Savoy Tea Co

This tastes a bit like cotton candy. I removed the butterfly pea flower of course. This is light and not tart, just marshmallowy and a little fruity. I’d consider buying a bigger bag! It’s not like many other teas I’ve had.

This was too weak for me. I tasted some very light spices, but mostly bitter black tea. When I made it again, I gave it a shorter steep, and I tasted mostly black tea and just a bit of anise or something. Upon looking at the ingredients, maybe that was mint I was noticing.

This is a bit nutty and a bit red fruity. For some reason, I thought this would be a lot more interesting, but it’s super average. Just sort of tart, sort of something else herbal, maybe a touch of spice. I liked it best warm.

Hmm this smells strongly like Adagio’s pumpkin honeybush, which was always weirdly sweet and fruity to me. I’m not opposed to how this tastes, but I really wouldn’t call it a chai. It’s quite fruity and super mildly spiced. The resteep was as strong as the first. Not for me, but not a bad tea.

Homemade Advent Calendar from AJRimmer: Day 22

Yum! This is smooth and subtle but very pleasant, like a gently spiced cinnamon roll with the intimation of a rich frosting and a hint of orange. (Though to be fair, I didn’t look too closely at the leaf when I measured it out, so maybe I didn’t get (m)any orange bits in my cup!)

Enjoying a cup of this alongside a book before rousing myself to do the last of my holiday baking. I’m going to tackle Nigella Lawson’s vegan gingerbread recipe this morning, with medjool dates instead of prunes (?!). Should be a fun bake, and hopefully a delicious one!

Happy Christmas Eve if you celebrate! :D

Homemade Advent Calendar from AJRimmer: Day 18

I brewed and drank this one knowing only its name, and I did not expect it to be so lemon-heavy! Having looked it up, I can just about get the “lemon cream” vibe it’s going for, but I’m not detecting the titular elderberry… and it’s definitely heavy on the lemon as opposed to the cream.

It’s very brisk, and the lemon is a bit sharp-ish for me. More berry would help round it out!

Homemade Advent Calendar from AJRimmer: Day 10

Wow, the caramel flavoring here is exceptional. It’s buttery, rich, and smooth, and something about it reminds me of caramel corn. The base has a tinge of soapiness that’s slightly discordant, but overall this is really nice and very cozy on a damp and foggy day!

Homemade Advent Calendar from AJRimmer: Day 5

Mm, this one smells so lovely. And it’s tasty, too! I definitely got buttery, cake-y vibes. The lemon comes through, but maybe not as strongly as I’d like. I’m a huuuge fan of lemon loaves of all sorts, and I firmly believe that they should be as zesty and lemony as possible — and that extends to lemon loaf-inspired tea, too!

I enjoyed sipping this one; just wish the lemon were turned up to eleven!

This tastes really similar to a Plum Deluxe tea I’ve had. It’s really nice! It’s good with milk and sugar. I taste a lot of lavender. I don’t really notice the coconut, though there’s definitely something else in there other than the lavender. It’s a nice rooibos too.

First steep was a bit underwhelming, but still a tasty buttery black tea. Second, longer steep brought out a little spicy, nutty tea and less butter. No lemon, but a tasty tea. Not something I need to have in my cupboard, but glad I got to try a sample.

A decent black tea blend, smooth and flavorful. Metallic and fruity, with a touch or malt and yeast. Not as good as a straight Yunnan, but still quite drinkable. Not sure I need this in my cupboard, but I’m glad I tried a sample.

First encounter: alkaline bitter heavy yerba mate and nutritious fish food-nettle concoction, so basically scorched pond water

Second encounter: “Let Me Borrow That Top” by Kelly

G – Assam green is not for me! I tried to play nice but got insulted instead.

I don’t think I noticed the coconut note here the previous times I brewed this small sample pack. This cup tastes like toasted coconut with grassy green tea as an end note. Not a bad cup, but I don’t know if I need to drink it again. I like genmaicha, but I don’t tend to reach for green tea that much. I wonder if Savoy has a toasted coconut black?

I have been craving something low-caf or decaf and lemony, so this caught my eye when we were at Savoy last week. Alas and alack, there is definitely a lack of lemon here—it’s a decent sencha base with flavoring that’s kinda raspberry, kinda Hawaiian Punch. It’ll be a tasty summer cooler on ice, but not what the name led me to expect.

