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Backlog time…

I broke open my sample of this from Kittenna last night, since I was in the mood for something toasty and comforting.

Overall, I thought this was a touch seaweedy when it was hot, but as it cooled down it was a very nice, sturdy Genmaicha. Like liquid puffed wheat. With so many Genmaicha options out there and more available/accessible companies I’d never restock it but I’m happy to have enjoyed the cup (and the last one or two left). I’d rather support my local tea store and buy their Genmaicha, though.

Mmmm, I like all these “Forever Nuts” type of teas with the apple/cinnamon/nut combinations. Though, to be honest the only reason I picked this one out of the other similar ones I have right now is because I’ve reviewed it enough that I didn’t feel like I’d have to write as much as I would if I was trying a new one (like Brioche Free or Toasty Almond). Yup – I’m drinking this out of pure laziness, at the moment.

This one was calling to me, though God knows why because once I was steeping it I realized that I was not really “in the mood” for lemon. I think it boils down to my wanting a black tea, more than anything else.

Last time I remember being a little disappointed that this didn’t taste as creamy/vanilla as it smelled, so I added in a little milk to this cup to see if i could maybe make it creamy, and then find a sort of easier way to drink the remainder of the sample. Although, it wasn’t awful plain either. Taste wise, it is a little creamier and the strong lemon rind flavour is a bit hushed now. I’m not sure if it’s necessarily better though – just different in an almost equal way? I do like the thicker mouthfeel though.

I may have typed “Eggnong” again. And by may have, I mean I most certainly did.

Anyway, Iced Latte whilst watching Season 9 of Bones while Tre is at school.

I just realized that, holy shit, I have company coming over in two days. Better than that, non-family company! One of my friends from Regina (Tre’s graduating class, but a closer friend to me, and someone I hung out with a couple times whilst in Regina) is coming up for a weekend and staying at our place!

It’ll be great because he’s an avid tea drinker and I’ll have someone to talk to over the next couple days other than Tre. Downsides? I have to give up my super cozy couch and return to sleeping on my God awful bed (or just let him sleep on my bed, but Tre says that’s weird). Also, he’s the biggest conspiracy theorist that I know – so I’m gonna get to hear lots about that…

Thank you VariaTEA for the sample of this, and sorry for putting off trying it for so long. for some reason unknown to myself, drinking that dragonfruit cold brew put me in the mood for papaya and passion fruit – so I picked this because it certainly met at least one of those criteria.

The reviews for this one haven’t exactly been favorable either, so that may have contributed to my hesitation to try this one out as well. Dry, it never smelled so bad to me – just kinda very lightly of passion fruit in a semi vague way.

Steeped up, the taste is actually not so bad. I mean, it’s not great or anything but I don’t think it’s so deserving of a “5” rating. It’s a teeny bit chemical/artificial tasting but it’s not bitter and it doesn’t make me gag or want to dump my cup. I definitely get Passion Fruit from the taste, as well as something just a touch floral. It paired relatively well with the pineapple/cheese pizza I was eating.

So yeah, overall thoughts are that this is totally drinkable, maybe a tiny bit chemical, and not really mind blowing or anything, but not terribly bad by any stretch. More or less, just “ok”. I don’t think I’ll struggle too hard to finish my sample, though I wont seek out more.

Finally pulling out my sample of this from MissB to try. I couldn’t remember what was in it at all, but I wanted a black and it smelled nice enough, so I figured why not give it a proper blind tasting with no recollection of the ingredients at all.

1 1/2 tsp. of leaf, 8 oz. of boiling water and a five minute steep – which is a little longer than I’d have liked, but I was obsessively checking the mail for my RiverTea order which of course wasn’t there. Although, we haven’t received any mail today, so I’m holding onto hope that it’ll be there later this afternoon.

Of course, I realize there must be orange in this in at least some capacity, since there is orange peel in the leaf. However, I don’t taste anything abundantly orange. I do, however, taste some very mild bergamot (so I guess that ties into oranges somewhat), and something else very familiar but I’m having a hard time placing. I was instantly reminded of my one good cup of HS’s Paris so perhaps it’s something sweet like caramel? Or maybe that’s just me tying together two things with bergamot.

There’s also a little bit of astringency and bite near the end of the sip, but it’s not unpleasant – just maybe a little distracting? Overall thoughts are this is good and I look forward to the last cup’s worth – but it’s not mind blowing and considering the inaccessibility of Adagio teas to me, I doubt very much this would ever be a restocked blend in my cupboard.

