1598 Tasting Notes
Thank you MissB for this sample and the hundred others (not quite) that you managed to stuff into that envelope. Way to raise the standards on our swap. raises eyebrow
No worries. I will send you amazing things in return!
This was a pretty good chocolatey blend. It’s really rich and dark. So dark. Surprisingly dark. I wish the blend had a slightly nicer base to go with the flavouring, but I wouldn’t say no to drinking more of this.
And this is a great start to trying out all my new samples! (My cupboard is up to 181 now…)
Preparation
Thank you Shadowfall for letting me try this! So I just read a really entertaining SPN fic where Dean is actually Lucifer and well, that pretty much throws Season 5 and the apocalypse on its side, and I got to work thinking all about Destiel and amazing angel stuff. (It was this one: http://archiveofourown.org/works/556708)
But I didn’t bring my Destiel blend.
I have this.
And you know what? That’s ok. I went months and months just reading all about John and Sherlock, one romancing the other and usually only after a lot of angst and misunderstanding before those two doofuses worked everything out, and then I realized I had overlooked an interesting pair.
YES. The Government and the Inspector. Mycroft IS so much more than appearances would let you believe – that’s part of what he does, is it not? How else can one man be the Government and walk through society without a billion bodyguards as entourage? He’s like John in that he has BAMF-moments that no one expects. But then Lestrade is totally like John too when he is as straightforward as he seems and uncorruptable and utterly loyal. And I’m just making this all up as I go, but what if these two are like different aspects of John? Huh. Anyway, they are both great men who do not seem like they would be a match AT ALL but now they’ve at least shared some screen time so FOLKS IT IS CANON NOW. That’s how it works, right?
And this tea? It’s an interesting mixture that doesn’t work against itself even though it should. It creates something wonderful and amazing, yet understated.
Preparation
becuz of reasonz!!!
Mystrade! Oh goodness… haven’t read this exactly – girl!Lestrade/Mycroft, yes I have. Which is weird, because that’s technically het. But still. As for Destiel, it was the first SPN pairing I really liked… and I’m still making that one up to all my Wincest friends. Hmm I should try some Destiel tea!
I have a couple Mystrade fics in my favourites. I like the pairing.
I’ve never read any girl!Lestrade – I haven’t delved into genderswap fic much at all… (or yet, because who knows!)
And I am so hooked on Destiel. I’ve put Johnlock aside now for months now! (goodness! But I needed variety)
I haven’t tried any Wincest because I would probably need bit to be somehow believable in order to read it and an afraid of bad wiring if I go in randomly. This was a fun faux-wincest fic: http://archiveofourown.org/works/995919
And have you posted any Mystrade pairings? If not please do so and I’ll meet you in the fanfic thread!!! :p
IT’S CANON, GOSH DARN IT ALL.
I’ve seen all of the Sherlock show, and for some reason have never felt the need to get into the fanfictional side of it, but for some reason Mystrade is like the only pair I’m invested in.
I just got my Season 3 DVDs today!
Wooo – that’s awesome Starfevre.
And Sami – I never really meant to get into the fanfic side of things but I was curious, and after I read my first amazing story (The Progress of Sherlock Holmes: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173274?view_full_work=true) I was hooked. I loved seeing how peole would interpret the characters in different situations, and reunite them the way they never would in the show.
I totally need to re-read that fic sometime too… Some time when it’s ok if I’m up until 3AM…
Mystrade is so great. I felt pretty bad for Lestrade in Series three though. :(
VariaTEA gave me a sample of this and I dumped the entire thing into my mason jar! OH YEAH. This is a mason jar tea. I let it steep for 10 minutes and added milk and it is pretty delicious.
Still a little thin, but, it’s not an actual hot chocolate so I’ll do the best with what i have. And this is enjoyable. Not sure I’d want 100g of it, but maybe 50. Thanks for letting me steal your sample!!!
(And I had better get off to bed. I’ll regret staying up in 6.5 hours. DOH)
Preparation
Sometimes you drink a tea sample, and only have enough to enjoy two cups, and then poof! It’s gone. And months go by, and even a year goes by and you’ve had hundreds of cups of different teas in between, and yet, you still find yourself thinking about this cup. This one that got away.
And then you email the company to see about ordering something similar and is there a way to make the shipping to Canada more affordable, and they reply back that they can offer you a custom black tea package deal and throw in that tea that got away since they can see you’re such a huge fan of it…
And it finally arrives!
And the tins are beautifully packaged and the box smells amazing. There’s no question which tea to try first. And it’s just as good as you remember! Your memory doesn’t fail you. Everything is so amazing!!!
(And I highly, highly recommend ordering from Hugo Teas due to their incredible customer service. I did the entire transaction through Facebook and they were very quick/responsive, as well as adding several dashes of humour.)
