sTEAp Shoppe

Sil most awesomely sent this my way after some undignified begging on my part, haha. I wanted to make sure an order would be worth my while.

I should have known that you guys would not lead me astray. The dry leaf smells kind of cinnamon/raisiny, but I usually have a hard time gauging dry leaf smell from a swap since it’s in with so many other teas.

Steeped though, this liquor smells mostly like cinnamon rolls. WOW. How can it smell like bread?! The taste is just as accurate, and punched up with a bit of milk and sugar it is full on cinnamon roll with icing.

I only had one steep of this this morning before leaving for jury duty but I am definitely planning on revisiting this later tonight.

Time to put together an order for sTEAp shoppe, it seems…

Tea #8 from Another TTB
Wow, the honey really comes through from the gold buds. At first sight and smell I was not sur about this one, but since I love cinnamon swirl bread from sTEAp shoppe I thought, what the heck! And boy am I glad I tried it. Who would have ever guessed that many different teas and ingredients would steep into such a great cup! This would be a perfect breakfast tea! The sweet from the honey, the cinnamon notes, the cocoa definitely comes through in taste as well as smell! I do get tiny notes of some fruit flavors but I don’t know what exactly! I’m glad I went for it and tried this. Even though I so badly want to keep the last teaspoon for myself, I will let it go oj its way with the box.

Hmmm, not sure I’m getting chocolate from this, but it’s not dirty tootsie roll either, so I’m happy. The fenugreek is definitely a potent note here (and the one I was least expecting), adding a very mildly bitter burnt sugar/molasses flavor. The hojicha comes through quite clearly as well, adding a roasty note that lingers. I think I’ll keep looking for the chocolate tea meant for me.

Thanks for the cup TastyBrew!

Sipdown!! (167)

Thank you QueenOfTarts for sharing this tea with me. I have wanted to try this since joining steepster as it is positively reviewed by all.The pu’erh in the first steep is slightly strong for my tastes but I think this tea improves with each additional resteep as the pu’erh mellows and the cinnamon bread goodness is able to shine through. I think it is a delicious cup but I don’t think I will be replacing it anytime soon as there are just so many other teas I reach for first. I am definitely going to enjoy this last little bit while it lasts though.

Today was the day I took my graduation photos which means that after showering I actually had to be slightly proactive in making myself look somewhat presentable (as in I had to do something to tame my wild hair that I usually just throw up into a ponytail and then put on some makeup). So, I dealt with my hair, put on the makeup, and got dressed in my nice, clean white collared shirt. Then I checked the time and realized I was ready 3 hours too early. That meant three hours of trying to make sure I didn’t flatten my hair, smudge my makeup, or get my clothes dirty (and I realize I could have changed but I am stubborn and for some reason was against doing that at the time). Basically that translates into me sitting in the middle of my bed stressing and avoiding leaning on anything, touching my face, moving too much, and no food or worse yet NO TEA :( Luckily that is done now.

As soon as the photos were done, I threw my hair up and headed straight home to pack up for my trip home for the weekend (My sister paid for me to go to Toronto to surprise my brother – I am his Hanukkah/ birthday gift). And if I didn’t know I was addicted to tea before, it became very clear I was when I spent more time trying to decide which teas to take back with me than I spent packing close. In fact, I think my tea takes up and equal, if not more, amount of space in my bag than my clothes. It was especially hard because I was trying to think of what teas I would want but also what teas I wanted to share with my family so in the bag is a little something for everyone.

In the midst of all my rushing to pack, I did manage to find some time to brew some of this tea as it was already waiting in my infuser to be resteeped. I did not get around to drinking any until I got onto the train though. So now I am sitting on the train super bored but enjoying having the time to sip away at 16 oz of Cinnamon Swirl Bread goodness. Honestly, I think I like the resteep better than my first cup. In the previous cup, though delicious, the pu’erh was a little too prominent for my tastes but in this cup it is just sweet cinnamon and baked goods with an awesome bread-y mouth feel. Very, very nice treat for the long train ride home. Thank you QueenOfTarts!

I was thinking about having this tomorrow morning because once again I thought it would be too late to have it. Then I realized I probably won’t get a chance tomorrow since I have a fairly busy day. And that is when I decided I was having this and nothing could stop me. So that is how I wound up drinking Pu’erh tea at 12:15.

