Culinary Teas

I really wanted to save this sample until we had a warm day so I could make iced tea, but I had 2 lbs of fresh strawberries calling my name this morning and just had to drink this with them. Since is was in the low 60s today it ended up being another hot tea day. I probably shouldn’t complain, but I really really wish we’d have some warmer weather. It is absolutely not supposed to be in the 50s-60s in the beginning of June. I’m a southern girl, we don’t like cold weather, and June is suppose to hover around the mid 90s so I can run through the sprinkler and goof off with the baby. So far this summer has not resembled summer at all, but the strawberry tea helped a little.

I was pretty impressed with this one since it was the first strawberry tea that I have come across that didn’t taste completely fake. I love that it had actual freeze dried strawberries in it as well as the natural flavoring, i’m sure that made all the difference in the flavor. I didn’t find this overly fruity, but it sure had a nice creaminess to it that reminded me of cake. I think that this would have reminded me more of a strawberry short cake if the floral flavors hadn’t taken over once the tea started to cool. This makes me excited to try some more teas from Culinary Teas.

After reading my notes from yesterday, Dexter3657 was getting worried that she’s made poor choices for me when picking teas. Well, Dex, you’re batting a thousand right now. All teas tried today were good. Not va va voom or anything, but good.

This tea is one that delivers. The smell of the dry leaf, and the flavour are bang on chocolate and caramel. Clear caramel liquor. I sweetened it and added creamer and I am already looking forward to steep 2. The tea itself is actually pretty weak, I had to brew longer than my usual rule of thumb for black tea so I doubt it will resteep 3 times with good result but another round should be just fine.

1ST CUP:
Served: Iced
Amount: 2 tsp
Brewed In: 1.5 cups
Cup Size: 23oz tumbler full of ice
Sweetener: stevia in the raw
Temp: boiling
Steep Time: 3 min
Method: Finum paper tea filter

Notes:
The first sip almost tastes smokey – just a little. But then the longer it sits on my tongue, the more that flavor mellows out & I can begin to taste the cherry-sweet grenadine which lingers afterwards.

It’s nice – am I head over heels for it? No, but I can easily see finishing up the sample I bought. And who knows…it may grow on me more.

And I can’t help but wonder what this would taste like hot on a cold, rainy day – seems like it might be a nice pick me up then.

Signed,
Jane

1ST CUP:
Served: Iced
Amount: 6 tea bags
Brewed In: 2 cups
Cup Size: Quart pitcher w/ ice
Sweetener: stevia in the raw
Temp: boiling
Steep Time: 3 min

Notes:
Hmmm….I really want to love this tea iced, but I’m not quite there yet. Oh, I want to be there – don’t get me wrong and I’m pretty positive I will be…but I’m wondering if I over-steeped it or made it too weak for the pitcher. But it’s tasting a little astringent to me at the moment – or maybe it needed more sweetening?

So I say again…hmmmm.

Just a little bummed because I had my mouth all set for the perfect Tex-Mex experience for a native Tex who’s been away far too long from her Mex.

I spent the day marinating chicken, soaking Mesquite chips (mes-keet for you non-natives) for the grill, prepping the cilantro & jalapenos, crumbling the queso fresco, warmed up the corn tortillas…even found some Tejano music on Pandora and sat down to enjoy it all with a tall glass of iced key lime tea….and????….ehh.

The tea was off. Only slightly, but still off enough to foil the pinnacle of what was to be my Saturday night home grill extravaganza.

Hmmm…

Signed,
Jane

When I moved to the US and they didn’t have butter tarts, I was thoroughly disappointed. Pecan Pie was the closest thing I could find, but it just wasn’t the same. I did learn to quite enjoy it, though… and thanks to moraiwe, I got to try a sample of this tea!

It has the same nutty warmth that pecan pie has, which I certainly appreciated. And while it’s not super pastry-y, I felt that it did have some pie flavor, maybe a bit caramel-y? I quite enjoyed this tea, and I’m glad I have more to make a few more cups. Thanks, moraiwe!

A huuuuuuuuge clump of cranberry fell into the thermos when I went to steep this last night! I was actually surprised to find as many as they were floating around in the leaf.

But!

I finally got around to cold steeping this guy!

And I think I like it better hot.

There’s a weird soapy floral note that feels really out of place when it’s cold brewed. The soapiness goes away with a little sugar, but the floral sticks around and hits my tongue before the sweet-tart berry that I actually expected (and looked forward to!). There’s a depth of flavor I hadn’t expected and the sip ends on a sweet blackberry note which is nice, though.

I’ll try an extra strong normal brewing over ice before I change my rating, but I am so bummed this isn’t what I thought I was going to get.

So, admittedly the only times I’ve ever had elderberry anything was in liquor. (Sambuca and St. Germain) so my experience here is hugely limited.

But that doesn’t matter, because this tea is pretty stunning anyway!

The dry leaf smells really tart and citrusy, and once steeped it retains that citrus but there’s also a little bit of sweet berry depth.

This tea tastes like it would be amazing iced. And I will absolutely be getting on that. But it’s also pretty good hot. There’s a tart nectarine flavor initially then a sweetly tart berry flavor hits that reminds me a little bit of blackberries and lemon zest. It’s really refreshing and a perfect summer tea! Yumyum.

This got more and more bitter the longer I let it cool on my counter. Almost undrinkable by the bottom of the cup. Bummer.

Oh man, I think these leaves need a proof they smell so much like Brandy. Oof!

