August Uncommon Tea

noms. had this one with baked penne with chicken, smoked cheese and broccoli. so good.

Had this one last night while playing board games with friends. Enjoying this one a lot though it’s nearly done! One thing’s for sure is that small cupboards means things get finished up faster!

Final cup of tea tonight….kinda wish I had more of this even though I can’t explain why I like it haha. I still have a bunch of cups left though. So that’s good.

I can’t really place the flavour of this one but every time i have it, i drink it up crazy fast. This one if the winner for me from AU…the other two were just bleh. Last tea yesterday as we had to get up early on sunday as well. blaaarg!

Final Count: 36

relaxing evening playing games and reading….yay for the weekend. I really love this one – too bad the other teas from AU were a bust this round. Nice to have at least a couple teas i can drink in the evening that are truly tasty.

hints of pumpkin…caramel…butter….vanilla… yep i am a fan of this one, which is a huge relief given the disaster that is the other tea from AU. going to enjoy having this one around for a while in the evenings!

boring tea is done! lol glad to get a sipdown on this one since it was average at best.

boring tea is boring. Not a bad cup but honestly….not much else happening here that i can really get behind. Glad to try it out, but wish it delivered more on it’s promises.

this one was really really really boring for me. No idea if i just need to switch up steeping parameters or what but it was not quite flavourless but just…boring. no real nuances, wasn’t getting any chocolate/cocoa…just…boring. reserving judgement for other steepings in case i can figure this tea out haha

life is too short to drink mediocre tea that smells like uh…things that tea shouldn’t smell like. Even though i don’t mind this tea nearly as much as others, i’m not keeping it around. tea drinking shouldn’t be a chore!

alright…let’s DO this! Obviously i’m trying to ignore what others have said about this blend and see what i think. First off…initial dry smell… weird. truffleapplewoodsmokedbacon? yes i put those words together ‘cause it’s not quite bacon…sort of a melange of….everything. hmm…not too hopeful about this one.

Funnily enough if i stick my nose closer to the container, the aroma changes and it’s more, sweet..

brewed the aroma is still a little offputting. I let it cool until i could drink it and honestly? it just tastes like a smokey lapsang. I’m not getting anything here like banana or truffle. Disappointing but not vile. The smell is actually way worse than the brew. That being said, i expect WAY more from AU. Especially at their prices and the branding of being unique. There’s nothing unique about this tea except it’s smell.

if i had to rate it according to smell, it’d probably be about a 5. However as a brewed tea, it’s more like a 65, until you consider that it should be a lot more interesting than it is.

…this chaotic mess is growing on me.

I drank a mug of it while watching some Critical Role on Saturday evening and I was actually taken aback by how enjoyable and slurpable I found this. The mouthfeel was a little oily, but that was kind of the most unpleasant part!? It was deeply smoky and savory with a brothy quality to the cupe, but then this undertone of sweet baked banana kept breaking through the thick surface smoke and umami. It should have been so weird, but it was just… good!?

If I had to summarize the flavour of this tea then “Smoked Banana Oil Slick” is probably what I would go with. It’s one of those blends that is kind of revolting the first few sips, but then you find yourself still sipping on it anyway? I have a love hate relationship with it – mostly because while I do adore smoked teas and those savory elements, my brain hurts a little when you try to jam the sweetness and slight creaminess of bananas into that mix as well. The mouthfeel is another beast entirely…

Yet another banana tea – and again it’s one that’s WILDLY different from the others. Firstly, this tea is quite smokey because of the Lapsang – but it’s a very savory, meaty/brothy kind of smoke note, which is a stark contrast to the kind of baked banana note in the cup. In addition to the banana being baked and sweet tasting, there’s also a sort of “greasiness” to the cup mouthfeel and flavour – it actually reminds me a little bit of this weird deep friend banana on a stick thing that I had once at the summer carnival a few years ago. It could also be compared to a deep friend plantain sort of greasiness…

I didn’t hate this cup – but this is a SUPER polarizing tea and one I’ve had some serious issues with in the past as well.

Sipdown (549)!

