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Sample sipdown!

Thanks again Lala for this sample. I really enjoyed it as an ice tea, and just couldn’t wait to try it as a hot tea. So, the last (barely) tsp. went into this cup which was steeped in boiling water for about 8 min. MOstly it was steeped that long because I forgot it was steeping – I was too busy packaging up the teas that are coming with me tomorrow to comic con.

I decided that I’m gonna take five things with to comic con (it’s a four day trip). So, here’s what I packed:

- Approx. 2 cups worth of David’s Main Squeeze
- Approx. 2 cups worth of David’s Cream of Earl Grey
- Approx. 3 cups worth of Tea Desire’s Milky Oolong
- Approx. 1 cup worth of David’s Guava Cadabra (This’ll be a sipdown)
- Approx. 1 (maybe 2) cups worth of David’s Pumpkin Chai

And then I also threw in some tea bags just in case.

However, back to the tea I’m drinking at present…

Steeped it smells quite different from how it was iced. It’s very tart smelling, and also kind of smells like lemon scented Pledge. However, odd as it might be – that’s really appealing to me. I love the scent of Pledge (actually I like the smell of most cleaning supplies), so it smells really good.

Now mind you, I’ve never actually tasted Pledge – but I don’t think it tastes like what this tea tastes like. It is VERY tart and sour, with a pure lemon taste – nothing really “cleaning supply” like about it though. Actually, I’m not really enjoying it too much hot. Although, as I’ve let it cool down it’s gotten much better. I might just stick the rest in the fridge to cool off totally and then drink it cold: it was much better that way.

Sad to say goodbye to this, though! I’m so glad I got to experience it! If it wasn’t discontinued, I’d pick a little bit up to use in the summer months.

After dropping off the keys I stole (took home accidentally) from work last night, I took a trip downtown to David’s and picked up a timolino! Yay! Now I can take two thermoses of tea to work for long shifts: one in my crappy metal water bottle to drink cold, and one in my new timolino to drink hot!

At checkout, the sales lady asked me if I wanted a tea to go in my new timolino, and how could I resist? I decided to pick out something from the fall collection that I hadn’t tried – so I went for this one! I love pistachios (especially pistachio pudding) but when the fall collection came out I wasn’t very inclined to pick any of this up because I was more focused on exploring white and green teas since I’m most familiar with black and herbal teas. I’m really thankful now that I did pick a herbal tea today…

Water temp was boiling water, and I watched the sales lady add a perfect teaspoon to the brewing basket (which I think is 1 1/2 tsp of leaf). She suggested taking the leaves out after seven minutes or so. Well, when I went to take the leaves out to my surprise the brewing basket was not attatched and had sunk to the bottom of the timolino. I guess she didn’t attatch it very well… There were leaves floating everywhere and since I was downtown I certainly didn’t have the equiptment to pour and strain the tea then clean out the inside of the thermos. So, I bussed back home all the while sipping at my tea.

The scent is very nutty and signature pistachio, but not very sweet. Scent alone is not something that would make me want to buy this tea, that’s for sure. The liquor started off a brilliant emerald green but by the time I’d got home to strain everything it’s now a very, VERY dark “khaki”/forrest green and it’s so solid I can’t see to the bottom of the cup. It’s actually darker now than Blueberry Jam usually is when brewed.

Taste was initially a very nutty, pistachio with a super creamy aftertaste that sort of reminded me of pistachio pudding without a lot of sweetener. It was good, but not REALLY good. I could also taste the chamomile pretty strongly, and something else that must have been the mulberry leaves (I’ve never had a tea with mulberry leaves, so not really sure what they’re supposed to taste like). The longer the leaves sat in the timolino the more strong and appetizing the smell of the tea was, but drinking it the pistachio got very cloying and it left a bad taste of cream in my mouth. But honestly, that’s to be expected since this tea ended up steeping in near boiling water for AT LEAST 20 minutes.

I’m just glad I went with a herbal tea instead of one really sensitive to heat that would’ve gotten really bitter with this amount of steep time. All things considered, this tea was not bad. I’m really glad I tried it, because with the new collection coming out in a few days (according to the sales lady, there’ll be the 5 winter teas, 3 holiday teas, AND the tea of the month ALL coming out on the 1st – so that’s NINE teas to try out) who knows if I’d have had a chance to try it again. I’m glad I didn’t absolutely love it though – that’d make the fact I wont have steady access to it so much harder.

Drinking a piping hot mug of this while I start season four of Degrassi: The Next generation. I really just needed something caffeine free with a sweet vanilla flavor. The eggyness of this blend is really hitting all the right notes too. I must be more drained than I thought I was though, because I swear I taste strawberry – which MUST be wrong since there’s NO fruit in this blend, and I haven’t even eaten anything strawberry flavored all day.

Stupid sleepy brain.

