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Sipdown 107/395

Sample from Janelle ‘s mystery box. Not my favourite almond green tea. It’s not bad, but the green base is a little more astringent than I’d like, the almond isn’t the most authentic nor is it particularly biscotti-like, and I get no coconut at all. Perhaps the coconut pieces are just for aesthetics, but I was expecting coconut flavour and as a coconut lover I was disappointed. Oh, well. Another one down! Thanks Janelle for letting me try this.

Sipdown 106/395

Another from the EU TTB. I was super excited about this one when I first picked it out, because I’d heard so many good things about it. I remember being really disappointed when I tried it and couldn’t taste any vanilla or rum, so I held onto the last cup of my sample as it never really grabbed me, expecting it to be as lacklustre as the first time. This made it a good candidate to drink while my tastebuds were on strike, though, so I brewed it up and was surprised when I took my first sip and BOOM flavour. I drank the whole cup plain, no additives, and got it all – rum, vanilla, and some dark rich frutiness which was hard to place. I owe you an apology, Mariage Freres; I never should have underestimated you.

Okay I swear I’d reviewed this tea before… I’m pretty sure I even remember mentioning how I don’t usually like green teas all that much but could drink this one all day… What’s going on with Steepster eating my notes??

I snagged this from the EU TTB round 2 after trying it on a whim and finding to my surprise that I actually really enjoyed it. It’s not as vegetal or astringent as many of the green teas I’ve tried in the past, and has more of a buttery, smooth and mild flavour. I would actually pick this one up!

As a side note, I apologise for how brief and vague my recent tasting notes have been/are going to be. A lot of these are backlog from the past few days when I haven’t felt like coming on here, as well as old teas (I’m focusing on trying to sip down all of the teas I’ve had the longest and as a result many of them have lost some of their former glory). I’ve also been getting over a cold, and still don’t have all of my taste fully back yet, so all of this combined means my tasting notes are not exactly thrilling right now. I can’t bring myself to not drink any tea until I’m feeling better, so I thought I may as well drink some that have already lost flavour while my taste is not 100% anyway. Plus, I really want to break my no-buy and pick up the sampler of Bluebird Tea Co.’s spring selection, so I think if I manage to get myself to 125 sipdowns I will allow myself to buy that as a treat. Motivation, right?

Sipdown (105/395)

Sipdown 104/395

Another of the oldest teas in my collection, acquired some years ago now from a mystery box I bought from MissB. Drank after receiving some bad news, and while coming down with a cold. I barely tasted it. Some maybe-pineapple fruitiness. I was surprised to find it was a green tea.

Sipdown 103/395

I seem to be in the minority with this one – I like it! It is closing in on 4 years old at this point, so maybe that’s why, but I don’t get any bitterness from the tea whatsoever. It’s definitely more ‘key lime’ than ‘pie’, and I would like there to be some buttery pie crust notes, but it’s still a pretty nicely flavoured tea without it. The lime flavour is most present but there is a creaminess which rounds it out, too. As the cup cools the cream becomes far less noticeable and the lime note peeks through a much more dominant base. I’ve just had some bad news about a family member while I was writing this so I’m going to cut my note short, but yeah. I liked it.

ETA: Thanks go to Janelle for this one.

Sipdown 102/395

I can’t believe I don’t have a tasting note on this already! I could swear I remember writing one in the past… weird. It’s a shame I didn’t have a note already, since this was one of the oldest teas in my collection and isn’t as complex as it once was. I don’t get any citrusiness from the bergamot, nor do I really get much vanilla, though there is a hint of it. Mostly, this is a very plummy, stone-fruit heavy malty black tea. I am drinking this plain and the base tea is nicely smooth and does not overpower the fruit notes. It is a very pleasant cup to drink while spending a quiet afternoon reading.

Thank you MissB for sending me such a generous sample of this tea!

Attempting to get rid of a few ravaged-by-time teas today while I do a giant pile of ironing, and this tea from Kittylovestea is far too old to hang onto any longer. The flavours have faded to ‘pleasant green tea creaminess’ at this point, with some bonus weird fruitiness which I think is the result of cross-contamination. It’s okay, but I remember it being sooo much better. My ranking is based on how I remember this tea, creamy and nutty and delicious. I’m not going to mark it down because I let it hang around getting old in my cupboard.

Sipdown! 101/395

Sipdown 100/395!! Triple digits y’all!!

I finished this off dumping the rest of the leaf from my sample into my ingenuiTEA, and I only gravitated towards this tea as a sort of stomach settler, as my boyfriend had been up through the night ill and I wasn’t feeling so great myself when I got home from work. I drank it in bed catching up on Strictly and was super surprised by how delicious it was. I expected to like it, since I am a fan of jasmine teas, but I was not prepared for how natural and delicate the jasmine flavour was, or how juicy and almost fruity the white tea was. It’s super flavourful, and I managed three steeps Western style without the flavour profile changing too much. I think it would last even longer if I’d treated it better, too. Definitely going on my repurchase list for when I’m finally done this no-buy. But, still, 100 down, I guess?

Sipdown 99/395! Sipdown 100 here we come!!

Thank you to VariaTEA and Janelle who both sent me samples of this tea. I’m actually mixing the scraps of both to eke out one last cup today. It’s a little underleafed, but hey. I don’t know why I’m gravitating so much towards cinnamon-heavy teas at the moment, maybe it’s the snow making me want a warming tea, but I’m just going to roll with it. Sorry if everything I’m posting is the same. Anyway, I get a lot of the cinnamon in this, with a kind of brown sugar cakey aftertaste. Plain, the cinnamon is definitely the most prominent flavour, but I added a little sugar and the ‘roll’ notes of butter and Brown sugar came through a lot more. Cinnamon rolls are some of my favourite things in the world, so maybe I’m biased in saying that it doesn’t really totally convey all the flavours, but it’s still pretty nice.

Sipdown! #98/395

I really have trouble letting go of Butiki blends, even ones like this that were never really my favourites in the first place. So I added this into my focus box almost a year ago, and I’m only just sipping it down now because I held onto it way too long. Totally my own fault, of course, but now I’m having my final pot and 90% of the magic is gone. The yummy bready, cakey base is still yummy, and the vanilla cream cheese frosting flavour is still discernable, but most of the carrot cake spices have faded completely and the tea is just feeling more flat than it used to. Still, I am enjoying it. It’s a nice quiet tea for a nice quiet afternoon.

ETA: playing around with additives, and a pinch of sugar does amp up the ‘frosting’ element of this tea, but milk is a hard no. I added some to one of my cups of this and it just mutes all of the yumminess and really highlights the staleness of my tea. Oh, well.