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I had this tea last night as my entry for a “sleepytime tea” in this month’s Scavenger Hunt. And it is a sipdown. I really enjoy this as a before bedtime tea, it’s a tasty blend that is blueberry heavy. I’m not usually a big chamomile fan which is why I don’t make a lot of chamomile bends. This one works for me.

So, this isn’t a sipdown (thankfully because I love this tea) but it is the tea that I’m going to log as a Green Tea from this month’s Scavenger Hunt. It’s a brand new tea from 52Teas (just added it to the website, actually) and it’s a tea that was inspired by my morning matcha drink which is pineapple juice & matcha – shaken, not stirred. :)

I love that morning matcha drink & I wanted to duplicate it as close as I could to be something I could drink later in the day (because Matcha is much too invigorating for me to drink too late in the day.)

I think I managed to put something together here that works for my cravings for my pineapple tea. The Japanese Sencha is smooth & fresh while the pineapple gives it just the right sweet-tart flavor I want. I love this tea. I hope others like it as well because I’m already thinking that I’ll need to reblend this when it’s gone from my pantry.

I’m logging this tea as my prompt for “a French Tea” on the scavenger hunt for this month. Granted, the tea itself – is not French. But the desert that inspired it – is a Parisian dessert that was first created in Italy. I’m not sure how that works, but – I’m rolling with it because I guess I don’t have to know everything. Which is a good thing, because I do not know everything. Not even close.

I crafted this tea as a tea of the week for December 7, 2020. I know that the people who have reviewed it mentioned they couldn’t taste the nutmeg, but for me, it’s one of the most prevalent flavors. (I guess it goes to show that all our palates are different.) It’s smooth & creamy, a nice nutty undertone – I taste less chestnut here than I remember tasting a year or so ago. Then, it was a well-defined flavor for me, now, it’s more of an undertone that hints at chestnut nuttiness. A pleasant creaminess to it – but again, the strongest note I’m getting here is the nutmeg. Which is perfectly fine for me because I love nutmeg (probably my favorite spice – right up there with allspice – if I were to rank my top three, it would go: nutmeg, allspice, anise with an honorable mention for cumin. But now that I read that, I realize I forgot cardamom. It belongs in that top three too. So, I have five spices in my top 3 and I no longer stand by that top three ranking because I think cardamom would tie with allspice and I’m not willing to drop anise from the top 3.)

Anyway, a lovely cup, I’m enjoying it. Thank you to Mastress Alita for putting together the scavenger hunt every month because I’m enjoying the prompts to find teas that I have stashed in many locations throughout my house & tea studio.

OK – so this may seem like a bit of a stretch – but I’m logging this tea as my “tea with a flavor note/ingredient from a favorite Girl Scout Cookie” – because one of my favorite cookies from GS are thin mints. They’re a nostalgic favorite for me – because this was the cookie that I enjoyed as a girl scout. This was the cookie that my stepmother would always buy like 12 boxes of from both me and my stepsister and would keep in the freezer. Now, I think that I prefer Samoa – but I don’t have any more of the Calico & Black Cat tea in my cupboard so, this is gonna have to do.

Also, this tea is back in stock. (Yay!) I love it when I blend this tea, because when it’s time to taste test it, and I open the containment after the tea has cured – it smells so amazing. It reminds me of Spearmint gum which is also a nostalgic flavor for me.

Anyway, the sweet of the marshmallow & the vibrant note of spearmint evokes thoughts of thin mints to me, because they were always more mint than chocolate (the chocolate notes were always a bit waxy to me, which I didn’t hate, but a thin mint wasn’t my favorite “chocolatey” thing, but it was my favorite “minty” thing and since this tea has a wonderful mint note, that’s what evokes those thin mint vibes from me.)

I cold-brewed the very last bit of this tea that I have for my “Tea with spinach/artichoke notes” for the Steepster Scavenger Hunt. When I blended this, I went with an amazing Japanese Tamaryokucha tea for the base which has a strong vegetal note that reminded me vaguely of seaweed. Although, generally speaking, I don’t care for seaweed, I did enjoy the vegetal notes of this tea that is somewhere between broccoli, asparagus and cooked spinach & I thought that it would work well as a “Mermaid”/Oceanic type of base for a tea. (On a side note, after I blended this tea, I found some cool little mermaid tail sprinkles that would have been cool in this blend, so maybe someday I will need to do something else mermaid-y so I can get those sprinkles. Or maybe I’ll just make cupcakes for my daughter.)

