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Talking with whatshesaid today about this blend combined with some discussion on DT’s newest monthly blend, Hot Tropic, absolutely put me in the mood for this so I dragged out my hoarded tin of it and brewed up a mug of it to drink tonight.

I think I may have cut my steep time a little bit short because the coconut flavours were not as drawn out as they might have been, but regardless this was pretty thick and syrupy feeling and tasting! I was heavily reminded of candied pineapple and sugary sweet glazes! And amazingly, I some how managed not to pick the candied pineapple out of the dry leaf like I usually do.

Mmm!

Sipdown (176/182)!

Thank you VariaTEA for the sample! A Fruit Loops inspired tea sounded interesting, but when I saw it was with a black base I wasn’t sure how it would work so I lost interest. However, I am delightfully surprised with how pleasant this was.

It’s not that often I find that the flavours in Frank’s black blends really stand out; in fact, I far prefer his white blends to anything else he offers. However, I thought this tasted exceptionally flavourful and very well defined. I certainly got the distinct flavour of juicy oranges and ripe raspberries and I thought limes, though looking at the ingredients now it doesn’t appear as though there’s any lime flavouring. Regardless it was spectacular.

The “downside” (but I think more of an upside in my case) was there was nothing here that made me think of a cereal component – just fresh fruit juices. In that aspect this isn’t really Fruit Loops “cereal”, just amazingly defined fruit. To be perfectly Frank (pun sort of intended?) this is what I imaged the Rainbow Sherbet black blend would taste like.

So I loved this; thanks VariaTEA for the sample. I’d probably rate a little higher if the name was a little more accurate, but regardless this was refreshingly delicious and a great surprise.

From VariaTEA, and after drooling over her tasting notes since receiving it I was super excited to try it out tonight! I’ll keep my tasting note nice and simple…

This is fucking amazing!

If you like sweet pear things then try this. It is exactly like the juicy pear flavoured Jelly Bellies VariaTEA has compared it to so I am already instantly in love – that flavour was my favourite growing up as a child and now I can drink it as a tea? YES PLEASE.

So far Victoria’s Tea and Coffees is 2/2 which definitely makes me excited about the rest of the VTC blends VariaTEA sent me…

I can’t remember who sent this to me, and that makes me sad…

Also, I think I did something terribly wrong with this but I have no clue what. Stacy description say something along the lines of “little to no noticeable astringency” and all I could taste when I had it was bitterness and astringency and maybe a tiny bit of malt? But I don’t know what I fucked up because I was very careful to stick with the recommended steeping instructions because they’re so often bang on!

I have one more cup worth so I’m hoping that goes much better because this was really, really unpleasant. I wont rate; surely it was gross because of some error on my part…

First review? No pressure right? Ok, so when I saw this one in the package from VariaTEA this morning I had a WHOLE BUNCH of feels and thoughts.

Firstly, I internally screamed because of the prospect of raisins. God how I hate raisins. Secondly, I winced because early into my “tea drinking career” (that’s how I’m gonna start phrasing it to non tea drinkers) I had 50g of an Ontario Ice Wine white blend that I disliked so very much and which was such a painful struggle to get rid of. Thirdly, I reminded myself how long ago that one and how my pallet has drastically changed in that time so it might not be “so bad”. But then most importantly, fourthly I actually took the time to smell the tea and…

Wow.

This smelled like purple! And by that I mean the darker vibrant purple that is so commonly associated with rich, almost overly sweet fakey grapes. It smelled damn good. Which is why I’m trying it now! I didn’t realize that there’s white tea in the blend in addition to the black tea so I just steeped it like a black – but it’s very good! No bitterness, no astringency just really solid and juicy fake grape taste! I think what scares me so much about grapes is the fine line between fake, sugar grape which I like (grape candy!) and realistic, raisin grape which makes me want to gag.

So I adore this. I have one more cup, but I think I already know I want more? Mostly though I’m wondering why I necessarily love it. Is it the switch up in base; because the black base was really nice and smooth, and I thought was the perfect level to match the strong grape taste without overwhelming it. Or is it just that my pallet has changed so much? I don’t know. Maybe I don’t even care all that much?

We’ll see how cup #2 goes whenever I make time to have it – but I think this could be good in my cupboard. It’s certainly different from my other black tea! Would it be good cold brewed? Hmm…

Sipdown (177/183)!

Final Doctor Who tea in my small round of Doctor Who inspired teas from different companies. I think it’d be very wrong to do a round of DW teas and not include an Adagio fan blend…

Perhaps interestingly though, I think this is the one Adagio fan blend that I may have been more interested in because of what’s in it as opposed to the character it’s inspired by. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I adore Rory! In fact, I think Rory is my favourite of Eleven’s companions. But I’ve been super fascinated by the idea of Sweet Potato Tea since first hearing about it, and I’ve been dying to get my hands on any Sweet Potato tea to try it – and this has Adagio’s SP blend in it so that’s where my attention was/is most focused.

