Steepologie

Teabag from a TTB! The flavor is a little mild, but I taste a light black tea along with some herbaceousness. I don’t taste juniper specifically. It’s not a bad combo, it just doesn’t stand out as much as I would have liked.

TTB tea! Even though this tea says it’s sweet, it’s not at all. It’s quite savory, and it tastes mostly like Greek mountain herb, as you might expect. It has a ton of other ingredients in there, and I can taste that it’s not straight Greek mountain tea, but nothing else is distinct, basically just watered down.

This was from 2022 advent calendar of Steepologie. I’ve had this tea yesterday and today and i love it. The name never attracted me, but since I’m going through my tea samples as a homemade advent calendar i finally got around to trying it, I’m so glad they still have it in stock because I’m a big fan of red berry teas. The global tastes so natural and the berries really comes through. I’ve had it plain and as a latte and it works both ways, I love it.

It kind of taste like a cinnabun? but not 100%. Its very light flavored, as well as a very light black tea. It was okay.

When I first open the package the smell of roses comes through, lightly as if I was walking around a rose garden, the fragrance is very pleasant to me. After steeping it for 4 minutes I find it best plain, for the light aroma and flavor of rose might get overpowered by any sweetener and milk. This is a tea I like to drink at the beginning of the day because its a very gentle start.

Currently Im in a black rose tea phase for the rising. Its a very decadent rose smell that comes through when I open the bag, after steeping it for 4 minutes the aroma and taste become a lot more mellow. I enjoy this as is, I usually like it with a splash of cream and a bit of honey but this tea is good on it’s own. I really find it most enjoyable at the beginning of the day as my first cup.

The smoke almost completely overwhelms the other flavors of chai. They’re still there, which is good, but this is a bit like drinking chai while the campfire blows smoke in your face – you lose something in the process.

I’m finishing the mug, so it’s not bad, but I’m not ordering it again, so it’s not my cuppa. No rating, because it’s not one I’m going to be drinking again.

In the bag, this smells like so much coconut goodness.

Once actually brewed, the tea tastes and smells…like oolong. There is a trailing aftertaste of coconut there, so it’s not completely gone, but it is not the coconutty-goodness that I am still searching for. Oh well.

The quest continues…

Hm. I love vanilla. I love black tea. This one…doesn’t do it for me.

I can smell the vanilla. I can taste the tea. But they are just sort of “there” and not doing anything in particular together. It probably doesn’t help that the tea tastes like garden-variety blended tea – I suspect it’s made of a bunch of different teas all melded together, and I’ve developed a sufficiently discerning palate regarding “tea” that it now just tastes like nothing in particular. It’s generic.

It was not helped by the fact that I had to brew twice as many leaves to get my usual strength.

This is why I like to buy samples. It means I’m not too sorry when I find one I don’t go for.

Final verdict: meh. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing to strongly recommend it either.

Ah, spring, when a woman’s fancy turns to “it’s been almost three months since I finished my advent calendar of teas and I want to try new ones” again.

Since Steepologie figured out how to make sample packets again (they had some problems where their sample packeting machine broke, and so they delisted all their samples for a couple of months) I figured I’d better jump on the wagon and try all their teas before the machine got broken again by all the orders coming in. I trawled through their site, looking at all the blacks, oolongs, and greens I could find – because that’s what I drink. Rooibus? Not a chance.

…except.

I love Mexican Hot Chocolate. A lot. It’s a fondness I developed when I was a tweenager, and it’s never gone away. And when I was in their store the first time, I was very sad I couldn’t get a sample of their tea, because it’s a rooibus and I was NOT going to get a full tin of a tea I was sure I was going to be disappointed by.

And the sample-generating machine was fixed.

And I had a coupon code from my advent calendar.

So I got it. And what do you know, it actually does taste like Mexican Hot Chocolate, and it does NOT taste like rooibus-trying-to-pretend-it’s-actually-camellia sinensis! WOW. It’s actually good! Apparently, given the fact that I also liked Fire Nation (and once upon a time, I liked RoT’s Rooibus Masala Chai, before I got tired of teabags) the answer to my problem with rooibus is “cover it over with so many spices that you can’t taste it anymore. Ideally, chili peppers.”

This tea definitely has a kick to it. (I like chili pepper. I don’t get it nearly as often as I used to because my kids have undertraumatized taste buds.) It also has a strong chocolate nose. I’m sure that the chicory is helping there, but that’s probably the fact that they added chocolate extract to the whole shebang. What it does not have – and I’m pleased by this – is actual chocolate; cleaning actual melted chocolate skum out of the inside of my teapot is one of my least favorite things, no matter how tasty the tea.

This is one I may have to get more of. I have too few naturally decaf teas in my inventory, and since I try very hard not to drink any caffeine after six (messed up sleep is not my friend) having another one in my arsenal is definitely welcome. I don’t even feel the need to mix this one with a decaf black – it’s fine as it is. Score!

I bought a .5 oz sample of this blend. First time trying it, and all I have to say is that hands down this taste like a authentic tiramisu. All of the ingredients are natural real ingredients. Who ever created this blend is a genius! I love it, Im not a sweet person but I can definitely have sweets in a tea form if they taste like this

I love the floral notes and the fragrance of jasmine was just right for me. This black tea was a light black which was elevated with the jasmine blossoms. I added some half and half and a 1/2 of panela sugar. I bought a .5 oz pouch, i would buy this again and will probably put it down on the teas to get in the future. I have always been a fan of jasmine tea, so maybe this is a bit biased.

