1598 Tasting Notes
It’s another sad sipdown as I will definitely miss this tea! It’s great warm, but I’ve mostly had it cooled and it doesn’t last long that way.
Looks like whenever I’m ready to place my next order, I’ll have to pick more of this up with Vicki’s Sponge Cake!
Preparation
So, I definitely need more black teas at the office, apparently. Good thing my H&S order is being shipped directly here! (Not that I’m trying to hide it from my bf per se…. but more variety here will be nice!)
This is an interesting tea. It almost reminds me of a green with some of the notes. Odd! And it’s slightly bitter, but I guess that’s the muscatel notes you would expect from a Darjeeling? It’s a little grassy, but I’m getting honey too. Very pleasant, but not for daily consumption.
Oh and this is 1 cup away from a sipdown! I’m at 124 now, (assuming nothing arrived in the mail today), so I’m pretty happy about that! :) Of course I’ve got 10 from Butiki and 8 from Harney&Sons coming, as well as a bunch from Terri. My work is never done! Bwahahah
Preparation
Another sample from Sil!
I’m not sure what to say about this as I’m drinking it and wishing I had other teas at the office to drink instead. And it’s not this tea’s fault – I just saw that A&D have free shipping to Canada for Father’s Day and it reminds me I need to get the bf something for Sunday, and that I’d really really like to be drinking some Tiger Assam. And maybe my Tiger Assam tin could use a companion? Except it shouldn’t. :| I’m just looking at the website longingly just to tortue myself. (I’m supposed to be on a hiatus because I went a little overboard, and I don’t even know what the other A&D teas taste like but I sorta want the tins! Can you see how I went overboard before? Ha!)
This tea seems sorta mellow – it’s barely fruity and barely caramel-y and these additions don’t overwhelm the base which is also mild. It’s pleasant but I need something stronger right now.
(It’s not you it’s me)
Preparation
i totally want to order another can…
:| Meet you in the hiatus thread?
Hopefully this is a sale they will keep offering – maybe we can jump aboard then? I just realized that I’ll need to save up for Black Friday FAR in advance too…
my ultimate goal is getting to 150 by black friday. So that i can order 50 teas and not feel bad.
That would be pretty good! I’m more worried about the money when it comes to all my tea buying, so my goal is to have $150-200 set aside for all the sales and then I won’t feel guilty!
…think of all the tea 200$ could buy if we do shared orders…
I think you might have just made my head explode!
Hahahaha. Yesterday my partner said to me: “if you manage to do this one thing every month, I will tie you and buy you all the tea you want. Every month” . I gave her a look that said “you’re crazy, you have no idea what you just promised!” But yeah, $200 on shared teas is flipping awesome. I could be persuaded,
Except she didn’t say “tie”, she said “take”. Sorry, the S&M thread is on a different forum :)
Hahaha.
And yes – we will have ALL the purchasing power! :O
boxing day sales are awesome…at least they were last year. And i have my tea mule who could likely be persuaded to carry copious amounts of tea across the border for us for a small cut of the tea for her time/work effort lol
Oh yeah – I have no problem cutting your tea mule in if she’s doing the hard part!
I forgot about the Boxing Day sales too – all I remember was everyone freaking out about Black Friday.
Did you cave yet on the A&D sale yet, Sil? :P Not knowing if I want Russian Caravan or Double Knit blend is the biggest thing stopping me. ;p
haha i passed on a few boxing day sale last year, expecting there to be christmas sales. yeah. not so much.
I have not yet caved on the A&D – i am trying really hard to stick to my no purchases until July. Also, since this is the second time in a couple months that they’ve done this, i will hold out hope that they will have another one.
Neither of the two are overly smokey IMO, but i like the double knit blend followed by the russian caravan….if i recall my tasting notes properly lol both are excellent though!
Yeah that seems really reasonable! Maybe for July 4th? Do US company’s have patriotic tea sales? Because I’d take advantage of that (hello July5th bday!)
I think I was leaning that way based purely on the labels and the description! :P It’s already June 10th though and I didn’t buy tea! I’m pretty happy about that!
I’m guessing there will be a few Independence Day sales. If not, there’s always another time!
Thanks Sil for the surprise sample!
I really enjoy the tart cranberries and the sweet pears, but I don’t really taste the black teas. I… I guess I’ll take their word on it! It’s pretty tasty as an herbal though!
