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After supper tea! My Dad wanted something with caffeine, so I made him a cup of Hot Lips and my stepmom and I both wanted something without caffeine so I made up each a cup of this!

1 1/2 tsp. of leaf, 8 oz. each with boiling water for six minutes. The whole kitchen smelled lovely. This is also the first time I’ve had it in a clear glass too, so the first time I’ve gotten to accurately see the steeped colour; and it’s so pretty! Both my stepmom and I were amused by the beautiful colour.

I was a little afraid I’d have the sort of experience that VariaTEA had and love it one time and find it revolting the next, but that thankfully wasn’t the case. This was a very lovely apple cinnamon strudel type tasting tea with a lovely flakey pastry feel and nuttiness to it. I should have tried to drink it a little faster while it was hot though, because it wasn’t nearly so good cold (but still not awful).

I brought up enough with me for at least one more cup, maybe two.

This was the third tea I took with for the roadtrip from Saskatoon to Regina. I barely drank it on the ride up though, because I wanted to save some for my brother to try. He is definitely not a tea drinker; in fact he hates most teas, but I thought this might be something he’d like because he is a coffee drinker and this is a coffee flavoured tea.

The preparation, was 2 tsp. of leaf steeped in boiling water (in one of my 12 oz. timolinos) for six minutes. Steeping, it had a very bold and rich coffee smell with hints of chocolate. Very robust in smell.

Flavour wise, still super flavourful but not nearly as robust and bold. The woodiness of the rooibos comes through consistently and constantly in the background of the sip. The mocha flavour is quite strong and bold, but in a sweet way like the creamy and sweet coffee flavour of an iced cappuccino. There are wisps of darker milk chocolate fluid throughout. Super tasty – and a nice in between of a sweeter coffee and regular tea.

I was never really a coffee drinker, even before I got into tea. I did enjoy the occasional iced cap though, so this is nice to have around. I think it’d make an incredible iced latte or latte slushie! Probably going to be a restock; I don’t really have anything like it.

I did share some with my coffee loving brother, but he thought it was revolting and actually spat it out… Drat. I thought I had found a winner.

I also had my “Christmas” with them, and got some interesting and emotional gifts; a framed picture of my deceased brother which was really emotional to receive, a Spiderman toque, and some jewelry. I also got many gifts totally unrelated to any of my interests and which only exaggerated how well my Dad doesn’t know me; such as an iTunes gift card, a magazine about the anime Evangelion (I’ve never even seen an episode), a bottle of coke (I stopped drinking pop months ago)…

And, I also got the DAVIDsTEA Holiday Collection, despite my expressing direct disinterest in receiving it and having my brother warn them of that. Oh well… It’s the thought that counts.

On the fifth day of Christmas Steepster gave to me five golden rings…

So out of order! Anyway, this was a perfect pick for day five from Momo! I actually have a small tin worth at home anyway, but the convenience of a small package I could just toss in to my teas for Regina was too good to pass up, so this came to Regina with me even though I wasn’t totally expecting to take it.

I split a cup with my Stepmom who pronounced it “very flavourful”, which is totally true. This was super smooth caramel tasting, just like usual. A fair bit of the coconut stood out on its own too. Thank you Momo – my step mom and I both enjoyed it.

So, my Dad and Stepmom are actually really interested in tea, though they know nothing about how to properly make it and they only own two teas (DAVIDsTEA’s Long Life Oolong and some kind of bagged African vanilla tea). That just means they’re super open to listening to me gush about loose leaf teas though, and trying lots of the blends I brought up with me!

So, I made this for my Dad as his first ever Butiki tea since he claims to love oolong! He said it was very good but didn’t provide details about what he thought it tasted like or anything. I stole a few sips, and to me it tasted very bready with some spices and maybe some faint rum taste.

The preparation was just Butiki’s suggested steeping guide.

Second tea for the roadtrip to Regina! I recieved this from Aimee Popovacki, and I’m really glad I did because this is something that strongly piqued my interest from DAVIDsTEA but I couldn’t justify getting any because of the price and the fact that there’s green tea in the blend too.

Dry, this smells amazing: like a green apple Jolly Rancher! Sweet and incredibly juicy, and maybe a little sour? No present smell of the base tea. My preparation was 2 tsp. of leaf for 12 oz. of 90 degree celsius water, steeped for four minutes. The smell is sweet apple, and maybe a little bit of caramelization? Like a lightly caramelized apple. I smell the white tea more than the green tea.

Taste wise – this is like a full blown caramel apple. Like, a very juicy red apple with tons of thick caramel with it. How odd; none of the listed ingredients or DAVIDsTEA’s description make this out to be a caramel apple tea, but yet that’s exactly what this tastes like! It’s incredibly good – sweet, juicy apple with none of the tartness that apple teas tend to lean towards. There’s nothing expressedly green about this which was my biggest concern! It was great hot, but once it got cold it was rather bitter. That was a bit disappointing, though…

I think I’d totally buy more of this though! I have enough for several cups left though (at home in Saskatoon, though – so that’ll be it for a while).

Well, I’m in Regina now until at least the 15th (possibly until the 17th)! Now instead of dealing with an annoying roommate, I get to deal with an annoying brother! Which, of course, I mean with love…

Anyway, I made this along with two other teas for the ride from Saskatoon to Regina – an old favourite and two new ones. Taste wise, this was just perfect! Thick mouthfeel, and pina colada sweetness – consumed in my waterbottle as a cold drink. I think I downed it not 10 minutes after leaving the city…

Just over a 1/2 tbsp., 185 degrees steeped for five minutes.

