BrutaliTeas
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Had to remind myself that this isn’t actually intended to be a smoky tea so much as it’s a pun on the fact the green tea base is a Gunpowder green tea. Not my favourite kind of green tea by a long shot, but thankfully this doesn’t taste much like green tea at all. Mostly a fruit based blend with a mellow and refreshing melon taste. Kind of just… whelming.
This tea is pretty delicious. I don’t notice any puerh, thankfully. I taste a deliciously desserty flavor, maybe like marshmallows and graham crackers? It’s so good! I’m enjoying it sweetened with milk. It’s like s’mores without the chocolate. This is definitely my favorite tea I’ve tried from Brutalities so far. I’d consider ordering it again.
I’ve only tried a few from their advent calendar so far, but I’m having a decently good time! I’m trying to finish all my advent calendars from last year before this advent season starts.
This uses a similar maple flavoring to the one Adagio uses, which has just never worked for me for some reason. It tastes a little smoky and like that flavoring, and that’s all I taste. It’s not bad, but I wish they had used the maple flavoring that 52teas uses instead.
This one smelled and tasted quite nutty. The nutty flavor is sort of roasted in quality. The black tea doesn’t have a ton of character. This was decent with milk, but it wasn’t very unique or delicious. I feel like I’ve had many teas that taste similar, and the nuts have a flavor as if they’re about to go off.
Cold Brew!
I steeped this up because I was craving a gentler flavoured fruity black, and the dry leaf smelled like it would be in that style. I spent most of the cold brew trying to figure out exactly what other flavouring was in this blend besides just cranberry. It was very distracting. It sort of tasted a bit starchy/doughy and I thought that maybe it was a not super great quality chocolate flavouring? It looks like it’s a vanilla/cream flavour though, so I wasn’t correct but in hindsight that does explain my association with dough. Sometimes cream flavouring tastes a lot like fondant to me.
Overall this was… fine. Probably better hot.
The strongest flavor here seems to be cinnamon, but it’s pretty mild. The rooibos is a good background. This isn’t spicy or super robust, but it’s pretty pleasant sweetened with some milk. Apparently this has chocolate and vanilla, which I never tasted. It’s really just a super muted chai with a decently strong rooibos presence. I wouldn’t order it again, but I very quickly finished my 1 oz of it.
Sipping on this one currently. It’s a little bit oversteeped but has a really nice dark berry flavour and a lovely black tea base that really highlights it. It’s a straight forward but quite pleasant tea, and is really hitting the spot tonight.
This tea can get a little murky when refrigerated overnight. It’s a mixture between sort of minty flavors and a bit of fruitiness. I enjoy this one cold, but it won’t be a repurchase from me. Since it often gets murky, it’s not all that refreshing. It ends up a little too savory sometimes. Naturally, this tea is super light, so 2 oz of this will make way more cups of tea than a lot of blends that I prefer. Oh well, I’ll get through it.
The flavor is just plain, minerally oolong. I don’t taste any lime or cucumber…maybe cucumber skin if I’m really trying to picture it? I’m not an oolong fan, so this isn’t really for me, unfortunately. Cold, it’s fine, but there’s a hint of bitterness since I didn’t know how long to steep this for and the website didn’t say – I guessed three minutes, which may not have been right. This has such a vegetal flavor that I wouldn’t have tried it if not for the advent calendar.
Another standout cuppa from today.
You would imagine a tea with a name like “Cherrifier” would be really intense either in sweetness or, like, tartness. Strong, though. Something with a lot of impact. In reality, it’s a bit of a softer tasting tea with a more medium body. Very, very smooth with more emphasis on the tea base that a lot of other blends I drank today. It’s mineral and a little woody but also just a bit floral and that works well with a profile that’s surprisingly kind of cherry blossom-like. Sweet but delicate and pretty aromatic. There’s a bit of actual cherry fruit and a little bit of a while peach undertone – but it’s not really a “fruity” blend in the expected sense.
Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzE927Gulv0/?img_index=1 (7th Pic)
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAHLejs6Puc
Sipping on this one currently as I crunch out these tasting notes this morning!
The bag of this tea says it uses black tea, but from what I recall the website lists oolong and visually the leaf looks kind of indistinguishable from both. So, not totally sure what’s happening here but I steeped with a lower more oolong friendly water just to be safe. The taste is pretty nice! It’s not as sweet/juicy or even tart/sour as you might expect from a cherry tea, but the notes are there – maybe a little more like a cherry skin? It’s just a touch medicinal because of those sort of stripped away and slightly mineral notes. The base tastes a hint floral with a lot of minerality to it as well. Kind of malty/woody with just a little bit of that “wet rock” quality. I feel like I’m not selling it well, but I am enjoying the cup and those are all flavours that are actually positives for me.
There’s peach flavouring the blend too but I think it’s quite a bit harder to pick out than the cherry – that might be some subconscious bias/placebo because of the naming scheme though where your brain “looks for” and “fills in the gaps” of the titular flavour more than anything else.
