52teas

I like this a lot more than when I made it at work; maybe water temperature had something to do with the odd flavors that I got last time. This time it’s a bit more straightforward: definitely tasting the dates first and foremost, with a hint of creamy vanilla. No coconut, though, which is sad and odd considering there are huge flakes of it in the sample I have.

Um. Hm.

Hm.

Well, I don’t DISLIKE this. I’m just not sure how great it is. This definitely does have a very strong taste of dates. I’ve never had dates that were not of the bacon-wrapped variety, but I now know exactly what they taste like sans bacon. I can taste a hint of coconut in the aftertaste, but no vanilla.

This is a very, very unique tea. I still am thinking on this.

This tea feels so complex… let’s start at the beginning.
The leaves smell odd. It kinda reminds me of the mintiness of tooth paste and pinesol. Or a minty Christmas tree… But luckily the brew smells lighter and sweeter than that. Cause that wasn’t the most pleasant thing I’ve ever stuck my nose into.
The brew is a nice light amber. If you can’t tell I’m nervous about this one mostly cause I don’t like spearmint.
And taste… This is where they pull the rug out from under you. There is some kind of crazy undertone of vanilla or cream or something. I believe this is due to the champagne portion of the flavoring and champagne is an amorphous enough of a flavor that it has to be blamed for the creaminess and some kind of sparkly tingle flavor. Weird/NEAT!
On top of that is a light amount of lime. The lime seems like the binding flavor as it is there but everything else radiates around it. Really it’s like a lime cream soda. Delicious.
And somewhere sitting in its own little dark corner (yea! it’s not prominent!) is the spearmint. The rest of the flavors are very bright so I agree that a darker flavor in the blend is good and necessary to provide the bottom of the blend and let the other flavors spring board off of it. It’s not over powering but as my tea is cooling off it is masking the other flavors a little more. This is where the crazy interplay of flavors come in… mint and champagne must equal “sparkly”! I don’t know how they thought that up but it works with the spearmint flavor coming out so late in the game that you really register sparkles before mint.
After almost finishing my 2 oz. I feel that the interesting points in the blend are a little too much. Cup one is all about discovering and as you can see there is a lot to discover and experience… and then cup after cup you kinda get used to it and the excitement goes away and you’re left with a very complicated tea that you’ve picked a prodded at so it has lost its shine. I really wish each cup brought about the same excitement but… I guess it doesn’t have any staying power for me.
I think 2 oz. for a party where many people will get to experience something new in exciting is a great idea for this tea… but for personal everyday drinking it’s not staying wonderful.

Chai with Chocolate video review http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhxSHJQCvaA

Some colorful language (our teas are THAT good)

The Formosan oolong is soft and buttery. The raisin and vanilla notes are just a beautiful touch. It kind of reminds me of nice cinnamon raisin toast except there’s no cinnamon (Maybe I should have included that). I don’t think you’ll find a raisin flavored tea anywhere else. Definitely not a raisin flavored oolong, and absolutely not an oolong of this caliber.

I’m glad my batch came out with a little extra for me. I have a feeling this one is going to sell really, really fast, and we are absolutely limiting this blend to these ten pouches (pardon me, it looks like we sold one, so make that NINE pouches).

This is a really special treat. I hope everyone who gets one enjoys it as much as I do.

This one is growing on me. Or maybe not so much growing as me getting more accustomed to the flavour. I take it with a good amount of milk and that helps the heavy scratchy flavour a lot.

I still don’t really think I would like pumpkin pie if introduced to it though and I’ll leave the rating where it is.

I’m still a freezing bugger, so I went to make some fresh tea and then I spotted this one on the table.

A warm sort of flavour. Perfect.

I remember liking it best with milk, but I don’t have any. I’ll have to do without.

I just realised when I poured that there were a couple of Yunnan Jig leaves still in the cup that I forgot to rinse out. Doesn’t seem to have made any difference though.

Added a bit of cane sugar to it. Not a lot, just a pinch. Maybe it’s the sugar or maybe it’s just because I really needed a warm flavour like this right now, but I’m feeling generous today so I’m upping the rating a bit.

I couldn’t let Mike stew in uncertainty for too long. And I was curious as to what this would be like when it hadn’t been ruined. So I made a small pot and carefully carefully timed the steeping with the kitchen timer.

The aroma was pretty much the same. Sweetly spicy, sort of, with the fennel note. And a note of pepper too. I nabbed a small moutful of it plain and the first thought I had when I tasted it was… soap. Spicy soap. A bit sweet too, a sweetness just exactly out of reach, but mostly soap. I’m struggling really hard to not find such a negative word, but I can’t. I’m not entirely certain I’d like pumpkin pie if I was ever presented with it.

