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I sure am drinking a lot of tea tonight. This is my second cold steep of the day and I already have another one in the fridge, plus I had matcha this afternoon. I’ve already planned out my evening tea as well, sigh. Hopefully it’s not too much caffeine—usually tea caffeine doesn’t have too much of an effect on me, but 5 cups in one day is more than my usual so we’ll just have to wait and see.

I love melon teas, and I already have two I adore (Butiki’s Cantaloupe & Cream and GMT’s Persian Melon) but they are both white teas and hey, one more can’t hurt! Actually, counting watermelon I probably have way more than 2, but for some reason I don’t count watermelon in the “melon” flavor family. Cantaloupe, honeydew, and stuff closer to that is what I think of when my brain goes to melon. I guess the flavor of watermelon is just really different? It’s also got a really different consistency.

The description doesn’t say what type of melon flavor is used. It smells somewhere between cantaloupe and honeydew, so I’d assume it’s sprite melon. When Japanese snacks are listed as melon flavored that is usually what it is. It’s also got very pale flesh, and the chunks of dried melon in here are white. So, sprite melon oolong! The smell itself is juicy, fresh and enticing but almost candy-ish in its sweetness. I find that true with a lot of Lupicia’s blends, but they rarely have that artificial, sugary-sweet aspect once brewed.

This is no exception, since the taste is pure, delicious, fresh melon! At first I thought the oolong was kind of lost, but as my tea “warmed up” (my fridge is VERY cold!) the oolong popped into the picture. Soft, floral, and very delicious. The melon compliments it perfectly, and it seriously tastes like fresh-squeezed melon juice mixed with green oolong. Perfection! Well, honestly this doesn’t beat out Cantaloupe & Cream, but in its own way it is almost as good!

In a happy coincidence, this is my 200th tasting note! Whoo, I got here so fast! I think it’s quite fitting for this to be my 200th note, since it’s a very special tea. I didn’t even plan it this way but I really wanted something I loved for 200, and here we are, with my new tea crush.

I’m not exactly a matcha virgin, but this is my first order from Red Leaf Tea. I’ve never actually had flavored matcha, but I use it to cook a lot (green tea mochi cake with red bean swirl is food of the gods!) and make lattes with it. However, my usual matcha is only an okay grade and is a bit bitter—I don’t have money for a really nice grade, sadly. So Red Leaf to the rescue! They have amazing flavors for low prices, and lots of upgrade options. I was waiting for the right time to order my first one, and then like magic a flavor I had my eye on was 50% off! So for my first order I got the caramel matcha, which you can find here:

http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/caramel-matcha.html

I went with the minimal options, my matcha has the following:
Size: 30g
Grade: Starter
Flavor: Delicate
no accessories or storage options since I have tins at home!

You know, I was a bit worried about getting the delicate flavoring option. I’ve seen a lot of reviews that prefer distinctive or robust, so maybe the delicate would be, well, too delicate? I wanted a strong caramel flavor but still a distinct matcha taste, but I also wanted to know the “base line” for their flavoring for when I place my inevitable second (and third and fourth and fifth…) order. But when I snipped open the bag, I was hit with a huge whiff of the most delicious smell. Caramel, pure caramel! And not from a bag of candy caramel, fresh off the stove hot creamy caramel. I do a lot of candy making and this reminds me so strongly of that. I wonder what distinctive and robust smell like?! I might get a stronger flavor when I order the cheesecake, just so the smell will knock me out. Okay, seriously, I keep sniffing the bag. Ahh, that flavor is so good! I think I’m tea high.

Continuing the theme of “I’m nervous about matcha” I was nervous about preparing it! Thankfully Red Leaf Tea gives you this really hands little pamphlet with instructions on how to properly prepare it. So I sifted about 1 teaspoon of matcha into a mug (not a bowl, I know, I’m a bad matcha maker! but it was a really cute mug so it’s okay), then boiled my water and let it cool to 180. I made matcha once with boiling water, it was absolutely disgusting. Bitter and gross and… urgh, not good. So 180 it is! I almost did lower but the pamphlet said 180, so I guess it’s not as delicate as it looks.

