Steeps Tea Lounge

Ugh, this one isn’t even listed on the document they have provided on their Facebook page, and I’m not even sure if they had a description of it on the poster in the store, as I recall that the sample vial had the name hand-written on it, indicating that it’s newer or at least not regularly offered. Next time I go back, I’ll check and if there’s any info, I’ll edit the information.

I ordered this last time I was there, and it was a miss. I don’t even know what was in here, but I do recall getting mostly clove, followed by cinnamon. Maybe a touch of nutmeg in the far background? Because of their stupid French press system which I’ve whined about in the past, it gets rather bitter while you’re drinking it there. The second round was rather flavourless already. Both the base and the spices were rather weak. I asked for some 2% milk on the side, and all that did was drown out the little flavour that there was even more.

Actually, to be honest, drinking tea in store is a bit of a ripoff. A small French press of tea ends up costing nearly $5. Sure you get free water refills, but it’s still expensive for what you get. Even if you drink 2-3 pots worth, their French press setup means that your first pot is usually astringent and bitter—and the flavouring is drowned out as a result—whereas the subsequent pots are weak. Sigh. I’d honestly rather just spent that money on a brilliant chai at Remedy, or for a couple bucks less, could get a cup of loose tea at Remedy, where they have a great selection of teas like Sloane, Løv, Den’s, Kusmi, etc (far too many to remember!).

Unfortunately, one of my friends only ever wants to hang out here, and when I suggested Remedy (or something else, because of course I wouldn’t expect people to want to only ever go there either, lest that would make me a hypocrite), she said she didn’t like it because it’s always so busy and noisier than Steeps. She also only ever orders the same tea from Steeps all over and over again, and is there so often (almost every single day, according to an employee) that they already know as soon as she walks in, which tea she wants. I mean, that’s her choice and all, we all have different tastes, but it’s making me spend money on tea that not even that great, you know?

I mean, for the price that they charge for bitter leaves, I’d sooner just spend an extra few dollars and buy a tin of whatever tea that I can steep at home properly and also get 20+ more cups.

I had this a while back when I was hanging out at Steeps with a friend. The dry leaf smells very heavy on the caramel. So sweet!

The main problem I have with drinking tea at Steeps, however, is the fact that they steep/serve it in french presses. They were out of their smaller sizes so the employee offered to serve it to me in one of their larger pots but still charge me for a small one. He even added quite a bit of leaf, the same amount one would use when ordering a large pot it seemed, to it was a great deal. He still seemed to overleaf, however. The leaves just continue to hang out in the pot until you finish the pot, and because it was a large pot, the tea got quite strong and bitter. So round one had barely any caramel flavour but had tons of astringency.

Steeps allows you to get unlimited refills so round two was already better. The caramel came through more, so I was able to detect those creamy caramel notes without the astringency that was running rampant before.

Third round was already watered down. The leaves lost more of the flavouring but was still able to pick up on a distinct caramel note. The second steep won out in terms of balance of flavours. Of course, I was completely waterlogged for the rest of the night and stopped there.

This is one I’d consider buying some for home because I’m curious how it would do if steeped properly.

Sip down! I blended the rest with some of Lupicia’s Melon Oolong and it was awesome. Awesome, I tell you! I got this crazily flavourful combination of melon and cherry without any bitter bases. I would have been drinking both this way more often had I known.

It’s so hard to log onto Steepster on workdays. My day is just, poof, done between the shift itself commuting, getting ready, then having to do some domestic duties once I come back home before having to get ready for bed.

I bought this during their sale last month, loved the smell of it in the store, but once I got it home in the tin, I was initially a little confused. Wait. This is supposed to be vanilla and coconut, right? Then why does this smell like berries and cream? Maybe the sales associate put the wrong one in the tin? I had to wait for a while in order to investigate (that is, go back to the store and sniff their sample vials again). Sure enough, once I did, this really is the right one. The label on the tin has no mention of fruits, yet, when you go into the store, their little poster highlighting the notes/ingredients of each tea mentions that there’s cherry in here. Ohh, now that makes sense.

They’re so bad for including all the notes and ingredients, it seems, and it doesn’t help that they took down their site. Ok, at least their Facebook site still has a link to the info they have on their little poster in-store.

The taste of the tea is quite delicious. Light base with cherry in the forefront. It tastes like dried cherries and not at all cough syrupy. A touch of vanilla but I’m not getting any coconut in here. There are also cute little rosebuds here and there but I’m getting no flavour out of them.

This is even better when you let this cool down to room temperature. It’s fruitier and overall more flavourful. I should try it cold brewed sometime although I’m a little worried that the base may go weird.

Yay, sipdown! It was good but not great. My mom and I had been making back-to-back cold brews of this until it kicked the bucket. The hibiscus seemed stronger the last few rounds than ever. Maybe it’s just me or maybe there was simply more hibiscus in the blend near the bottom. Either way, this means I’m down to 32. I know I wanted to wait until I reached 30, but since I have a day off and have been spending it catching up with emails, banking, organizing, etc, here at home, I just sat down and placed a Tea Taxi order to replenish my stock a bit. VariaTEA’s reviews have—needless to say—piqued my interest! I don’t remember the last time I placed an order anywhere. Maybe Nina’s so many months and months ago? Time flies.

