Kally Tea

sipdown! (albeit a fake-ish sort of one since i’m passing the rest off to an office mate who loved the cup i made for her…which is good because i don’t like this nearly as much as i initially did.)

Edit: i’m at 192 for those curious as to where i’ve manage to land…however i fully expect that will go up shortly as i get to open my birthday order this saturday AND i think another package showed up today, that i can pick up tomorrow…wheee!

Another Kally tea that I need to work on (let’s not talk about the 2 I have that I haven’t even tried…) tonight, I do not like this one. I’m not sure if I steeped it too long or what but its a sour unlikeable cup of tea. Ill try again tomorrow maybe, or as a cold brew and see if this is better, since I clearly didn’t mind it at one point according to my tasting note….

I quite enjoy this one, though it’s not a sweet tea. It’s the taste of raspberries that are just a little underripe (contrary to the name). I don’t quite get the perfumey taste that indigo and rarity did. Instead it’s just a tangy, more sour than sweet, raspberry cup of. I actually think it might be fun to mix this with a creamy sweet tea…. hmm….

SIPDOWN! (274 though all my tea is currently spread out on my table so that i can re-organize and make sure nothing’s been missed in my cupboard and that will change with the teas i’m getting tomorrow from raritea and kittenna).

It feels good to be getting through some of my kally teas. They’re not “old” as nothing in my cupboard is more than 7 months old, tops. But they’ve been around longer than some teas so i’m trying to pay a bit more attention to them. That’ll be the last time i order that much tea in those quantities in one go lol though i have to say at least they were economical so i can’t complain too much :)

Enjoy this one quite a bit as far as rooibos goes. Flavour is a little on the weaker side for what i like but it’s still tasty :)

mmmmm one of my last teas for this evening…I managed to get down to 270 teas this weekend, so that makes me pretty happy. I’m picking up a few teas from my parents tomorrow so it will go up a bit but over all it’s looking like i’m on the downward slope again….finally. I won’t make 200 teas by the end of June but I think I can hold out and not buy any more teas until the end of June or keep it to really small orders.

This tea? It’s still one that i enjoy, though i’m nearing the end of it. I’ll have to figure out if i want to re-order this one as i’ve consistently wished the flavour was a little stronger. Still though, it’s a decent one for the no caffeine factor :) Plus kally teas has some great customer service!

la la la testing and hating the people i am backing up this week. la la la Figured i’d better stop drinking all that black tea…so a few rounds of rooibos are coming up! I still like this one even if it’s not the most amazing incredible rooibos tea ever. The flavour is nice, it’s tasty….i can let it steep for 20 mins and it’s just fine lol you know..by accident of course lol

Had a cup of this tonight because I need to start cycling through more of the teas that i have large quantities of. I’m sitting near 300 teas in my cupboard and a friend of mine just dropped off her whole cupboard at my house “to store” because she’s pregnant and can’t stand the smell of tea in her house (nevermind that she’ll be limited in what she can drink anyway if she does get back to wanting tea). So i’ve got a lot of tea at home. I’m hoping that this weekend, or next i can get my swaps organized.

This tea? It’s still an average cup of tea. While i enjoy it, i likely won’t re-order because i still wish it were even more creamy and toffee-ey.

backlog from yesterday evening. One of two teas i took with me for boardgame afternoon :)
This time the flavour was much more to my liking. I think it’s kind of like della terra in that a little extra leaf goes a long way for me. I quite enjoyed the creamy sweetness of this one!

I’m going to have to agree with Indigobloom on this one, the flavouring really need to be more intense. I let this one steep longer than the recommended time and it didn’t help much, so next time i’ll need to try with either more leaf or adding a bit of cream. It’s still a nice enough tea, but when it comes to toffee/creamy dessert teas i want them to be strong and intense!

I waited a long time to write this up because I don’t like saying negative things, especially when I’m pretty sure that’s how it’s supposed to taste. I’d never tried rooibos tea before I ordered this.

I did not care for this, but I can’t pinpoint why. It just isn’t enjoyable. I tried the other rooibos tea in my package and have came to the conclusion that I just don’t like rooibos.

As a side note, I also discovered that I don’t like my tea infuser ball. It works fine, but my teas seems to taste better if I just put the loose leaves in my pot and strain them out after brew time is over. So I’m still learning, and if anything this review is a reflection of that, and not a reflection of the tea itself. It is probably fine for someone who likes rooibos to begin with.

If anyone wants some free tea, hit me up. I didn’t use very much.

This smells AWESOME for a pu-erh!
Tropical but not fake! Almost Champagne-like, too!

It has a really neat semi-cloudy/texture-type amber color to it.

The aroma magnifies after infusion is complete! It still smells wonderful! Very tropical, airy, fruity, fresh!

WOW! Now this is a flavor I could see myself drinking more and more of! It’s a lovely flavored pu-erh! Very unique and creative! Juicy! With just a hint of woodsy-puerh to it.

It lingers with a smoother tropical fruit flavor that is very satisfying.

