TeaGschwendner

Teabag tea.

It’s that time of year again. Seasons are changing and I’ve come down with the sniffles, a sore throat, and all that good stuff. Since my sense of taste and smell are inhibited, I decided to skip the more delicate teas and sip down some of my less loved ones. I’d been sitting on this teabag sample my dad gave me for a year or so. He shops at TeaGschwender often but only drinks black tea so all his non-black tea samples gets passed down to me.

I brewed this in an 8oz mug for 90s at 170 F and a second time for 30s using 190 F water. The liquor was light amber in color with the barest tinge of green. Not the vibrant green that’s characteristic of sencha. A sign that this tea was past peak freshness. The brewed tea was decidedly savory; smooth and lacking any astringency. Vegetal with a cashew like creaminess and smoky flavor that reminded me of roasted eggplant. It didn’t have the typical grassiness or oceanic taste that most Japanese green teas do. Despite the atypical flavor and lack of freshness, it was still decent for a bagged tea and helped calm my sniffles.

This had been on my wishlist for quite some time, and since I was ordering more Green Coconut (the weather is slowly warming up, and this is a solid, refreshing tea in iced form), I tacked O’Conner’s Cream onto my order. I really think Teagschwendner should offer smaller amounts for online ordering (100g minimum? Really?), but I just went for it.

Basically, it’s an Irish Cream-flavored black tea. I happen to love that, and I also happen to love flavored blacks in general. Not to say I don’t love unflavored, “pure” teas, but there’s room in my cupboard for pretty much all kinds of teas. Except rooibos. I will never love rooibos.

Upon opening up the package, there’s a strong alcohol scent from the flavoring. Not the first I’ve experienced this, but it’s still disturbing. If this goes as I expect, after awhile that will dissipate and the flavoring will be intact. If you love Bailey’s, then this is the tea for you. I imagine this would be a great tea for one of those raw, damp, November days when you crave something comforting. Definitely has a taste of whiskey and cream. Does it crowd out the black tea flavor? No, it still tastes like tea. Would I drink it black? Nope – this cries out for milk. Just the way I like it. Great dessert / treat tea.

This is either from MissB or Sil – so thank you!

I’d put off having this one for far too long as I’m not fond of many herbals, but it looks like this has nothing I dislike in it, which is nice! My initial impression was that this was straight up lemongrass, until I realized that the lemony flavour wasn’t quite right for that. I can’t really taste any vanilla, but I also may not have had any vanilla bean pieces in this cup – the smaller pieces in my baggie remain there. This was all large chunks. Despite the lack of vanilla, this is actually fairly tasty. It’s nicely lemony without being bitter, and quite refreshing. I’m drinking it room temp, which puts it more in the “iced” realm, and I think that’s how I’d prefer this, though I feel like it would be pretty tasty hot with honey, too. Pretty pleased with this one.

I grabbed this one from the Discovery teabox a while ago. It was one serving and I was intrigued. It also appears I added this to Steepster twice. Whoops. I love maple. I was worried this would be full of rooibos, but my sample at least had hardly a piece of rooibos in it. The scent of the dry leaves doesn’t smell like maple to me, but the brew certainly is. Definitely accurate maple. Not too much and the maple flavor seems to be at the top of the cup. As it cools, it might be the base tea flavor, it starts tasting like cherry. There are also plenty of walnut leaves here (which I thought were blackberry leaves for some reason.) I’m not sure what walnut leaves SHOULD taste like (maybe it’s cherry?), but I’m not tasting walnut. The second steep had more of the cherry flavor and really no maple but it’s a nice natural cherry note. I do like the combination of the cherry black tea with maple flavors though. It was great to try this one. I wouldn’t mind having a bit of it around.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug // 10 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 minute steep
2019 Sipdowns: 18

Disappointed. Went into the shop to get a cup to go and was told this was a straight milk oolong – no flavoring added. Even the label on the container made no mention of added ingredients. One sip and I could tell that this is definitely not a straight tea. It’s drinkable, but has a slight sour, artificial note to it. Milk oolongs are smooth and buttery, and this really lacks that smoothness.

Sipdown (600)!

I’m still on the hunt for the perfect rich, creamy and decadent caramel tea. This one isn’t it, but it was fairly close to what I wanted. I mean, it tasted a lot like caramel and was pretty sweet/rich – but it also had a ton of briskness and maltiness from the black base, and was quite astringent. My perfect caramel tea shouldn’t be brisk and astringent – it should be silky smooth and creamy. So, a decent attempt but not the one.

Had this one yesterday.

At work in the tea department, there’s a rotation every Friday and someone brings in bagels or some other form of baking. This Friday, the person who’s turn it was brought in freshly baked croissants. So, I got to start off my work day by sitting with a few coworkers and sharing a pot of tea over croissants. It was lovely!

The tea itself was pretty nice; I’ve had a handful of teas from TeaGschwendner lately and I think this is the one that I’ve enjoyed the most? It was smooth and had a nice marriage of honey and nutty notes, with some floral undertones. Not overly complex, but a great general taste and a REALLY good complimenting flavour to flaky, buttery pastries!

Mmm!

Cold Brew Sipdown (611)!

