1598 Tasting Notes
I bought 2 oz of this after hearing what OMGsrsly thought of it, and I’m happy I did!
My neck is just killing me – this tension headache has just been creeping up my neck and made itself at home in my neck and this is just what the Doctor ordered.
Not that I expect it to fix everything, but this tea is just so relaxing. I love all the citrus notes, and the lavender/sage combo works. It’s very soothing and warm and.. lovely.
The only downside is that this is (like a lot of the Teavana blends) VERY heavy tea. I probably have enough to make 5 cups? (Much like DAVIDsTEA’s Spiced Fig). So I’m really happy I tried it, and I expect to enjoy it, but I’ll wait for another sale before I consider re-stocking it once this is gone.
Preparation
Sil drank this earlier and that reminded me that I still had enough left for a cup. Why not sit and enjoy it now? (Sipdown; 85)
It’s hard for me to rate this because it’s a white tea and I don’t often drink them, and I wouldn’t often be in the mood for this creamy cup of lemon, but it is nice.
I’ve been drinking this for hours, although I only re-steeped it once. Part of me feels guilty, like I’m wasting quality tea here, but OTOH, I am drinking 20 oz of it so it’s not like I didn’t get much for that 1 scoop of leaves.
I should try my Amoda teas soon, but I want to add them to my cupboard and log them when I do, so I’ll wait a few ore days to make sure everyone else has had a chance to do so. If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone knows these are Butiki teas that you can ONLY get in the box, I’d just log it and not mention Amoda. :P
all my tea is on my table at the moment.. so i can figure out how a cupboard half the size as it was takes up more room! 4 oz of LB makes me happy to see haha
Wait, another 4 oz? Didn’t we both order 4 oz just a few months ago? I think I still have 2oz left. I need to stop treating it as such a rare commodity and enjoy it I guess (multiple resteeps or not!))
I bet it’s the french teas that are taking up all your space. Didn’t they all come in tins? Are you going to post pics?
I can’t wait to grab my pile of tea. :D
haha you mean your BOX of tea…. i will take pics this weekend..it’s MUCH smaller than normal. i think it’s just all the weird shapped bags or something. I dunno. No not another 4oz.. but somehow in my black friday fog i did pick up 4oz each of verdant’ campfire blend and the vanilla citrus spice lol apparently i really needed 8oz of tea! sad part is…i have a 10$ coupon now and kinda want the elderberry herbal as a non black option.
Don’t feel bad, I basically did the same thing the other week with LB. Resteeped once but steeped 500ml at a time. It’s just so much easier!
I have some Verdant coupons too! I’m gonna use them to buy my birthday present, although I’m not sure what that will be…yet! But my birthday is next month, so I have time to figure it out :)
YAY for a BOX of tea. I’m so excited.
And thanks – I’m happy I’m not “wasting” it. :P (I’m not if you’re not)
The Amoda Butiki teas are up. Someone put two of the three up, so I finished and added the info that was missing.
Thanks!
What steeping perimeters are you guys using for the laoshan black? I just got my Verdant box today and I’m planning on brewing some in the morning. I don’t have much experience with good black teas.
I prefer western brew for 3 mins, boiling
That’s how I usually do it too, although occasionally I get ambitious and drink it gongfu style, following the guidelines on Verdant’s site.
Backlog: I’m done with this one. It was an interesting experiment, but it was also so damn difficult to make this one pop they way I’d like.
Yes! My assessment exactly.
I tried this and it was not very good so I gave up trying and gave it away. Any tea you really need to work at to be tasty is not worth repurchasing IMHO.
I agree! I’m not a fan of fussy teas. The payoff had better be phenomenal.
I had issues with this one at first because it is finicky – but I’ve figured out that it’s much better with a short steep time (like, three minutes), at least imho. Don’t know if you’ve both tried that, but maybe food (or tea) for thought?
I did, but the results just weren’t consistent for me.
No biggie. I had 30g to play with, and now I can move on to the next tea!
Hmmm, I might need to play with my sample some more.
I feel like I needed this tea today.
I feel like nothing else would do.
Thankfully I have it on hand.
Maybe it’ll snap me out of this funk.
ETA: It did. It snapped me out and I feel more like a thinking breathing human being again.
Oh and here’s a trailer for the Christmas episode of Doctor Who: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TWwYLlcPekA
Hmmm. Interesting trailer. I really am excited for 12, but I don’t know how the episode’s going to be. I feel like there’s too much pizazz around it.
Yeah, it does seem all over the place.
To be honest, I’ve never really liked the Christmas episodes. They seem like they’re usually the worst – super cheesy robot Santas etc running around. Sorta cringe-worthy.
My favourite was the Christmas Carol one – was that last year?
I’m excited about 12 too.
I totally can’t watch the trailer. Matt Smith was my first doctor and thinking about the end of him makes me weepy. I’ll be a disaster on Christmas night. I am still excited to see what Capaldi brings to the table, but I have such fondness for Smith.
