Cameron B. select Send Message

I’m having a really hard time with this tea today, and I’m not sure why. I decided I wanted to drink it straight, so I brewed it for only 3 minutes and for some reason it came out pretty bitter. So thinking maybe I should try it at a lower temperature, I brewed it at about 190 degrees or so. The bitterness was gone but so were all of the flavors – it tasted like plain black tea. So then I tried the 205 degrees again, thinking maybe that one sachet had been a fluke, and it came out bitter again and it seemed like it had little flavor. I pored over the tin, and it says somewhere on the side that you should use one sachet for two cups of tea. This doesn’t make much sense to me and I’ve never had a problem with this tea before, though I usually take it with some sugar. I had to add condensed milk to these brews to even be able to drink them…

Does anyone have any experience with this tea in the pyramid sachets? I don’t understand what is going wrong with this or how it’s coming out bitter with a shorter steep time. Any advice would be amazing… :(

I brought a couple of tea bags home from the brunch restaurant this morning (don’t tell!) and this was one of them. The dry tea bag smelled pleasant enough, tart raspberry with some mint notes. I brewed it for 5 minutes.

As soon as I smelled the brewed tea, I knew I was going to hate this. It smells and tastes like almost pure hibiscus and it’s extremely tart to the point of being unpleasant. I can also taste rosehips and a little mint. The raspberry is probably in there somewhere but I think it’s being masked by the hibiscus since they’re a bit similar in flavor. I drank this instead of dumping it, but I had to add an inordinate amount of sweetener for it to even be drinkable. Gross. >.<

I went out to brunch with my boyfriend this morning. We went to Hattie’s, a southern style place known for their fried chicken. They have a special brunch menu until 2 on weekends, and I happen to love brunch food, especially when it involves grits. :D Anyway, I ordered a hot tea and I was pleasantly surprised when the server brought me a mug of hot water and a small glass jar with several flavors of tea bags to choose from. They had the usual Lipton and then four different kinds from Harney & Sons. This was the one that sounded the best to me at the time. The dry tea bag smelled just like red hots (the cinnamon candy, also known as cinnamon imperials)! I steeped it for about 5 minutes.

I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this tea. I don’t consider myself to be a big fan of cinnamon. It smelled and tasted like a milder version of red hots, and it was very sweet even though I didn’t add any sugar (the ingredients list mentions “sweet cloves” and I have no idea what that is). I didn’t really taste the black tea base at all since the spice flavor was pretty strong. I could definitely see myself keeping this around, especially in the autumn and winter months. Very comforting!

Trying this one cold brewed this evening – since it’s the weekend, I’m not too worried about having caffeine this late. I used a teaspoon of pearls for 8 ounces of water and left it to brew in the fridge for six hours.

The floral is just way too strong for me when this is cold. I can’t taste anything but jasmine! I think I may try this again and just use a very short steep time, maybe two or three hours. Or I may try it hot brewed and then chilled. Ideas for tomorrow! :)

I’m trying this one cold brewed this evening, and it turned out quite tasty! I let it cold brew for six hours yesterday, then strained the leaves and left it in the fridge until now. I can definitely pick up all of the lovely citrus flavors and the bergamot is nice and mild. Quite delicious with a little bit of sweetener! :)

So today when I was perusing the grocery store, this rascally little can of sweetened condensed milk somehow found its way into my basket. The little troublemaker must have hopped in when I wasn’t looking, and I didn’t have to heart to tell him no when he obviously so wanted to come home with me. True story.

Actually, this is all boychik’s fault…

I love this tea so much with milk and sugar – it’s like a very mild chai with vanilla and just that hint of sweet orange and under it all, I can still taste the black tea base. This time around I tried it with sweetened condensed milk and I’m really pleased with the result. It’s yummy and creamy but it doesn’t have that distracting/overpowering cream note that happens when I use half-and-half. And the sweetener is built right in, how cool is that? I love anything that allows me to be lazy. :P Thanks, boychik!

Sipping on this one this afternoon as I nibble on crackers and cubes of parmesan. I needed a little caffeine pick-me-up after doing some shopping and food prep for dinner tonight. I brought home a bottle of light agave nectar from the store – it was on sale and I was curious how it would compare to sugar. I don’t seem to notice much of a difference but it seemed like I had to use more to get the same level of sweetness.

As a general question, what types of sweetener do you guys use? I’ve seen that brown rock sugar sold on several tea sites, is it worth using?

Looking forward to your responses! <3

After having that lovely latte with Bouquet of Flowers earlier, I decided I needed another one! Yeah, I’m kind of a fatty… What of it? :P I selected Troika because of its orangeyness, which I thought would pair really well with cream and vanilla.

Followed the same method as I did for the first one. I used 6 ounces of strong brewed tea plus 2 tablespoons each of milk and half-and-half (which comes out to 2 ounces). Heated and frothed the milk while the tea was brewing, but this time I added a little splash of vanilla extract along with the sugar. This came out quite tasty, sort of a creamsicley version of a London Fog. I actually really love the flavor of the vanilla extract – it’s a very natural vanilla flavor that reminds me of vanilla beans. Will definitely make this again and I can’t wait to try this method with St. Petersburg for a spiced version! :D

Made this one into a lovely London Fog this morning. I used almost two teaspoons of tea instead of my usual heaping teaspoon and it came out perfect. I also used half whole milk and half half-and-half (lol) because I find that when I use pure half-and-half, the cream note can kind of overpower everything. Warmed the milk and frothed it up a bit with a whisk before adding it, then added a couple teaspoons of sugar. I think a real London Fog is supposed to have vanilla syrup, but I don’t have that lying around. :P Delicious! I love that light floral note in this!

Did a cold steep for six hours on this one. It came out a light and slightly murky yellowish green. As I expected, it pretty much just tastes like licorice root with maybe a tiny bit of cinnamon/orange/vanilla if you really look for it. Still doesn’t taste at all like green tea (or any tea). However, I find that I don’t quite hate licorice root as much when it’s cold, so I did drink this one as opposed to dumping it. Meh.