On recommendation from several people, I had the rest with a bit of milk.
That helped! It took the odd note off the aroma. It was pretty much the same, just toned down. I liked the taste a lot better too. The soapiness dissappeared. The milk did get a slightly sour note, which was definitely not because it was getting bad because I tested it first.

While I was at it, I tried adding a bit of cane sugar too. That was nice too. I don’t know if maybe I’m just drowning out the flavour this way, but for me this works.

But I still don’t think I like pumpkin pie much.

YIPPIEEEEEE! I BOUGHT A STEEPSTER SELECT ITEM! Now that that’s out of my system here’s the confession. I haven’t got the first clue what pumpkin tastes like. Or smells like. Or anything. Pumpkin pie even less. In Denmark we get little bitty pumpkiny things for decoration in variating colours and shapes and big ones that people make pumpkin lanterns out of. It’s not something we really eat a whole lot of.

Therefore I’m not particularly concerned when everybody seems to complain about their various pumpkin pie teas not tasting all that much like pumpkin. Because… I wouldn’t know anyway. After the vanilla date debacle this probably ought to worry me a bit. I mean, what if it turns out I don’t like pumpkins at all?

Well, the smell of the leaves is sort of dark. It’s a dark smell. I can find the cinnamon but mostly it’s dominated by this other smell that I don’t know how to describe. Kind of spicey but not. Sweet but not. I’m reminded a bit of fennel which I suspect I shouldn’t, but it’s the closest I can get to a description.

It brews up a sort of dark golden. A bit like a dark liquid honey. The aroma is a bit like the loose leaves, but the tea itself is shining through, making the whole thing sweeter, less spicy (but not) and less of the fennel.

Okay, I oversteeped this a bit, I think. It’s got a very notable astringency like Indian black teas tend to get if you overdo it. I can’t figure out how to rate it because of this, as it’s difficult for me to look away from it.

I’m not going to give it a rating yet. I think I’ve ruined this pot. sigh Oh poot!

I found this lurking in the wrong place when I was digging my way through my teas yesterday – which would explain why I haven’t had it in a while.

A champagne tea seemed appropriate since it was my birthday, so I brewed it up…

This is such a distinctive tea. I’ve never had another quite like it: minty and yet not your usual mint tea at all. I love the hint of an almost spicy tingle that it leaves on your lips and it’s just an all round really fun tea. Whee!

I was so pleased to see this tea arrive. I wasn’t sure whether it would get through Customs, and they did open the package to check it – but they let it through. Double yay, because as it turns out, I’m really glad I got to try this tea.

The description sounded intriguing, so I was really, really hoping the taste wouldn’t be a let-down, as happens to me too often with flavoured teas. First impression was good, though: the dry leaves don’t just smell like mint, they smell like a peppermint cream! And then there was the flavour… I love the blend of the mint and the lime, with that added extra something that must be the hint of champagne. There’s nothing weak or lacking about the flavours, but they’re not too much, either, and all in all I have to say that it’s a really well balanced blend. All of the flavours are present in the aroma, too, so you breathe it in at the same time as you’re drinking it.

Love this tea. I’m so very glad it got here safely!

I don’t know why I bought this. I don’t even like dates! O.o pokes tin
Processed dates, I can eat. Dates by themselves, no thank you. So why oh why is the first tea I see when first visiting 52teas.com a date flavoured one that makes me all yearning to try it? No, I don’t get it either.

The dry leaves have big pieces of coconut in them and they smell like… like… like… I don’t know actually. They have a VERY strong smell that’s making me sniff-taste the tin, and finally coming to the conclusion that the aroma that I’m picking up is coming from the label which I’ve cut off the pouch to label the tin with. The aroma is sticking to it so much that I can smell it as if it was right under my nose even though it’s lying an arm’s length away from me.
It smells sort of like perfume. Not artificial, just something that you could imagine being a note in a perfume. It’s got a sort of spicy-ish but not quite smell. It’s a sort of smell that’s easily recognisable, but I can’t really tell you what it smells like. Maybe this is just how dates smell? How should I know?

The brew is a dark amber colour and the aroma is the same as the leaves but a bit sweeter and has a note of raisins. That’s not surprising because dates have always sort of reminded me of giant raisins, only not as wrinkly.

Okay, the date flavoured tea for the person who doesn’t like dates. (WHAT was I THINKING???) Here goes!

