Culinary Teas

First, I want to thank Alphakitty for this one, too!

At first I found this one to be a little strange. It tasted a little bitter but also like Peanut Butter, Apples, Caramel, Cream, various Candies, and flowers.

After it cooled at room temp for a few moments the bitterness was toned down a bit but was still present. The Apple stepped up more. It was a ‘nice’ sweet. But it’s a tad oily due to at least one of the ingredients and the caramel is a bitter yet attempt-at-a-creamier type caramel.

Not one of my faves from Culinary but I’m sure glad I got to try it. Something wasn’t totally jiving for me yet it wasn’t bad. I would sip this on occasion but probably wouldn’t buy it for myself. Perhaps a more gentle infusion time would fit the bill here?

Aroma is strong and slightly peppery. The color of the liquor is very dark brown. The flavor is a medium-strong and it a good-sturdy Irish Breakfast tea! It’s mildly black-peppery and has a hint of an un-sweetened caramel type taste towards the end of the sip trying to hide underneath!

Thanks Liberteas for this one!

I really thought I already logged this one but apparently I didn’t. Oops!

I did two infusions and was just going to backlog but I guess I will start-a-new and officially review :) Stay tuned!

Thanks LiberTEAs!!!

This is so springy and fun and colorful and floral and fruity! It’s tasty, too!

It has just the right amount of Cherry. The Rose/Blossom additional are at the perfect intensity for my palate. The Sencha quality is top-notch!

A Sweet Treat! I’m LOVING this one, too! It’s been a great tea day!

COLD NOTES:
Yes!!!! This is MUCH better iced! Oddly…I didn’t care for it HOT…but…that’s not how it was intended so I won’t hold that against ’em.

COLD this is tasty! After ‘brewing’ the color of the liquor is that of lemon lime gatorade. It’s vegetal and sweet and has nice mango highlights without being overly flavored. The Matcha turned out very satisfying COLD. The Matcha/Sencha worked well. It’s just enough fruity, just enough vegetal-grass vs vegetal-sweet, and just enough green kick to get ya going!

Yup! COLD…certainly the way to go!

Here I go again…PURPOSELY NOT following the instructions…I’m such a REBEL!

I ‘brewed’ up some this and it’s in the FRIG now…but…I have a sip or two of the HOT right now. It smells LOVELY…dry.

The little bit of hot I am drinking is SUPER STRONG vegetal GREEN Matcha. INTENSE. I will try this a few ways – and will try the suggested method soon, too. I won’t rate YET but just wanted to try it hot!

So I could have sworn this tea was in my cupboard, but apparently it’s not on Steepster… nor could I find it on Culinary’s website. I got it a few months ago when I won the $100 gift certificate, which I used to indulge in some dessert blends I usually wouldn’t buy for myself. This one popped right out at me, since caramel apples are some of my favorite fair food and they have such a high calorie content recreating them in tea-form seemed like a good way to relive the experience without all of the sugar. I made this last night while hiding out in the bedroom: I am SO tired of this heatwave, and it’s the only room of the apartment that gets fully cool when it’s in the 100s. On the plus side it’s arctic chilly in there, so I can have a hot cup of tea without feeling like I’m on fire!

This is a great dessert blend, and you can clearly taste the caramel and apple notes, along with a rich, creamy undertone. It’s quite indulgent, especially with a little cream and sugar. It doesn’t need much since it’s naturally quite sweet! Like many of their black blends that I’ve had, boiling water is a big no or it ends up a bitter mess, but brewed at a more gentle 195 this is heavenly. Frankly there’s not much “tea” taste and more “holy wow this tastes like a melted caramel apple” but sometimes that’s really exactly what you want.

-Dry leaves consist of small twisted leaves with tiny pieces of twig. Wet leaves reveal small to medium size leaf pieces.
-Dry leaves smell strongly of plum and sugar. Tea liquor aroma is of fruity cinnamon.
-Tea liquor is a yellow-brown color.
-Fruity plum flavor with a mouth-filling cinnamon finish.
-Self-drinking, sweetener optional.
-Very good tea. Perfect during the holidays. No trace of bitterness.

