Infusion Bouteaque

Sweet and tart, the perfect tea for our family’s evening tea.

Wonderfully comforting tea. A friend sent this tea to me. I can’t say it tasted much like Earl Grey — I didn’t even know it was one until I read it on their website — but it was one of the most enjoyable teas I’ve ever drunk.

So I’ve been trying to find an herbal tea I enjoy hot — typically I use herbal for iced tea only as a juice replacement — as I’ve recently discovered that although caffeinated tea doesn’t make me feel like hopping around or jittery, it does keep me awake. But I want to drink tea as late as I want, so I need to find a good herbal! :)

Anyway, that said, this one is quite nice! If you like grapefruit at all, you will love this! It smells and tastes exactly like grapefruit. :) The hibiscus thankfully doesn’t take over, it simply adds that tart punch to make the grapefruit flavor more authentic. Mind you, I did do a bit of a timid steep out of fear of the hibiscus, but the liquor is quite dark, so I think I’d already be in danger of the hibiscus if it were a problem.

Perfectly drinkable, but I’m still waiting on that Butiki Teas order to arrive which contains some Citrus Dream that I’m quite excited to try out. :)

Oh, this is lovely! Via cavocorax and roodswing, hee! It’s so mellow and creamy, nom nom nom. Also tastes a tiny bit like mint cream to me, idek. They need to get on with finishing that web store asap >:D

I’ve gotta say, I’m seriously getting addicted to Steepster. I’m starting to spend a loooot of time on it, and whenever I drink a new cup of tea now, one of the first things I think of is, “I gotta write about it on Steepster! :D” It’s also starting to come up in my regular conversations with people at work and home… What can I say, this place is great :D Anyway, onto the tea:

The description on the pouch basically says it all, “a typical breakfast tea, full-bodied and strong.” Honestly there isn’t much else to say about it. It’s a tea that plays it safe. If you like English Breakfast, you’ll enjoy it. But for people who want a nice breakfast tea that breaks away from the mould and tries something new, you won’t find it here.

Overall it is an enjoyable cup, but it’s not good enough to replace the tin of breakfast tea I get for free at work every week.

Yum, yum.

One of my first loose leaf tea. It’s earthy, it’s grassy, it’s everything I used to enjoy from Tetley’s orange pekoe, except this is so so so so so much better. Don’t know what I’m going to do with that 72 count box as the thought of returning to it after a cup of this is almost painful.

Even at such a short steep time, it’s very flavorful, nice and strong but not bitter at all.

I honestly can’t compare this to other orange pekoe loose tea as it’s the only one I’ve tried so far, but it was delicious enough to make a life-long bagged tea drinker realize that loose leaf truly is the way to go.

EDIT: Downed my rating considerably. It’s still a good tea, but in comparison to more straight loose blacks I’ve had, it needs a wider gap in between. This isn’t 9 points off from being a Laoshan Black, that’s for sure. :) (original rating was 91)

Tried the tea as a latte first in the shop, loved it, and brought a 50g bag of it home. Lucky I decided to do that, as apparently they only prepare this blend around Cranberry Festival and I got pretty much the last of it.

Anyway, first off, the ‘pumpkin’ part is misleading. I honestly don’t taste any note of pumpkin at all. But the comforting spicy cloves and cinnamon taste is delicious enough that I forgive it. :)

This tea is especially great with a little bit of brown sugar and a splash of milk. Or if you want a real treat, don’t be afraid to latte it with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top.

Roodswing came over on the weekend for a bit of a tea swap and she left me with some of this. It tastes exactly how it sounds, and I love it. Nice and simple – nuttyish vanilla goodness.

The company sadly is lacking ALL information on its website, but hopefully that will change as I’d like to look at future orders! (Yes, yes, they’re a “local” company, but Fort Langley is still a few cities over. :P

Yesterday we went to a couple of open houses, then to a friend’s Dad’s Movember moustache birthday party (he’s battling cancer – hence the theme). By time I got home and finished some chores I was feeling tired so I slacked a little on my tealogs, so now it’s Sunday morning catch-up for me.

I polished off this tea last night. It’s not my favorite, but I’m not a big fan of red rooibos overall, so considering that, it’s pretty good. I wouldn’t go so far as saying that I’ll repurchase it, but I’m glad I gave it a try. I must say: I’m proud of myself that I made it through this tea without eating any of the pistachios. Hooray!

