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More tea in the mail this afternoon! This time it was the two blends that I purchased from Shadowfall (Prairie Berry from DAVIDsTEA and Cara McGee’s TARDIS blend from Adagio)! It made it here in less than a week, coming from the states! I’m super impressed. However, with those two blends counted, that now puts me at 117 different tea.

My Dad asked me yesterday how many blends I’m at now and I didn’t text him back because I’m sort of ashamed to tell him the number. Last time he was up to visit I was hovering right around 50, and that was only two months ago…

Anyway, I made myself some of this today for work. I picked this one for a couple reasons, including the fact I was tired and lazy, under time constraints (running late), and just wanted something light and minty. For preparation, I brewed this up concentrated (two teabags) in boiling water for 3 minutes. I then poured the concentrated mix into my water bottle and watered it down with about a cup’s worth of cold water. It was faster doing it this way than it would have been making two separate cups.

Taste wise, it’s quite lovely. Nice and light, and very refreshing. Since really diving into my tea journey I’ve learned that while I still love mint teas, I much prefer them cold to hot. Very rarely do I drink mint teas anymore without them being cold (the exception being chocolate mint blends). Today, this kinda tastes like spearmint gum…

Side note not relevant to tea…

I feel like a terrible roommate today. I kind of screwed Tre over, although it was a complete accident. Yesterday I borrowed his bus pass to do some late night shopping since he has a monthly one that has unlimited rides for the month. I, however, don’t go places that are outside of walking distance too often so my pass is set up to buy sets of rides at a time (usually 10) because that’s more cost effect for me.

However, last night I was down to 1 ride – and I would have needed 2: one to get downtown and one to get home. So, I took his since he wasn’t going out yesterday evening…

I though everything was all worked out – when I got home I gave him his pass back so he could use it to get to school. Turns out that I accidentally gave him mine (they look the same!). So, he managed to get to Siast alright, but now he’s going to have to walk home. It’s nearly a two hour walk.

I feel really bad…

So, after getting home and dumping the swill that was David’s Currant Affair I decided to make something I was confidant that I’d enjoy. Since I finally caved to Tre’s persistent nagging and started watching Doctor Who (secretly, I’m really enjoying it) I figured I’d make us each a cup of this blend while we watched an episode together.

It just seemed like a good fit to watch Doctor Who while drinking a Doctor Who tea, and I didn’t feel bad about using up the last of the sample that Janelle sent me for our two cups since my pouch of it from Black Friday orders showed up today!

For preparation, each cup was made with 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf steeped in boiling water for 2 min. 30 seconds.

I really love this because it tastes like sticky “smacking your mouth” caramel popcorn (how is it a tea can taste ‘sticky’?). Actual caramel popcorn! Tre liked it too, though he added WAY too much sugar (over a tablespoon of sugar). I feel like this might be one of the rare teas I have to fight to keep him from drinking up (ie. all my coconut teas)! He’s recently discovered just how good caramel tea is, and anything ‘Doctor Who’ draws his attention…

I received this in a swap with LovelyLotus.

This one was on my low priority shopping list because I love currants but I also have a couple currant teas already so I wasn’t entirely sure if I could justify buying another one, so getting it in a swap was perfect!

Dry, the leaf smells similar to Champagne Cassis from Tea Desire which is a personal favourite (I have it ranked 100, and it’d probably be in my 5 favourites teas of all time) – but a little less sweet. For preparing it today, I steeped 2 tsp. in my 12 oz. timolino in boiling water for eight minutes. I didn’t have the brewing guide/suggestions pulled up so I just went with something that seemed reasonable in comparison to my other rooibos blends from DAVIDsTEA.