I decided I want to bring four teas with to Comic Con. Now to pick which four… I think Main Squeeze, for sure. And then I was thinking Cream of Earl Grey, and not sure what else. I think I’m gonna go back through some of my tasting notes and try to pick out which teas still tasted good under poor steeping conditions. That’s gonna be the key here.

Anyway, night night Steepster.

Work tea for the day. I started quite early in the morning and only got about three hours of sleep last night, so I knew I was going to need the energy boost from a Mate tea, and I was hesitant to go for Mint Mate after my awful mint infused hot chocolate experience I had recently, plus I’ve been favouring Main Squeeze lately – so time to show Chocolate Rocket some love!

I brewed two separate cups of this and poured them into my thermos. I was really diligent with following steeping parameters today; which was odd considering how freaking tired I was. Unlike usual, I actually didn’t finish all of this while I was at work: I still had about a quarter of a thermos left when I got home, which I’m drinking now. It’s not that the tea tasted bad: on the contrary this was an amazing cuppa today with stronger than usual raspberry and chocolate notes and a scrumptious roasted mate taste that just drives me crazy in the best way. My only complaint would be that I experienced some astringency which I don’t typically ever get from this – but it wasn’t awful.

I think in part it’s because I wasn’t really selling things today: mostly I was just very focused on finishing unpacking all of the toys for our store’s new section and making sure everything not only found a place on the shelves but found the RIGHT place. It was a long shift (over nine hours), but it seems super short because of how focused I was. I think, mostly, I just didn’t finish this at work because I was too busy.

Urgh. Speaking of work, I took the locker key home by accident which means that whoever opens tomorrow wont be able to unlock the locker to grab the float for the till (kinda important). It would have been fine if I was opening – but sadly I’m not. So even though I don’t start tomorrow until about 1:30 PM I have to go in at 9 AM and bring the key to the opener… Boo. Hiss. There goes my day of sleeping in!

Plus side: I finished packing for Comic Con today, and I was one of the winners for RiverTea’s contest! Yay!

Downside: I have nasty acid reflux which means I’m gonna have to be super picky about what tea I make myself later tonight… And I really wanted to try the last two teas I bought from Tea Desire: but not with stupid acid reflux affecting how they taste and the experience. I guess tomorrow after work…

Brought this to work/merchandising…

It was really, really good. The chamomile and orange peel was really strong in the front end of the sip, and there was the usual sweet and delicious licorice taste that lingered heavily in the aftertaste. Yummy! Even though this was a herbal with no caffeine, I felt invigorated drinking it while working.

Only complaint with this tea is that I can go weeks without even thinking about having it: it’s such a different blend in my stash. But then I’ll wake up one morning and will just HAVE to have a cup or three of this.

Today was a herbal tea day, I guess…

However, my experience with this today was just HORRID which is something I NEVER thought I would say about this peppermint tea.

I’ve made hot chocolate infused with different teas before, my favourite of which has been hot chocolate infused with David’s Buttered Rum. This is something I’ve wanted to try for a long time: I thought it’d be my favourite hot chocolate tea. I was SO wrong.

I can’t even explain: but the mint taste sour and disgusting. It almost tasted like there was curdled milk in my hot chocolate – but there wasn’t any kind of dairy in the mix at all other than the hot chocolate powder/flavouring (which definitely isn’t “curdled”). I felt sick drinking it: it was disgusting. I don’t think I even made it through a quarter of the mug before I dumped it.

WHAT WENT WRONG!? How is it that I don’t like peppermint infused hot chocolate!? Urgggg.

So when Robyn was over yesterday, she was kind enough to bring me a sample of this tea – about a tablespoon. I’ve been curious about it for a while since I’m really interested in expanding my herbal teas to include some blends with more unique and interesting fruit flavours. I think a strongly flavoured guava tea would qualify and since I was able to get a sample from her I figured it was smart to take advantage of that.

Dry, the leaf is overwhelmingly guava but there are a lot of other fruits that come through in the smell too: mango is a notable one but also subtle whiffs of pear and something melony. I can smell the hibiscus too – but since the guava is SO strong I’m not worried about the hibiscus dominating the flavour.

I brewed a tsp and a half for about seven minutes, and the liquor is a medium to deep melon pink. The smell coming from my cup is guava first and foremost, but the mango is also pretty powerful too (which makes sense since it’s the other ‘featured ingredient’) along with some appley notes and a sort of light pear type scent. It smells really good – and also really different from anything I have stocked which is good!

First few sips, and the initial flavour is a cool, juicy guava and mango mix with a tart and tangy finish that reminds me of hibiscus and sour apple candy. This transitions into a light all guava aftertaste. It’s really interesting and is playing with my tastebuds a lot. There’s quite a few fun flavours floating around in this blend.

