865 Tasting Notes
OK, so I just don’t get why anyone would cold brew except in the case of an iced chai emergency… but my quest for the perfect pear green tea makes me do weird things. It was on sale a month or two ago, so I “had” to try it.
1 bag/18oz cold water in the fridge for 1 hr.
The liquor is a very yellowish green and just a touch cloudy… almost like lime juice.
The flavor is very light like I expected it to be, but is very vegetably w/ a bit of matcha-esk qualities to it… and… lime? huh? I’m tasting lime instead of pear. Could all of my pear fataliTEAS have totally screwed up my perception of what a pear tea should be?
Preparation
I need my chai again… and while it’s not quite as warm and humid today, I still don’t want to monkey around with a hot cup. So… I’m attempting to cold brew this. I personally can’t understand why a person would want to disreguard time and temp parameters (they are there for a reason)… but I really want my chai so I’m giving it a go.
1 heaping TB steeped in 1 cup fat free Smart Balance milk left in the fridge for 1 hr.
I have no ice cubes left so I added 1 cup of water to it when it was done steeping (The only reason I did it this way rather than adding the water right away is I didn’t want to risk having to fish a messy tea bag out of 16oz of liquid.) and served it James Bond style.
Slightly frothy, thick, and rich. The chocolate, black tea, and chai spices are slightly more subdued than when hot steeped but the cayenne is more pronounced. I can see where it would be too much for quite a few people. The other components probably could have stood up to a 6-8 hr steep, but I think leaving the cayenne in that long would have caused physical damage loI. I think I prefer it hot steeped even if served chilled, but this is still very good and I will absolutely be repeating this method again when my only other option because of the heat is to skip my beloved chai.
Preparation
I’d be curious to taste the strength of the cayenne after an overnight cold brewed steep O_o!
Try it and let me know;)
Lol, I’d first have to purchase it. I may try with my Chai with Chocolate first. Mayan is going to be included with my next purchase. Then I’ll try, if I’m still alive, I will note the tea tasting :)
If you die can you bequeath me the rest?
I’ll put a note on it to send to cofftea if I do not survive the heat :)
I’d make a small batch, maybe a cup. That way you only waste 1/2 of a heaping tsp of tea and 1/2 of a cup of milk if it’s a fataliTEA… I just hope it doesn’t cause a fatality LOL. Might want to also make an iced white tea chaser to cool yourself down:)
Oh man I am definitely going to have to trawl through peoples Steepster notes to find iced tea methods when its summer here! You could also make icecubes using brewed chai to help with the flavour being muted, I usually have a staple iced tea that I drink throughout the summer and have icecubes to match. Interesting that the cayenne is more pronounced when cold-brewed though!
Miss Sweet- I definitely make tea cubes, but the problem is I can’t reach the freezer so I can only use them when my mom is home. Another reason I love tea cubes is you could mix n match. I was home alone and very over heated and this worked WONDERFULLY… I was originally gonna say “I was home alone and very hot”… then realized that sounded VERY bad lol! If you just add cold water to the milk mixture I would definitely serve it James Bond style like I did, otherwise I think it may just taste like watery VERY spicy milk.
Hahaha that sounds like the start of a trashy romance novel. Maybe you could mix it with another chai when brewing cold to help amp up the chai spices without the letting cayenne taking over? Or cold brewing in chocolate milk! Yum I definitely need to try that…
Oh I like the chocolate milk idea! Do they have Smart Balance milk in your country? I use it cuz it has the texture of 2% milk w/ only 1g of fat. Anything w/ a thinner texture would be too watery I fear… but you could skip the water and just do a chai milk. I’m so picky about my chocolate chais… I have yet to try their Chai w/ Chocolate, but you could probably blend it w/ that- otherwise blend equal parts Mayan Chocoalte Chai w/ Harney & Son’s Florance and then just add extra chai spices- like maybe half the amount of Florence you use?
UGH! It’s so hot that heating the milk for this was miserable. But it was SO worth it. 1 heaping TB steeped in 1 cup fat free Smart Balance milk, then chilled. Blended w/ 1 cup ice. It’s too hot to even eat a cold meal in the house and this gives me a cooler internal temp and some nutrition.
Preparation
It’s still hot (although not quite as bad as yesterday) and my AC is still broke. So I decided to have this cold in honor of todays Steepster Select!