Steeped up, this is really really interesting. It’s got such a unique flavour with components that I’d struggling a little to pick out. The most noticeable is the creamy vanilla and then I think I do taste the sweet potato. It’s a familiar sweet, starchy flavour and I think it compliments the vanilla really well. Reading other people’s reviews they compare it to sweet potatoes with brown sugar and marshmallow and I believe I’ve also read similar comparisons on other Sweet Potato teas especially when tied into Thanksgiving. Is that an American thing? I’ve never heard of someone having that particular combination in Canada. It sounds weird to me, but good as well.

I wish I had more of this so I could play around: I think it’d be good with milk and I’m wondering if a pinch of salt would bring out the sweet potato more in the same way that salt brings out the potato flavourings in Butiki’s Potato Pancakes and Applesauce Green Blend (which I find I am now craving). I’m going to add this one back onto my wishlist because I think I would order it – and I’d definitely drink it again.

I want more Sweet Potato things! Thanks Sil for this sample!

EDIT: Oh, and yeah – I think this was a good blend for Rory. Seems to match to character, so go Cara!

So this is Doctor Who tea #2 and company #2 for my round of three DW teas! I feel crazy for waiting so damn long to try this after getting my sample from the crazy generous 221Tea (who I haven’t seen log anything in a while; hope she’s doing ok and didn’t have a massive tea overload). Seriously though, I look at this every day and think “I’ll try it today”, and then I don’t for one reason or another. It’s “too late” for black tea after work or “I don’t want to try it in my timolino and waste a cup if it doesn’t travel well”, etc.

Well I’m drinking it now and I may be a little late to the party, but let my just add in my own “Damn!”. This is pretty fantastic: strong coconut notes, sticky toffee, ripe bananas, and some nuttyness. I wont lie though, there was some fairly strong astringency for the first little while until the tea cooled down a ways – but then the astringency just went away!

I think this is a really perfect blend for River Song – and I’m really enjoying it right now. I have one more cup worth so we’ll see how my thoughts change with that cup but right now I’m going to say that I want more of this. Maybe not nearly as much as I expected to want – but definitely at least an ounce of it. Mmm!

Next round of tea for the day features three Doctor Who inspired teas! Interestingly, all three are from different companies! Can you guess which ones? Heh…

So I used to love this but it feels seriously degraded in flavour from when I first had it (I just feel overwhelmed by the 52Teas base) so I’m sipping it down but trying to do so in more creative ways. So this time I added a smallish scoop of vanilla Greek FroYo. BAD IDEA. The Frozen Yogurt melted and got really thick and waxy, and while the flavour is not so bad the texture is really revolting. Ew.

So chugged this down quickly (and maybe burnt my tongue a little) and now onto DW tea #2 which is already looking much more promising…

Sipdown (178/184)!

Another Nina’s Paris sample from VariaTEA. I made it this morning in my giant Adeline poppy mug and that used up the whole sample. It was good timing really because I woke up with a killer headache and the mint was very soothing and nice and made me feel better. Like, I probably would have reached for this because of the mint even if it hadn’t been in my morning line up already.

Admittedly, I wasn’t really excited about this blend because it was a green one until I stupidly realized, weeks after getting it, that it was pretty much just a fancy Moroccan Mint. Ok, I can get behind that! I love MM.

And yeah, that’s pretty much what this one was: fancy Moroccan Mint. It was tasty and pleasant and soothing with a really smooth spearmint flavour, but not something I’d stock over other MM blends especially when it is so hard for me to get a hold of. The name is really cool though, I’ll give it that!

Sipdown (179/185)!

This is the first thing I’m having from the newest package of teas VariaTEA has sent me; it was the easiest to work into my tea line up for the day because I just made it alongside the other cup of matcha I was having this morning.

Man, this smells strong! What’s the flavouring level here? Because I cracked open the package from you and literally this is the first thing I could smell. It was intense, even after VariaTEA double bagging it! Good intense though; like marzipan and yum!

Whisked into milk, it frothed up at a seriously insane level. Like, I had to wait for the froth to go away so I could pour more milk in the cup – the froth was taking up all the space! And it tasted pretty good; really strong and very rich and marzipan like. I would have enjoyed it an awful lot but I found that there was a faint chemical edge to the aftertaste. Like it was almost too much almond concentrated into the one cup of cold milk.

I have to say, I’m glad I got this from you because I was semi curious about it, and it’s Red Leaf’s free tea sample of the month for June so I think I would have picked up the free sample if I hadn’t got this from you. But now trying it I can say that yeah this is really good but just the one experience is probably enough to keep my satisfied especially given how much matcha I have on hand right now anyway.

Thanks VariaTEA!