Christina / BooksandTea Send Message

Operation start drinking lots of tea commences, and I’m starting with this tea because Lala just sent it to me in a swap and it’s a small sample. (She sent me a whole lot of A&D stuff, which is awesome.)

I used 2 tsp of dry leaf with just-boiled water in a 2-cup mug. This is slightly smoky, but very earthy – so earthy, in fact, that I double-checked the Steepster listing to see if this had any pu’erh in it. Nope. I really does remind me of some shu, though.

This is comforting. I’m glad I’ve gotten a chance to try this.

Backlog from Christmas:

OM NOM NOM. This is delicious. Yet another Xmas present from my hubby. The sample is small, but I definitely want to restock this, since the almond, cream, and rooibos flavours play so well together. I also had it as a to-go cup from David’s Tea a few days ago, and noticed that this tea contains apple, too, which really amplifies all the other flavours. I think the to-go cup also had a peppery note to it that I really enjoyed.

I’m looking forward to when this goes on sale, because I will TOTALLY restock some of this.

Another Christmas backlog:

This was another sample included in the set that my hubby gave me for Christmas. Opening the tin, it smells intensely of almonds, like amaretto. But when I brew it, the green tea comes off way too heavy, and I only smell almond, but not taste it. This brew didn’t work for me, unfortunately.

Backlog from Christmas

Let it be known that my husband is awesome, because he bought me a whole bunch of eensy little David’s Tea samples for Christmas! This was one of them, and it was the very first flavour I tried from the set.

It was so alluring, in fact, that my mother in law, who DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A KETTLE, wanted to try some. (My in-laws are not tea drinkers except for my sister in-law, who married a British guy. Anyways.)

This tea definitely lives up to the name: I get the cardamom, and I get the egginess of french toast. I’ve got a Kickstarter reward from 52Teas coming in January that contains the reblend of Coconut French Toast with Cardamom Maple Syrup, and I’m really curious about how these two flavours will compare side-by-side.

Sipdown!

I got a sample of this from Ubacat a while back, and I’m drinking this now to celebrate something:

I finally have a full inventory of my tea cabinet! Over 150 teas total, yikes. I’ve also updated my cupboard here on Steepster to reflect what’s in my cabinet, though there were some teas I just half-assed trying to find a match. Nevertheless, I’ve got over 150 varieties and nearly 7.5 pounds of loose leaf. Holy hell.

The Xmas holiday has been great so far – relaxing, catching up on fun administrivia like this. I can’t wait to dig in and make a dent in my stash!

I had a sample of this and thought I’d polish it off today before heading out of town for the holidays. It smells great, but since I’m not a big fan of yerba mate, this was kinda wasted on me – the medicinal herbiness of the base kept poking me in the eye, disrupting the other tropical flavours.

Tried this a second time a few days ago after giving the bag a good shake. This time, the blend was more balanced – I could smell the caramel and nuts in the dry leaf, and the brewed tea definitely tasted nuttier. However, you need to drink it at just the right time. If it’s too hot or too cold, it will be smoky – sort of like a gaussian distribution thing going on.

I had this gingerbread-flavoured tea before going to bed. The leaf is dark brown and fluffy, and contains visible chunks of dried ginger and flower petals. The ginger is obvious in the scent, as well.

The leaf is fluffy, which means that it’s hard to measure out, but I used about 2 tsp for a 12-oz mug, brewed it at 85°C for 4 minutes, and was greeted with a pale umber liquid. As it cooled down, the tea became darker.

The roasted base of the houjicha is really complementary to the ginger — it’s not spicy, but I can sense the ginger’s fruity zing. I can also taste some gentle spices on the back of the sip, most notably coriander. However, the base is still the strongest flavour, especially in the middle of the sip. The ginger and spices only really come out to play at the end of the sip and in the aftertaste.

Full review of 52Teas 2015 Holiday Kickstarter set at http://booksandtea.ca/2015/12/christmas-teas-from-the-52teas-holiday-kickstarter/

Oh god, the Cranberry Orange Cider is sooo good. First of all, it smells like juice when you open the packet. Like, spices and orange juice and freshness. OM NOM NOM. Second of all, there are whole cranberries! There are also whole pieces of orange. The rest of the tea is a mix of what looks like red rooibos, green rooibos, spices, and possibly orange peel.

The brewed tea is just as good — there’s an excellent balance between the vibrancy of the cranberry, the juiciness of the orange, the solidity of the base rooibos, and the warmth of the mulling spices in the background. The decision to mix red and green rooibos is a smart one, since green rooibos has a lighter, fresher taste that works well with the fruit. Hands down, this was the best of the flavours available through the 52Teas holiday Kickstarter.

Full review of 52Teas 2015 Holiday Kickstarter set at http://booksandtea.ca/2015/12/christmas-teas-from-the-52teas-holiday-kickstarter/

This tea is supposed to combine the flavours of nuts, smoke, and caramel to result in something suitably wintry and festive. There aren’t any whole chestnuts in the tea, though — the nutty chunks in the tea are actually hulled sunflower seeds.

Unfortunately, when I brewed this, I didn’t taste much else beyond the smoke of the Lapsang. I didn’t get much in the way of nuts or caramel. Lapsang Souchong in and of itself isn’t a bad tea, but it’s the sort of thing you really need to blend with other foods to get a complementary effect, like a nice meaty slice of pizza or a square of dark chocolate. Although this tea is attempting to do the same on its own, the sparks didn’t fly here. I’ll need to try it again and see if varying the steep time or adding some sugar will improve things.

Full review of 52Teas 2015 Holiday Kickstarter set at http://booksandtea.ca/2015/12/christmas-teas-from-the-52teas-holiday-kickstarter/