The smell of this one is intensly black currant and cherry (what the heck? is there even cherry in the blend?) – but in a HEAVILY medicinal way, which does not bode well for this tea…

I was kind of hesitant to try it out, and thankfully I was busy enough working the first two hours (of my three hour) shift so I could put it off. However, I’m finally trying it now and, to be honest, my thoughts are simply “yuck”. I’m getting incredibly strong notes of cherry and black currant in a strongly and overpoweringly medicinal way that leaves a very unpleasant and lingering aftertaste in my mouth. This is just rude :/

And that’s actually really disappointing because I LOVE currants and was hoping for this to be a caffeine free equivalent to Champagne Cassis – and it’s definitely not. Boo :(

Anyway, I’m still thankful to LovelyLotus for sending some my way – if nothing else this satisfied my curiosity and prevented me from actually spending money on it. I think this is getting dumped when I get home, though (sad because I only brought one thing of tea to work today because my shift was so short)…

This is the last of the Butiki teas to try out of my first order (disregarding samples), although once my BF order arrives I’ll have six more new ones to dig through. I’m not exactly sure why I left this one for last: it certainly wasn’t a conscious decision. I actually had meant to try it yesterday, but wound up running out of time. That’s ok though, I have enough time before I work today (I’m an idiot and gave myself a stupid three hour shift start at six, for reasons I can’t remember) to sit down and enjoy a cup of it without feeling rushed.

I like the idea of a “pumpkin milkshake” because it’s focusing on the creaminess there without becoming fixated on spices. I don’t think every pumpkin teas needs to focus on spices – there are so many other equally good ways to enjoy pumpkin! Like pumpkin pie with vanilla icecream… Akin to a milkshake ;)

Dry, I definitely smell the pumpkin and the vanilla! Similar to what I get with Vanilla Frosted Carrot Cake, there’s also a “damp dirt after a heavy rain storm” type smell. I should copy my description from my tasting note on VFCC here because I think I managed to word it really well there. But, even though it smells like ‘dirt’ it’s the best kind of dirt possible! It’s like, “fresh air, and the earth at the most calm and peaceful of times”. The calm after the storm…

I steeped 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf into 10 oz. of water at 170 degrees for four minutes. The smell of the steeped tea is practically identical to the smell of the dry leaf, minus the whole dirt thing. I love when that happens (and it really does happen nearly all the time with Butiki teas)!

Taste wise, this has really delectable pumpkin notes married with natural vanilla flavour and a thick mouthfeel. I get a little bit of spice in the tail of the sip, but it’s not a spice overload. I’m looking for the caramel notes like stated in the product description, and they’re very subtly worked into the tea. I bet with a little bit of added cream or milk this would be even more like a milkshake, but it’s fine plain too.

I think this is something I want to keep stocked in my cupboard, but in small quantity. It’s a very nice, delicate, and creamy tea but not something I see myself reaching for on a daily basis. A very nice treat, though!

Ok, so this isn’t really a tasting note per say since I never actually got around to making myself any of this. More so, this is just me logging my feelings because they’re rather “unconventional”, one could say, in regard to the dry leaf.

Last night I was feeling incredibly sick and as I was entering the different teas I had received in the mail into my spread sheet I had them all next to me – and something from that pile was making me feel INCREDIBLY nauseated and sick. I was sure it was just my sense acting out of sorts from being sick though. So since today I’ve felt perfectly fine I decided to pull out all of the teas I received yesterday from my sample drawer and individually smell them to see if I could pin point what it was that was making me sick.

Everything was going really well until I reached this one, which I had received from CrowKettle as part of the “Take It Away” thread. Before even opening the bag to smell the leaf I started to feel sick, but once the bag was open I just couldn’t take it and I actually literally started to gag. 100% that’s what was making me feel so gross and making me so queasy yesterday.

And, I’ve scoured tasting reviews and read through the ingredients list and really there’s nothing in the tea that I’ve ever had adverse feelings to prior, and I can’t see anyone else ever experiencing the same bad reaction, especially just from just the leaf. I’m honestly baffled – a huge part of me just wanted to throw it away though…

I just cannot bring myself to make a cup of this to try out. I just can’t and wont. So, that said, if anyone wants to swap for this (or honestly, I’d be ok with just mailing it away to someone for nothing in return) despite my “glowing” praise towards it please just comment and let me know.

I’ve never had such a poor reaction to a tea, and I just want it out of my house…

Ah! The RiverTea website is now officially up, and once again I’m just so humbled that I had the chance to try some of these teas out before anyone else could. I’ve been slowly working my way through the teas I recieved – doing one every day I’ve had off since I know I have time to fully appreciate them this way.

http://www.rivertea.com/

I’ve been looking through their website for the last hour or so, and while there are a few blends that I think I would be very excited to try, for the most part I am so happy with what they sent me. I think they did a great job of picking out the teas that would best suit my taste interests!

