Silk Road

I had to skip a few teas in my cupboard chronology that were herbals and/or at home, so that brings us to this sample from OMGsrsly. I looked at my past note and bumped by tea amount to 1.5tsp for 12oz fo water today.

I definitely like this ratio better (who would have thought I would like it stronger?). There’s no bitterness to this so I could possibly even go to my normal ratio (2tsp per 12oz); maybe I’ll try it next time. But in any case this is a pretty tasty cup of tea. I think it’s the (unknown) base tea that makes this tea so unique. It tastes like bergamot and vanilla, but it also has some interesting other elements. I think the bergamot and vanilla are a little more subtle in this cup than the last one… the extra leaf is bringing the base out. It’s not a highly flavored tea. The base has a maltiness, and something else I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s a good blend, and definitely a nice change up from a typical EGC.

I have OMGsrsly to thank for this sample, although at the leaf to water ratio that is recommended it is more than just a sample! I drink 12oz cups of tea at work, so I estimated about 0.75 tsp for my cup (recommended: 1 tsp for 16oz).

This is an interesting tea. It is decidedly not a typical Earl Grey Cream, although it contains those flavors. The flavors were fairly subtle in this one, and although I wouldn’t call the cup weak, I will probably try this with a bit more leaf before rating it. The bergamot had a sweetish, cookie-type quality (that probably only I actually associate with cookies, haha), which was accentuated by the vanilla. At the same time, the vanilla was pretty laid back and not overwhelmingly creamy. Very interesting tea! Glad I have enough of it to experiment with.

KatieK included this as an extra in the 12 days of Christmas swap. Thank you!

The flavors of this are so nice. The apple makes this tea naturally sweet and the cinnamon is light but makes the tea somewhat like apple cider. My first cup of this was a little weak. For my next try I will add a bit more leaf and maybe a touch of sugar. The 12 days of Christmas swap has allowed me to try a lot of teas I would have never picked out for myself. This is another one that I would have never picked on my own, but I am really really enjoying.

ahh I don’t remember who sent this because I pushed it aside from the other 12 days stuff: if someone could remind me that’d be awesome because I LOVE this.

Reading the description, I was thinking apple pie but it’s more like apple cider. In fact I think I am going to bring home steamed apple juice from work and add some to a stronger steeped cup of this…that sounds like it’d be fantastic.

I’m glad to have finally found a spiced apple tea that isn’t disgusting. While I have a ton of Mom’s Apple Pie, that one has more pastry notes to it than this one does plus I think the difference in a black base vs a green base makes this one more my style for a cider-y type.

Now to write a couple iced tea related notes and I am all caught up, haha.

Received this one from the amazing AshleyE as another Holiday card surprise. This is such an awesome community.

I love London Fog, this is a tea that had been on my radar for the next time I made an order. So I was super happy for this surprise.

The dry tea smells mostly like an earl grey crème. The brewed tea, while initially hot tasted fairly similar to a London fog. It was earl grey and milky and creamy. Not earl grey crème but like London Fog – which is different. The only thing that was missing was the thickness of the liquor you get from the steamed milk. But quickly after it started to cool it became more just an earl grey crème. And as it cooled further it started to become astringent.

Overall a good tea, a really interesting and well done idea. I am happy to have tried this one. Unfortunately, I think I still prefer my Starbucks London Fog – Oh, excuse me – my Starbucks earl grey latte :P

This is the last tea from my silk road order that I am trying. I guess my expectations for this tea were low as the reviews and ratings were quite low. This tea blew me away! The mango flavour was so fresh and natural as I find with all silk road teas, but it was quite muted. I could have used a little bit more flavour, but it was still really good! I took a few sips of this to make sure that adding milk was an option and that it wouldn’t curdle and it was even better with milk in it! Mmmmmmm creamy mango. I swear most things are better creamy!

sample sipdown (146) on this one even though omgsrsly sent me enough for at least another cup! the reason? I’m sending this along to terri to try as well since she appreciates a good oolong much more than i do. I can say, that i i quite like this one, though as with most oolongs, i’d be hard pressed to keep it in regular rotation in my cupboard. This one has a bit of a sweet note to it along with the roasty oolong taste that i prefer a bit more than the previous teavivre oolong i had today. It was nice to be able to drink them in close timing :) thanks omgsrsly!

