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So, what’s the oldest tea in my cupboa— EXPIRED FEBRUARY 2005?! I didn’t even get into tea as a hobby until 2016?! How… when… Did I buy this box when I moved into this apartment, shove it to the back of my cupboard, and forget about it? It was still sealed! Oh man…

Okay, I will try exactly one packet, and then the rest is going in the trash, for health and safety reasons. And I don’t count trashed items for sipdown. It’s the principal of the matter…

The weird thing is, I have memories of actually liking Oregon Chai instant chai, but from where…? Did we keep this around in my house growing up, so I bought some after I moved out? Or maybe I bought chai lattes from coffee shops around here that used this brand… In any event, I’m sure I’ve had this brand of instant chai somewhere in my past, and recall liking it. Whether I’ll like instant tea powder that expired fourteen years ago is a different matter, though…

It… doesn’t really want to dissolve into the water well, at all. Even after stirring well, I see a lot of little worrisome clumpy bits floating on the top… what have I gotten myself into? Wait, this has dried milk in it? Yaaaaaaa, that’s a big fat nope. I’m not drinking fossilized milk for the sake of a tea review. It smells off, anyway.

A single very small sip honestly doesn’t taste rancid (not that I’d ever risk more than that!), but the flavor itself honestly isn’t bad, so I can see why I liked this in the past: very sweet and honey-like, clove and cinnamon on the spice front, and some underlying maltiness. If this was in it prime, I’d sure it would be fine.

Well, that’s some easy cupboard space reclaimed, at least!

Sampler Sunday! I got this tea from Meowster’s cupboard destash last summer, thanks Meowster! Assams don’t tend to be my favorite when it comes to blacks, so I just kept a sampler size of this and decided to put the rest in the Discovery Teabox since it was pretty flavored blend dominant and I wanted to try to get some more pure teas in there for folks. That said, I have had some assams surprise me before (India Assam Kanoka Hand-made Black from What-cha comes to mind!) so I’m looking forward to this sample.

I use my typical black tea brewing parameters, which are likely “lighter” than most folks: 2.5g for 350ml of water and a 3 minute steep. The cup was a deeply dark cup, and had an aroma of malt, burnt toast, and… mint? That can’t be right, but then, my sniffer is just a little stuffy first thing in the morning when I get out of bed… The flavor was quite bold, with a strong malty, baked bread/burnt toast flavor, and oddly enough I actually was picking up a subtle undertone of citrus and mint notes towards the end of the sip. (Have I just been drinking too much mint tea lately? I’ve never tasted a mint note in a black breakfast tea before…) Also just a hint of a pepper note on the back of the tongue as the sip is subsiding. There is a decent bit of astringency with this tea due to the robustness, so I get quite a bit of tongue-drying after the sip. It’s quite hearty and offers quite a bit of flavor even though it’s likely older leaf, and would make a good breakfast tea option, but blacks like this aren’t my personal preference. I’m debating if I want to add a little milk, or just take it like a champ, because despite the astringency, I do really like that subtle mintiness my tongue is picking up.

Edit: After reading about tea-sipper giving her infusers a bath, I went and sniff-tested my gravity well, and yup… minty! Welp, that mystery is solved! I’ve been trying for a week straight to sip down a chocomint rooibos with an utterly obnoxious super artificial, overly strong peppermint flavoring in it, and it must have left some flavor residue in my infuser. Most of the flavor was covered by the robustness of this tea, so I just tasted a “mint note” which didn’t have that artificial taste to it, and just tasted pleasantly minty. Heh. Well, now the infuser is getting a proper vinegar and baking soda bath. At least I enjoyed my cuppa regardless of the mistake?

This is a sampler I purchased as “White Thunder” from Fusion Teas quite some time ago; it is wholesaled from International Tea Importers and hey, Fusion Teas didn’t even bother changing the blend name, what a pleasant surprise.

I made this as an iced tea; even during the bitter cold months I like to have an iced tea on hand, I just drop down to only having a single quart mason jar in my fridge at a time and don’t work through it very fast (in the summer I usually have 2-3 mason jars constantly in rotation). Right now mint teas have been a nice balm because, though I have chronic migraine, the winter months tend to be a bit worse due to barometric pressure changes from snow fronts moving in and out, and mint helps with the nausea, so it’s good to have on hand.

