Culinary Teas

Mastress Alita’s Monthly Sipdown Challenge – a caramel tea

A pretty obvious choice for this prompt. Unfortunately it doesn’t really taste like caramel to me- maybe vaguely? More like a slightly buttery vanilla. Not bad, but not something I need to purchase once I run out. Pretty boring.

I wasn’t super confident when I placed an order from Culinary Teas, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by quite a few of their blends. This is one of them.

It smells just like a freshly baked cinnamon roll- sweet cinnamon and pastry dough.

The flavor is much more subtle, which I like. The black base really shines through, with just a touch of the cinnamon pastry peaking through. Love that it’s a cinnamon pastry, rather than a red hot or Saigon cinnamon flavor.

This is quite tasty- really lovely creamy blueberry flavor.

Sipdown 15/15-2022

Logging the sipdown.

Culinary Teas blends have been quite hit or miss for me. This one was surprisingly nice. Unfussy and easy to brew. Good both with and without sweetener (raw sugar cubes). Would likely be nice with milk or cream as well. Lovely creamy vanilla flavor. The black base is basic, but not astringent or harsh.

Sipdown 151-2021
Not a true sipdown, as I’m putting it in my swap pile. But, I’m counting it. This is not for me. The grenadine flavor is really medicinal and off-putting.

Culinary Teas had a 25% off sale, so I purchased a few teas that I had been interested in. I love almond flavored things, and I already have an almond green tea that I love. But, I have been search for an almond black. This is not it. This is not very good at all.Truthfully, I can’t taste much flavoring at all. The black base is really muddled and cheap tasting.

Bought at a local market vendor. Fruity flavor with some hibiscus flavor. Very good.

The other review preceding my is very accurate. I bought this at the local market. The elderberry flavor and currants are very strong. I usually like my tea very strong but maybe will decrease steep. I threw in the whole bag and left it in. The flavor was more wine-like than I would prefer. I might like it with honey which is very rare for me.

Packed with whole fruit and Vitamin C, this is a tea to drink for vitality and energy.

Elderberry lays a delicious immunity-boosting foundation. The hibiscus adds a tart dimension to the blend, which makes it very refreshing and full of Vitamin C. The rosehip chips add a mellow smoothness to the tea along with even more Vitamin C. The currants give the tea a very distinctive character – black for fruitiness and red currants for ‘bite’ and tangy flavor. Finally, raisins give it a natural sweetness.

A predecessor tea to this in our shop was Berry Berry Herbal, but we think you will like this even more.

Take a look at this blog post about tea treatments for a cold, of which Elderberry is one.

Ingredients: Elderberries + Currants (a.k.a. Corinthian raisins), Hibiscus petals, Natural flavors

Dropping back in for a second to say that this is a very disappointing tea. I detest artificial cinnamon. The apple tastes fake, too. Skip this one, y’all, unless you like watered down Red Hots.

Really delicious, I thought. Nice, strong black base overtones of lavender. Bergamot is a little bit on the strong side but not overwhelming.

Perfect with a little bit of milk and sugar.

I actually had this in my pile of teas to get rid of, but I decided to retry it since I couldn’t clearly remember my first opinion of it. There’s a pretty strong burnt flavor. I mellowed that out with some milk. I feel like it manages to evoke both butterscotch and caramel. It’s sweet, and I really do like it. I’m keeping it after all! This one is from Ost.

I thought I would finish off this sample and continue my quest to reduce the number of teas I have (lol as if I will ever do that).

This has a strong and realistic pineapple flavour. The black base is flavourful, but not overpowering. I can taste hints of floral and fruity flavours from the base. Slightly brisk/bitter, and the pineapple is somewhat sour/acidic. I think this is best iced and with sweetener, but I do really like the taste.

I added a little bit of a chocolate soy milk protein shake to sweeten it/enhance the flavor. I think the soymilk works really well it adds a lot of creaminess, some sweetness, and enhances the spices. The previous brews of this were very unpleasant. I get hints of cola from the spices in this cup. This cup was pretty yum.

I’m really behind on tasting notes and am trying to catch up. To use this tea up I’ve been recently mixing it with DavidsTea’s Kashmiri Chai. At first I expected that it wouldn’t pair well since this has a black tea base and the Kashmiri is a green tea base. With some honey and milk though it actually works really well. This tea by itself was pretty hard to drink. I also don’t care for the Kashmiri Chai by itself either it was ordered by a family member.

This is a sipdown of a sample I’ve had for a while now. I can’t remember where I got it from, but thank you to whoever sent it to me.

I taste the woody, Earthy roasted mate and a brisk black tea. While the black tea is a touch bitter, it isn’t undrinkable. I get some lightly citrus orange/lemon notes, but no chocolate. Maybe this is due to the age of the sample, or maybe my sample had no chocolate chips or cocoa nibs in it. YMMV

Sipdown!

I brewed this one iced, and enjoyed it that way. Flavourful black base, quite fruity (black cherry, berry, pomegranate), a little bit creamy/thick, malty, grenadine. If you want a black tea that brews in a way you really taste the black base, this is a tea for you!

Sipdown! That is all.

1 tsp leaf, 500mL coldbrewed for 45 minutes

Definitely lives up to it’s name. It tastes like Irish cream, but with a prominent coconut note. The black base really comes through as a coldbrew, it is a little bit woody, a little bit of a roasted oolong and tobacco undertone, highly oxidized (definitely black), sweetness of burnt sugar/molasses.

I had lunch at the neighboring café today, and ordered a pot of this to go with my salad.
Ah. This is a pleasant black tea with fruity flavors. It made my lunch very nice indeed.