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Sipdown (162)!

So, I’ve had this before in store and I really didn’t like it and consequently had never planned on acquiring any more, but my Dad bought me the holiday sampler which of course includes this one. Blah.

I’ve been sipping at some neo citron all day today, so not a lot of tea drinking going on because you shouldn’t really have tea and medicine. However, my Dad asked me to make him something and this is what sounded good to him. And then I figured that since this is herbal it’d be totally safe to drink along with my neo citron, and I also seem to be running out of the herbals I brought with me at an alarmingly quick rate so I just made a timolino full of this for myself too.

My 12 oz. timolino full used 3 1/2 tsp. of leaf steeped with boiling water for seven minutes. Based on reviews and my only other experience drinking this I was very generous with the leaf. My Dad’s cup had the same steep time but used 2 tsp. of leaf for an 8 pz. cup. And, between those two cups that used up the whole 25g sample amount. This really is a stupidly heavy blend and the fact it needs so much leaf to be flavourful makes is very expensive. No thank you.

Dry, this smells like sweet, sticky figs and dates with the tartness of cranberry in a gentle way and with some delicate spices. Honestly, it’s a nice smell and I remember really liking the smell in store too. Steeped, it’s a nice balance between gentle spices and figs. It’s nice and festive smelling.

My Dad really enjoyed his cup, and I’m assuming my stepmom did too because she kept stealing sips out of his mug.

As for my timolino full? The first notes are light ones of clove and slightly stronger ones of figs. The fig notes hold throughout most of the sip and a joined by mild notes of dates, apples, cranberries, and maybe something like brandy and cinnamon. No presence of almonds, and no lasting aftertaste whatsoever. This is quite a lot better than my first experience which was highly watered down and had zero fig taste to it all, which was just embarrassing because “Fig” is expected as a flavour when it’s in the bloody name. However, while this is stronger and more flavourful than my first experience, it’s still pretty weak which is sad considering how much I had to overleaf it just to achieve this taste.

So, yeah – 25g of this basically made two just barely adequate mugs worth. That’s pathetic. This is one of the heaviest blends I’ve ever seen which makes it horribly expensive to keep stocked; that might be doable if the taste was jaw droppingly, astoundingly good – but it’s not. Never ever going to be a restock for me.

PS. I just finished watching Sherlock Season 3 Ep. 2 and it was just so perfect! Again, I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone but the whole episode had me madly switching from hysterical laughter to immense feelings of sadness at a moments notice. If that’s not a sign of great television then I don’t know what is!

Sipdown (163)!

I recieved this as a sample from Janelle in her tea stash sale! I wanted to try another bamboo tea as a comparison to Tea Desire’s Buddha Bamboo which I just adore. The whole sample of this was used to cold brew a pitcher of tea to split with my family. The tea steeped for approx. 18 hours and was a super light peachy colour.

Taste wise, this had a very, very gentle vegetal quality to it and a strong peach flavour. The peach flavour specifically reminded me of the peach flavoured bottled juice that Tim Horton’s sells, but a little lighter and more natural tasting – very close though. It was juicy and thirst quenching.

I’m not going to go out and buy more right away or anything, but I see myself stocking up on a small bag for cold brewing come summer. Also, I convinced my tea hating brother to have a sip of this and he actually loved it! Enough so that he let me strain a whole glass for him! He’s now willing to explore a few more herbal teas or anything I cold brew. Yippy!

Started my morning off with this!

Somehow I feel even more sick than I did a few days ago; instead of getting better I now seem to be regressing. Ick. I thought that this would be a tasty start to a lazy day, and maybe the mint would help clear up my sinuses. I was correct about the first part, and wrong about the latter.

This was very smooth and creamy, and altogether a really nice well balanced cup. 1 tsp of leaf, steeped for four minutes with boiling water. The place I’m staying at now (My Dad’s) doesn’t have an electric kettle so I’m not drinking as much tea as I normally would; that said everyone here also seems to think I’m drinking this ungodly amount (three cups a day?)…

My brother and I practically just peed ourselves watching Birdemic! I’ve seen it many times because it’s one of my favourite poorly done horror movies, but it was the first time he’d ever seen it and he found it so horribly done in the best way possible; just like I do! Seriously, if you love poorly done horror movies or just bad movies in general you need to check this out! It’s up there with the likes of The Room, Trolls 2, and Sharknado.

This is what I made to drink with the movie. Last time I had it hot, it was incredibly sour and tart and sort of a pure hibiscus taste, but I wanted to give it another shot with less leaf and a shorter steep time to see if that improved things. So, this time I used 1/2 tbsp. for my 12 oz. timolino steeped for just two minutes.

Taste wise, it was still pretty sharp and sour though certainly not as much. That part of the tea is really unenjoyable, to be honest. However, the aftertaste (similar to what I remember from last time) is nice and creamy and just the right amount of sweet and sour strawberry with a sort of rum feel to compliment the creaminess. So – it’s kind of hard to fairly judge it because you have two major extremes: super shrill kind of sour that overwhelms you at the start of each sip, and a nice creamy and fruity taste that lingers after the sip, letting things end nicely.

Ugh.

I still need to try this cold brewed to see how that changes things, but this is just so fickle, so unless it’s amazing cold brewed there’s no way I’m getting it again…

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…