Flavors: Wood
Preparation
Tea companies with great customer service and great teas are the best!
Oh, that’s so awesome! So glad to hear about another company with superlative customer service. :)
Cavocorax, Agreed, Organic Morning’s Journey is excellent and Tyler obviously cares about customer service. Have you also tasted his Full-Steam Black Tea?
This is such a beautiful story. wipes a tear
I haven’t tried it yet, but I bought it! I told him that I was interested in his tea, but couldn’t see hitting the free shipping threshold due go the limited selection of black teas, and he loaded me up with four different ones. :). Maybe I’ll go back for some non-black teas in the future. I’m just so impressed!
That’s cool!
:) I feel really lucky! I’m so happy I facebooked them!
So when you posted pictures of your orders today in the mail thread I had to look. I saw KC, MO and thought man another tea company here in KC I didn’t know about. I am going to have to hunt down where he sells his tea and pick some up. Shang and Hugo in the same city, who would have thought. I am really interested in trying this now.
I haven’t heard of Shang, but I hope you enjoy Hugo!
This is all quite wonderful.
If we still carried Morning’s Journey (aside from the heavily guarded private stock), then we’d post this nice bit of prose on the website—but that would be rather rude for everyone who can’t enjoy it like this.
Thanks for the support.
-Tyler
Awww. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind my review. I can’t wait to dig into the rest!
I figured this would be another great mason jar tea so I steeped a huge batch of it up, and then to coax additional flavour from it, I let it sit for 10 minutes.
That might have been a mistake. I can really taste bark, and then a bit of orange, and then just a little cream. Huh. So I added a bit of milk and that toned the bark down and upped the cream, but this still isn’t as good as it smells. GUYS – this smells amazing. But the smell is just a trick.
Sipdown! (125)
I thought this would be another great one for the mason jar, and I had enough tea to do it. Well, why not? I can drink this all evening, and then that’s one less flavoured tea in my cupboard. I’m slowly moving more towards non-flavoured teas again. I think that’s a spring thing? But I’ll be back for this one in the fall!
Preparation
Yay for the mason jar!! I have a feeling it will help me get through leaf quite quickly given its size and that is exciting.
Yes – it’s exciting and also saddening! I’m hoping to use this for teas that I’m not planning to re-steep so as not to feel like I’m wasting anything. :P But it was a nice way to polish off this bag! Hope you gets yours soon!
Me too. I am so excited for all my new teaware.
I joined TEAM MASON JAR when I went to DAVIDsTEA today. I’ve been thinking about it for a week now, and… well why the hell not? It’s not like I have a lot of tea-ware. I pretty much have one perfect mug and two timolino’s. This will be awesome for in the summer.
I wanted something awesome for my new jar, so I decided to drink this tea. I added a few dried mulberries into the mix afterwards for extra fruitiness, and it was great. I love how this tea is nice and mild, and fruity. It’s maybe not as awesome as I had originally thought now that I’ve had it a few times and gotten over my IT’S MULBERRY joy, but it’s still good. And I forgot how great it is to actually see the colour of my tea as I drink it.
Preparation
Yes yes yes mason jar!!!
How does this one compare to Gold Rush or Mulberry Magic?
Yes! Team Mason Jar! #gentlyclinksmugs
And I find it to be a more straightforward mulberry white than the other two. Mulberry Magic is quite different because it’s the leaf not the berries, but there are some similarities to Gold Rush with the berries. But, this one is quite a bit cheaper than Gold Rush!
Yes finally a cheaper version of Gold Rush!!
Excellent! I find Gold Rush a touch too sweet actually, but I do like mulberries.
Woot for Mason Jars and also for RiverTea blends!
I hope you guys enjoy it. I haven’t had Gold Rush in over a year so it’s harder to compare, but I DO like this one. :D
So I bought 9 different teas for my sister in law from Davids – about 20g of a variety to help her figure out what she likes. I bought this one as well, and then sorta wanted it for myself, and then compromised by taking one scoop out so I could try it and decide for myself later on if I should buy more.
It’s really refreshingly orange, and what I call, zippy. The cinnamon and chili are the most dominant flavours in this blend, and I like it. It’s been ages since I had an orange-cinnamon tea. I haven’t tried H&S’s green blend so I can’t compare it to that, but I do like the green version of this type of tea about as much as I do the black. It does taste less like artificial sweetener than the H&S black blend did, so maybe this would be worth stocking up on… (It does still taste a little like artificial sweetener though. Just not as noticeably? And it could be something in the blend that makes it taste that way without it actually being sweetener.)
Flavors: Cinnamon, Orange Zest
Preparation
This is gone, but won’t be missed. I never did get a cookie and cream taste from it.