Then I added 2 oz of hot water (yes, I measured exactly, I was a bit anal since this was my first time with the brand and I did NOT want to mess it up!) and whisked furiously. It got so frothy! I don’t have one of those fancy bamboo whisks so I just used my normal metal one and it worked out perfectly fine, no clumping or chunks left in the bottom. I also made sure to sift it REALLY well which as it turns out is quite important. I actually didn’t now about this step before and my previous matcha attempts have ended in big bitter clumps at the bottom. This way, though, no delicious flavor is wasted! I tried it at this stage and it was REALLY strong, too strong for me—I’m not brave enough to drink “straight” matcha like that yet so I added a pinch of sugar and filled my tiny mug up with some cold milk. I whisked some more, and voila, matcha latte! Well, kind of a bootleg matcha latte, but it works for me.

Oh. My. God. This stuff is AMAZING! Heaven, tea heaven. I felt like I was in nirvana at the first sip, it was so creamy and sweet and grassy and pure pure caramel. I can’t believe I went this long without ordering any before! It’s amazing how well the flavors balance, the caramel and matcha blend together to perfection. It’s sweet but not too sweet, creamy but not overly creamy, deliciously fresh from the matcha. I know I only got the basic grade but the quality is just so high! It’s better than any restaurant or coffee shop/tea shop matcha latte I’ve ever had, and it took almost no effort! So fast, so easy, I can never go back to pre-made. But given the prices, it’s not hard for me to make one myself every day!

I’m so excited to try some of their other flavors (or uhh all, I want them all!), but for now me and this caramel matcha are going to run away together to a cabin in the countryside. Seriously, I want to marry this stuff. It is SO good! Here’s the link again, I can’t recommend this enough! http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/caramel-matcha.html

I love grapefruit—pretty much any tea with grapefruit on the ingredients list is an instant buy. This is actually the reason I decided to order with Tea Guys, and for some reason I saved it for last. And of course cold brewed it because, well, I freaking love cold brews. Also, hot grapefruit doesn’t work for me. It needs to be icy cold always!

This is definitely very grapefruity! Tart and a bit bitter, but that’s the way grapefruit should be. It’s quite tasty, sweet and grassy from the green. It’s also quite floral as well, which is interesting. It’s more grapefruit rose than straight-up grapefruit and reminds me a lot of their Mango Rose. I think I still prefer Lupicia’s Grapefruit Green so far, but this one is pretty darn close!

I got my amazing envelope of goodies from TeaEqualsBliss and this was included. I’d never even heard of it before! Honestly, I’m not a big fan of root beer flavored things, but the bf likes them so I showed him this and his eyes almost popped out of his head. I brewed up a cup and he was in love! Apparently it tastes just like root beer, fizziness included. I didn’t try any since I was ensconced in my cassis & blueberry, BUT judging from his reaction this is a real winner. Thanks, TEB, for bringing this awesome tea into our lives!

I got a couple free pyramid bags of this in my order and I’m really in the mood for a low-maintenance tea so into the cup this went! Like others have said the smell of this is intoxicating, like fresh jam that you’re just about to spread on wonderfully crusty toast. Steeped, it has almost a candy aspect. There are these Japanese cassis hard candies that I really like and this smells just like them!

I think the reviews on this one are spot on: it doesn’t taste nearly as strong as the smell (either of the dry leaves or the steep). However, it’s a nice mellow black with a prominent cassis flavor and a hint of blueberry, and like all teas that I’ve tried from Lupicia it has no artificialness at all. I also really overseeped it and it came out fine, not bitter at all! I’m honestly kind of glad it doesn’t smell as strong as the leaves, since that would be kind of like drinking candy! I love berry teas and this is definitely a nice one: I’d actually consider getting this in bagged form rather than loose since it’s so darn convenient.

The last of my samples from The Tea Table! I wanted to do something special with this one, so I brewed it extra strong and then made a latte with coconut milk and dulce de leche. Ooooh lord is it amazing! The chai itself is quite strong and spicy, with a lot of ginger. The lemongrass is prominent, but it doesn’t overpower the other spices. The base tea is very strong, even with all the other stuff going on, which I love. I like my chais strong in all respects, and this definitely delivers!