Happy to get this awful tea out of my cupboard; it’s very smokey and savory and that would probably be fine if that was the only note in the cup. Just this nice, smooth meaty/smokey flavour. However, it’s definitely this artificial sort of smoke note, like liquid smoke, with funky, sour banana undertones. Banana does not go with this profile.

But it’s gone now, and I’m relieved.

I’ve been enjoying watching all the reviews of this tea come in; it’s been absolutely hilarious reading all of the wild comparisons and first impressions. That said, I knew that at some point I, too, would have to break into the sample of this that I received and give it a try and I’ve definitely been dreading it…

In fact, the only reason I ended up trying this so soon was because I was talking about the FMA chimera comparison that CrowKettle made in regard to this tea with a whole bunch of coworkers and one of them asked me to bring the sample I had with to our staff party for her to try because she was curious. So, our winter/Christmas staff party was earlier this week and true to my word I brought the sample with for anyone to try who wanted to. Trust me, I did not talk up this tea at all – basically I just warned everyone that I was like 90% sure it was gonna be awful. That said, nine people still decided to try it out so we made up a big pot and just split it up and did a group tasting. I told everyone that I was going to be posting a review of it, so I asked everyone trying it to give it a rating out of ten based on how much they liked it, and any general comments they wanted to make. Keep in mind, this is the feedback/opinions of a panel of ten (including myself) people employed at a tea company who basically spend their whole work days just drinking tea…

Casey: 4/10 – Said it was surprisingly light given the intensity of the aroma
Jules: 3/10 – “Is the Lodge black because it burned down?”
Mackenzy: 7/10 – Would drink this again without any reservations
Seth: 7/10 – Actually offered to finish off the sample cups that people didn’t want
Emily: 5/10 – “If you focus on the banana it’s not so bad”
Luz: 5/10 – Didn’t think it would be so awful overall if you didn’t take price into account
Andy: 3/10 – “I get the FMA thing…”
Stirling: 4/10 – It IS better than straight Lapsang…
Sarah: 2/10 – Spit hers back in the sink…

So, if you average all of their rating you get a rating of 4.4/10 – on Steepster that equates to a score of 44/100, essentially. That seems pretty in line with the reviews already posted…

As for my own thoughts; I do think it was doable but you don’t exactly want that to be the highest form of praise you can offer to a blend, do you? I actually liked the banana in the blend a lot though – it was pretty sweet, and candy like and if the BULK of the profile had been that sort of banana flavour with much softer hints of Lapsang I think this might have actually worked pretty well. Not, like, spectacularly but a lot more than it does currently. The biggest issue for me was that the mix of Lapsang and other things in the blend just painfully reminds me of a mix of beef jerky and tire rubber and I just cannot get into tire rubber tea. Like, that’s the furthest thing from a pleasant flavour. The smoke didn’t bother me though; I like Lapsang. Just, didn’t work in this mix of stuff so much…

Also, I think Casey was right – when you smell the dry leaf this smells vile, but the steeped tea definitely doesn’t have the same intensity even if it’s not good. I think I’m gonna agree with the overall average rating given by our staff…

So here’s the thing…normally I buy the smallest size possible because I have so much tea already that I just want a taste. However, sometimes a tea just sounds so appealing or gets such great reviews, I spring for more. In the case of this smokey banana/toffee tea, I was intrigued and decided to split a 90g tin with Sil. Then the reviews came out and I was hesitant. Then I cracked the seal and this smells so disgustingly like smoked raw meat that I honestly had to be talked into trying this. Seriously, people had to hype me up to give this a go.

Thankfully the steeped tea, which I underleafed, smells like like raw meat and more like smoke, which is easier to handle. Tastewise, it is earthy (I guess that’s the “damp peat”) with a sweet note. There is no distinctive flavor which could be a result of the underleafing but given the flavors others have gotten, I can’t say I am sad about that. The smoke comes in a little at the end which combined with the general earthiness of this tea, it kind of seems a bit gamey. I added milk which maybe brought out some more of those supposed toffee notes but didn’t lessen that game flavor and caramel meat is not recommended. Realistically, this is not as bad as I expected, especially given the dry smell of the leaf. Alas, not as bad is still pretty bad and even though this didn’t turn out as terrible as I thought, I think this is going in the swap box. It just isn’t worth it to keep a tea around that I literally have to prepare myself to drink, not when I have over 300 other teas that need my attention.

