TeaTaxi

This tastes just like DT’s Birthday cake, except they’ve added white chocolate chips. I can’t taste anything resembling white chocolate, but it is still a good blend. I don’t normally drink teas with dairy in it, but since I received this sample in a tea exchange and didn’t buy it myself, I figured I might as well use it up. Considering I can’t taste the white chocolate, it seem to me an unnecessary ingredient.

As for the flavour, it resembles caramel, cake frosting, and vanilla. It definitely is very palatable by itself, but it also does well as a latte. I have one more cup’s worth of leaf left (~1 tsp) and will probably drink it tonight to accomplish today’s sipdown goal.

This blend is safe for those who dislike rooibos. The honeybush is pleasant and not woody.

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I must have been craving almond/amaretto/marzipan flavours this weekend, because I had this one on the same day that I finished off Rose Truffle, from Arthur Dove, and that tea also has a almond-y vibe alongside the florals. This was nice, and I actually feel like despite the age of the tea leaf the flavour of this blend really hardly changed at all over time. Woody/honeyed red rooibos with hints of minerals and hazelnut but mostly just a solid almond with sweetness. Hints of papaya/generic sweet fruits.

I’m not even sure if TeaTaxi is still in business, and I don’t need more tea right now anyway but I actually _would order this one again. It’s not mind blowingly good, but it was solidly consistent and pleasant both on its own and with additions. Pretty versatile, overall!

Cold Brew!

The queen of cold brew is back at it, y’all! I mean, I don’t know if I ever really stopped being at it, but I definitely slowed down in the winter and now I’m revving into high gear with multiple cold brews daily…

One more cup and this is a sipdown – it’s good timing, the flavour of the leaf is pretty diminished but in that sort of “sweet spot” where it’s pretty light/mild but neither flat or rancid yet. This is one of the oldest rooibos teas in my stash, so it’s impressive it held up this long in the first place. The cold brew was majority sweet and smooth mineral, wood, and honey tasting rooibos with light notes of marzipan and papaya. Refreshing, easy sipping and I don’t mind the quality of the rooibos base used so even though I’d have loved a richer almond flavour the rooibos shining through isn’t a huge negative for me.

A little flat. A little dull.

Steeped this one for a very long time too (like 12+ minutes, because I got distracted) so I really had the expectation that when I went to drink it the flavour would be intense. I still got notes of marzipan/almond, but no richness/sweetness and the rooibos was a little bland and woodsy. Mouthfeel was nice and thick though, with a pleasant coating sensation.

I think the tea is just old – I even noticed in the dry leaf aroma that it seemed like bright and sugary as what I remember my last tasting being like…

This has lost a lot of intensity from the last time I had it, but it still made for a delicious evening cuppa – like a creamy marzipan profile with some honey rooibos sweetness. Have I made this as a latte? I really should…

Made this one hot in a tea press yesterday; something about making it in the press was actually very beneficial because although the tea still tasted really strongly of sweet almonds/marzipan it also had the most well defined fruit/papaya notes I’ve ever tasted in this blend to date – and they were delicious, and a really nice accompaniment to the almond!

Happy belated Father’s Day Steepster dads!

I was trying to come up with a tea in my cupboard that I could bring over to my Dad’s house for the evening and share with him to celebrate – and it finally hit me that this was 100% that appropriate choice. #dadpuns

I decided to do it up iced with some added cashew milk; it was a big hit. I mean, it’s one that I know I personally enjoy already but he also really liked it too. It’s a very sweet, nutty tea and delivers this very creamy, vibrant marzipan flavour tinged with undertones of fruit. Nothing super clear though, papaya doesn’t have a really strong/well defined flavour on its own let alone when it’s competing against other vibrant flavours. My dad’s trying really hard to cut out all sugar from his diet though following the open heart surgery he had at the start of the year, so he really appreciated the strong flavour of this tea along with the fact that in general tea doesn’t really have sugar and I used an unsweetened nut milk. This will have a TINY amount from the sprinkles in the blend, but it’s quite small.

It was a nice thing to share with him, though.

From last week.

I was kind of craving this one all day, and when I got home from work I got to experience different ‘levels’ of satisfaction. The first was grabbing the tin from the shelf and cracking the top open to scoop the leaf – that rush of escaping almond/marzipan aroma was a small level of satisfaction that only served to deepen the cravings. Like when someone is cooking supper and you’re really hungry. The smell of the cooking food is like “Oh, fuck yeah – I’m gonna eat that soon and it smells SO good” but also it just makes you more impatient.