So perfect! Sweet, juicy, and delicate but ever so flavourful. Definitely a favourite!

Received this from Lala! She was super thoughtful and sent out Christmas cards to people with tea samples. The tea comes from a local store that I’ve never been to, but plan on going to when I’m up in the city the next few weeks. I really wanted to try this one out prior to leaving, to now if it’s something I’ll want to stock up on while I have the opportunity to do so.

Dry, the leaf smells exactly like what I had wanted from Butiki’s Almond Indulgence; it’s sweet and candy like, with clear almond smell – but the hard to describe almost fruity sweetness of almond extract or almond flavouring in baking! So good!

For my preparation I went with a just slightly heaping tsp. of leaf in 10 oz. of boiling water, steeped for four minutes. I just ordered pizza, so I’m drinking this while eating cheese and pineapple pizza and two bite brownies (I felt too sick to actually cook anything, but was starving). It’s a weird pairing, honestly.

The tea tastes very good; very cakey or like pastry like which really ties in to the “sweet almond baking” thing that the dry leaf reminds me of. It’s very almond with a smooth black base and a very light hint of cinnamon. So, so tasty! Yeah, I’m totally going to be picking up more of this!

Thank you Lala!

Sample Sipdown (158)!

I just finished having a scalding hot shower to hopefully help me feel better. Whilst showering, my teeth didn’t hurt at all and my sinuses were perfectly clear. After leaving the shower – immediate tooth pain but still clear sinuses. I suppose that’s better than nothing, though it makes me want to stay in the shower for the rest of the day and get all wrinkly and pruny.

I raided the kitchen whilst raiding my tea cupboard (well, closet). I decided to use up the sample of this that I swapped for with Kittenna just yesterday. She was able to find me a one cup size amount of this to brew up. While preparing the cup (whole amount of sample, 10 oz. of boiling water steeped for 5 minutes) I found a bottle of pure brandy extract and dabbed a cotton ball in it which I then stuck in my mouth by my sore tooth. It’s actually quite significantly numbing the pain, though as a result I keep drooling all over myself like a total idiot. It doesn’t taste too bad though, considering it’s quite concentrated and I am not a fan of the taste of brandy to begin with.

Dry, the tea smells really good. Very sweet and heavily creamy rootbeer; like rootbeer candy (I immediately thought of A&W Rootbeer flavoured suckers that the chain used to give out). It even almost smells fizzy. Steeped, this loses any “fizzy” quality it might have had but retains the super creamy rootbeer smell.

I’ve tried a fair bit of “rootbeer” teas lately (Butiki and Della Terra’s versions, 52Tea’s Butterbeer which is like a rootbeer tea) and this is actually quite good. Taste wise, it’s probably the most “pure” tasting one (no chemical or heavily artificial taste) on the initial sip, and it has a thick, weighty creaminess to it – likely contributed by the white chocolate. I also get flickering notes of anise and cinnamon.

The liquor itself is fairly thick and pleasant in that way, though it does have an oiliness to it that is a little unpleasant. That’s to be expected though when you’re dealing with chocolate in tea (the other blend with white chocolate in it that comes to mind is White Chocolate Frost, which is a total oily mess too). There are some floaties in the cup too, but that’s never a problem for me. The aftertaste is less tasty and has a mildly unpleasant and kind of vaguely chemical tasting, so that’s a little bit of a disappointment.

I think I may like this better than 52Tea’s Butterbeer despite the oiliness and slightly unpleasant aftertaste, though not by leaps and bounds. I have a whole pouch of Butterbeer to still enjoy though, and this was the first and last of this blend. And ultimately, Butiki’s Honeybush take is the best one I’ve tried – still!

Mmm, so many fun rootbeer teas to explore! Thanks Kittenna for giving me the chance to do that with this one!

… And now back to sticking brandy soaked cotton balls in my mouth.

Rewatching the Sherlock Season 3 Ep. 1 with Tre, and needed some tea to drink with the episode. My teeth are killing me right now, and I’m not sure if that’s related to my just generalized feeling of sickness or whether they’re actually sore. Anyway, supposedly a hot teagbag on a sore tooth is a good home remedy so I made bagged tea to watch with the episode.

I also figured I might as well make it a sipdown, and try something new! So, this is from VariaTEA who sent me a couple Stash teabags a while back after noticing that Stash is my favourite bagged tea company (so thoughtful). Since she sent one each, that makes this my first time drinking it and also a sipdown! This one is sold at my local grocery stores though, so if I do really like it then it will be attainable.

So, boiling water in a 10 oz. mug with one teabag, steeped for three minutes. Dry, the bag smelled sweet and nutty and loosely reminded me of mulberries. Steeped it smells much the same, very sweet and creamy with nut notes. After steeping, I actually held the hot teabag to my teeth for a few minute prior to taking a sip – and it did briefly work to ease the pain. But, it certainly wasn’t a “lasting” cure. It only numbed things for like five minutes – so back to the drawing board for home remedies for toothaches…

Taste wise – pretty good. Very smooth, with lots of rich vanilla flavour and a kind of “medium” presence of the nuts. The black tea is there – but it’s relatively well masked by the all the other sweet flavours. No mulberries in the actual taste – but I didn’t expect there to be any, so all is good. It’s very sweet, though and not painfully unique as far as the flavour combination goes. So, I did very much enjoy the cup (despite the tooth pain), but I don’t think I’ll be seeking it out to restock.