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This is a queued tasting note.

Well, this was better than that cup that made me feel super nauseous when I was feeling sick: however something about it still didn’t taste quite right to me either and I can’t exactly place what it is. The taste wasn’t bad: cinnamon and bright peach with a playful tartness from the rosehips. It should have been good but peach is one of those flavours that is so hit and miss for me. Some of my worst tea drinking experiences have involved peach flavoured teas; and when I think back on them I instantly just don’t feel quite right. Stomach gurglies, and all that jazz…

So I think that because I now have that strong mental connection to when I drank this while feeling sick and it making me feel so gross afterwards that I may have dug that slippery slope of peach flavour an even deeper hole. I may be in a place now where, regardless of the cuppa itself, I just associate this tea and it’s flavour with the feeling of sickness…

This is a queued tasting note.

Well, it’s pretty well summer time and what does that mean? Barbecues and beverages! Sometimes the bevvies are tea, sometimes they’re alcohol, and sometimes they’re both! We had a “roommate” BBQ last week and I made iced tea “cocktails” for everyone using Brisk as the base.

1 oz of vodka
1 oz of Peach Schnapps
And then the rest of the glass filled with Brisk…

They were quite good! Better than Brisk on its own, actually. The peach schnapps really made it quite delicious. It was like some sort of iced tea peach candy? Fuzzy Peaches with out the tartness, perhaps? Perfectly appropriate for the first BBQ of the summer though!

Also, Happy Mother’s Day Steepster Mommies!

This is a queued tasting note.

Picked this one out as my commute tea on Monday ’cause I was craving something sweet as well as a black tea and I thought that this would be bright enough to jump start my day/afternoon. The grenadine was delicious and really hit the spot, but the black tea came off as brisk and very tannic. It actually had enough astringency that while the taste was there the mouthfeel was very unpleasant and distracting.

Hmmm…

Thank you Scheherazade for the sample!

I was really happy to get a chance to swap with you again. Hoping you love the matcha.

This is my first pick from the goodies Scheherazade sent me; I asked for a random mix of stuff, and she certainly didn’t disappoint. Random is my new go to: I always end up with things I’d never have picked for myself and quite often I end up pleasantly surprised. That’s the case with this one, for sure: I’d have avoided it ’cause of the “spice” element and the fact pumpkin teas so rarely ever taste like actual pumpkin.

This is great though: first and foremost I very clearly taste the flavour of real pumpkin and that definitely makes this better than most “pumpkin” teas which typically drown out any actual pumpkin in the blend with pumpkin spices. And on that note, while I totally taste the cinnamon and ginger in the blend they’re subdued in comparison to the flavour of the pumpkin and the cinnamon really just reinforces the pie element of the tea because it makes me think of pie crust. I don’t find them intrusive or drowning at all which is a big relief. I don’t even mind the ginger.

As well, there’s a sweetness to the tea which is appropriate to the notion of pie filling. I’d never add sweetener to this myself as that’d be over the top, but what’s here seems almost natural while capturing that confectionery element. Of course, it isn’t natural: it’s definitely from the candy bats in the blend – but that’s fine. It’s not artificial tasting. It’s like brown sugar and vanilla? Without actually being brown sugar or vanilla though.

Final observation/comment: While I normally don’t lean towards Ceylon I think that it’s appropriate as a base here because it does have such a mild/soft flavour compared to a lot of black teas and that suits blends well, especially blends that focus on flavours as delicate as pumpkin. Squash in general doesn’t pack a lot of “oomph” as a flavour. Not the same way other fruits/veggies do.

Really, really impressed and surprised with this blend! Only small criticism is that I wish there was a stronger taste of the clove.

This is a queued tasting note.

Yikes! Way too tart! I think all I’m tasting is the most sour strawberry flavour ever and hibiscus. What happened to this cold brew!? Yuck…

Side question: anyone know if “nut” milks (almond, cashew, coconut) can curdle? I want to try to bring out the creamyness of this tea but I’m scared of the hibby overload curdling the milk. I don’t even know if that’s a thing that happens but don’t want to find out through putting the theory to test…

This is a queued tasting note.

Commute tea! Made this with some added cashew milk; it was pretty good. The milk tempered a lot of the sugary sweetness and I was left with a brew that was essentially caramel, subtle but juicy pineapple, coconut and a little bit of a nutty taste with a rich, creamy mouthfeel.

My friend Paige, whom I made a tea sampler for, just finished trying all of the teas in the sampler and this was her overall favourite. She was sad that it’s no longer for sale. Admittedly, I’ve found that this is losing some of its novelty to me. Considering passing along the rest to her…

This is a queued tasting note.

So, we’ve all had a tea (or teas) that we bought for reasons completely unrelated to the tea itself, right? The art on the wrapper looked super cool? Or the name was really geeky? Well, I bought this one because I was looking for aged oolongs to sample and the year 1984 caught my attention as I’m a pretty big fan of Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm novels. I needed 25g of this, stat, for that reason alone. So, buckle up guys, gals, and people inbetween or otherwise ’cause the Orwellian puns in this review are gonna be doubleplusstrong!

