August Uncommon Tea

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I meant to sip this down back in October, closer to Spooky season, but it ended up slipping my mind until a few nights ago when I stumbled upon the sample while searching for something else. It’s delicious and filled with heavenly bourbon vanilla, molasses, brown sugar, pumpkin, caramel, and nut brittle type notes. Just a hint of cream. Intoxicating, and a bit upsetting to say goodbye to…

Brown sugar pumpkin butter!!

It’s not exactly the right “time of year” to be brewing this tea up, but really what is time!? There are no rules that say I can’t enjoy this delicious pumpkin blend in the middle of the summer, and so that’s what I did. Without shame!

Many thanks to VariaTEA for sharing more of this tea with me!

I adore it so much, but I always seem to forget exactly how much until I try it. I saved it for around this time of year just because not only is it a really nice Autumn flavour but it’s also perfect for Halloween! Basically, when steeped, it’s like taking pumpkin and bruleeing that with brown sugar, vanilla, and bourbon. It’s very dark and dense, and deeply rich – but also mouth watering and indulgent to the extreme.

I really wish August Uncommon would release some new flavours so that I’d have more of an excuse to pick up the few teas from their site that I’d like larger amounts of…

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/B4FNeVKgwLA/

This would be a sipdown, but VariaTEA really thoughtfully sent me more of this. Bless her; she’s such a sweetheart! I was quite excited to get more of this one because I enjoy it a lot.

This cup was made with milk and a little bit of vanilla agave; it was so creamy and rich and just made for a very comforting profile that reminded me of everything I enjoy around Autumn. The strongest flavour was actually the pumpkin, which was really awesome, but it also had some tasty notes of caramel, burnt sugar, vanilla, wood, honey, and graham crackers. So, basically like some sort of decadent autumnal dessert – which I suppose is kind of the intention anyway?

Anyway – YUM.

Tea Press.

Hmm, this is much fruitier than I remember it tasting my first go round; just a sweeter, more robust apple and pumpkin combo. I mean, definitely still not the dominant flavour here – that’s still very much the mix of boozey bourbon, vanilla, molasses, and burnt sugar sort of notes. Deeply enjoying this one still; I’m kind of ‘take it or leave it’ in regard to the stronger presence of apple in the mix. I mean, it makes the tea different for sure but it’s equally good either way IMO.

Shit.

This is really indulgent, but holy fuck is the flavour good. Like, I’ll be honest when I got my August Uncommon teas for this season and I saw that this was a pumpkin flavoured rooibos I kind of groaned a little internally because did I really need another pumpkin tea this year? And I’ve had herbal/rooibos pumpkin teas with the sweet component and soft spices – they’re ok but not like mind blowing?

This is sort of mind blowing though. I’d argue that flavour wise it’s sort of this molasses/brown sugar flavour first and foremost – very dark, deep, rich and indulgent. It really coats the mouth too and is just captivating. From there, then I would say you get more of the pumpkin and apple flavour due: sort of a mid sip undertone that gradually transitions into a more main flavour? It’s very “bourbon pumpkin pie” but with a lot of sweetness/brown sugar and without the crust. It rounds out with more of a vanilla toffee sort of flavour profile and finishes with this haunting lingering sweetness.

I’m in love.

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Finished this one off with a little bit of milk.

I have to say, of all August Uncommon’s this one is pretty dead center for me. Not their finest creation, and definitely not their worst either; it’s a wash. I think with milk, this was nice because it drew out some of the white chocolate notes – which were the best part of this blend. The plum notes would be nice if they weren’t so artificial. By the end of the mug this one can start to feel a little chemical-y.

I don’t know if AU plans to ever ‘reblend’ any of their teas, but this is one I’d revisit if they were able to create a more cleaned up/polished version.

Morning cuppa at work today.

I still don’t love this one, but there are some really nice aspects to it – the creamyness of the while chocolate is a nice, softer undertone that adds a lot of body and richness to the profile of the cup as a whole. And, the sort of ‘brandied’/boozy fruit aspect is growing on me. Anyone who’s ever had an AU blend with plum will really pick out that flavour – it’s super consistent in all of their blends and this is not an exception. Aftertaste lingers, and while it starts off pleasant enough it does finish in a rather artificial way and for me that’s definitely the biggest drawback to the overall cup.

I wasn’t as wowed overall with this collection (Breathless, In The Mood For Love, The Black Lodge, Psychocandy, and Arabasque) as I’ve been with others – in fact the only tea I think I’d actually want to repurchase is the Psychocandy blend. However, this is probably my second favourite overall. If I could give any feedback to AU overall it would be that I’m at a point now where I’ve tried a lot of their blends and I’ve started to pick up on flavour notes that are present in a lot of them. They very much have certain flavours they seem to really enjoy including (smokey blacks, stonefruit, turkish apple, vanilla, etc.) and it’s not that they’re bad notes to hit on but they do at a certain point feel repetitive.