Woke up to a couple feet of snow today. Husband plowing the driveway and throat coat tea felt appropriate. The flavors that come out the most are the eucalyptus, fennel and licorice, the citrus was a subtle here, couldn’t really make out the cinnamon at all. I use this tea more as a preventative medicinal tea, to keep our immune system strong. This is one of first blends im consuming for health purposes, as i expand my field of health teas and try others ill say its good but im sure there are more potent blends out there

I got a sample size of this, I actually really like it. It’s really smooth, I enjoy it as is. The taste of cardamom peaks out as well as the cinnamon. I would buy it again but I would not put it on my priority must have list.

First off, it smells like a gingerbread cookie. There is this caramel and smooth ginger small that is coming out before steeping. Once steeped, the ginger flavors comes in stronger and the cinnamon also becomes more pronounced. This is a good blend for the holidays, I shared it with friends as we paired it with some cookies during tea time. I would probably order more of this, because I love ginger in tea, and this feels like it would be great as a tea latte.

This was a light floral/fruity tea, It was really nice for evening time after dinner. I will enjoy what I have left but I will not buy it again, it was a good experience but not enough to make me want to buy more. For those that like bergamot and white tea I would recommend it to at least try it.

Note: has no mint, not sure why they put mint in the name of the tea

Its very light flavored earl grey blend. The floral notes are very faint. This would probably be better 2 tsp per 8 oz cup. I did 1 1/2 and it was still faint. Steeped it for 5 minutes. It was okay would not buy again

I opened the bag and it smelled like peeling an orange. Which was fantastic. I love oranges. I brewed the tea and it smelled like…tea and an orange? I drank it, and I tasted…oolong. With maybe a hint of orange.

And then I burped and it was all oranges.

I am very confused as to how this tea hides all the orange taste while it’s in my mouth, and produces it in such copious quantities when it is anywhere other than my mouth. But there is no doubt that there are oranges in there, because I could smell them, and I could taste them – after I’d drunk the tea.

I’ll drink my way through this sample, and be confused by it, but I don’t think I’ll order this one again.

I tried this tea, and went, “What am I tasting?” in a sort of confused delight. I’ve now drunk it twice, and I am really enjoying it. The pollen in it gives the honey flavor a robustness that I don’t usually get when I add honey to my tea, and a floral overtone that is pleasant in an unexpected way.

I was not expecting to enjoy this tea nearly as much as I am – I got it because it was on deep discount and I thought it looked interesting; as it is, this one may need to go into regular rotation, which is kind of a problem because my tea cabinet is currently full. Oops! :sweatdrop-grin:

It tastes like summer to me, and in the midst of a ten day span with only one day of blue sky, I really needed that. I will enjoy my 2 ounces, and buy more.

This is one of the ones from the Steepologie advent calendar that I didn’t get to during Advent. I figured having it for New Year’s Day was appropriate.

The apple is very strong in the nose; when I opened the tea, I could briefly smell fig, but then it was overwhelmed by the apple. Similarly, when poured into the mug, the smell of the apple was much stronger than the fig.

However – happily! – when brewed, the fig comes through in the taste.

Totally acceptable tea. Not one I need to seek out, but happy to drink it.

The last tea in the Advent Calendar from Steepologie (though there’s a few I missed/haven’t done yet because hahahah holiday season is frantic) is their Masala Chai tea.

I love masala chais; spice has been my thing since I was a kid, and discovering that there was an entire class of teas that were spiced made me very happy as a young adult. This one is just fine – heavier on the cardamom than I usually go for, but quite tasty on a chilly morning. The ginger is also quite distinct.

I won’t seek this one out for a refill, but that’s mostly because I adore Steepologie’s Majesty’s Chai, which started off the advent calendar. Nothing has yet dethroned that one as my favorite masala chai.

A particularly nice thing about this particular tea, however, is that the aftertaste in my mouth when the tea is gone is quite pleasant. Zingy, and with lingering ginger. :-)

Normally, when I add a tea to the database, I like to link back to the website where I can order it. This tea, which came in my Advent of Tea from Steepologie, appears to have been discontinued between when they shipped the advent calendar and now, which I am bemused by, and which also is a bit of a shame because I liked this one.

This tea tastes like a be-tea’d version of my spiced peach cobbler. I don’t make cobbler in the winter (I can do it with canned peaches, but it’s not as good) so getting a tea that reminds me of summer on the second day of winter was a delightful surprise. It’s not as strong as my cobbler (unsurprising, really) but given that it has no sugar and no actual peaches, that’s OK.

As it’s been cooling while I write this, the flavor has been getting stronger, too – apparently, this is one that needs to sit a bit in the mug after it’s poured.

Oh well. Can’t buy this one, but I do recommend it.

This tea tastes really strange. It smells fabulous, although slightly soapy (?) – like one of those really fancy soaps you can sometimes find in spas or something – and looks lovely, but it tastes WEIRD.

I can absolutely smell the apples in it, and the plums. It does not have the overpowering currant flavor of a black currant tea, so if the currants are there, it’s subtle. There is no taste of saffron at all, which isn’t surprising, as although the name says saffron, there’s only safflower – not the same thing. This smells like something I’d want to render down into a sauce and pour over a roast pork loin, and I rather strongly suspect it would go fabulously.

What it tastes like is very difficult to describe. The apple is fairly pronounced, moreso than the plum. The celery is also fairly obvious – more than I would want, honestly. I can’t pick out the quinoa either, but I don’t doubt that it and the celery together are what’s making this tea taste very peculiar to me.

The celery is jumping out at me in the aftertaste, and not in a great way either.

I…have no idea whether to recommend this tea. It’s certainly something that I’m sure somebody would like. I’m definitely not that somebody, however. I don’t think I’m going to finish this mug.