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Had this as my afternoon cup to accompany an apple pastry. The slight tartness of the cranberry helped to cut the sweetness of the pastry, although oddly, despite the strong cranberry scent that this tea has, the taste is very much an even balance between a vanilla-almond and cranberry, and i’d even say the almond is at the front end of the sip. It’s been a while since i’ve had this in my cupboard, and I’m glad to welcome it back for a season again. I am wondering what would happen if I added some vanilla sugar to this next time, or if that’d just clash with the almond-vanilla in the tea.

What is “bop” anyway?

Had this tea with breakfast this morning. I’m going to be seeing my in-laws today and they enjoy tea quite a bit, so I’m actually going to give the rest of my sample tin to them! I thought of just plowing through the rest of it myself, but I just feel like life is too short to be drinking tea I’m not loving. I will never be a sipdown champion for this reason, although it also probably speaks to my not being good at picking teas i’ll like haha.

Anyway, still nothing wrong with this tea. It just tastes like tea, you know?

So glad it’s almost Friday. This week hasn’t been nearly as stressful as last week, but working full-time is just really draining on my overall reserves of just about everything.

Anyway, had this tea again this morning as promised. With a generous amount of cream and sugar, a tea with what felt like ragged jagged edges was transformed into a smooth and flavourful cup. I also only steeped for three minutes, which helped.

So far, this tea still falls into the perfectly acceptable but not scrambling to restock category. And it’s just as well. At least it reminds me that my love for tea isn’t broken.

Oh no. I think I overleafed this in my travel mug this morning, and got a whole lot of date pieces. It was one of those situations where you have slightly more than you’ll need for one cup but not enough for two, and you think to hell with it and brew it all. Anyway, it’s a sipdown, and I’ll be getting more when next I go to DT, although sad-tasting sipdowns are a bit disheartening because they make you second-guess your previous love for a tea. Well they can, anyway. Pretty sure I’ll love this again when I’m not steeping the random bits at the bottom of the tin.

I’d been off tea for a long while, and have only recently meandered back. I’ve not been having too too much luck, to be honest. A lot of the teas I brew fall flat for me, and I’m quicker to give up this time around, whereas in the past I would have probably soldiered on, attempting to brew this way and that. Anyway, I decided that I’d try to go back to basics for a while and just explore plain blacks again, so I ordered an introduction to fine tea sampler from Upton tea Imports (also an excuse for me to get another finum brewing basket, which I’m in love with). Anyway, I thought I’d try this one first.

Brewed this just under boiling for about four minutes, but might try about three minutes next time. I mean, it’s certainly got a decently strong caffeine kick. If what you want is a brisk tea that will make you sit up and take notice, this will absolutely do the trick. It is quite strong, and tastes quite tannic. It absolutely requires cream and sugar, and even then, I could sort of feel it roiling in my stomach a bit. Once it had additions though, it became a strong breakfast tea, that has that sort of dry, thirst-quenching characteristic I would imagine i get from an unsweetened apple juice, although it doesn’t taste remotely of apple. I liked that aspect of the tea very much. Aside from that, however, it was just an ordinary if perfectly acceptable breakfast tea. So I’ll finish it off (that’s my rule before I’m allowed to open another sample tin), but so far, likely won’t be rushing to reorder. Expect more notes on this one though, and feel free to hit me if I review another Upton tea before this one is out.

I know I know, I keep drinking this tea. It’s because it travels so well. There are only two downsides to this tea:

-since getting back into tea again, it’s the only tea I’ve discovered that I actually really like in my travel mug.

-and it’s also a really heavy tea. So like evolvingness said, this could become quite the expensive habit. But one I’m ok with having.

I do need to find other really good travel-mug teas though, because I don’t want to get sick of this one.

In other news, it’s been a long, exhausting, and stressful week at work. I have a really exciting weekend planned with my sisters coming up though, so definitely lots to look forward to. I do wish I could be more candid on here, but alas it’s not even remotely private…

This is such a great tea to take in a travel mug, and I don’t know why, exactly. I think it’s partially because it’s an herbal so it can steep pretty much forever, and can really withstand all sorts of sloppy parameters. I steeped two tsp in about 12 oz of water for ten minutes, and got a very naturally sweet, full-on banana flavour with a touch of nutty dryness (though a little less so in this cup) at the end of the sip. I hope I never become sick of this tea. For some reason, there are very few teas I can enjoy in a travel mug, and so when I find one, I hold on to it for dear life. Do you guys find that travel mugs mute flavours very severely as well?

This is such a relaxing and contemplative cup of tea. I am so tempted to brew it so many ways, and have enough left to do just that. I’ll be reordering, although I’m not sure what I’ll be reordering along with, as I haven’t been a huge fan of the current incarnation of North Winds. But I imagine there will be some other really good blends coming up, so I need not worry.

This tea. Still lots of lilacs and fresh, pure air.

Well, this was a lesson in don’t judge a tea by its name, or even necessarily by its smell. I initially passed this over, as it struck me as a slightly more savoury tea, and I’m not generally drawn to those. I was convinced to try it, however, when countless people were raving about it and recommended it highly, so I got some on my way home from work this morning to reward myself for going in for a few hours on a Saturday.

And my faith in my ability to like tea has been restored. I doctored it up with some milk and sugar because this tea positively begs for it, and it really does taste like a thick slice of sweet French toast with a bit of savoury cardamom. Thankfully, I don’t get the coriander, because I think that would be gross in a tea. I love the way it smells while it’s brewing, too—sort of like baby oil but a nicer, drinkable version (seriously guys, think about baby oil while this steeps next time and you’ll smell what I mean). Such an innocent, comforting smell. Mmm I already want more.

While I was at DT today, I also picked up 100 g of banana nut bread because nom, and couldn’t resist the santa’s secret white chocolate bar. There aren’t nearly enough white mint chocolate bars in this world as far as I’m concerned, so I’m willing to chance it, even if it means I’ll crunch down on actual tea leaves (someone seriously needs to tell dt to sort that issue out).

So yup, you done good, dt! you done good!

I have a large pouch of this to tinker with, so that’s good. Because my first cup of this hasn’t been a success, but I know I may have ruined it somehow, as word on the street is that this tea is notoriously finicky. The flavouring in here is rather faint and artificial, although that can be forgiven because cotton candy isn’t exactly a naturally occurring taste, but somehow it just doesn’t all come together for me. I added in a bit of rock sugar, which may have been an accident because this tea already seems quite overwhelmable. I do tend to like teas that can withstand a bit of a beating because I can’t always ensure perfection in every aspect of brewing, plus I like to be able to consistently expect the same thing. That said, I am going to try this again and not in a travel mug that can mute flavours at the best of times. I am also coming to the slow realization that is very rare for me to really enjoy a green tea, so there’s that.