Herbal Infusions

Sipdown!

Dumped the rest of the sample in my steeper and gave it a good 5 minutes, since last time it seemed weak. This time it was stronger, and better, but a little astringent, which might be due to the steeping parameters, or possibly the coffee part of it.

On the whole, I’m glad I tried it, but it’s not a regular tea for me. It’s tasty enough, but a but finicky.

I dunno guys….I really want to love this one, but it came out weak. I don’t know if it is a brewing issue or whether the milk I added affected it. It’s far from horrible, but nowhere as rich as I had expected.

I don’t remember my exact steeping, but I think it was about 2 tsp (to fill 2 travel mugs) and probably about 3 minutes each steep. As per usual, I split the first steep between the two mugs and did the same with the second steep. I do it like this to reduce having one mug of weaker tea.

I’ll try it again, soon, but without the milk, perhaps.

Many thanks to Cavocorax for sharing some of this with me. One hopes that I’ll get a better steep next time.

This tea smells a little bit like across between shortbread and scones with a touch of almond flour. The taste is subtle but pleasant. The base tea underneath is quite sweet, with a touch of astringency. The initial flavour note was kind of like a powdery shortbread cookie, followed a by a touch of almond extract and assert note that reminds me of licorice or perhaps stevia (I haven’t had it for a while). Mostly reminds me of shortbread with a touch of almond extract. Thanks to Dexter3657 for the chance to try this limited edition tea.

Thanks so much for this one, MissB! Herbal Infusions is this new intriguing tea company that I probably shouldn’t know about. haha. I just wish they would list the ingredients in their teas. The leaves here are different – there are two types of green tea I think. The fragrance seems like marzipan but it isn’t in the flavor at all. It’s a nice buttery green but it seems like the other green tea could be a tiny bit more vegetal with a refreshing cherry flavor. The cherry subtle but any more and it might take on a fakey flavor. I was craving cherry today. (I think I have teas for many craves I have… which is great because I don’t usually have it in the actual flavor.)

Ok, so I don’t love this tea. It’s just too thin for me. I’ll probably toss the rest into the moose tracks tea.

Exploring more of my teas from Cavocorax tonight, and this one, being caffeine free, won. I’ve seen a lot of reviews on it, so it piqued my curiosity. I used 2 heaping tsp to 10 oz or so of water, and let it steep at least 5 minutes, but it was likely longer…I just didn’t time it. I think I could probably go for a longer steep next time, though this was tasty, if not a little bit weak. I did add a small amount of sugar and some dark chocolate milk…I think the milk made me only taste the milk, and not the tea, but I’m not sure. Will try with regular milk at a later time.

I’m not sure how to rate this one yet…I like it, but I’m not sure I love it, yet I love the aspect of something chocolatey and caffeine free (or at least low caffeine for later in the evening. I really am trying to stick to my reduced caffeine, and trying to keep the caffeine to the morning and mid-afternoon hours only.

So I think I’ll leave the rating off for now, moreso because I need to think more about it, and maybe have more of this and try tweaking it some first.

Sipdown (201/203)!

This is the last of yesterday’s backlog I’m going to be able to squeak in a write up for, at least for today. I need to go get ready for my interview and eat something. Still, I made a nice(ish) dent in it!

I finished this off quickly because I could see the sipdown potential and was not worried about hoarding it. The last was prepped in a timolino to allow for the little extra bit of leaf, and I mixed in some milk just like I had pondered doing earlier this week.

I was actually less impressed this time around and thought this mug worth taste rather burnt/bitter, and almost had unwelcome notes of cinnamon. Despite maintaining a “cookie like” taste, this was not so delicious and the milk did nothing to help at all. I finished the whole thing in the hope that by the time it cooled down a little it’d be better (just slowly sipping at it in the mean time), but it never did and in hindsight I think I should have just dumped it and saved myself some time.

I’m going to lower my rating.

This sample comes from VariaTEA.

I’m a little confused why Santa’s Milk and Cookies has maple leaf sprinkles in it, to be honest. Like – sprinkles is fine, but why maple leaf sprinkles? It’s not like the flavour is abundantly maple or anything. I guess Canada has been doing their publicity stunt thing about Santa being a Canadian Citizen/getting Canadian Citizenship but I highly doubt that was the thinking or logic.

