4185 Tasting Notes
Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge – December Tea #3-A tea flavored like a root vegetable/exotic fruit
This blend has plenty of various exotic fruits: pineapple, papaya, and coconut. And even some beet root for the root vegetable half of the prompt! Bonus points? I’m not sure if I ever realized that this blend is fairly close to their Caramel Corn blend that I love, give or take a couple ingredients. So I still have some of Caramel Corn around… and they are similar enough to my tastebuds.
Holiday Tea 2022 #11: Davids Tea – Sleigh Ride
Holiday Tea 2022 #12: Bird & Blend – Earl Grey Creme (in the advent)
Holiday Tea 2022 #13: Tea Revv – Chilly Willy Chai
2022 sipdowns: 123
Additional notes: I’m sure this will show up in the advent at SOME point, but I was craving a smoky tea today, so I would rather have this tea. It’s a weird mix of ingredients! Preferably, I would want a “night before Christmas” tea to go REALLY well with anything resembling “Santa’s cookies”. Not like I usually have cookies… but just in theory! This would not taste well with cookies.
Holiday Tea 2022 #9: Bird & Blend – The Night Before Christmas
Holiday Tea 2022 #10: Angry Tea Room – Creme Brulee
The advent tea for today is….. Snowball! I had no idea I was close to a sipdown here, which means I’m now out of stock on Snowball. Oh no! I really thought I had more of it around here. It’s another I would buy again. I didn’t measure the leaves, but made sure to dump them in the BIG mug. At least the coconut can’t get any older when it’s gone. It’s usually satisfying to finish a coconut tea, no matter how much I love it. And only a 77 rating from me… hmm…
2022 sipdowns: 122
Holiday Tea 2022 #6: Bird & Blend – Snowball
Holiday Tea 2022 #7: 52Teas – Molasses Spice Cookie Honeybush
Holiday Tea 2022 #8: Angry Tea Room – Pomegranate Oolong
Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge – December Tea #2 -A winter holiday tea
This will fit for this prompt! This was more the spices of eggnog and not really eggy (seems to be trying to go the “pumpkin” spice route there…) But I enjoyed trying it!
2022 sipdowns: 121
Holiday Tea 2022 #5
I’m skipping B&B’s advent today of Rhubarb & Custard. Another blend I only have a tiny bit remaining.
A sample from my order a couple months ago. It’s a tea I’d drink for free but probably wouldn’t pay for. I love raspberry but this is more hibiscus than raspberry. Luckily I didn’t notice the mint here, I’d rather it be full raspberry. I did guzzle it down so fast with my dinner though that I had time for a second steep the same night. That’s something I hardly ever do… usually the second steep is left for the next night. The blend somehow dries my mouth right up, so maybe that is why I drank it so quickly. But Harney can do better than this one!
Steep #1 // 20 minutes after boiling // 1-2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 2-3 minute steep
2022 sipdowns: 120
Might have to change your name to tea-guzzler if you keep up this pace. :P
Haha, sure – “tea-guzzler” would certainly be a more interesting handle! I’m trying to fit a ton of sipdowns into the December last minute crunch time to meet my goal for the year, which means more tasting notes from me than usual. :D
I love Rhubarb & Custard, it’s definitely going to be part of my next order once my cupboard is under control.
Tea Sipper sounds much more refined. Tea Guzzler is more like the cookie monster of tea drinking IMO, which I find amusing. Good luck on your sipdowns!
Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge – December Tea #1 -A pear tea
This sample was from TreeGal a while ago! Thanks so much! The leaves look like mostly white tea — very finely chopped white tea. I really should have steeped this sample in two sessions, as the leaf is so small. The scent of the dry leaf is full ripe, super sugary pear. (Not to mention the steeped leaf has a very off-putting fragrance but it doesn’t appear to taste like that.) It’s white tea with a nice pear flavor – always a great combination. Since I had steeped twice, very quickly, I went for a third steep. More of the white tea peaks through, with less of the pear. I actually really like this tea, since it’s not doing that weird Bubblegum “Pear” flavor thing AT ALL (despite the age of this sample – at least a few years old by now) but rather than anything “cobbler” the tea should be called Ripe Pear or something else… Luckily this tea is fairly nice that the missing “cobbler” wasn’t too much of a disappointment.
