Dessert by Deb

Not my favourite Deb blend, but not the worst either. It’s very thin tasting with a really shallow, plain cocoa powder flavour and just a bit of toastiness from the genmai blended in. Like a chocolate Genmaicha or a very watered down hot cocoa. I think maybe more leaf and longer steep time next time?

Huh, another situation where I came to just mark a sipdown and somehow there is no prior note for it. I actually enjoyed this one. It reminded me of strawberry milk, though admittedly I always had it as an oat milk latte so I can’t promise that the blend on its own would have the same effect. Hibiscus is clearly part of how that effect is created so hibiscus haters will probably want to steer clear.

I came to mark a sipdown thinking I had previously written a note for this blend, but either I haven’t or it disappeared. Either way, I definitely want to say that I enjoyed this blend! It’s a really nice citrus/cream herbal, especially as a latte since the oat milk brings out the creaminess well. The orange also doesn’t tip over into being overly acidic, alcoholic, or concentrated, while also not fading into the background.

Another from the Strange VariaTea TTB. This is both finicky and just not Deb’s best blend. I accidentally overbrewed it the first time and it ended up tasting mostly of hibiscus (which I like, but is notably not anywhere in the name of the blend). Brewed up properly and latte’d, I do like this but am not wowed. It’s reminiscent of the Hojicha Berry Shortcake, which is maybe intentional given the names of the blends? They have pretty similar ingredients too. I didn’t love that one, either. It’s just sort of a generic berry flavor that is fine, but only fine.

So I’d been eyeing this one since it came out, and in my last Deb order I finally broke down and ordered a 75g bag. I usually only order her 25g size, but she doesn’t offer that size in oolongs for some reason.

Welp, I guess it’s been a while since I’ve had a flavored milk oolong, because I was not prepared. The cream flavoring here is so strong and over the top, it almost turns my stomach a bit. Very heavy and rich whipping cream sort of notes, or as Kelly (Roswell Strange) said, churned butter. Yeah, that’s pretty much spot on. I barely taste the hojicha to be honest, but I do pick up on some of those toasty notes in the finish.

So yeah, this one is going into the rehoming box. Maybe in the future I’ll try to recreate a similar tea with unflavored milk oolong though… ;)

The TTB has arrived! So big, so many teas… no chance to try them all!
Tea #33

I was in a mood for green tea, but also I didn’t wanted to fuss about the temperature, so houjicha is perfect for that.

I think that the base is working so well with those spices in, and although I am missing a few spices that are in gingebread (at least here); for instance (star) anise, it is actually pretty good example of gingebread tea. The ginger was definitely prominent, though a bit more than expected. But at least it was warming and sugar in? Absolutely no problem for me!

Finally got around to trying this tea out.

Honestly I’m not sure how I feel about it. It’s certainly lavender forward, but that’s a given when it comes to Deb’s lavender blends. They’re always quite a lot. The deeper jammy berry notes compliment the lavender really well though! It’s interesting that Deb’s calling this a blackberry tea when the flavouring is cassis (basically black currant) and there are no blackberries in the ingredient list otherwise. It definitely doesn’t taste like blackberry, either. Maybe blueberry.

I think I’d need to try it again to form a better opinion.

Side note – it steeps up such a peculiar colour. Kind of a swampy green. I guess that’s because the rooibos would have a more orange hue when steeped, but the berries and mallow blossoms would steep a dull blue…

The TTB has arrived! So big, so many teas… no chance to try them all!
Tea #31

I thought I have commented about this tea, asking what are blondies but I couldn’t find it. Anyway, I was craving cake related tea this afternoon, and salted caramel (or toffee, what’s the diference?) sounds good to me, so I have picked this one.

The roasted rice (there was a typo — ice) means it will be towards genmaicha flavour and indeed it is. Genmai and coconut makes nice batter and it was also quite salty and sweet, but the rest of ingredients are muted and I couldn’t recognize them at all; not even the black tea base. If it is more rooibos than black tea, that could that.

Fine, but nothing I need to re-try again; shame!

Strange VariaTEA TTB #11

Though I don’t always end up loving the execution, Dessert by Deb’s blends always sound delicious to me. So I had to give this one a try when I saw it in the box! Sadly, I didn’t taste berries, cream, or shortcake in this one. It was mostly coconut and hibiscus on a mild green tea base. I love coconut, but I loathe hibiscus…so overall, not a fan of this one.

