Cornelia Bean

so i’ve had this cold brewed, hot brewed and hot brewed, cooled lol and this is the first time i’ve had a chance to log this, so thank you dexter since i’m lazy and tired… here are some highlights..

1) i prefer this cold brewed as long as you don’t mind my second point
2) this looks like someone peed in to a container when it’s in a glass one
3) this is really nicely guava flavoured – i’d love to see a guava only tea from cornelia bean!
4) the peach isn’t overpowering :)

thanks again dexter!

Dear dexter all is forgiven…at least one of the peach teas you sent me is a hit…there may be others, but this one has reminded me of why i really liked peach to begin with. That’s not to say i want an abundance of peach teas, but i had this one cold brewing…came home, drank it up – it was like drinking liquid fuzzy peaches without the sugar. IE. it wasn’t too sweet – but it was just a DIFFERENT peach flavour than the usual. So after drinking all that, i made the last of it as a hot brew and it too was pretty tasty – though i prefer the cold one :) thanks for sending this one my way dexter!

Final Count: 128

this was another from dexter I’ve reacently fallen out of love with Peach, which is funny because that’s the first “flavoured” tea i really gravitated towards. This particular peach isn’t bad. I like that it’s blended against a yellow tea, making it a little different than some of the others that i’ve had. That being said, while it’s a nice tea because i’m not in love with peach currently, it’s not a hit for me. HOWEVER, for those looking for a light peach tea, this one is pretty nice :)

another from VariaTEA this one was also a miss for me, but not as badly as the previous one. There’s almost like a vague memory of strawberry here, and i’m not sure i’d pin point anything as “meringue” A fairly uneventuful cup of tea for me, but again, i dDO like trying teas! so thank you Variatea!

mmmm still enjoying this one as a cold brew. I had this one after my bike ride as well, for some much needed hydration. I really like cold brews after biking esp without the sugar just a bunch of taste! :) noms!

Another cold brew of this one tonight – had a few glasses of this today and it was fantastic. Exactly what i needed after our morning bike ride. I have to say, i’m not sure if i’d call this rhubarb but it was tasty and so that’s all that really matters in summer with cold brews lol is it tasty? check. drink it! :)

cold brew of this one tonight courtesy of dexter who hasn’t even logged this yet! :) I’m not sure that i would call this rhubarb or frisky…but it is pretty tasty. it reminds me of another tea i’ve cold brewed recently, so i’m not sure that bodes well for it as being “different” enough from other teas to hold its own. that being said it was refreshing and not super tart so that’s a win for me! thanks dexter!

GCTTB Rd 3:

I had high hopes given the chocolatey bits in this tea but this is just a semi-chocolate tea. Nothing special but still interesting to try. Thank you mewakeling!

13/28 sipdowns

thanks for sending this one my way VariaTEA i think i would like this one a lot better without the rose. Initial sips of this are really nice and then the floral takes over and makes this a note happy sort of cup :( I am glad to have tried it though, as always you never know what you’ll like!

drink drink drink…. cold brew of this tonight because it’s HOT like SUPER HOT! like UGH hot…trying to make sure to have at least one cold brew in the fridge at all times for days like these. However, not much to say about this one because it’s just sort of a generic cold brew…not tasting like anything specific but also not tasting bad. sooooo yeah :)

dexter sent this one my way for my birthday with a few other teas for cold brewing. This one is quite tasty though i couldn’t tell you what i’m drinking tonight – this was maybe not the best choice after kaphaa lol still though, i like this one quite a bit :)

Final Count: 160

I cold steeped this over night in the fridge. I like it better hot. It’s ok cold steeped, but I think the peach gets lost in the green base. I like Cornelia’s peach flavor, and it’s really nice in this when hot steeped, but it’s more muted cold steeped.
Next time, hot steep and then cool for iced tea……

Sipdown (133/140)!

Firstly, read this: http://gawker.com/my-14-hour-search-for-the-end-of-tgi-fridays-endless-ap-1606122925

I don’t understand how one person can hate mozzarella sticks so much; and also only 7 plates after 14 hours is embarrassingly low, in my opinion. I would have been aiming for like a plate an hour…

Anyway, the tea! I said I’d have the last cup worth prepared at home, so I did – and it did make a difference. In addition to the rich juicy grenadine, I finally found the vanilla flavouring and there wasn’t any bitterness or astringency (though I still feel like that was more so from sitting in the timolino for so long and less so from being prepped that way). So hooray for a tasty cuppa and some flavour improvements!

Bumping my rating just a touch.

First to rate? Ok, I’ll do my best.

Sample comes from VariaTEA – who else? I made it up in my timolino yesterday because I was really craving a good Monk’s Blend and I’d yet to try this one despite having it in my possession for a while. And though I took it to work with me, I didn’t actually start drinking it until after I’d gotten home and began making myself supper (I actually cooked and not just microwaved, since I had today off!).

