Acquired Taste Tea Co.

I think I like this better as a cold brew. The base isn’t as strong so the rhubarb therefore has more of a chance to express its feelings. Because rhubarb has feelings too.

I haven’t had a rhubarb tea in a while, and the last couple that I smelled in stores (like at Janet’s Special Teas) underwhelmed me. I want sour tart rhubarb that leaves that weird, almost tingly feeling in the mouth just from smelling it. What is that even called? That’s when I know something, usually fruit, will taste awesome!

This smells heavier on the rhubarb and there’s a touch of creaminess too. Drinking it without any additives, the base is a little too much and takes over the other flavours. Adding light cream improves the balance. The rhubarb pops out again. I’d still like a little more rhubarb, and for the base to be a little on the calmer side. But FWIW, it’s probably the most rhubarby tea I’ve tried to date.

No wait, David’s Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait is quite rhubarby, but I’d never have that hot anyway. So regarding rhubarb black teas, this has the most prominent rhubarb flavour.

Sipdown! I cold brewed the last of it, and noticed that it got slightly bitter, and the liquor was murky, definitely due to the dust at the bottom of the bag. I will without a doubt pick up more next time I venture down to High Street. I’d also like to try more of their sencha blends since they’ve been pretty good, and am kicking myself for not getting the Candy Cane sencha when I was there.

I put this in the fridge to cold brew yesterday afternoon, telling myself to take the bag out before I go to bed so it wouldn’t go bitter, but forgot. Opening the fridge this morning to a jug of very pigmented green cold brew, I cautiously poured some thinking I was about to enter a world of bitterness and astringency. I’m pleasantly surprised that not only is it neither of the two, but I can easily taste the grapefruit, as well. I guess I’ll be cold brewing this one again in the future, after all.

Evening tea extravaganza. This is juicy, tart grapefruit in a mug. Besides its wonderful aroma sucking me in, I bought this to compare to Butiki’s Grapefruit Dragon since I didn’t care for the base and have been on a search for another grapefruit green tea. I think I’ve found it. I normally don’t care for sencha as they can be a little too grassy for my liking, but here, it’s very mild. I don’t detect any grassiness at all. The grapefruit flavour itself is virtually on par with Butiki’s too.

Maybe I’ll try to cold brew this sometime.

Completely forgot I sipped this down many days ago, with the last of my eggnog, I believe. Wouldn’t get more of this because I started getting a little tired of it near the end. They were generous with the spices and orange slices, but it’s still time to move on.

This is a beautiful tea. Speckled with whole star anise, cloves, cinnamon bark, red peppercorns, and green cardamom pods, it smells like a spicy Christmas candy. Is that you too, apple chunks? I just shuffled the leaf around and also found a couple dried orange slices! This is the first tea that caught my attention when I finally, finally walked into Acquired Taste for the first time a few weeks ago. The potency of the tea really knocks your socks off when you lift the lid off the little jar.

I mostly get cinnamon and orange in the tea, which in a way, makes me think of many Christmas blends you see floating around on the market. I’m just really impressed by the freshness of this tea. My mom cracked open one of the cardamom pods to release the delicious seeds inside, so let’s hope I’ll get more cardamom next time. The clove is palpable, but unfortunately, the anise is virtually non-existent. I can’t seem to even find anymore star anise in the dry leaf so I’m wondering if they only bother throwing in one per pouch/tin.

I’m curious to see what this would taste like with light cream and/or eggnog, even. OMG, my mom is playing around with the dry leaf with a spoon and I can smell it from across the table.

oh my dear swedish chef! this is a delight.! so close to grapefruit dragonwell from stacy, but slightly different. Besides the obviously different bases, this one borders on being just a slightly bit sweeter and artificial but not in a bad way. overall, this could be a substitute if i ever get a grapefruit hankering again…now that stacy is poofing on us :(

Another tea from my dearest swedish chef – i was doing well with sipdowns but my yezi tea order just showed up, so back up my count goes lol. This was on my wishlist after a review from missB, so i’m glad to get to try it! this is creamy…the cardamom does come through. now sencha isn’t my most favourite of teas, so it’s a plus that this one is so enjoyable for me. Thanks fjellrev!

