A Quarter to Tea

This tea was a bit of a surprise, as I was expecting something peachy. Opening the bag, however, my senses were assaulted with a thick, maple syrup scent. I’m not getting any peach scent anywhere, but I’m still encouraged, as the scent really is almost sickeningly sweet. This smell is toned down somewhat in the brew, but it’s still pretty strong, and a little on the fake side.

As far as taste goes, I’m still not getting any peach flavor. The brew is mapley and honey sweet. It’s actually like drinking the tea version of Aunt Jemima. While it has a nice flavor, it’s a little on the fake side for me.

Good day, Steepies! Today I’m hitting up one of my Quarter To Tea samples as a nice little break from the things I’m actually supposed to be doing. (I hoard my samples and deploy them as pick-me-ups as needed.) Reviewing teas is a nice little counterpoint to my day.

Today’s victim — er, topic of discussion — is a maple vanilla Earl Grey.

Which this tea totally nails.

If you wanted
a) maple
b) vanilla
and
c) bergamot

You would swiftly locate
a) maple
b) vanilla
and
c) bergamot.

If you blindfolded me and asked me what to call this, I’d call it that exact thing.

So now the operative question for you, Dear Reader, is: do you like those ingredients? I certainly do. That’s why I purchased this tea.

I’m pretending right now that I’m in Canada watching a mountie on a moose amble by. (I think they ride horses. But shush.) I am eating a pancake in a diner. The waitress is a curvy lady with fake red hair and perfect lipstick application. She calls me “hon.” The sun is rising over the maple leaves, and I feel a sense of optimism.

It must have been a really long while since I’ve logged on to Steepster, because I ended up having to sign in…luckily after a few tries remembered my password.

I bought this tea as a sample last February/March (When my mom was on a long vacation and I could get away with buying an obnoxious amount of tea.)

Sadly I could not taste any carrot, just mainly coconut and maybe the cashew. It’s a nice tea though and I like drinking it, but I don’t see myself buying this one again.

Sipdown! This was a sample size so that’s not much of an achievement, but still. It’s a bit chilly out due to the wind from Hermine so I wanted a fall-themed tea. This fit the bill and I got to claim a sipdown.

I added rice milk to the first steep for a bit of creaminess. There was lots of maple syrup and pumpkin spice flavor but nothing pancake-like per se. I didn’t really miss it. The base tea is nice and malty and that’s plenty to hang the flavor on. For the second steep, I didn’t make any additions. The maltiness of the base tea came out more, with maple and cinnamon notes at the tail end. Overall, this was a great tea for a fall-like day.

So I don’t know that I would have guessed strawberry rhubarb, but this is delicious. The star here is the custard-like note of the jade oolong. I previously tried Quarter to Tea’s Panna Cotta jade oolong, and the taste is very similar, because it’s the same base, obviously, and in both, the base takes the stage and the added flavorings are just a light accent. I do wish the jade oolong teas came in larger sizes, because I’ve only had this a few days and I’ve nearly wiped it out already.

This was another free sample in my recent order and a very nice surprise. I love spices in baking, but I avoid spiced teas like the plague because they usually go way too far and just taste like liquid cinnamon.

Here the emphasis was on the tea, and the spices just served as a pleasant accent. This is a nice approach that I wish more blenders would follow.

Quarter to Tea order came in :) Most of the teas in this box are new to me, but this one I did try awhile back.
It tastes completely different now though.
The old one had lots of sweet carrot notes. Really buttery and creamy.
This has like an earthy coffee flavor?
This is my first cup out of the bag, so I’ll be experimenting with different steeping parameters, but I didn’t oversteep or overheat the water, so I’m not sure what’s going on. Hmm, a tea mystery. (I just started reading Murder on the Orient Express, and it’s thrown me into a detective frame of mind.)

I got this as a free sample in my order. When I was browsing the site, I thought this flavor sounded kind of strange, so I skipped it, but it’s actually really good. So glad I got to try it :)

I guess my first impression from the name was ‘raw carrot’ but this really tastes more like sweet buttery cooked carrot. My family has a carrot souffle recipe we make occasionally, and it reminded me a lot of that (so bonus points for nostalgia).

I don’t taste the coconut at all, and I can’t really pick up on the cashew either — but cashew is such a mild flavor, I’m guessing it would just make tea taste creamier, rather than stand out as its own note.

Overall, a soothing satisfying cup.

Hurray, my order from A Quarter to Tea came in! Everything smells delicious :) I ordered a very small sample of this to try, mainly because I was tempted by the description of Sansa’s lemon cakes.

For some reason my first sip of this tasted like bitter lemon rind, but when the tea cooled just a little, the flavors settled down and nothing was bitter at all. In fact, it’s an extremely mellow tea. The assam base is very smooth. The lemon is mild. I get a hint of honey and a hint of floral. I can smell the pastry/cake note pretty strongly, but when it comes to the flavor, it plays a background role.

I thought this was a very pleasant lemon tea, but not a distinctive one. It reminded me a lot of David’s lemon (though it smells a lot better than David’s). I’m really glad I got to try it though, A Quarter to Tea’s flavors come and go so quickly. I missed their Key Lime Jade and I’m still kicking myself.

So I got this as a sample from my 1st order. Smells, but not taste of banana. Hint of nut. I didn’t get any bread notes. However, this was a very small sample, so it was under leafed and probably needed milk or sugar to bring out the full flavor.