Preparation
Sil made this sound so good that I bought 2 oz of it. That’s sorta how I roll with Steepster.
I’m happy I picked this up though. It almost has this thick bready texture to it, as if each sip was heavy in my throat and filled me up. It’s sweet, and cinnamony and I can practically taste warm icing. And… the best part is that this is only the first steep! The instructions were VERY clear that I should resteep this 5 times. Can’t wait to see what magic that does to it.
Preparation
lol unless you’re kittenna you should get at least 2-3 resteeps out of this. I typically stop at 2/3 only because by that time, i’m like oookkkkkk enough of that tea since it has such a distinctive taste.
I agree – I steeped it twice and that was enough! (For today)
Hey, Kittenna totally got 2 re-steeps out of her leaves. Perhaps I didn’t update my note. I definitely preferred infusion #1 though.
okay, two reviews, one by a fellow british columbian….. i am intrigued. i’ll place an order.
Here’s today’s sipdown! I like doing one a day if I’m drinking multiple cups – feels like I’m making progress trying things out and shrinking my cupboard down to 100! (Wow. I can’t believe that a few months ago 50 was my limit of teas. Now I understand that quantity doesn’t really matter because I don’t have A LOT of each tea- it doesn’t take that much more room than it did when I had 40 teas. Except now I’m buying more tins. So… that will change. Eep. Slippery slope anyone?)
This is rather good. It smells strongly of chocolate and nut, although the tea itself is milder than I’d expected. It’s very soothing and comforting though.
Thank you Sil!
Preparation
haha yeah… kittena is always like…i might have 800 teas but they’re all like 2-3 cup sizes max. YOU have more tea than me! you have large sizes….far as i’m concerned she still has more tea than me lol
Haha those tins are what makes it really dangerous. For that matter I wish more companies offered ~1 oz. amounts.
I’ve stopped purchasing tea in amounts greater than 1oz. If you don’t have 1oz sizes i don’t want to shop there….unless i can split an order with a friend :)
Totally! 1oz is a pretty good amount for most teas!
Maybe our stash should be judged purely on the size it takes up, or how much it weighs in its entirely! Or… I guess we could just not people for their stashes. Mwahahaha (sweeps it all out of view)
Haha Sil, I probably do have more tea than you, but probably closer to double the amount than triple, which cupboard counts would indicate. You also go through tea a lot faster than I do.
“You’ll swear you’re drinking a cup of hot cocoa, even though there’s no chocolate in the blend”
Lies!
(Don’t get me wrong. It’s still a very good cup, but I can tell the difference between this and cocoa.)
Haha. Is it just the mouthfeel or the actual flavour.
?
It totally tastes like caramel to me.
It didn’t remind me of hot cocoa either.
I’m not sure what was supposed to be cocoa-ish. Presumably the flavour? I get some notes that are chocolatley, but nowhere near an actual cocoa drink! It’s tasty but not a replacement.
I think i read before that the coconut-chamomile combination is supposed to create a chocolate-like note. But chamomile is always chamomile to me! Can’t fool them taste buds.
Sneaky! I didn’t know that!
Haha, this certainly didn’t fool me into thinking that it tasted like cocoa… but it did taste to me like a fairly decadent beverage, and I was quite impressed. I couldn’t ever taste the chamomile in it (I was apprehensive to pick it up initially because I thought I hated chamomile, but the girls at DT assured me I wouldn’t know it was in there… so true.)
Men I really didn’t care for this tea..but my bff claims it grows on you and she drinks it regularly.
Hmmm. This is a touch odd. It’s earthy and minty and I guess there’s vanilla but the latter two ingredients make me think of cotton candy. That’s been dropped in dirt? And, even with that in mind, I’m still not quite sure where to rate it. It’s not bad, but that cocoa spice pu-erh I had from tealux is just so much better in comparison – I probably wouldn’t re-buy this one.
The sample sizes are pretty decent though for $1.50. Definiately 5 cups or so in there, and I scooped them up when everything was 25% off last month!
Yeah, I was planning an order for those two as well (and a couple others) but the shipping is so expensive for me to the US!
Yeah it’s totally pricey. I think I paid $21.50 (cdn) for two packs of tea, so that’s $11 each for 65-80g. I really liked it though…