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You know it’s a really freaking hot day when Starbucks is all out of lemonade at 4pm. Thankfully I got the very last of it! The lady behind me looked pretty pissed…

When it’s 95 and not at all breezy, this is the best thing on earth. It’s also really nice to not have to make drinks yourself in this heat!

I’m in a bit of a tea funk today. I just can’t decide what I want to drink, nothing seems to be hitting me. However, I was determined to find something—if I get out of the habit of drinking tea every day I find it kind of hard to get back on the horse. So I decided to just go for it and put on water without deciding on a tea. My teapot doesn’t whistle when the water is ready so I have to time it, not the best idea looking back because I ended up with only a few seconds left, frantically digging through my sample bin in search of something. I have well over 100 different teas in there to try but I seriously couldn’t pick out any one that screamed “try me” so I went with a flavor combo I knew I’d love—caramel, chocolate, and hazelnut. This is from my box from LiberTEAS and I’ve actually been meaning to try it for about a week so it seemed like the perfect fit.

This smells a lot like Florence, with a hint of caramel. The dominant flavor for me seems to be chocolate, with the caramel and hazelnut about even. There’s a bit of bitterness as others have noted, but it’s not overpowering and I can definitely handle it. Definitely an enjoyable cup, but I do wish there was less chocolate—Caramel Praline in my mind is just caramel and nuts, and as it is this blend is just a bit too similar to Florence for me. Still glad I had a chance to try it out and it got me back in a “tea mood!”

On a hot day when you’re walking back from the post office and realize you haven’t had anything to drink all day and might die of dehydration before you make it back home (okay, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration) this really hits the spot. Unsweetened black tea + lemonade = thirst-quenching heaven.

I’ve been on a bit of a Steepster hiatus since my past few days of tea drinking have been kind of boring—I was at my parents’ house so I went to my old standby bagged earl grey and lemon herbal, and other than that I’ve been playing around with the sample of my custom blend from Butiki. I’m sure everyone would have been enthralled by 5 tasting notes for the same tea in 2 days! Time for something different tonight, so I reached for one of the Butiki samples I got from the awesome Krystaleyn. I love apricot and am in the mood for something new!

This is my first experience with guayusa—I’ve been a bit nervous to try it after reading some tasting notes describing it as plant-y. Well… it is! But not in a bad way. It tastes like fresh-cut grass, and smells like maple tree leaves in the spring when they’re bright and green and new. It’s herbal without a specific herb taste, and is wonderfully new tasting. It’s less plant-y than it is bud-y. It evokes some kind of odd nostalgia in me—when I was younger I used to go out after the rain and pull up blades of grass so I could see the new, soft green part coated in dew… and then I’d munch on them. I know it’s pretty weird, but it was so fresh and sweet, like veggies straight from the ground. That’s what this tea reminds me of! The sweetness is from the apricot, which is so subtle and light. I think I’m going to have to order some of this asap… as soon as I get some more tea funds.

This blend was reccommened to me by several people, so of course I had to pick some up at my last trip to H&S! I got more of this than usual—with a new tea I usually go for 2 oz, but based both on reviews and the fact that I plan on mainly cold-brewing it I went with 4 oz. I was expecting more of an in your face flavor with this, but the leaves smell very subtle, just a hint of caramel and sesame.

The brewed tea is similar, with a very mellow caramel flavor that’s quite soft. It’s not stick to your mouth sweet at all, it’s actually refreshing and light! The sesame is a nice counterpart, adding a touch of nuttiness. It really reminds me of the less-sweet Japanese confections, like the subtly green tea flavored buns or sesame rolls. Very pleasant, and I’m really looking forward to trying this iced.

So I made this for the bf tonight (since he requested “something black”). Usually he waits a while to drink any tea I make for him since he’s pretty sensitive to hot drinks, but this was downed in less than a minute. He was practically chugging it! Upping the rating since I think this is one of the few teas that we absolutely have to have on hand at all times—our cupboard rotates pretty frequently but some teas deserve to be here constantly!

I’ve been feeling kind of blarghy today and woke up with a fever—just my luck, right after finally getting healthy. Today is definitely a “comfort food” day but I’m nauseous so no actual food for me. I was hoping that I’d have something to approximate a pastry in my cupboard, and this sample from Krystaleyn immediately caught my eye. Pie in tea!? Yes please!

