Steep City Teas

I am loving having done a mystery swap with Moraiwe! I’m getting to try teas from many companies that are new to me, this tea being one. If you get a chance to do a mystery swap with someone, I’d recommend it. It is a great way to try things that you may not have picked yourself.

This tea smells like raisins when dry! I think it tastes a little like them too. I’m definitely getting nuts in this tea. I can pick out walnuts more than almonds, but most of what I can taste is raisins. It reminds me of that really rich dessert wine, almost like a light port. It’s nice. I’m looking forward to my next cup of this.

A blend from BrewTEAlly Sweet’s sale! thanks so much! I’ve really liked some of Steep City’s teas! This one isn’t my favorite though. It isn’t terrible, but the odd lychee flavor tastes weird when I don’t really have anything to compare it to (and the picture of the lychee on Steep City’s site is also Weird with a capital dub). But I love the addition of the fruit pieces (pineapple) – it did actually add a genuine pineapple flavor that wasn’t completely overshadowed by the weird lychee (I’m at least accustomed to pineapple). Not really berry like the description mentions. The white tea base is nice too. I won’t give up on Steep City, but this one just isn’t for me.

What a pretty tea! The dark leaf is accented with colorful blue mallow, cornflower and safflower. Pieces of orange rind, yellow-green lemongrass and small shreds of eucalyptus appear throughout. It looks like confetti exploded in the leaf.

This brews up into a vibrant cup of celebration! Aside from the tea itself, lemongrass and orange are the dominating flavors. The eucalyptus and safflower pair to create an herby flavor with a tingly finish. The base is a little brothier than a lot of base for flavored teas, with a little bit of earthyness. It seems to keep the whole cup cohesive, and with so many flavors going on it’s impressive it does the job so well.

As a fun blend with different sights and flavors, this totally lives up to it’s Carnival moniker.

Zomg, so busy right now with last minute christmas shopping and entertaining out of town guests, with more pouring in soon.

I was able to squeak out a review of Citrus Sunshine Oolong, yay!
Check it out on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/citrus-sunshine-oolong-steep-city-teas-oolong-owl-tea-review/

It was really nice to finally have some of this oolong blend, since I bougth it awhile back and didn’t open it until now. I quite like this one, the citrus is really nice, it’s not too tart and the ginger, though doesn’t have a ginger taste, adds some warmth to this tea. Only con is this tea doesn’t resteep that well since most of the flavor is from the fruity chunks.

This was another tea included in BrewTEAlly Sweet sale box.

I don’t really have too much to say about this other than. OMG is it good. Warm chocolaty comforting. Perfect on this cold evening.
(Not allowed to buy any more teas, but will keep eyes open for a swap opportunity to get more…)

So I was looking for a black to drink this afternoon. I was digging for a tin in the back, and this tin fell off the shelf. I figured I should just drink this one.

Yum, love the sweet honey maple flavor with nuts. Perfect afternoon pick me up! My review from awhile back http://oolongowl.com/nutty-love-black-tea-steep-city-teas-oolong-owl-tea-review/

I decided to start my morning with this black blend. Mmmm, deliciously maple brown sugar syrup notes finishing off with walnut and almond flavor! A very delicious sweet tea for breakfast when you have a sweet tooth, which is me, all the time. I’m still thinking about how I wanted an extra round of ice cream last night!

If you missed my blog review on it, here it is http://oolongowl.com/nutty-love-black-tea-steep-city-teas-oolong-owl-tea-review/ + enemy crab

It is interesting to watch “cold” weather and rain grind my city (Long Beach California) to a halt, especially since I’m from Vancouver Canada, which is technically a rainforest and rains all the time. Yesterday’s busy plans got all messed up as one event I went to barely anyone attended due to rain. Another thing cancelled as it was raining and outdoors. Then other plans cancelled. Here’s to today being better, it’s “cold” 14c (LOL) but not raining at least.

Nutty love for breakfast with an english muffin sandwich! Mmmm, love this tea, it came out caramelly nice and nutty today. Yum, a great start to a “cold” day! See previous notes or my blog post for a full review http://oolongowl.com/nutty-love-black-tea-steep-city-teas-oolong-owl-tea-review/

Whoa, I am surprised how good this tea is! I bought it mostly for “yay nutty tea!” + “yay Steep City tea has good tea”

This blend is very fragrant desserty black tea with lots of walnuts and almonds that smells like nut bark candy.
Steeped up, whoa, Nutty Love indeed! This tea has a great malty black tea base, loaded with brown sugar, syrup and honey sweetness, nuttyness with a hint of rose. This tea tastes like baklava, without all the stickyness (or over the top sweet).

Very delicious! I went back and steeped up a second cup!

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/nutty-love-black-tea-steep-city-teas-oolong-owl-tea-review/
It’s Black Tea Week at Oolong Owl!

I think the first time I drank this, I didn’t much care for it. This time I dosed it, rather heavily, with Maple Syrup, & it was actually pretty tasty! Thanks to Sil for this one (from awhile back), & it’s sipdown # 54, so now my official te acount is:
DUN da da DAAA!
“drum roll please”
362!

Sil sent me a sample of this.
I don’t really care for it.
NEXT!

Very candy-like. The flavours are extremely sweet.

It’s ok, I suppose, but I’m more excited about other teas in my cupboard.