As a Monk’s Blend it was pretty good! It had really strong, flavourful grenadine notes which somewhat leaned towards pomegranate in flavour with maybe a like strawberry-like quality. The vanilla, which is also traditionally part of MB, was a little less noticeable and definitely faded into the shadow of the grenadine, but that said there were still sips where it showed through a little more prominently.

The black base had the faintest touch of malt to it which was interesting, and there was also a little bit of astringency near the end of the timolino but I’m going to chock that up to the fact that this one sat around in the timolino for a good eightish hours before I got to drinking it. Overall, not as good at my favour MB from MTC – but solid.

I still have one more cup worth, and I think I’ll prepare it at home in a regular old mug for comparison. Looking forward to it!

Sipdown (140/147)!

Thank you VariaTEA for the sample! I decided the best way to use it would be as a cold brew, so that’s the method I went with. It had a relatively long cold brew time of like 18 hours…

Honestly, I don’t remember much about what this one tasted like so I guess I’ll have to default to the notes I wrote for myself:

- Fairly Smooth
- Creamy/Vanilla Notes
- Mild Strawberry Notes
- Decent Overall

So I guess I had positive enough things to say about it, but I suppose the fact I hardly remember it probably says something too, right?

Maybe I don’t recall it too much though because I drank it during my extended cleaning shift at work which was until around Midnight, and I was actually pretty busy. It was an interesting night; I closed the store with my Manager (the Witch) who I guess hadn’t closed in like half a year (she typically just works mornings). I had to walk her through the closing process and basically reteach her how to do everything.

Hopefully it gave her some perspective into just how much she’s asking of us every night when we close: it’s not so much that her tasks for us are hard or challenging, it’s just that she assigns so many of them that it’s not realistic for a two person team (one of which HAS to be on till) to accomplish them all without either doing a sloppy job or sacrificing our break times. There’s only so much time in the evening…

Thank you VariaTEA for sending this tea my way!

I’ve isolated this tea in a cute tin so it’ll keep it’s flavour and it smells so nice and luscious. I smell caramel and slight hints of chocolate so I’m hoping that the rooibos doesn’t overpower the flavouring!

But alas, the rooibos did overpower the sweet chocolate and caramel notes. it’s okay, but I definitely would have loved to taste the sweetness in this tea. A decent rooibos, something nice to end the night with :)

tea from this morning courtesy of omgsrsly Now that my Butiki teas have arrived i am back on track for figuring out how to get down to my goal this month! 95! here i come (sitting at 144). this one was fun to try but not my favourite of the black teas that omgsrsly sent my way. still though, enjoyable but not awesome enough to crack my favourites :)

omgsrsly sent this one my way and since i have enough for a couple cups, i’m trying to go through the first round of all her straight black samples this week for easy sipdowns next week haha
This one isn’t bad, though i think it’s more of a with milk sort of tea as there’s an edge in here that i’m struggling with this morning. Either that, or it’s going to be one of those days for me and tea haha. I do like the strength of this one though, so it’s an enjoyable cup. I’m glad i have another sil sized serving to play with haha thanks omg!

GCTTB3

Okay, time for some personal news here.

Remember when I said last week I would go on a tea-buying hiatus until September? Well, it appears that this vow was well-timed, as I found out yesterday that I’ve exhausted my EI benefits.

I’ve been freelancing and money has been coming in through that, but not enough to support myself on, so the EI money was a real help. However, now that it’s gone, I really have to evaluate my expenses and ramp up my freelancing so that more money comes in. (By the way, I work as a writer, editor, and blogger – if you or someone you know needs help with sales copy, blog posts, editorial quality control, content management and so forth, let me know.)

At least I still have my tea to keep me company, and I’m expecting one last shipment to come in very soon (the teas from the Just Organic Kickstarter that ended 2 months ago, so it’s not like I’m still spending money on new tea).

Anyways, this tea. It smells amazing, like an After Eight mint! I have a tiny bit of Read My Lips by David’s Tea in my cupboard, so I smelled the two side by side this morning. This tea smells mintier than Read My Lips, but RML smells a bit chocolatier.

I made a full pot of this tea this morning, and am still sipping on it. It’s not quite a sweet as I was expecting, but I’m not too upset. I’m just glad I got a chance to try this, though I think that if I’m looking for a chocolate mint tea in the future, I’ll just stick with RML since it’s easier to come by.

GCTTB3

Backlog from last night:

This tea smells sooo good when you open the package. A beautiful mixture of orange and spice. However, when I brewed it last night, I let it steep for far too long (I was in the basement dealing with laundry). Despite this, it was still pretty good, though adding a bit of honey didn’t do much to change the flavour.

One thing I’ve noticed about red rooibos is that it seems that there are two kinds of rooibos tastes. Some teas have rooibos that tastes woody and medicininal – this seems to be the majority. However, sometimes I’ve had rooibos that tastes somewhat citrusy and peppery – there’s a watery bite in the background that reminds me of watermelon rind.

I can smell the difference when it’s steeping, and this particular tea definitely seemed to smell like the second kind of red rooibos, which is the kind I prefer. I wish there were a way to find out what rooibos it would be before I tasted it, though, so I could avoid the woody kind.