Awwwww. :( I get that. I really do. I struggled to finish watching the end of 11 because I just didn’t want to move on. I actually stopped watching DW for 6 months because I didn’t want to watch the last few episodes.
And then I fell in love with Smith.
So I’m hoping this transition won’t be so difficult.
I think I will need a fresh box of tissues for that episode…
i must have watched last years xmas episode a good 15 times. it was so comforting and fun! and i love matt smith, but hell if i’m not super excited about capaldi. he made me almost cry in torchwood and i haven’t forgotten him since. i think he is gonna be magic. (just like i knew matt would be. those cats can act!)
Glad this tea made you feel better, Cavo. :)
I had a craving for this today, but sadly it was the same time I did the dishes and I ended up steeping this for about 7 minutes.
Huh. I’m sorry Cafe Vanilla. You SMELL wonderful. You’re just a little strong. I’ll have to add a little bit of milk to even it out.
This is a really nice tea though. The vanilla is subtle but not underpowered if that makes sense.
I’ve had this unopened pack sitting around for a year but I’ve been afraid to try it.
My first sip? It started off flat, but near the end I started to get some orange-pekoe goodness. Followed by coffee grounds.
My cup smells like coffee. I didn’t clean out everything at the top so I probably had a few grounds sneak in. My machine is a few years old so I don’t know if the new ones still have that issue. Either way, I’m not going to completely clean this just because I’m switching between coffee and tea insta-drinks.
I’ll probably stick with coffee drinks in this, but I just wanted to try it and log it.
And an evil part of me wanted to add it to our Steepster database! Go ahead! ADD it to your cupboard!!!
(And I do like my Tassimo. I just don’t think it’s suitable for tea. And I can’t drink the chai latte’s anymore because the ‘milk’ tastes so artificial and weird. But the Tim Hortons coffeee… gimme!)
No judgement here! Have a Keurig, which is now mostly only used for hot water, but am with you on the Timmy’s k-cups! mmm!
I find both make everything taste like coffee, whether its hot water or tea or hot chocolate etc.
Oh, the hot chocolate is really awful too. I guess they include it for mocha’s only because on it’s own it’s so weak and watery.
But the coffee is good. I’m not a coffee person so I like hitting a button and… whammo!
Della Terra has a black unflavoured blend? Ok – I’d better snap it up and give it a shot!
And I like it. It’s very English Breakfast-y, with a bit of a sharp note at the end of each sip that is trying to snap me awake. It’s not working, but it’s not the tea’s fault as I barely had any sleep at all last night. I don’t expect miracles.
But I haven’t had an unflavoured tea in too long. This was nice. It’s more complex than I had anticipated and I bet it would be lovely with milk and sugar too.
Preparation
This tea is normally pretty amazing, but I think I accidently underleafed it.
Also, it’s a rooibos. I probably should have steeped it longer.
I’m sorry Carrot Cake. I know you can be better than this!
It pairs well with Graham crackers, btw.
Also, I wanted to ask – have you guys had issues with your “likes” disappearing? I read everyone’s notes and like them as I go, and then when I go back I find they aren’t there. :( I think part of it is my phone doesn’t register anything, but I think it does it when I’m on the computer too. (Speak up and lemme know I’m not imagining things!)
I’m having disappearing likes all over the place – for the past two weeks or so now.
Ditto
I’ve had disappearing likes since pretty much the beginning of time. You’re not alone!
constantly. nothing changed me more than a swap with a tea buddy from paris though…. everything’s different now.
I have that problem too. The first page will usually be OK, but as soon as I load more, the likes seem to disappear. But if I check the note page, my picture is usually there.
I may sneak a cup of this from you…
OK, so I’m not the only one!
OMGsrsly – I’ll keep an eye on that! Hopefully they’re actually sticking!
Sil – that can be managed! I guess once your Mandala order comes on, we can arrange a swap?
yeah..sharon’s back in the country on the 16th so i suspect sometime that week i’ll have everything from her.
I don’t know what spiced plum is supposed to taste like, but I bought it out of curiosity. To be honest, it’s not my favourite. I do get fruity plum, with that dark, dank note or whatever it is that you get with plums. And I also get cinnamon. Not as much cinnamon as a cinnamon spice spice tea though.
I think my problem is that I’m not that into plums? And I should have known that? Oh well. It’s only an oz. :P
Yeah, it’s kinda expensive. I buy it whenever there’s a sale though. Fingers crossed for Boxing Day. :)
Oh, I use 1 baking tbsp per 16oz. I don’t remember what it says to use, but that works for me.
Thanks for the tip!
And I’m hoping for Boxing Day too. I should have a little money for that.
My parents might want to wait until January to give me my money, but by then all the sales will be over. Fingers crossed I manage to get something tho. :)
I ended up getting a decent amount of money but I feel like I should probably just use some of it for useful stuff to make up for not working. :| Or I could buy a nice variable kettle. And some Boxing Day Tea. Or some Justea right now. /0\ Maybe I’ll split it. :P
(And of course it’s Xmas money so I don’t actually have it but I’m awful for pre-spending)
(ME too!)