I drank a lot of different mint teas last month but didn’t have a chance to get to this one. And I have to say, this might be one of my favorites (if not my favorite!) that I’ve tried. The white tea base is just sort of perfect for the minty flavors, because it is light and delicate and doesn’t overwhelm those notes. It has some very subtle refreshing melon or vegetal cucumber qualities to the flavor, and a touch of a sweet floral note, but they really give it a nice touch, especially iced. The peppermint is also a really nice flavor, being a mix of peppermint and spearmint. Nothing artificial tasting, it’s very clean and refreshing, with a brisk, cooling flavor. It’s really thirst-quenching, and soothing on the stomach, too.

It’s a simple tea, but seriously… I’m loving this stuff!

Uuuuuuuugh… so after spending $1140 in car repairs last month, my car is still having the same issues, and I just can’t stand the thought of having to take it back (after five trips to the mechanic already!) and be without a vehicle again after they’ve already screwed me over so thoroughly. At this point I think I’m going to have to be going used car shopping, and who knows how much that is going to cost me… the depression is overwhelming at this point. I just want a car that is going to reliably start on me and get me to and from work, is that too much to ask for? I’m so frustrated at this point…

Anyway, Throwback Thursday! I think one of my biggest issues achieving sipdowns is I tend to sort of forget about older teas in my cupboard, things I’ve reviewed before, since I’m just not the sort of person that logs every single cup of tea I drink (I don’t have the time for that, and trust me, you don’t need to see that, either). But I was thinking that it would be good for me to “remember” those teas and make progress towards them if I went back and revisited them at least periodically, especially since my brewing techniques and palate have likely changed a lot since I last reviewed the very earliest teas I logged. Thus, Throwback Thursday!

This tea was actually probably the first I ever purchased when I got into collecting looseleaf tea, though it was horribly overpriced and came from the Spice and Tea Exchange (man, did I get ripped off as a complete tea newbie from that place!) (Original review located here, first I published on Steepster! So historical: https://steepster.com/mastressalita/posts/365230 ) The blend there is identical to Rishi’s West Cape Chai, which they sell for $32.00 for a pound; Spice and Tea Exchange sells it as “Rooibos Chai” for — get this — $22.39 for 4 oz. * cough * Yaaaaaaa. Now, I don’t have the space for a pound of tea in my tiny apartment, so when I wanted more of this specific tea after I’d drank up my Spice and Tea Exchange 1 oz. sampler, I ordered this particular bag from California Tea & Herbal (also called “Rooibos Chai”), since they offered 2 oz. sized bags, just the right amount for my collection. And yes, it’s not much cheaper from them than from Spice and Tea Exchange, but when you just don’t need a whole pound of tea at once and Rishi won’t sell you human-sized bags directly…

I’ve had a few different rooibos chais/spiced teas since this “OG” blend, but coming back to this… ya, this is still my favorite. There is something about this particular spice blend that just does it for me. This rooibos is actually a bit more earthy/woody than most I try — usually I pick up sweeter, honeyed notes — but it fits the blend very nicely. I get a strong cinnamon note that hits my tongue initially, with a strong spicy kick of ginger, clove, and pepper that hits the roof of my mouth, and then toward the end of the sip there is a soft sweetness of licorice root. It’s actually quite well blended. It actually leaves a bit more of a spiciness than I usually prefer, but because I like the unique taste of all the subtle flavors so much, I actually hesitate to add milk, and focus on the roasty, earthy, and sweet licorice notes until the spiciness subsides between sips. I probably will try it as a latte sometime, though!

I still really like this blend. I’m lowering the rating just slightly since my personal preference is for a little less spice-burn on the back of the throat, but that is entirely subjective because I’m a spice-wuss; I love everything about the blend and flavor, which is why I’m subjecting myself to the spice-burn regardless. A year later and this one still holds up for me! Probably an especially good choice on a really cold evening like tonight where my toes are frigid!

So, when looking at the daunting task of my tea collection and getting things out of it, I decided starting with an “out with the old” approach would be best. I’m glad my spreadsheet is arranged by date, and this tea had an expiration date of November 2018. Uhh… okay. Well, that isn’t too far past, at least not so far long ago I’m not willing to try it. But if I’m not sold, I’m not going to feel guilty about simply tossing the rest of it, either. I think I probably put off this one because every other bagged Bigelow tea I ever tried I didn’t like. Yes, including Constant Comment. (And that may have entirely been up to the age of the sampler packets I received too, but I wasn’t about to spend my own money on a brand of tea I historically don’t like on a full box of it to test that theory…)

I used three teabags for 400ml of water in my travel mug, and did a brief 2 minute steep since CTC. And while this is probably the best results I’ve had with Bigelow yet… I’m still not really feeling this. The vanilla aspect actually isn’t so bad. It actually tastes a bit cookie-like… it’s reminding me of the flavoring from that Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride by Celestial Seasonings I finally got to try last month. But even with the brief steep, the black tea is slightly bitter, and my main issue is the chai element… the spices are so artificial they are distracting and off-putting to me. I feel like I’m tasting that same weird artificial clove taste that I tasted in the Stash bagged Chai, and it leaves this really unpleasant taste on my tongue. The ginger flavor, too, feels overly pungent and artificial, how it is in too many bagged lemon ginger teas.