Taste wise, this wasn’t bad, but it was’t good either. It actually tasted very familiar but I couldn’t place where from which bugged me just a little bit. There was a bit of cookie taste, but not really anything too impressive. Maybe some vanilla? I’ll try it with milk next time and see if that helps, I guess.

Backlog:

This is awesome. Chocolate-y and decadent and just seriously yum.

A delicious dark chocolate flavor (want milk chocolate, just add a splash of milk!) The mint doesn’t overpower this blend and I like that. It’s a cool, crisp minty flavor that complements the chocolate.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/01/11/mint-cacao-herbal-tea-from-herbal-infusions/

The water fizzed when I poured it in my mug to steep. It definitely smells chai-like, with creaminess.

I may have oversteeped this because there’s a lot of astringency (1.5 tsp for 3 minutes), or perhaps boiling water wasn’t the answer. It’s still piping hot, so maybe I’ll take another sip in a few minutes when it’s had more of a chance to cool.

While I was out I got 4 swaps/shares in the post. Hopefully you all enjoy your teas Aimee Popovacki, Angrboda, Roswell Strange, and VariaTEA!

Update: I dumped out that cup. This time around I tried 1.25 tsp for 2.5 minutes at less than boiling.

This attempt is definitely less astringent. The coconut isn’t really present, perhaps only in a creaminess dimming the spicy chai-ness.

I have read from other people’s notes to not expect a true vanilla cacao, but more of a spiced variety, so I was prepared for something different, but this…? Very strange, there was some sort of meat flavor in there that finally made me dump the mug, it was just not enjoyable. Really weird tea.

This one came in my Herbal Infusions order today.

The scent is pretty awesome. Warm creamiscle. I have to say the taste is more orange than cream. My package of this specially says “Orange Lapacho/Vanilla”, but I don’t get vanilla.

On the upside, this lapacho type of tea is great! When I saw a comparison to rooibos/honeybush I was slightly concerned but there’s no bizarre medicinal taste here.

Backlog:

An interesting cup of tea. Not my favorite from Herbal Infusions, but, not bad either. The name … sort of suggested to me that it might be something like a s’mores, but there’s no chocolate to it which … I guess I’m wishing there was. Imagine that, huh? Me? Wanting chocolate? Ha!

I taste black tea, and it’s a mild, even tempered sort of tea. As the tea cools, I notice more and more of the graham notes. The coconut is off in the distance.

It’s tasty … it’s a bit more cookie-ish than it is s’mores-ish but the description didn’t mislead me … I allowed myself to be misled because of the graham in the name. That’s my fault, not the fault of the tea. It’s pretty tasty.

Sipdown!! (128)

Thank you Cavocorax for sharing this tea. It is certainly very interesting. It smells sweet so I was not expecting the little kick of spiciness I got in my first sip. However, when I took a second to think about it, “fireside” should probably have given that away. I don’t mind spice but I don’t particularly enjoy drinking it tbh so this tea is just not for me. It was fun to try though.

To be completely honest, I thought this was going to be like the Denali ice cream flavor Moosetracks (vanilla ice cream with fudge ripple and peanut butter cups) and I was really intrigued how that was going to translate to tea.

This is not that.

This is still very good.

I can’t believe this hasn’t been pointed out yet, because I think this tastes so much like chocolate covered espresso beans it’s magic.

I don’t really get anything from the coconut and the slight bit of nuttiness isn’t quite hazelnut to me as it compounds the delicious effect of espresso beans.

For some reason I just got the image of Pac Man eating espresso beans, so I thought I would share with all of you.

And then this happened: http://imgur.com/hOPXaKF

Thanks NayLynn! That was…an experience.

As I was hoping, this does indeed get better when you way overleaf it (I tripled my standard amount!), provided you like the bittersweetness of dark chocolate. It still feels a little thin bodied though the flavor is for sure amped up. Next time I’ll try making it super strong and then cutting it with cream. Right now, and as it cools upon resteep, it’s like taking an 80%+ cacao bar of chocolate, melting it down, adding milk or cream but not sweetener (it’s silky, rich, and intense but not terribly sweet), and drinking it in liquid form.

