Roswell Strange Send Message

Sipdown (212/215)!

I made this up as a cold brew. Honestly, it’s alright but it wasn’t great either and I think I actually preferred it hot. Passion Fruit seemed like it’d work well as a cold brew flavour, though.

In total the brewing time for this one was four hours. I didn’t want to over do it and risk the already somewhat artificial/chemical taste of this blend becoming too strong/prominent.

Thanks again VariaTEA for the sample – it wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be, and I got to try my first Kusmi blend as well.

Night tea #2.

I’ve been kind of unimpressed with this lately, but it’s actually hitting the spot perfectly tonight with the balance of peppermint/licorice. Very soothing and calming.

Mmmm!

I picked out some really good, non-fruity caffeine free teas to enjoy this evening. This was one of them! Mmm, yummy! I dread the day that this is a sipdown. Thankfully I have quite a bit left.

First review, again…

This one smelled really interesting so I made it up to have as a sort of indulgent dessert like tea while binging on Nutella straight from the jar and applying to Fast Food restaurants. I also just got the sad news that my friend wont be coming up this weekend (though perhaps later in the month) because a family thing came up. I hope all works out for him, but I’m sad I’m gonna be on my own again this weekend.

I also just looked in my bank account and am really depressed about the lack of money considering I need to do some serious grocery shopping. I really need some call backs at this point. Just one really good interview.

I’m considering selling my art right now, but I’m not actually sure who would even buy it. Most of it is sculpture work, and not all of it is “top” quality. I do have a handmade teacup and teapot that maybe someone here would be interested in.

But anyway, I’m sure not everyone or probably anyone wants to hear about that, so on to the really interesting tea! This one has a really long suggested steep time: 10-15 minutes. I ended up going in the middle of that, with a 13 minute steep total. It seemed like a really long time, but I guess this is a fruit tea so no worrying about bitterness or anything.

Taste wise, it’s definitely a very rich fruit taste initially with notes of dark chocolate dipped dates and hints of currant – but mostly the tastes. It’s nice, and then is quickly heats up to this fiery hot pepper loops. I know this is meant to be hot – I mean “Chili” is in the name, and I can see the chili loops in the blend, but man is it a fast transition. It’s a really interesting and sort of unusual flavour palette.

At the moment, I’m appreciating it but I don’t think this could ever be an everyday tea for me. Definitely something fun for when I want something totally unusual and unique. So, we’ll see how I feel about it the next few cups in regard to restocking. Maybe I’ll use my better judgement and steep for a shorter time period next cup. An interesting taste experience for sure.

My steep time for this was short, and I let this get cold before drinking it, which I don’t recall doing before. I think it’s even more buttery/pastry like this way – though the apple seems like intense/juicy, so I’m not sure how worth it the trade off it. The pistachio is kind of just there, but in a good way.

I really do like this one.

Also, I just restarted my SoulSilver play file, so I’m doing that in between watching 2 Broke Girls episodes. Yay for a relaxing, but uneventful life. I’m excited for company tomorrow so I finally have something more to do. I’m sure Nich is going to keep me quite occupied/intellectually stimulated and confused with all his conspiracy theories. But also, I appreciate that I’ll have someone to talk tea with who will appreciate it.

Made this one up – not really sure why. It was there, and didn’t seem like a totally bad idea. I was careful when steeping it because I’ve had enough bitter black tea today. However, I let it get cold before I started drinking it.

Actually, it’s not so bad cold. The rhubarb doesn’t feel so overwhelming/over powering as a cold tea, and I think I may even pick up the vanilla a bit more. I’m struggling to remember what I wrote about this last time I had it though, so maybe I’m just reciting observations I’ve made before. It was a teeny bit astringent, but the rhubarb flavour saves it.

I resteeped the leaves from earlier today, because I was so impressed with this and definitely wanted another cup. I’m separating the two tasting notes because the resteep happened hours later, and this time I had the tea with no additives.

