Steep City Teas

Another travel mug tea. I’m not sure why I have this rated so highly; I’m really quite ambivalent about it. Probably mostly because it’s a flavoured green. Not a bad tea, but not one I have any attachment to whatsoever.

I drank this tea on the weekend… part of the reason I am sure I’m “over” strawberry greens (and hence the quick sipdown on Della Terra’s Strawberries & Cream). It’s not bad, but the flavour bores me now. In the past couple weeks, this is probably the fourth strawberry green I’ve had, and… enough is enough, haha. A bit of this left from Sil, and it’s likely to be travel-mugged as this cup was, since I’m less picky when I have no options, haha.

So… somehow I ended up with the last 20g or so of this from Sil … It was just in one of the bags she gave me one time. Curious. :P

Anyhow, it’s a decent enough tea. Nice and fruity; more papaya than strawberry, but I like the fruitiness. Drank a travel mug’s worth plus a reinfusion over the weekend, and left the rest at the boy’s house since I think it will be a good choice while I’m over visiting.

Sipdown! Yum! I like this. I’m getting candy strawberry flavour, which I like, and it’s quite lovely. I could be convinced that there’s papaya in here too. The green base is pretty nondescript here, adding flavour in the background but nothing overly “green” – and no astringency!

Thanks for the sample, Sil!

ETA: Re-steep was pretty weak, even in half the water. Probably wouldn’t bother with it unless I was desperate.

Additional notes: Sample sipdown. It looks like I’m the only one who wrote a tasting note for this one. That is too bad! Steep City has some really nice teas. This is a great chai, but the ratio to tea to ingredients is much different than the picture shows. I haven’t had a chai in a while and I’m realizing that autumn chai season isn’t too far away. HOW?!?

thank you Steep City for sending the samples! I was dying to try some of your blends. I’m not sure why this one stood out as one I wanted to try, since there are so many unique teas. I guess I’ll always have a soft spot for chai, as it was the first tea I ever had. This one claims to be the spiciest chai, but I’m not sure if that is possible when mixed with black tea and orange peels. It seems like the spiciest chai would be the tea that only has spices. And my sample didn’t have as many spices as is shown in the picture. But if “spiciest” means the greatest variety of ingredients, then I cana agree with that. After a four minute steep, there is certainly a nice spiciness, but definitely not the spiciest. It has a nice flavor — brisk while the second steep (which I may have liked better) had a certain sweetness to it. The black tea are those tiny grainlike pieces that I see in many chai blends. I really should start adding milk to my chai. Certainly a decent chai, but it seems like I’m always on the hunt for the chai with that special something. I haven’t found my favorite yet, but this one would be high on the list. I really can’t wait to try Nutty Love from Steep City. I’m almost hesitant because I know I’ll love it so much I’ll want to place an order! Ah so much tea!

I’ve grown to love this one less than when i first picked it up. Which totally means suprise for kittenna! mwahahahahah it’s not bad, but it’s just not for me anymore.

Pulled this one out of my cupboard this evening because Steep City is having a summer sale and I hadn’t tried this one in a while. I still really need to try this as a cold brew i think, but that hasn’t happened yet. This will never be a favourite of mine given the green base, but it’s a decent enough tea. I likely won’t order it again but this isn’t a chore to drink at all.

So i figured that i should try another of my Steep City teas, since i had a disappointment with the Vanilla Sky. Id been sort of putting it off because i was a little afraid that I’d be stuck with another 2oz of something i didn’t like BUT today i made myself try one! haha

I’m glad i did :) While this isn’t my absolute favourite tea, i really think this will be nice in the summer. There is for sure a strawberry taste to it and i love the chunks of papaya? in it :) My other half says it smells and tastes like swedish fish. I’m not sure i agree but it is a sweet fruity tea :)

I got this as a surprise sample from Sil. Sil, you’re awesome!

I was excited to try this tea, mostly because I had to run out and do some errands. And I have a brand new travel mug for loose leaf tea to try. So I brewed it up and ran out the door.

I am not sure how to describe this tea. The dry tea smells like a sweet black tea. But the smell is very generic, and hard to describe. The taste of the brewed tea is very black tea prominent. There is a fruit sugar smell to it. I don’t get any taste, or any hint of vanilla. The vanilla may be there but it is masked by this generic fruit sugar taste. After drinking through my travel mug, it dawned on me that this tea tastes almost the same as one of my apricot teas, and that is the fruit sugar taste I am getting.

I have enough tea left for another time, I might decrease the water temp a bit and increase the steep time and see what happens.