Since this is a company that really prides themselves on cutting edge, unique, and inspired flavours/ideas I’d really like to seem them diversify their flavours a little more. Especially when it comes to their blacks; I feel like often they rely strongly on the idea of smoked black tea or apple-y fruit flavours. I’d very much to see a bright, vibrant fruity black tea that doesn’t use stonefruit, apple, or smoked tea. Like, what about a blueberry? Or an exotic fruit – like starfruit or lychee? I think the AU take on lychee black tea could be pretty cool. Also, just throwing it out there, but what about more unique flavoured white options? That could be fun to experiment with.

But anyway, it was actually an awesome day! The last week has very much been dragging for me and it definitely didn’t start off super positively. A few weeks ago I was training our new manager on the core roles/duties of being a ‘tea guide’ (basically all the entry level stuff), after which the company sent him off to another store to do his management training. He got back at the start of the week, and it definitely wasn’t the most seamless transition. There were a lot of initial issues, and personality wise he didn’t seem to be meshing overly well with the team as a whole.

I mean, don’t get me wrong it’s very rare for management changes in general to go smoothly – and not only were we getting a new store manager but we were also losing our assistant store manager. I’m thrilled to say everything has only gotten better over the course of the week; personality wise everything seems to be clicking into place and he’s getting along great with the team – but not too much. Our previous manager got along FABULOUSLY with everyone but almost to a point where she approached things as more of a ‘friend’ than a superior. I don’t think that’s gonna be the case here. Plus, for the first time in a while I feel really supported in my role as a keyholder and I feel like I have a boss who not only deeply appreciates my ‘background’ with tea, but who deeply wants to help me to continue to grow with the company. There are still gonna be bumps along the way, but a lot less than I had originally assessed.

Teapress.

Not sure if it’s the method of prep or just the fact that since I’ve now tried this I knew what to expect from the flavour profile (maybe a mix of both), but I enjoyed this one a lot more this time around than I did the first time. I thought it was smoother overall, and had less of that perfumey/artificial floral taste I kind of thought I was picking up last time. In fact, it was almost entirely a boozey prune/cherry sort of flavour with just hints of creamy white chocolate in the finish.

Yeah, just a lot smoother and more seamless.

Another from AU’s new winter line up.

Everything about this one sounds really interesting to me, except for the prune. However I think if the rest of the tea works well I can probably overlook that element so long as it’s not the main flavour. Dry, the leaf smells very intensely perfumed: I totally get the same artificial/boozy kind of flavour quality that I got from AU’s Metropolitan blend which is a little weird because they don’t really have any ingredient overlap.

It’s so intriguing brewed up. The flavour is just so… odd?

I don’t dislike it though, I’m just rather perplexed by it. It definitely starts off nice and thick/creamy with some definite white chocolate notes. I think that’s a pretty solid way to start the sip, but then thick sort of transitions to oily and the flavour gets a little weird. I do get cherry notes from this, but they’re very very dark cherry notes and they remind me a lot of booze and perfume. Like, brandied cherries with a floral finish? If that makes any sense at all. There’s nothing floral in this blend though which is part of where that confusion comes from – it’s almost like the bergamot/lavender combo in Metropolitan though. I don’t hate it, but I wish it was a little mellowed out.

The prune comes through more in the undertones and finish but I actually like it a fair bit. I mean, as someone who doesn’t love prune notes in my tea (or even the fruit in general) it’s not bad. I think it’s not heavy handed and has just a hint of sweetness that is needed to kind of be a check to the more intense cherry/alcohol thing kind of going on. It reminds me a lot of the prune in Dammann Freres Noel a Prague black tea, and since that’s a black tea that I enjoy A LOT the comparison is definitely a good one.

Overall, I think this is a really interesting/complex full bodied flavoured black. I like the layers to the flavour and I definitely found the cup mostly pleasant. It’s not without faults though, and I think the flavours are a little intense and competitive. Next time I have this one I’m going to try under leafing and hopefully that will help smooth some things out. I also think it suffers from some texture issues too, from the white chocolate. Milk could be a solution to that problem, though.

EDIT: I just noticed this also has plum in it! That actually is a shared ingredient between this one and Metropolitan so maybe it’s the plum flavour that I’m associating with both blends. Not totally sure, though.

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Made this one earlier in the week on one of the days I finished my advent teas early in the afternoon. It was a delicious, malty cup of black tea with really strong dark chocolate notes and the perfect amount of sweetness. Thanks again VariaTEA for the top up a few months ago – I liked having this around for rich and flavourful mugs of straight black tea over the last few months!

In the mood for a malty, chocolate note heavy black tea? Why not try ‘In The Mood for Love’!? I made a big mug of this one earlier in the week and it was a very splendid cup indeed. Dense, full bodied, and just like taking big swigs of dark chocolate hot cocoa!