It’s like… It tastes EXACTLY like it smells. It’s like liquid aroma with a dusty sort of note and weird aftertaste. I can’t really find the vanilla but I can definitely find a strong note of coconut. It sort of reminds me a bit of the honeysuckle flowers that I’ve got lying around that I’ve learned to be very careful with. I can drink it but… Another time I probably shouldn’t fall for a tea flavoured with something that I already KNOW I don’t like.

Srsly, what WAS I thinking? I hate to admit it, but this just didn’t work for me.

IF you like dates though, I feel pretty confident that you would like this a lot.

Taken with milk and sugar.
Wow CHOCOLATE!
And only 3 components that usually go into chai which are cardamom, cinnamon and ginger.
This is pretty fantastic. sip
I tried this without milk first and found that the cardamom over powers a little bit when the milk isn’t there to chill it out. With milk though it has the same after taste as that Indian dessert that is a frozen yogurt and cardamom mixture which is kinda similar to egg nog without that weird nog texture. And the fact that the Indian dessert is frozen solid. sip
About half way through the glass you get “used” to the chocolate taste so the flavoring spices and the tea start to show up a little more. The tea flavor is a good base but there is absolutely nothing stand out about that at all.
Spice wise… at first I thought that the blend might have been a little cardamom heavy but the ginger and chocolate are evening the flavor out quite well.
My only wish would be to have a little more cinnamon in the mix cause I do like that little kick but if that’s my only complaint with a chai they are doing pretty good. And I can put that in myself. :)

I’m still avoiding the Dashboard. I don’t know when I can look at it again safe from spoilers, so in the meantime if you post about something that might interest me and IS NOT from 52teas, could you link me please? I don’t want to know what’s in that christmas box until I can look for myself (and even if it’s something that ISN’T from the christmas box I’ll know it’s not in there. I don’t want to know what’s not in it either!)

Anyway, this one has been lying around in my kitchen for quite a long time. Black Satin was one of the first things I tried from 52teas ever, and I rather fell for it. So I ordered another pouch when it was gone. And then that second one has been lying around in the Bits’n’Bops Basket more or less since while I tried to remember why it was that I liked it so much.

For some unknown reason suddenly the idea of the blend seemed violently unpleasant to me and I had no wish to drink it again ever.

Tonight however it just sort of popped into my head that it was the natural tea to have this evening. And no, I don’t know why that was either.

It tastes like old times. I remember my first ever order from 52teas. I remember badgering Frank into sorting out taxes and customs involved in shipping to Denmark, and the glee when he agreed. I remember the crushing disappointment when I got the first package and realised that it’s seriously stupid to buy a blend with dates when you don’t like dates. At all. And then it just got worse when I realised that I don’t care for pumpkin either. Thankfully I managed to get rid of the mistakes and didn’t give up on 52teas.

That was the metaphorical flavour. The actual real flavour has less licorice in it than I remember and not as much cinnamon. And yet the black tea isn’t dominating the flavour. This really is well balanced, and if you like licorice it’s a one to try.

Why was it that it suddenly seemed so unappealing to me?

I experienced a sudden craving. And to my delight (because I had given the last I had away in a swap) I had actually ordered another round of this in my forgotten 52teas order at the beginning of the year.

Lovely. Just a shame I haven’t got any milk. I’ve found that this is rather nice with a bit of milk.

Also, it is steeped to perfection with this awesome tea timer site that James Deville found.
http://steep.it

In order to try and prevent myself from yumming up this whole entire big bag of licorice of the peculiar scandinavian kind containing ammonium chloride that the majority of you lot would likely find completely inedible, I have made me a pot of this tea. It’s probably much less likely of making me sick as I certainly would be if I ate all that licorice. Big bag! Also, I have realised that not drinking it because I don’t want to run out is stupid, because they I’m not getting any of it anyway.

Aaaaahhhh!!!

Yes, this is much better, both for my health, my teeth, and my appetite when dinnertime comes. :)

On a scale from Yum to YumYumYumYumYum, I’ll give it four Yums.

This is the first decent cup of tea I’ve had AAAAAALL DAY! First there was the bagged stuff in the travel mug, then there was the taste of Ceylon Pekoe which had been forgotten and steeped for some 2½ *cough*hours*cough*. Yuck oh yuck oh double yuck! Made a new pot of that, nearly forgot that too so it got ten minutes, but it was somewhat drinkable and I made do with it.

Now I’m home, I’ve had dinner and I’ve had dessert. Now I want tea. I saw the label on the tin among the many tins on the table and thought, “Yes!”

The more I have of this, the more the liquorice root is coming out. I think I’ll give the rating an itty bitty push upwards.