So, I realize it’s a bit of an oxymoron that I like the artificial sweet cookie-like vanilla flavoring, but can’t stand the artificial spice flavors. And the vanilla comes in first and is quite nice, but then the spice hits toward the end of the sip and lingers and sort of ruins it for me.

This isn’t so bad that I can’t finish this, and in the grand scheme of things, if I was at a restaurant and all they had was Bigelow tea, considering I’ve never liked anything by Bigelow before, if they had this one, I’d probably pick this one. If, you know, I didn’t just order Dr. Pepper instead.

Teabox Tuesday! While I won’t be doing monthly themes this year in my effort to Sipdown ALL the Teas™, I am going to try to get to one of my stashed away teabox teas on Tuesdays until all of those have been sipped down! Since I typically only kept a single serving of these, this seems a reasonable goal to start things off.

This one is actually from the older teabox I took part in when I first joined on Steepster, bless tea-sipper for letting me take part as it has really let me experience a lot of teas as a relative “tea newb.” Thankfully I don’t have many Here’s Hoping Teabox teas left (mostly just pu-erhs, so I like to think they are gracefully aging?), and this is one of only two oolongs I had left from that box. I’ve never had a Wuyi Rock Oolong, so take anything I have to say with a grain of salt! Neeeeewb! (Thank you tea-sipper and all who contributed to the last Here’s Hoping Teabox for this opportunity!)

I also really want to try to do more eastern-style brewing this year, as I just don’t get around to it very much. On work days I just don’t have the time (I can’t do it at work, and after work I can only drink herbals) so I’m going to try to get in at least one gong fu session a weekend. It’ll help me learn to brew better in that style, and since I need to take western-style brews to work in a thermos, it’ll be nice to have a comparison of some of these teas between the two styles.

So, I prepared my single 3g serving of this leaf in my shiboridashi.

3g / 100ml / 208F / Rinse|20s|25s|30s|35s|40s|45s|50s

The first two infusions were fairly similar. The wet leaf produced an aroma that reminded me of roasted nuts and cashew. The steeped brew was a dark caramel color, and smelled very roasty with notes of char/smoke, nuts, and minerals. The tea had a sort of mineral/wet rock flavor at the beginning of the sip, followed by a vegetal watercress and nutty cashew flavor, with notes of roasty old leather and smoke closing out the sip. The middle steeps opened with a more tobacco and ashy/smoky taste, but closed tasting a bit more roasted and nutty. Toward the end of the session the smokier notes started to wane and the tea became more nutty, which was probably my favorite steeps of the session, and by the seventh steep I could tell the tea was losing flavor and I was feeling quite tea heavy so I closed things up, even though I was finally getting to a place where I liked the taste a lot more.

While I like roasted flavors (like houjicha) I really don’t like strong smoky flavor (especially if they lean toward ashy or tobacco) so this was not a personal favorite. I have one more Wuyi Rock Oolong sampler in my collection that is apparently floral scented, so maybe I’ll like that one more? Or maybe it’ll just make my flowers taste like they’ve been through a meadow fire. I hope that won’t be the case! Have a feeling in the grand scheme of things this may just not be a type of oolong that is for me, if it always has a strong smoky taste, just like Gunpowder green tea and Lapsang Souchong just isn’t my thing.

Happy New Year! This is one of Lupicia’s New Year seasonal flavors, though I picked mine up as a box of tea sachets last April in a mottainai sale… yup. So, from the (rough) stats I kept in 2018, I spent waaaaaaaay too much on tea last year, tried 288 new teas, and sipped down 251 teas. And by “sipdown”, I mean teas I actually finished. Things that left my collection via gifting, teaboxes, or being trashed (for any reason, though bad coconut was the typical culprit) didn’t count toward that stat. So this will be new tea tried #1 for 2019!

