Metropolitan Tea Company

Finally time to try some of this from my swap with TraceyC a couple of months ago. I was looking for something new to try cold brewed, after a couple of weeks of using the More Tea bottle for my cold brews I wanted to get back into the black brew overnight habit. Enter Island Coconut, stage left…

Yum. More to it than I thought it would have—or maybe I’d just forgotten how delicious a cold brewed black tea is, after so much white and green of late. Yeah yeah yeah yeah this’ll do, pig.

Free sample from a place in town. They gave it to me when I went in and bought other teas last year! You can never go wrong with free samples!

I don’t know why, but I had it in my head that this tea was peach. (Honestly, I never truly looked at the name of it. I don’t know why.)

It’s a very smoooooooth vanilla tea. Absolutely amazing. It’s refreshing and just perfect. No sugar in it. It’s sweet enough on its own. I love the vanilla and it seems to compliment the woody-ness of the rooibos just perfectly. Wow. I didn’t think I’d like this one. Guess I was wrong!

Would get again. But must drink down more first!

Sipdown!! (148)

Thank you Roswell Strange for sharing this with me. Weirdly enough, I think this may have actually grown on me. That doesn’t mean I am going out to buy this anytime soon but it is a little sad to see this go. It is coconut flavor combined with a hint of hibiscusy tartness to round things out.

Cold brewed this one and it is a weird combination of pineapple/coconut and hibiscus. It is like two different teas in the same bottle but they don’t really blend properly. Very, very strange. Although, with that said, I don’t mind this as much as I thought I might given I am neither a lover of Pina Colada or hibby. Nonetheless, I am grateful for the chance to have tried this so thank you Roswell Strange for sending it my way.

In other news, the flavors in this are reminding me of the tasty, tasty Hawaiian Blizzard I had earlier. MMmmmm…blizzards :)

Another lovely tea from roswell strange via my wife! this one I took to work this morning as a nice treat as I knew it would be a long long Tuesday. I was very impressed with the base black tea in this one, monks blend has such a distinct flavoring that often I think inferior bases are used and covered by too much flavor. Not so here, the tea is the thing here, as I like it, and the various ingredients are blended in subtly so as not to overwhelm the palette. It is a very mellow cup of tea, a nice way to start a chaotic day!

This was surprisingly great, considering I got it from a reseller (Darlene’s) and got 1/4 lb for $1.99, SHIPPED. It’s a nice, dark, malty assam and it hits all the right notes for me. I doubt I could tell it from any others if side by side. I have actually only had one tea from a Metropolitan reseller that I didn’t like, and I think that was due to personal taste. I still want my fancy ones, but it’s nice to pick up bigger packages – especially for iced teas. I bought their black wild blackberry and it’s great for that.

Just over a year later and I’m trying this one again. It’s been a while. Anyways, I’m not getting the bitterness that I mentioned last time and this time I’m leaving the bag in the whole steeping plus I added some rock sugar and some milk. It’s not too bad. I don’t mind it. It doesn’t have much for flavour anymore though. It’s almost like a regular black tea with a tiny bit of fruitiness to it. Not terrible, but I don’t really feel like I’m getting all the flavours that I would expect from a tea of this name.

Today I’m going to try and sipdown a lot of the teas I have only small amounts of left.
But I’m also going to attempt to try some of the ones I’ve had for a while and never tried. This one falls under the latter.

I feel like this needs to be a two bagger. I’m a bit surprised that it isn’t stronger. I let it steep for 4 mins and I get just the smallest hint of bitterness to it. I didn’t add any milk and only a sprinkling sugar. The further down the cup I go, the more I’m getting the bitterness. I really should have done the 3min steep like I originally planned and we’ll try two tea bags next time.

I’ll probably also add some milk to my next cup and see what happens.
The only flavours I’m really getting right now is a tiny bit of pineapple… not much… I’m very unimpressed with this one… it makes me sad.

Sipdown (176/180)!

Cold brewed the last of this one for a relatively short period of time (nine hours) and with a smaller leaf amount because it was all I had left and it turned out pleasantly decent. Basically more coconut/pineapple with a less harsh hibiscus undertone/edge. Still wont be a restock though. Not even close.

Also, the pizza people definitely judge us. I mean, I guess I technically have no proof or anything – but it’s just a feeling! Today I ordered pizza when I got home from work (mmm!) and then found out that Tre had also ordered pizza today not even two hours ago! That’s a lot of pizza for one household…

Last of my teas to log from yesterday! Sadly I didn’t do much tea drinking; I was too busy going out and actually doing things on my day off and then sleeping when I got home…

I made this hot because I really felt like I’d been sharing it with a lot of people but not taking the time to really enjoy it myself – and since I’d only had it cold brewed I thought I’d switch things up a little bit.