Also, the site just looks amazing! Everything is really well organized, and I’m finding it easy to navigate. Plus, they’re offering free shipping internationally on orders over $50 and everything so far seems relatively affordable and not overpriced. So, I’m thinking everyone should check them out! So far, I’ve been very happy with everything I’ve tried and based on the reviews from everyone else who won their contest, it doesn’t seem like anyone has had any real “misses” with the teas they’ve tried. Also, I just put together a “mock” order of what I would get, and the shipping price doesn’t look too shabby either!

(They have an apricot chai tea just like Tea Desire, so I’m heavily tempted to order that as a comparison – among others that I want to try out)

Anyway, this tea definitely has my favourite name out of what I was sent to try out – and I’m just dying to know the story behind it! I already checked out the product descriptions for the other teas they’ve sent me, and it was neat because I now get why, for example, “Pret a Portea” is called “Pret a Portea”. It’s interesting learning the story behind things… So, RiverTea if you’re hovering around reading this, you should tell me why this blend is called Boatsman, because I’m just not making the connection on my own…

Following the RiverTea steeping guide, this one should be 1 tsp./cup, though I’ve been using a 10 oz. mug all day so I’m going with 1 1/2 tsp. instead. Another thing is that this blend has huge pieces of things in it (which reminds me of Tea Desire – who happen to have their tea blended in Germany and then imported to Canada, so maybe huge chunks of things is a German thing?) so getting “one of everything” into my measurement is proving to be hard – and that’s how I often try to do things my first time having something: make sure I get one of everything so that I’m tasting the intended flavour.

Seriously, take a look at RiverTea’s display image of it:

http://www.rivertea.com/boatsman-mango-vanilla-black-tea

I don’t think the crappy cell phone picture I took of it is doing it justice, because when you see those large hunks of mango or mother fucking giant ass cinnamon sticks on the plate thingy there, THAT IS THE ACTUAL FUCKING SIZE OF THE CINNAMON STICKS AND MANGO CHUNKS! Like – those cinnamon sticks alone are 1 tsp. worth of “stuff”. If I was to try to do one of everything, there’d be no actual tea leaf in my brew basket and this had might as well be a tisane…

So, 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf, no cinnamon sticks this time. Although I did get a large cranberry chunk, and chamomile blossom, and a small mango chunk into the mix. This was steeped for 3 min. and 30 seconds, boiling water.

Dry, the smell is very fruity mango with lots of creamy vanilla and subtler hints of chamomile, cranberry, and cinnamon. Steeping, the mango and vanilla are much more pronounced, with some more of the cranberry coming through as well as very mild notes of everything else but the banana. Just like in the dry smell, the banana is getting lost somewhere in translation for me. I’m wondering is that’s because I just had a heavily banana flavoured fruit blend, despite my drinking some plain water and allowing what I felt was more than adequate time to cleanse my pallet.

Hmm… Maybe now would be a good time to state that (while I appreciate it’s affect as a very relaxing and calming herb), I am not the biggest fan of chamomile – although it’s nothing I go out of my way to avoid, and I’ve never had a truly horrid chamomile tea either. I just have never had one that blew my mind or had it be something I was strongly craving. There’s actually very minimal chamomile tea in my stash (only blend that comes to mind is Bravissimo, which has a good deal of chamomile in it).

Anyway, I’m getting some really good juicy mango notes from the tea, accompanied with mild cranberry notes that I think are only serving to bring out the juiciness of the mango through contrasting tartness (hopefully that makes sense). The cinnamon, chamomile, and vanilla all feel like they’re “bunching together” separately to me. I don’t even know if that makes any sense…

You experience the mango/cranberry/and maybe the vanilla together and then you have to pause, take another sip and in that moment experience the cinnamon/chamomile/vanilla. It’s good, but it’s not totally meshed together and perfectly synchronized. The black tea base is sort of a middle note that comes through in each “set” of tastes as a side component (a very tasty one).

