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Sipdown (203)!

This is backlog from last night, after Tre took back his laptop.

I do prefer this one to the plain Cacao, I’ve decided, however after brewing up an extra strong 10 oz. mug of this (2 1/2 tsp. of leaf, effectively using up the sample from *variaTEA) and letting it brew for 30 min. so it was extra strong, I still felt dissatisfied with the taste. It was too weak and thin tasting, despite having split second moments of tasting like Strawberry Nesquik syrup or melted Neapolitan.

Just not my thing, I suppose.

This tea pleases me greatly in practically every way.

Except the totally lame name. I’m not gonna drop that. This tea is delicious and so deserving of a cooler, way less generic name.

It feels like this has been on my dash a lot, but I guess not because the only three reviewers thus far are myself, VariaTEA (whom I sent this to), and Cavocorax. Maybe it seems like more because the few times I’ve seen it pop up I basically freaked the fuck out with excitement and we had massive comment conversations about it?

Anyway, when I pulled out DT’s Cranberry Pear I caved and pulled this one out too. And then impatiently waited for the water to cool while I steeped up Cranberry Pear. Brilliant cup like always – absolutely a restock, though thankful I still have a fair amount of it.

The papaya is strong today.

EDIT: I increased my rating a little.

What can I say – I’m impressionable. Darn you, VariaTEA! This was WAY back in my closet and I have to go digging through my (many) black tea tins to find it because once you mentioned it I just had to have it, and then of course I saw some others I wanted to pull out and have immediately too.

Mmm! I do so love this one! I didn’t add milk this time, primarily because I poured too much water into the mug to be able to fit any milk, and then by the time it was done steeping and I’d drank enough where milk could be reasonably added, I was so taken in by the flavour I didn’t want to get off the couch to go grab some from the fridge…

Bumping this up to a perfect 100 because I have absolutely no reason not to, and my rating it pretty close to that now, as is…

Maybe it’s a little sad or needy of me, but I was wondering why no one had liked or commented on my tasting note of Jessie’s Day from earlier today – sure it wasn’t witty or anything, but not one like? So I went through my tasting notes and low and behold – Steepster ate it! Makes sense…

Anyway, I woke up last night/this morning (like 4 AM) with this ridiculous craving for lavender so I made a large mug of this, gulped it down and promptly went back to sleep. I must have been really out of it because when I got up today and went to the kitchen there was rooibos all over the counter! Like, enough for a mug or two (thankfully I have tons of this since I received it as a Christmas gift from two people). I think I must have missed the tea ball a couple times…

I actually made this earlier in the day when I was talking to VariaTEA about Fruit Loops tea/David’s Bamboozled. I made a cup and then stuck it into the freezer to enjoy later as an tea slushie. I think it was Sil whom I got that idea from…

Anyway, lets just say I forgot it was in there until I went into the freezer to grab some FroYo. At first I thought it had frozen solid, but after poking it a whole lot with a spoon I cracked the thick, top layer of ice open only to realize a thick layer had frozen solid all around the edge of the cup but the inside was still liquid – albeit very, very fucking cold liquid.

Not really so much of a success as my first tea slushie because I sorta just made a crappy Popsicle, sans the stick, but it was cold and refreshing anyway. Now that I’ve drank all the liquid, I just have a thick “Buddha Bamboo” flavoured shell of ice in the cup which I’m waiting for to melt…

EDIT: I pulled out a few more I thought would be interesting to try as slush. I’ll experiment with a couple tomorrow…

Sipdown (204)!

When I had tea with Lala earlier this month, she brought a whole bunch of extra samples for me, including several from Nina’s Paris that I’ve been excited to try. I decided to make my very first Nina’s Paris tea this one. It was gonna be Nina’s Japon from VariaTEA except I realized I really was in more of a fruity black mood today, and this was in my sample drawer calling out to me.

Dry, I don’t get a whole lot from this. Maybe a little peach/apricot but nothing crazy distinct. My steeping parameters were the whole sample (a little more than 1 1/2 tsp.) steeped in boiling water for four minutes. Steeped up, the smell is very aromatic with thick, fat juicy notes of peach and apricot – though not a ton of apple. very excited to be trying this out.

Mmmm, the taste is definitely a very rich fruit tea like I was wanting. Again, I’m not getting a whole lot of apple (maybe a little) but I do get a very smooth vanilla/peach flavour with a brilliant black base and some milder notes of apricot. There’s not even a touch of astringency or bitterness – and despite a seemingly absent apple that feels well balanced with enough dimension. I honestly think if there was a strong presence of apple that might be a little too much going on – that or it’d be like a fruit cocktail.