Taste wise, I was still really impressed but I did find that the resteep had some flavour deterioration, though that’s of course to be expected to some degree. I still got honey/caramel/glaze notes but the yummy baked bread notes were what suffered and were less pronounced. There was also the tiniest bit of astringency, but overall this was still very good and is totally going to be one of those teas I go well out of my way to resteep.

First Review… No pressure, right?

I was so ridiculously happy when I got my RiverTea order today! Everything looked and smelled great, and I got another one of their beautiful steeping ball type steeper things (yay for wording!), though this time a black swan with a larger space for expanding leaves instead of the clear musical notes I got with my contest package! If nothing else, it’s very pretty.

I was sure I was going to be starting with one of the fruit blends, but this one smelled absolutely to die for delicious! It has an incredibly strong, mouth watering spearmint smell that reminds me of spearmint gum but also real spearmint extract. I had to try it! So, this got steeped up over the fruit blends which I was dying to give a go.

I was very diligent about how I steeped it, and I stuck to RiverTea’s steeping guide. It smelled very good while it was steeping, too!

Taste wise, this was a very clear, light, and crisp spearmint flavour. There wasn’t weight to the flavour, but it was full regardless. Does that make sense? If not – try it! I was very impressed, slowly sipped away at the cup and then when it was done immediately resteeped. The resteep had no flavour deterioration at all, and I was also very impressed with that as well. That cup was very quickly guzzled down, not slowly sipped at.

So, this one was exactly what was promised: Absolute Spearmint flavour. Nothing fancy or elaborate, but very well executed. I can see this becoming a staple for me to just drink when I want a straight Spearmint type tea since the closest I have otherwise is my Mate Mint from Tea Desire, and obviously that has a much higher caffeine amount, but it’s also a lot earthier and not as “clean” tasting. This will be a great “palette cleansing” tea.

Thank you VariaTEA for the sample of this. I was happy to receive something I could compare with Tea Desire’s Milk Oolong.

After a round of bitter tea, I was really careful to watch the steeping parameters for the oolongs I brewed up. I wanted to make sure I did them correctly since they were both teas I haven’t tried. My Milk Oolong experience so far has been pretty limited, and Tea Desire’s version has been hit or miss with me. When it’s good, it’s really good with creamy caramel and butter notes. When it’s bad, it’s more that it just tastes like… nothing.

This one I found to be kind of right in between. It was sorta milky in an odd way, and had buttery notes to it. In the end, I just sort of felt indifferent about it. Maybe that’s just it – the taste of milk oolong could be something I’m totally neutral and indifferent towards. I think, what I’m finding, is that it’s just sort of not enough of a flavour for me.

Oh well, at least it didn’t taste bad. And I’m really thankful for the sample since this is an expensive blend that I wouldn’t have wanted to spend money on and then dislike.

Sipdown (213/216)!

I received my Just Organic Tea samples for review today, and I felt obligated to try at least one of them today and get a review up because the company was very kind and sent me their whole Kickstarter line up to try out, as well as the organic sugar they sell (I’m going to have my company try that though, since I don’t add sugar to tea).

This best fit what I was in the mood for (fruit teas), so it was the first one I tried. I’m sad to say, it was also from the round of tea that I grossly oversteeped, so this steeped more than double the time it should have. I feel bad about that – when reviewing samples for companies anticipating reviews, I should really be much more diligent in my steeping.

That said, I was actually quite pleasantly surprised because this was hardly even bitter/astringent at all and actually held up really well to the oversteep it got. It’s hard to comment on the black base because of my reckless steeping, but I feel like it’d probably be really good if it lasted a 10 min. steep without bitterness. The spices were pretty tasty – more gentle than I thought they would have been, for which I was grateful. I tasted cinnamon/cloves most prominently. I will say that the orange could have been more powerful – I felt that it really sat in the background, which is not what you want when that ingredient is in the title of the tea.

Overall, I felt satisfied with the cup and I’m really excited to try the rest of the samples I received. I feel hopeful that at the minimum they will all be average cups, but anticipate finding one or two which are truly extraordinary.

You should all check out the company’s Kickstarter, as well if you already haven’t. I’m really hoping they make their goal.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/justorganictea/just-organic-tea-the-very-best-tea-delivered