261 Tasting Notes
Sipdown! (16 for February | 40 for 2024)
This is a note to drink your tea sooner than later.
I remember when this tea came out that I loved it! I wasn’t (and still not) versed in puerh yet but loved the earthy base with the tasting like a s’more!
I found this unopened box (from 2017 or 2018? the box is at home and I’m writing this at work) of 15 sachets. I did 3 sachets per 20 oz tumbler and it didn’t taste BAD per say, like nothing tasted rancid or anything, but it just tasted… flat? I don’t know, this is of course my fault for having TOO MUCH TEA. But I’m glad to have this done and a reminder to always be drinking. :)
February 2024 Steepster Sipdown Challenge — A tea bought “in-store”
Sipdown! (12 for February | 36 for 2024)
I knew David’s Tea was a likely culprit for this prompt. I was blessed to live in the USA and have two David’s Tea stores in my hometown (and worked for a while at one of them :)). I also had a bucket list to visit every DT store (Canada and USA) in person someday, but this of course was before the pandemic.
This tea is one of my first loves (of green tea, of David’s Tea, etc.). I found this package labeled 2 oz with enough left inside for 2 hot/plain tumblers. It was from March 7, 2019 (store #264 represent!), long enough ago the tea has a different name now, but the mix of everything were not faded at all, and the tumblers still tasted great.
Glad to sip this down to fill the prompt, have to find in my stash the other misc. bags/tins because surely this isn’t the only amount I have left!?! And someday when it’s not in my stash and fall (since I believe this is now a fall only tea for DT) grab a bag.
Thanks, Ashmanra for this prompt. It was a nice nostalgia factor. :)
ashmanra thank you. it’s not really secret more like my tea is not organized so could be in any random box or bin in my spare bedroom or basement. Need to get things under control! sigh
MadHatterTeaReview I think they still have a few left in the Toronto area. Put in your backseat and I’ll come along!
February 2024 Steepster Sipdown Challenge — Your cheapest tea
2/11/24 Sunday – I tend to not discriminate and buy all kinds of tea. After all, Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice is one of my boyfriend’s favorites. Was trying to find some easy options for the weekend in my stash and found this unopened box. I’m always work at a hotel, but working the front desk on the weekend is not the same as my office job on the weekdays. Also, it was a nice play with the name of the tea with Chinese New Year this weekend.
I brewed three teabags in a large DT to go tumbler (using the hot water in the lobby!) and it was honestly very pleasant to sip on, enjoyed the spices (I’m a fan of ginger, and not sure if cinnamon and clove were distinct) and the fact the rooibos gave it a base as I was sipping it towards the end of my evening shift and didn’t want caffeine to keep me up.
About a year ago I got a bunch of this tea through a glitch….have given a few bags to my gals at work, but still have plenty of it.
Had a nice cold brew 20 oz DT tumbler of this today at work (cold brew for two days since was drinking other things yesterday so didn’t have time for it) — love the flavors working together the lemon, clove, and black tea and now will have to remember this as I work to sip down the stash I have of this!
January 2024 Steepster Sipdown Challenge — A grocery store tea
Sipdown! (22 for January | 22 for 2024)
I grabbed two teabags of this from the recent round of TeaTiff TTB and steeped with 13-14 oz of boiling water in my Nordic Mug at work. Sat steeping on my work desk for about an hour.
Was hoping for a very fruit forward tea – instead I am tasting licorice? I don’t know, maybe the echinacea? It does have this weird taste similar to DT Pomegranate Echinacea tea which again was a tea I was hoping was fruity but just tasted weird. Echinacea is not an ingredient I have experience with so I suppose I need to taste on its own to isolate if that what I don’t like?
Anyway, it’s not a bad tea I suppose for being a bagged grocery store tea. Wasn’t what I was expecting.
Hello January! I am sipping on this tea hot and plain at work – it’s a black tea with peppermint leaf and natural caramel flavoring. It’s easy going and helping me getting through another cold Monday morning.
My thing is – what is the point of the caramel? I don’t taste it, my cup is just a peppermint black tea. I’ll easily go through this 1 oz package but won’t be a rebuy for me.
Flavors: Peppermint
Yikes. So, the weather recently has taken a turn for, well, winter here in central Ohio. And this is my least favorite season but added bonus of the high winds have been making everything SO bitter. We are lucky not to have lost power or anything though!
