023 – Day 10

Again, not loving rooibos much lately, but Anne does a lovely soda tea. It’s convincingly effervescent, tangy-sweet, and crisp. Not too sweet though – more like an Italian soda, or tonic water with a dash of citrus. This blend is pleasant iced or cold steeped.

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas 2023 – Day 12

Ooh, interesting. I assume this is a riff on Graveyard Mist, which I think is a spearmint and marshmallow green tea? I’ve had it, but it’s been a while ha ha… Smells very orangey in the bag.

There’s definitely citrus, I think it’s reading as orange to me? I honestly don’t get any marshmallow or creaminess at all, but that’s fairly normal for me with marshmallow root. So mostly getting orange (?) on a mellow, grassy sencha base, along with a touch of mint. It’s pleasant enough, I just wish there was more mint and more marshmallow.

Adventageddon Day 24 – Tea 2/4

Y’know, I’m familiar enough with Graveyard Mist to understand that this is a riff on that iconic blend. However, I will fully admit that I’m not quite familiar with it enough to actually understand what the differences between these two teas actually is.

Regardless, I enjoyed this tea! I drank it while doing my traditional rewatch of Olive The Other Reindeer (best and severely underrated Christmas movie) and the smooth, sweet notes of citrus (lime? orange?) with their ever so slightly creamy undertones and spearmint-like minty finish was every bit as enjoyable as it was unique. So, pretty enjoyable. Kind of loose mojito vibes? But definitely more lime heavy than a typical mojito.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C1QHuq0OvkR/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cglLJJ0Czo8

Day 11 of the 52teas advent calendar. I’m going to need to give this another try when I can focus on it better. I wasn’t sure what the best way to prepare it would be. Because it’s a chai, I decided to go with adding oat milk and honey. I’m getting cinnamon, clove, cardamom, a bit of ginger… but not really lemon or meringue. Maybe those would come through better if I make the tea straight! Looking at some of the older notes, I see a few folks liked it as a cold brew so maybe I’ll try that…

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas Day 10

“Is it something floral?”

You’ll never guess this one.

“Orangina. laughs No. Let me get my device. I see you. I see you sneakin’ around.

(We have a few neighborhood sistercats that moved into the house the way neighborhood cats do after my cat Sophia passed away in September. The fast and feisty grey one I call Little Piggy or Junebug is playing in Kiki’s bedroom.)

Starfruit. No. laughs, plays some slot machine game on her phone Cantaloupe? sips Honeydew. She’s a troublemaker, that one. Like a monkey. Gotta get into everything. smacks lips I’ll never get it, huh? I’m not even close."

What do you taste in the aftertaste?

“Kinda like a hard candy like a lilikoi or something. Like that fruit berry with a little seed in it that we used to get in Chinatown. And kinda like jello. An orange, orangey, an orange color.” sips

You’re not too far off.

“Um, what are those candies you get at the Chinese, uh- "

-Oh, lychee.

“Kinda like that, that lychee. It’s good, I like it. It kinda has a little astringency like hibiscus does but not as extreme. More of a smooth astringent, a creamy astringent. It tastes just like a candy. I could drink it hot or iced. I like it. Not grapefruit. Cuz grapefruit’s kind of astringent isn’t it? I give it a 9, I give it a 9 out of 10.”

It’s called Crisp Cranberry Soda Green Rooibos.

“Oh, that’s soda.”

Can you taste the lemon-lime, like 7-Up?

“Yeah I guess so but it tastes more like the… not the loquat… whatever that candy is. Cranberry — I guess it’s astringent like the cranberry. I guess it is that dusty dirty thing like the rooibos but it’s not upfront. Maybe it blends the rest of the flavors. It fills in the spots between. I like it, I do. I think it’s good. It’s discriminating.” cackles

You mean- (I’m buzzed from some ancho chile liqueur I cracked open this evening and am thus slow to form words :D )

“-Yeah. For the finer tastebuds of life. chuckles, pause of several minutes For the discriminating palate.” cackles

- - - -

I really like this tea. Like I said earlier — short for words. Bummed there’s not enough for 3 servings in this bag :P

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas 2023 – Day 9

Yeah, I’m a day late with this one. Yesterday was an incredibly busy day & I wasn’t able to actually focus on the countdown. So, I held this tea until today, thinking that since Day 10’s tea is a caffeine-free tea, it’s one that I can have after this tea and it will all work out OK (gotta have that caffeine!)

This was a tea that I was extremely hesitant to create way back when I created it (it was crafted as a create-your-own tea of the week reward from our start-up Kickstarter back in 2015!) I was hesitant because as I’ve said (probably more often than necessary) I do not like Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches. I never have. I’ve recently learned that it is an inherited trait (or a naturalized trait) from my mom, who also has never liked Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches. So I’m sure she had everything to do with influencing my opinion of the sandwich.

I like Peanut Butter. I like it in cookies, I like it smeared on my pancakes. I like it in a Peanut Butter & banana sandwich or a Peanut Butter & marshmallow creme sandwich. Or even just on toast with a little butter & a sprinkling of cinnamon & sugar. But I don’t want it with jelly.

I also like jelly on just about everything. (I’m still kicking myself for not doing the Bonne Maman advent.)

But I don’t want them together.