Steeps has 20% off bulk tea until Canada Day so I thought I’d swing by and pick up some Chocolate Dipped Strawberry and whatever else looked really good. They’ve changed ownership or something so their site is down, hence the information on here is a little bare.

Turns out they also have Orangecicle, like the Tea Girl, which I enjoyed in the past, and was going back and forth between these two, but this one actually won out because I wanted to try something new, and also, the scent of Orangecicle’s dry leaf is slightly more artificial than I remember. However, I did go back and read my thoughts on it and apparently it smells like that a lot more than it tastes, so maybe I’ll go back and pick up some of that too. We’ll see.

This isn’t overly unique by any means. Smells a lot like fruit leather. It has that typical hibiscus, rosehip, and apple base. As a cold brew, it tastes a lot like many other berry-flavoured fruit blends from other companies, however, I can’t taste a trace of kiwi. Even the strawberry is vague. It’s good with club soda, but nothing special. Just something to keep me company over the summer months.

I second the boozy quality of the chocolate flavouring. Good stuff, and no need for Baileys, although I did add some milk.

The strawberry isn’t a strong thing, covered in layers and layers of chocolate fondue. Yum. The hint of creamy strawberries makes me crave the strawberry black from Fortnum & Mason, however. Argh! I want that so badly now. I’m not even a huge fan of strawberries or fruity black teas. Ah, oh well, this will do rather nicely too.

Thanks, Incendiare! I think this is the last of the fun group of samples you sent my way. Now I need to put something together for her myself. Why don’t I have a lot of awesome teas right now?

Sipdown!

Thank you Incendiare. This does remind me of chocolate coated strawberries…. It’s tasty but a bit mild. I wonder if the Della Terra version would be better.

Thanks, Incendiare!

This tea smells boozy, in a very very good way. Like chocolate liqueur. Yum. Delicious way to start my morning (I’ve been up reading and lazing around in bed for hours, but finally wanted tea enough to get up!).

It is mostly chocolate, with a bit of fruityness/juicyness. The smell is way stronger than the taste, as well.

I’m not sure I’d pick more of this one up, but it’s definitely one of the good options I’ve had from Steeps/Pekoe Tea Lounge.

That’s right. If any Vancouver locals want to try any of the teas, you can get them at Pekoe Tea Lounge. $1 discount if you bring a tin, $0.50 discount if you get a refill bag. They even have $7 slices of gluten free pie.

Backlog…I had this one on Wednesday on the way to Vancouver for a meet up. I think I hastily brewed it, as it was early, so I think it came out fairly bland. I’ gonna try it again with the rest of the sample from Incendiare. I’ll reserve rating to I have made it again.

Sipdown! I’m sure that was the third round of this tea over the past eight years or so. I must have gone through over 150g of this tea by now. It’s one of those that if I were ever low on flavoured blacks and didn’t feel like making an order anywhere, I’d grab more of this for the time being. It’s especially good when it’s fresh. All strawberry-cream-filled-chocolate-like.

I’ve been stalling on going to the gym today so I better go and do that soon. Browsing job ads can get a little depressing after a while.

Holy cripes, sad sip down. I’ll have to get more next time I see it. Sorry I haven’t been able to read everyone’s notes as of late, and I’m afraid that it may be like that for the next couple weeks. I truly miss it and hope that everyone’s having a jolly time having tea parties of all sorts.

I’m so tired that I hit that Notify me when I’m available button rather than the button to write a tasting note. Why is that so huge anyway?

In the meantime…

I’m a tidy sort of bloke. I don’t like chaos. I kept records in the record rack, tea in the tea caddy, and pot in the pot box. -George Harrison

I love you, Georgey.

http://teaandco.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/georgeH.jpg

More flavoured black tea because a) I’m so tired from getting up earlier than I’m used to and losing quite a bit of sleep the other night (another 6am fire alarm. Yay!) and b) it’s cold so I want something comforting. How’s that for justification!

I’m almost out of this one already, which is so weird because I feel like I’ve barely had any from this particular tin. First time enjoying this one with half and half, I think, and it’s yummy. It’s a definite chocolate strawberry. Not too sweet, and the chocolate note is pretty good. Makes me want to try their other chocolate blends, if they indeed have others.

Yadda yadda. I don’t feel like doing any work today so I’m stalling by writing gibberish on here.

I kind of forgot I even had this until the Vancouver meet-up was drawing near and figured I should pass some of this down to everyone. OMGsrsly was sneaky and entered the data from the site before I would have. :p But sorry if anyone thinks my picture is sub-par.

I picked up a tin in Edmonton before coming back to the Island the other month. This has always been my favourite tea of theirs. Not that I tried a ton of theirs, maybe six or so, but Chocolate Dipped Strawberry warranted a repurchase after finishing my previous tin back when I was in Sweden.

The smell of the dry leaf is heavenly. Strawberry, cocoa, and something delicately creamy. I want to just bury my nose in the tin. The scent reminds me of a strawberry cream-filled chocolate you find in assorted chocolate boxes.

The base can take over easily if you’re not careful, so I make sure to let the freshly boiled water cool a little before pouring it.

Without any additives, it’s quite yummy. I can detect all three notes mentioned above. I added a little bit of brown sugar this time, and eh, not too crazy over it that way. Then I added some 1% milk and it’s pretty good. Makes it taste more like milk chocolate, unsurprisingly.

I wonder what would happen if I added chocolate milk to this. I’m going to be brave and do that next time.