Culinary Teas

My morning yoga class was with the gentle yoga instructor, which was lovely, as I’m still recovering from whatever bugs I had.
So this afternoon I’m organizing things in my house, and drinking teas!
This is one of the teas that my Aunt and Uncle gave me for my birthday, and also some English Digestive buiscuts, which I love. I haven’t had them since I lived in the UK, so that was a delight.
This is an interesting blend. Very layered, with a very bold flavor to it. Its quite strong.
I feel like I’m going to have to fiddle with the steep time, but I’m enjoying it!

It sure blows hot and cold in these parts. Last Sunday I was trudging through 16 inches of snow. This Sunday we’re having lunch on the patio by the fish pond enjoying the sunshiny 65F degree weather! Welcome to Richmond!

I thought a nice first flush Darjeeling befitting to celebrate this gorgeous foretaste of spring. Darjeeling Tukduh TGFOP from Culinary Teas is quite stout for a first flush, to say the least. It’s wondrously nutty and floral with up front, in your face muscatel. A first flush on steroids. I’m loving the hell out of every sip!

Lifting my tea mug to my fellow Steepsterites – Here’s to an early spring!

I really enjoy the raspberry flavor. I feel it’s the star of the show and the chocolate is lost in the background. The raspberry tastes natural and not at all artificial. I am glad I ordered this.

I really enjoyed this tea. I definitely picked up on the pecan and butter flavors. Let’s be honest, you can’t really expect tea to taste just like pie. I look forward to my next cup.

I really like this tea! The first brew reminded me of blueberry pie. It didn’t taste artificial to me at all. The second brew didn’t yield much taste.

Nice Product

I was staring at my teas, unsure of what to have this morning, until I remembered I had a lot of samples, sent by kind Steepster people, to try! So, something new!
This smells so rich and magnificent in dry form. Rich, almost custard-y, with a good hint of caramel. I can certainly smell all the elements advertised in the name.
It brews up less potent than it smells, but it still keeps the flavors, just a gentler form. Its a very smooth cup of tea, and a very nice drink.
Thank you, Ost for sending me this. I really enjoyed it!

This is absolutely delicious. I drank the whole 1oz in a matter of a few weeks. It is refreshing and chocolatey. I love having this with milk and sugar in the morning. Delicious blend.

With a little sugar this actually turned into quite a delicious – albeit heavily strawberry flavoured – cup. The hibiscus is well balanced and the tartness evens out the sweetness and fruitiness of the blend.

It’s not my favourite cuppa, but I’m also not offended by it. On to the next one.

Ok…well…this was interesting. Upon steeping this, I was so excited because it smelled delicious! Caramel, toffee, a little coffee sort of roastyness….Taking the first sip, though, was another story entirely. I tasted nothing more than puerh. I took a few more sips and then got bored with it, walking away to get a few chores done. About 30 minutes later, I came by to pick the cup up and dump it but was tempted to try it just once more since it smelled so darn good. To my surprise, it was sooo so so much better cooled! I absolutely tasted everything wonderful that I was smelling :) Ah, sweet cooled redemption! I could see myself picking some of this up now. Thanks, Ost, for sending me a sample of this (at some point in time).

Thanks Ost for this sample via her Xmas card!

I really liked the first steep. I figured as a pu-erh this could stand being left in the water so I put it directly in my cup! (Western style steep.) I never do that anymore! How my steeping has changed! Really I’m so dependent on my gravity steeper nowadays.

Anyways, the first steep was robust and sweet and yummy. The 2nd steep though was pretty much straight through pu-erh. That can be a good thing most of the time, but in this case it came off to me as fishy, not fun. I finished the cup but didn’t rebrew.

Backlog:

Quite yummy!

As I said in my full-length review of this tea – http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/12/26/pomegranate-san-francisco-tea-from-culinary-teas/ – this tea won me over before I even started brewing it. The aroma of the dry leaf is so lovely, it evokes thoughts of walking into a candy shop.

The pomegranate is sweet and tart, and I love the way the fruit notes play with the notes of vanilla and chocolate. The overall prevailing note is sweet, but some tart notes weave their way in and out. The black tea has a nice malty tone to it, and it’s a pleasant flavor: smooth and full-flavored.

As the tea cools, I pick up on more chocolate (and more chocolate = better). The chocolate and vanilla together create a very luscious creamy experience.

This is a really yummy tea.

Backlog:

Yummy and very summer-y tasting. I drank this hot and enjoyed it – I think it would also make a great iced tea but I couldn’t stop drinking it long enough to let it cool to find out.