I wrote a tangent a few posts ago about my Crisis of Spirit over blueberry. No new blueberry tea was making my life sparkle. I was trying to live a new life in a post-apocalyptic Non-Blueberry wasteland. It was lonely. I couldn’t look into mirrors without shame.

Then I tasted this. Ahhh. Back to 2016, where society looks pretty solid (except for the Trump thing), and I like blueberry again.

This is a rich, round tea with a really strong citrusy-lemon taste that balances out the blueberry.

It’s a symbiosis.

Blueberry and Lemon ride on a bicycle built for two, into a sunset of love.

I think my final rating of this tea is a solid “eh, not bad!”
I enjoyed the ginger quality, but no amount of tinkering really gave me a pancakes feel, which is too bad, but hey. It had a touch of ginger, and a touch on honey, and was a very warming way to start my day.
Sipdown!

I had an upset stomach this morning, so I immediately thought of ginger. And the only caffeinated tea I’ve got today that has ginger in it (I think?) is this one.
And, you know, it did the trick! I am feeling much better, and my stomach has not been upset since I had this cup of tea.
So, all is well. An unexpected benefit!

Take two on this tea.
I’m taking a slight break from my Summer Sipdown mission, to try something a bit more autumnal/wintery. Enter Honey Gingerbread Pancakes.
The good news is that today, in addition to the honey, I’m getting a burst of ginger as well. This is a lovely addition, and I’m excited for it.
The bad news is that I still don’t taste anything resembling a pancake. But if that had been left out of the name, then I would be happy with this blend. So I’ll work on making my mind happier around it, as this is very nice. Honey and ginger are two of my favorite things, so I will enjoy this.

First things first. The tea base on this blend is just lovely, both in flavor and in appearance. So many little twisty, curly bits! And the flavor is smooth and enjoyable.
I do get a honey flavor out of it, but I seem to be missing the gingerbread and pancake’s aspect entirely. It sometimes takes me a few brews of Quarter to Tea blends, however, to really nail down my opinion.
I will try again for ginger and pancakes, but will enjoy the honey in the meantime!

I just love this one: one of my very favourite rooibos teas. Too bad the leaf has almost disappeared.

Backlog 8Sep, sipdown.
4min, 200F with maple syrup. I’m out of milk or I’d use that too. I like this one, might reorder eventually when I reduce my cupboard.

With the addition of maple syrup and milk, this tea makes for lovely dessert tea. They really bring out and enhance the favors. I’m getting syrupy pumpkin bready sweetness. Really good this way!

After disliking a genmaicha a few weeks ago, I decided to try again, and I’m glad I did.

At first sip, this tea smelled really strongly of the toasted rice (still not 100% my thing). But then I got the other flavors, a cream and a round fruit/veggie taste (the carrot).

As it cools, it gets sweeter.

I am really glad that I tried this. It’s not my soul mate, but it is enjoyable.

It’s good not to have to hide from genmaicha like a recent ex-boyfriend.

(OH GOD. GENMAICHA. OF COURSE I’M WEARING SWEATPANTS RIGHT NOW. I’M GOING TO LOOK THE OTHER WAY AND PRETEND TO BE REALLY INTERESTED IN THIS OTHER THING AND HOPE HE DOESN’T APPROACH. SH*TSH*T.)

(I don’t know how to be cool in any situation, much less an emotionally-charged one).

High-five to Quarter to Tea. I look forward to the rest of these samples.

It’s not often that a blend hits so close to what was intended for it. Often, I find that names do more to disappoint the drinker than describe the flavor of the blend. Why is that? Does the blender start with a name and stick with it, or do they actually name the tea once they have tasted it?

Anyway, this blend hit rather close to its name, but not quite…for me at least. The base was sweet and creamy, combining well with the buttery vanilla flavors. It actually tasted like a poundcake, which was awesome. There may be a bit of egginess, but rather than contributing to an eggnog flavor, it lends itself further to the cake flavor of the tea. There’s a hint of artificiality to it, but it’s well within tolerable parameters for me.

I didn’t really catch any of the eggnog. It might be because of the age of tea, but I didn’t catch any of the nutmeg and cinnamon notes. Since I’m not really a fan of eggnog, that’s okay with me.

I may have to get more of this.

I wanted to adore this tea, because I really like what I’ve had of A Quarter to Tea so far, but alas. I think I might be getting maple, but that fall pumpkin spice feeling isn’t setting in. It’s mostly just cinnamon. Lots of cinnamon.

I feel like this is chai that would be served in a dungeon. Like, something to comfort an old-school Protestant who refuses to convert to Catholicism (or vice versa!).

I can imagine a guard whispering, “Here you go, you profoundly stubborn darling. I hope you enjoy this final cuppa. You’re getting beheaded tomorrow.”

The old-timey bedraggled prisoner would snarl his grubby hands around the mug. He’d whisper “thanks” in an ill-used voice.

Then he would smile a mostly-toothless they-didn’t-brush-back-then smile. It would be his final smile before the executioner’s axe.

Malty Ceylon black , oats, honey, slightly nutty. It tastes faintly of almonds, caramel, marshmallow root, and milk. I made this as an almond milk latte and it was superb. Sweet, malty, slightly Earthy, a bit of thick creaminess to compliment the base.

For some reason this tastes slightly…floral? fruity? perfume? I’m not sure. It smells like those gift shops that sell expensive soaps and overpriced magnets. I can taste honey, grain, oats, dried grass, tannin, and coconut. This is so unique and extremely tasty. I love the black base, it is full of tannins but not bitter or astringent.