Swampwater

I made Swampwater iced cubes…and added them to a glass of plain water, one of Swampwater, and one of my lemonwater (a packet of True Lemon and Splenda) and the results were phenomenal! Each tasted good, although the Double Swampwater blend was best. I ate some of the iced cubes by themselves too. So good – I highly recommend!

I feel like this is a tea that would do well as a seasonal Halloween item, but hey, I’m pretty happy that it’s available now so I’m not complaining.

First, the appearance. The dry leaves look and smell fruity and innocent. Then you steep tea and remove the filter basket only to find that someone has replaced your evening tea with a mugful of swamp water. I am amazed at how swampy this tea looks. Only instead of smelling like the accumulated poo of a million amphibians, this smells like an exotic fruity juice. Oh man. But look at this! It’s a dark murky green with an oily orange ring on sides of the mug. Most unappetizing looking tea ever!

The taste of this…well, it’s rooibos-y but in a good way since it’s green rooibos. I don’t know why red rooibos is so overwhelmingly prevalent when green is so much better. Fruity, but in an ambiguous way. But to be honest, I wasn’t paying too much attention to the flavors of the fruit. I’ll pay more attention next time. Anyway, it’s definitely something I’d be happy to drink again, cold brewed maybe.

Overall, good stuff! I even love that it looks so gross!

Okay, first things first. Swamp Music by Lynyrd Skynyrd is hopelessly stuck in my head. I blame the tea. Secondly, I haven’t had this tea in months. It is one of the first I bought at David’s Tea so it must be getting on in age, but it’s been sealed in it’s tinand smells divine. I remember liking it well enough, it just fell off my radar with the constant influx of new treasure.

The smell is very fruity – I only have two teas with green rooibos so I don’t know what that smells like on it’s own. I don’t discern anything that I could point to in that regard. It does, of course, have the cute little candies in it. I assume those are what create the best part of the tea – the nasty colour. All morning people have “yuck!”ed when they see it, but then they smell it and start to swoon.

Being a rooibos, I just tossed a spoon of this in my travel mug this morning and it’s been steeping in there ever since (we’re 1.5 hours in, at this point). It tastes lovely – one of the many features of rooibos that I love is that you can’t really do it wrong. The smell is still fruity, and the taste is too, but not overwhelmingly so. It’s a surprisingly mild tea, considering the ingredients and the lengthy steep time. It’s naturally sweet and I would never even consider adding any sweetener to a rooibos, but I avoid most sweetener anyway. I used to go for a dob of honey in black teas, but it’s been months.

Anyway, I like this tea. Another great tea to travel with, and one to share with all ages since it’s got no caffeine but a lot of attitude. Yummy attitude!

So I went to dt a couple days ago and there was only one person in the store with me, and when I asked for this tea, the man came up to me and asked what it was. He says all he could smell was the amazing sweetness of this tea.

I love this tea, I love everything from the taste, to the name, to the strange colour it is. I love the sweetness from the strawberry’s which are my favorite.

So I’m having one of those days while I was trying to get this tea into my tea bag, a huge gust of wind came inside and knocked over my whole pouch of tea! And I ended up missing the tea bag because I was trying to catch the bag at the same time. Tea everywhere! Oh well this tea is so worth it.

I’m just not a fan of this one despite repeated attempts. Hot, cold, in a popsicle, sweetened, it just doesn’t taste good to me. It’s kind of strange because I quite enjoy green rooibos, even by itself its great, but this tastes actually too much like the red variety, which I have a hard time drinking iced.

I love the color of it though, but what fun is it to have murky green tea if you hate how it tastes!

I tried this cold brewed. It doesn’t work as well that way because the little candies don’t dissolve. It isn’t as sweet as when it is hot. There is still some strawberry flavour there though. Next time, I will hot brew it then put it in the fridge to chill I think

Another sample from Krystaleyn – thank you so much!
Well you know – its not to MY personal liking so much – its not bad its just not something I would run out to buy. It was great in all the ways people have said. I just was MEH about it.
I have been in a weird mood lately though I am refraining from leaving a rating. Nothing has tasted very good to me today.

Missy sets a glass of this down in front of me.

Me: Is this swampwater?
Missy: Yeah. It tastes like rocket pops!
Me: Rocket pops?
Missy: Yeah! Those orange and red Popsicles that you used to get. They’re not the same any more.

I take a drink.

Me: Does this have rooibos in it?
Missy: Yeah, green. Why?
Me: It tastes very rooibos-y.
Missy: I don’t think it tastes anything like rooibos.

I laugh.

Missy: I kind of want to keep this around just for the color.
Missy: Wait, what are you typing over there?

This is the appropriately named Swampwater, due to it’s brackish green-brown color. I really wonder if they set out to make this tea brackish and scary, or they thought this flavor might work and someone went “Dude, that will never sell… it looks like swampwater”. I’m guessing the later, but I have zero idea what happens in the DAVIDsTEA tealab. If they don’t call it a tealab, they should.

Anyway, this was another tea I got from the awesome prize package from DaisyChubb and her blog of coolness. It tastes rooibos-y and fruity, a little bit nutty, and looks like abhorrent.

All in all, good times. Not so sure it’s something I’d want to keep around, but it was definitely an interesting experience (and the box it came in has an awesome swampmonster thing, and swamp themed stickers I gave to our daughter)

Hello Steepster!

I’ve been absent for awhile. Lots of things have been crazy. I’m picking classes for next semester… all the ones I want to take are 300-level, and I need to give myself an easy semester. Sigh!

I’ve had this sample for awhile, but never really gotten around to trying it. It smells really fruity, and for some reason there are cat-shaped sprinkles in my packet as well, on top of the general sprinkles.

I’ve heard a lot about the color, but it didn’t look strange until I poured it into my glass. Oh goodness. It’s really murky green. It does not look appetizing. But it smells really fruity. Huh.

Unfortunately, it tastes as murky as it smells. It’s vaguely fruity, but it all seems to blur together. Part of it might also be the weirdness of drinking something that color.

Got this one in store today on ice. I love it, but that isn’t the review I’m going to post today. I was in the store with my friend and her three year old son, who I let try my tea. (Like a three year old wouldn’t be fascinated by a cup of green murky stuff, right?) His review can be summed up in three words. “Yum. More please.” I think I’m creating another addict. :D