I’m drinking this with a melted down cheese and macintosh apple quesadilla: and the flavours are pairing together in a very fun and interesting way. It feels like a lazy, summer break type of meal and is taking me back to some really fond memories. And, the closer I get to the bottom of the cup the more tangy and sour flavours I’m getting: sour apple, tangy mango, a bit of hibiscus, and the ever present guava! Yum! I like that the level of sour here seems to be intensifying.

I asked my mom to maybe pick me up 50g of this for me for Christmas (tea seems to be everyone’s default gift for me this year, and I’m definitely going to take advantage of that), but if she doesn’t I’m pretty sure I’ll be picking some up for myself anyway. If I can hold out that long.

I’m a really bad hostess. Well, not really. Just not very detail oriented or focused on the time. Today is Sunday, which means bus routes don’t run the same as they normally do: something I should have been paying attention to since Robyn took the bus here and was going to need to take it home to the University. Except I wasn’t paying attention, and we only realized what the time was about 15 minutes before the last bus was leaving for the night. We rushed to get to it on time, but still managed to miss it.

It’s freezing out tonight, so walking home really wasn’t a reasonable option for her (plus it’s like a 40 min. walk) – so she’s staying the night. That’s fine with both Tre, Robyn, and I but I still feel really bad about it.

Since it was freezing and we’d waited an extra long time outside in the cold just in case the bus was late, I decided to make everyone tea once we were back inside. Robyn and Tre both picked Della Terra’s Perfect Pear and loved it, and I chose this one since I wanted something consistent and familiar because I knew I’d be a bit more preoccupied on making their tea and being a more attentive host.

Consistent and familiar it was indeed; and in the best way. No soapy taste that I sometimes (although rarely) get from this tea and it was sweet and strong. Tre actually commented on how he’d almost picked this since it smelled really strong and powerful, but he also hates black teas. Which is a total contradiction, because he ended up drinking a black tea tonight (and loved it) and his two favourite teas I own (Red Velvet and Saskatoon Berry) are also black teas…

Ugh. Oh well – I think I’ve mostly learned to put up with his idiocy.

So, I set this sample up to cold brew last night so it’d be ready to go to today for when Robyn came over to visit. I received it as a semi unexpected sample from Lala since I’d gone to the local store it’s sold at to buy some, but was told it’d been discontinued. I didn’t think I’d have the chance to try it, but Lala is amazing and sent me some so I guess I was wrong.

The dry leaf for this smells really intense: sort of like straight packaged lemonade juice mix – but definitely not artificial smelling, just very concentrated. When it came in the mail, I came home and my roommate was in the kitchen smelling the envelope. Since I wasn’t expecting any tea, I was kinda thrown off – but once he handed it over I understood why he’d been smelling it: even through the bag it was packaged in and the paper of the envelope I could still smell the leaf. Out of the sample Lala sent me, I used most of it for the cold brew today (about three cups worth) and then saved somewhere between 1/2 tsp. to a full tsp. to hopefully try a hot cup.

After straining the leaf out, there were still A LOT of little floaty bits, but Lala had warned me of this and it’s something I would have expected anyway considering how finely crushed the lemon peel in the mix is. The smell of the cold brew was really faintly lemon, and I was a little concerned that it hadn’t sat long enough to leech out enough flavour.

Trying it though, it was deliciously sweet and so much like freshly squeezed lemonade. Very thirst quenching, with some very subtle appley notes. Probably one of the best ‘lemonades’ I’ve ever had and I loved that it didn’t need sweetener at all. Robyn thinks this would be really good hot and would be great for sore throats (and I don’t disagree), but I think Lala was probably right in saying that this would be best cold brewed or on ice.

Excited to use up the last little bit of this as a hot brew!

Thanks again Lala for sending me the sample!

I almost forgot that I’d tried this in store today since it was their tea of the day! …Actually, it probably says a lot about what I thought of the tea that I forgot I’d even had it.

The liquor was a sort of medium orange colour with yellow hues and, when I tried it I had no information about what was in it other than the sales lady told me it was a flavoured green tea. I can’t say the name of the tea really did anything to educate me about what flavours I might experience.

Upon drinking, I was hit with a really vegetal taste next to something overwhelmingly fruity. So, basically high vegetal taste and high fruit taste (but the flavour wasn’t distinct enough to tip me off on which fruits I was tasting). There was also some unpleasant astringency. I wasn’t really a fan, and I think the sales lady could tell because she really didn’t suggest any green teas for me after that (even though I did end up buying a green tea it was one I had inquired about, not one she suggested).

I just looked up the tea on Tea Desire’s website, and I guess the fruit I was tasting was strawberry and raspberry. I’m not really a fan of green tea in general, but I’m learning to love flavoured green teas (or at least tolerate them). I’ve had strawberry green teas I’ve been much more happy with, though. There’s also sunflower blossoms in the mix, and thinking back now I guess I can see that. Still, not really my cup.