As I say in my full-length review – http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/12/03/pineapple-black-tea-from-culinary-teas/ – it has a marvelous pineapple flavor. Sweet, juicy and tastes of fresh pineapple. The black tea is rich and a wee bit malty. It has that even flavor of a Ceylon.

I enjoyed this.

Backlog:

As I mentioned in my full-length review of this tea – http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/11/27/irish-breakfast-green-tea-from-culinary-teas/ – I don’t usually turn to a green tea as a ‘breakfast tea’ … I usually want my first cup of the day to be black and I want it to be strong! But I could see turning to this as a breakfast tea, it certainly has some gusto to it! And the flavor is very satisfying.

I just wouldn’t recommend adding milk and honey to it. Honey … maybe … milk? No.

Then again, I’m usually a just say no to milk when it comes to most teas, even my breakfast teas. The only tea I’m not usually opposed to having in latte form is a chai.

Anyway! On to my thoughts about this tea: It’s a very flavorful green. The sip starts out sweet with toasty, nutty flavors. It’s not an overly vegetal/grassy type of tea, but there are some subtle vegetative tones. Hints of butter, floral notes, subtle notes of melon, and a distant smoky note.

A really pleasant and complex blend.

Backlog:

A really nice autumnal tea (and yeah, that’s when I drank it – I’m still really behind but I must get caught up by March 31, I just have to.)

The sip starts sweet. Notes of cinnamon. As I mention in my full-length review – http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/11/21/apple-spice-tea-from-culinary-teas/ – this is the cinnamon like you’d find in your spice cabinet, not the cinnamon that you’d taste from a cinnamon candy. It’s gently warm and sweet and it accents the apple flavor nicely.

The Ceylon base is a brisk tasting tea with a smooth, crisp character and moderate astringency.

A really pleasant cuppa.

Took my morning work tea break with Miss Margaret Hope of the Darjeeling Hopes, a senior citizen of indeterminate age from a fine family who has held up remarkably under sloppy storage and neglect. Grapey and muscatellitudinous, and I regret I can’t remember what she was like in her perkier days.

P.S. Culinary Teas still carries it, so evidently other people hold her in the same regard.

Ever notice that when many of us are ranting and raving, few of us say, “Man, I gotta get me some good Darjeeling?” Not at my house, anyway, and I can’t figure out why. This poor, neglected packet is still half full of light and brisk, juicy, grape-rind goodness that was a much-needed sensory break from the morning builders’ tea rut.

Backlog:

As I said in my opening of the review for this tea: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/11/12/peach-apricot-tea-from-culinary-teas/ No two fruits say “summer” to me like peaches and apricots. My grandmother (Gramma) had a very prolific apricot tree in her back yard, as well as a peach tree. The apricot tree was a huge tree and it was a ‘tree climbing tree’ so I would climb it and sit up there and eat apricots when I was young.

Instead of making peach cobbler when I was little, gramma would mix both peaches and apricots together and make a peach apricot cobbler and this tea brings back all those memories. When served hot, the peach and apricot flavors remind me a lot of the yummy filling of that peach apricot cobbler. Mmm!

The peach and apricot flavors are good and strong. The fruit essence has been captured well.

Very yummy.

Backlog:

This is a good, affordable Matcha. Good for an everyday bowl of Matcha.

It froths up nicely but the froth doesn’t stay a long time. It stayed around for about five to ten minutes and then disappeared. Long enough to enjoy several sips with a frothy cap. A smooth, buttery flavor and texture. Creamy. Hints of raw cacao. Sweet with some bittersweet notes.

Like I said, a good Matcha, especially for the price. Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/10/13/matcha-green-tea-powder-from-culinary-teas/

A pleasant, honest, strong Assam that turns a bit bitter if oversteeped. This is a good thick, milk and sugar Assam. Thanks, Ost!

I can see why reviews for this are on the lower side, but I think I found a way to make it decent.

I do taste a burnt sugar flavor, but there is a noticeable lack of sweetness. A hair of real sweetener gives it that extra oomph. I used literally a drop of agave. Then, to impart the creaminess, I used a healthy dash of almond milk. This also helps to emphasize the sweet flavor and minimize the artificial.

I don’t mind doing some doctoring for teas like this. I usually have a small sip, assess the situation, and add milk and/or sweetener as I see fit, in whatever amounts it needs. I relate it to tasting your food before adding condiments/seasoning. It doesn’t make the food bad…but it is ideal when you get it right on the first try. Which is why I am giving this an ok rating, and not great, as well as the fact that it peaks at “good” even with doctoring. Recommended if you don’t mind sipping first and helping the tea to be its best.