Backlog:

I’d much rather drink a caffeinated version of a tea than a decaffeinated variety, and I know I’ve said that more than once before. Even some of the best decaffeinated teas … they still taste a wee bit thin and just a bit off. There are some exceptions to this (Vanilla Comoro comes to mind immediately.)

And while this a wee bit thinner in texture than what I might experience from a typical Jasmine green, it’s still a really good tea and I would say it’s one of the better decaf teas I’ve tried.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/07/24/jasmine-green-decaffeinated-tea-from-culinary-teas/

I’ve mentioned before that I tend to be very leery of decaffeinated teas. Once upon a time, decaffeinated meant “icky chemical taste” to me. Fortunately, I’m not getting any icky chemical taste here. Just lovely, sweet green tea and deliciously exotic jasmine notes. Not soapy. Just beautiful flavor.

This tea does taste a bit thinner than a caffeinated green tea, but, it is really quite minimal. It doesn’t really disrupt the taste, nor do I find myself wishing for more thickness or body to this… it’s quite nice the way it is. I’m just stating that I do notice a slight variation from what I’d experience with a caffeinated version of green tea … and I’m very happy that it is only slight!

A big thanks to Azzrian for this sample!

I kind of have a love/hate relationship with chocolate mint tea. I really, really like chocolate mint, mint is easily the second best thing you can pair chocolate with (Vanilla being the first, and a lot of people don’t quite consider that fair).

Now, take this tea for example. It’s quite tasty, the flavoring is good, the chocolate is well done and has a definitely chocolate liqueur taste to it, with the mint flavoring coming in afterwards to cool everything down. There is a smooth black tea flavor that comes in just slightly at the end, but it isn’t strong enough to really play much into the beverage experience. Definitely a solid tea that I could keep around, if I wasn’t such a snot.

But I am, and here’s why: just chop up some mint leaves and put them in the darn tea already. Flavoring is fine and dandy, and really I don’t pick sides on the whole natural vs artificial flavoring thing, as long as the taste works out. But for me, with mint, it never really seems that the taste does work out.

Small detour: I wanted to talk about the weird mint flavoring here, and why it didn’t taste like, you know, mint-mint to me. But my enter key got stuck, and was inserting a billion new lines into my review. So I did what any sane, rational thinking man would do: grabbed the nearest metal thing and pry it off with brute force. This worked well, and my enter key popped up with a nice, satisfying snap and a solid propulsion arc… directly into my tea cup. Seriously, this is comedy gold.

Anyway… plus, mint is so much prettier, and seems to meld in with the tea flavors a lot more than mint flavoring does. This is quite likely psychosomatic, but it seems that I’m much happier with my mint experience in tea if there’s actually shredded up mint leaves, as opposed to mint flavoring which has been applied.

That’s probably enough out of me tonight folks. Have a good first of July ;)

Yay Steepster is back up!

Tonight we are trying another sample from the generous Azzrian. Thank you!

Chocolate and mint are mixed pretty well here. The mint is a tad bit pushy but not enough to hide the chocolate. The base is smooth and quite mellow. This was a good dessert tea.

Experience buying from Culinary Teas http://steepster.com/places/2981-culinary-teas-online-milford-indiana
I bought a partial sample of this sometime in the fall of 2011.

Appearance and Aroma of dry leaf: about the same as the rest of the flavor-added black teas from Culinary Teas: medium grade leaf, strong, sweet, fruity aroma, hard to say if it smelled like pineapple, but I did like it.

Brewing guidelines: sixteen-oz ceramic cup with metal basket; stevia added; my standard black tea steeping times and temperatures; three steepings.

Flavor of tea liquor (based on the most recent session): The first was fruity, but a little bitter and too strong for me (maybe that’s from drinking the delicate flavored green teas as often as I have been these days?); better on the second (no bitterness, and not as intense), but with a somewhat artificial-ness to the more-or-less pineapple-like flavor; and the third is tasty, but considerably milder. Still, there was no off-flavor in any of the steepings.

