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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.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas Steepster gave to me eight maids-a-milking…

So, I was supposed to have left for Regina by now for my ‘vacation’ but the road conditions are absolutely terrible and my Dad decided to wait until tomorrow to come get me. That just means another day of tea drink and laziness I guess – which I’m not really complaining about…

This was my pick for the 12 Days tea swap! I think the reasoning behind it should be obvious enough. Or, at least I would hope so. Originally I was going to go with Della Terra’s “Minty Cow” but I didn’t have enough left to split between 12 people so I went with this one instead! Tea Desire is a company that I think many people are still unfamiliar with – especially those in the States so I thought maybe this would be a neat way for them to become acquainted.

I gave everyone enough for at least two cups because this one can be relatively temperamental – I’ve had some truly great cups of it and others that were weak or seemed flavourless. I’m hoping everyone else experiences a good cup. Today, my cup is actually really good! I went with 1 tsp. steeped at about 75 degrees celsius for three minutes and it’s nice and caramel kind of sweet. Sort of like the sweetness of condensed milk.

I think this may be the last tea of the night – but maybe not? I just started a movie that I fully intend to fall asleep to, but if I don’t fall asleep right away I may make something else (maybe try and do a sipdown).

This one smells sickly sweet; delicious caramel and sticky toffee goodness with maybe just a little bit of hazelnut. I have high expectations for this tea – especially since I’ve tried Victoria Mint and know that Tea Desire can pull off caramel teas.

My preparation for this one was a heaping 1/2 tbsp. measurement for 10 oz. of boiling water, steeped for about six minutes. I feel like, if this is anything like Victoria Mint, I could have pushed for an even longer steep time, but instead I backed off a little just in case. The smell is primarily hazelnut brittle with some toffee in the background. It smells mouthwateringly delicious!

Taste… Initial taste is sorta burnt toffee/caramel with strong hazelnut notes and a bit of a brown sugar sort of feel. This transitions smoothly into a deep, rich, creamy toffee taste. The good kind of toffee that’s all sticky and requires some serious gnawing to take a bit of. The kind that makes your teeth sore but you just can’t resist eating a pound of it anyway. And then, the sweet toffee taste lightly lingers on the roof of your mouth a while after you’ve finished your sip. Yum!

(I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I really like the rooibos base Tea Desire uses – it’s not medicinal at all and only sometimes has that characteristic woody taste; and in this blend I don’t get the woody base at all. So those who fear rooibos might want to just give Tea Desire’s blends a chance; they could surprise you)

This is a tea that’s definitely for sweet toffee and caramel lovers!

Made as a tea soda.

1 tsp. dissolved into a can of club soda; tasted pretty good, but more green tea than eggnog flavour this time. Again, I think fizzy drinks may have been a bad idea for a sore throat (though I am feeling better than I have the last three or so days)…

I had a craving though – so I scratched it.

And Tre wont make me eggs :(

Tre caved and gave me a slice of pie! Yay! So, to go with my pie I made a black tea; black tea seems to go with most desserts, in my opinion anyway. I actually bought this one because of all the talk on Steepster about it; it seems like it made a rotation through several people’s cupboards and that got me curious. My favourite employee from Tea Desire also told me that she dislikes this one because she can only taste the dates in it – and that made me curious too because I hate oreos, but I like dates…

So, I’m drinking this with a pretty open mind seeing as I think it could go either way as a “love it” or “hate it” tea, and because I’ve heard a wide array of opinions on it.

Dry, this smells like creamy chocolate and black tea. Not awful or anything, but just a little bit average (in a good way, I guess). My preparation was 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf, 10 oz. boiling water, steeped for four minutes. The smell is creamy milk chocolate with a touch of sweet dates, like the kind used in pastries.

Taste wise, it’s actually a surprisingly good chocolate tea. The chocolate is light, smooth, and very creamy with nice vanilla notes. The dates are fairly present and contribute a nice fruity sweetness that keeps the tea from being too one dimensional. There’s a soft pastry or cake like quality to the tea too, which I think adds to the intended idea of an “Oreo Cookie”. The black base is light, but still present. The doesn’t taste really equal an Oreo cookie for me, but in my case I guess that’s a good thing! As it cooled down, it did taste a little watery so next time I make it I think I’ll use more leaf or a slightly longer steep time.

