Nina's Paris

AAAALLLL DONE! I didn’t have much time to drink a lot of tea today but I am still trying for my 2 sipdowns a day just to keep rolling on getting my cupboard to where i want it to be for July 1 (100 teas, the oldest being purchased in Jan 2014, ignoring puerhs). I guess technically that means i shouldn’t have been drinking this one, but a girl’s gotta drink, what a girl wants to drink :) I will likely stock this in my cupboard on a rotational basis since i really like the vanilla flavouring in this genmaicha. It’s a nice contrast to the LB chocolate genmaicha that i also really enjoy. Overall i really love this tea and i’m glad Nina’s dropped by and introduced themselves on steepster! :)

I’m getting down to the last little bit of this one. Apparently i should have just ordered 100g but on the flip side, now when i order more it will be fresh? haha I haven’t even started the other two teas from Nina’s that i purchased at the same time. This has been a great tea to have at work today as i’ve been in meeting hell and my weekend will be filled with work from 10am sat to 5am sunday….UUUUUGH. ah well, i’ll bring some tea and maybe a board game to teach ppl lol

this was my out and about tea today. Seriously, best weekend in a long time. My other half was off so we slept in, had breakfast together and then went for a 5 hours walk. Just out enjoying the sun, the day, spending time together being “out.” I got to buy some pants for walking/being active AND we may have found a writing desk that we can use in the house so that i’m not at the dining room table when i work from home with cords all over the place. We went out for lunch, stopped at the liquor station and had a grand ol’ day. And this was my tea for doing it with. :)

another tea from yesterday and a great counteract to the other two teas i had with me at work. I probably should have ordered more than 50g of this, but i wasn’t sure how quicly i’d get through 50g as i have a ton of teas in my cupboard. Apparently the closer i get to 100 the more i start to feel like i have no teas to choose from lol. I love the vanilla/caramel in this one. It’s just so smooth and creamy and makes me happy. So glad i tried this again and loved it :)

Final Count yesterday: still 139. :)

quick cup of this in between meetings – still delicious and amazing!

I picked this tea out in the morning to christen my new Timolino with! Keychange was awesome and sent me her old timolino so now i a) finally have a timolino b) have an awesome purple timolino c) get to see if i am in love with timolino’s after all. It was a pretty good deal in my books since i got to spoil her a little in return for her awesome generosity! So i picked Nina’s Japon…mostly because i wanted an excuse to open that package LOL I have to say..need to drink from it a bit more but so far i am loving the timlino. I want to compare heat loss to my contigo’s since i didn’t pay attention today. Plus side of timolino? so much nicer to hold in my hands. upside to contigo’s? my finum brew baskets drop nicely in them. I suspect i’ll love them both for different needs and reasons in the end lol

Now to the other part of my day. TERRI sent me the BBB Box, along with the teas we picked up from awkward soul AND her box of tea (likely as payback for christmas box that i sent her in addition to the BBB box that came). Now… I was nearing 130 the other day. And then Keychange sent me some teas…which nearly put me to 140. I have a swap from shmiracles inbound, teas with cavocorax and kittenna…that could come any day… and now teas from VariaTEA are on their way.

You might be wondering HOW many teas terri sent me? 60. that’s right.. SIXTY TEAS! so now i have 2 weeks to get to 140… down from what i’m now sitting at – 197. I might as well go buy 3 teas just to be at an even 200. eep! that’s 57 teas in…17 days, ignoring any other teas that come in (which we know are GOING to come in…) that’s basically 3.5 sipdowns a day. Thankfully a number of terri’s teas are smaller samples…and anything that isn’t…well dexter and cavo…look out! bwahahahahahaha (and you teafairy…and pretty much anyone else who loves black teas and whose address i have ha!)

Sipdown! So i have to say, I tried this a while back and liked it a lot but then forgot about it because it’s a green tea and i don’t drink those often. VariaTEA sent a sample to me, which i opened up today in an effort to get ahead with my sipdowns since now i might not have the weekend at all for tea drinking!
…We’re driving to Detroit on Friday night, Chicago on Saturday, and then all the way back to Toronto on Sunday. Because we can. lol…

I love this even more than the first time. Something about the vanilla and caramel REALLY makes me happy. it’s deliciously creamy and wonderful and now i want more. So maaaaybe i can convince my friend to trek up to Miami in February heh :) Thanks variatea!

Sip down!

I am really enjoying this. I actually like this better than 52 teas marshmallow genmaicha, likely because of the increased caramel goodness in it. I actually think that I’d like to have a small quantity of this in my cupboard permanently. I think kittenna might be right though, in that the black tea doesn’t add much to the blend though.

