Cornelia Bean

Well. I bought this chai thinking I would be trying something new, but then I looked in my cupboard on Steepster and there it was. Then I looked in my physical cupboard and couldn’t find it. Eventually I found an empty bag tucked in the corner, so I guess I must have liked it before, and I like it this time around too.

Of all the masala chais I have right now, I think this one is my favourite. It’s heavy on the fennel, cardamom and coriander, and it’s a bit peppery, which are some of my favourite notes for this type of tea. The dry leaf smells strong, complex and spicy, and while I think I catch a hint of cinnamon, it’s not a dominant fragrance or flavour.

This one is also very pretty. In amongst the CTC tea fannings there’s a lot of orange peel, fennel seed, coriander seed and broken green cardamom pods. A little sparser is cinnamon bark pieces, whole clove, broken star anise and ginger. I don’t actually see any peppercorns, but they’re definitely there in the flavour.

I drank this with milk and quite a lot of sugar. I steeped it for 7 minutes, at which point it was quite strong and definitely had some bitterness and astringency which needed mellowing out. I used more sugar than I usually do to soften the bitterness, but it didn’t end up overly sweet tasting.

Yum!

Lovely. Lots of fruitness, a bit of floral and warm, woodiness of rooibos. There’s lots of blueberry in this, almost jammy, maybe some currant, lavender and rose? A very relaxing blend.

Nooooo! I picked this up, opened it, put it down on the counter, and then picked the bag up upside down. Half the bag dumped out on the floor, which is not very clean, before I realized what was happening. I managed to salvage a few of the larger pieces of leaf, but it’s mostly pretty broken and will need to be vacuumed up. Sadness – that was probably at least 10g of this tea.

Double sadness, because this is a bit of a pricier tea and it’s really good. It has an intense sweet toffee fragrance, and the taste of burnt sugar with some floral and hay notes from the tea. It has all the qualities of being sweet without actually being sweet. Light, smooth body without being watery.

Oooh this is nice. The toffee caramel notes are very strong on the nose and on the palette, but there’s still a bit of the white tea that comes through. Very delicate and subtly floral. Just a hint of vegetal on the finish. The liquor is a beautiful pale gold, and matches the flavour of this cup perfectly.

Though there’s a lot of toffee flavour in this, it doesn’t actually taste sweet to me. Very pleasant.

The tea leaves are very fluffy, so I pulled two scoops out of the bag, but there was probably more air than tea leaf in each scoop.

Oh this is very nice. Way better than DAVID’s Magic Dragon. As good as Teavana’s Dragonfruit Devotion. Mmmmm. And so pretty too.

Cold steeped this over night and I like it much better than when I had it hot. There’s notes of prickly pear, banana and tropical fruits. It’s sweet and a touch tart.

This is a sipdown, but I could see maybe picking up some more at some point to cold steep in the summer.

Hmm, interesting. Steeped, the tea smells very creamy, but tastes very tart. It’s a weird mismatch.

I tried it plain first, but I was mostly getting tart an not much else. A teaspoon of sugar helps it, though I think it’s too much sugar. Sweetened, the flavour of pear and maybe vanilla comes out a bit. Still very tart, but better.

I steeped this quite a long time, so I think I will experiment with more tea and less time next cup. And sugar, but only a little.

I really love strongly herbal, dry tisanes. This one is powerfully rosemary and woody. The citrus notes come in behind the other flavours and are fairly subtle. There’s nothing sweet about this tea, in fact I could almost imagine drinking it with a pinch of salt, as I associate rosemary with savoury meals.

Sipdown (127/134)!

Finished off the sample from VariaTEA – I debated adding milk to this but I’m really glad that I didn’t because that would have been really, really weird. This cup was pretty significantly different than the last one I had.

To start, the rosemary was very strong and intense in this cup. In fact, it was very close to being too much; but it kinda worked with the sweetness of the fig and the floral of the rose. Overall, it sorta made the mug especially herbal and borderline savory, though and that weirded me out. The caramel was kinda missing in this cup though. I feel like I’m not totally ok with that. I like caramel…

But on the whole this was a good cup; very weird and definitely memorable. I must say though, I think I’ll be good if I don’t have another rosemary heavy tea for a long, long while. It was maybe too different; but I’m so happy I got to experience it especially when it was so lighthanded in the first cup.

I guess the rosemary in the sample must’ve sunk the the bottom of the little baggie?

Thank you VariaTEA for the sample of this one! I pulled out a few black samples out of my closet to work on since my sipdown drawer was looking a little lonely, and this is one of them. I must say, the sample section in my closet is looking awfully empty right now; I’ve been doing a great job of keeping my cupboard at a reasonable number lately.