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Like liquid chocolate – perfectly warming and cozy, just right for the winter season. I was kind of sad to be finished with this one; but then I remembered just how many chocolate tasting black teas I actually have in my cupboard (a lot) and I felt less sad.

Looking at my queue of tasting notes from the week, I think clearly what I was really in the mood for this week was August Uncommon teas. Not that weird truffle one that Dexter was on about though; I have a sample of that one but I think I’ll be staying away from it for a while…

This was actually quite lovely though; it was very smooth with some great milk chocolate/cocoa powder notes to it and a nice malty backbone to the sip. I mean, I pretty straight forward and basic flavour profile overall but I definitely still enjoyed it a lot.

Picked this one, and the rest of August Uncommon’s Winter Collection, up in a special sneak peak/pre order promo – everything for this season actually looks really good, so I’m excited to try them all.

This is the first one from the collection that I’m trying; I usually end up leaving the straight tea for last and I didn’t want to do that this time. I made it up as a Western style pot of tea, to sip on throughout the day. It was honestly not really anything unique or different at all. Just, a very thick velvety mouthfeel and really smooth mixture of malt and cocoa notes with some soft woody undertones. Really delicious, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that at this point I’ve come to expect unique/distinct flavours/profiles from AU, even with their straight/pure teas.

This just reminded me of a really nice, rich Dian Hong with lots of chocolate notes. I’ll totally enjoy finishing off the rest of the sample, but this isn’t something that I’ll need to get more of at all. It’s great, but not unique.

I could spend a whole page gushing about this tea, from the fact that even the leaves themselves—and the nuts and the fruit pieces mixed in with them—are delicious. It smelled so good—dark and earthy with hints of sweet—that I nibbled on a leaf before pouring hot water over it. It tasted like the best dark chocolate I’ve ever eaten. Then I munched a pistachio nut and a piece of lime, all infused by their time mingling with the tea …
And then I tried the tea as actual tea and was blown away. I could live on this. It tastes like autumn harvest in my mouth, with lingering traces of summer and spring. So. Good.

August’s recent email announcing some returning blends nudged me towards this tea, realizing that I only have one cup, so that’s a sipdown. I wasn’t overly impressed with this one, as the flavours fell short. It sadly didn’t remind me of a Christmas market. But it was still an easy one to drink. As a side note, I was so stoked that they were bringing back other blends, hoping that meant that Passage du Desir, but sadly not. Come on, guys, do it!

Ok, I’m totally not getting the desserty (by way of cinnamon bun, chocolate mousse, etc) that others are mentioning. Impressive that the rooibos base is nearly undetectable, but it smells more like chocolate than it tastes. Cacao shows up later as a lingering note but it isn’t prominent. I am also disappointed to not get any nutmeg.

Rather, I get black pepper. That’s right. Yet it’s not listed in the ingredients? Maybe it’s part of the rooibos base, who knows, but there is a distinctive bite of black pepper. It’s like it’s trying to be like a black pepper-infused chocolate chai, but it’s weak.

There is a creaminess to this, I will give it that. To be fair, the chocolate comes out a little more as this cool, too. In spite of my slightly disappointing observations, I still enjoy this, particularly as a latte.

And that’s a sample sipdown! Glad I didn’t get more because its notes were a little disconnected. Interesting but nothing I’d want to experience again.

Strange tea. At first, I was stoked by the chunks of fruit, lemongrass, and sweet vanilla scent of the dry leaf. Steeped, it smells just as intriguing.

The initial sip, I was like, “Score!” because it was a blast of caramel. Then the sweet pineapple follows, but this is where things get strange. The caramel fades and the sweetness from the pineapple strengthens, only the sugariness, not the pineapple itself. But then the sweetness, which is artificial as it is at this stage, morphs into a plasticky note. As this cools, I am getting a little roastiness from the barley, which is helping to cover up some of those plasticky undertones but it just isn’t enough to truly enjoy this.

Upside is the sencha base didn’t go bitter and it isn’t too grassy or vegetal either.

Hmm, it’s like drinking a plasticky pineapple caramel genmaicha.

This tea is uplifting – good humor indeed! I busted this out this afternoon for a nice break before I have to dive back into med school apps, and it did the trick.

I’m getting a mellow citrus, which I like – almost lemon meringue pie rather than straight up lemon flavor. I’m also getting a faint apple taste and an underlying earthy sweetness that I’m contributing to the fig. I’m still getting some grassiness from the green tea peeking through, which I enjoy since that sets this apart from all of the sweet, pastry-flavored tisanes I have lying around.

And it’s a belatedly posted sipdown!

#long time ago internet hiatus sipdown

I adore this one. Today, it was all chocolate and caraway and rich malt.

Dexter noticed that I was a fan and hence, this cup. Thank you, Dex!
(COME BACK!)

So much loveliness in my cup today—dark chocolate, caraway, pumpernickel bread, and that rich dark base.

Thank you, Dexter, for noticing how much I adore this and then plying me with some in your surprise box.

When are you coming back?