Pudtea

Sipdown (1464)!

This cup honestly sucked – it was thin and was too much of a dry hibiscus tartness without any chocolate coming through aside from the fatty oil content in the liquor. However, I did it! One less mediocre tea in my stash.

Sipping this currently and it’s alright but I’m also soooo close to sipping this down and it feels almost insulting for it to just be “ok” because that’s just so unmotivating for finishing off that last cup of tea. It’s just too apple-y and tart (in a drying way from the hibiscus) and I find that off putting for a Black Forest blend, especially because the milk chocolate note is still present in the cup in the most incohesive kind of way…

Ugh.

Yeah, no…

I keep trying to like this one because it honestly does smell pretty darn good but I just keep coming back to the fact I simply do not want hibiscus in a Black Forest tea. I miss the one I finished off from 52Teas – that one was good!

Reached for this earlier in the week to sip on while working from home – one of the few mornings I worked from home this week and had the luxury of my full tea stash at my disposal. It’s still not my favourite; the smell is lovely and does remind me of Black Forest cake but the interaction of the hibiscus and chocolate just isn’t something I see myself getting over any time soon…

I’m on my last few sips of a mug of this one currently…

I read VariaTEA’s tasting note for this blend and that got me a bit more excited for it since the dry leaf does smell really nice! I actually had a slice of Black Forest cake really recently, so I have a fresh memory to compare to.

Unfortunately, this isn’t meeting my expectations. It’s not really a bad tasting tea, but it’s quite hibiscus forward and tart and is lacking that sweet cherry kind of syrupy reduction that’s throughout a Black Forest Cake. Like, there’s a brightness/juiciness to the sweet cherry notes in the cake but it’s not tart. Add to that the fact the chocolate is pretty thin and lighter in terms of flavour than the hibiscus and it just doesn’t work for me. I get chocolate in the finish, but it’s so soft…

A black forest cake needs to be decadent, dark chocolate cake first and foremost with that undertone of sweet cherry compote running throughout.

(This is also very oily from the melted chocolate chips)

So not a bad tea, but not a Black Forest…

Latte Sipdown (288)

I was inspired by AJRimmer to make this as a latte and what a brilliant plan that was. It’s such a good latte! Cooked banana deliciousness. Bananas Foster if you will. Caramelized, sweet, deliciously cooked banana. Not exactly banoffee pie but close enough and I am left oh. so. happy. Bumping the rating from 78 and super sad that I am saying goodbye to this blend! If Pudtea comes back, I will want a whole lot of this blend!!

Also, Happy Birthday Roswell Strange!!!! My brother loves all things banana so instead of cake, he gets things like Banana Pudding or Banoffee Pie for his birthday. Fitting that I would finish this blend, one Ros really enjoys, on her birthday!!!

Roswell Strange messaged me to try this and that peaked my curiosity so I brewed up a cup. She did 1 pftsp in boiling for 4 mins and I did the same amount in 200F for 3 mins. She loved it but for me it seemed a bit bland at first. As it cooled, a lot more flavor has come out but for me it is a lot more banana bread than banoffee pie. Though I do get some of the caramelized condensed milk that is the filling of banoffee pie. I am a fan but next time I will be trying Roswell’s steeping parameters.

Sipdown (287)

I am going to be honest and say I had 30 sipdowns and wanted to get one more in to make it 31. This was an easy way to get there since I just had an 8 oz serving left. Now I realized I diluted this a bit because I accidentally steeped it using 16 ounces of water. As such, I am mostly just getting a sort of chocolate note and that is it. Not the best cup but that’s on me. Nevertheless, this was a solid tea that I enjoyed while I had it but probably do not need more.

I’ve actually never had Black Forest Cake now that I think about it but I know that it’s cherry and chocolate and I’m a fan of both those things so I figured I’d like this. I was worried when I scooped the tea out because it was a lot of fruit pieces, especially apple. In fact, the apple chunks even stuck to the spoon. There wasn’t a lot of black tea at all and my hesitation grew when the tea brewed up quite lightly. See photo here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CC9ubDXgT1s/?igshid=6dke1jjc8s8d

Tasting it though, it’s pretty good. I don’t think it screams cherry exactly but it’s definitely got that red fruit flavor. That’s what hits you first and initially I thought that’s all there was until I realized the aftertaste was all chocolate. The more I drink, the more the flavours blend together and the more it becomes what I believe would be Black Forest cake. It’s sweet but not one note. All in all, a pretty good start to my pudtea journey.

Also sorta funny story about pudtea…I messaged Roswell Strange about placing an order because I saw it on Instagram and all their teas sounded like my kind of teas. In theory I think I was asking her to talk me out of it but we’re enablers so I knew that wouldn’t happen. Not only did she support me buying ALL their flavours (except one which wasn’t in sample size but she said she’d send me a sample) but it turns out she’d already bought them a day or two earlier. I guess sometimes we really are still tea twins!

Sipdown (1321)!