In the package, it smelled amazing – like fresh baked cinnamon buns. However, when I rinsed the tea I got a huge whiff of pu’erh and the alarms went off. I began to worry that this would not taste like the delicious cinnamon bun I had been made to believe it tasted like. Luckily, that fear subsided as soon as the tea touched my lips. Immediately I got that sweet cinnamon bread-y goodness that I expected this tea to be. It is amazing! Now I know why everyone loves this. It is a cinnamon bun in a cup, with just a hint of frosting goodness.

Thank you QueenOfTarts for sharing this sample with me!!

So after the pleasant brioche experience, I decided to drink this next to be able to compare them side by side. This experiment is made possible by the wonderfully generous ifjuly.
This is totally different than brioche. This is sticky buns, with frosting. Super sweet, some caramelly depth (like the goo on the bottom of sticky buns), a bit of vanilla ish something that reminds me of the frosting. This one is more about the ooooy goooy goodness of sticky buns – brioche is more about the cinnamon yeasty bread goodness. I think the pu’erh in this one gives is more depths and a thicker mouth feel. I’m not sure which I prefer, I like them both for different reasons. For now I’m calling this a tie. Thanks ifjuly for sending me these samples – was fun to try them both. :))

From the Great Canadian TTB.

The packing suggested the first steep of this one would have chocolate notes, it also stated it would be good for 4-5 steeps.

On first taste I am getting a fruity type sweetness. Just generic fruit, nothing specific, almost just like a glucose taste. I am getting a slight yeast taste as well. And it is also making me think of nuts, kind of like the skin on peanuts. Maybe there is a grain taste in there, like unprocessed wheat. I am not getting any chocolate or cocoa notes. I am finding I am getting a metallic taste in my mouth. It is not a bad taste but certainly not expected. Every once in a while I get a kind of spice note, not necessarily pepper but there is something in there with a bit of a kick. The tastes in this one are quite complex.

I am at work so I am unsure how much I will re-steep. I am not much of a re-steeper anyway. But I am going to try at least one more steep.

Round 2. Re steeped for 3 minutes. The generic fruit glucose has morphed into more of a stone fruit taste. But there is less sweetness than I with the first steep. The liquor feels much more rich, thick, and creamier this steep. I feel like I am getting a cream of wheat type flavour profile. Overall this steep is much less complex in flavours, even though the liquor seems more rich. Still no chocolates notes. On my very first sip my brain went to orange chocolate, but I didn’t get that again on subsequent sipping.

Thank you so much Allie for being so stealth and checking my shopping list to send this extra in our swap. :D

I’ve been wanting to try this one for a little while, after I saw a few awesome reviews and someone mentioning the similarity to Brioche. Yum!

The scent was amazing dry and still pretty awesome steeped. There is an unfamiliar scent there which I can only assume is the pu’erh (which actually kind of smells like when you’ve just burned the bottom of still baking cinnamon buns). I’ve been wanting to explore pu’erhs but I’m a little wary after the disaster that was Aloha Pu’erh. Perhaps this will be a good way to break into that territory. This really does taste just like a cinnamon bun, with that little bit of burnt edge on the bottom. I am quite enjoying this one. Thanks Allie!

I’m trying my best to keep focused on school work and studying, but I still have little motivation at this point. Random rant: I have been writing APA style papers for a couple of years now and apparently my writing skills are sub-par for this particular professor. Every paper I have written for that class is marked down one point over tiny details that none of my professors in higher level courses ever marked me down for. I may have a heart attack if I get full points on one paper! Ah well, onto the tea!

I’ve had this tea in my cupboard for a while, but finally got around to trying it. The dry smell is so good! It’s spicy from the clove and has a lot of citrus notes. Kind of reminds me of an orange clove pomander! I used one teaspoon, which was plenty for this cup.

I seem to be in the minority, because I actually like this tea. That said, I think it could be improved upon. It is rather tart from the cranberries and hibiscus, but the clove is nicely lingering in the background. I am drinking this with sweetener, which helps cut down on the tartness. I wish the orange was more present, but is overpowered by the tartness. It’s not an everyday tea, but it will be nice when it’s colder outside. I think I need to play around with this more.

