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Sipdown (518)!

Man, I need to rectify this whole ‘57’ rating situation. I know that was the rating I originally gave the Frank ere 52Teas version of this blend, but Anne’s is so much better and more enjoyable. I’m actually really sad to see it finished off – hopefully there’ll be a reblend at some point this year. That’d be great.

Flavour wise, the one aspect of this tea that I don’t get super strongly/consistently is the vanilla – but oddly enough despite not getting significant vanilla flavour there is a creaminess to the overall profile regardless. Both the strawberry and chocolate come through very clearly and strongly though, and are delicious. I will be eternally grateful to Anne for not skimping on the strawberry aspect of this tea – it’s my absolute favourite aspect of Neapolitan icecream and one of my favourite icecream flavours in general. So much love goes to that aspect of the tea! It’s perfect; strong, creamy, sweet, and bright!

Sipdown (519)!

Thanks again to Kittenna for the sample of this one! It’s another that I missed during Butiki’s prime – straight teas generally weren’t often on my radar at that point in my ‘tea drinking career’ so I likely just skipped right over it.

I definitely enjoyed it a lot though, which just makes me all the more sad I missed this one in its prime. It was super bright and refreshing, though! Really, really strong and lively citrus notes and jammy red fruit undertones, with a sweet caramelized sugar and freshly baked bread sort of finish. I find citrus notes in black teas, Kenyan ones in particular, can be awfully brisk and often emulate more of a citrus peel or pithy citrus kind of flavour but this was sweet and juicy, more like the flesh of the lemon without any sourness – and I deeply appreciate that sort of lemon note in a good tea; black or otherwise.

It totally made the whole cup.

Cold Brew Sipdown (520)!

It’s been a while since I’ve done a ‘true’ blind taste test – basically a taste test for a flavoured tea where I didn’t look up what it was supposed to be flavoured like prior to trying it. So, I figured since I knew nothing about this tea I’d do that and test my ability to figure out what it’s supposed to taste like.

I do know it’s a black tea, but that would be apparent based on the taste even if I hadn’t seen the dry leaf to be able to visually identify that. Flavour wise it’s very tropical and intense with a nice sweetness to it. The finish reads as just a touch artificial to me; but not aggressively or unpleasantly so. It’s actually reminding me a lot of Hoku, which is the other Lupicia tea I recieved from Kittenna. That one was pineapple/guava, so because they taste so similar it makes me feel like this one also has one of those two flavour notes. I’d wager pineapple over guava though; this doesn’t have the flavour that I normally associate with guava blends.

It’s not just pineapple though – what I’m getting is like floral, rosey undertones and then like a passionfruit sort of quality in the body, minus the tang/acidity that sometimes comes along with passionfruit blends. So I guess I’d say overall that my ‘guess’ is that this is pineapple/passionfruit? Regardless of whether I’m right or not it’s quite smooth and tasty though, and it would make a lovely tea to have around in the summer for iced or cold brewed tea.

Alright, moment of truth; time to look up what was actually in the tea!

…

Pineapple, Mango, Guava.

Huh, guess I was a little off with my guess – but to be fair I didn’t think the guava was strong in Hoku at all either. The mango I totally missed though; but in hind sight as I’m sipping on the last little bit of my brew I guess I can see how this would be mango instead of passionfruit. I don’t know – this is always just a fun little experiment, and it’s always neat seeing how accurate I can get with my guesses.

So, JKTeaShop was really nice and sent me some teas for free in exchange for some reviews; they showed up yesterday and I would have loved to crack into them then but it was like 10PM at night when I got home from work so definitely not the ideal time for a good session…

I wanted to try this one first though; I’ve a pretty big fan of Lapsang Souchong regardless of whether or not it’s smoked (this one isn’t) but I’ve been drinking a lot more unsmoked Lapsang lately so I was excited to try another take. I steeped this one up Gongfu, with 8g of leaf. I’ll probably finish the rest of the sample Western style because this is a style of tea I enjoy both ways, and while Gong Fu black can be nice it doesn’t generally have much staying power.

