Pudtea

This is basically just vanilla rooibos with black tea mixed in. There are cubes of fudge, but they didn’t seem to do anything. I’ve had much better vanilla rooibos teas, so I’m not too pleased with this one. It was pretty thin and lacking in flavor. It certainly didn’t live up to its name. Milk made it a little more exciting, but not much. I ate the melty fudge bits after my tea was finished steeping, so that was fun.

The fake berry plus the rooibos here are just not working for me. The berry is a bit too fake, and it just doesn’t taste good. It’s like medicine. I’m a huge rooibos fan, but this is the sort of rooibos blend even I can’t enjoy. I mean, I could probably finish my 1 oz bag if I wanted to, but I wouldn’t have a great time doing it.

Sipdown (242)

O is not for…Candy Cane

Ran out of “O” teas so I decided to get in a sipdown of a tea I was pretty indifferent to. It’s better hot than cold brewed but it was just never very good or very interesting. I am okay saying good bye to this one.

C is for…Candy Cane

This was not a great cold brew. It was a sort of minty rooibos. Meh.

Made this as a latte. It’s very minty but also has vanilla to it. I think if it were made plain, the vanilla rooibos would be too strong but as a latte, it’s alright.

I had this one at the same time as a much richer chocolate tea, which probably didn’t help this one’s case. You know, I do sort of get a brownie or cookie quality from this. I don’t get any caramel, but the chocolate is more of the baked dessert variety. It’s not very rich, but it tastes decent. I wouldn’t really grab it again when I have so many better alternatives, but this wasn’t bad. The leaf had tons of chocolate in it and not much black tea. It did end up being my favorite Pudtea chocolate tea.

Sample from VariaTEA. What a bland boring tea. Honestly apple? sort of if i squint hard? crumble? no. And just meh… overall just meh. Not a BAD tea…but more like slightly apple flavored water more than anything.

I made a huge mug of this. In hindsight, I wish I’d started with a smaller mug for my first try. The chocolate is there, but there’s another sort of weird flavor too. The leaf had a huge amount of chocolatey ingredients compared to tea, which is fine with me. There’s just something about this blend that isn’t coming together as well as their caramel brownie flavor. When it cooled, I enjoyed it a lot more. I didn’t notice the weird flavor, and there was a bit of saltiness that worked well with the chocolate (possibly just my imagination). Getting through the mug wasn’t too terrible after all.

I’ve been in a chocolate tea mood lately, so I figured I’d do a week of chocolate teas to celebrate Valentine’s day. This flavor is mostly chocolate and is pretty similar to many other chocolate teas. If you’re paying attention, you can notice the little bit of fruit under the other flavors. Really, I only sensed that in my first mouthful or two, and then it was only chocolate. It wasn’t as rich as I’d prefer, sort of boring. The rebrew was pretty similar to the first. Overall though, this tea really isn’t special.

THis one from VariaTEA was alright. I’ve had better herbal blends, so not on my list to keep around or anything but it wasn’t bad. I feel like others enjoy this way more than i do, but it was fine. generic berry herbal blend :)

vanilla woody rooibos. That’s all. nope. haha Thanks VariaTEA! :)

Thanks again very much for these samples, AJRimmer!   Another PudTea I get to try!   Seeing all the cocoa shells and caramel cubes here, I had high hopes.  It is certainly chocolatey with the cocoa shells – they get points for that.  I wouldn’t say it is particularly caramel.  But I appreciate there isn’t stevia here after the stevia bomb of David’s Hot Chocolate.  The black tea is fairly light, but waiting 23 minutes to brew a black tea won’t create the darkest deepest brew.  The second steep was also light, and my main problem with chocolate teas is when they just aren’t dark enough.  Chocolate needs depth.  If the cocoa shells weren’t here, this would be a failed blend.  I like this, but it isn’t as special as I’d hoped.  It mostly reminds me of a couple of Bird&Blend’s teas.
Steep #1  // 1 1/2 teaspoons for full mug // 23 minutes after boiling  // 2-3 minute steep
Steep #2  // 3 minutes after boiling //  4 minute steep

Latte Sipdown (208)

This week has been crazy hectic. I felt like I wanted a latte several times but just didn’t have it in me to make it. Yesterday I left the office late to go for dinner and finally have a drink after a long week…and I did…and then I returned to the office at 7 pm. Fun times.

However, I took today off and finally decided to make the latte. This caught my eye and it’s a Sipdown so yay! I topped it with chai sprinkles and am having it in my cozy fox mug for all the cozy fall vibes.

This tastes so familiar. I have no idea what it’s reminding me of. Not sticky toffee pudding but something sweet and cinnamony and very familiar. This is bugging me…

This is spiced and I get some toffee but the apple takes over more than I’d like.