I have to say it was mostly a let down because the pineapple/coconut were really drowned out by the powerful taste of straight hibiscus. I didn’t really enjoy it at all, to be honest…

Also late yesterday Geordan tried the first of hopefully many teas from the sampler I gave him! He had 50 different blends to pick from but out of all 50 I gave him his top four picks were:

- Hot Lips (DAVIDsTEA)
- Peach Dream (Cuppa’T Specialty Teas)
- Bravissimo (DAVIDsTEA)
- Caramel Pu’Erh (Tea Desire)

I don’t know why, but I found it very interesting that out all tons of goodies like Caramel MATCHccino or Laoshan Black Chocolate Genmaicha those are the ones he thought sounded most promising. Huh.

In the end he settled for Caramel Pu’Erh. I don’t know what his thoughts were, but I really hope he liked it! It would have been this first non herbal tea he has ever had; I don’t think he realizes what a “brave soul” he is for picking a Pu’Erh as his first real tea experience. Funnily enough, that happens to be the only Pu’Erh I included in his sampler.

Tea for though, I guess.

This was weirdddddd!

I cold brewed it (total of 14 hours), and it came out so odd at work today. Although, I guess I should have expected it. This has lots of hibiscus in it which was definitely a really interesting, contrasting flavour from the coconut. What ended up happening was the hibiscus took over the pineapple in flavour and the result was a fruity, sharp sour “tang” as the initial taste, and then a smooth, coconut finish.

I haven’t made my mind up whether I like this or not.

Also, work was SO busy today! I didn’t get a breather all day. We were under staffed, which pisses me off so much because we wouldn’t have been if so many people weren’t fired. Ughh!

I have had this tea in a local tea shop and like it. I bought some to have at home and decided to make some today. I like this tea. I make it like a Chai with cream and sugar. It is much more mild than a Chai tea, but it is great for when you aren’t looking for the kick of a Chai.

Went to local tea shop today and decided to try this. It was good. I bought it with cream and sweetened. Oh and I had it iced. It was refreshing , hit the spot, and had a pretty pink color.

The awesome Roswell Strange sent me this in addition to a birthday card and I am able to sneak it in just in time for my birthday to be over. I am sipping away at the cup as I watch Frozen. Alas, this cup is seriously lacking. It tastes mostly like a regular orange pekoe tea. I am not sure what it is meant to taste like but I am guessing something more. Nonetheless, I was so touched to receive a birthday gift in the mail from my amazing tea triplet. Thank you so much!

I’ve got tons of this because I have both loose leaf and a tin of teabags. But that’s a-okay, because I really enjoy it cold.

I have a migraine of epic proportions, so I’ll just say this is yummy.

One of my cold brews for the day in an effort to use it up. It’s a sweet ice-winey flavor, I’m always impressed at the flavor of this one. I love ice wine, but I also love having money and I can’t do both XD. This is always a nice alternative.

Very aromatic and soothing! I haven’t had this one hot steeped in months, but from what I recall, it is fairly mellow with a warm, comforting, “homey” feeling given by the vanilla and almond slices. They don’t add too much flavor to the rooibos, but it makes it a little more rounded. Excellent cup if you add a bit of honey…really brings out the vanilla and makes this cup deliciously creamy and desert-like.

This is one I took a sample of out of the GCTTB.

I’m not sure what I did wrong with this.
1 tsp, less than boiling water, 2 minute steep = undrinkable. Strong, bitter, like coffee that’s been sitting for two days. It’s also gritty, lots of “dust” made it through my basket. Dump.
Second steep – better but not much. Nope I don’t like this one. Drank about half that cup. I’m really glad I only took a couple of tsp of this out of the box. I hope others have better luck with it than I did.

A few friends of mine run a butler café of sorts, which they run at a few events. A friend of mine got a box of tea at their reformation, and between one thing and another, it recently ended up in my hands.

I’m now planning, over the next few days, to drink all the teas from it. It aught to be a delicious few days. :) Tea companies are according to the one who packed them and not officially on the packaging, so I am trusting her memory.

I’m actually slightly torn at the first few sips of this tea — I’ve had it before and it’s been lovely and almond/marzipan-y, but I’m not getting it this time with the freshly made tea. It could be that there’s not enough actual tea — the sachets seemed on the small size.

Overall… I get a bit of the aftertaste, but I’m not getting the tea’s flavour much at all. It’s much more… pleasantly flavoured water than tea, if you will.

So, yes. It’s a bit of a shame, as I know it can be better than this, but this cup isn’t quite tasting as wonderfully as it should.

Welcome to day 5 of little terri’s Ultimate Sipdown Extravaganza!
I managed to polish off 20 teas in the first 4 days!
This morning I started off with this CTC, so finely chopped that it looks like coffee grounds! I over-teaed the cup just a little, so it was potent enough to warrant the addition of stevia & almond milk, something I don’t do often these days, but nice on occasion.
Thanks to Lala for this generous sample. This sipdown brings me to 380 teas to go!