Various Artists

#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #158 overall / Tea #29 for April
Monday 04/19 — Teas of the World, France, French Vanilla. 10 teabags. 5 each in 2 hot brewed pots of tea for the large kombucha jar.
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#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #153 overall / Tea #24 for April
An Ode to Tea, Z is for Silver Zhen Pearls (gifted by Danielle aka @teaandmeblog)
Friday 04/16 — Cold-Brewed this one twice. It was okay but nothing to repeat.
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#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #133 overall / Tea #4 for April

Sunday 4/04/21 — Tazo Passion Tea sweetened. There were like 4 different listings of the Tazo Passion in steepster and because this was a tiny plastic baggie of maybe 1 1/2 PS worth of Tazo Passion tea with some sort of sweetener in a blob not sure what to categorize this under. Made this cold-brew and mixed it into a cold-brew pitcher of Harts of America Dandelion Mint (like 1/4 or 1/3 Tazo and rest HOA Dandelion Mint). Still too gritty and sweet for me.

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#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #115 overall / Tea #31 for March / #drinkwhatyouown February slot 23/25

Thursday 3/25/21 — winter White Chocolate oolong.. can’t remember the company. Didn’t really taste like anything but oolong I remember in past enjoying the creamy melted chocolate with oolong in hot and plain cuppa.

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#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #67 overall / Tea #34 for February
#drinkwhatyouown February 8/25

Tuesday 2/23 still working on Jan and Feb teas from my diy advent calendar #drinkwhatyouown etc. I haven’t even made a theme for March yet. Hmm. Anyway this was a random little silver wrapped tea labeled Passionfruit. Not sure where it came from but I know I have had it for a while. It was a flowering blooming tea, which is not really my style. I put it in a 12 oz clear Holly branch perfect mug from my david’s tea days and sipped hot and plain with breakfast.

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I grabbed a kombucha from the store that was on clearance. It’s local-ish company called BNF and it’s the mango marigold flavor. It doesn’t have a distinctive flavor and I wouldn’t recognize it as mango flavored. It’s not a vinegar-y kombucha though and really reminds me a lot of beer. It’s not what I expected but I don’t mind it either. I also grabbed their pear flavor as well.

Drinking a random matcha genmaicha teabag that came in a Japanese snack subscription box I’ve been getting. It’s actually a really nice genmaicha. No bitterness, just smooth and toasty.

Sipdown 16/17/16-2021
Drank through a few oolong samples from jlTea (Fong Mong). One was a Jin xuan and the other 2 were lightly oxidized. Honestly can’t remember much about them because it’s been a few days and I’ve been waiting for Steepster to be not broken again.

TeaTiff TTB #11

Plum Deluxe French Breakfast doesn’t show up anywhere online that I can find…not sure if it’s discontinued or mislabeled or what’s going on with that? But I did really enjoy the tea! It had a sweet, natural strawberry flavor balanced with creamy vanilla. My husband was also a fan!

TeaTiff TTB #18

This is the last tea I’m sampling from the Japanese Tea Marathon: Sannen Bancha by Miyazaki Sabou. Apparently it’s a roasted tea that includes branches from the tea plant along with the leaves. It definitely doesn’t look like any tea I’ve tried before, consisting of mostly little pieces that look like cut-up twigs. The flavor was unexpectedly sweet and delicate with a smoky flavor that is weirdly reminding me of maple bacon. Fun to get to try such a unique tea!

TeaTiff TTB #6

Tamaryokucha by Forthees from the Japanese Tea Marathon

I used to think I didn’t like Japanese green teas, but I think I’d just tried some really grassy ones and given up. I liked the other two from this box so much, I decided to try another today and this one is delicious as well! The leaf is super delicate and tightly twisted into little spikes resembling pine needles. The dry leaf was a gorgeous forest green with a strong scent of spinach and it steeped up to a bright neon green in the cup. The flavor is super fresh and vegetal (still reminding me of spinach) with a nice buttery smooth finish.

TeaTiff TTB #3

Skysamurai kindly included a number of teas from a special “Japanese Tea Marathon” she participated in last year. This one is a Kabusecha from Nakamori Seicha, which I couldn’t find on Steepster and didn’t have enough information about to add myself. Apparently, Kabusecha is a shredded Japanese green tea. It looked like bright green grass clippings in the bag and left a fair amount of dust at the bottom of my cup. I was expecting the flavor to be strong, like a CTC tea, but it was actually quite light and delicate with notes of fresh green peas. I didn’t personally love it, but it was definitely an interesting experience to get to try it!

Samurai TTB #49

This was marked as “Princess Peach Ice Cream” from a brand I’ve never heard of called Tea Hippie. If I’d enjoyed it more, maybe I would have taken the time to add it to the database, but as it was, I don’t feel the need. No peach and no ice cream for me, just straight up hibiscus with a hint of yogurt. Not a fan!