I’m definitely very proud of myself for pushing through this sample and finishing it off quite quickly, all things considered. Sadly I was ultimately never able to make it work for me – it was just too much rooibos, with too little vanilla/cream to overcome that flat simplicity.

Cold Brew!

I’m so close to a sipdown now, which is good. Sadly I just haven’t been able to find a way to make this tea sparkle/shine. This brew was smooth and without any off notes, but the flat taste of rooibos with hints of vague “almost vanilla” don’t deliver on the name/description and the whole tea screams of missed potential to me. Aside from an obvious need to bump up the flavouring level, I think using less rooibos and more black tea also probably could have gone a long way here.

I think I have one cup left – maybe I’ll try it with sweetner and see if that does anything to perk it up at all.

One of my morning cuppas today…

I steeped this one of those paper “fill your own” teabags today, and I decided to leave the teabag in as it steeped to see if it would get stronger/thicker as I remembered the flavour being a little lack luster the first time I tried it.

It’s honestly not bad, but it definitely isn’t exactly “rich”. I get some sweetness and creaminess from the melted down “fudge bits” in the blend and it’s loosely vanilla flavoured but mostly this tastes like a rich, sweetened take on a rooibos. It’s pleasant, and I do love the taste of a nice mildly sweetened rooibos – especially one that’s creamier. I just really wish that this Vanilla Sundae blend tasted more like, y’know, Vanilla.

I think I’m going to try and focus on sipping this one down before the end of the month.

Another new sample!

I’ve been craving sweet/creamy vanilla and custard type flavours a lot near the end of this week; I think it’s a comfort thing? So this was one of the teas from this order that I most immediately wanted to prioritize trying. It smells very nice; sweet and creamy vanilla with lots of hazelnut-y rooibos!

Steeped I found the cup enjoyable, but a little flat? The rooibos flavour is very strong and pretty nutty – and I enjoy it a lot, I found the same thing in the Candy Cane blend I tried recently and I thought it was good there too. It’s just that I was hoping for vanilla decadence and sweetness from the fudge pieces and the rooibos really outweighed the subtle taste of vanilla. Yes, it was sweet – but it tasted more like a carmelized sugar rooibos or hazelnut brittle type thing versus a “Vanilla Sundae” which should probably be both vanilla heavy in flavour and creamy/custardy too. Also, there IS black tea in this blend as well but you wouldn’t know it from the taste.

Cold Brew Sipdown (2653)!

Finally finishing off this older sample. It was a pretty average cold brew that sort of just tasted like straight peppermint so it was expectedly a little bit herbaceous with a soft menthol finish. Less crisp/cooling than other mint teas I’ve had and I’ve gotta assume that’s a mix of age, the fact it’s cut with a woodier tasting rooibos, and the origin of the peppermint itself.

I wish there was a smidge more sweetness and “cream” to sell the candy cane angle but still a refreshing peppermint blend name aside.

Cold Brew!

This lacked the subtle creaminess and sweetness of a candy cane despite there being several large peppermint candies in the measured out leaf, however as a peppermint and rooibos blend I found it well balanced and refreshing with a cooling, crisp and very natural tasting peppermint flavour balanced by the slight honey and woodier notes of the rooibos.

Cold Brew!

Mostly this tastes like if you cold brewed peppermint tea, which is a simple but MEGA refreshing flavour. Crisp and cooling. There’s just a smidge extra sweetness from the actual candy cane pieces in this blend, but not enough to totally warp the very natural and straight forward flavour.

Last tea of the night!

I’m settled in my hotel room now (the first of three for the four day trip – oof!), and I needed a proper cup of something big and soothing to wind down with after this more chaotic and stressful day of travel. Since this is essentially just a slightly less crisp/cooling peppermint tea due to the rooibos, I thought it fit the bill pretty well. It’s not a favourite tea by a long shot, but it does make for a pretty agreeable hotel tea!

Especially at what is essentially 3AM for me…

I’ve gotten so much tea mail this month, as all my pandemic tea orders are finally getting “unstuck” from postal delays, and it’s been hard to keep the pace I want to with trying everything quickly – this was from one of those orders that’s come in; I ended up buying a sample of one of every tea that they carry because they all just sounded so good!! Basically, the company’s “thing” is that all the teas are pudding/dessert (cakes/crumbles) inspired – and I do love a good dessert tea!

This is the first blend I tried, and I picked it for two reasons – it’s caffeine free and it was very late at night, and it was at the top of the box.

For a candy cane blend, I have to admit that it sort of misses the mark? And that’s not to say it isn’t a nice tea, because it’s actually a very smooth and potent tasting crisp peppermint with a pleasant, nutty rooibos. However, there’s a difference between the taste of actual peppermint leaves and the sweet and implied “candy like” taste of candy canes – and this is the former, not the latter. Agave or some kind of sweetener might help, but there’s just a herbal undertone that doesn’t exist in processed candy canes.

Good mint tea – not a good candy cane tea…