Also, I just looked up the tea and yes there is bergamot/orange and caramel as well. There’s also hazelnuts, but I don’t get that at all from the taste and never would have known that.

Sipdown (202/205)!

Thank you very much Lala for the sample of this! I was really disappointed when it wasn’t in stock during my trip to Cuppa’T, so it was amazing to receive a sample and get the opportunity to try it out despite that, since it was one of the few teas I was looking for ahead of time when I went.

I made this up at a cold brew in my mason jar, and that used up the whole sample. To be perfectly honest, I was a little worried it’s be underleafed for the full 25 oz. but when I strained it this morning after a full 12 hour steep, it looked and smelled pretty well steeped up.

Taste wise, this is amazing! It’s very flavourful without being too strong – in fact it kind of reminds me of the pink dragonfruit vitamin water that I used to sometimes get when I worked at the movie theatre. That was my favourite one that we sold, but it was also really expensive and honestly probably more sugar than vitamins. But anyway, what I’m getting at is that this is definitely very strongly dragonfruit flavoured which is great because I was worried that the cranberry would be too strong. I actually don’t know whether or not I’d realize there’s cranberry in this if it wasn’t in the name and I hadn’t seen the large cranberry pieces before making this up.

For anyone who hasn’t had dragonfruit before, you really really should! It’s like a kiwi in texture, but the taste kinda citrusy and kind like melon. It’s just a really characteristic flavour overall once you’ve tried a few dragonfruit flavoured things. They’re also good chocolate dipped or with a little lemon juice on them.

Ultimately, this is delicious and I’m very, very sad to see it go. I’m hoping I’ll be up in Regina sometime this summer and I’ll be able to pick some of this up. I’d easily and without hesitation buy 100g of it, perhaps more because I know it’s a fruit blend so it’ll be heavy.

Amazing! And again, a thousand thanks Lala

Received this from VariaTEA ages ago as a thoughtful add in. She thought I might want to do a comparison of this one and Banana Tea Chocolate Cream, a personal favourite. I’m sad to say, the sample got buried in my bag of rooibos samples and I’m only just now getting to it.

I have a pretty small range of experience with Teavana tea (Blueberry Pineapple Kona Pop and Chocolate Bananas Foster), even though I have several Teavana samples lying around the house waiting around the house to be tried. I didn’t mind CBF but I thought BPKP was absolutely awful. Of course, I know all about Teavana’s shoddy customer service but I should really get around to trying a few more of their blends so I can decide whether or not there are specific ones that would make an order worthwhile anyway.

Like this one, for example. It’s a little bit weak, but I actually really don’t mind it. I can’t taste the rooibos at all – but the banana is super sweet and sugary like banana candy which is a good thing to me, and then the chocolate is not so bad either – kinda milky. I think this one will be a really easy sipdown, but not likely a reorder since I have a few banana teas already including Tea Desire’s Banana Tea Chocolate Cream which is tastier and more accessible as well as also caffeine free like this one.

On a whole, though, I’m actually pleasantly surprised.

First tea of the day, and I’m quite happy it is because this is just perfect.

It’s about a 50/50 bubblegum and honey dew flavour, and it’s just a little bit sweet and a whole lot gentle – so basically a really brilliant start to the day, especially since Tre woke me up a lot earlier than I’m used to getting up most recently.

The idiot had like 25 pages of homework that he hadn’t finished which were of course due today. So he was scrambling about early this morning trying to get them done.

Well, I’m a little happy and a little sad – for a couple reasons.

Tea related, I thought this was going to be a sipdown so I was excited to lower my number of teas but as I measured everything out I realized I had just enough leaf for two cups and I decided that I’d better not just overleaf because the flavour of this one is pretty damn strong. So that makes me sad about not getting in another sipdown, but happy because this is kinda growing on me (though still way too strong for an everyday tea), and it means I get more of Frank’s Banana ;)

But yeah – basically this is the spiciest tea I’ve ever encountered and I both love and hate that about it. it’s super peppery and definitely needs to be paired with something that can tone it down, in addition to the banana in the flavouring which already does that to some extent.

I would only recommend this to someone who really enjoys spicy things.

Also, the other happy/sad part comes from the fact I just finished all of the episodes of Bones currently on Netflix. I still have to watch the Season 9 episodes but without a regular computer it’ll take a while for me to do that. Now I need to find something else to spend my time watching on Netflix – since that’s what I do when I don’t have the computer. Maybe Nip Tuck? Anyone else watched that?

And – Tre also just made fun of me for eating popcorn with a spoon. I’m doing it for his sake, though. I didn’t want to get globs of butter all over his laptop.