Value: Culinary flavor-added tea’s are generally very reasonably priced; as most of her flavor-added black teas are, this one is $8.15 / 4 OZ, which puts it at about $2 / OZ (and even less with any discounts and/or if you buy it in larger quantities).

Overall: I bought this one since I love pineapple (incidentally it was not in the batch of flavor-added blacks I bought during the Black Friday sale). This is at least the third flavor-added black Culinary Tea I have noticed that I find a bitter taste from on the initial steeping, and something tells me it may be wise to adjust one of my brewing parameters (either lower the temperature, or shorten the time) the next time I brew another flavor-added black and see if that helps. I will say these teas always seem to have a nice, clear color; that’s always good; I wonder if this one would be better iced. Oh well, although it’s reasonably tasty, there are plenty of other flavor-added teas that are more interesting than this one, and I’m more interested in pure teas now, anyway. This is the last of it and as it stands I don’t plan to repurchase it.

Experience buying from Culinary Teas http://steepster.com/places/2981-culinary-teas-online-milford-indiana

Appearance and Aroma of dry leaf: about the same as the rest of the flavor-added black teas from Culinary Teas: medium grade leaf, strong, spicy aroma with the barest hint of pumpkin.

Brewing guidelines: four TSP, four cups H2O; loose in four-cup ceramic teapot; stevia added; my standard black tea steeping times and temperatures; three steepings; two separate sessions.

Flavor of tea liquor (based on the most recent session): mostly chocolaty, no pumpkin flavor I could taste on the first two steepings, and some kind of weird off-flavor that was in the first two steepings, but which was more prominent on the third steeping. It did not taste good at all when it came to room temperature.

Value: Culinary flavor-added tea’s are generally very reasonably priced; as most of her flavor-added black teas are, this one is $8.15 / 4 OZ, which puts it at about $2 / OZ (and even less with any discounts and/or if you buy it in larger quantities).

Overall: This is the sixth? of the flavor-added black tea samples from Culinary. I was ‘scolded’ for brewing this up out of a desire to finish these samples off as she’s not digging drinking scalding hot tea in the summer; what’s her problem, anyway?! :p It’s weird that the chocolate notes were much more in the forefront and that there was no pumpkin flavor (at least none I could discern). I didn’t care for this tea, and my wife didn’t either. Not planning on buying this one again. Still, another one bites the dust … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNQRfBAzSzo (I didn’t know Queen performed this?).

I found some other notes on this tea, so I am updating this review (6/12/2012)(Changes in bold)

Backlogging

Experience buying from Culinary Teas http://steepster.com/places/2981-culinary-teas-online-milford-indiana

I bought a one OZ sample of this in late November, 2011, having brewed it twice (most recently on 6/8/2012?).

Appearance and Aroma of dry leaf: It had a strong, sweet fruity aroma (definitely smell the apple) that smelled like tobacco, and also reminded me of a kind of bubble gum I would buy as a kid (or pop rocks); dry leaf was about the same as the rest of the flavor-added black teas from Culinary Teas: medium grade leaf.

Brewing guidelines: four TSP, four cups H2O; four-cup ceramic teapot, with ceramic basket; stevia added; my standard black tea steeping times and temperatures; three steepings; two separate sessions.

Flavor of tea liquor (based on the most recent session):
1st: OK, but A little bitter
2nd: OK flavor, but missing something.
3rd: not much flavor

Wet Leaf: Slight scent of tobacco and of something artificially sweet.

Tea liquor color: Wonderful, clear, caramel color.

Value: Culinary flavor-added tea’s are generally very reasonably priced; this one is $8.15 / 4 OZ, which puts it at about $2 / OZ (and even less with any discounts and/or if you buy it in larger quantities).

Overall: This was the forth of the batch of thirteen flavor-added teas from Culinary we finished off. To me the best thing about this tea was the aroma of the dry leaf. Overall, my wife especially felt that this tea was a “no go” (we are still looking for that one tea ….).

