Jack Frost

This was my evening cup last night. It sounded like a good evening blend for someone with stuffy nose. It didnt work for me at all. I don’t know why. All the ingredients are ones I enjoy. It got good reviews. I guess it just wasn’t my cuppa.

Adventaggedon Day 22 – Tea 2/6

This tea was a trip! I read through the ingredients list and was like “Oh, okay. this is more herbaceous sounding about will probably be a good cooling/crisp eucalyptus to break up some of the more indulgent profiles we’ve had” and I was totally on board for that…

Then I opened up the teabag and the first thing that came to mind was… Mojito!?

I wasn’t alone, basically every single person in my advent chat on IG agreed that this tea was strongly reminiscent of a mojito. I actually enjoyed it a lot but it was just so deeply not what I was expecting from the ingredients list. Like, the mint was sweet spearmint like the gummy candy leaves from my childhood, with refreshing and bright citrus and a bit of a creamy coconut undertone. I really didn’t taste the eucalyptus much at all, and I had fully expected that to be a dominant flavour.

It would be really interesting to revisit this blend again, knowing what it would taste like. As it stands, I enjoyed it in the moment but am not totalllyyyy sure if it would be the kind of thing that I’d order for myself.

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJHkg9EA3im/

Bird & Blend Advent Day 22 (22-December 2020)

This feel like a tea I’d drink if I was feeling under the weather.

Firstly, I want to say that you can vote back candied yams, but it’s losing handily to banana bread chai. I mean I would totally drink anything banana, but candied yams is so so good, I wish the votes were going differently!

Anyway, the ingredient list for Jack Frost was intriguing, so I had to grab some when it was on sale. I love mint, and I love seeing it mixed with other things. The eucalyptus definitely reminds me of August Uncommon’s Tropic of Capricorn, which is another great blend. Yeah, the flavor here is so pleasantly cooling. I don’t sense the coconut at all. It’s mainly the mint and eucalyptus, but that’s fine because it’s quite tasty! I love that I have 50g of this!

I bought this about a year ago and tried it a couple times. Originally, I thought this blend was too strong? I think? I tried it a while ago. But I think now with age, the tea has mellowed its flavors and it’s possibly more to my liking. It also looks really pretty with all that green and the accents of blue cornflowers and white snowflake sprinkles. The coconut shards also might look like snow, the most like any unmeltable ingredient can look like snow anyway. I also love the idea of pine needles here to give it that earthy, snow falling in a forest element. The spearmint adds a nice frosty cooling element as well. The spearmint is the main flavor here. The coconut isn’t present in the flavor which will be fine with me when the coconut goes off. I’m not sure what the eucalyptus does for the flavor as I’m not sure what it tastes like among all these other ingredients. The second steep was brewed about eight minutes but the flavor wasn’t overdone. A nice balanced flavor that was very enjoyable. Overall, a decent unique blend that I was happy to try, with multiple elements that say ‘snowy winter’. It brightens winter up a bit, I think, but I guess all my teas do that…. unless it’s a bad tea.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons // 10 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 8 minute steep

Holiday Tea-son! Today the advent calendar was Earl Grey Creme, which was my morning cuppa today, but I’ve reviewed it on Steepster previously. I don’t really do the whole “tasting note for every cuppa” thing as that just isn’t my style, but if you missed it previously and don’t want to dig through my notes (who’s got time for that?), I’ve got you boo: https://steepster.com/mastressalita/posts/380417 (Ah, it’s so nice having all my notes on a nice big NotePad file outside of the site. I so do love having Ctrl+F search functionality of my own tasting notes… fufufufu~ This is why I write everything offsite and just copy-paste it in when I’m done~)

So for my ritual nightly tisane today I pulled out the last of my discontinued Bird & Blend holiday teas from their Bluebird Tea days; I also got this one from a cupboard sale of tea-sipper’s last January, so thank you tea-sipper!