Sipdown, 198. I cold brewed this one but I learned two things doing this: 1) it really does make a difference how much leaf you put in and 2) I use a lot of leaf for my cold brews.

I’m not sure it was because of the underleafing or what, but this one wasn’t great cold brewed. I suspect it was partly the underleafing (~1.5-2tsp for 13oz) because there wasn’t enough flavor in it to cover up a slight bitterness that may have been the hibiscus. Anyway, it was a learning experience. I had thought the glasses I was using for cold brewing were 16oz, but in the process of doing this I measured the water and found out that they are actually about 13oz. In the past I have used 2 TBSP of leaf for making cold brews in these glasses, thinking I was using 1 TBSP of leaf per 8oz water. Well I will have to try a few gradients and see what works best, but 2 tsp for 12oz (what I would use for regular brewing) is definitely not enough!

The third of my Steep City Samples. I actually was saving this one because there was a chance I would be moving to Miami (I had to make a decision by today) but it turns out I won’t. So I guess this is my almost-moved-to-Miami cup.

There is a lot of stuff in this tea but it seems like it should all go together. I have to admit I was a tad disturbed by the small, slightly granular shape of the black tea leaves in this one… nothing like the wiry leaves in Nutty Love.

Fortunately it all turned out fine. No bitterness or astringency, tart without being sour. This hibiscus seems better deployed to me than the Citrus Sunshine Oolong, as it isn’t taking over the cup here. This is very fruity; definitely mango but also a fair amount of berry and hibiscus flavor. The black tea base I could take or leave; it doesn’t do much for this blend, and it seems a bit “thin” overall. I plan to cold brew the rest of my sample of this one for sure.

Sip down! Uggg, I’m gonna miss this tea, but luckily I have quite a number of other good Steep City Teas teas.

This bag is on its last legs as the white tea doesn’t taste as fresh as it used to when I first got this tea. The lychee flavor is still delicious and juicy though. Highly recommended to try this tea!

Geeze, I’ve been so pooped today. I drank this tea with lunch, finished my blog review, then napped longer than I thought I was going to nap!

Now, after waking up from my nap, I think I’ll need another cup of bursting lychee before I cut off my caffeine for the day. Man, Steep City, not sure what it is, but all the teas I’ve tried are pretty tasty. I love the lychee flavor in this – it’s juicy and even milky like eating a real lychee.

Sweetened and iced, this tea tastes like lychee juice! Very good!

Full review on my blog, the oolong owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/bursting-lychee-from-steep-city-tea-tea-review/

Additional notes: Another sample sipdown! I really like this one. Probably my favorite blend that has the (barely noticeable) hibiscus in it. It enhances the flavor that is there. The black tea here is a perfect pairing too. The last time I drank this, there was a HUGE piece of mango in the infuser, and I really wish there was enough huge pieces of mango for each cup of tea. It still tasted like mango this time, just not as much. I think the actual blend is very accurate to the Steepster picture, but my sample had a bigger piece of mango. I’m still trying to justify a Steep City order!

Thanks so much Steep City for sending me some samples! Very appreciated! I love the packaging and logo of the samples. This one sounded amazing. With it being the first day of spring and still snowing, I think I’ll try this tea and hopefully be transported to somewhere tropical (spring weather-wise was so early last year!) There was a HUGE mango chunk that fell into my infuser, so they aren’t lying! After a three minute steep, the color is orange hued, almost like the mango itself. The black tea doesn’t overpower the flavors, and there is just enough hibiscus to make this taste perfect. I can always tolerate hibiscus if it is the perfect amount! It definitely tastes like mango, but how couldn’t it with that huge piece? The cup even maintains a bit of starchiness that a mango has. I really like this one! It’s nice if you want a bit of caffeine with a fruity flavor. The second steep is just as good. Very genuine and authentic mango. It’s juicy, refreshing, thirst quenching, and everything I was hoping this tea to be!

Sipdown, 188. I was originally planning that my sample of this would make me two cups (since my black tea sample did), but after scooping out the tea for this cup and looking at what was left I decided to make it one cup. There are a lot of big pieces of orange and hibiscus leaves in this that take up a fair amount of room, so I think tea-wise there are probably the right number of oolong leaves for this serving. Just to be safe I am steeping this for 2 minutes.

It immediately started smelling like citrus and ginger, and after it was done it was a deep pinkish-maroon color which I was honestly not expecting. I mean, it has hibiscus so I guess I should have, but it was still surprising. It smells fairly hibiscusy along with the citrus and ginger notes.