I’m drinking soothing teas today after yesterday’s fun Halloween with a friend; we took her kids out trick-or-treating, and indulged in a few too many treats. For my costume I decided not to do anything scary because her girls are quite young, so I did a butterfly-inspired look. If you’re interested, please check it out on my Beautylish profile to see what the makeup looked like: http://www.beautylish.com/f/gxvmyr/butterfly

Although I’m not a lover as Rooibos teas as a whole, this tea is doing quite a decent job of changing my mind to think of them in a much more positive light. I don’t think I would go so far as to say that I’d repurchase this one, but I’m definitely going to be less hesitant to open my mind up to trying different types of rooibos.

I bought this tea as part of a special at the cranberry festival. There was a bit of a crowd, so I just grabbed three that sounded unique and I handed over the cash. I didn’t realize that this one was a rooibos until I got home. I’m not a huge rooibos fan, so I would have chosen something different had I known, but I am actually quite happy with this choice. I like the apple and pistachio tastes together and the “rooibosness” isn’t too overwhelming. It’s not something I’d repurchase because I prefer other types of tea, but it’s much better than I anticipated. Gotta love a little forced branching out gone right.

I did a monster mash of two teas that I like, but don’t love. It was made up of this Pumpkin Spice tea along with 2 Lipton Spiced Cinnamon Chai teabags in a large teapot. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. I think the sunflower and calendula petals in this tea are all wrong for my taste.

Now don’t get me wrong, this tea tastes pretty good. I’m just struggling to interpret it as a pumpkin spice. O.K…Sure, I get the spice right from my first sip, but it fades too quickly and blends with a fruit taste. The fruitiness is nice, just a little distracting when you’re trying to think pumpkin.

Now that I look at the ingredients, it’s clearer why I didn’t taste what I expected. The first ingredient isn’t tea, and it isn’t spice, nope! It’s Hibiscus?! Kind of an unusual choice, compared to other pumpkin teas I’ve tried. Fortunately, while it’s hot, I don’t taste the sourness that I frequently experience with teas that have high hibiscus content (although the tartness is a tad more evident when it cools). Hmmm…the fruit taste is likely from the apples and oranges. I’m also a little surprised to see that there is no mention of some of the more typical spices associated with pumpkin teas such as nutmeg, or cloves. Not a bad tea, but I’m just not wow’d by this one yet. Oh well! Perhaps I will use this one as a base for my experimen"tea"tion? Halloween is coming so creating a Frankenstein tea seems rather fitting don’t cha’ think?

Excited Sidenote: I just got an email from 52teas – their 12 Teas of Christmas samplers are available – I ordered one – YAY! Did I mention that I’ve never tried 52teas before, and I already have an order from them on the way? I might be going a little tea order crazy, but I can’t help it, there are just too many yummy teas out there to try :) Here’s a link if you want to check it out for yourself http://www.52teas.com/2012/11/03/12-teas-of-christmas-2012/

At least I’m doing a good job of finishing off the previous purchases in my stash. I just had the last of this cranberry punch today. It’s so yummy good! It does get a little tart as it cools, but not overwhelmingly so. I would feel inclined to buy more if I was in the area of this shop again, and if miraculously, I wasn’t distracted by their other tea options. The empty tea sachet that the leaves came in almost smells good enough to eat…don’t worry, I won’t :D

I’m feeling a little chilly today, my computer says its 10 degrees, but it feels colder than that to me. I was happy when my Dad dropped by the same time as I arrived home from putting my snow tires on my car, so we could share a pot of this tea. It captures that sweet but sour taste of cranberry punch quite nicely.

While I sip on this hot tea in my snuggly fleece, I’m watching my hubby who appears to be in denial that summer is over. He’s outside putting his laundry on the clothesline! That guy makes me laugh :D

My Dad came over for a little visit tonight. I made this tisane because it was getting late and I didn’t want to have caffeine right before bedtime. We enjoyed this fruit melange; it’s just that right combination of sweetness and tartness, and smells absolutely wonderful.

The hubby and I went to the local cranberry festival today. We ended up going a little late, so many of the typical cranberry booths were shutting down by time we got there. It was still a nice day out, and I found a cute little tea shop that I never knew existed. They were having a special on some select packages of tea, so I of course decided to indulge, and selected this one as one of my three picks to come home with me. The dry mix smells SWEET, it reminds me of the smell of shredded bubblegum I used to buy sometimes as a kid (I think it was called big league chew)? My hubby says it smells like red licorice Nibs.

As with many other tisanes I’ve tried, this one has a touch more tartness than I would like (likely the hibiscus), but if I water it down, the tartness becomes much less obvious with this tea (unlike others), so that is a very easy remedy. I was drinking this tea and hubby asked for a taste (he very rarely wants to try my tea). He took a miniscule little sip and was about to hand it back, then quickly pulled it back his way and started chugging it, mumbling inside the cup “this doesn’t have caffeine right?” between gulps. lol, I think he’s a fan.