I had high hopes for this tea, I think vanilla added to anything makes it better! I wish that the vanilla was more noticeable and that they added chocolate flavour rather than powder as it made the tea a little chalky. It reminded me quite a bit of David’s stormy night but better quality. I started out my tea journey loving spicy teas, mainly cinnamon, but now I find that I am getting bored of them. This tea is still good, but not re-stock good.

I am not a fan or orange flavour, but I do like mandarin so I thought I’d give this a shot. I find that mandarin is a lighter and fresher flavour than just plain orange. This to me didn’t really taste like mandarin, just a spicy orange tea. It was a good flavour, just not for me. I might have another cup of it, but this is definitely one for the tea box because I know someone else can enjoy it.

I had been waiting for winter to come along to I could order this seasonal tea. But this was quite awful. I don’t like peppermint alone, and it is much worse paired with hibiscus. Peppermint should never be sour! I wouldn’t recommend this tea unless you really love both of those ingredients.

Spiced apple tea doesn’t thrill me. They are so common and I have tried so many, but this being Silk Road and also a new holiday blend, I figured I had to try it.

The most prominent flavour is the cinnamon, but the apple is also very noticeable. I am not getting any vanilla notes, but I usually can’t detect vanilla unless it’s on its own or maybe with one other flavour. The flavour of this tea is a very natural apple pie flavour, like home made apple pie as opposed to store bought. This tea is really well done, but it’s not a flavour I need to have stocked. If I did need to have an apple spiced tea on hand, this tea would be it.

This tea smells so good! The dry leaf smells of a very fresh peach. I found that this did not translate to the flavour of the tea. The peach flavour was very muted, so much so that I can’t attest to it, all I can say is there is a hint of peach. I found that the Ceylon base was also muted, unlike other reviews of this tea. That might be because of different steeping times and strengths. Silk road has some crazy steeping instructions – for all of their teas, they recommend 1 tsp of tea per 2 cups (16 oz) of water. I don’t think I have ever followed those parameters as I do not like weak tea. You kind of have to guess how much tea to use, so I must not have used enough. Still, this tea did taste good and as it cooled, I could detect the peach notes more with every sip. I look forward to experimenting with this tea a little more.

The roommate and I mixed this into our vanilla ice cream tonight. So good. This batch is grassy-sweet, and almost buttery.

I made quite a large silk road order recently and this is the first tea from that order that I tried. I was excited about the berries in this blend as Silk Road doesn’t have any other berry blends.

I found that this tasted a lot like David’s superberry but without the chalkiness. I couldn’t really pick out any particular berries, it kind of tasted like berry flavoured chewable vitamins. Not a bad tasting tea, but I was definitely disappointed. Maybe there is just too many berry flavours in here, it probably would have been better with just two or three flavours. I will definitely give this another chance, but so far, this is headed for the travelling tea box.

From the Great Canadian TTB.

This one is creamy/milky, smooth green tea. There are subtle cherry notes. Not quite what I would consider sour cherry but also not overly sweet. Not the Sakura Cherry taste that I am used to. Reminds me of cherry flavoured ice cream or a cherry cheesecake. Quite good in my opinion.

sipdown! So i enjoyed this one a lot while it was in my cupboard, but i’m not sure it’s worthy of a re-order. I know there is a vanilla tea out there for me that deserves a permanent place in my cupboard. This one, it’s good but i don’t think it’s good ENOUGH.

Made a latte out of this one this morning with a small teaspoon of Red Leaf’s Irish cream added to it. oh man…so good. Looking forward to trying the irish cream on it’s own as it added just the right something, something to this today haha

I had this in latte form earlier tonight. I’ve got a long night ahead of me and i’m already crashing. Testing for work tonight, and amazingly enough they’re ahead of schedule…but that means less sleep ironically enough since the schedule before they were ahead gave me a bit more sleep time. I have a funny feeling the next few days are going to be filled with cranky tired Sil. But this cup of tea helped! Hard to believe i’m almost out of this one though heh. At least i’ve got another vanilla black in my cupboard to move on to after this one :)

Latte of this one has been great to sip on while watching fringe and enjoying our pulled pork that has been slow cooking all day. Mmmmmmmmmm so good!