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Last matcha at work today. A bit bland tasting today, probably because I just had a strong tasting tea just before it.

The matcha kinda pooled at the bottom of my latte so the last few swallows were deeeelish.

This is a little something from my first trade with ToiToi from a while ago. I finally got my trades organized yesterday so there will be a little more variety from here until I’m finished with them. I brought a big old bag of trades into work because that’s where I drink most of them. Anyway.

I’m a little bit skeptical of liking this because it is a green tea and I’m not really partial to those. It smells quite interesting, but definitely green. I don’t think I’ve ever had a houjicha before. At least not one identified as such. Also my first Lupicia tea.

Well, it’s certainly toasty. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever said that about a tea. Toasty. It’s an interesting flavour. I’m not picking up much caramel at all, but I did let it cool down to room temperature while I was avoiding drinking it for fear that I wouldn’t like it. I don’t know why I do that. It’s counterproductive. Now I need to drink this cup and the next cup and 2 cups of matcha in the next hour and a half in order to make the vanpool and I’m probably going to have to pee all the way home and that will suck.

Well, it’s morning at work so I must be drinking French Vanilla matcha. I would like it a lot except I keep doing weird things with my mouth today that I can’t seem to stop so that’s distracting me from my tea. Poo.

First off, this smells absolutely fantastic. The honey smell is very prevalent and strong. The smell was really faint when the tea bag was dry, but as soon as I poured water on it, boom, in your face smell. Kind of surprising for a chamomile blend. I have some hopes for something I’ll like from a company that I haven’t been impressed with yet. This tea is from yssah who was kind enough to send me a bunch of Wissotzky teabags.

I think I oversweetened this a bit, since it had honey in it already, but this is pretty decent. Not something I would seek out though, since I find chamomile kind of boring most of the time and prefer to sweeten my teas with rock sugar because of the distinct flavour that honey imparts. Still, for a bagged tea, pretty decent.

Couple of tea bags of this from yssah about a million years ago that I’m finally getting to. I actually took all of my trades out of their bags last night and labeled them by swapper so I can get to them at random rather than go person by person. I think it’ll be faster this way since I won’t be stuck avoiding moving on to the next bag just because I don’t want to try one of the old bag’s teas immediately. Anyway.

There is just something in this tisane that is not sitting right with me. It’s not the mango. I don’t think it’s the passionfruit. I’m pretty sure it’s not even the hibiscus. But there is something that is just off that I do not like at all. Distinctly unpleasant cup of tea.

Well I love raspberry and I like quince. My grandmother used to make quince jelly from a quince tree in her backyard. We’d have quince jelly instead of cranberry sauce every Thanksgiving and Christmas growing up. My dad still hoards that last jar of it, since my grandma grew too frail a long time ago to make it, and sold that property. I miss her.

Anyway, this tea. Certainly has an interesting smell to it. I’m really not sure if it’s appetizing to me or not. I’m leaning towards not. It’s like the leaves of the quince tree are in there instead of the fruit. Not quite right.

For tasting, this is just okay. I like the fruitiness and the raspberry comes in as a subtle taste to the bang from the quince that really isn’t sitting quite right. Maybe I like it more as a jelly and not so much as a real fruit. I have enough for one cup yet so I might try it with a bit more sugar to see if it makes things even out.

So I’m not quite sure why I bought this white matcha, unflavoured anyway. White tea and I do not have the best of relationships going and this is like super concentrated white tea.

The smell is quite like old grass and hay, like the hay bales we used to have in my backyard when I lived in Massachusetts and my Dad had our yard flattened so we could build a plastic and wood skating rink in the backyard. The hay bales held down the plastic around the edges. Mice also lived in them. Hay is not my favourite thing. Those skating rinks were awesome, pretty big too, like 90′ × 30′ in size. Fun in the winter.

This matcha I made up as a latte with a bit more sugar than normal because I’m kind of afraid to drink it. The smell is very bleh. The taste…isn’t as bad as I thought. Still very much ‘white tea’ and a tad astringent, but I put enough sugar in to compensate I think. It cooled down a lot while I was waffling about drinking it and futzing around on Kickstarter. I don’t know that I like this enough to drink this on its own so I’ll have to have a thought about what I can mix it with to still drink it. Or give it away, I guess. Thoughts?

You can find this matcha here if you so desire and like white tea better than I do: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/white-matcha.html

Well, I think I was thirsty since I drank this so fast it was like it was water. Tasty though. Waiting for some of my matcha to warm back up to room temperature so I can try some new ones. Like lime!

Well, I’ve had this before as a matcha latte with a black base, but this is my first time trying it with the classic green base. We also went down a flavour level…pretty arbitrarily actually. I think I might have liked it better with the robust flavouring rather than the distinctive which I have.

The matcha flavour is very much stronger in this one, tasting ‘greener’ than the other, obviously, but a little greener than my other green matchas as well. I don’t know if the chocolate just doesn’t stand up as well to the matcha or what. It’s a little disappointing actually. Although I do want to try it again with a little raspberry matcha blended in too. I would go make it right now except for the blissfully purring old kitty on my lap who’s squinched his eyes closed and is shedding white fur all over my clothes, as always. Something about white kitties, they always seem to have really dense sheddy fur.

Anyway, while disappointing, this isn’t totally bad tasting. I still taste some chocolate, just not as strong as I like, and the matcha taste isn’t bad per se, just I prefer it more to be in the background. I think I’m still not up to drinking straight matcha, though some just arrived at my door today from Tealux. Off to the giant box of untried teas, goes that order. Except for the matcha which will, of course, go in the freezer.

You can find this tea here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/belgium-chocolate-matcha.html