Anyway, I was a little worried that maybe this tea wouldn’t hold up because it IS almost 3 years old now & coconut. But, I was hopeful that maybe, because the package was still sealed, that maybe, just maybe it’d be OK. And it is. I get a strong vegetal taste from it, but I still get a soft creaminess from the coconut, notes of pineapple, a touch of blueberry and a kiss of lime. Actually, it’s more like a combination of these flavors rather – like a medley – than one specific flavor that is particularly strong. The strongest flavor here is the green tea – I don’t know if that’s because I cold-brewed it or that the flavors have softened because of age. That’s not meant to be a slight on the tea because I am enjoying it & this turns out to be a really good choice for the tea with spinach/artichoke notes. Also – it is a tea – so I don’t really dislike it when I can taste the tea.

So, I’m sipping this tea down as my “Tea That Makes Me Happy” – this tea makes me happy for so many reasons. First, banana. BANANA! Second, Marshmallow. Third, Genmaicha. Fourth – it’s a tea that I created that has been reblended several times – and it sells quickly every single time which says to me that this tea makes other people happy – not just me. And that makes me very happy!

So, this tea will be my “Tea from a Woman Owned Company” for this month’s Scavenger Hunt. I figured that today is a good day to fulfill this category since it’s International Women’s Day. :)

I really love how this tea turned out. The cranberry is bright & crisp – it really pops – thanks to, in no small part, the natural crisp, fruity notes from the Singbulli Oolong. The nuttiness from the chestnut essence (as well as the nutty tones from the Singbulli) are more of a background note, but I love the way the two flavor profiles play on the palate. It turned out WAY better than I anticipated.

Not a total sipdown for me, I still have enough for one more pot of this tea. I will miss it when it’s gone.

Since this is the first tea that sold out from our 12 Teas of Christmas for 2021, I decided to drink this as a tea that is “discountinued/otherwise unavailable-for-purchase tea” on this month’s Scavenger Hunt. I could also drink this as a tea that makes me happy – it makes me very happy not only to drink it (I love this tea!) but also makes me very happy that it earned a spot in the box for 2021. I guess it could also be a tea from a woman-owned company.

I wrote about this tea not too long ago when I did the 12 Teas of Christmas countdown, so there’s not a lot more that I can say about this tea except that this is a sipdown, the last that I have of this tea.

So, I hope that I found the new scavenger hunt list? Item #6 is “A tea flavored like your favorite pancake/waffle topping” & so I think this tea should be the obvious choice, right? And happily enough, I just reblended a small batch of this tea – a very small batch this time, because I want to actually test using the maple syrup crystals that I get from the maple cotton candy – so I plan to use some of this as my test before I actually release it to the website . . . in the meantime, some of the small batch is now available on the website – in other words, Pancake Breakfast is once again available – but in very small quantities!

So, this isn’t actually a sipdown because this is a “D’s Tea” but despite the well-meaning intention of the idea of a sipdown, as the purveyor of this particular tea, I think it’s one that you should keep in stock because it’s that good.

Also, this restock just so happened to happen on National Pancake Day. It’s actually just a crazy coincidence because I don’t keep up with those days, mostly because I don’t have the time or the organization within my chaotical mind to keep track of stuff like that. Maybe someday I’ll be all organized and up with stuff to be able to do that. But today isn’t that day. (I’m actually incredibly impressed with myself that I was able to get the Irish Cream tea out a month before St. Patrick’s day because usually, I’m like a month behind with stuff like that.)

So, anyway – I’m having fun with the scavenger hunt, even though I’m not actually doing a sipdown all the time. Thanks to Mastress Alita for the scavenger hunt prompts. :)

For my final tea in this month’s Scavenger Hunt, this is my “Tea paired to a favorite Fairy Tale” – and while I know that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is not a fairytale, I still think of it as one because Disney kind of turned it into one for me. When I was a kid growing up in So Cal, I spent a lot of time in the Fantasyland area of Disneyland – a couple of my favorite attractions were the teacups & Alice in Wonderland rides (well, let’s be real, I loved every single thing about Disneyland, it was truly a magical place for a kid) – so back then, before I read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – I thought of Alice in Wonderland as a fairytale so I suppose I still regard it as such – at least a little bit.

I held onto a portion of this tea to cold-brew last summer but last summer was crazy and I forgot about cold-brewing it. So, I came across this small portion I had been hanging on to so I decided to cold brew it last night so I could enjoy it today.

It makes a really nice cold-brew. I like it. The jasmine is prominent, but the orange and apricot also come through nicely. I enjoy the way the jasmine and orange blossom play together to present a solid floral tone. This tea would not be for one who tends to shy away from floral teas, but for those of us who enjoy them, this tea is amazing. The cardamom comes together so beautifully with these flavors.

Not quite a sipdown just yet – I have enough for at least one more cold-brew – and maybe even enough for a small pot of hot tea with this one. I’m not sure if I prefer this one hot or iced. I probably prefer it hot, since that tends to be my favorite way to enjoy tea anyway – but it DOES make a really lovely iced tea as well.

Edited to add: I did it! I completed the scavenger hunt! :)