In the aftertaste, you sort of get mango/vanilla/cinnamon and that feel like the strongest point of intersection flavor wise. Again, the banana feels lost in comparison to me. I think the way I’m wording this maybe sounds (contrived, but also) negative – but I’m actually enjoying the cup very much and I do think that I would order again (although technically I didn’t order in the first place…) just based on this cup alone. I’m interested to see just how strong the cinnamon would be if you were actually using one of the massive cinnamon sticks as part of your leaf…

So yeah… Maybe this tasting note jumped around a bit, but definitely check out the RiverTea website because they’ve got some cool looking stuff and seem pretty affordable and I’ve only had good experiences so far (Also, free samples with each order and stuff)!

I needed a switch up from black teas since that’s all I’ve had so far today (although, next on the list is yet another black tea). In between making this one, I made another cup of tea for Tre as per his request (this is his third today! I’m so proud!). His first was Salted Caramel, which I picked out for him and which he then followed with a second cup (that he made all by himself). This time, he said I could pick something out for him again since I’d “done a good job” earlier today. I went with DAVIDsTEA’s Main Squeeze – although I didn’t realize until after I’d already given it to him that he’s never had a Mate before, so I’m interested to see how he takes it given that it’s incredibly high energy which is something he probably does not need…

It’s been too long since I made a cup of this for myself. Lately I’ve been taking advantage of it as a tea to go in latte format every time I visit the actual Tea Desire store: it’s just a tad to expensive to restock frequently because of the weight of it – so normally it’s reserved at home as a special occasion sort of tea. Except my opinion on that this evening was “No, fuck that shit”.

Anyway, super yummy and creamy banana. The non-banana fruit tastes stronger plain than it does with milk – and while that’s still super yummy, I don’t find it AS good as when the banana is super strong like it is as a latte. Very thick mouthfeel today.

So far its been a black tea day, so I think after this one I might switch it up a little bit: maybe an oolong? Anyway, I threw this in with my first Butiki order – though I don’t have the slightest idea what about it was compelling me. It’s not like I had particularly thought to myself “Hmmm, what does my stash need? Oh, I know! Carrot tea!”. It’s interesting because I seem to be acquiring several blends with carrot in them (Pink Flamingo, Pumpkin Chai, A Rabbit’s Garden…) – although this is the only one that particularly boasts carrot as a main flavour, so I am interested to try it out. Plus I think it being limited edition had something to do with it as well.

Dry, the smell is really interesting: not madly compelling but not unsettling or off putting either. I don’t know if this will make sense, but it’s the first comparison that came to mind. In addition to the smell of carrot and light notes of vanilla, this smells like dirt. But, good dirt – in fact the best dirt! Somehow, in the dry smell, I’m getting the smell of the dirt in a garden right after a good spring or early summer rain. Does this make sense? It’s fresh, after rain dirt smell when everything is calm and tranquil: like right after a really big thunder and lightning storm. I love that smell…

I steeped 1 level tsp. for 10 oz. of boiling water for three minutes. As I’m drinking it now, I’m thinking I probably should have stuck with 8 oz. like recommended, but I’ve been using a 10 oz. mug all day and I didn’t really feel like dirtying another mug, especially since it’s my turn to do dishes next… If it was Tre’s turn, well that’s another story.

Actually, speaking of Tre he’s hovering over me right now watching my write my review which is a little disconcerting, not gonna lie. He’s waiting for me to go back to watching Day of The Doctor (which I caved in to watching because of his pushing me to do so) – but I told him writing my review as I was drinking the tea was more important. He’s also decided that DAVIDsTEA’s Salted Caramel is his new favourite tea, which is good because I have about 60g of it, and also bad because it’s one I enjoy too and if he treats it like he did DAVIDsTEA’s Red Velvet Cake (which I thankfully despised) that 60g will be gone in less than a month.

Taste wise, first thing I get from this tea is the spice. It’s not exactly gentle, but it’s not a spice overload either and I like that. It’s rare you find a spiced tea that is a nice, happy medium between the two flavours. Then I get the carrot – and again I’m really quite enjoying that. Similar to how I get a “fresh dirt” smell from the leaf, the carrot tastes like the carrots fresh from my Grandma’s garden back when she was well enough to tend to one. My cousins and I used to pull the up from the ground when we were little and eat them before properly washing them: we’d just smudge the dirt off as best we could and chow down, and somehow despite being still kinda covered in dirt they tasted fresh and delicious. Best carrots ever! And this is sort of like that.