Ah well, back to the grindstone I go. I cannot wait for graduation! :-)

Wow! I am so beyond happy that Stephanie suggested this to me in our sTEAp Shoppe order. Dry this smelled just like a swirl milkshake or swirl icecream cone dipped in chocolate from fosters freeze or the local Toro café back home in Salinas. I was sooooooo excited to drink this after dinner last night that I didn’t even want to wait for It to cool a little. But I did. Impatiently. Wow. This does not dissappoint! Can anyone say, milkshake tea!! And I didn’t even add milk! I so wanted to do a second steepinhg of this as a latte but I fell asleep! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! I will have to do that tomorrow on my break from work! Yay! Ecstatic! wooo hoooo

In theory the flavor of this tea works. While I do not dislike this tea, I don’t particularly care for it either. It brewed a bit on the weak side for my liking. The taste is watered down orange with a bit of spice. This tea would be an improvement with more depth and body. I was happy to try it, but it’s not for me.

Oh my goooooooddddddness! Thank you so much to kimquat for sending me a sample of this! Man do you know how to make a sample AIRTIGHT! And such precise steeping directions.

So I’ve mastered getting tea with me to work! Yay. I get everything ready before bed the night before (water in the kettle, leaves in my aladain tumbler) in the morning I get ready and while I’m brushing my teeth I runnnnnnn down stairs and turn the kettle on. Run back upstairs and finish up. Out the door by 3.55 am and at work by 4:) ha ha i was quite happy with myself.

anyways….this tea!! I drank it ALL day yesterday. Steep after steep after steep. And to accompany it, I went to panera bread the night before a bought a few bagels for breakfast (french toast, cinnamon crunch, and pumpkin pie) I bought their hazelnut cream cheese to accompany them, so I had the french toast bagel with hazelnut cream along with this! Amazing! Blew my mind.

I have to admit, the first steeping scared the crap out of me. It was quite overwhelming, very astringent, very tooooooo strong for me, all I tasted was bread notes and astringency. :( luckily the many many many other steepings were out of this world. Perfection actually! Cinnamon swirl bread yummy goodness. It tastes exactly like a cinnamon roll without the frosting. Ohhh myyyyy gawdddd!

Ha ha this is literally the only tea I drank yesterday I’m not joking! Allllllll day until the moment I fell asleep:) the bread taste amazed me on how spot on it was. It amazes me how tea can bring out notes like bread! Like brioche in american tea rooms brioche. Tea just amazes me! End of story!

So I love apples, I’ll admit it… not only do I love apples, I love nearly anything maple. Of course, these are two things that I rarely have, due to the amount of sugar in both. I had high hopes for this tea due to the description and the ingredients: apples and maple sugar?? Sure, this tea contains some sugar, but not nearly enough to do any damage as drinking apple cider or using real maple syrup would.

Unfortunately I don’t feel this tea lives up to my expectations, though they may have been a little high. The tea in itself is on the weaker side. I taste apple, but no maple. Additionally I don’t taste any richness. I’m glad I purchased a sample to satisfy my curiosity, but I won’t be purchasing a full amount.

Had this last night but it was so late (early!) I forgot to log it and don’t remember the details, oops. Will have to give it another go…I do recall being pleased you could taste the lingonberry (love lingonberry preserves!); it’s not strong but it lingers at the end of the sip.

My dislike for this one is all me-based.

There is a certain threshold of cardamom (it’s not very high) in tea that literally triggers my gag reflex and makes me feel ill. It’s the reason I can’t drink much in the way of masala chai. This unfortunately passed that in spades.

Thanks anyway TastyBrew.

I love love LOVE orange oil so the smell of this was a winner for me, it’s very orange zesty with plenty of warm spices but the spices never overpower or eclipse the orange (a common problem with tea, I think). Smells great if you’re an orange-peel-in-baked-goods freak like me. I especially like the fenugreek; it makes it seem like a cold weather treat because of the faint maple smell. That said, I’m not getting much of a cake flavor or smell. A little as it cools and becomes sweeter smelling I guess. I like the smell more than the flavor, which, while there’s nothing wrong with it, feels more one-note straight up juicy slightly tart orange water than the aroma’s kitchen smells. Unlike with Caramel Apple, I don’t taste tea here at all.

