Fjellrev Send Message

Sipdown! As it’s on the verge of raining here, I opted to make this as a latte and it all came together. I was bad and snuck some almond extract into my 2% milk before frothing it, added a teaspoon of clover honey to the steeped tea, and what I have is a lovely snowflake Nordic mug packed with almonds, honey, and spices. It’s August and I’m partying like it’s December.

Thanks again to the TeaGuy for the lovely sample! I am a total fan of this company and recommend that everyone check them out. I will certainly be placing an order sometime to pick up a couple things I got to try, as well as a couple new things to me that are catching my eye as I read about them.

Ohh, is that spice cake I smell? I didn’t know what to expect with the berry, citrus, and spice combination, but the scent of the steeped tea at first smells like spice cake. I think the berry sweetness is contributing to the cake aspect in that it’s sweetening up the powerful spices. And of course, the vanilla bean helps too. But sniffing it more, I’m realizing that it smells a lot like my grandma’s carrot cake. OMG. My grandma has always been more generous with her spices whenever she makes carrot cake, so this is no surprise. It’s funny because the Pinita Colada Carrot Cake disappointed me because it didn’t smell or taste anything like carrot cake to me, yet this somehow smells like it? Go figure!

I’m sipping on this hot without any additives, and it tastes more like blackberry with cloves, then cinnamon and nutmeg behind that, than cake though. The vanilla and cake notes get lost flavour-wise. The citrus plays an incredible minor role. I can barely taste them, but I like it this way anyway. A lovely surprise.

I’d gladly order a larger size if I had the opportunity. How I wish the ones I wanted large sizes of would all be available at once so I could make one big beautiful order. Sigh.

Thank you to the TeaGuy for sending me a generous sample of this! I love chai so much it hurts, so I was excited to see this one. The dry leaf smells heavily of ginger, followed by cinnamon.

I’ve had it hot in the past and it was pretty good although the base went astringent rather easily. With milk, it was a standard chai.

But I’m trying it as an iced latte today (seems to be an iced latte day for me) and it’s great this way. The base isn’t nearly as astringent, and again, I’m picking up on mostly ginger, followed by cinnamon, then clove. I added 2% milk and clover honey, and it all ties together nicely. Better than most chai lattes I have experienced in cafes and restaurants.

Would I buy it? I’m not sure yet, but I’ll gladly finish this off iced latte style in the near future.

A very forgettable blend. Iced, I got watermelon, with secondary pineapple notes with a shot of stevia. Eh.

Oh my, I’m trying this as an iced latte for the first time and it’s wonderful. Chocolate coconut truffle with 2% milk. Swoon.

And now this is out of the way. It’s lost quite a bit of its flavour over time, especially the mint. I tried livening it up by adding some of ATR’s Peppermint to this but it didn’t seem to help much.

And I’m back under 50 again!

Sipped this down as an iced latte and I preferred it this way over hot. The rooibos base wasn’t as overpowering this way but overall, this tasted dry and almost a little stale? Like sipping on steeped nut husks.

I bought this over two years ago, and drank through over half of my tin then, and now have it back in my possession. It’s obviously lost some scent and flavour since then, but regardless of its age, I’m afraid to report that this one was bad.

It’s like the roses mixed in with the manure they were flourishing in and somehow that all ended up in the tin with the cacao shells. No sense in torturing myself trying to drink this up so into the garbage the rest of this goes.

Last fall, ATR sent me this by accident instead of the Peppermint Choco Latte I ordered, but they very promptly sent out the correct one and generously let me keep this, so thank you, ATR! I’m finally getting to this, sadly, but it’s been sealed.

I’m going through a little peppermint binge. I want to try all of my peppermint-related teas iced and make comparisons. The dry leaf smells so refreshing and slightly sweet. Almost like a candy cane. Iced, it loses a bit of that slight sweetness but it doesn’t have any bitterness or other weird undertones. Sign me up, I’m a fan!

And that’s a wrap. Iced the rest of this as it makes for a refreshing peppermint and spearmint thirst quencher with minimal rooibos base. I was supposed to go to farmers market today but it’s been raining practically all day so I’ve been sitting at home like a loser all dressed up and nowhere to go. I welcome the rain though! It just sucks I can’t really walk around. Maybe in an hour or two?

In other random news, I cut open the ripening papaya I’ve had sitting on my counter for quite a few days and it’s one of the best I’ve ever had. It almost tastes like a sweet, super ripe kiwi somehow. Juicy and bright orange. I’m starting to grow paranoid buying these guys, and cantaloupes and avocados too, because they’ve been really hit or miss lately. So yay!