Sipdown! (42 | 357)

What a delicious-sounding tea name! I’ve only had sticky toffee pudding once, at a friend’s wedding reception in Australia (they call it “sticky date pudding”), and it was scrumptious, as I would expect. How can you go wrong with toffee sauce ha ha?

Anyway, this is just okay. It mostly tastes like hojicha, which I’m happy about, given that there’s also black tea and rooibos here for some reason. There’s a touch of buttery caramel flavor, and based on Deb’s other caramel teas I think it’s the black tea that’s caramel-flavored. But because there are two other bases, the caramel ends up not being strong enough in my opinion. I also don’t really taste the brown sugar, and I didn’t see any in my pouch either. So it’s a slightly caramel-flavored hojicha with a touch of black tea and rooibos.

It’s not bad, just meh. Don’t get me wrong, I love hojicha, but this tastes like a very generic hojicha, and I guess my tastebuds are hojicha snobs at this point LOL. :P

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This one was decent. Definitely very lychee-forward, which doesn’t surprise me since there’s lychee flavoring but the raspberry is from fruit pieces. Naturally the flavoring is going to dominate, and so is the case here. Very floral and sweet lychee accented by a touch of tart, fresh raspberry. Getting the smallest hint of chalkiness from something.

Not a fan of the base though, mostly it tastes like Chinese sencha. Very dry and grassy and there’s actually a touch of bitterness even though I only steeped it for two minutes. So not one I would reorder because of that, plus the lychee is a bit floral for me. Also, where’s the macaron?

Of course, it was natural to compare this to S&V’s snickerdoodle tea, which is one of my absolute favorites. Compared to that…this one is quite plain. I taste the same sweet cinnamon flavor, but behind that is basically nothing. Maybe a bit of black tea, but mostly emptiness. Thanks for sharing, amandastory516!

Actually managed to get in a September sipdown, which I had given up on! (Sipdown September is now going to be Sipdown October, them’s the breaks, er, sprains). Counting this as a hardest-to-reach tea for ashmanra’s sipdown challenge since it’s in my bottom drawer and bending down is still a project.

I picked this up in my jumbo order from Deb and this is my first sipdown from that order. Not because it’s my favorite but actually because it’s one of my least favorite, so it was an easy one to lean into when I wanted a flavored hojicha but maybe not one that I’ll miss when it’s gone or one that I feel the need to focus on a lot. This is fine, but just fine, which is made the more noticeable in comparison to some of the other teas in the order (Orange Creamsicle Mousse, for example, is an absolute killer). Made as a latte per package recommendations, this is a roasty hojicha base with a sort of muddled, generic tart berry flavor and a creaminess that’s amped up by the addition of oat milk. Not bad by any means, just not my favorite Deb blend. The Hojicha Cinnamon Raisin Bread Pudding and Matcha Key Lime Pie are calling my name though…

ETA I notice now, looking at other people’s notes on this tea, that they were struck by the hibiscus in it. Which yes dear reader, if you don’t like hibiscus this probably won’t resonate with you. Since I do generally enjoy hibiscus, I’m less sensitive to its overuse, but I can absolutely see how its presence in this blend could read as too strong – and indeed is probably what my brain was reading as “generic tart berry.”

Strange VariaTea TTB #3

The dry leaf of this tea is so pretty and it smells lovely. Unfortunately, once it’s steeped the lavender totally takes over! I don’t taste blueberry and I definitely don’t taste angel food cake; it’s just coming across as a lavender black tea. To be fair, it’s a very nice lavender…not too soapy or perfumey for my tastes. But I was hoping for more based on the name.

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This was a pleasant enough blend. Somehow not as cocoa-y as I expected it to be, given the abundance of cocoa powder making for a seriously murky cuppa. It’s mostly hojicha with subtle touches of cocoa and toasted rice. And there’s not really anything “salted” about it, I guess maybe the rice was meant to fill that role? Not sure why there isn’t just a little bit of sea salt or something to that effect.

Anyway, it’s nice but not a reorder for me. Might have to try my own concoction with cacao shells though, those seem to give the best cocoa flavor in my experience…

The TTB has arrived! So big, so many teas… no chance to try them all!
Tea #18

Got a caramel, got a chai, got no butter nor cream.

Fine chai, very mild and sweet (I am not used to teas with added sugar in the blends) and just right amount of star anise in my cup (there was whole, but I took two or three “shines” from it only).

Pretty fine, but for me a bit too sweet. Again, I don’t remember steeping paramters.

