August Uncommon Tea

Sipdown 124-2021
Not much else to say about this one. Goodbye, tea.

I’m working on sipping through the teas I have at work, so I don’t have to bring too many back home. This is one of them (I’m down to 2-3 cups remaining).
I’m still confused about where the violet went. After the initial first couple cups that were incredible, subsequent cups lacked any violet and became a bit lackluster. The elderberry/smoky combo is still nice, just not what I’m looking for in this tea.

Had 2 mugs of this over the last few days and they’re still lacking the violet flavor I was so in love with. Sad.

Focusing on finishing this up, as I haven’t been able to recreate the initial violet deliciousness of the first cup. A perfectly nice elderberry black tea, but no longer spectacular.

Brought this to work and enjoyed a cup there…but the violet flavor has faded a bit. It’s still delicious, but it lacks that distinct violet flavor that I loved so much. The elderberry is the most dominant flavor.

One of the main reasons for placing my most recent August Uncommon order (aside from not being able to sleep at 2am), was to try this tea. I absolutely love violet. I grew up enjoying C.Howard’s violet gum and candies, so violet is a flavor/fragrance that I gravitate towards. The dry leaf and brewed aroma is like walking through a field of violets and blackberry bushes. Sticky sweet floral berry divinity. There’s an almost lychee quality to it. The mouthfeel is like silk. The flavor is unreal. I did add 1 raw sugar cube, but it didn’t need it. It’s sticky sweet, and packed full of violet flavor. The berry flavoring combines perfectly with the floral, and the lapsang is barely there, but present enough to tie everything together. This blend is a stunner.

This is such an interesting tea. I can taste everything in the description- creamy white chocolate, boozy brandy, and prunes. I definitely have to be in a particular mood for this one, but I really enjoy it!

I’ve been going through an August Uncommon phase the last couple weeks, sipping through many of my favorites. Trying to control myself and not place an order.
I still love this one- the prune, armagnac, and white chocolate are all distinct and work strangely well together. I definitely have to be in the right mood for this.

I’m actually pretty sad to be out of this one. The prune and white chocolate notes worked so well together, and I found it so easy to drink.

I placed another August Uncommon order and it just arrived. I’m slowly making my way through their entire catalogue. I was intrigued by the inspiration, and was very excited for this particular blend to arrive. The dry leaf smells exquisite- creamy, with hints of stone fruit, and cherry. I didn’t care for the smell while it was brewing, it was very medicinal. I also didn’t care for the first few sips. Way too boozy and very medicinal. However, as it cooled the flavor really developed, and the creaminess and fruit flavors melded wonderfully. I couldn’t stop drinking it for some reason.

Sipdown (1459)!

Can you go wrong when you pair eucalyptus and fruit? I’m really, really starting to feel like the answer is no. This was so refreshing and cooling and the herbaceous menthol of the eucalyptus only made the dragonfruit notes feel all the more fresh and sweet. I’ll miss this one.

Maybe if AU ever releases new teas I’ll order more…

T is for…Tropic of Capricorn!

I recently ordered all of the issues of Eighty Degrees, which is a magazine devoted to tea! I’ve been eyeing them all for a while and I finally just caved and bought every issue printed so far – https://www.readeighty.com/

It’s gonna take me a little bit to get through all the issues, but I randomly picked one to start with and it was themed around Japanese green teas – not my favourite tea type, but I’m still always excited to learn more about any facet of tea. I probably should have sipped a Sencha or a Gyokuro while I read, but instead I settled into my magazine with a mug of this tea which was, at least, still a green tea.

I think I liked it more this time around, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s because the context of being so immersed in what I was reading elevated the mug. Still, I got notes of grass clippings and seaweed, cooling and herbaceous eucalyptus, and a fruity (but not all that sweet) undertone of punchy dragonfruit and melon. It was the perfect amount of flavoured to detract from a tea base that I don’t often love, while still leaning into some of its natural flavours in a complimentary way!

From earlier this week.

I have a mug warmer from VariaTEA that I love, but it lives in the kitchen right now for my tea to sit on when I’m doing dishes or cooking – I love having it there, but I also really want to try and find a place for it in my room because quite often I make a mug of tea to drink during a TV show and then I get engrossed in the show and forget about the tea.

Such is the case here, where I made a mug and then got a little too into my Fruits Basket binge. When I finally came back to the mug, it was lukewarm and not as good as it could have been. The flavour is already a little strange in the blend in the first place; it’s quite herbal mint/eucalyptus tasting while still having the cooling menthol element. The dragonfruit is present, but not juicy or necessarily sweet. Recently I was doing some tea and flavour pairing exercises for work and I looked at doing Cold 911 and Watermelon, and what I realized happens is that the sweetness of the watermelon gets sucked out of the fruit, and instead the cooling and herbaceous elements of the mint/eucalyptus combo are drastically amplified. I bet that’s what’s happening here…

Another new AU blend – this is an older one, but I never got around to trying it. Presumably because I wasn’t interested in it for the green tea base? I tossed it into this order anyway though…

Not sure where I land here. It reminds me an awful lot of Capri, which is another AU blend that has a melon/mint profile. I didn’t like that blend very much, nor do I like the melon/mint flavour combination in general. I get that it’s meant to be cooling and refreshing, but it also feels somewhat medicinal to me. That’s not helped here, because the eucalyptus borders on that Vick’s Vapor Rub type of flavour profile. However, there is also this tropical sweetness that lingers that almost makes the flavour pairing worthwhile!?