This full bodied black tea is complimented with a hint of basil and note like a light lemony buttercream frosting – smooth, semi-sweet and citrusy but with an underlying creaminess as well. Definitely wish I had more of it, but instead I get to savor the last bit of the sample…
This was a gift from Marika that I steeped up this morning. I’ve had a nasty headache for the last two days though (I think from stress) and that’s made it so hard to focus on making any tea for myself. So, I ended up steeping and straining the tea and then sort of just leaving it for a few hours until I was in a better place mentally to drink it.
I have to say that even hours old and cold I thought it was good! Definitely way more emphasis on the vanilla and lemon notes which give me this kind of lemon pastry kind of vibe that reminds me a little of DT’s Lemon Poundcake. Except with a black tea base. Which, well… kind of makes it better. I don’t taste a lot of basil, and that is just a little bit disappointing as a hard core basil lover. Who knows though – it might have been a lot more present and aromatic when this was a hotter cup. It’s hard to say!
Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge, April 2022: A pu’erh tea
Just like a chocolate orange highlighted with something fresh (the lavender is almost minty). I didn’t spend a lot of time contemplating this tea when I drank it, and I always took it with some kind of milk – but I really enjoyed it overall. It was super cozy and the puerh isn’t too funky (flavoured puerh blends sometimes scare me).
I’d possibly reorder.
Steep Count: 2
Flavors: Chocolate, Cocoa, Earthy, Floral, Herbaceous, Lavender, Orange, Smooth
Preparation
Sipdown (2485)!
Finished this one off a few nights back and was honestly pretty impressed. Smooth and creamy with a medium bodied sweet orange note – the combination was very Creamsicle but just without all the sugar. Quite a rooibos forward cuppa as well, which doesn’t bother me but I know it’s a red flag for others.
I don’t think I’d buy this again, but truly only because I do own other comparable teas. Otherwise I think it does what it’s trying to do really well.
Cold Brew!
The dry leaf of this tea smells absolutely amazing. Sweet orange sherbet and thick creamy vanilla ice cream for sure; very much the expected classic Orange Creasicle of my childhood. I thought it would make an amazing cold brew! It was pretty good but this is the first Brutalities blend in quite a while that I felt just needed a more intense and heavy handed amount of flavouring. The orange was there but lacked some brightness and was a little drowned out by the vanilla. The vanilla was creamy but had a little bit on that doughy/fondant quality to it that I’ve tasted in some other vanilla teas that I personally don’t love too much. The biggest thing was just that the rooibos was reaaalllyyyy present and even though I do like the taste of rooibos I thought the woodiness I got in this brew wasn’t super complimentary. I still enjoyed it, but I felt like I should have enjoyed it a lot more.
I have frightfully little left of this so I’m now hoarding it and drawing out the steep as long as possible when I do have it. This time I managed to resteep it over three days with +10 infusions (tea necromancy). It was so good in a way that no one else whom I describe it to finds appealing (no super floral/violet fans in my life).
Resteep Count: 12
Flavors: Berries, Butter, Candy, Creamy, Floral, Mineral, Smooth, Sugarcane, Vegetal, Violet
Preparation
My family thinks this smells like flower candles but I’m hardcore obsessed with it at this point. I even get moody if I don’t reach at least 7 re-steeps.
Flavors: Berries, Butter, Candy, Creamy, Floral, Smooth, Sugarcane, Sweet, Vegetal, Violet
Preparation
I’m still making up my mind on this tea, but I’ve gotten to a point where I’m drinking it every other day with +4 steeps and am trying to ration it – so I think I may like it. :P
First impressions: like if Milk Oolong and a particularly violet-inclined Tieguanyin had a stylish baby. There’s an extra dimension of “sweet berry” that make this more than a simple floral cream delight. Yeah, there are some lovely natural and flavouring notes in this one. I want it always.
Flavors: Berries, Butter, Cream, Floral, Milk, Smooth, Sugarcane, Sweet, Violet
Preparation
Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge, March 2022: A sleepytime tea
I’m so pleased with this tisane. It reminds me ever so slightly of David’s Teas Dulce & Banana, which didn’t please everyone but is greatly missed by me. Love that combo of caramelized bananas and apple-ish chamomile (I enjoy chamomile). This one is extra indulgent because the nutty ingredients and cinnamon spice place it comfortably in banana bread territory (with walnuts). I happily don’t notice the honeybush much; it’s ok. My only quibbles are that pecans would’ve been better than walnuts, and cocoa is meh (an impression of frozen chocolate banana with nuts – especially if cooled).
This isn’t a true sipdown, thankfully; I never go out of my way to drink up my precious sleepytime teas anyways. I want many more evenings with this one!
Flavors: Apple, Banana, Caramel, Chamomile, Chestnut, Cinnamon, Dark Chocolate, Nutty, Walnut
Preparation
This tea appears to be primarily butterfly pea flower, and it tastes like that too. With sugar, it tastes generally light and fruity. It’s not too special, but not bad cold. I wouldn’t say it tastes like cotton candy, but it’s pretty easy to drink. I cold brewed a second steep for over 24 hours, and that actually did end up tasting a little cakey and fruitier than the first steep.
Whelming! :D
Rofl the name, so good. A shame that it’s not really smoky though!