I didn’t get much vanilla at all until I had allowed my mug to cool down a fair bit, much to Tre’s annoyance. He’s just sitting here impatiently while I watch my mug for a couple minutes (partially I did this just to piss him off, because I’m such a good roommate).

“Why does it take so long to just write down that it tastes good!?”

“Because there’s a process to it! Sometimes different flavours are more apparent at different temperatures – I don’t judge you when you take an hour to design your character for an RPG you’ll probably never play again!”

Anyway, at a cooler temperature, I do get more of the vanilla (which is nice with the carrot, and I’m finding weird with the spice) and a touch of the “cake” – which is only really present for me here, and I’m finding myself impartial to. I could do without it and not be heavily disappointed.

Overall, I enjoy this cup a pretty good deal but despite it having a lot of really good qualities I don’t think I’m in love with it, and I’m not about to go out of my way to stockpile more of it before it disappears from the Butiki site, whenever that happens to be. I’m pretty sure what I have of it will be enough for my to keep experiencing it for a while and then move on.

I made my roommate Tre a cup of this about an hour ago, and it just smelled so good that I had to make a cup for myself as well. I actually made it the same way I made it for him; with a splash of milk and a tsp. of sugar. Normally I’d just have it straight, but sometimes switching things up is nice.

I steeped 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf in 10 oz. of boiling water, for three minutes (which is a fair bit less than David’s recommends, but I find their recommended time for this blend to result in it tasting very, very bitter). With the milk and sugar added, there’s much less of a “burnt caramel” taste, although you still sort of get that in the aftertaste. Instead, it’s a much creamier sweet caramel taste – which is great in a whole different way. I think, this way, is a bit less astringent and more smooth going down.

I don’t think I realized just how “salted” the blend tastes plain until I added sugar and milk, and now I’m seeing a noticeable taste difference that really emphasises that the plain version does have salt notes to it.

Anyway, it’s good. I guess I enjoy drinking this both ways for different reasons – so, ‘thank you’ Tre for requiring sugar in freaking everything. Although it frustrates me a lot of the time, this time you gave me the chance to switch up my routine and I actually enjoyed it!

So, this is a tea that I was actually on the fence about in regard to ordering it, purely because I feel as though I have a lot of caramel/maple type teas (especially black ones), and I thought that this might basically be that because of the “syrup” aspect of it. What pushed me to actually order it, though, was the fact that my roommate Tre expressed an interest in actually wanting to try this one out – something he very rarely does in regard to any of the teas I own (the exception being anything with coconut).

Actually, as I was preparing this (1 1/2 tsp. 10 oz. of boiling water, 2 min. 30 seconds) he asked me to make him something but said he didn’t care what. I was tempted to make him some of this because he has expressed an interest in trying it, but selfishly I didn’t want him to get to try it before I had had the chance to fully appreciate a cup of it, so instead he got a cup of DAVIDsTEA’s Salted Caramel (which actually smelled divine, so I might have a cup of that after this one).

Dry, the leaf definitely has a syrupy type of smell to it – although it’s not so much a true maple syrup smell (I’m Canadian and have grown up on real maple syrup, so I feel qualified to say this) as it is just a generic brand of bottled syrup smell. That’s perfectly fine though, bottled syrup is good too. There’s also a very “starchy” smell that I’m sure is intended to be the actual pancake, and lastly I get whiffs of butter: so this really does feel like a “Pancake Breakfast” with all the components there.

The smell of the liquor is butter and syrup.

Taste wise, I’m really enjoying the mug. It’s interesting because there is a defined butter taste along with the cakey/starchy pancake, which finishes with a rich syrup/black tea notes and a small bit of astringency (though nothing totally unpleasant). I kind of didn’t want there to be any really defined presence of the butter because I am the kind of person who never adds butter to anything (the exceptions being corn on the cob, and popcorn). Not toast, sandwiches, or (like in this instance) pancakes/waffles. I don’t find it necessary to those types of food – but it’s actually working with this tea and adding dimension to the taste. I mean, I do like other teas with buttery qualities so I shouldn’t be totally shocked – and yet I still am.

I imagine sweetened with some maple agave or maple sugar this would be brought to a whole new level, although it’s still exceptional plain. Hello new breakfast tea!