Spiced Pumpkin Pie

And that’s the end of this one! (91)

It’s funny that I did my pumpkin pie tea-off, and then finished off the pumpkin teas that were my least favourite, while completely ignoring the Della Terra one that I really did enjoy. :P

I guess now that this and DAVIDsTEA’s pumpkin chai are out of the way, I can focus on the better one?

I’m super excited at the moment, because my Bluebird Tea Co. order arrived yesterday, and this tea is now officially back in my cupboard. It’s been too long! I also picked up samples of their other autumn blends (Kung Flu Fighter!, Nuts About You, and Pudina Chai). Of these, Pudina Chai is probably the one that has me most intrigued, because I’ve never tried a mint-based chai before. There’s always a first time. The other exciting thing about my Bluebird order was that they also put in a sample of this year’s Christmas Cake blend. That got me running back to their website to see if the rest of the Christmas stuff is available yet – seriously, they have the cutest hampers this year! They’re not in stock yet, which is probably a very good thing for my bank account, but I’m eyeing one up as a present to myself.

Yay tea!

I’ve been drinking this tea for a week or so but haven’t yet logged a review.

It smells strongly of clove and cinnamon spice. It’s like having a warm hug from Autumn as I sniff it.

Flavour wise it’s of medium strength which features a malty yet smoky black taste, refreshing but not too strong clove, a pinch of spicy cinnamon and a sweet squash/pumpkin flavour. It’s a subtle pumpkin tea with the focus being on the spice itself but with that said I still very much like this blend.

A drop of soy milk in my second cup adds a nice creamy flavour and texture. It also smooths out the clove and it tastes more cardamom like now.

I think this is a very nice Autumn tea and I’m glad I bought a pack to try. :)

Additional notes: I was trying this one again (only one teaspoon of my sample left!), to see if I liked it as much as I remembered. It is better than I remembered! I don’t know if it’s the time of year or what, but it just WORKS. The spices are very nice, hints of squash/pumpkin even from the one piece in my infuser. The black tea is lighter but it lets the flavor shine. The cup was even an amber pumpkin orange. I’ll definitely be ordering this one. ONE teaspoon.. not even heaping. So so good.
Just boiled // 3 min // 6 min

If anyone is interested, there will definitely be a bluebirdteaco.com group order happening! A chance to try these amazing teas (haven’t tried a terrible one yet!) and split the $15-20 shipping costs. More info here: http://steepster.com/discuss/9558-bluebird-tea-co-group-order-accepting-orders

KittyLovesTea sent such a generous amount of this tea, I’ve been able to enjoy it again and again. I wish more pumpkin teas were available year-round. This one is so tasty.

Now I will enjoy this delicious tea with my grilled cheese sandwich with apple. :)

A gift from Martin Bednar!

My husband only likes chai type and spiced teas as lattes usually, so I was saving this one to drink by myself. Also, I am not the world’s biggest fan of spiced teas except exactly as he likes them – made with milk and deffo some whipped cream on top! I like my spiced teas milder or appley with a really good, smooth base and not too much clove. (Hi, Kiki!)

But today for lunch I was having (canned) beef with barley soup, which is a fairly strong flavor profile and a half peanut butter sandwich with it. I thought it was just the right time to try this.

It was just perfect for that meal. The soup has a pretty strong aroma but I kept getting whiffs of the tea over it. The strength of the tea was perfect, and hearty enough to pair just beautifully. The color was nice and deep and it is quite fragrant. It may have oversteeped a little bit as I decided I wanted to build a fire to sit by during lunch and I was minimally delayed pulling the steeping basket. It didn’t seem to hurt it at all.

I don’t think there could have been a better tea for pairing with a strong soup on a cold day.
Well, cold by NC standards. It was in the forties! Ha ha!

Thank you, Martin! It really was the perfect tea for lunch!

Sipdown

I liked this. It had all the nice pumpkin spice flavor but with an interesting custard quality. Don’t recall much else because the dog and the baby made things a bit nutso when I tried to drink this.

The first few sips I had of this when it was really hot were absolutely amazing. Pure pumpkin pie. I poured a small amount into a separate cup to try it with some milk, and that was great too. Definitely pumpkin with light spices in there. I brought the rest to work, and for some reason, it didn’t taste special anymore. I did overleaf it since I had a little too much leaf for one cup but not enough for two, so maybe that could lead to some flavor confusion. Yeah it just tasted like many other spiced black teas. The spices became more pronounced as it sat. I did enjoy it, but I guess if I ever have this tea again, it either needs to be very hot or with added milk. It made a decent second steep with plenty of starchiness.

Thanks to tea-sipper for the sample!!

Sad SIPDOWN
Great tea for cloudy day as today. It is nice blend of black tea with vegetable (pumpkin) notes. And… cloves, cinnamon. All together works brilliant.

But it’s gone.

Song pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8XyIaHsZEc

Now about Steepster:
Yes, I am happy that it won’t die as Adagio decided to take part. Certainly a great news, but on the other hand… it is a vendor; so I hope they won’t benefit their products, it should stay ad-free and I would really enjoy if it stays like this all the time. Keep users adding teas(teaware) without review by some admin, easy-way to write tasting note.

Keep it similar/same. Don’t do big changes yet. Fix the troubles we experience now, then listen to us and in the end do new.

I can’t write to discussion board though, so I hope, they will read it anyway.

This was one of the 20 gram pouches included in my tea subscription. I am not a big fan of pumpkin pie or pumpkin anything, really. I know a lot of other people who live for this time of the year so they can get their pumpkin fix. Not me.

That said, the tea was smooth, and of course I don’t taste a whole lot anyway. We’ll starting the weekly Wednesday night suppers at church next Wednesday, and the woman who coordinates them is a tea lover and always makes two big pots of tea as well as an urn of coffee. I think I’ll bring this one to share.