Amazing what happens when you actually read the label! This is an Assam green tea! No wonder I was mystified at the scorched-flowers scent and taste in the first mangled cup!

More properly prepared, it has drastically improved. Beautiful champagne color; still a scent that reminds me of lilac. Assam greens have always been very finicky for me—the perfection zone is so skinny that half a degree or three seconds too much pushes it over the edge. I’ve still just about fallen off the cliff here—still a little bitterness on my tongue—but now that I know what I’m working with, I will continue to practice restraint until I get the hang of it.

Savoy tea is in business and thriving, but the storefront we visited yesterday is preparing to relocate, so what we found there yesterday was a little hodge-podgey. (Mind you, this did not keep me from restocking several favorites.) This was the only one of its kind on the sample rack; I saw “Assam” and grabbed without examining it closely.

At any rate, it is one of the least Assam-y Assams I’ve sampled in the recent past…has a fresh floral smell (lilacs from across the yard, not lilacs under your nose) and that carries over to the flavor. It’s more oolong-y than Assam-y and needs a lighter touch than I gave the first cup…is a little bitter now that I’m toward the bottom. Next time I’ll back off the steep time to 3 minutes instead of the sloppy 4 I gave it.

Last word; it’s a tea party-pinky up Assam. Not for sleepy mornings.

This tea came in a handmade birthday card from gmathis! Many thanks!

My daughter happened to be off work on my birthday yesterday and we spent lots of time on the porch enjoying the gorgeous day until after lunch when I had to work. She was with me when I opened the mail, and we both had a good laugh when we saw the name of this tea.

I made it to go with breakfast today, and laughing turned into scheming. How soon can I order without feeling guilty about recent lack of sipdown progress? Because right away, this tea reminded me of some tea that I LOVED but I couldn’t pin it down at first.

Patient mindful sipping and rooting through tea memories came up with the way my first sip of Perseus ever hit at first, but Perseus has some bergamot in it. Could it be Magic from Gurman’s? Maybe. I loved (and reviewed) that one many times on here years ago and all those notes have disappeared into the Steepster void.

The bottom line is that this candy-fruity black tea was stunning with breakfast and needs to be on shelf one day.

I like several peach teas from Harney and Sons and while this tea is peachy there is something about it that has a general fruitiness less specific to peach that made it extra delicious to me.

Thank you, gmathis!

Sample Sipdown

Ashman and I had this as Michelle sent a generous sample that permitted me to make a pot and not a cup.

I drank only a tiny bit of it because I am not used to a lot of caffeine and I read that mate has as much caffeine as coffee. I will say that I didn’t get any jitters nor do I feel overstimulated by this, but it was a really small cup.

Ashman, however, had a mugful! He really dislikes most chocolate in tea as he says it smells like mildew to him, but he had liked the cacao nib tea from Oliver Pluff that gmathis sent recently so I thought he might like this one, too. It really does have true cacao flavor to me and not the artificial smelly chocolate. He did like this one, too!

Somehow the texture of the tea combined with the chocolate and vanilla gave off a little coconut vibe to me, but it was probably mostly creamy coconut texture rather than flavor. If you dislike coconut, you will not be put off by this tea, in my opinion. It was just a vibe.

Thank you, Michelle! We enjoyed it, and maybe Ashman will want to explore other mate blends for his workday breakfasts as a pick me up!

While this rich peaches-and-cream blend is tasty hot, I’ve been waiting for warm weather in order to try it iced. Stellar. My only regret is that I used it for a lawn mowing tea, which means I was getting mouthfuls of dust and leaf mulch as well.

Sometimes you just need a little morning serendipity, especially after two glum winter weeks of lousy weather and more on the way. So I broke into this yet-unopened gift from a coworker in hopes of serendipping. The peaches-and-cream scent actually got a smile out of me before 7:00 a.m. and continues to lighten my mood. Light Ceylon base with strong, but not obnoxious peach flavor. This will make good iced tea come spring, (or if I set the tumbler outside for five minutes today).

I still have a generous half-bag of Sweater Weather left from last season, and I’m glad, because it’s providing exactly the level of cozy I need right now. There’s not really much new anyone can do with chai (What has been is what will be,and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun; Ecclesiastes 1:9) … but Savoy has definitely given it a lovely minty twist that beats the cardamom into submission. Nice solid Assam base, too.