I gave up on the pumpkin thing. It was no use, I’d ruined it. Obviously it didn’t handle oversteeping very well.

So we’re taking this one. The one that I know what’s like and is a known like. I think I’ll try it with a touch of milk for the liquorice this time because it’s a known fact that a handful of liquorice and a glass of milk goes hand in hand. We shall see if this is also true for liquorice root.

It feels a bit wrong though. Like… I’m girling up an otherwise fairly masculine tea…

Girling it up or not, though, it works very well with the milk and it really brought out the liquorice root. Yummy.

YAY! I received my tea from 52teas today! It was an awesome day for it too because I’ve been feeling kind of odd all day, like the head I currently inhabit doesn’t really belong to me, and finding this package in my letterbox when I came home from work helped the mood considerably.

I got this one and two others and I’ve spent a good half hour just trying to decide which one to try first. I’ve even been sniffing at all the bags, but they’re packed in a smell-proof pouch, which for some reason smells like curry. Maybe the postman had Indian food for lunch, I don’t know.

Finally I decided that this one was shouting the loudest in the chorus of “TRY ME! TRY ME!”

The leaves look nice. Not the hugest leaf size in the world, but there are plenty of liquorice root bits and cinnamon bark bits and the whole thing smells sweet and sort of a bit like cough medicine. I had a nasty throat infection a few years ago and the doctor prescribed me this absolutely vile cough medicine to help me with the cough. It smells a bit like that, so at this point I’m a leeeettle bit worried.

Those who have tried steeping a bit of liquorice root all by itself will now that it results in a very yellow liquid. The colour of this tea is hard to describe. It’s sort of a normal sort of dark sort of goldeny tea colour, with a sort of liquorice rooty yellow sort of edge to it. Sort of.

The aroma is not reminding me nearly as much of cough medicine now that it’s been steeped. Now it’s more like a set of individual smells. I can pick up the cinnamon and the liquorice root easily enough and if I concentrate a bit, I can pick up the tea underneath as well. Cinnamon and liquorice root are both really sweet things and the tea is sort of binding it together and preventing it from getting too sweet and cloying. It lends a bit of strength to it. I keep sniffing at it, trying to figure out how to describe it and if I’m not careful, it’ll just go cold, so let’s just leave the aroma and appearence bits at this.

It’s the taste that matters, anyway. At first go, I’m thinking it’s a bit watery. I don’t know, maybe I should have used just a few more leaves. It felt a bit thin. I’m not getting any of the sweetness from the cinnamon and liquorice root. I can find both, but they don’t taste sweet. The cinnamon is reminding me a bit of chai, and it’s making me wonder if a spot of milk might not suit this tea nicely. On the other hand the thought of liquorice root and milk together just doesn’t really work in my head at all.

Mostly, I’m just picking up the tea, and while it doesn’t say anything about the origins of it other than it being Indian, it definitely feels Indian too. It’s got a full sort of flavour and the liquorice root and the cinnamon is just sort of undertones rather than taking over the flavour.

It’s not really what I was expecting (I don’t even KNOW what I was expecting), but I definitely like it. I think I’ll have to experiment a bit with milk and cane sugar, because I think it might work with either of those two. But not both, I think. Not at the same time, anyway.

Do you ever have one of those experiences when you come face to face with your prejudices and discover that you have been wrong? When this tea showed up at my house, I undoubtedly shot it a prim frown of disapproval and put it away thinking I might be able to use it in a swap. No rice krispies in green tea for this woman!

So today I decided to give it a try….I’ve liked the 52teas of the week very much and thought that I owed them a courtesy taste—-before I gave this tea away to some unsuspecting victim.

HELLO! I love this tea! No rice krispie taste; but there is a toasty sort of crispness. It’s not overwhemingly sweet at all. A layer of smoke, a nuttiness, and a tinge of malt all add up to a fully tasty experience. As I try more teas, I notice that I really respond to those which give me a big and unique tasteful. This tea is excellent for afternoons. It steeps swiftly to pot to mouth time is speedy.

I just tried this as a hot tea latte here at our shop. O M G! It was like pure liquid chocolate. The malt flavoring really amped up the chocolate. Our organic cacao nibs and natural dark chocolate flavoring can make our chocolate teas a tiny bit on the bitter side. A good, chocolatey bitter, like really dark chocolate, but a bit bitter nonetheless. But with the malted milk flavor (also all natural) added to it, the chocolate just comes to life.

I’m thinking of the chocolate river in the Willy Wonka movie and thinking it couldn’t taste much better than this tea with a little cream and sugar. Absolutely amazing!