Above all else…a VERY nicely flavor pu-erh! WOW!

I’m kinda over it. This was ok, but I didn’t really care for it over the other cup I was drinking. It was so plain, and a hair plastic like. Caramel? sure I got that to, just not enough. Ah well, time to move on!
Lowering the rating a bunch of points.

I added a pinch of Darjeeling here. An interesting combo. I might try it again one day, if only because I can’t quite figure out the blend. The first infusion was your basic caramel cocoa loco with a hint of crips Darjeeling in the finish, but the second one is more of a smoky roasted oolong mixed with a white? very curious!
In tea class the other day, we were discussing that Darjeelings are pretty much an oolong, going by the processing definition. Seems it’s just the varietal and location that makes a flavour difference. So I thought… what if I mixed them?
Thus… here I am writing this note!

I figured it out!! this reminds me of Creamy Nut Oolong from Teaopia. Yup, they are incredibly similar! even though this is a green tea and the other one was Oolong. That said… In my mind they are identical but I’m sure if I compared them they’d be quite different.

I am really liking this. Seriously, it’s good!
Have you ever had a really sweet, I mean naturally sweet, green tea? I’m getting that sort of caramel flavour here, along with another, deeper type of sweetness that extends throughout the sip.
In the middle, there is a slight hint of cocoa and the aftertaste? milk. Very milky.
Interesting, I really like this blend!!

Aha! shorter infusions work so much better here. 2-2.5 min. Yup, makes all the difference in th “pop” factor. Bumping my rating a few points.

Underwhelming. Similar to a few others I’ve had, but not very intense on the flavour. Compared to Sweet Temptation, this came in a distant second. Not bad, just a little weak! I’m a little spoiled :P
I definitely taste the toffee influence though. Next time I’ll try adding a bit more leaf.
Also, I tried adding milk. That helped make it creamier!

I like it! yum.
For a juice tea, this is alot better than I expected.(even though I was very curious and hopeful!)
Now, on the first part of the sip, it’s all sour hibiscus and a hint of vanilla. Tart is not so nice! but then it changes from hibiscus to orange in the sourness followed by a creamy smooth finish. I wish the cream part was more dominant.
You know, I think this would do really well in cooking. Scones, reduction sauces, glazes… yep, I do believe I have some experimenting to do!

Meh. Something about the combination of flavouring and spices is familiar, though I can’t recall from where.
At two minutes and about 180c the cup is pretty light. Tangerine comes through, and the delicate white base along with a dusting of cinnamon. Dusty. Yes it tastes dusty. Almost malty, and I’m not sure what to make of it with a white base!
By the time I got to the cup it had mostly cooled though, and I generally prefer my whites as hot as they can be made. I’ll give it another chance.
Perhaps the second steep will reveal something else!

I used 1.25 tablespoons of dry leaf for 375ml of water.

Raspberry perfume-y flavour on the sip. Detecting a melony hint which gives the raspberry flavour some fullness. The raspberry taste is fairly authentic. The overall flavour is quite mild. Hibiscus is well blended. Light sweetness. Detecting a light astringency and flavour from the black tea.

Hibiscus tartness comes out as the tea cools but it is neither unpleasant nor overpowering. It does, however, really stick out on its own. There isn’t enough raspberry taste on the sip to properly partner with it.

Thank you to Indigobloom for passing some of this on to me.

So I badly need to replace my Brita, the three teas I made today were all compromised in flavour. Ack! but in this one, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Somehow, it brought out a leathery quality I’ve never seen in an Assam before. In fact, I was SO tempted to drink it without my standard of milk and a spot of sugar. I almost did it! (Baby steps right?)
But in the end, I decided that I was really craving a black tea with sugar and it was great that way to. Almost coffee like, with its dark heady flavour.
Looks like I’ll be drinking this until we get a new filter…

Bumpity bump goes the rating again!!
For some reason, I was really craving this. I just knew I had to have a cuppa. Oh man was I ever right, it was so good! The light flowery contrast against the malty assam goodness is great! Only I wish I’d made a whole pot! (which I didn’t do because I’m headed out shortly)
Very glad I have this in my cupboard now :)

Still meh. Though less so.
I tried adding a little extra leaf and that seems to have made it a bit better. Bitter, without the addition of milk… and of course my 1/2 tsp of sugar.
There seems to be a woodsy note in there. Very fresh and forest like. It could almost be mistaken for maltiness, but no it’s more than that. Like I’m eating a flower. In my mind, that’s different than floral somehow. A tad more earthy but not in the pu-erh way. I guess that’s the “Flowery” in STGFOP!!
As the cup cools I’m beginning to enjoy it a bit more, now that I no longer expect my standard malty bold Assam.
Funny, I have a feeling this might grow on me over time. Bumping the rating a bit.

Ehhhh, this was just ok. I prefer my black teas to have some oomph and I think this oomph had some padding on the landing.
Everything was very light from the malty factor, to the astringency, it was all there… just super mellow. I’ll play around with the water/leaf/time ratios and see if that punches things up a bit.