I actually started my New Year’s Resolution back in December: to significantly cut down my tea spending this year, and make a huge push towards sipdowns to get the amount of tea in my tiny one room apartment back under control. It is out of hand, and really bothering me. Honestly, I’ve considered quitting Steepster for a year, because it almost feels like an alcholic trying to “get under control” but still going to the bar every night, because I’m constantly having sales, free shipping promos, group buys, tea boxes, etc. shoved in my face and feel guilty when I have to say over and over, “No, I’m serious, I’m not ordering/collecting tea right now. I mean it.” It’s like the peer pressure is everywhere. But I truly, sincerely, love sampling tea, and collecting my thoughts about it, and trying to expand my palate, and reading everyone’s tasting notes (I legitimately read every tasting note that comes through my feed if I’m Following you, even if it can sometimes take me a few days to catch up!) So I really don’t want to do that. I really hope you will join me on my journey of the Year of the Sipdown, as I try to clear space in my apartment, get my collection to a more managable size, better decide which teas I want taking up permanent cupboard real estate so the other space can be allocated to a “rotating” sampling collection, and only then I may feel up to getting some new things to try. (Plus, this will really help me recoup funds for some massive car repairs that hit at the end of the year! In the grand scheme of priorities, my transportation is a bit more important to me…)

So, onto this tea! It is apparently a mango flavored black, but the dry leaf smells like a really juicy apricot to me? I steeped the sachet for three minutes, then noticed it had a rip in it… bah! Had I noticed before I would’ve cut it open and let the leaf steep in my gravity well. I’m not against grandpa style for those of you that like it, but I’ll admit… I’m one of those weird folks that just can’t stand getting leaf in my tea, and I spent a while fishing loose peppercorns out of my cup, hahaha. The tea was a lovely dark brown color, and still smelled more of sweet apricot to me than mango (considering I have a bad run-in with many mango flavorings, this is not a bad thing to me!) The black tea had a medium astringency, but the fruit was so soft, sweet, and ripe tasting, that it actually didn’t have a very tannic quality to it, and the sweet fruitiness left on my tongue actually seemed to counter a lot of the dryness I would’ve experienced from the astrigency. It was a really nice flavor! There is a very, very subtle spice note, but mostly it’s a very smooth maltiness with a honeyed juicy apricot/peach flavor. I’m liking this one, it’s a lot less potent than some other Lupicia blacks I’ve had and the fruit flavoring in this one is really nice.

Holiday Tea-son! I got this tea in a discounted holiday tea sampler pack in an after Christmas sale from T2 last January, though I honestly wondered even then why it was included, as this is one of T2’s standard flavors. It’s yet another chocolate-mint rooibos, and somehow I seem to be overwhelmed with those in my cupboard. I don’t dislike them, in fact I quite like choco-mint rooibos, it’s just one of those things where “one is enough” for me, yet I always seem to end up getting more of them somehow, from free samplers, sampler packs, etc. It’s like that tea that no matter how much I sip down, I turn around and find more of it.

I have this odd feeling that I’ll sip this one down, feel like I’ve finally gotten down to just having that one bag of the stuff left in my cupboard, and like Tribbles find eight more choco-mint rooibos samplers, like it is some sort of curse or something…

Anyway, this is being added into my sipdown pile until it is gone.

It… isn’t my favorite compared to other choco-mint rooibos I’ve had in the past. It is lacking the creamy element I’ve found in others, and all the mint in this one is from flavoring rather than actual mint leaf, so if you like a really strong, overwhelming, peppermint candy sort of flavor, then this might be to your preferences; the other ones I’ve had used mint leaf and where therefore more brisk with a refreshing, natural minty taste, with the sweetness coming from the honey-like quality of the rooibos base. Past blends also had more caramel elements shining through, which really complimented the tea, so even if the cocoa was more of a subtle taste, it tended to pop a bit more. I’m just not tasting the rooibos at all here, I’m not getting any of those honey or caramel sort of notes, so while I do taste some of the cocoa, it feels a bit washed out under the really overwhelming peppermint candy flavor of this tea.

Meh. This may actually be the worst version of choco-mint rooibos I’ve tried yet.