This was a tea from my dearest swedish chef aka fjellrev sent me. this is a pretty tasty chocolate tea. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite this tasty. I had a couple cups this morning as a treat – in part for the sipdown factor but also because chocolate, creamy delicious for breakfast? yes please hahaha. I’m not sure if i’d reorder this, not because i didn’t enjoy it, but because i don’t reach for flavoured teas all that often. Still though, there’s a good balance here of chocolate (more milk than dark) and cream. thank you swedish chef!

Drinking a cup of this sans additions at work this morning. I might venture back into my regular black teas eventually, although I have been doing well with the lowered caffeine intake :) this tea is malty and good today. It would have benefited from a spot of sugar and milk, but I don’t feel like adding in calories today lol. It is also cold now, but still tastes good. The tannins did do weird things to my stomach, but I ate a snack with it and now feel excellent :D

It is lightly snowing out today and grey and blah, but I am feeling relaxed from the overcast weather. We have been having crazily above average temperatures and a severe lack of snow, so the change is not totally unwelcome (at least for me lol). However, grey days make me want to be at home relaxing reading a book rather than sitting at work starting on 5 new projects lol. But with these times, all work is good work! Anyways, enough of my blathering haha, see previous notes on this tasty tea!

It’s been a weird week, lots of ups and downs, busy/not busy spells at work, and some less than good news regarding family. I am so tired and am grateful it is the weekend so I can recharge and try to relax. I made this tea yesterday but was so busy I didn’t really get a chance to drink it at work, so I made it today as well and am having it as my morning cup. With milk and sugar to make it cozier and because it looks like it will rain outside. I also don’t need much caffeine today as it will just aggravate all the things I am worrying about. So far this tastes like the correct pick for the morning. Tasty and comforting. See previous notes on this tea.

I have been keeping my caffeine intake to a minimum this week (read: the only caffeine I’m consuming is in decaf teas, so a tiny bit), and I have been tiring of herbals and craving a black tea. Enter this lovely decaf EB. I made it for my travel mug this morning and added milk and sugar right to the mug and it is delicious! This tea truly shines with the addition of milk and sugar. It is a bit watery with the milk, but that is fine by me. The milk also seems to be reducing the tannins, which I am happy about! I will finish this in record time probably, and then move on to my herbal teas throughout the day.

I would love to have one of my chinese teas tonight to celebrate the Year of the Sheep, but I will see how I am feeling about caffeine later. I have felt much better this week with less caffeine, which is not surprising. Caffeine usually amps up my anxiety and makes me sleep even less. Hope to continue my break for at least this week haha. See previous notes on this tea!

I was crazily craving Second Breakfast or Red Tailed Hawk this morning after posting in a thread regarding black tea blends, but in keeping with my lowered caffeine intake (I would say no caffeine but decaf has a tiny bit still) I instead chose this tea this morning. It really is quite tasty for a decaf, it has a nice almost fruity malty flavor, bright and fresh, and the sweetness comes out wonderfully with milk and sugar, which is how I’m having it this morning. Smooth and tasty, perfect for this fine Sunday morning. The clouds are a bit pearly, it’s a bit overcast but clearing, just a relaxing almost misty feeling from the clouds. It feels like a relaxing day, but I know I will be vacuuming later and doing other non-relaxing things. It’s what I do :) see previous notes on this tea!

Mmmm this is totally hitting the spot at work! Smooth, creamy flavor, and I only added a bit of sugar today! I am really liking this tea, it reminds me a bit of fresh bread/scones with butter for breakfast. Malty, bready, a bit creamy..just yum. Happy Monday! See previous notes on this tea :)

I went to my local tea store yesterday to pick up a bunch of teas for my boyfriend, he loves their Tall Mountain Oolong and he tried a second flush darjeeling and quite enjoyed it, so yesterday he stocked up on Tall Mountain and is trying a first flush darj and also picked up some heavenly smelling jasmine pearls. I have yet to try the latter two. I have been curious about breakfast blends, but I usually am terrible with strongly caffeinated teas and milk lol, but I decided to pick up this one to try an EB but without the caffeine! Also picked up some Lord Grey, an amazing cream of EG blend which I will review later.