Ultimately; I think I’ll enjoy going through this one – but I’m unsure as of right now if I would repurchase it; it’s nice enough but not anything super unique, and since I have many other chocolate black teas I don’t think I would feel as if I was losing out by not having more of this around.

Tre had a major craving for pie, so he ordered in a Saskatoon Berry pie. Yes, you read that right – he ordered in a pie. Anyway, he wont share and the smell made me crave Saskatoon Berries, so I dug this tea out that I purchased from Shadowfall (How could I resist buying a tea made with berries that originate in the town I live in) to help satisfy the cravings.

Dry, it smells very sweet and fruity; about 50/50 of Saskatoons and cranberries. I know there’s maple in this, but it just comes off as a sugary sweetness in the smell and nothing distinctly maple. For my preparation, I used 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf steeped with boiling water for five minutes. The steeped smell was a very pure Saskatoon Berry smell – like Saskatoon Berry puree. So good!

Taste wise, the Saskatoon Berries are the most prominent taste. I was worried the cranberry would be very strong in taste because it’s practically on par with the Saskatoons in the dry smell, but now that it’s steeped it’s a nice background flavour complimenting the Saskatoons and not competing with them or overshadowing them. It’s a very natural tasting Saskatoon Berry flavour to me too! And, surprisingly, the maple does taste like maple syrup and not just a generalized sweetness. The maple is most prominent mid sip and leading into the aftertaste, though the taste of the berries outlasts the taste of the maple ultimately.

I think I’d like it if the oolong base was a little more present – but this still tastes super good regardless. I’m not sure if I like it more than Blueberry Jam, but I think it’s definitely on par with it. I’m sad now that it’s not part of the regular collection, but I do have enough left to enjoy a very good amount of cups still!

After meeting Kittenna at Tea Desire for a swap, I then rushed my ass off to get home (Day #5 of the Christmas exchange from Momo was waiting in the mailbox for me when I arrived at home) and change into something appropriate for my interview… Which happened to be at Tea Desire, the place I had just come from.

I think the interview went really well. The woman who interviewed me is someone who I already know fairly well and who I’ve had many good tea related (and a few unrelated) conversations with already. It was kind of interesting because, obviously, she knew I was super familiar with tea already and about Tea Desire’s blends in particular (I’m in there at least once a week to buy tea and sometimes two or three times just for tea to go). It was kind of funny because some of her interview questions she didn’t even have to ask because she already knew the answers. I think that’ll probably work in my favour.

Regardless, wish me good luck! She said that I’d likely hear back by Monday! How cool would it be if I got the job? :D

And… Of course right after my interview I had to buy tea. She knows me well enough, I think, to get I wasn’t “sucking up”. It’s literally just a compulsion I have every single time I walk into the store. So, I got 50g of Sweet Toffee Rooibos and this as a tea to go latte.

Taste wise, it was pretty decent. Just a touch bitter, but I’m 90% sure that’s because I left the tea bag in for a very long time. It was a very nice London Fog though, essentially. Definitely not something I’ll stock from them because I have better Earl Greys at home, but something nice to sip on while out doing errands and things like that!

It’s been a packed day so far!

I started the day by going out for breakfast with Tre, which was nice enough. In the middle of the meal I got a phone call from who other than TEA DESIRE! I ended up doing a phone interview in the middle of Smitty’s while eating breakfast – which was interesting enough. The meal concluded with them asking me to come in for an in person interview and Tre paying for my meal – which was a very kind gesture, albeit one I’m not totally sure he could afford.

Funnily enough, before my interview, I had already planned to meet the lovely Kittenna for an in person swap. So, this is what I ordered as a to go tea while waiting – as a latte like normal. My swap with Kittenna went really well even though it was brief; we had a short but very sweet conversation!

The tea was lovely too; like usual. I’m very excited to try all the new blends! I then rushed home from Tea Desire to change for my interview since I had not dressed for an interview upon leaving the house this morning (I was wearing PJ Pants and an oversized Hoodie with food stains all over it)…