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Sipdown (207/210)!

So yesterday started off with receiving tea in the mail from the super generous Boychik! Holy shit that showed up here really fast! I received more Potato Pancakes/Applesauce, and Taiwanese Wild Mountain Black which made me very happy, and then samples of Harney’s Wedding Tea and some samples from The Persimmon Tree Company, which I wasn’t even expecting at all.

That, however, really pushed me into sipdown mode for the day. I’d really like to get under 200 teas again – and I’m not seeing that happening any time soon if people continue to be super awesome and generous, and keep sending me stuff. I need to step up my sipdown game and take pointers from VariaTEA and Sil.

Anyway, this sample came from VariaTEA a fairly long time ago, and I’m just now getting to it. I always seem to struggle with trying white or greent eas for the first time because they’re more touchy. Then it dawned on me a few days ago that I could just cold brew this one in my mason jar! So, that’s what I did. In total, this cold brewed for a pretty even six hours and was a nice blush pink kind of colour.

Taste wise, I was surprisingly really impressed. The watermelon isn’t really distinctly _water_melon, more so just generic kind of melon, and the mint was really lovely and added a great deal of freshness to the tea. Juicy would also be a really good word for it. I also just looked up the ingredients for the first time and saw the eucalyptus, which makes a lot of sense because eucalyptus seems to be a great ingredient for cold brews because it also keeps everything fresh too. Actually, overall I was kind of reminded of bubblegum, similar to how I feel about Honeydew Mate from DAVIDsTEA.

I’d drink this again as a cold brew, especially in the summer. Way to go Teavana – this one actually really impressed me.

Thanks Cavocorax for the sample! I was curious about this one, but not enough to buy it myself, so it’s always great getting to “field test it” first, if you will.

I prepared some of it a couple nights ago as my last tea of the night (just like I said I would), and I was really happy with it! The coconut was strong and flavourful, and there was a pudding/creamy kind of taste and mouthfeel to the tea. I even felt like I was getting the graham pie crust, albeit in a lighter airy way. Still, it was impressive because that’s a hard flavour to capture.

Though if anyone can do it it’s Stacy.

I look forward to finishing off the rest of the sample!

Mmm, I really like this one! Two days ago it was one of my last teas for the night, just as something that was really relaxing and consistently yummy.

I seem to be a touch off my “plum” flavoured things kick, but still really quite good! I guess I was a bit worried that now that I’d not drinking plum flavoured things daily anymore that I wouldn’t like this as much – happy to be proved wrong.

It seems like the backlog never ends. At least I’ll hopefully have my laptop back soon, so if nothing else I’ll be able to log things efficiently. Only like a week and a half left before that happens…

Also, I have an interview tomorrow so cross your fingers for me! In addition, a friend passed along my resume to her ex (he’s in charge of hiring) and put in a really good word for me. That job would be an inventory job that’d take me out of the city to do overnight inventory for various companies in various provinces 5/7 days a week. I think that’d be really cool, but I’m not going to get my hopes up too high.

I tried to go through all the tasting notes from when I was last online (two days ago) like I usually do, and I made it through a little over a days worth of tasting notes before the screen refreshed and brought me back to the most recent tasting notes. I don’t feel like continuously scrolling for another 20 minutes, so I think I’ll just leave it as is.

I’ve finally made my mind up about this one that I do like and it is a nice and highly flavourful pear tea, just without much (any?) chocolate to it. This cup in particular I let steep while I took a shower, so in total it was a 20 minute steep. Damn it was powerful and strong. Next cup of it will be/was a sipdown, so this one disappeared fast.

I’d get it again in swaps or as one of the three samples in an order because it was good, but I doubt I’d buy it again because it wasn’t that good.

Thank you Lala for the sample! I just prepared myself a cup of this in the hope that it’ll be low enough if caffeine for me to still get some rest (throbbing headaches are no fun), but will still be a very nice and relaxing comfort tea. Plus, it’s always nice to try another Genmaicha and this one in particular will make the 4th 52Teas Genmaicha I’ve tried (with an unopened package of Marshmallow Treat sitting in my closet waiting to be opened when I have less Genmaicha on hand).

Steeped up, I can actually smell traces of cocoa/chocolate in this one, so that’s pretty promising in regards to this one having at least a little flavour. The Browncoat Genmaicha I tried wasn’t impressive as a flavoured Genmaicha at all, and neither was Cherry Cheesecake, although Razzleberry was delicious.

This one is mostly regular Genmaicha in the initial sip, but the tail end and aftertaste of the sip are definitely more flavourful than a straight Genmaicha. I don’t necessarily get the graham portion of the S’more (that seems to be a hard flavour to accurately capture), but I certainly get a kind of melted milk chocolate and slight marshmallow flavour. I don’t think I’d identify this as S’mores if blindly trying it – in fact, I’m certain I wouldn’t. But I would get the chocolate and possibly the marshmallow from this one.

It’s not exceptional, but it is pretty darn tasty. Enough so that I know I wont have any problems finishing it off, and that maybe I’d request it in a swap to have a little more – but I doubt I’d purchase a whole pouch. Of Frank’s Genmaicha that I’ve tried this far, nothing comes close to touching Razzleberry. That one was really good!

Very thirst quenching cold brew! In total, an 11 hour steep which yielded a delicious citrus grapefruit juice like drink with a refreshing kickback from all the eucalyptus (I’m reaching the end of my tin, so a lot of the small eucalyptus bits that sunk to the bottom are what remains). This will be a summer staple, for me.

Next up to be cold brewed, Watermelon Mint Chiller so I can get in that easy sipdown!

Umm…

Ick.

This is very much ginger, and weirdly cinnamon-spicy. And not at all what I was anticipating because this smelled like fruit and cinnamon to me when it was dry, but now there’s no fruit at all and it’s just too much ginger which is pretty unpleasant.

So, thank you VariaTEA for the sample but I’m happy there’s only one sachet left because that’ll be a quick sip down and I don’t think I’d want any more of this on hand.

Thanks Lala for the sample! All your recent reviews made me curious, so I made a cup of this up this morning. The idea of another kind of “oatmeal” like tea, but with Fuji Apples definitely piqued my interest.

This steeped up pretty light, but I guess that makes sense given a large part of the leaf was apple chunks. Taste wise, it’s pretty decent. Definitely a strong, juicy apple taste and just enough cinnamon that I kind of get the oatmeal comparison. This is very smooth though, with no bitterness or astringency. But I wish this was a bit more flavourful.

Sipdown (202/205)!

This one’s departing my cupboard with much sadness, but also in the tastiest way ever! Matcha smoothie! So, this is mixed up with one frozen banana and one and a half cups of cold milk, and it is oh so delicious and good. In total, there’s just a bit more than 1 tsp. of matcha in here, and while I could have split that into two smaller amounts this was totally the way to go.

Definitely feeling and loving the matcha buzz! Until we meet again, Pinapple Matcha!

And so concludes four days of backlog! Yay! And it only took me about two hours to write everything out. Not so bad at all. It’ll be a relief when I get my computer back, though.

Anyway, I enjoyed a nice piping hot mug of this last night in celebration of our water being turned back on, and it was just absolutely lovely! Definitely made me want to get make a lot more coconut tea, which I very well might just do later this afternoon (I’m thinking Butiki’s Coconut Creme Pie). I think I want something heavily caffeinated right now, though. I had a miserable night’s sleep (being really sick doesn’t help at all) and am dreadfully sore.