It’s certainly unique, but I need to try it again to see if that really overlaps with it also being good.

Iced Tea Sipdown (1076)!

I kept my steep time a little bit shorter for this iced tea and the result was a smoother infusion with dark, full bodied and round coffee/espresso notes and less of that almost sourness to the roast that I got in some earlier cup of this. Not really a “sweet” coffee flavour either, but sweeter than it’s been in the past. Easy sipping!

Cold Brew!

I wasn’t crazy about this one last time I had it, but it seems I find a good way to enjoy it. I cold brewed this one, using less leaf and for a bit of a shorter time that I would typically leave a cold brew to go – I was hoping for a milder coffee/malt flavour because I thought it was a bit much when steeped hot. Then, when I strained it, I topped it off with some cashew milk!

It’s really good – light to medium bodied notes of coffee, malted barley, cocoa, cream, and nutty cashews (the last one from the milk, obviously) but not “sugary” at all so it’s like drinking a lighter and more natural mocha type drink? It’s perfect for me; I like the hint of roast in the coffee and the barley/cream/nutty notes, but I really don’t want something “slap me in the face” coffee in intensity because I’m not a coffee drinker. I can stand a dabble in tea format, but so many coffee/tea hybrids are like a level eleven out of ten; even DT’s two most successful coffee blends (Coffee Pu’erh and Vanilla Cappuccino) are both SUPER intense, just in difference ways. Coffee Pu’erh is like black coffee and amaretto, and Vanilla Cappuccino is a total sugar bomb.

This is… other.

Would I enjoy it all the time/consistently? Probably not; coffee just really isn’t my thing so I wouldn’t expect that level of consistency from my own tastes.

Today, this is perfect though!

Tried this for the first time last (…?) week.

It’s not my thing, but to be fair I didn’t expect it to be anyway. Coffee teas and I don’t get along very well – and this definitely has a distinct roasted black coffee note, but mixed with like a mugicha drink!? Definitely some type of barley note going on, and that’s actually the best part IMO. I like the general maltiness, as well. I also really respect that this is coffee but it’s black coffee (hence the name) and doesn’t fall into the trap of being a sugary coffee drink or coffee and cream like so many other tea/coffee mixes out there.

Sipdown (1332)!

Welp, after a week or so of really letting myself indulge in the beautifully sweet and fresh candied violet notes of this tea… I have sipped it down. It’s bittersweet – I’m proud of myself for focusing on and finishing off the sample, but it’s one less violet tea in my stash and this was definitely the best of the violet teas I owned so that stings a little too.

I believe that August Uncommon carries this as part of their permanent line up though, so I’m sure I’ll cross paths with this tea again in the future. I look forward to it!

Another deliciously sweet violet tasting cuppa! This time paired with a new volume of Beastars, for ultimate Friday evening cozy relaxation. No new flavour descriptors – just reemphasizing how much I love this tea, and doubling down on my dedication to sip it down.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CLNW-u8gzF0/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2qU-3gkwpg&ab_channel=HolidaySidewinder-Topic

Violet teas have grown on me so much in just a few short years time…

Like, parma violet may actually be my favourite floral flavour in teas after rose – and that’s something that only a few years would have seemed insane to me. I mean, violet is still such a niche feeling floral profile! I loved this cup though; it had all the body and robustness of this bold black tea but with fresh and sweet violet and dark berry notes. The combo of that fresh floral sweetness with this dense juicy berry on a black tea base!? Oh baby, it’s perfection.

More violet teas in the world, please and thank you.

Recently had this one again – can’t remember exactly what I thought of it last time but looking at my rating I’m guessing I liked it! I did this time around too – very full bodied, thick and intense tasting, but not perfume-y like floral teas described as “intense” often are. Perhaps it was because it was accompanied by such a robust black tea, or the mineral and even borderline metallic (ironic given the name) flavours but for a violet profile I actually found this time be quite a “masculine” cup of tea!

Loved the violet notes, though!

August Uncommon recently released a bunch of new tea blends, and it motivated me to place an order to restock my beloved Dots & Loops as well as try the new flavours – which included this tea. I actually ended up just grabbing samples of every single tea on their website that I hadn’t tried before, so now I’m flush with new AU blends…

This was an intriguing tea for me – I tried a lot of violet blends in 2019, and for the most part I really liked them. It’s a flavour that I definitely feel really familiar with now; but this concept – a smoked violet – is very different from everything else I’ve had. Not to mention that AU does “concept teas” (versus “flavour recreation” blends) really well, so I was excited to see if the smoked violet profile seemed fitting for a name like ‘Black Metallic’.

Surprisingly, especially because AU has a serious penchant for using Lapsang Souchong in their black tea blends, this actually isn’t really that smoky!? It’s a little bit there, but I’d describe the flavour as much, much more of a sweet floral vibe with really distinct and juicy notes of violet. It’s sort of coating in the mouth as well, which is pleasant.

However, I feel like the name just seems strange given the overall sweet, floral nature of this tea!? But that said, I liked it a lot!

This is really just as described. A slightly grassy (albeit very mild) green base, with vanilla and cardamom. Both the vanilla and cardamom are strong and distinct, and work very well with the green tea. I really do like this one, but find it a bit boring, and probably won’t be purchasing it again once my sample is gone.