I got about eight steeps out of this one – I found it had beautiful flavour right off the bat but it tapered off very quickly; but like mentioned above black teas don’t often have great staying power when it comes to brewing Gong Fu. Right off the bat, this one had a very nice full bodied and smooth malty quality to it that then further developed into undertones of stonefruit and some honey-like sweetness. I say honey-like because it was almost more something that is honey flavoured versus actual, realistic honey. Midsession steeps continued the malt and fruity sort of notes/traits, but developed into a bit of a bittersweet dark chocolate/baker’s chocolate sort of flavour with a somewhat spicy finish. Like, notes of cumin were definitely present. I actually really liked the introduction of those cumin notes because they were really unique and interesting contrasted against the stonefruit undertones and sweetness.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed this one! It was a great early morning session for me, and while it didn’t have the most staying power in the world it had solid flavor and for me that’s always the most important thing.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6Nt1ssPLBA

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/BfL1faRFoUf/?taken-by=ros_strange

Buy It Here: https://www.jkteashop.com/

Very simple and natural, medium bodied raspberry notes throughout the sip. The finish is really clean and crisp. It was simple overall; but I deeply enjoyed it and sometimes you don’t need an overly complex or nuanced flavour to just have a really solid, pleasant cup of tea. If you like raspberry, you’ll like this tea.

Morning cuppa.

I can’t decide if I’m into this one or not – the chocolate and banana combo is something I usually like but when I steep this one up I’m conflicted because I find the banana in it very potent and sweet and quite artificial, much like those banana marshmallow candies. However, the chocolate notes in the tea are very thin and watery tasting to me. It’s strange and somewhat unsatisfying but overall not unpleasant?

I don’t know…

Matcha Latte!

I just ordered a bunch of new matcha from Bluebird Tea Co. that I’m very excited for, but I need to show a little bit of love to the matcha I already have too. So, I made this one up as a latte and topped it up with what was practically a literal mountain of frothed milk. Flavour wise, it was delicious – very rich and creamy, with some great vanilla notes to it. It definitely still had that sort of powdery mouthfeel but I think I’m getting used to it. It wont be the end of the world if the other matchas from Bluebird have the same texture issues but I’m crossing my fingers they wont because it is a little distracting.

Made a big mug of this one, with a nice and equally big handful of black licorice. It was an explosion of licorice flavours both in the drink and in the accompanying snack. Super rich, and sweet and just a little bit bitter. The tea also has notes of wood, earth, molasses, and cinnamon; but mostly delicious anise/licorice.

Mmmm!

With cashew milk and pumpkin agave.

This was delicious; very full bodied and rich with creamy malt notes and then of course the beautiful, sweet added flavours of the aforementioned milk and agave. It’s a solid cup though! It made for a really nice late night mug to sip on while curled up on the couch. Very peaceful!

Cold Brew!

So I grabbed this one around Black Friday using some of my points because I thought it’d make a very nice iced tea. I’ve been really fond of the inclusion of Hawthorn in other teas/tisanes I’ve tried it with so I wanted to give it a shot on its own.

Steeped up, this actually ends up being a very, very faintly pink tinted liquor. It was so light in fact that are first glance I was worried it hadn’t really infused well/I’d possibly under leafed it and it wouldn’t taste right. Definitely not the case though; I stained this one and was pleasantly surprised at the punch the flavour had!

I mean, it’s very very sour! Like, the first moments you pop a sour candy like Sour Patch Kids or even possibly a Warhead into your mouth. I like it though because that kind of sourness is so drastically different than the sourness/tartness of hibiscus. And it’s hard to explain how they’re different, but suffice to say if you have a cup of either steeped up and were doing a blindfolded taste test you would DEFINITELY know which is which. It’s like a hibiscus infusion has more body/is thicker, but while this is VERY sour it’s a lighter, thinner sourness? I’m into it though.

I mean, I totally could NOT just drink it whenever – I’d definitely need to be in the mood for something with this kind of punch, but it’s a nice, unique flavour.