Holiday Tea-son! Some time ago, I had sampled a Butterscotch White tea that I got in a holiday sampler pack from Art of Tea, which I reviewed here: https://steepster.com/mastressalita/posts/365383 . I really enjoyed it, but instead of restocking it from Art of Tea (since they are quite expensive), I found a close match for it from Tealyra at the time, called “Butterscotch Potion,” as it was on a big discount, so I bought a bag there instead. All the ingredients listed were the same. Tealyra no longer carries the blend, but I know Tealyra gets their flavored blends by wholesaling, so I was trying to dig into where they sourced the blend. I could find lots of other tea sites carrying the same blend, and all of them had the blend as a fall/winter seasonal… the same as Art of Tea. Hmmmmmmmm. This led me to believe that Tealyra, and all the other sites were all wholesaling it directly from Art of Tea (Art of Tea lists that the origin of their blend is an “Art of Tea original” and I’d hate to think they are saying that while wholesaling it too, and I know Art of Tea themselves have a wholesale option). So, I was going to review this under Tealyra, thinking they’d wholesaled some “duplicate” of the Art of Tea blend but… no, I think I really do have a (much cheaper!) bag of the original Art of Tea blend that I had originally enjoyed so much. I even checked all the major blend wholesalers and am feeling pretty confident here. If nothing else, the over-abundance of “wholesale/relabel culture” from teashops does mean you might find the exact same blend under a different name for a waaaaay better price per ounce somewhere else if you are willing to do a little searching around by ingredient list of your tea of choice…

So I don’t usually review the same tea more than once, but that review was from my baby days on Steepster, and I haven’t had this tea in ages. My tea-brewing game has likely changed quite a bit since then, so I wouldn’t be surprised if my brewed cup, palate, and thus rating has changed as well. So I may as well revisit this one.

I know a year ago, I expected very bold flavors, which I don’t expect so much now; in fact, I now actually prefer a bit more nuance, with the base notes coming through more, and the flavors in the cup to taste more natural than really strong or artificial. So I took care to not put too much leaf in my cup, and I am really enjoying this; it actually has a really nice butterscotch flavor, without tasting overwhelming. There is a silky, buttery mouthfeel to the tea that is very pleasant and satisfying; I feel like I pick up a slight coconut milk sort of flavor note, which may have a lot to do with the creamy texture? Before the tea reminded me of Werthers, but that was probably from overleafing or adding sugars, things I don’t do now; I’d say it’s a more subtle butterscotch flavor, present but not overbearing on the white tea, with lots of sweet buttery notes, and hints of caramel. Almost like a caramel popcorn sort of taste that pops toward the end of the sip. There seems to be some vegetal notes lingering in the cup, but the sweetness and buttery notes keep them very muted.

It’s a really nice dessert tea, and very relaxing. I think I like this a bit more than I remember, because I think I can appreciate some of the more nuanced flavors a bit more now than I could a year ago. Raising the rating slightly!

Holiday Tea-son! Decided to try this chocolate orange tea based on Terry’s Chocolate Oranges, since that candy is marketed pretty heavily around the holidays (though I would gladly enjoy them anytime!) I love the smell of the dry leaf, which does smell quite sweet and orange, with some noticable cocoa notes.

My first cup was very bad. The tea had a faint orange color, with a mild chocolately aroma, but the orange aroma wasn’t nearly as potent as it was in the dry leaf. The flavor was actually quite citrus, with very little chocolate flavor showing through. It felt like there was no black tea base present at all, so the tea felt very weak and watery, so though I was getting a strong tangy orange, citrusy flavor, it felt like there was nothing to properly hold it and I felt like I was drinking an oily warm orange water. The cocoa note was also extremely subtle, hardly showing through beneath the citrus. The balance of the tea was just completely off, coming off as an herbal tea with a weak base, not a black tea, and Ceylon black tea was listed as the first ingredient. So I decided to dump the cup and try again, thinking perhaps I didn’t get a decent ingredient mix in the 3g I’d measured out for my cup.

The color looked a bit darker from my second cup, which was a good sign. The flavor has also improved a lot, so that had seemed to be my problem. This cup doesn’t have that “watery” feel to it, there is definitely more of a black tea presense now, and it makes a huge difference. The orange flavor is still quite strong, and has that tart citrusy note, but it is tempered a bit by the black tea base. The cocoa also tastes a little more present, though I still feel it tastes a little too subtle against the orange. Also, the orange flavoring seems to have the same problem I’ve had with other orange flavorings before… it tastes a little overly artificial or alcoholic to me? Though at least I’m not getting a metallic aftertaste…

So even after getting a better blend of the ingredients in my cup, it’s still not my favorite; the orange is a bit too strong/artificial tasting, and the cocoa is too subtle. I will probably try using up my 20g sampler pouch making lattes with chocolate almond milk, since that will add in the chocolate component that I’m not really feeling here, and will hopefully tame down the overly-strong artificial note I’m feeling from the orange.

You know, I really want a good chocolate orange tea, but every one I’ve tried so far I’ve had this issue. Too strong/artificial orange, hardly any chocolate flavor. Surely there is a good one out there?