Steep #1 // 35 minutes after boiling // 1 minute steep
Steep #2 // 28 minutes after boiling // 1 min
Steep #3 // 20 minutes after boiling // 2 min
2022 sipdowns: 119
Flavors: Pear
I will also be following along with whatever pops up on the Bird & Blend advent from my own stash, if I happen to have it in the cupboard. Even if I didn’t buy a B&B advent this year, I’m in love with their virtual advent — couldn’t be cuter. (Everyone can follow along with the virtual advent just as long as you have a B&B log in.) I’m skipping Tea #1, Gingerbread Chai this year because I have only a few precious teaspoons remaining. I wonder if B&B will ever offer free shipping to America again? I know why they can’t at the moment, but I wonder if it will be Never Again? There are a few staples I wouldn’t mind ordering this year.
THIS tea was thankfully shared by Cameron B a while ago. I loved trying this blend, but I don’t think it’s a staple. However, whenever I steep it up, I forget how much I like it, so who knows. If I was a Brit I think I’d know how much this tastes like the actual cookie…
Holiday tea 2022 #4 (because it’s in the advent)
Good idea! Two of my passions collided today as somebody I follow from the theatre world shared that she’d been sent their advent calendar and is opening it on Instagram every day. It’s really making me wish I had one!
I don’t remember this having bee pollen, did they change the recipe?
Last time I had it, I was shocked how much it tasted like a chocolate-frosted McVities digestive biscuit.
OH the blend appeared it had bee pollen in it, but checking the ingredients it must be fenugreek. I will edit my note to take out the bee pollen! Also, it’s good to know the flavor of the tea is accurate to someone who has actually tried the biscuits. :D
I agree with Mastress Alita, it was very similar to McVities digestive biscuit! I am little sad I ran out of this and ordering from UK is a small nightmare for me right now.
additional notes: I really liked this unique mint black. Seemed smooth and creamy, even if the mint got a bit catnippy. No spelling autocorrect for “catnippy”? Oh wait, it did that time. hhmm. As much as I would love to order from Teakruthi again, I’m still traumatized by their live bug infestation in their hibiscus tea blends incident from a couple years ago… I don’t see a couple of those available on their site anymore though, so maybe that solved the problem.
2022 sipdowns: 118
Their what incident?? Oh lord, new fear unlocked.
Um, just dozens of living bugs in their pouches of hibiscus teas. Believe me, I have never had this incident before or since. I had a ton of their samples, so I made sure to pour each tea onto a paper plate to check for movement and never saw it in other teas. (whew) And the people at Teakruthi are awesome, as far as their customer service goes, so I really wish that hadn’t have happened to teakruthi. This was years ago though, so I hope that problem has not been recent!
Oh no, I wonder how something like that happens?! I hope it didn’t negatively affect their business too much.
Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge – November Tea #10 -A tea paired with a sandwich
This tea is usually my COOKIE tea so naturally I thought of this one for a sandwich – a peanut butter & plum jam sandwich for my breakfast. I’m not sure the tea flavor really paired perfectly with this bread. Just isn’t a match. well, now I know. Also this tea thankfully wasn’t a true sipdown yet. I am now SIX pages behind on reading tasting notes!! I’m almost caught up!
Holiday tea 2022 #3
Yep, it’s December already. Yep, it’s the old old old advent again! Rather than flood the tasting notes with my repeating notes for older teas for every single holiday tea I drink, I will probably just list them once in a while in an occasional tea note… I was the only one to ever write a note for this tea… meaning I was the only one on Steepster to ever buy Angry Tea Room’s advent? And now they are no longer. About half the teas in THIS advent are now gone. It just shows how long it takes me to finish teas, especially as I have made it a point to drink this advent at least once a year! It just seems even if I’m finishing around 150 packages of tea a year, even if they are sometimes samples, the number still doesn’t seem to go down very much in my actual Steepster cupboard. And as much as you all are generous, I’m definitely not acquiring 150 teas in a year either from any of you or my own purchases! I guess there are worse problems…
Holiday tea 2022 #1: Angry Tea Room – Chestnut
Holiday tea 2022 #2: Simpson & Vail – Candy Cane
I don’t think I knew Angry Tea Room was gone!
They were probably gone within the last year or two. Luckily it seems my favorite blends (sometimes) are available from adagio.
Aww not another one gone! ): I love chestnut tea, too. It’s one of my absolute favourite flavours.
Bummer I hadn’t heard that news either.
Not really NEWS about Angry Tea Room.. their site is just gone and no mentions of anything about it on socials.
So they just vanished? Huh.