The next level of satisfaction is pouring the boiling water over the tea leaf and having the smell of the steeping tea fill the kitchen. That’s kind of like the moments where your dishing yourself up at the dinner table knowing you’re about to eat right away. The marzipan notes filling my kitchen were delightful! I knew I had made the right choice with the tea selection, and I was ready.

However the biggest level of satisfaction is that first sip where you just cant help but let slip that little “ahhhh” as if to say “yes, everything is perfect now” as your whole body just kind of releases and you slip into bliss. Because you didn’t realize it, but as you were dishing yourself up, your body was tensing in anticipation for what was about to come. Those first bites, or in this case, first sips, are the fucking best.

Grabbed this one around a month ago when I was looking at adding more rooibos/caffeine free options to my cupboard. The name is what originally caught my attention; it’s really weird, and I still don’t understand what the inspiration behind it was?

Visually, this is a really pretty tea – it’s got snowflake sprinkles (a pun on the “cool” part of the name?), shiny silver ball sprinkes, and almond and fruit chunks. I think what I’m most excited about in terms of flavour is the possibility of an almond/fruit tea that doesn’t also include spices. For example, I like DT’s Alpine Punch and Sleigh Ride blends but they’re very similar to me and I’d like something in the same flavour family but with a more simple profile. Dry aroma is very, very heavy on the almond.

Steeped up? I’m a little disappointed that I can’t taste the papaya at all. That said, I did get my wish in terms of a simple flavour profile because this is like 90% just the flavour of almond/marzipan with like 10% rooibos base undertones. I think when I get used to the fact this is just a really almond heavy flavour I’ll enjoy it a lot, but right now I’m a touch disappointed. It’s smooth though, and a little creamy with good body and sweetness proportions. Likely would make for a good latte, or now that we’re getting into the winter season an eggnog latte?

Yeah; I’m down with that idea.

Song Pairing: https://youtu.be/mSeavLw703I

Sipdown (410)!

Grabbed this one as a sample because I was craving this sort of Pina Colada flavouring a lot; and I was like 99% sure I was really going to love it. I didn’t get a full size of it though ‘cause at the moment I’m a little more focused on trying flavoured teas that are more unique to me and I have tried a million different Pina Colada flavoured tea – especially on a rooibos base. So I was pretty sure this wouldn’t be anything new to me.

I was right on all accounts; this wasn’t anything new to me in terms of those sort of pina colada blends but I did really enjoy it! It was very fresh in terms of flavour and I loved how rich the coconut was compared to the bright, liveliness of the pineapple which was more of a ‘bouncing’ top not flavour that I really felt on the roof of my mouth. The coconut was more of a coating sensation, which I experienced in the body of the sip, and then well lingering in the finish. It really worked well for me!

Also, it REALLY satisfied that pina colada tea craving I had without leaving me with an excessive amount of it on hand. A good treat!

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I was going to write a Sororitea Sisters review for this but then I got sidetracked looking at recipes and didn’t really pay attention so instead, as I sip on the last little bit of the hot tea, I figure I will write here that this is actually very good. A whole lot of creamy lemon flavor. The base adds floral notes which boost the lemon here which is creamy. I also made this iced and it is a lot of the same. For those that like creamy lemon teas, this is actually a very nice one to explore.

Kinda has a carrot cake taste to it with a rooibos base.

Sipdown

This smells deliciously fruity. I brought it to work iced and though I get blueberry and fruits, there is also a fair bit of bitterness here that I’m not loving. Fun to try but not a tea I need more of.

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Finished this one off earlier this week, as my morning/breakfast tea. I thought the stronger profile/caffeine level mixed with the fruity elements would be a nice start to the morning and I was right.

We had a wicked wind storm the night before I drank this one and the morning of. Like, I live across from a small park and the wind was so bad that one of the boughs/limbs on the tree in the center of the park snapped off. It sounded really scary/intense and it was totally unexpected so it freaked me the fuck out. It sounded like a HUGE crack of thunder, but there was no rain/water or anything…

Anyway, point is that while I sipped on this I also storm watched. That’s one of my favourite things to do: we have a huge living room window with a bench under it so I’ll sit on the bunch in the comfort of my house and watch nature do it’s amazing, beautiful and sometimes scary thing.