I was nervous about trying this one because apple in tea and I usually don’t get along—it’s possibly my most loathed tea ingredient—but the reviews were so good, and I was crossing my fingers this would be more a sweet or even baked-type apple flavor due to the name instead of tart raw apple juice-ish apple. I made my husband a cup tonight so he could be the guinea pig and when he liked it I tried it too. It helped that it smells wonderful if not very caramel apple-y dry—the chocolate is quite present. You might think cacao nibs in a tea called Caramel Apple would be weird, but it’s yummy! I can’t really explain why/how it works (I will say I bet the intense cacao flavor goes together with the rich bold Assam like gangbusters), but it’s delicious both to smell and taste. As it’s cacao nibs it has that deep relatively unsweet chocolate profile I adore. It was easy to imagine a caramel apple tea turning out badly—astringent raw apple clashing against sharply sugary, possibly fake or plastic tasting caramel notes, say—but this is really good. The caramel comes across way less like standard sweet sticky candy than the little creamy toasty-flavored gourmet ones for adults, where it’s almost like browned butter, more rich than sweet. So as a whole this doesn’t taste like fresh juicy apple coated in toothachingly sweet caramel—maybe that’d be a disappointment if you have your heart set on its namesake, but I didn’t really, just wanted something comforting that felt appropriate for fall and this did. It’s rich and the flavor is deep and well blended between intense notes and creamy sweet ones. Yay to an apple tea I like!

Finished the dregs of this up today. It has pretty good caramel apple flavour. I do like it. However, there’s not much black tea in here at all. Makes it more of a late afternoon/evening tea.

I would consider adding it to an order, but they’re rather far down my list at this point.

additional notes: I will miss this! It was a special one. And a special tea shop I was never able to order from – only able to try a handful of teas through the kindness of others. Three solid steeps to send it off. It always seemed a bit more like maple than chocolate – or maybe it was a balance between both. I liked everything here – the base mixed with hojicha, the vanilla beans, however they did the chocolate/maple. I wish Steap Shoppe would sell teas again.
2021 sipdowns: 133

Another amazing blend from TastyBrew! Thank you! None of them have been duds for me so far. I love all of them! This one just seemed extra special. First, it’s a blend of black tea and hojicha. I love that idea. I’m not sure why there aren’t more blends with black and hojicha, since both of them can be boiled. There is also white tea here, but it doesn’t look like much, so I’m not sure how that would contribute to the flavor. I did have a lovely Della Terra white chocolate tea made with white tea the other day though. This one is certainly a dessert tea with chocolate and maple! The chocolate makes itself known, but the maple is even more prominent and I happen to love maple. I can see where the name “milk chocolate” comes from. All of these flavors combine to create a creamy chocolate flavor. The second steep has just as much maple flavor. I think this blend should have had maple in the name – not just chocolate. I love this one – very decadent! I drank this with way too many Halloween treats… caramel corn and a half moon cookie. I didn’t have soda today though… just more tea! I’ll gladly use not drinking soda as an excuse to drink more tea. I will savor the few teaspoons that remain. I haven’t seen this company before, but they have some nice looking teas on their site. I must try blending my own black tea/hojicha blends!

I know I’ve been rating most teas so high lately (most in the 80s-90s), but that is because they have all been so nice lately!

This one is a sipdown from one of my many tea trades with Sil. I went on a french vanilla coconut milk creamer frenzy today, after weeks of abstinence from that stuff, & I’m pleased to report that it was really good in this chai too!

Wasn’t crazy about the dry leaf smell on this one—potpourri which I shy away from, but with a smoky edge—but this is quite nice to drink. The smoke is definitely present but it melds really well with the other components, especially the chicory (I love chicory). It’s like fall in a cup—the smell of smoke and firewood and dry leaves crunching beneath your feet, with the rich warmth vanilla brings and maple from the fenugreek.

Thawed some chili (Clay’s Colossal Chili recipe, from the Spice House: http://www.thespicehouse.com/recipes/clays-colossal-chili-recipe not as “die and go to heaven knock your socks off” as Lisa Fain The Homesick Texan’s 7 Chile Chili but that takes aaaaaall day to make and every pan and gadget in your entire house…this one’s more classic American “Super Bowl Sunday” type chili, comfortably satisfying and nostalgia-inducing, but with a surprising depth of flavor) and was pleasantly surprised to find it was even better after being frozen, losing none of its depth (awesome on Las Delicias chips). Going to make Brown Betty with the sack of 20oz NYS apples my mom gifted me last weekend, yay (and Pandowdy later this week!). Trying to decide what to carve on my pumpkin. Smoothing out the details of my Krazy and Ignatz costume. Warming my hands by gripping my tea cup over and over. Come at me fall, I love you best of all and always have.