Bonus, my “kids” (the three kittens who were born in April/May 2023) got to play in the small amount of snow (like maybe an inch or less?) this weekend. We treat our cats like dogs (?) where they live inside but we let them go play outside whenever they want within reason (like not overnight, or bad weather, etc). The kids were amused for a short time (first time seeing the white fluffy stuff), and then were huddling on the back porch cat tower ready to come in. :)
Anywho. It’s Monday morning. I am at work. Here comes in this tea – it’s a blend of four teas (assam, ceylon, pu-erh, lapsang) and the smokey of the lapsang is the strongest. Not the strongest lapsang, but it definitely comes out. I’m drinking this for a hot cuppa to get my day going. Not a bad tea, but if you don’t know, I’m not a black tea person.
I have a 2 oz package of this, sipped it a few times, but if anyone else would like the bag or some of it, please let me know so it can find a new loving home.
Flavors: Smoked
January 2024 Steepster Sipdown Challenge — A blend made in another country -
Sipdown! (3 for January | 3 for 2024)
(I also put on the page for the tea: All organic Canadian grown ingredients: Lemon balm, raspberry leaf, bearberry leaf, chicory root, red clover, black currants, rosehips, licorice root, marshmallow root)
This blend is an herbal tisane from Teadore via an Amoda subscription box. Yesterday drank entire package hot then resteeped contents for a cold brew today. Not normally a fan this kind of herbally mumble jumbles buttt this one doesn’t have rooibos which is a plus or chamomile (two of my nemeses!) and it’s always nice to try something new. Would prefer hot over cold I’d say.
Not my cuppa tea and while unopened not sure how long ago I got this (found in a box of old subscription samples) so will not rate this one.
Over the weekend I pulled out 2 huge plastic storage bins in the basement of tea. This is not surprising, I have 2348324294823049124 boxes and bins of tea mostly in my “tea room” (spare bedroom) and basement (but also all over house, all over my office at work, in my backpack/tote bag I carry with me everywhere, etc.). One was a Dessert by Deb filled bin from the early years of buying her tea. The other was ONLY boxes of teabag tea. A lot of Stash and David’s Tea, and this included a DT “Festive Favorites” tea wheel. 6 teas with 6 teabags each. 3 herbals, 2 black, 1 green.
Yesterday and today, I made my morning hot/plain cuppa as this tea with 2 teabags.
If I’m doing hot tea and want white or green, I do that in home kitchen as I’m getting ready for the day (have a kettle with different temp. settings, the only nice thing an ex-boyfriend ever bought me LOL). Work is only the tap in the breakroom (or yesterday at my parents or my boyfriend’s sister C’s house would have only been heating up water in microwave or something like that) where I mainly do herbal or black tea.
If you missed my note from 3 years ago, it’s pretty much the same thing. This is definitely the tea that was a gateway into exploring green tea (and along with herbal/tisanes, white, and oolong are my favorites general tea types). But as green teas go, sipping this is more nostalgia factor for me as this wouldn’t be a tea I would go to anymore…well also the fact this is old and I know green tea isn’t made for my long term hoarding er, storage, habits.
It will be fun to sipdown this box (a January 2024 goal) – even though it is from 2016 – as the other flavors are more old school DT flavors (Snow Day, Apple Cider, Sleigh Ride, Santa’s Secret, Chocolate Covered Almond).
Flavors: Almond
Preparation
Now, there’s a funny discussion topic—strange places you squirrel away your tea! (This may also apply to my book addiction as well.)
“Teas I drink in a day Friday 12/22/23” 5
MUG: DT tumbler 20 oz white with red/green/pink candy cane stripes
STYLE: cold brew
DRANK: evening time
NOTES: I had this teabag hot earlier in the week, cold steeped the tea bag in 12-14 oz water and then mixed with maybe 2-4 oz of left of that RMD. Obviously, the weather has been mild as I am still drinking plenty of cold brew. :)
Instagram post, pic 5 is packaging & 6 is picture with teas 4&5, @teawithjann vlogmas playing, snacks from @dessertbydeb box that arrived that day, and one my kids (my kitten Sherbet, one of my two girls): https://www.instagram.com/tiffanydrinkstea/p/C1Mj4I1Odn7/?img_index=6