This was actually really delicious though! Very, very strong flavours/full bodied profile overall. It was really, really earthy from the pu’erh but that was easily matched by a really bright, sweet strawberry flavour that was like a mix of overripe strawberries, strawberry candy, and strawberry jams. Just like, strawberry to the core. It’s almost weird how well that sort of sweet, vibrant flavour compliments the deep, intense earthy flavour of the pu’erh. It worked, though! Like, really well. The mango was a lot more subtle in flavour; but I liked the sweetness of it as well. Flavour wise, it was like being pleasantly assaulted with strawberry/pu’erh and then just as that attack is starting to ease up the mango just runs up to you and… waves? Like, “Yes, hello I’m here too! Don’t forget about me!”. That’s it though; just the reminder that it’s there – no impact.

Still, really liked this one and the mixture of opposing flavours coming together in a complimentary way. It was a good morning option, for sure! I also feel like there’s LOTS of potential for this to be a really nice latte, too. Don’t know that I’d want it in a large quantity, but if I was already going to be ordering from TeaTaxi? Yeah, I’d totally add in another sample to revisit it.

Got a sample of this tea, and it smells sort of like amaretto… Not my favourite smell. It’s sweet, and definitely reminds me of amaretto. Sweet, with a play dough taste to it. Not a bad tea, but not the best either.

Tried this tea as a latte and it tastes like blueberries and chocolate. Yum.

A Christmas Night unlike any other. The expected orange and clove is no where to be found in this christmas blend. This is a black tea with ice cream bits and chocolate and strawberry pieces and it smells just like a strawberry milkshake.

I had a whole 25 gram sample to work with so I made this plain, as a latte, and as a smoothie. Though this tea was unique relative to the many Christmas teas on the market, different doesn’t necessarily mean better.

Check out my full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2017/09/01/christmas-night-from-tea-taxi/.

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Thank you for the tea VariaTEA! I’ve been putting off trying because I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it; but I’ve been feeling especially stuffy/had a sore throat today so I thought it was a good day to give it a shot.

It reminds me really strongly of DAVIDsTEA’s Throat Rescue blend, with some of the peppery/spice elements of Pick Me Up, the sick tea that they did last year with the yerba mate base. It’s very fennel/licorice root heavy in flavour and normally I don’t know that I’d be really into that but it’s very soothing on my throat right now, and I appreciate that. Lots of spice and mint in the body of the profile; tons of peppermint and a mix of clove/cardamom and savory tulsi. The saffron peaks through in the finish; it’s warming and a very interesting spice component alongside that sweet licorice root profile.

I wouldn’t drink this on a regular basis – but for today and for being sick in general?

Totally works for me!

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Thank you VariaTEA for sending this one my way! I was interested to try it for sure; anything with caramel typically catches my eye, and I’m not one to shy away from caffeine either!

I made this one hot, and then added a fair bit of milk to it as well. The flavour was really nice and smooth; obviously sweet caramel notes, but also the sweetness of like condensed milk which I’m sure was exaggerated by my addition of milk in the first place . The mate base was very roasty, which almost made it just a little coffee like, as well as toasty and nutty. It was a really nice compliment to the overall caramel sweetness.

This wasn’t really anything fancy, and I’ve definitely tried similar teas before too – but I enjoyed it a lot for what it was and I’m thankful I got to try it!

Haven’t quite made up my mind beyond good.

Thanks, VariaTEA.

Sipdown

This cold brewed for like 1/2 a week and tbh it didn’t do the tea any favors because although I could see how this would be a fruit punch taste, it was a little too hibiscusy for my tastes.

Tastes like lemon and rooibos. It was alright but I am glad it was only a sample pack.

Has a light vanilla raspberry flavoring. Tastes really good iced and I bet it would be equally as good hot. Could maybe even pass as a dessert type tea.

Love the name. Smells and taste good. It’s a winner for me. It’s very fruity and I can taste the apple flavor in the tea along with light hibiscus, berry and kiwi. I am having it with pizza as a midnight snack-it actually pairs well with chicken bbq pizza. I am trying to reduce my sugar intake and have replaced pop and fruit juices with flavored iced tea. It’s going pretty well so far! So many options to choose from and pairings to try.