I admit I have a few trepidations about this tea, because it is quite old now, and contains coconut, but the spearmint and eucalyptus have such a strong aroma that I can’t give it the “has the coconut gone off?” sniff test before brewing. I have terrible luck with coconut, and have had so many teas (even ones that were not very old!) get the bad coconut Russian Roulette draw that I feel nervous sniffing my brewed cup. Is it supposed to smell like that or am I psyching myself out? Because I think it smells a little acrid, but I also have admittedly never once had eucalyptus in tea form, only in bath products, and its aroma steeped up may be a bit different, especially mixed with the pine in the blend…

There definitely is a eucalyptus aroma there, though. It makes me a little excited, because that was always my favorite aroma therapy scent, but I’ve never tasted the stuff before. I can smell the spearmint and pine, too. Coconut, though? I’m not getting that at all.

The tea does have a strong spearmint flavor, that leaves a cooling menthol sensation on the tongue, with a slightly citrusy, pine note on the aftertaste. There is a slight bit of bitterness mid-sip which had me initially concerned about the coconut, but having never had eucalyptus before, I did a little searching and it is described as having a bitter flavor… At this point, I’m just considering it Schroedinger’s Coconut.

The slight herbal bitterness doesn’t make this my favorite, but I don’t dislike it, either. I do like the heavy menthol attributes of the tea, and find it quite relaxing. I’m certainly curious to try more eucalyptus teas in the future.

Day fourteen of advent calendar: I seem to have gone overboard with the sweets lately… a cookie exchange today, more cookies at work… cake.. candy. I definitely don’t need it all.. but I’m trying to just enjoy myself and not worry about it. Tonight I decided I needed a cup that is comforting, clean and can help with digestion. This tea is strange because the peppermint flavor is more grassy.. herbal and green. I was sort of expecting that sinus-clearing, sweet peppermint flavor. I do like this different dimension of peppermint, but there is something in this that I don’t like and I can’t put my finger on it. The pine? Eucalyptus? This cup is mostly an herbal sort of peppermint with some other odd flavors mixed in and they just don’t blend well. I would have liked a more minty, creamy and smooth cup, but this just wasn’t it tonight.

014/365

My Bluebird order just arrived, and as part of it I picked up samples of this year’s Christmas collection (except Christmas Cake, which has been around for several years now). I decided to break with tradition, and make a start on trying them straight away. That way, if there’s one I really fall in love with, I’ll have time to get some more. Jack Frost was the one that jumped out at me this evening – it’s a herbal, so great as a pre-bedtime treat, and probably the most unusual of the four.

The ingredients are spearmint, eucalyptus, coconut, ainseed, and pine needles. The scent, dry, is predominantly eucalyptus. Usually I’d try a new blend straight first, but I’d seen Bluebird’s recipe for a Jack Frost Latte and was feeling that, so I went with it. Basically, it’s 300ml hot water and 2 tsp tea, 100ml milk, 1tsp honey, and 1/2 tsp vanilla essence. I brewed the tea for 5 minutes, heated up the milk and added that, and then stirred through the honey and vanilla. At this point, I wasn’t entirely convinced.

I was wrong, though. It is sweet and creamy, from the milk/honey/vanilla, and that is a big part of the flavour (as you might expect). It is possible to taste the tea, though – the coolness of the eucalyptus really cuts through, and the spearmint is easily discernable. There’s a hint of aniseed in the aftertaste. If I were going to be poetic about it, I’d say it’s like taking a sip of frosty morning. I like how it contrasts warm and cold, sweet and clean. It’s both comforting and refreshing.

There are a couple of downsides – the coconut is lost completely, similarly the pine needles. Both of those are disappointing losses, because they’re the things that really make this blend unique. I will try it straight over the coming weeks, though, and hopefully they’ll make more of an impact then.

On the whole, I’m pleased with this one. It’s a great winter blend, without being overly christmassy, and a pretty unique combination of ingredients. I’m looking forward to experimenting a little more with the rest of my sample.