That’s ok though. There’s so much variety it’s necessary that I narrow it down somehow.
I’m trying to narrow down an order now. It’s next to impossible.
Ordering with someone forced me to narrow down my choices so that worked out well. If I was ordering on my own I would get one of everything and then cry when I saw the bill. I am slowly learning what I like and don’t like matcha wise though so that makes me happy.
By the way Cavo, what flavor level was the caramel popcorn you sent me?!? I will be stocking up on that one first chance I get.
It didn’t say on the bag, so I assume it’s the default level? I won it, so I didn’t choose. :) It’s damn good though!
This tea sounds super disappointing, but then, the combination confuses me. At least you never have to drink it again ;)
Yeah it was ok. It was sweet, but I couldn’t really get any cookies from it. Maybe it was supposed to be like Orea filling? But that’s just sugar. There’s tons of better options out there!
I so wanted this to taste like Oreos, but it was just awful. Blech.
Yay! I’m home, and drinking tea, and watching Supernatural! I’m halfway through season 5. OMG. It’s so intense. And I have so many episodes ahead of me. I love those Winchester boys, but I gotta say I feel pretty bad for Cas. (No spoilers there.)
My friend found this on tumblr and was awesome enough to pass it on: http://yelloweyedcrowley.tumblr.com/post/75890779259 (YES. Destial support. :P)
This is a pretty decent cuppa. It makes me want to try Mint to Be as the non-green scum caffeinated version of this!
Also it’s going to be 3:00AM by the time I’m done this episode of SPN, but I still feel it’s worth it. I went out to a party and we brought the toddler, which meant I was on high alert all night from making sure she didn’t get into something she shouldn’t, and then I had to talk to strangers and be nice…. Eeek. So, I feel this is a just reward. She just went to sleep at 2, so she’ll probably let me sleep until noon. #fingerscrossed
Oh and I’m at 126 teas after doing a bunch of sipdowns and packaging swaps and just being awesome! :D I… I do have 48 teas coming in though so I still need 24ish more sipdowns for the month. Could happen! A lot of the incoming ones are small! :D
Preparation
Look at you with your small (relatively) cupboard. My goal is to be under 150 by the time I go to Florida. I don’t think that is unreasonable as I am at 157 now and I leave the end of the month.
Aww, I can’t imagine what it would be like to watch after a little one, especially at a party.
Mint to Be is definitely worth checking out if you like this one. :)
Dude! 126 is amazing. :D
Also, at the bottom of that post… “I just watched this, and Castiel literally continues to shuffle closer to Dean as they talk.” Probably Misha trying something, and they kept it. :D
Man, I thought I had a lot of tea until I joined this website.
And I don’t watch Supernatural, but even I can see that Dean and Cas are totally in love with each other.
Hehe, am I allowed to be proud of myself for having done 3 sipdowns yesterday and be down at 305???
TheTeaFairy… You need a new hobby :)
This just made my day, I LOVE Supernatural and I’m around the same point in Season 5! tea and good TV=awesome day.
Lol, Nextdoor, I have a zillion other interests, I just don’t clutter them! (Well except for teaware. Oh, and shoes, that’s an out of control situation!!)
OMG, 25 one shot??? Ok, you are my hero VariaTEA, someone to look up to, I am now your humble follower, lol! Boy do I need more closet room, I have shelves racks in the basement all devoted to shoes, it’s like tea, I will never get enough it seems…
Unfortunately a few of those shoes actually got thrown in the garbage by my roommate. Never, EVER, toss your shoes into a garbage bag when travelling between home and school. No matter how much space it might save in the car.
@VariaTEA that one thing we don’t have in common. I’ve never owned more than three pairs of shoes at once. For the time being, that’s a pair of dress/work shoes, and two pairs of runners. One of those pairs I’ve had since 10th grade.
Haha. Well if we had everything in common, that would be no fun. We need to have some variation between us.
Also, at any given time I have at least 5-10 pairs of converse alone
Yowsers. I nearly forgot to reply here!
I did grab Mint to Be! I can’t wait to try it.
And 126 is great, but I have a lot incoming. It’ll be tough to hit 150 for March 1st! But… that’s not a bad thing. :D
Thank you Sami! :P #highfives I love that post. And I love the cast for being so ridiculous about things in real life.
Oh, and I’m wish Roswell Strange. I’ve probably only got 3 pairs of shoes too.
i’m at 158! yay! not that it matters given the teas i wil likely have added to my cupboard by march 1 lol
Hahha. By Mar 1 I should go down a bit since a lot of those are pretty small samples.
Unless…. unless I get you to pick more up for me while you are in Florida. Definitely, 100% want the Nina’s Japon…
i’m looking at 3 from Nina and maybe 8? from lupicia…. then there’s the 4 from A&D..