Experience buying from Culinary Teas http://steepster.com/places/2981-culinary-teas-online-milford-indiana

I bought a one OZ sample of this in late November, 2011, having brewed it twice.

Appearance and Aroma of dry leaf: All standard, all good.

Brewing guidelines: four TSP, four cups H2O; four-cup ceramic teapot, with ceramic basket; stevia added; my standard Chinese red tea steeping times and temperatures; three steepings; two separate sessions.

Flavor of tea liquor (based on today’s session):
1st: ….Good
2nd: ….Good
3rd: …. < Later >

Value: I judge that most Culinary are generally very reasonably priced; this is currently $7.80 / 4 OZ, which puts it at a little under $2 / OZ (less with any discounts and/or if you buy it in larger quantities). Not a bad price, but I think Teavivre’s least expensive Yunnan edges this one out.

Overall: I bought a bunch of samples of teas at the end of last year; although I bought most for my wife, I got this one for me (although, now it turns out she likes Yunnans, woo, hoo!). I’m going to keep this short. This is a good Yunnan, and, yeah, although I’d prefer to buy from Teavivre, I’d buy this one if I am in need of an inexpensive Yunnan and we order from Culinary Teas.

Experience buying from Culinary Teas http://steepster.com/places/2981-culinary-teas-online-milford-indiana

I bought a one-ounce sample of this in late November, 2011, having brewed it twice (most recently on 6/11/2012).

Appearance and Aroma of dry leaf: medium grade CTC leaf, with lots of goodies mixed in; pleasantly strong, but standard, ‘spicy chai’ aroma.

Brewing guidelines: four good-sized TSP, three cups H2O with about 1 cup unsweetened almond milk (heated) added to the teapot while steeping; loose in four-cup ceramic teapot; stevia added; my standard black tea steeping times and temperatures; ; two complete steeping sessions (months apart); three steepings each session.

Flavor of tea liquor (derived from the latest session):
1st: …..We both liked it.
2nd: ….Good.
3rd: ….< Later >

Aroma of tea liquor: standard ‘spicy Chai’ aroma.

Appearance and Aroma of wet leaf: < Later >

Value: Culinary flavor-added tea’s are generally very reasonably priced: this one is $8.15 / 4 OZ (on their website it’s listed under Chai and not under Flavored Tea ), which puts it at about $2 / OZ (and even less with any discounts and/or if you buy it in larger quantities).

Overall: Haven’t done the third steeping yet, but I still wanted to log this. This afternoon my wife requested a Chai, and so I complied, reaching for this tea (to continue with the foray into finishing off the flavor-added Culinary Tea Teas—this is our fifth of thirteen). Although it doesn’t stand out as any better than any other chai, and neither of us could taste any pumpkin (my wife loves pumpkin), we both liked it. So, since it’s not a ‘thumbs down’ we may choose to get some on our next order from Culinary Teas.

Experience buying from Culinary Teas http://steepster.com/places/2981-culinary-teas-online-milford-indiana

I bought a one-ounce sample of this in late November, 2011, having brewed it twice (most recently on 6/8/2012).

Appearance and Aroma of dry leaf: about the same as the rest of the flavor-added black teas from Culinary Teas: medium grade CTC leaf, strong aroma, smelled good (chocolaty and fruity?).

Brewing guidelines: four good-sized TSP, four cups H2O; loose in four-cup ceramic teapot; stevia added; my standard black tea steeping times and temperatures; two complete steeping sessions (months apart); three steepings each session.

Flavor of tea liquor (derived from the latest session):
1st: definitely an unusual flavor, with notes of chocolate (more prominent when cooled), and not bitter
2nd: a little milder, but flavorful
3rd: still a bit of flavor

Color and aroma of tea liquor: It has a nice amber color; oddly enough (for a pecan pie flavored tea), the aroma has a chocolate note to it (my wife was the first to point that out).

Appearance and Aroma of wet leaf: Mid-grade CTC leaf, with a very small amount of flavoring bits; we both though that the aroma had something a little off-putting about it.