Also, this is a stream of consciousness review, meaning I essentially just took jot notes as I was drinking of my immediate thoughts and that’s basically what I’m writing up now. Unfiltered, pretty much. Bonus, unintended Newspeak puns!

- Started with a five second rinse…

Infusion One: Less than five seconds
- Light brown/gold liquor
- Roasty/mineral aroma
- Peppery “tickle” on the forefront of my tongue and back of my throat
- Dank/wet earth and mineral notes
- Woody/vegetal; oak
- LIGHT roast overall

Infusion Two: Seven seconds
- Stronger Plusstrong roast aroma; slightly more nutty plusnutty
- Darker Plusdark brown liquor with a red tinge
- Roasty/peanut top notes
- Brothy; stewed veggie and mineral body
- Cocoa finish?
- Still woody

Infusion Three: Seven seconds
- Leaves look like black velvet w. spare brown/olive hues
- Earthy/roast/nutty aroma and same liquor colour
- Rich top notes: peanut, earth, barley, cocoa
- Very Plusnatural body; wet earth, woody, nuts
- Mushroomy and raisin finish
- Plussweet!

Infusion Four: Ten seconds
- Brothy/meaty umami aroma but still sweet
- Earthy/wet soil, musk, mushroom, peanuts, cocoa
- Slight raisin background taste
- At this point has a bordering salt flavour?
- Still some roast but it’s a little less unstrong

Infusion Five: Twelve seconds
- Liquor is lightening up in hue; it’s plusgolden again and has an unred tinge
- Smells like wet soil/rocks/leather/salt
- Reminds me of a salt lick rock I had as a small child…
- Beginning to taste doubleplussalty
- Salted peanuts and seaweed???
- Uncocoa notes and starting to be unsweet

Infusion Six: Twelve seconds (Last Infusion)
- Seasalt and earth smell
- Doubleplussalty!!! Definitely seasalt and seaweed
- A touch of a peanut taste
- Relatively monotone/flat flavour overall though

So yeah, that’s it! I think my personal sweet spot was the third infusion? I liked infusions two to four a lot though, but after infusion five the experience was definitely declining quickly. Also, a note – when I say I had a salt rock as I kid I literally mean somehow I was given something like this: http://globalendurance.com/store/products/redmond-rock-sea-salt-lick/ and for whatever reason I would carry it around and, like a horse, occasionally lick it. I think I was maybe six? Don’t remember what happened to the bloody rock or how I even got it, but yeah that’s a thing…

Also, maybe a handy reference? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Newspeak_words

So, a week or two back I went to the SweeTea Cafe with my fam, and we got bubble tea. What I didn’t write about was that I also picked up a bunch of green tea mochi! I’ve actually never had mochi before prior to this – honestly, I expected something maybe a bit more similar in texture to a macron? The flavour was really nice: definitely more of a “green tea” taste than your typical green tea flavoured candy/confections. However, the texture was odd. It was a weird cross between a little bit pasty, and also very doughy. Not sure how much I liked it overall. I think I’d need to try it again in a different flavour to really make up my mind?

Cold Brew!

Definitely a little rich/cloying for my tastes, but the overall strong berry flavour was really delightful, and perfect for a hot day like today. I definitely got a strong flavour of blueberry and black currant. As I’ve said before I’ve never tried Buchu on its own so I think the flavour of it must be similar to blueberry or currant and then just blends into the profile of those two fruits. I definitely couldn’t taste the base, either. What I did taste a bit on the end sip/in the aftertaste was a little bit of a floral note though? Pretty nice.

I’m happy I ONLY grabbed 50g when this came out because it’s not a tea I’m going to miss in the long run, but now that it’s more Spring/Summer time I’m happy to have more of this. It’s seasonally appropriate and I do enjoy it enough to have warranted a restock.

Sipdown (129)!

This one just really isn’t my jam, so this last mug will be a “sipdown” for me and I’ll be passing along the last bit of the sample to either my coworker Laura (if she’s interested) or my little sister – one or the other, anyway.

Best way I’ve found to enjoy this/get through a mug of this one so far is hot with milk but we don’t have any cow milk in the house so I figured I’d try it with vanilla almond milk since that’s what I do have on hand. It’s not as good as with cow milk, but it’s not awful. Definitely get a lot of chocolate notes and a cakeyness, with an element of vanilla/cream and then a nuttyness from the almond milk. Of course, as I’ve found is true with each time I’ve tried this, there’s also a lot of artificial/chemical type flavour notes and that’s what really detracts from the tea.

I think it just boils down to the fact I’m no longer the “target audience” for this tea. As much as I like rich teas, I’m not all that into overly sweet ones anymore. And there IS a difference between the two. As well, while I started my tea drinking during by falling in love with DAVIDsTEA’s Birthday Cake blend I’ve certainly progressed past the point of getting excited by sprinkles and chocolate swirls in my tea. They’re great to capture someone’s attention, but once you’ve really developed your palate they don’t have the same “oomph”.

It’s just kind of gimmicky, isn’t it?