Classic straight black tea! Naturally sweet and somewhat fruity. There is a tangy wine-like quality to it. I did not expect much from these fannings, but I was more than impressed. That is what I get for doubting Nina’s! Everything is top notch.

Thanks again for the samples, Laurent :)

I found this today! Such a sweet, natural, fruity tea that is light for a black tea.
Delicious!

YUM! Thanks Courtney for giving me a little of this gem. The caramel popcorny goodness is really hitting the spot this afternoon!

I got a little of this in the mail yesterday from Courtney, so I steeped up a big travel mug to bring with me to work today! Yum so caramelley! I’m glad to have a little bit more of this one to drink :)

This tea smells AMAZING. I’m a big genmaicha fan. I’ve tried a few flavored genmaicha blends from 52Teas, including marshmallow treat and s’mores. I think I prefer this one from Nina’s! The addition of black tea seems to make the blend richer, and I love the toasty caramel flavor! This is the kind of tea I tend to prefer with a little sweetener. Do be careful not to over brew this one, I think I did and it is a tad bit astringent!

Thanks again for the samples, Laurent :)

Sample sipdown! This one must have been hiding in my desk at work for a LONG time!

I had a bunch of leftover Indian food for lunch and now I’ve got curry breath! Ack! I’m leaving work early to get my tattoo touched up so I need something minty and refreshing to fix me up. This is perfect! Super GREEN tasting between the mint and the gunpowder tea :)

Another sample tea from Nina’s! Yay, thanks Laurent :)

This is an extremely clean tasting spearmint gunpowder green. Just enough mint to be cooling and satisfying but not overwhelming. I’m not normally a big fan of spearmint (I tend to prefer peppermint) but this tastes so clean and natural. The spearmint is really good in it! This is perfect after the spicy Indian food I had for lunch. I imagine it would be wonderful iced, too. I didn’t add sugar or anything but this tea tastes nice and sweet. It re-steeped really well too, and was even sweeter the 2nd time around!

Thank you Laurent for sending me samples to try!

This is a SOLID earl grey if you are looking for a good one. The black base is bold, but smooth and not astringent. The bergamot is adequately citrusy but not bitter. I am drinking it straight but I imagine it would take cream and sugar very well. Another well balanced blend from Nina’s!

Sipdown! 831.

Well… I can taste the muscatel here, and it’s a fairly light black… but eh. I’m not particularly fond of it. I did like the very light moonlight darjeeling I had from Butiki, but I don’t think that darjeelings would fall into the category of teas I like to drink. Just not a flavour profile I care for.

There’s only a bit of astringency, which at least makes this pleasant to drink. I’m sure a darjeeling fan would enjoy this far more than I!

My last sample from Nina’s that I’ve had a while! This seems like it has a ton of fruit flavors in it… just because it isn’t technically tasting like any fruit really. If it really doesn’t taste like any fruit, it could be any of them, right? The steeped tea has a fragrance most resembling raspberries and a hint of strawberries. I think I steeped too long because the base is a bit overpowering…especially over the fruit flavors. It’s a bit astringent and strong after five minutes. The second steep was for three minutes and was a bit better. Not bad but I think I liked the other teas from Nina’s a bit better, even if it was the same black tea base.

Sipdown, 835.

Hrm. Strong rooibos smell upon brewing, and it’s pretty strong in the flavour too. I’m getting nothing really in the way of pineapple or coconut… I would have been more apt to guess that this was a raspberry-flavoured tea. Maybe there’s some creaminess from the coconut…? And maybe that tartness is pineapple, not raspberry? It’s difficult to tell.

Luckily, though this tastes unmistakably of rooibos, it’s not super medicinal, so it is palatable. But, it’s nothing I’d really want to drink again unless I was desperate. I’m getting a bit of the scratchy throat feeling from it, and that’s certainly a feeling I think I should avoid.

Sipdown, 842.

This is a verrrrry smoky example of a lapsang souchong. Definitely much like campfire/ash, more than smoked meat. However, with a 2-minute infusion it’s pretty smooth, which is good as sometimes the black teas can tend towards astringency. I don’t really think I’m in the mood for a straight smoky tea right now though, so I think I’ll dose it with some maple syrup and milk before drinking the rest. Mmm.

The smell of the dry tea had me a bit nervous because I didn’t really smell any bergamot. It smelled much more like Eve by Nina’s Paris.

The brewed tea smelled of delicious malty keemun. The tea taste like smooth malty keemun with a very light bergamot flavour. It tastes like a medium strength black tea. There is also an orange citrus flavour, and a slight natural sweetness to the tea. It tastes like there is a mild fruit flavour underneath the base of the tea.

The is not a bergamot-lovers Earl Grey, but it is a very smooth and delicate Earl Grey. Very delicious. I recommend to anyone unsure of Earl Grey as the bergamot is not too scary.