Even getting the prep just right I can tell this isn’t going to replace American Tea Room’s Choco-Late for me. That one’s very “cheap packet hot chocolate for little kids, complete with the intense granular salt-sugariness” nostalgic junky comfort food while this one, worked out to its best prep, is going to be more grown up, richer and more solid, well, cacao beany. There’s a place for both sorts of course, but the dirty truth is I probably will appreciate the former more when I reach for it because it’s, I dunno, an instant trip down memory lane without having to keep actual crappy packets of Swiss Miss around indefinitely going stale for just those moments. This kind of thing just makes me want to go back to Asheville and drink a mug of modern day Xocolatl from French Broad or something, or whip up some liquid Dagoba Xocolatl. Plus, that stuff’s intense no matter how you shake it; a little gourmet thimble’s worth and your taste buds and belly both feel stuffed to the brim.

I’m not conveying myself clearly; ugh it’s late. I guess what I mean is, when prepped right this does a bang up job at being that rich, thick, intense cacao bean drink one imagines in tiny cups. But part of me is more grateful that the cheap Swiss Missy substitute version of cacao husk tea exists. That both do is pretty great though, of course.

Woah! I like this! I actually prefer the straight Tisano cacao over the herbal infusions one, maybe cause I overleaf that one like mad since I can get it free overnight on amazon (Herbal infusions seems to take awhile). BUT… I definitely prefer this mint cacao over the Tisano one. That one is wayyyyyyyyy too minty. This one is perfect! Just enough mint to give a nice flavor but not enough to drown out the chocolate. A nice after dinner treat. I dumped my whole sample into the mug as I like to seriously overleaf the cacao teas. Glad I did. Very full and rich.

It’s interesting to try this, being a largely non-alcoholic person. This tea is rather floral and perfumed. All told, it’s not bad, though I think a wine aficionado (or someone who at least enjoyed an occasional cup) would be able to say a bit more about the taste than I could.

VariaTEA gave me a sample of this and I dumped the entire thing into my mason jar! OH YEAH. This is a mason jar tea. I let it steep for 10 minutes and added milk and it is pretty delicious.

Still a little thin, but, it’s not an actual hot chocolate so I’ll do the best with what i have. And this is enjoyable. Not sure I’d want 100g of it, but maybe 50. Thanks for letting me steal your sample!!!

(And I had better get off to bed. I’ll regret staying up in 6.5 hours. DOH)

I received a sample of this from MissB with the teas I ordered in her tea stash sale. Thank you!

I made the first cup of this and thought man this is weak. How could you ever event think to substitute this for hot chocolate. Then I read through some of the reviews and realized I had really under steeped this. The second cup I had I let it hang out for quite a while. Yummy.! This was a spiced hot chocolate. If I ever get the chance to put in an order from Herbal Infusions I would order some of this. Thank you for sharing MissB!

I figured this would be another great mason jar tea so I steeped a huge batch of it up, and then to coax additional flavour from it, I let it sit for 10 minutes.

That might have been a mistake. I can really taste bark, and then a bit of orange, and then just a little cream. Huh. So I added a bit of milk and that toned the bark down and upped the cream, but this still isn’t as good as it smells. GUYS – this smells amazing. But the smell is just a trick.

Sip down. It was good but I still like Bayswater’s Chocolate Macchiato and Crème Brulee blends a lot better. This one’s a little thin in comparison. No nuts. It does, however, kind of taste like an iced coffee when you drink it with some cream and let it cool down a bit.

Poor Steepsterites, getting over a week’s worth of sipdowns in one shot. I promise I’m done!

Moose Tracks smells gloriously gourmand. Like the ice cream! At least from memory. Very pungent coffee smell, which is so invigorating and tantalizing that I couldn’t resist brewing this when it’s so close to 9pm already. Where did the day go?

First sip sans additives and its coffee, coffee, coffee, with a tiny bit of cream. Like the coffee flavour you get from espresso ice creams.

With half and half, it really hits the spot. Not sure if I get the nuts? Maybe a little, but it’s vague. I went ahead and added some Kahlua because I kind of need to use it up. It’s pretty yummy.

I still think I prefer Bayswater’s Chocolate Macchiato, though. And their hazelnut blends. Hmm. Now there’s a mixing idea.