This smells phenomenal. Like… well, pie! The apples, the spices, even the flaky crust… I could just imagine that I was smelling pie fresh from the oven. The flavor, sadly, didn’t follow through because it was like drinking warm water with a little cinnamon. I used more leaf than I usually do too, since I’ve found DT blends can be a bit on the weaker side if brewed “regularly.” However, this tea smelled too good to give up on. For the second steep I upped the water temp a little and used a lot less water, basically making it double-strength like you would a chai. Into the cup went honey, cinnamon, a spoonful of caramel vanilla ice cream, and a bit of cookie butter (to imitate the crust). OH MY GOD. It’s heaven. Heaven! Just what I needed to brighten a crummy day, and it tastes just like pie now. However, I’m going to refrain from actually rating this since I adore what I ended up with but this tea took a lot of cajoling to be tasty.

I have been living under the impression that I don’t really like herbal teas which is clearly wrong since I love them. I’ve loved them all along since my go-to bagged teas (aka “lazy teas”) are all herbal. So why did I think I disliked them? I think I had one bad experience with over-steeped, bitter hibiscus and just wrote them all off. But I’ve since re-discovered my love for them and am on an herbal tea kick, so I was thrilled when I saw this in my samples from Fusion Teas. I’ve been debating over which of their samples to try first since they all sound tasty, but today it’s late and I need to go to bed so I grabbed this one.

You know those fresh from the fryer donuts you get when you go apple picking? The ones rolled in brown sugar with a crunchy crust and amazingly soft & fluffy insides? Yeah, the dry “leaves” smells very much like that. The stepped tea smells more chamomile-y, but the taste is still donuts! Donuts & chamomile. There are a bunch of ingredients that I’m not tasting individually (coconut, lemongrass, etc) but I think blended together they’re adding to that bake-y taste. Chamomile and vanilla are definitely the dominant flavors (which you’d expect given the name) and with a bit of honey this is divine.

After a god-awful tea experience today, I needed something that I know I like. Funny enough I’ve never even had Paris, but the reviews are so glowing I can’t imagine NOT loving it. And the leaves smell amazing. I’ve been sniffing them since I bought this but haven’t tried the tea itself yet… honestly, I’m a little worried that nothing can live up to the smell of the dry leaves. I want to take a bath in them and smell like Paris.

Steeped the flavors aren’t really as in your face as the leaves, but it’s still intoxicating. The base is a deliciously balanced black, and that’s really what you taste the most. A teeny bit malty, with some yeasty, bready qualities. H&S is so good at blending blacks! The vanilla and fruit flavors come into play at the end of the sip—a burst of fruity goodness followed by wonderfully smooth vanilla that lingers long after you’re done drinking. I can’t quite place the fruits, which is interesting—I usually dislike fruity teas like peach or strawberry. This tastes berry-ish, but not like strawberry. More like a brief hint of fresh-picked raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. Almost jammy! But there’s something else too that’s really intriguing. It reminds me of some of the pastries I had in Paris. With the yeasty base and the vanilla/jammy flavors, this is like a baked dessert in a cup!

I’m on a tea-buying hiatus in order to control the massive amount of space my tea cupboard takes up. I bought over 100 types (not including any samples) in only 3 months. ;~; So, no more tea buying! Even samples! But somehow, a small (5 sample) order from The Persimmon Tree snuck in. At $1 a sample + free shipping I couldn’t really resist since there were a few flavors I’d really been meaning to try. This was not one of them, but I’ve never had lotus flavored tea so I was curious.

I’ve had a lot of lotus-flavored snacks: one of my favorite things to pick up in Chinatown is candied lotus root (even if it does trigger a bit of my tryophobia). It’s got this juicy, crisp quality very reminiscent of watermelon with a nice earthiness too. So I foolishly hoped this tea would taste like that, despite it being stated as anise-like with a hint of vanilla. Well, those flavors are definitely there and quite pleasant actually, but the base green… oh my god. Mushy canned peas. I HATE peas, and this tea is all steamed veggies. Not nice, fresh from the garden veggies (I’ll even eat peas if they are very fresh)… canned veggies that have been sitting in a grocery store for 2 years. I had 2 sips and had to pour it out, it was making me nauseous. If it weren’t for the anise/vanilla at the end, this would get a big fat rating of 1. But really, you don’t want vanilla in your canned peas. It might actually make it worse!