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Another in a long line of caramel teas from Deb. This tastes very similar to Salted Caramel Pancakes, and I remember there being several others that I thought were close as well, though I can’t recall the names at the moment. Sweet, somewhat buttery caramel sweetened with brown sugar, paired with toasted rice for a savory grainy note. Rooibos is here again, but luckily here it doesn’t overwhelm the black tea and just adds a subtle woodiness.

It’s fine, but nothing special IMO. I’m a bit confused as to why she didn’t include hojicha here since it’s meant to be a roasted milk tea. I guess she added the toasted rice instead, but to me that’s a bit different of a flavor. Also, a bit strange to throw Hokkaido in there when this doesn’t really taste creamy at all. Anyway, not one that I would reorder.

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I don’t understand the rooibos here. Red rooibos and green tea together? As I would expect, the rooibos pretty much overwhelms the green tea with its stronger flavor. I do enjoy the combination of peach and pineapple together here, but as I’ve said in the past, I don’t love fruity rooibos blends and that’s essentially what this is. It doesn’t taste super medicinal, since the fruits are more tropical and on the tart side, but still not my favorite combo.

Would have liked to see this with just the green tea, but oh well. Can’t love them all! Also, we sometimes get boba at Kung Fu Tea and I love their nata jelly topping, which is pineapple flavored and has a great texture! Now I want some…

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Don’t ask me what I was thinking when I ordered this, lmao. I never like Deb’s Earl Grey teas because of the weirdly earthy black base. I guess I was distracted because the idea of a creamy Earl and jasmine together sounds so lovely to me.

Anyway, I did like it better than some of her other Earls, probably because the black tea is mixed with green and so that earthiness is diluted a bit. Also the cream element and the jasmine helps to tone it down. I really like the combination of the jasmine with the cream, and I feel like creamy jasmine teas should be more of a thing.

Still, I can taste that potting soil sort of black base, and because of that I wouldn’t order more of this one. Love the idea though!

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So the name of this one sounds delicious. Sadly, I don’t really get much of the caramel or buttercream aspects. There’s a touch of creaminess from the coconut maybe, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it buttercream. Mostly, this is a very anise-heavy chai. I basically just taste star anise with a touch of coconut and perhaps a hint of cinnamon.

It’s not awful or anything, as I do like anise, but definitely doesn’t fulfill the promise of the name.

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From Deb’s latest collection. I love the idea of this one – I drank and ate POG-flavored everything when I was in Hawai’i last year, and it’s a wonderful combination. Also, I adore guava-flavored anything, so I was excited to see guava flavoring in the ingredients.

However, this one falls short for me because of the rooibos. It’s too rooibos-heavy in my opinion, and the rooibos comes off quite medicinal, maybe because it’s combined with fruit flavors? It seems like more rooibos than black tea to me, although it’s not according to the ingredients list.

The sweet-tart guava flavoring with the orange slices is quite enjoyable, but the rooibos heaviness ruins it for me. Would love to see this one on a plain black base or even a green base though. :)

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Last free sample from Deb.

This one was odd to me. Not sure if it’s just the combination of the artificial lime Jell-O with the blueberry or something else, but it came out oddly a bit savory? It almost tastes like oregano? And then there’s a hint of cinnamon which makes it even stranger.

Not for me ha ha.

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Another free sample. Not in love with this one – it’s okay, definitely drinkable, just not my favorite. There is a strawberry-esque flavor, but mostly it’s just from the hibiscus, since there are only a few small pieces of dried strawberry here. And then there’s quite a lot of coconut, I guess trying to emulate creaminess.

But really, it tastes like hibiscus with a bit of coconut and some sweetness. Pleasant, but I wouldn’t call it strawberry oat milk…

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This was one of the free samples Deb included with my order. Ignoring the fact that this sounds like the most ridiculous dessert imaginable ha ha, this tea is actually quite good.

The caramel is very creamy, so it ends up having a sort of white chocolate peppermint bark vibe, but with a bit more of a caramelized flavor to it. It’s somewhat sweet from the maple, but not over the top. I don’t taste a lot of actual tea, but it does give a nice body that keeps this from tasting thin and watery. The mint is bright and refreshing, no herbaceous notes in sight.

Would perhaps consider ordering some, but I think it’s a bit too close to my favorite Peppermint Cream from B&B, and I don’t really need two creamy mint teas in my cupboard. Definitely recommend it though!