Bubbly

So, apparently I am allergic to something I ate/drank last night. Half of my chin has swollen up and it hurts so much worse than I ever thought a rash could. ;~; I didn’t have anything strange or unusual, so I think it might have been the 3 root tea, since it had 3 ingredients I’d never tried before. I could always taste it again to find out but… I’m really not about to potentially put myself in so much pain again!

To make myself feel better since I can’t eat or even talk much without searing pain, I decided to make some fancy tea. And what’s fancier than champagne? As I think I’ve mentioned before I love the non-alcohol part of many alcoholic drinks, but not the actual alcohol part since it just makes me sleepy and that’s no fun at all at a party. Have one drink, curl up on the couch and fall asleep (except for sake, for some reason). So teas like Pink Sonoma are my best friend!

As other notes have mentioned, this reminds me a LOT of Buddha’s Blend. Very strong peach and jasmine, and there’s a hint of pineapple there too but it’s not very strong. I get some champagne taste but it’s hard to picture it as champagne in my head because of the lack of, well, carbonation! I have enough of my sample from ne14t to mix some with something fizzy though!

This is NOT my cuppa tea. I couldn’t bring myself to finish more than a few sips. Down the drain it went :(
Peach and Jasmine… Very similar to the Buddhas Blend tea. only stronger overall. In fact, they very well might be the same?
Ugh, what a waste of money. I bought this trio pack of teas because I’ve been eying it for a long time and then it was sold out for awhile. I was feeling the need for a pickmeup and this seemed to be my answer.
How sad is it that the only one I liked had no “tea” in it!
I’m disappointed in you David’s. Again. You gotta stop doing that k? :/

This tea smells just like champagne, and is brisk, dry, and fruity. So I can see where it gets the name.

But unfortunately that’s where the similarity ends. It tastes like peaches and candied pineapple without any grape at all. There are also lingering floral notes that are slightly dissonant to the overall cup.

I wouldn’t seek this tea out again, but I’m still intrigued by it. I really want to make syrup and mix it with something fizzy to see what that does. Thank you Shmiracles for sending enough to make that happen!

Hilarious, my Art of Tea order that took them seven business days to bother to ship came a day earlier than UPS said. Well at least I can say I’d use UPS again.

So after learning that a 1 minute steep is good with this tea, I did just that, and poured it over ice. It definitely tastes like wine, but it’s a stretch to say it tastes like champagne, I think. That could easily be fixed in the future with some club soda, I suppose.

But it actually tastes to me like it’s maybe a wine with a name I forgot. Sauvignon Blanc? Something like that maybe. I’m lacking in my wines right now, oops. Pretty sure SB is the one with grassy notes, which you get in here, and then peach and pineapple fruitiness.

Not really champagne. But that’s okay. We’ll see if it gets closer if I involve club soda in some fashion. It might work best if I make a tea syrup and add it, because to me champagne always has that mouthfeel to it.

Second steep: I added agave and didn’t really notice much of a difference, but then again it was the second steep. I had it cold too, but kind of was tired of the tea for the time being.

So I ended up splitting the leaves between two jars and cold steeping them overnight for two final glasses from this bunch of leaves.

Now it reminds me of champagne, I may have to add agave to the second glass when I have it later. This first one without it has this amazing white grape background to it.

Will report back on the other cup later. I didn’t realize how cold it was outside and went out with just a fleece jacket on so hot tea is calling me.

This morning I stared at my tea cupboard for like 10 minutes not know what to have. It made me curious about that tea randomizer I saw on the discussion board but as I don’t keep my cupboard up to date it wouldn’t work so well for me. So I scoffed off all responsibilities today and catalogued every single tea I have in a spreadsheet (except for the crappy bagged teas). I included samples and swaps as well. Drumroll… I have 332 teas. Wow. I honestly didn’t think I had that many. Anyway, before my days as a stay at home mom I was an application developer in Excel VBA and could create pretty amazing spreadsheets and programs that draw off of Excel spreadsheets. It was time to dust off some of those skills! I got all my teas added noting tea type, flavor, amount, if it’s eligible for swapping (i.e. do i have enough/willing to share), if it’s something I like, and if it’s a swap, who it’s from. Then I worked up some magic and now I have an application where I choose from a drop down what type (black, green, etc..), if I want a flavored, and if I want a sipdown. It immediately spits out a random tea that matches all the criteria. Which finally brings me to the this tea. My tea chooser chose this one for me tonight. I wanted a flavored green that is sipdown. Out popped Bubbly!

And you know, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be! Kind of good actually. Or maybe I’m just still high on my excel buzz. I mean, it’s not great and I wouldn’t purchase it. I don’t really like floral teas or pineapple and they are both present in this, but it does have a good champagne flavor and aroma. Had it not been for my tea chooser this would have sat in the drawer a lot longer.

I can see geeking out on this thing a lot more. Adding a lot more functionality. Good to know I still have skills! And shmiracles thanks again for the insane amount of tea you sent including this one.

Thank you Raritea! SIPDOWN!

Haha Raritea graciously offered up a sample of this one for me to try. I figure she’s doing well in single handedly trying to get me to try the entire David’s tea menu. To be fair she DID get me to buy 100g of lime gelato!

This tea? It’s not half bad. It REALLY smells like champagne in dry form, but luckily that goes away when you drink it. Not that I have issues with champagne, and this IS bubbly tea, but it was a little weird smelling.

In liquid form this is much more a peach kind of tea with floral notes that are just slightly off putting. Not really my cup of tea. However! I apprecaite getting to knock another David’s tea off my list!

Backlog. This one definitely does smell like champagne or some kind of fruity alcohol. Unfortunately, I really don’t recall how it actually tasted. It was good and flavourful, fruity, perhaps tasting like champagne.

Dry Leaf Nose: Delicate grape with a champagne note.

Liquor: Champagne gold in colour with a delicate grape/champagne aroma.

Flavour: The nose comes to you as you sip the cup – champagne notes with delicate grape background. The green tea supports the whole, giving a nice, lively mouthfeel.

i haven’t even tasted this tea yet and i can tell from the reviews that i’ve oversteeped it…

aaaaand i did oversteep it. but i love the smell very much. and i’ll try again soon enough.

actually i just did a weird thing. i put maybe 1/3 a pack of splenda in my cup. i have spelnda in my desk but it was put there under a moment of insanity. i was not quite myself when it happened and i am NOT a splenda/stevia user. just to be clear of where this is coming from. but because of the over steep i figured i had nothing to lose so i added the tad of splenda and now the tea has no bitterness at all, and it’s not even really sweet! but it is still dry and the smell is still wonderful.
not that i’m gonna start using the splenda or anything, but i figured i’d get creative cuz it was already kinda not a good cup. and my experiment paid off :) cup of tea resuscitated!
good way to end the rainy blah work day that’s for sure.

I used 1.25 tablespoons of dry leaf for 375 ml of water.

The brewed tea has a definite alcohol quality to the aroma. I am smelling a mixture of peach and pineapple which is reminiscent of champagne.

On the sip, I am detecting a very mild green tea flavour on the forefront which blossoms into a peach/pineapple taste. I am getting a bit of a fizzy mouth-feel which I think is sourced from the tangy-ness of the pineapple. Sugary sweetness in the background is strong in the aftertaste. Mild toasted astringency coming from the green tea close to the end of the sip into the aftertaste.

I would like to try to infuse this for a shorter amount of time (maybe only 2 minutes 1 minute) in the future.