Heh, it was even sweet enough to make my teeth sore again. Which is the first time they’ve severely acted up since getting my pain medications from the dentist. So… More pain killers for me!

Also, if it weren’t for the fact the pain killers I just took were the first ones all day then I might think I was pretty severely tripping balls because my landlord’s daughter and girlfriend are upstairs right now very loudly making animal noises (I’ve heard cat, rooster, bear, and dog noises so far). You know, if Maria – his daughter – was like under the age of 10 it might be a kinda cute bonding thing (they don’t get along well), but she’s 20… So, there’s that.

Not sure if I want to know the context of the animal noises.

Anyway, to conclude my thoughts on the tea:

This is definitely delicious and I think a great introduction to Nina’s Paris. It makes me very excited to try the remaining Nina’s Paris samples that I have. However, peach is a flavour that I am often quite fickle about and typically do not prefer or crave so I don’t think I’d go out of my way to acquire any more because I just don’t think it’d be worth the effort. There are more attainable peach teas I can drink instead.

I wouldn’t turn down another cup, though ;)

Sipdown (205)!

Wanted to get one in today while I had the computer to properly log it. I’m sad to see this one go, but I also felt silly hoarding the last cup worth when I really wanted to make it. I was really happy to receive this in the 12 Days gift exchange.

It tastes great today, though my first few sips were tomato heavy. Yeah, you read that right – I said (wrote) tomato. It’s my fault, I was being careless and stupid and I used the same spoon I was eating my Spiderman Alphaghetti with to test out the tea to see if it had steeped long enough. It’s all oily and kinda tomato-y now – but still good regardless.

This is what happens when I coop myself up in my house for long periods of time, with no regular internet access or music or anything to do with absolutely no one to talk to. I do stupid and maybe slightly insane things like shift all of the posters in the house over by a foot to see if they look better, and dip alphaghetti in my tea…

I’ve accepted that this is just a really good cake tea without much fruit to it, so that what I was wanting when I grabbed it this afternoon to make a mug – although this has lots of larger fruit chunks in it that my sample from Janelle didn’t have (that one had no extra stuff in it other than black leaf) so I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t maybe secretly hoping for just a bit more pineapple from this cup…

Parameters were 1 1/2 tsp, for the 10 oz. mug of boiling water steeped for four minutes. The steeped smell is just the regular brown sugar heavy cake smell this normally has.

Taste wise it’s the same; perhaps the best cake tea I’ve ever had and very rich with deep, caramelized brown sugar notes. Sadly not even a touch of fruit taste – but that’s ok, I’ve accepted that’s not something I’m gonna get from this one. It’s amazing regardless, just with a poorly fitting name. No milk in this cup, but still super creamy regardless.

Yum!

Mmm, finally sitting down and enjoying this one again. To be perfectly honest, I put off having it for a really long time because when I last had it I ended up getting violently ill – though I’m convinced it was either from the eggs I had at the same time or a result of being sick prior and not being completely aware of that – and nothing to do with the tea itself.

Still, the association is there and so I’ve been hesitant to re-invite it.

Parameters for this 10 oz. mug were just barely 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf in boiling water, steeped for four minutes. Taste wise, it actually tastes fairly different from what I remember. My recollection is a very intensely strawberry/rhubarb tea with a bit of pie crust, but what I’m experiencing right now is more akin to lots of pie crust with medium notes of juicy strawberry and lighter notes of rhubarb. Perhaps that boils down to just a different assortment of stuff in the leaf…

Anyway, it’s a delicious cup and I very much enjoy it. I’m glad I put my hesitation aside and didn’t let it prevent me from still enjoying this blend, because just… Mmmmmm!

Cold brewed this! From the moment I smelled it in store I knew that I wouldn’t be trying this out as a cold brew – it just seemed like it had all the right flavours to be done well that way. About three cups worth were cold brewed for a grand total of about 14 hours, give or take an hour or so.

I must say, it does taste pretty good: very yummy fresh raspberry notes (sweet and a little tangy) with splashes of peach. I still taste the coffee that I experienced in my last (hot) cup, though! It’s such a weird thing to be tasting in a raspberry/peach white tea.

It must be the wool flowers! I don’t know how they’re supposed to taste, but I guess my brain is processing them as coffee. Oh well, at least it’s not a bad taste. Maybe I’ll use Tre as a Guinea Pig and see if he tastes it too.