With the coconut milk it reminds me a bit of Adagio’s Thai Chai, only dare I say better. It’s stronger and spicier, but still with distinct lemongrass/ginger flavors that gives you that Asian feel. The dulce just takes it to the next level, adding caramel notes and delicious sweetness. As I prepared it this probably warrants a 100 rating, but of course I’ll try to contain my excitement and rate based on the tea itself!

EDIT: I made a second cup of this with all the extras and the flavor held up just as well—in fact, it was a little spicy! Chais often don’t resteep well but I think I could even get a 3rd out of this blend. I really shouldn’t be drinking two sugary lattes in a day, but my kitty is sick and I won’t be able to get him to the vet until tomorrow and of course I am driving myself crazy with worry so I need something comforting.

Continuing on my exploration of lychee teas, I picked up an ounce of this from The Tea Table. It seems to be one of those blends that is stocked at a few stores, I suppose it comes from some other source. Sometimes I wonder where all these teas originate—some blends seem to be carried by 5 or 6 different places with the exact same ingredient list & description! But, in any case, it’s pretty cheap anywhere you get it.

I cold brewed this for 12 hours and it’s pretty much exactly what I expected. A soft, sweet green base complimented by floral jasmine and sweet, juicy lychee. It’s a nice departure from the black-based blends I’ve been trying, the lychee matches so well with both the jasmine and green tea. Since lychee is a little floral on its own I was worried that this might come out perfume-y but it’s definitely not! Another lychee blend I love, sigh. Now I have to make decisions on which ones to stock!

I got this tea as one of my free samples simply because of the name. I used to live in a gorgeous house in Hoboken that was actually IN the movie On The Waterfront! So how could I resist? Well maybe if it was banana bacon flavored or something, but it also happens to have a lot of ingredients that I love.

At first sip, it tastes like a peppermint tea. A very nice one, but just peppermint. But the more you drink, the more the other flavors start popping up in the background. A bit of rose, a hint of nuttiness, a whiff of ginger. It’s really an interesting tea! I am going to try it with a shorter steep as well to see if the other flavors become more dominant, though right now I am really enjoying playing the “flavor guessing game” with this blend.

EDIT: Did a short 4-minute steep (which is very short for an herbal!) and the other flavors came out a lot stronger. The peppermint is still dominant, but it’s easier to pick out the rose, ginger, almond, hibiscus, and a few other things. It’s a long ingredient list! I am thinking of keeping this around as an everyday mint—it’s between this and Mint Medley, though at the moment I prefer the complexity of this blend.

I’ve finally added a large portion of this to my stash! Drinking it with some milk & sugar while hanging out with my kitty. He keeps sticking his nose in it, I guess it smells good to cats too! It is so so delicious, one of my favorite everyday teas. Up there with Paris for sure! Thanks so much to Azzrian for introducing me to this awesome tea.

I don’t like rooibos or banana, so I had a moment of fear when I got this as a free sample in my last order. But hey, a sample’s a sample, and I did want to try it out! The dry “leaves” smell really good, not at all banana-like or rooibos-y. It kind of smells like… apple pie, without the spice. I guess that’s because of the apple chunks!

Steeped it also smells really good. While I hate (and I mean HATE) fresh banana, this is like a baked banana taste. Like banana bread or banana oatmeal cookies! Sweet and creamy. The rooibos is surprisingly un-medicinal (though that might be because I got nervous and steeped it for a pretty short time), and it adds to the bakey-ness of the tea. And the apple chunks add some nice fruitiness. The chocolate, sadly, isn’t really that present—I would definitely like a little more chocolate oomph in my cup, given the name and all! And most surprisingly of all, the peppercorn adds a pretty big bite at the end (though there were like 5 in my cup). Sometimes they are just there for decorative purposes, but I feel like they do add some dimension to this.

This isn’t my favorite or something I’d dip into often since, well, I don’t like most of the ingredients, but surprisingly I did enjoy it and will definitely finish my sample off! I think banana fans will really love this one.