Nice sharp ginger flavor, like fresh ginger root. The black tea isn’t very present. There may be something a tiny bit cookie-ish in there, but that also might be me wishing there were. It’s a nice ginger flavor though! Milk didn’t add too much, but it wasn’t a bad addition either. Though I wish it tasted more like a cookie, really, this is pretty tasty.

I actually made this last night. Then stupid me attempted to take my pills with the hot tea. I can sip hot tea but taking enough to swallow pills was a bad choice. Anyways, in that one hot mouthful, I got a lot of rooibos flavor and not much else – which seems to be consistent for other rooibos based Pudtea blends.

I woke up late today and got stuck in a class. I didn’t get a chance to grab water so I finished the bottle I had by my bed and decided to just finish this off as well since it was here. Cold, its still rooibos heavy but with some tartness that could maybe be blueberry if you try hard enough to picture it as such. Nothing says cheesecake though and really its not a great blueberry either, in my opinion.

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge – February Tea #10:  A tea paired to a favorite fairy tale

additional notes: I was drawing a blank with my uncreative mind for this prompt, but I’m stealing the idea Gmathis had, since I actually have a sipdown of a tea actually called “Gingerbread Man”!  It was an okay blend – nothing I loved and didn’t really represent a gingerbread cookie to me.  I STILL think there is turmeric here.  I think I only saw two actual tea leaves. VERY grateful to try it though!
2022 sipdowns: 29

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge National Kiss a Ginger Day / National Marzipan Day Tea #1
Well, I’ll post these even though Steepster is on another freeze.  Thanks very much again for the teas, AJRimmer!  This not only has ginger BUT ALSO almond, so yay!  Two in one for the challenge today!    A huge mix of ingredients here, but it looks like there isn’t very much black tea here.  The brew says it too – the color is extremely pale brown.   I wouldn’t say this tastes like gingerbread as the apple is very noticeable.  But then the second steep is mostly ginger flavored to the point where the color of the brew and the flavor is making me think of turmeric.     Neither steep was saying gingerbread to me.  Gingerbread cookies aren’t this healthy! 
Steep #1 // 1 1/4 teaspoons for a full mug // 21 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 minute steep

Sample from AJRimmer!  Thank you!  I’m extra pumped I get to try these PudTeas since they disappeared right after I saw their website.  ALL of their blends sounded so good so I’m especially thankful to be able to try so many of these.   This seems like a fairly straightforward blend – not sure how these ingredients would translate to “apple crumble” but it mostly works.  It’s mostly sweet cinnamon apple.  I think using “fudge cubes” weighs down a blend and makes it more expensive, so it isn’t quite the best way to sweeten a tea, but they don’t taste bad.  At least it isn’t just the blackberry leaf to sweeten things up.  A good second steep too.  It’s satisfying for a sweet, lighter dessert blend.
Steep #1 // 1 heaping teaspoon for full mug // 12 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 2 min after boiling // 7 min steep
2021 sipdowns: 3

Sipdown (295)

This was my random pick today and it was a single serving left so an easy sipdown.

It’s fudgier than it was as a latte and while that’s an improvement, this isn’t as good as caramel brownie. That tea had a similar fudgey note but more to it which made it more enjoyable.

So we had a blackout for 3 hours starting at 5:38 pm. I know that because that’s the time that was still on the stove when the power finally came back 3 hours later after we finished the dinner that my poor brother-in-law had to figure out how to cook without an oven. Thankfully we have a natural gas BBQ so he went out into the snow and cooked dinner that way. Of course we just finished the celebratory dessert lit by cell phone flashlights and portable bulbs when they came back on.

So with power comes a working kettle and tea. Plus a working frother and it is Christmas after all so an eggnog latte. I grabbed this tea because it seemed festive and though I have never had a yule log, this boasts flavors like chocolate, which tend to do well as lattes.

Drinking it now, its not bad. It is also not very interesting. Honestly, its a standard chocolate-y tea. The sort of chocolate that is like cheap quality milk chocolate that is neither as sweet or creamy as proper milk chocolate should be.

AJRimmer Advent Day 20

I’m trying to think if I’ve ever had black forest cake. I kinda don’t think I have and I feel like it’s something I should fix. Time to find the perfect recipe.
I’m getting chocolate in each sip. It’s doesn’t have the richness I’d expect with chocolate, but it does seem balanced otherwise. The cherry comes out in the finish. It is faint, but it’s there. I agree with the other reviews that the flavor could be more intense. I don’t think it would hold up to adding cream as is and after reading a few recipes for BFC, a cream element seems like part of the deal. Still, it was a fun tea to start my morning with and try a cup of!

DIY Advent Calendar – Day 18

I’ve really enjoyed some of the Pudtea blends. This is not one of them unfortunately. It sort of tastes like soggy cinnamon apple chips.