Value: Culinary flavor-added tea’s are generally very reasonably priced: this one is $8.15 / 4 OZ, which puts it at about $2 / OZ (and even less with any discounts and/or if you buy it in larger quantities).

Overall: This is the fourth of our flavor-added black teas we bought from Culinary that we finished off (nine more to go!). My wife and I both enjoy pecan pie (usually only at Thanksgiving), and we both like chocolate; yet this tea doesn’t really taste like pecan pie to us; it is better than the last few Culinary teas we’ve had, but still it’s nothing to write home about. Admittedly, I’m a little confused, as not long after we bought these thirteen flavor-added black teas from Culinary we had a chance to try them all (many months ago, now), and I remember that we really liked some of them (where are you, scrumptious teas?!). Oh well. We won’t be getting this one again. Maybe the next one.

Backlog:

I brewed some of this last night, and it is delightful. I drank about half the pot hot, and then allowed the rest to chill for iced tea, and it is even better iced than it is hot. I think it needs just a little sweetener when it’s served iced, because it helps the flavors pop a little, but it’s well worth that little bit of sugar (I used coconut sugar, I love how quickly it dissolves in cold liquid, and even though I love coconut and wouldn’t mind at all if it did impart a coconut flavor to the tea, it didn’t. Just sweetness).

The sencha is sweet and fresh tasting without tasting overly vegetal or grassy… there are mere hints of it in the background, very slight. The mango is sweet and lush and delicious without being too nectar-like which would throw off the delicateness of this tea. The pineapple is not really so much an obvious pineapple flavor as it serves as a highlight of the mango notes. That is to say, I taste the pineapple, and it tastes like pineapple, but, it isn’t a strong, obvious pineapple flavor – more like an additional tropical note to enhance the overall tropical-ness of the cup. I like this one very much.

Backlog: I really enjoyed this tea. I had a cup of it hot, and then brewed some for iced tea. Both preparations are delicious. Sweet strawberry, notes of cream and a slight pastry note which is more noticeable when it is cold.

Really, really good. Here is my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2012/06/02/strawberry-shortcake-tea-from-culinary-teas/

Experience buying from Culinary Teas http://steepster.com/places/2981-culinary-teas-online-milford-indiana

I bought a one-ounce sample of this in late November, 2011, having brewed it twice.

Appearance and Aroma of dry leaf: about the same as the rest of the flavor-added black teas from Culinary Teas: medium grade CTC leaf, strong aroma.

Brewing guidelines: four good-sized TSP, four cups H2O; loose in four-cup ceramic teapot; stevia added; my standard black tea steeping times and temperatures; two steeping sessions (months apart); three steepings each session.

Flavor of tea liquor (derived primarily from latest session):
1st: strong, but bitter
2nd: no bitterness, but relatively weak on flavor
3rd: weak

Color and aroma of tea liquor: I liked both the amber color and the mildly fruity aroma.

Appearance and Aroma of wet leaf: Mid-grade CTC leaf, with a very small amount of flavoring bits; fitting aroma for the flavor it is meant to imitate.

Value: Culinary flavor-added tea’s are generally very reasonably priced: this one is $8.15 / 4 OZ, which puts it at about $2 / OZ (and even less with any discounts and/or if you buy it in larger quantities).

Overall: I bought a bunch of samples of flavor-added black teas at the end of last year for my wife to try. My niece was with us this morning, and we all seemed to agree that the 1st steeping was unpleasantly bitter, and the 2nd, weak. I am currently drinking the third steeping (boiling, 7 minutes), and although there is some raspberry flavor there, it’s very light. I will say it doesn’t taste artificial (as it seems many inexpensive flavor-added teas can taste). I also remember being disappointed in the flavor the first time we tried this. That’s the end of this sample, and as much as we wanted to like this one—my wife loves raspberry flavored sweets, as does my niece—it just isn’t doing it for us; I don’t see us buying this one again.

So-so, needs dr.-up quite a bit. Not a huge chai fan anyways

One of my favorites of all time

Good sweet, summer caffeine free tea!