The dry smell of this is actually a bit fruity lol, whether from contamination or it just is like that, I’m not sure, as it’s my first English Breakfast Blend. I steeped it for roughly 3 minutes, and the liquor is dark and smells like a lovely black tea.

As for the flavor without milk and sugar added, this is a nice and hearty tasting black tea for being decaf! It has some floral characteristics along with some fruit to me, and it tastes full and warming. I will now add a bit of milk and some sugar for the full English Breakfast experience.

Mmm, with the milk and sugar this smooths right out into a lovely full tasting black tea. It’s just so cozy and rich. I am quite enjoying this – a much different flavor than my usual array of Chinese black teas, with all their sweet potato and honey notes. This also has a sweet note, but it’s a more creamy sweet note, and I really like it.

Overall, this is quite delicious. Now that I know English Breakfast (at least in decaf form) isn’t too scary, I might eventually bite the bullet and try a full English breakfast tea. Or a Scottish Breakfast, they said that one is a bit lighter, haha this is out of my usual comfort zone so I will need to read up on these types of tea! Unfortunately my local store sells teas by a minimum of 50g, so it is tough to commit to a blend unless I really love it, as I have found out in the past (I have teas kicking around over a year old due to the large quantity you buy). But so far, I really like this and will enjoy it more as the weather gets cooler :)

Last night I hot steeped 3tsp in 16 oz of water. Let it cool and put it in the fridge overnight.

Today, 1 cup cold tea + 1/4 cup skim milk + 1/2 tsp Torani pumpkin syrup = iced pumpkin chai latte which makes Dex happy.

I hot steeped this regular strength last night, let it cool, then put it in the fridge too get cold.
Today I’m drinking it as iced chai latte – about 2/3 cold tea, 1/3 milk and some sweetener.
This is really good prepared this way.
One of the teas I took from the SSTTB

SSTTB #… IDK. Oh, 10.

This was a really unremarkable chai. About what I would expect from any chai, really. Maybe a little fruitier than others? Not my favourite, but definitely drinkable.

There are a lot of chais in this box, and it is SO WARM here right now. Well, not at work, but in my apartment during the evenings. I might need to make some iced chai lattes to try some of these teas.

It doesn’t often get very warm here, but I got mild heat stroke on my hike Saturday (It was 38C at one point, ugh. Thank goodness for swimming in glacial water and also a shirt that cools as you sweat, somehow. I know. Weird, right?). This, combined with ongoing heat and afternoon sun at home, means that going home to a hot apartment = sitting around in underpants in front of the fan, not cooking or making hot teas to drink. :D

With honey. And booze.

So good. (Yes, at 9:30am. I am ridiculously sick. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.)

SSTTB #8.

Lemon candy. This smells like lemon candy. I don’t really see much ginger in here, though. Here’s hoping it’ll taste at least a little gingery.

Ok, this is a decent lemony tea! Much better than the other one I tried from Acquired Taste. This isn’t dry, it has a decent base and would definitely make a good iced tea. I added a little honey, because lemon and honey just go together, but I don’t think it was necessary.

The only thing that’s missing? Ginger.

SSTTB #4. (Just watch and laugh, Sil. Watch and laugh.)

This one smells divine. Lemony candy with a hint of cinnamon. Sadly, it doesn’t taste that way at all. It’s really drying and unpleasant, and the lemon turns into a mere wisp of taste although I can still smell it in the hot tea. I even added some sugar to help smooth everything out, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to hit a sweet spot.

This smells like it would make such a good iced tea, but doesn’t come through flavour wise. :(

Hmm I don’t know what to think about this. I want to like it but something is holding me back. There’s a weird taste at the end of the sip that I cat quite describe but that seems to build up as I continue to drink. Now truthful it’s possible I added too much stevia and that’s effecting the taste, but I’m not too sure that’s what it is. I let it get cold and I like it better that way. I’m thinking maybe it’s the peppercorn and other spices that are throwing me because my minds trying to tell me that this is a fruity tea. But those red peppercorns do look awfully cute. (I took a picture of this and all the other teas in my cupboard without pictures and added them because seeing them with no image bugs me. That’s when I realized I never tried this tea yet)
Thanks MissB for sending me a sample of this!