So I guess you get my point. I didn’t want to create this tea back in 2015 (it might have actually been 2016 when I actually crafted this one). But I did – and I ended up LOVING IT. So, I actually probably would actually enjoy a PB&J sando. But I’m not gonna risk it because years and years of conditioning have made me this way. Who am I to upset that hard work?

But this tea: I love it. I get a strong raspberry jammy flavor – a good raspberry jelly flavor – the kind that’s made with lots of real fruit & less sugar. The kind that you end up paying about $5 more per jar for just because it’s made better & tastes better. (Which is kind of a good reason, if you ask me.) The peanut butter comes in after the strong raspberry note. You don’t get a lot of “bread” flavor – that’s intentional on my part, because I didn’t want to make this too sandwich-y for reasons I’ve already mentioned. I did add a hint of breadiness to it by way of a rich, malty, bready Yunnan to the blend (also in this blend is a malty Assam & a crisp Nilgiri) but this wasn’t intended to be a sandwich tea, but a PB & J non-sando tea. I think way back when I was originally crafting this tea, my thought process was that if I don’t go for the sandwich angle, I can drink it.

It’s all mental.

Anyway, I love the way this tea came out. I love the raspberry. I love the black base. I even love the peanut butter with the raspberry. It’s yummy!

Day 9 of the 52teas advent calendar. This has more of a “raspberry jelly on toast” vibe to me. I think it’s the malty, astringent quality of the base that’s translating as toasty. Some brown sugar brings out the raspberry jelly flavor more, but washes out the toast note. Alas, I’m not picking up on the peanut butter flavor, with or without sugar.

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas 2023 – Day 11

What an interesting idea. I’m not sure I’ve had a lemon chai?

I do like it, though to me there isn’t quite enough spice to make it a chai – it’s more of a lemon black tea with a side of spices. It doesn’t taste like lemon meringue to me at all, more of a classic tart lemon flavor and a bit of an herbal note as well. As for the spices, I think I’m getting cinnamon and cardamom? But it’s a bit tough to place since the spice notes are quite light.

It’s a nice enough lemon black tea, maybe it needs the latte treatment to get those creamy meringue notes.

Sipdown (214)

I don’t love most green teas and despite the nice raspberry, this is not an exception.

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas – Day 9

If only this tasted like it smelled in the bag — rich sunflower seed (not peanut) butter and thick, tangy raspberry jam. Those are both there in the brewed tea but kind of both separated and smothered by the malt and toast flavors of the leaf. It’s certainly drinkable as is, but I can’t help to think there’s some kind of tweaking on my end that can really make this tea pop.

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas – Day 8

Only 3g left and brewed in a glass gaiwan.

Back in December, I got more of the lightly creamy eggnog vibe and stronger nutmeg taste. Now it’s all banana candy and I’m here to say I love that smell/taste after years of hate. It is not at all cloying and works really well with the mineral and floral oolong base. There’s also a soft streak of bittersweetness after finishing the cup that sits so satisyingly in my mouth. Aroma is like banana candy and rum.

Oh yeah — goes great with cinnamon bread!

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas 2023 – Day 10

Yassssss! This is the tea that I’ve most wanted to try when I’ve seen it in past years, so happy that it made it into this year’s box as well.

It’s very true to the name, with a crisp lemon-lime soda flavor and a touch of red berry. I wouldn’t say specifically cranberry, but generally those cranberry-flavored sodas don’t specifically taste like cranberry to me either he he.

Just really nice, and it does taste just like a cranberry Sprite to me. Which reminds me, I should buy some more cranberry ginger ale the time I’m at the store… :P

Nom nom nom. Day 8 of the 52teas advent calendar. The first steep isn’t particularly eggnoggy (not that I’m a huge fan of eggnog generally). It’s more banana cream on a floral, buttery oolong base. The second steep is a little more eggnoggy, in that the creaminess is joined by a cinnamon note. On the other hand, the banana is fainter. So the two steeps end up tasting very different. And then the third is pretty similar to the second. Not sure how much I care whether this lands “eggnog” specifically though – I just like the banana cream flavor.

Day 7 of the 52teas advent calendar. Maybe it’s because I’ve read so many other people’s notes so my brain is primed, but this does taste like buttery caramel popcorn to me. Especially getting a buttery note and a malty base, and the roasty popcorn note feels light but clearly present. The flavors aren’t as strong in the second steep – there is still a caramel popcorn flavor but the butteriness has faded and astringency from the base has crept in. Overall a very enjoyable cuppa though!

Homemade Advent Exchange Tea #13

I enjoyed this as a latte with a splash of soy milk in my second cup (1st steep was a plain cup without milk). I think the milk is a really nice addition to a genmaicha, despite being unconventional. I got lots of green tea and toasty rice, but the banana and marshmallow must have been overwhelmed. I couldn’t taste much in the way of banana and I couldn’t taste vanilla in the plain cup. Still a nice tea, but it didn’t live up to its name like I hoped.

Homemade Advent Exchange Tea #11

Steep 1 – 5 minutes in almost boiling water, 3 minutes
I love how nutty this tea is. I found the base very flavourful and bold without being too tannic. It almost has a creamy vanilla flavour to it, which pairs with the walnut flavour well. I could have used more vanilla in the after taste, but it was still a nice blend.

2nd steep – 10 minutes in hot but not boiling water + dash of soymilk
I brewed a second cup, which was weaker, but also delicious. Hints of butterscotch. The soy milk really elevates it to a super smooth decadent latte.