6.5g leaf
6oz hot water
12oz cold water
Mmmm… light, sweet… a thicker mouth feel due to the honey and a perfect balance of flavors. The vanilla is stronger than I expected and is balanced perfectly by the complex, rich, and savory sweetness of the honey as well as the white tea base. It doesn’t have a refreshing thirst quenching crispness to it, but it is very good. It’s a perfect tea for every white tea lover- sweet enough that it doesn’t need extra sweetener, and not overly sweet for a person, like myself, who practically never sweetens her tea. And I’m not even a honey lover! Or a honey liker really… The only thing that made me momentarily debate not giving this a 100 is that I find it too strong using their steeping parameters, but I decided against it. This makes me want to run and by ROT’s vanilla bean honey for my chai! If you decide you do need more sweetness, I’d suggest using that even though I have yet to try it. Sounds like it’d make sense and be delicious:)
Preparation
Cofftea- this is the best tea I’ve had this week using the cold brewed method and my Bodum iced tea pitcher…..
I doubt I’ll ever cold brew anything (unless cold brewing chai works), but yeah it definitely hit the spot. As good as it was I think (an albeit small) part was just the mental effect of knowing white tea lowers body temp lol.
Ok, it’s hotter than blazes, but I need my matcha. I don’t really like cold matcha except for when it’s made w/ OJ (which I normally don’t even like)… but I’m having an OJ smoothie later so I don’t want that. So I decided to mix 6oz of Adagio’s white cucumber (cold, 2nd infusion), w/ 2 scoops matcha. It takes quite a bit more whisking than when hot and it looks really gross. But it’s actually VERY good. It’s still thick, but more tea like than matcha like. Yes, I know matcha is tea- I mean steeped and decanted tea. The perfect combo.
It was already 80 degrees by 9am… is gonna be 90 w/ 80% humidity… and our air conditioner broke. I think I’m gonna be drinking solely white tea today hoping it’ll keep my body temp down. Making this 3 cups at a time:
6.75g leaf/4oz water
3oz bottled lime juice
11oz cold water
This is the ONLY thing getting me thru this day.
Preparation
that sounds quite refreshing! I hope it does the trick (or at least helps!)
Me too!
Oh no, our AC broke just last week and we’re in hot hot Houston. This sounds like the perfect tea (and an interesting one!) for the situation though.
Yummm cucumber white tea is always refreshing!
2nd infusion, 12oz plain and 6oz mixed w/ 2 scoops strawberry matcha.
Another Koicha attempt. I actually remembered to weigh the 1tsp of matcha I used and it weighs 1.89g… so WHY does wikipedia say 1tsp should weigh ~3.75g?! Anyway… It’s less bitter this time but that’s to be expected since it is, after all, Koicha. Kinda like the difference between dark and milk chocolate. Unfortunately it didn’t whisk very well inspite of not taking very long to be sifted.
A teaspoon is a measurement of volume, whereas grams are a measurement of weight, so they aren’t able to be converted precisely. What a teaspoon will weigh in grams depends upon the density of the teaspoon’s contents, so a teaspoon of lead is obviously not going to weigh the same as a teaspoon of…I don’t know, sugar. ;)
The difference between matchas is not so wildly stark, obviously, but it’s not surprising — the moisture content and fine-ness of the powder would certainly make every batch weigh in differently, on a sensitive scale.
sophistre, I absolutely realize this. That’s why I measure my favorite chai and a few other teas by the heaping teaspoon- it’s ~4g:) The reason I meantioned it was just because the difference was HUGE. I would have never mentioned it if wiki’s estimated weight was say ~2g lol:) I measured it by the scoop once and they said it should be ~3 scoops, but for that particular matcha the weight was about ~7 scoops!
Ah! Sorry. You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve been asked how to convert between systems from a unit of measurement of one type to a unit of completely a different type. Silly Imperial system of measurement!
Best. Slimfast. Ever. 8oz Fat Free Smart Balance milk, 1 scoop french vanilla slimfast, 1tsp matcha, 1tsp drinking chocolate mix, and 1tsp Irish Creme instant cappuccino mix. I really wanted to add a thicker, icyier texture to it as well as a berry flavor by adding 1/2 cup frozen unsweetened raspberries, but I didn’t have any.
Lime and pear are pretty far apart…I’m inclined to think the tea is off, not your tastebuds!