For Tea's Sake

It’s probably a good thing I can’t find their website because this is appalling. It doesn’t smell good. It does not look good. It does not taste good. I could at least tell it was an oolong so I got my hopes up a little thinking that maybe it would have an interesting oolong flavor. No. Nope. Tastes like my compost pile. Maybe slightly better. Full of old grass clippings that were left in the bag. Tree bark that’s turning but not quite. Why am I still drinking this? To the plants it goes.

I like this spiced rooibos chai. Lots of peppercorn, cinnamon, and anise (licorice? fennel? something like that but very faint). It is pouring rain (and has been for several days now), it has been cloudy with no sun for weeks, and it is quite chilly outside. My province has finally put in a lockdown/mandatory mask order and is it feels cozier than ever to stay indoors in my home. I made this one hot and left the paper teabag in for the hour that I forgot about it. It also has a splash of vanilla soy milk. Overall, I tasty cup. It isn’t as creamy or peppery as coco chai rooibos, but it is still solid.

Despite being a few years old, this is a very flavourful jasmine green with a nice balance between rose and jasmine. Smooth, full of flavour (I sometimes worry about greens, but this was in a sealed mini tin).

I found a little tin of this. I think it was another tea set aside for a swap that never came to be. As such, I am sipping on it now with honey because caffeine free and that means its hydrating and I don’t really care to taste it or not.

What I do get is sweet apple, bolstered by the honey of course….and rooibos. Woody rooibos. Not my favorite but serving its purpose as a hydrating tea and a way of getting more honey. I have had a lot of honey actually. I think I have powered through 1/2 a 1 kg bottle. Oops. Though it seems to be helping.

Sipdown (1006)!

A cup or two of this list still (or one cold brew), but I’m adding them to the TTB because Arby mentioned wanting to try some more fruity/juicy sorta herbals and this one is a nice mixed fruit type of profile!

Still getting strawberry-kiwi type vibes this afternoon; it’s very enjoyable but I feel content with saying goodbye to this blend right now.

Cold Brew!

Coming home from work to cold brew is the best! This was a VariaTEA share – thank you! I find this to be a pretty simple fruit blend, with a sort of generic fruity flavour; although this infusion gave me some more distinct strawberry flavours. It’s very refreshing and summery, though & the name reminds me of Pride which is why I decided to brew it.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CBYKpC6gKLh/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBto7qKCNSQ

This was a share from VariaTEA!

I’m not totally sure what this is meant to taste like but I found it incredibly generically “fruit punch”, or just red fruit in general, tasting – with hints of citrus and apple/hibiscus. Just a very run of the mill blend, which makes sense looking at the ingredients visually – they’re all primarily things in herbal blends that act like fillers/flavour carriers – so the bulk of the profile is probably just coming from the hibiscus and added flavourings.

Even still, I kinda liked it.

Sipdown (221)

Made this as a tea lemonade with some tangerine lemonade. The lemonade definitely helps this a great deal by drawing on the sweetness and covering the herbs and hibby slightly. It is still not a favorite though so the last little bit of this got put into my swap box.

Cold brewed this in a mix of water and orange juice. It really isn’t great. This is just so hibby tart and the herbs are just out of place.

Iced Tea Lemonade that could be nice if not for a weird herb note.

Made as an iced tea lemonade with the rest of my Hibiscus Splash by DAVIDsTEA. Check out the full review here: https://steepster.com/rachel12610/posts/392683.

Basically it’s a hibiscus explosion with lemonade.

Now to decide how to use the toasted marshmallow whipped cream I bought…

When I first picked this tea up in a charming little basement tea shop, I was absolutely HOOKED on just the smell of it. Though the tea does contain rosehips, this is not present in the scent. It’s aroma is sweet, fruity, and enticing; no hints of floral. However, if you’re not one for sour teas, this might not be your cuppa. The taste of this fuchsia colored tea is close to being dominated by hibiscus flavors, but the sweet strawberry still does pull through nice and evenly. Overall, this is a good balance of flavors, but the smell is deceiving.

Finished this one up today – still trying to make sure i’m well hydrated from our ride yesterday. Husbands seems to think i can go from no riding to doing 80km in a day, no problem…so we did a trial run yesterday and i managed about 45 lol

All in all, i vastly prefer this cold brew to hot.

Cold brew of this is much better than the hot brew. this is less bubble gum and more fruit. Nothing i really need to get more of, but i’ll enjoy the rest of this until it’s done.

Not sure what this one is supposed to taste like. Another sample from VariaTEA. when it was hot it tasted like the sludge that comes off of bubblegum in bubblegum ice cream. But not like the actual bubble gum lol Now that it’s cooled it’s more like a generic “fruit” tea with some sour and sweet notes. Will have to try it cold and see what that’s like!

Sipdown (602)!

My weekly tea infused salad dressing! I think, at this point, hopefully most people should know the gist of my basic salad dressing recipe? I guess comment if you want further details, but the general mix for this one was: white vinegar infused with the tea, walnut oil, two cloves of crushed garlic, and a turmeric infused honey.

You can taste the black tea a little bit but mostly this just has a nice warming turmeric spice to it and a lovely nutty, garlic overall profile. The tea adds a bit of malt; and I think just rounds out the profile a little bit? It’s a nice dressing overall though even if it’s not tea dominant. Also it was a really good excuse for me to quickly finish off a lower quality straight black tea that I was putting off the sipdown for…

I wouldn’t recreate this batch; but I’m definitely going to finish it. If, for no other reason, than walnut oil is freaking expensive!

In the grand scheme of ‘Breakfast Teas’ (English, Irish, etc.) I think this one is pretty average. Like most breakfast blends it’s pretty full bodied and strong, but this is also a sweeter blend with more raisin/fruit sort of body notes in addition to the strong presence of malt and baked bread notes. Perfectly fine to drink without milk/sugar because it’s sweet all on its own while still packing a punch. Not the cleanest finish; but it’s cheap so I wont fault it too much.

nope. this is not a tea for me. lol This is largely a chamomille tea, but the added lavender just tips it over into nope land. Some might like this one, if those flavour profiles are up your alley :)

instructions on this one said brew for 6-10 mins….i did not. stuck to 3 mins and i’m glad i did because even at 3 mins, this isn’t a pleasant breakfast blend. Too astringent and coppery for my liking – i vastly prefer malty, smooth delicious things for my breakfast teas haha. ah well, at least i’m drinking things and trying new teas!

This tea is nice and the smell is mind-blowing. I am somewhat disappointed because it is not what I expected. To me it does not live up to its aroma, since it smells very citrusy but tasted like candied strawberries. Not bad but I was going for a bolder taste. Still a good and refreshimg choice!

Sipdown (557)!

Finishing this one off as an iced tea with added in lemonade. It’s basically a boring, plain enough jasmine green tea so I figured I’d just use up the last of the leaf to make something fun and different. This is ok; I’ve made jasmine tea infused lemonade before but with jasmine white tea; I like the white tea a little better than this green one. However the subtle floral jasmine underneath that bright lemonade body note is still really pleasant.

Cuppa that I drank on the way home last night.

It definitely had some bitterness to it and that lawn clippings/overly grassy kind of taste; I think that’s probably because the base green tea is a lot lower quality than I’ve been drinking as of late. The jasmine was nice though; pretty strong but not rough. It definitely did the grapey thing though where I’d slip back and forth between tasting florals and plump red grapes. So weird.

Not terrible overall as a tea though.