That being said, I think I like this one more than the Della Terra version.

The raspberry flavor here is far more natural tasting; less candy, more fruit. The chocolate isn’t so much milk chocolate either as it is a bittersweet flavor note that is reminiscent of dark chocolate. The actually tea flavor is a little muddled, but seems to pair well with the dark chocolate type flavors.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the liquor flavor wasn’t quite as aggressive once the tea was steeped. Instead it was a really nice note that blended well with the raspberry/chocolate and really pushed it to gourmet truffle level for me.

I don’t think this tea is perfect by any stretch nor do I think it’s my favorite pumpkin tea, but I do quite like it and I think it’s the one I would want around most because I find it transcends the season the best.

I wish the pumpkin was the sweeter cooked variety, but I really love the spicing in this cup. It’s bold, but not overwhelming or dominating of the pumpkin. It’s a flavorful pumpkin pie spicing that is evocative of an autumn day with changing leaves and hayrides regardless of the weather outside. It kind of teleports you to the season.

I think a little sugar does a lot for this cup in terms of the pumpkin flavor, but I’d gladly drink it with or without add ins.

I’m in the wrong season for this tea, but that’s okay. It’s gloomy and rainy and I wish I were still in bed. So it’s essentially an autumn day.

The smell here invokes images of colorful trees and gusty winds, with rain puddles for jumping in, corn mazes and hay rides. It just screams autumn.

The flavor is exactly what I was hoping for, though! I wish the Culinary Teas Vanilla Cream I had earlier was more like this with the loud, bold flavors and a slight milkiness from the cream aspect. There’s a touch of pumpkin pie spice, but no overwhelming clove or cinnamon flavors, which I appreciate. The pumpkin is pumpkin-y, but more of a pumpkin pancake kind of pumpkin than pumpkin pie though.

A little bit of sweetener brings out a more roasty pumpkin flavor, that I enjoy a bit more than unsweetened. I would imagine a splash of milk would bring out the creaminess more, too. (Latte anyone?)

Overall, this is another really lovely gloomy day kind of cup that encourages blankets, something to cuddle, and books.

This one weirdly enough tastes better to be when I (by my typical brewing ways) underleafed it. (1.5 tsp to 15 oz water). It was more vanilla-y and the creamy was slightly diminished but still present. Huh.

The cream flavor is really nice. It doesn’t have a nice milky mouthfeel like I was hoping, though. I was also looking for a more vanilla bean flavor in the vanilla, so that’s a bit of a let down; but what is there is decent. The black base is so-so too. It’s on par with mixing Adagio’s Cream and Vanilla with a far less fickle base, but it’s nothing special.

This tea tastes similar to ‘Sunrise Sensation from STeap teas in that it is a weak cinnamon-flavored brew. The tea base is extremely weak and the only flavor that really stands out is cinnamon. The cinnamon in this one is slightly stronger than the other though. It really isn’t much of a pumpkin-spice tea.

Thank you for sending me such a generous sample TastyBrew, but I think I’m going to let this one move on in a future swap.

So I didn’t do so well with 52teas Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake, so I pulled out another pumpkin tea from the wonder sample box that JackieT sent me.

Sorry I like this one even less, all I get is clove. Way too much clove for my taste, it just overwhelms everything else. There could be pumpkin in there somewhere, but too spicy, not balanced for my tastes.

Thanks for the sample Jackie.

This is a pleasant tea, but, as others have said, it’s not what it thinks it is. I get a nice caramel taste, although not very strong, but I really have to stretch my imagination to get anything close to either cheesecake or cherry, either in aroma or taste. Still, I’m enjoying drinking it. (Thanks, Starfevre.)

I added sugar and skim milk.

Nah.

I overleafed this intentionally because I’ve found myself disappointed by caramel teas lately, which I at least half attribute to me being stingy with my leaves .

Soooo this is kind of bitter and astringent and lacking in flavor even with the overleafing.

It smells good…that’s about it.

Not for me, I have better caramel teas so I don’t need to waste my time with this one. In fact, I’m not even going to bother finishing my cup.
It’s making my teeth hurt.

So, to summarize…“Nah.”

Another one ordered for me and sent up north from Tastybrew, yay!

Drinking it now. It’s more flavourful than the S&V English Toffee I had yesterday… Still not SUPER caramelly. It doesn’t have the burnt toffee taste I thought I didn’t like, but I’m wondering if maybe that taste would still be preferable because at least it’s A taste.

Hm. I don’t know yet, I probably won’t be sad when this is all gone though.

This tea loose smelled like overly sweetened pink bubblegum… I think they were going for a honeydew melon, and missed just slightly.

Sadly, the smell was the best thing about this tea. It doesn’t taste like plain tea, but doesn’t necessarily have a flavor, either. It tastes mostly of bitterness and liquid sugar. I had high hopes for this one, but sadly don’t see myself finishing the packet.

I enjoy this tea hot, usually… Sadly, for me, it doesn’t translate well to iced. Chilling the tea made the hint of cherry almost disappear, and the tea got a little bitter. A shame… The high rating is only for a hot cuppa.

This tea is great, provided that you don’t oversteep…

The dry mix smells of apricots, and it mouth-watering. When brewed, the apricot flavor is pretty subtle… Its mostly like peach flavored… specifically, the dark part in the center of the peach right against the pit. When lightly brewed, the bitterness of the black tea tastes tangy with the peach flavor… Great for iced!