Also, I have to admit that I don’t remember much about this cup though I do strongly remember the second one I had of it (the sipdown one; which I’ll write about later – there’s more stuff in the queue to get through first). Because of that I’ll just have to rely on my notes to summarize what my thoughts were when I had it…

- Made in my timolino
- Visually lots of interesting things going on in the leaf
- A little hard to pinpoint what’s in this/the flavours based on sight and smell
- I don’t taste any rosemary… Thank God?
- Why does Rosemary instantly remind me of lesbian alien lovers!?
- Oh, this is why: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdykbgfLmJ1rb5pqfo4_500.jpg
- It’s a Homestuck thing…
- Back to tea: Even if I don’t taste Rosemary I do taste the rose, which is well balanced
- The fig is stronger than I expected it to be
- The caramel just makes the fig seem richer, like some sorta glaze?
- Is caramelized fig actually a thing?
- The black base is JUST A TOUCH bitter, but nice overall
- Yeah, this is better than anticipated
- Just weird; like canon alien lesbian lovers…

Sipped this down in a latte with a scoop of matcha. The flavour of this tea doesn’t come through strongly – there’s just a hint of spice and an extra rich, creaminess to the cup, and it completely mellows the grassiness of the matcha. All in all a good way to be done with a tea I didn’t love.

It’s really weird that in this pumpkin spice black tea, the dominant flavour I’m getting is chamomile, and it doesn’t even contain chamomile. Behind the chamomile flavour there’s pumpkin and cinnamon and spices, but they’re definitely secondary. The black tea hardly merits a mention.

I initially steeped this for 5 minutes and it was so light, I threw the basket back in my cup for a while longer. With a longer steep and some sugar it’s better, and the non-chamomile flavours come out a bit more.

It’s kind of tasty but not really noteworthy, and I just want so much more from it. Pumpkin spice makes me want lots of pumpkin and allspice and cinnamon and pie crust and cream flavour. Something really rich and warming. The name evokes cool autumn days, the smell of dry leaves, rich food for cold weather and the melancholy of summer departing in a blaze of colour. Maybe I’m asking too much of a tea, but I want that feeling from something called Pumpkin Spice.

This is sooo herbal tasting and it’s soooo good. Straight up lime, sage and woody rooibos flavours. Not even a little bit sweet. I love it.

The lime is very dominant in this cup, with plenty of sage to give it some intense herbal notes. Very refreshing and crisp.

I let it steep for quite a while and then slowly sipped it till it was cold. Lovely at any temperature.

This tea is my relaxing after a whirlwind morning. I got up, made coffee for my sweetie, made french toast for three and then when all that was done, took the hot water left in the kettle and made tea. I steeped this cup for a cool 9 minutes, and even when I took the leaves out, they were only beginning to unfurl, still all crinkly from being rolled up.

This tea really benefits from a long steep, though I think it brews up better with slightly hotter water than I used. It has a beautiful, full mouth buttery flavour that overlays a light, nuttiness. There’s a hint of dry mouth feel on the finish, but no astringency, and the faintest floral note.

Such a lovely cup, and a lovely way to start the day. I’m looking forward to my second steep of these leaves, and what comes out.

Definitely a more complex and full mouth flavour than the milk oolong from DAVID’s Tea.

For some reason this extremely flowery, dry tea reminds me of Earl Grey, even though there’s none of the signature bergamot notes of Earl Grey. But the flavour has a similarly elegant and sophisticated feel to it.

I like a cup of this to start my day. It’s a pleasant bouquet of flowers on the nose and a delicate but full mouth taste.

My first cup of the morning. I love this tea so much, I’m bumping up my rating a bit, because it’s definitely a must have for my cupboard. It’s got a lot of intense flavour and combines two of my favourite things, so what’s not to love?

I love how beautiful and fragrant this tea is. The scattered lavender blossoms in the dried tea and the way they float above the tea leaves while steeping is lovely, and the strong lavender and bergamot fragrance carries nicely from bag to cup.

This makes a very dry, floral cup. The lavender flavour is strong but doesn’t overpower the Earl Grey. The lavender lingers longer on the tongue than the other flavours.

This is another one of my favourite teas to start the day with.

I’m working on the last of the eggnog, and this made for a fantastic latte. No sugar or anything needed, and it had all the lovely, sweet, creamy citrusy notes of a London Fog, with a hit of nutmeg which complemented it all wonderfully.

I could drink many of these, and I’ll be sad when the eggnog is gone.

Ah my sweet, sweet love. This is always the perfect tea to relax with. Never leave my cupboard <3

I’ve had an exhausting and rather rough day, and I’m just getting to my first cup of the day at 10pm. So instead of trying something new, I made the biggest cup I have of one of my favourite, most comforting tisanes. Lots of milk and sugar tonight, and it’s creamy and sweet, with lemon and bergamot notes and just delicious.

Ah sweet, wonderful london fog. Always a safe bet, and so nice to sip when feeling a bit over stimulated.

This tea is amazing. It’s bold and full bodied and has all the characteristics that make a London Fog latte so delicious.

Just straight, it’s creamy and sweet, with strong bergamot notes. The roobos flavour comes out only subtly, not distracting from the flavours that say London Fog. It’s also excellent with milk and sugar, which punch up the flavours even more.

It’s a tea I can drink over and over again, and it satisfies every part of my palette.

On its own this tea isn’t bad – strong chocolate mint flavour without a lot of sweetness. It really shines with milk and sugar though. The sweet, creaminess enhances the chocolate and mint, reminding me of an After Eight chocolate.