Thanks, Sil. :)

This is a pretty decent tea. I made it hot first and it was all right (I can definitely taste the fun fruits; I’m not good at telling mango and papaya apart in tea form, but I can definitely tell one or both of them was there!). I made the rest of my sample iced with a bit of rock sugar, and it was also good. Good, but not great. It wasn’t very strong and I steeped the tea for a while, so perhaps these fruits just don’t have as potent a flavor when made into tea as other fruits.

(Sample from silentrequiem. Thanks!)

This is a fun chai for me this morning. I like the intensity of the spices, but there is almost too much going on here for me. It’s pleasant with a bit of honey! Glad to try it but not something I’d purchase on my own. Thanks BrewTEAlly Sweet! :D

Silentrequiem gave me a sample of this (Thanks!) and noted that it was a little weak, so I steeped this for quite a while (10-11 minutes) and added a bit of rock sugar. What an interesting flavor… It does smell and taste like autumn, but there is no apple flavor (from the name, I would have expected apple pieces in it). The orange flavor is strong and the taste isn’t bad (although it smells better than it tastes). I feel like this could taste better if blended with something… Maybe something with apples? :) It did taste a bit syrupy, but that may have been from my steeping it for so long.

This isn’t anything special. It smells lovely but the taste is pretty bland. Even a bit of sugar didn’t bring out the flavors in this rooibos tea. I will finish the batch but won’t be reordering this one.

This mornings tea + honey.

Sweet, chocolately, berry like and tasty. Bottom of the cup is very chocolately!

OMG, so tired! I think I’m just going to knit the day away and drink tea.

YUM! This tea reminds me of those fruit and nut Cadbury chocolate bars without the nuts. The pairing of chocolate and fruityness is tasty!

This tea is quite creamy and milk chocolately throughout most of the sip. Steep City put a generous amount of chocolate chips in this blend! End of sip you get some honey like berry flavors. With sweetener, I can pick up the berry flavor has raspberry in it.

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2013/09/16/choco-honeyberry-tea-steep-city-teas-oolong-owl-tea-review/

This is a really nice iced tea.

2:1 ratio of tea to sugar.
8 tsps of tea; 4 tsps of rock sugar in my 32 oz Mist Iced Tea Jug from DAVIDsTEA.

It’s not overly sweet and the fruits all blend together. If I concentrate, I can tease apart the different flavors (mango, papaya, and citrus) but they work really well. Papaya is definitely the strongest and easiest to detect flavor but the mango and citrus are definitely there.

Refreshing. I don’t think I’d like this hot very much, but iced, it is definitely a winner.

Sipdown! I managed to blast through this package of tea mostly for iced teas.

Had a long shopping trip, mostly to Sephora to pick up my free birthday gift (super early) and a new dress for the cruise I’m going on in a few weeks. So tired out as I was walking and shopping for 5 hours. Mall music is.. terrible. Happy they played some kpop though http://youtu.be/I8ekpLae-64

Once I got home, I needed tea ASAP. I almost got tea at Starbucks and resisted as I have so much tea at home. Yum, Orange Glam is great iced, I used a mix of honey and light agave (as I ran out of honey lol). Very nice orange flavor! Now that I’m done this, I should really crack open another Steep City tea, maybe that citrus oolong.

(see previous notes for review or Oolong Owl blog review http://oolongowl.com/orange-glam-from-steep-city-teas-tea-review/ )

My husband bought an insane bbq recently – its some giant cast iron thing that uses charcoal, can smoke meat and has a trailer hitch, all weight like 150lbs. oh, and two bottle openers on it (apparently that’s important feature, I dunno).

We gave it a test run today with pork ribs, smoked away for like 5 hours. Turned out pretty good, though I liked my quinoa salad more! With it, I had some iced orange glam tea! Love this tea iced, has a nice orange flavor and super refreshing.

(see previous notes for review)

Gahhh so hot outside! It has been pretty tolerable weather here in Long Beach – lots of nice breezes so the sun doesn’t feel so hot. However today and yesterday were kind of awful and hot. Waiting outside for the bus to go out to the DMV sucked! Ugggg. I really want some pu’er, but I cannot survive something with boiling water and a zillion infusions. With that said, I made a good green tea blend that could be iced.

Good stuff! Orange glam is a solid orange green tea – nice fresh green tea base with the orange tasting a mix of natural orange and candy like tang.
The tea has no bitterness or tart!

I can’t decide whether I like this tea hot or iced – both were good, however I much preferred it sweetened to bring out the orange flavor more. Though, iced really hit the spot today with this sticky weather.

Full review at my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2013/08/27/orange-glam-from-steep-city-teas-tea-review/

Back from my Hawaiian cruise!
The only things I missed from home was my bunny and my tea stash, though seeing my tea stash today was overwhelming, man I have a lot of tea. Oh and I missed my variable temp kettle.
So, mint tea on the ship sucked – the one they had had hibiscus in it for some random reason giving the tea a gross grey colour. Time for some better mint tea! Love the berry, smokey gunpowder green and fresh peppermint flavor. I shoulda brought this tea with me, I didn’t bring many greens.

oh man, I gained so much weight on this cruise and it will be difficult not eating 4 meals of day, 3 of them with a dessert. Back to unpacking and chipping away at emails.