Samurai TTB #17

Finished off a sample of 52Teas Vanilla Orange Cola black tea today. The fact that I can’t find it on Steepster or the 52Teas website is making me think this might be an older blend? So I might not have had it at its best, but it was definitely a disappointment. I didn’t get any orange or vanilla flavor from it at all; just the cola flavoring. So it was basically like drinking a hot, flat Coca-Cola…bleh.

Advent Calendar Day 2

This one is labeled “Chestnut Black Tea” by Yunomi…another new-to-me company and a tea I couldn’t seem to find in the Steepstser database. I’m honestly not sure I’ve ever had a chestnut, so I can’t comment on how accurate the flavor is here. But it’s a pleasantly smooth and nutty black tea and I’m enjoying it on this chilly morning!

Found this very old pack of oolong plum tea in the back of a cupboard this week. The label is half worn off so I can’t tell where this tea is from, just the name “oloong yello plum”… and a use-by date of 2014. So I guess random steepings is where I’m supposed to review this tea?

5 years past the use by date… can anyone beat that?

Smells amazing despite being so old (it was sealed up very well, although opened inside) with plum and apricot and warm black tea.

I brewed it. First few sips there’s a light fruity sweetness and earthyness that’s lovely. Then there’s what I can only describe as bin juice. To be precise, it’s the smell of the juice/liquid that’s lingering in the bottom of your bin after being too lazy to take the trash out for a few too many days. Rotting garbage and earthy and sweet, because the trash is full of sugary drink cans.

Once you’ve got that smell in your mind and what you imagine it would taste like, this tea becomes a mind battle. The more you think about the bin juice, the more you can taste it. I battled to the bottom of the cup by focusing on the taste of plums.

I’m now pretty sure the plum flavouring was added, not just a description of the natural oolong leaf flavour. I think that’s what has started to rot. Throwing this tea away now, sadly. I imagine it was delicious fresh.

Logging a few swap&toss downs:

A swapdown! (M: 6 Y: 38): Georgian Tea 1847 — Wild Green tea. Actually I have an extra pouch, so not really a sipdown!
A swapdown! (M: 7 Y: 39): Pod Lampionami — Kaoribi Oolong. Sadly the rest I saved for myself was mostly tea dust; so I tossed the rest.
A swapdown! (M: 8 Y: 40): Nous Tea — Hanoi Spring
A tossdown! (M:9 Y: 41): What-cha — Taiwan Sencha Green Tea. Sadly too old and I never reached this tea too often in the office. I assume it is mostly because it needs indeed colder water and I have don’t have there a temperature setting kettle.

Two sipdowns today:
A sipdown! (M: 8, Y: 28) Margaret’s Hope FTGFOP 1 1 HS FF 2022 by Lochan tea; from Leafhopper Thank you for this lovely tea with typical FF Darjeeling notes!

A sipdown! (M: 9 Y: 29) Gui Fei Oolong by Curious Tea — lovely bugbitten oolong with quite long mouthfeel. Also it was worth many steeps and especially those with refreshing aftertaste were great and interesting.

A sipdown! (M: 19, Y: 19)
Nepal Shangrila Gold by Klasek Tea — last two and something grams drank grandpa, 90°C water. Equally good as my gongfu session.

A sipdown! (M: 20, Y: 20)
Irish Cream by Curtis — again really strong in boozy scent, flavoured just right… just the mouthfeel could be a bit longer.

A sipdown! (M: 8, Y: 8)
Unknown black — received from derk a few years back. Smooth, malty, chocolately, black tea, with small, glossy leaves, about 1/4 inch long… I really wonder what this tea is.

A sipdown! (M: 3, Y: 79) Alnatura — Green tea Sencha (from the office; pretty nice sencha from China, received as a gift.
A sipdown! (M: 4, Y: 80) Basilur — Raspberry & Rosehip — recently reviewed, nice fruity flavoured black tea; enjoyed as a family pot tea.

Doke Green Diamond 2022 by Lochan Tea; received from Leafhopper — thanks!

I generally dislike Indian green teas. They tend to be quite astringent, rough and generally just not so enjoyable as their Chinese or Japanese counterparts.

Sadly, this seems to be no exception; though steeped short (2 minutes) and not so hot (77°C). I know, using all 5 grams was a bit excessive, but I didn’t wanted to split that amount up.

It was… pretty much as expected — rough and astringent, hay and drying flavour, only positive thing is that mouthfeel is quite long.
It is actually pretty much similar to my experience from Doke black tea, which was also quite flat tasting and bitter, but imagine similar notes, but because of green. Nothing great.