My Tea Box

This blend was really nice, I’ve been in such a fall/winter mood lately as I try to distract myself from the summer. It’s lightly sweet and spice, super yummy with a bit of honey! Wish I could grab more…

This is my DIY advent tea today and I’m surprised it has a nice candied rose flavour. That said, I’m getting grassy notes from the base that ruin this one for me.

floral floral no no no

lol thanks as always Variatea but NOPE haha

Iced Tea Sipdown (1620)!

Firstly, I have to thank VariaTEA for this sample! I was kind of surprised how much I enjoyed this since the dry leaf had a sort of offputting/stale herbaceous smell to it. However, I quite liked the combination of ripe raspberry and fresh lemongrass! It was a lighter fruity blend overall, but that mellow taste and clean, natural sweetness made it much more refreshing! Very natural raspberry flavour in particular; reminded me of eating the really ripe raspberries straight from the patch in my grandma’s garden!

Also, I got a lot of comments about how pretty the liquor of this iced tea was as I drank it around the office – and it’s true, it did steep a very attractive rosy pink/red colour. Quite lovely to look at!

It’s snowing! And we put up decor yesterday! And Friday I was at a Christmas bar! Seemed like a good weekend to try this tea. However, this tea was really meh to me. Basically a black tea with sprinkles and Jasmine. Not bad but nothing I care to have again so into the swap box it goes.

Check out pics of this tea and the snow and decor and bar here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CW00YrtL5Zx/?utm_medium=copy_link

Sipdown (212)

I drank most of this when sick in case my taste buds were off, but I left one serving to try when I was not sick. Having that now I am fine with this being a sipdown. It is sort of pear, a lot of cinnamon, and mostly rooibos base. Also I think the base is on its way out because its getting that gross quality that stale/old rooibos can sometimes get. So its fine but a good time to be sipped down and not a tea I need again.

My throats been a bit sore so I’ve been drinking this with honey because it’s caffeine free and don’t care much about being able to taste it or not. I can taste cinnamon though.

Cold Brew Sipdown (1441)!

Thank you for sharing this tea VariaTEA – I haven’t looked at the ingredients lists to compare, but visually this reminded me strikingly of “Morning Munchies” from Tea Taxi and now that I’m drinking it I really, really feel like it’s the same tea. Mind you, I’m also quite sure the Tea Taxi blend is wholesale catalog too, but I’ve never actively looked for the blend source…

Anyway, all that to say that I’m enjoying it a lot – I like Morning Munchies quite a bit too. It’s a nice mixed berry medley with notes of cranberry and blueberry but no interfering tartness or things like hibiscus. The rooibos base has a sort of honey graham and almond type of taste to it, and that builds with the “muffin” idea/concept to me. I’m really close to finishing off my Morning Munchies tin, so it’s actually reassuring to know I can get the same tea (or at least incredibly similar) from elsewhere!

E is for…Elegant Affair

Got my 2nd covid dose two days ago and it’s kicked my butt a little bit. I am starting to feel better though so I’m back to tea and my alphabet drinking. This tea I tossed into my swap box because it’s a black/white blend which I don’t care for. It’s also floral and has some bergamot I think. It’s fine but too floral and a touch drying.

Strange VariaTEA TTB: Tea #14

Cold Brew!

Finally wrapped up the last few teas from the box that I wanted to try. The ingredients list on this one was really out there, which is why I wanted to try it. It actually reminded me a lot of DT’s Echinacea Shield in that it had a unique balance of herbaceous flavours and fruits. However, this was majority sage forward in terms of the herbaceous notes and then more of a red fruit flavour versus the mango that is in Echinacea Shield. I liked it much more than I expected to, and I even debated keeping the rest of the bag.

However, it’s so unique and interesting that I’d feel bad not giving other people a chance to try it out – so I left it in the box.

Strange VariaTEA TTB: Tea #9

The thing that really struck me about this tea was how sweet and raisin-y the dry leaf smelled as I was measuring it out, and I was pleasantly surprised to see those qualities carry through into the steeped tea too. It was definitely full bodied and richly creamy, but accented by high notes of syrupy raisins and malted bread notes – combined there was almost a Hot Cross Bun/Easter Bun element to the cup that I enjoyed much more deeply than i had expected to!

nope. lol Sample from Variatea…I’m just tierd of mint teas. the few that i have an delicious but on the whole mint is on my list of done with for a bit.

Strange VariaTEA TTB: Tea #3

Not sure why I wanted to try this one so badly when I saw it, as it tastes exactly what you would expect from this type of blend – very standard mix of mulling spices and hibiscus. Good sweetness/spice balance that made for an overall pleasant (and festive) cup of tea, albeit predictably unexciting.

Cold Brew Sipdown (201)

I counted this with my April Sipdowns because I prepared it like 2 days ago and should have drank it already but got distracted by life. With this included, I had 84 empties so thank you Mastress Alita for the inspiration! Check out the pics of the empties here: https://www.instagram.com/p/COWAO8nAxnO/?igshid=ac2tdvfs7ds4

A friend sent me donuts to celebrate being done school. One of the donuts was a blood orange hibiscus donut and it seemed the perfect choice to pair with this tea. I enjoyed this as a cold brew the few times I’ve had it now. It’s all creamsicle up front with some hibiscus tang in the tail end of the sip. Sometimes the flavors together can come off chalky and like EmergenC but mostly it’s nice.

I cold brewed this one again and its growing on me. I was unsure of the hibiscus in a creamsicle tea but today the flavors are really working. The creamsicle flavor is front and centre and sweet but the tartness of the hibby comes through at the end and plays off the citrus notes. It’s saying Summer! While I am enjoying it, I am also cold today and so I think I want something channeling more heat.

S is for…Summer Days

I made this cold brew to have last night but am drinking it now. My motivation to do anything is so low. I set an alarm to wake up around 10 and try to flip my schedule to slightly more normal hours before my 9 am exam tomorrow. I did wake up at 10, then tried to do a shipping request for my bar study materials but the law society website doesn’t seem to want to do anything either and just keeps timing out. It’s basically 2 pm and I am still in bed and have basically watched TikToks and fought with the site.

I feel like I have had a lot of creamsicle teas lately. Not sure why that is. This is yet again that flavor profile but like so many others, it has a medicinal quality to it. Like someone rolled the creamsicle in some EmergenC.

Cold Brew Sipdown (212)

Y is not for…Marzipan Yum

This was leftover from my extra cups of yesterday. Drinking it today and while its definitely a more tolerable marzipan tea, it’s not a favorite and I don’t think I need more of this one.

M is for…Marzipan Yum

It is definitely marzipan but not overly offensive. I am catching up on a course I barely started and have an exam in next week so I am distracted but this was better than expected.

Sipdown (257)

K is not for… Raspberry Sunshine

I cold brewed this earlier and noticed I had one serving left. I don’t love this one so I decided to just finish it off. It’s just never been very good or interesting. Mostly lemon grass and a tartness that wants to be raspberry but just isn’t. Glad to be saying goodbye to this one.