1298 Tasting Notes
Sample sipdown. I tended to give this a long steep. I assume the flavor would have been a bit different with a shorter steep but I only had a sample size of the blend and the few cups I made with it all got briefly abandoned during brewing. This is very cinnamon-forward, with spearmint coming in mid-sip and an apple-like chamomile on the back end. I don’t really smell or taste the florals. You know how lavender has a certain sensation to it, though? Sort of drying, I guess? I don’t have a great way of describing it, but this blend has it.
Sipdown for ashmanra’s sipdown challenge, of a tea I put off drinking. I really shouldn’t have waited this long to finish this tea off. I love a nice, thick, umami gyokuro, which this was, so I ended up drinking it sparingly in order to always have some around. Sheer foolishness to do with a Japanese green tea, especially one that’s been opened, and I knew better too. The best by date was nine months ago, which is too long for a good steamed green. This was still tasty today but not as rich as I remember it being at first. I did get a nice salad out of the spent leaves, though.
Sipdown, and I’m only just now finally getting the steeping parameters perfect. Boiling water, overleaf, long steep (7+ minutes). The result is a rich and roasty dark chocolate flavor. I never did get much creaminess from this but I like dark chocolate so I didn’t really miss it either.
I haven’t been on Steepster much in the past week, but I hope our California Steepsterites are safe!
Day 9 of DIY mostly Adagio advent. The coconut flavor in this is fine – not too oily, decently creamy – but the base tea is extremely meh. It just has this coarse edge to it that doesn’t complement the flavoring and makes it impossible for me to enjoy the cup. I tried adding honey in an effort to soften the edge, but it didn’t help at all.
I’ve been curious about The Qi for a while! Their whole flower teas looked very pretty, and I like that they use ethical sourcing practices. I just hadn’t gotten around to ordering – between the cost, not being sure about whether I’d like the taste, and not being a huge fan of all the health claims, it wasn’t top of my to-buy list. But I was thrilled when Nazanin sent me a few!
One of the hesitations I had was whether this tea would be more style than substance. It’s just so social-media-ready, and that sometimes translates to mediocre flavor. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this has both style and substance. The packaging is gorgeous. The dried whole flower is gorgeous. It unfurls gorgeously as it steeps. And the flavor is lightly sweet and floral rose. It holds up well to resteeps and doesn’t seem to overbrew, or at least it didn’t overbrew for me this time. I spent all night drinking it, just topping up the water. Honestly, I can now see why this costs this much. It’s probably the best rose herbal I’ve ever had. This one is a sipdown.
Day 12 of the 52teas advent calendar. I made this as an oat milk latte because the word “chai” always makes me think I should add oat milk. The spice balance here reminds me a lot of the gingerbread blend, in a favorable way. The cinnamon, clove, and pepper are clear but not overpowering. Not sure I’m getting “chestnut” per se, but there’s a nice creaminess that goes deeper than the oat milk. Another one that’s risky because of my stomach but I’d recommend for flavor.
Overall, this continues to be an excellent advent. There were some returning favorites (banana eggnog oolong! candy cane marshmallow treat genmaicha!) as well as some new and new-to-me blends that I found quite enjoyable. The gingerbread green and raspberry lemon linzer black were particular highlights there. The quantity of tea is just right – enough to play around with but not so much that it ends up sitting around forever. This calendar has quickly become a constant in my advent lineup; I expect that will continue to be the case.
Last blend in the Plum Deluxe caffeine-free Hanukkah sampler! This smells so good while it’s steeping. The white chocolate, peppermint, and coconut scent just wafts at you alluringly. Those same notes translate into the flavor, too. With a splash of oat milk, it’s a perfect wintry dessert tea. Theme-wise, this is probably more of a Christmas or generic winter blend than a specifically Hanukkah blend, but it’s so tasty that I’m willing to forgive it. In general, I feel like this year’s Hanukkah sampler didn’t have any holiday-specific flavors/themes that I picked up on. But most of the blends were tasty, the price point is very reasonable ($12 for 16 packets, each with enough leaf to make 2 regular or 1 large mug), it’s packaged nicely, and I can see that they’re working to make this offering better every year. All of those things keep me coming back to this sampler, and I expect that I’ll be getting it again next year.
Flavors: Coconut, Peppermint, White Chocolate
Naturally, I had to include this in my Hanukkah tea lineup. Funnily enough, even though this is more intensely sweet than the DT latke blend, I like this better. I think because it’s trying to match a purely sweet flavor profile, I’m not having that feeling of wanting it to be something else (in the case of the latke blend, more savory). The DT Hanukkah gift set should just be a bundle of these two blends instead of a random assortment of teabags with a worse cost-to-tea ratio than the advent calendars. But I digress!
I like this one hot and unadulterated. The notes of jam, powdered sugar, and seemingly specifically fried pastry are just spot on.
That’s awesome! I would be very round of three sipdowns in a day. I am somewhat pleased with twelve so far for the month and hope to get a few more in before the month is out.