268 Tasting Notes
Thank you Virginia for suggesting that we add this to our Lupicia order! Such a good call!! This tea is DELICIOUS. The peach really is a white peach and so juicy tasting. I’m also getting that clean mouthfeel that I enjoyed so much in Lupicia’s Kiwi tea. Also, apparently I love pouchong? I’m equally as obsessed with Golden Moon’s Coconut Pouchong. But pouchong is usually not roasted and I thought I liked roasty oolongs…also I didn’t really care for a greener oolong I had the other day. I’m kinda confused…whatever, I’m over it. This tea is just so great. My advice to you is to buy it!
Flavors: Peach
Preparation
Sorry to disappoint Ost, but I do not hate this tea at all. It’s really good! If I had any criticism it would be that I need more oolong taste from it. I also probably used too much water for the size of the sachet. However the peachy apricot goodness that shows up and lingers at the end of the sip is very pleasant and also subtle in a good way. Thanks Ost!
Flavors: Apricot, Peach
I left work early this afternoon. I was like “Later, I’ve got some oolong to drink….I mean, data to analyze. Yes, data, definitely that.” I’m doing that too. But obviously on steepster a bit. Anyway, I just had to try this tea. I mean, strawberries, champagne, and oolong? I love all those things. The generous Ost obliged me :-). To me, this tea tastes like strawberry rhubarb more than anything else. It’s ok, but licorice of the Teavil Empire is there lurking where he does not belong. Why would you add licorice to all this wonderful fruitiness? There’s not enough to make me hate this tea, but my taste buds are not dancing with joy either.
Flavors: Hibiscus, Licorice, Rhubarb, Strawberry
Preparation
Aha, I didn’t even notice the licorice! :P I definitely have to be in the mood for this tea though…heh, it actually tastes a lot like this hookah flavor called “subzero”. I have a feeling my brother and his friends would like this tea. xD Sorry it wasn’t your favorite, but hey, we’re almost equal right? Well kinda almost. Just hate one more tea and we’ll be equal with the swap!
Licorice is totally Darth Vader! He force chokes any tea he visits. And I am analzying data too…just way more excited about my tea lol. And also, each of my samples is like 6 million cells, so I spend a lot of time staring at the spinning pinwheel of death (Mac users, you know what I’m talking about!) while each sample loads. Luckily, I have steepster to entertain me :-)
I tried this one again as a cold brew and I did like it better than having it hot. The fruit is more present, but this tea is just over all “meh” for me. It’s decent and I would certainly drink it again if offered, but I definitely would not spend my money on it.
FYI, cold brewed this for about a day and a half (oops) but it wasn’t bitter at all.
Another tea from Miss B ‘s stash sale! (Best deal ever!) I’m not a huge fan of orange in teas…or really anything for that matter. I’m pretty much a purist when it comes to orange in that I like actual oranges but not much else, not even orange juice. Despite all that, I really enjoyed this cup of tea! It was an extremely well done tea. The harshness of the orange was tempered by the apricot and the whole thing was subtle in the best way. This tea had an understated elegance about it. I think that any orange lover would probably cherish this tea like Gollem with the precious.
Also, I had a fabulous Monday and I hope all you Steepster-ites did too :-). My colonies of cells that I carefully tended over the weekend looked good, my prodigal plasmids returned (I found them stuffed in the back of the freezer behind a ton of boxes; not cool, careless freezer-rearranging labmate!), and my best lab friend, whose cells I also tended over the weekend so she could go on a trip, brought me a tea gift! She brought me Coco-lada by Owl’s brew which is “a tea crafted for cocktails.” Yes please! She also brought in some vafler, which we ate with raspberry jam and gjetost during break while I drank this Fauchon creation.
Flavors: Apricot, Floral, Orange
Preparation
A. Did Nina’s ever get back to you about the samples? B. Does steepster hate everyone today, or just me?
There’s no tiny trashcan button! So I don’t think I can delete your comments for you. We all know you were a victim of the Steepster hissy fit
Stephanie, Miss B wasn’t specifically selling Fauchon. This was more of a grab bag situation where she sold me a box full of wonderful surprises!
Marzipan, I only had a sample size of all the teas I got from Miss B, otherwise I ’d offer to send you some!
Another great offering from H&S! I got a sample of this in Miss B ’s tea sale of awesomeness and am very happy to have a chance to try it. To me, I get mostly hazelnut with some hints of cocoa along with a smoooooth black base. There was zero bitterness and I was quite happy to drink this plain, although I see now that the H&S website suggests adding milk to achieve a Nutella-like taste. Next time!
Flavors: Cocoa, Hazelnut
Preparation
This one didn’t really pop for me, but it was still pretty good. I’ve neve had rhubarb before, but this tea tasted similar to the DT’s strawberry rhubarb parfait without the creamy aspect of that tea. It was actually pretty tart on its own, which was the exact opposite of what Virginia thought of it lol. However, I was eating grapes that were quite sweet right before I started drinking this so that may have affected how it tasted to me. I’ll hold off on rating it for now. I added a little splenda and now I wish I hadn’t. I think I liked it better plain. This will definitely be a retry and I’ll withhold judgement until then.
LOL, it seemed kind of cumbersome and unneccessary? So I just dropped it. People still know who I am, right?
I cold brewed this for about 14 hours. I think I like it better cold…no hot…nope, cold. Yes, cold. This tea is great either way! Cold though, it tastes so fresh and juicy and clean. Clean might be a weird descriptor for taste, but it does taste clean. I also definitely taste that this is first and foremost a tea just with this awesome kiwi flavor thrown in. Great summer tea :-)
2tsp/12 oz H2O/14-ish hrs in the fridge
The smell of this tea is chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! Both in the dry leaf and while brewing. A lot of times teas will smell amazing and then fall short when you finally taste them. Not so with this tea! ZOMG the dark chocolate. I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. The chocolate taste isn’t too weak as is normally the case and the tea has a little bit of a creamy mouthfeel to it. I decided to have this with the 4 berry nutella crepes I made this morning. Good decisions all around!
Flavors: Dark Chocolate
Preparation
Well this tea is fairly underwhelming. I actually measured the leaf this time. With the Kiwi I didn’t and underleafed it as a result, but that tea was still bursting with juicy flavor. This tea is just kind of lackluster. It’s a black tea, with some tropical fruit taste hanging around- mango, papaya, and pineapple perhaps? Although the fruit flavors do strengthen as the tea cools. I bet this would be much better as a cold brew. All in all, it was a nice cuppa but I wasn’t blown away by it at all. I like it, but I wouldn’t buy it again.
Flavors: Mango, Pineapple
Good to know! Me love my peaches and my Pouchong :-)
On the wish list it goes…
Lupicia doesn’t ship to Canada, right? I can ship you a sample if you want before you go through all the trouble of trying to order some.
Aww, thanks mj, you are so sweet but it’s ok, I found my way around that no shipping to canada none sense, they now offer me a flat shipping rate of $15 on orders over $60 :-)
I love ALL their oolongs so far, so I’ m sure to like this one as well, will be part of my next order for sure…maybe some other times, when I don’t have so many “transactions” going on, we could do a real swap though ;-)
Oh, I didn’t mean that you’d have to send me in anything in return! I mean, I wouldn’t turn down a swap but it was not necessary :-) And I’m glad you found a way around their shipping policy!
I know ;-) i just can’t take anything without sending something in return, just the way I was brought up I guess!! But I meant what I said, I’d love for us to swap one of these days :-)
That would be fun! Let me know :-)