52Teas Send Message

This was one of our teas from June – it started out as a cinnamon, vanilla & marshmallow genmaicha (sort of a ‘snicherdoodle’ type of flavor) however, after my first taste test, I determined that what this blend needed was some bananas.

I like the blend a lot more with the bananas. It tasted good as a snickerdoodle – but – it just – was missing something for me and clearly, what it was missing was bananas. The cinnamon warm and slightly spicy as a wave of soft vanilla and marshmallow root peek through and then I get a hit of sweet banana. Really tasty.

This was our tea of the week for the week of June 1. Really yummy!

The green tea has a soft, silky texture & a sweet taste that plays well with the sweet fruit flavors of cantaloupe and mango. It’s really good iced!

This was our tea of the week for the week of May 25. The base here is robust – it’s a blend of two Yunnan Black teas (Golden Monkey & Imperial) plus an Assamica grown in the Yunnan province – so the first few sips are strong black tea. I still get honeyed tones with hints of cookie but those first few sips are dominated by the black tea notes. As I continue to sip, though, the honey notes emerge as do the buttery cookie notes – and just a hint of orange zest.

My inspiration here was not a butter cookie that is sweetened with honey – but instead a cookie that tastes like honey butter – like gramma used to make. Her honey butter had little bits of orange zest in it (which is why I included orange peel in this) but there was never a strong orange flavor to the honey butter – it was more like a soft whisper of orange that did more to perk up the flavors of honey and butter rather than provide a sense of orange to the honey butter. I feel that I managed to accomplish that pretty well with the addition of the orange peel here – there’s a vague hint of something there – but it isn’t a distinct sense of orange.

Overall, I’m pleased with this tea.

I know I say this a lot – like a lot a lot – but I LOVE this tea. The earthiness of the yerba mate (a blend of both fresh green & roasted mate) seems to be the perfect companion for the bright lime notes. The marshmallow softens the overall flavor. It’s really quite nice and comes together in a really tasty way.

I just looked at my clock to see that it’s now 1:24 am so I’m drinking this kinda late (early?) but I guess – it’s OK since I don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow and since it’s Saturday, it’s not a day to be making any calls that need to be made.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

April’s theme was “A Celebration of Spring” & the idea was to capture some flavors that sing “spring”! The idea behind this first tea was to create a candy-sweet, berry & citrus fruity taste. Like something you might enjoy from your spring basket – only tea, because tea is so much better than candy!

I really like how this one turned out – a strong berry note – with a sweet orange-y brightness shining through. Sweet, juicy & really tasty.

I have just a few of these left in inventory – I know that the holidays seem a long way off now, but it really is good on this chilly evening. (Or, I guess … morning) Of the three tisanes that I crafted for Amoda’s boxes this past holiday season, this one is my favorite … which is kinda weird for me to say since – you know – hibiscus? Yeah, hibiscus is not my favorite thing out there in the world of “tea” but I like the way it works here. It adds enough texture to the cup without tasting like it’s funky-weird hibiscus-y self. I taste fruit (orange, cranberry, apple & pear) & spices (cinnamon & clove & a hint of juniper berry) but not hibiscus. I don’t even really taste the rooibos. I just taste something that reminds me of holiday punch that would be found at adult holiday parties when I was a kid – the kind that they would serve in the fancy punch bowls. Yummy!

Our Tea of the Week for March 2, 2020! This tea was crafted in honor of my mom – her birthday is at the beginning of March, and I wanted to create a tea for her birthday.

Date! Orange! Ginger! Even a touch of cake-y flavor. This blend comes together the way I hoped it would. The orange & date are a bit softer so that the flavor of the dates could be front & center. The orange is sweet & bright – complementing the notes of date very nicely so that the sweetness of the date does not become a cloying taste. The ginger is gently warm – a warmth that starts off in the back of the throat & slowly develops. It’s nice – not too spicy – but contrasting the sweeter notes of the fruit & cake just enough to keep things interesting for the palate.

This one is on the website now, but there are very limited quantities of it remaining. I love this blend – I realized that I consumed all of my stash (save for one serving) before I managed to get it on the website (I really thought I had already added this one) – but apparently I was writing tasting notes in my head and not on Steepster. Fortunately, I did have just enough to snap a photo of the tea & then enjoy my last cuppa.

I love the way the apple & the gingerbread play in this. I don’t taste much from the honeybush or rooibos – what they do contribute to the taste melds with the gingerbread notes and it plays off as a mildly nutty, honey-ish taste to enhance the molasses-y brown sugar notes from the gingerbread. The spices are mild but they play to a warm spice set for the gingerbread. Every few sips, my palate notices more apple than gingerbread, so it comes off as a warm apple cider taste. Really nice.

I just got back from the tea studio where I did a final inventory count of this tea (& I just finished posting those numbers) – so I thought I’d bring my stash of this one to my pantry & enjoy it. I didn’t keep a lot of it aside for me because I didn’t make a whole lot of it and I had quite a few customers who had asked for it so I wanted to make sure that they got some of it before I indulged myself – because – truth be told, I do have quite a bit of tea for me to indulge in.

I really like how this one turned out. The grapefruit is bright and juicy – but not too tart. I am not particularly fond of tart (which is why you don’t catch me working with hibiscus too often – way too tart for my liking – and when I do work with it, I use just enough to add some body and color but not enough to lend it’s syrupy tartness to the cup.)

But I love grapefruit. Generally, when I indulge in a grapefruit, it isn’t with brown sugar (but I bet that’s really nice) – I tend to sprinkle the top of the grapefruit half with salt which tends to reduce the bitter tartness of it to my palate’s liking.

But I like how the brown sugar essence here tames the tartier notes of the grapefruit just enough so that you know that you’re tasting grapefruit but you’re not getting too much pucker — & you’re not getting too much cloying sweetness from the brown sugar either. A really nice balance.

Anyway, this one’s almost gone so – if it’s one that you’ve been waiting for – please be sure to stop by my website & grab some! I won’t be reblending this one for quite some time!!

I just added this tea back to the website – it was reblended by request from one of my customers. This is one of those teas that I’m surprised that turned out the way I hoped it would. Sometimes, I’m sure that a blend will work out just fine (and it doesn’t!) which can be frustrating, but it sure is nice that it happens the other way around too!

Sweet, fruity and really different – the strawberry & pear taste so good together. The cream cheese notes add a creamy & tangy element. The pepper doesn’t hit the palate with every sip, so when it does, it’s like a pop of heat that is unexpected but also quite nice. It reminds me very much of the ice creams that inspired the tea – especially where the pepper comes in – because I don’t get pepper with every bite of the ice cream, so when I do taste the pepper, it sort of kicks me in the back of the throat as a really nice contrast to the strawberry flavor.

Yum!