I’m pleasantly surprised by this blend! I’ve had a small handful of other blends from TeaGschwendner lately and none of them have really been bad but a lot of them have been really quite average/mediocre. There’s something quite lovely about this one though! It feels a little more well rounded than some of the others I’ve had as of late, with more “body” to the fruity profile. Seabuckthorn and ginger notes are present, but what’s really catching my attention and holding it is this really lovely sweet, beautiful orange note. It’s like popping a slice of fresh, ripe orange right into my mouth! All with a nice, clean finish.

Really refreshing, and I’m very glad I made a whole pitcher of it because I’m deeply enjoying it!

10/10 name, but 5/10 tea…

Very “marzipan” in terms of flavour, which I suppose makes a lot of sense for a German tea vendor. However, there’s a bitterness to this that is unpleasant to me; I think it partly comes from the almond, partly from the orange, and partly from the green tea itself. I’m sure a little bitterness might be a nice contrast to the sweeter marzipan and may be intentionally present – but this is enough so that I don’t find it hardly drinkable.

Pass.

Sipping on this now.

There’s something very lovely about the dry leaf aroma; it has a brightness to it and a sweetness to the citrus elements. I’m admittedly not super familiar with the taste of pomelo so I wont even bother to try to comment on the authenticity/presence of that flavour note but I do detect something grapefruit like that is sparking curiousity for me…

Steeped up, I unfortunately find this to be a pretty ‘run of the mill’ flavour. There’s an undertone of something nice and citrus-y (grapefruit?) with more body to it, but it’s really swallowed up by the mid sip which is just HEAVILY dominated by lemongrass, and a little apple? Nothing stand out to me – I wish there was something a little more interesting going on in this for me. However, I can find lemongrass teas much more easily if that was a profile that I wanted…

Meep.

Ugh. I really like this one, and feel like I should make a TeaGschwendner order, since it’s the second tea I’ve rather enjoyed… Creamy apple goodness.

Had a bit of difficulty translating this tea… hopefully I haven’t duplicated an entry! Anyhow, this tea came to me via visitors from Germany, a few years ago. I believe I had two sample pouches of it, but apparently didn’t write a note about the first one.

This tea is actually really tasty! It’s a nice creamy green apple sort of flavour, without being too fakey. Base is nice, too. I could actually tell what it was even before looking it up, because it’s pretty distinctive. I’d love to have this again; my sample has enough for one more cup, which I’ll have to make sure I enjoy in the near future so it doesn’t go stale! (The best before date on the tea was in 2016, haha).

I haven’t had too many (or any other?) TeeGschwendner teas, but based on this, I’m certainly intrigued!

Also, of interest – the name of this tea translates to Osnabrucker hobbyhorse, haha. Maybe someone with a German background can clarify a little (although I believe there is actually a picture of a hobbyhorse on the package!)

This tea is… Why!?

I guess putting gummy bears in your tea must be a novelty thing or meant to appeal to kids? However, it baffles me because I can’t imagine they impart a lot of flavour or melt down all that nicely; and if the amount of gummy bears isn’t JUST RIGHT in the blend then you have cups missing them (and they at least feel like a crucial ingredient based on the name) or they take over the cup given the size/weight!

I steeped this up though, and tried to keep an open mind. It tastes fine; but not particularly “gummy bear” like in terms of flavour. While it definitely get sweeter and mellowed out a little bit as the tea cooled, I found the profile to be an essentially hibiscus and orange dominant cup with a lot of tartness and general acidity. Not bad at all, but super generic and not really worth the novelty of buying a ‘gummy bear’ tea IMO.

But I guess it made for a cute photo so I suppose that’s a win!?

EDIT: Worth noting that this would probably be decent iced.

Received this as a gift and fell in love with the presentation – the tin is just so elegant and it’s a lovely tea to look at. And sniff. I swear, my habitual tea sniffing will eventually be to the detriment of my collection. :D

Anyway, about the tea…did a quick brew earlier to give me something to sip on while emailing. The cherry aroma comes across very strongly in the final amber liquid, but the actual flavour is pleasantly mild. You pick up a lot more of the grassy/woody tones of the green tea with only a gentle overlay of fruitiness.

No issues with bitterness and I’m inclined to believe it would take sweetener well.

Well, that was unexpected, and I think I may be able to guess why this replaced the White Oothu. I somehow missed the timer going off, resulting in an unintentionally long steep time of a bit over 6 minutes. But it still tasted fruity, without any bitterness. I think the White Oothu would probably have been slightly less forgiving(though still more so than a classic Chinese white tea), and since this is TG’s cheapest white tea(and therefore probably the one most often bought by people new to white tea), that complete lack of bitterness was probably considered more important than the option of getting multiple steeps out of it.

It was a pleasant surprise that it wasn’t bitter after that steep, and I think I’m more likely to either make this in my big glass pot(technically the glass body of a Bodum Assam), like I did this time, or throw it in the Mono Filio as a base for White Vanilla Chai, than to brew it gongfu in a gaiwan, so I think I probably won’t really miss the extra steeps(I have other white teas that i can use for gongfu, so …).

It’s too warm for a classic cinnamon-heavy chai, so instead I’m drinking this, with a little extra ginger.