Sipdown (521)!

Another sipdown that I’m not too choked about, although this cup in particular was really wickedly good. It was very, very silky and creamy both in flavour and mouthfeel. Strong notes of orange, cream, vanilla, and custard with just a hint of grassyness from the green tea base. It almost completely reminded me of a Creamsicle.

I finished it off while listening to some Moroccan pop music, since the tea itself is supposed to be somewhat Moroccan like in feel/nature. I don’t know if the music itself seemed to pair with what was a more subdued, smooth flavour since the pop music was so upbeat/lively but I did enjoy listening to it/experiencing something new musically speaking.

This was a nice tea to explore!

Drank this one hot with milk while we did a chocolate fondue to close out our Christmas celebrations today/kind of head into the new year; I did add a little milk to it to cool it enough for me to drink right away with the fondue.

The dark chocolate and fruit from the fondue were pretty strong and kind of overshadowed a lot of the subtleties of the tea – but every now and then I’d get a bite of orange or pear coated in dark chocolate that coincided with a sip of tea and the combo would be quite lovely! Sweet, creamy fruit notes – orange from the tea and fruit and pear from just the fruit, and silky vanilla and dark chocolate. Very indulgent, but also blissfully smooth and relaxing.

The tea itself was kind of medium bodied and sweet enough with strong creamy vanilla notes and a soft orange; very “creamsicle” like, without the sweetness. Some buttery, grassy/vegetal undertones from the green base but not a lot. Mostly just the added in flavourings. Decent tea overall; but one that was definitely boosted through the situation I drank it in and the food pairing.

EDIT: Turns out this was my last tea of 2017! Also, my 5750th tasting note! Pretty good way to cap off the year, I’d say!

Had this one a little while ago…

Honestly was sort of putting trying this one off, but I can’t even really tell you why. Nothing in the blend actually sounded bad to me apart from the green tea base but nothing really jumped out about it either? It’s actually mostly just tastes like orange though. I mean, it’s a pretty smooth light to medium bodied orange flavour with some vanilla undertones that make it a little softer and creamier but there isn’t some weird, crazy underlying flavour element to this like there often is with AU blends. I guess I thought maybe the jatoba wood would do something crazy/weird to the flavour but I’m not even really sure that I tasted it at all?

So yeah, hints of a sort of grassier and slightly nutty green tea base and then a whole lot of aromatic, smooth orange that had a little bit of an “essential oils”/perfume kind of thing going on with it? And then a really soft vanilla undertone/finish. It was pretty unassuming to me overall; just kind of there? The orange did feel really appropriate for winter/the holidays in a lot of ways and I’m having a hard time figuring out in words why this blend/the orange in it seems so wildly appropriate for Christmas over other orange blends I’ve had. It’s just that, the impression I had at the end of it all was almost that I’d kind of feel guilty drinking this one not in the winter time? I just don’t know why I feel like that, though!

Shouldn’t orange be a year round flavour? I mean, for me at least, it generally is. I don’t know; I feel like the profile here was pretty average and yet I’m left feeling all kinds of confused…

Sipdown! And bumping the rating up once more because I drank it with milk and was happy again. No Cherry Halls cough drops today. Yay!

Drinking this straight up for a change and now remember why I didn’t love it. The smoke and mineral notes are fantastic here, but the cherry is a mixed bag. Sometimes it’s alright (cherry wood is a nice combo with smoke and mineral notes); on other “fruitier” sips it’s definitely in Halls/cough medicine territory. This effect isn’t as apparent with milk, which cuts the the bitterness that gives fruity cherry that distinctive menthol trait.

So bumping the rating down again a tad. Definitely recommend the milk.

I like this one more than I remember. It takes well to milk and the combo of fruit and smoke is charming. Bumping the rating from a 75 to a 77. It’s solid.

I like lapsang souchong, especially in the fall, so really appreciate it in all of these AU blends right now (and it’s in a lot of them).

Steep Count: 3 (and it held up so well, even with oat milk!)