The flavor is interesting and not entirely what I was expecting. My cup was pretty hibiscusy and tart, but with a decent helping of citrus and a bit of spicy ginger. There was also something giving it a lingering sweetness (nice to counteract the tartness of the hibiscus) that might be the ginger. Unfortunately I couldn’t taste the oolong base at all in my cup. I see now that there is also supposed to be berries (cranberries, blueberries), but I didn’t really taste them as distinct either. I could see this as a refreshing herbal tea but this one it’s quite for me. Maybe if I plucked out the hibsicus leaves!

This tea is sooooo good.
Dry the tea smells very, very, did I mention very citrusy(lemon/Lime), but delicious.
Once steeped it seems like the citrus flavor mellows perfecty and you can really taste the sweetness of the berries and a perfect amount of tart/sour.
This tea smells amazing, looks amazing dry, and the tea liquor looks great once steeped. This is a tea I will have to order(when money will allow)!! Great tea, Great people…..thanks steep city for the sample!!!!

Sipdown, 190. Why yes, I am drinking the rest of my sample of this tea today. I was going to sipdown a different tea but then read my tasting note in which I said that I should cold brew the rest of it, so I stopped. This was actually the only thing left in my sipdown box with only one serving left in it, and I thought, what the heck, I really liked it, I’ll be happy to drink it again.

And that I am! This will likely be an eventual restock for me because it is really quite delicious. Nutty, honeyed, yum.

And just like that, my cupboard is back up to 195. A swap, some samples from Steep City, and there are more swaps on the way. Now it becomes how fast can I sip things down before the rest come so I can stay under 200.

The good reviews for Steep City’s teas, along with their unique blends, made me really curious about trying them out, but not quite enough to put in an order (I am trying to cut back, after all). But then David at Steep City offered a few free samples deep within a discussion thread, and I jumped on it. I was disappointed that they couldn’t ship any white tea samples (the packaging would apparently crush the tea) because I really wanted to try Coconut Grove, but I am pleased to get the samples that I did, this being one of them!

I like the look of these tea leaves, which are fairly long and wirely. No chopped up base here. The dry leaf smelled delicious, like candied almonds with a hint of floral rose. Steeped, it still smells mouth-wateringly like candied nuts, and I can totally see the baklava resemblance that Alphakitty noted. There is a sweetness here from the apple pieces, but they manage to not make the tea taste appley or fruity at all. No it’s just nutty, honeyed, pastry, and the barest hint of floral rose. Normally I might want more rose, but all these flavors blend so well together, this time I don’t. I can’t definitively make out any notes that are just coming from the base tea, but it works so well and is so integrated I am sure that it is adding to these pastry-like flavors. It’s full and rich and not just a boring background note, even if it isn’t completely distinct on its own. Impressive first showing from this company.

So…i drank this yesterday before my mouth decided it wanted to eat me from the inside out. This was one of the teas i’d really been looking forward to. I suppose i should have paid attention to the fact that Vanilla Sky might as well be monk’s blend. But i didn’t. So i was disappointed. So much so that i logged the tea and didn’t write anything until today. sigh I have 2 other teas to try from Steep City but i’m much less excited about it now. For all i know, i wasn’t paying attention to those teas either and they’ll have something icky i don’t like or be essentially other teas i’ve had before.

Sooo looks like other people get some tea. that makes me sad.

especially since i can’t have any tea today because i need to figure out what’s going on with my mouth/face….and i’m still waiting for the dorcot to get back to me on my high white blood cell count…and i didn’t sleep enough last night because of testing.

sigh I wish it was tomorrow.

Update: Okay, the more I drink this tea the more I like it. I think it’s earned a spot in my permanent tea collection.

That said, I REALLY want to cold brew this, but each time I try results are lackluster. (That goes for this AND every other tea I’ve tried cold brewing.) I can make a killer sun tea but the cold brewing method is eluding me. Grr. #firstworldproblems

This tea is really interesting – green tea, mint, berries, and citrus are a lot of flavors in one tea blend. Somehow they all come together smoothly, creating a truly refreshing cup of tea.

I’ve tried this both hot and iced, with no additions. Although it smells like it would make a great iced tea, I actually enjoy it most as a hot tea. The gunpowder green tea and mint flavors come through the strongest. Sweet and tangy notes of berries and citrus come through subtly toward the end of the sip and in the aftertaste. I’m going to try another steep tomorrow with some rock sugar. This is such a fun blend to experiment with!