Nordqvist

Sipdown! (40 | 106)

Finished off this tagalong from my Nordqvist Moomin tea order a couple of years ago. I really like sea buckthorn flavored things, so this was a no-brainer. I’ve never actually had sea buckthorn (unsurprisingly, it’s not really a thing here), but the flavoring is quite distinct. It reminds me a bit of passion fruit, but with more of an almost stonefruity lean to it? It’s sweet and tangy and… golden. Maybe with a bit of raspberry in there as well. Raspberry passion fruit?

True to form, the sea buckthorn here is lovely. The Assam base isn’t my favorite, it’s a bit tannic and acidic without having any other redeeming qualities. But as long as I don’t steep it too long, still makes a serviceable base for the yummy sea buckthorn.

From Cameron B!  Thanks!  Another cute wrapper.  The apple flavoring on this decent black tea is much like apple flavoring I have had before on other teas — not great, not bad.  But I would definitely guess apple in a taste test.  Seems hard to accomplish any flavor here, when teabags usually have such a small amount of leaf in the bag! An acceptable apple tea!
Steep #1  // 23 minutes after boiling // 1 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 min

Picked this one up at the Viking Shop in New Hampshire on their holiday clearance shelf. I could have purchased everything in there. I still have my eye on a cute little duck. The tea was super expensive because it was in a specialty European import store. Checking out the website for Nordqvist, the loose leaf has citrus peels added. Steeped for about 5 minutes at 200F. The cardamom is present and pleasant. I think the citrus would be a nice add but it’s a pretty good black tea.

Thanks to Cameron B for this teabag! This tastes mostly like plain black tea. It’s a little rich and tasty, though not super special. I didn’t realized it was supposed to be EGish!

Thanks to Cameron B for this one! The flavors here are too mild. I taste a bit of berry and maybe a bit of cream, but I wish it were stronger. It’s not bad with milk! The person I shared the cup with thought it tasted quite floral.

Thanks to Cameron B for this tea! It doesn’t taste that chocolatey to me. It’s a bit desserty, but I can’t tell exactly what it’s going for. When it cooled I tasted the chocolate, and it didn’t taste like alcohol or anything negative. It’s not amazing, but it tastes better than other chocolate teas I’ve had before! It’s subtler than other chocolate teas.

Thanks again, Cameron B!  My final sipdown of 2023.   HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL! Sadly, though I was gentle on the brewing to produce the most from the flavoring, I was hard pressed to taste anything here other than harsh woody rooibos.  I tried and I tried — I don’t think I could have brewed this any better!   But the second steep somehow DOES have a hint of strawberry.
Steep #1 // 24 minutes after boiling // 1-2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 min
2023 sipdowns: 110

From Cameron B!  Thanks so much for the adorably wrapped tea bags from a shop I have never tried before.  Surprise freebies tagging along in an already amazing package of tea. :D This is certainly cookies flavor, with a hint of cream on a black tea base.   The second steep also had plenty of flavor for the small amount of leaves in the teabag!  The second steep was buttery, hints of coconut. So very buttery cookies!  This flavoring certainly hasn’t been on any other tea I have ever tried. I do appreciate I was able to try a delightful tea I probably wouldn’t have been able to otherwise!  (also keeping the adorable wrapper in with my other tea packaging I don’t want to throw away.)
Steep #1 // 20 minutes after boiling // 1-2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 4 min after boiling // 3 min
2023 sipdowns:  107

Random tea of the day!

So far this random thing is working out for me, I’ve gotten one tea that I love and two that I hadn’t tried yet. This is one of three herbal tisanes that I got from Nordqvist that are made with native Finnish botanicals, this one being cloudberry, nettle, and a few other herbs.

To be honest, I’m not getting much in the fruity department. Mostly I’m tasting mellow and earthy herbs, and then there’s a little hint of tang from the cloudberries that leaves a slight lingering tartness in my mouth. It’s a nice, comforting herbaceous sort of blend for the evening, but nothing special enough that I would feel the need to order it again.

Luckily, my foil wrapped tea bag wasn’t cardboardy, so I assume it is an error of Nordqvist advent calendar.

Tea bag wrapper design to be found here: https://colnect.com/cs/teabags/teabag/86242

Anyway, honestly it surprised me it is a black tea, because I haven’t paid enough attention to it. And it was very sweet when dry, when brewed… it was quite floral (as pears can be), quite creamy and vanilla for sure. The pear flavour itself, not the florality; isn’t much present. Which is a shame, as it could be much better, if that fruit flavour would be much more distinctive. Sadly, this way it is black tea with floral notes and creamy vanilla for me

Sipdown! (24 | 24)

Tried this again with a shorter steep to try to lessen the grassy sencha flavor and let the flavoring shine more.

Nope, still tastes like a boring cup of dry grass with a tiny hint of red fruit. So the rest of the bag is getting dumped. At least it was inexpensive!

So I figured since I finished off the Adventure box, I would open this bag of tea that I also got from Nordqvist. Anything with lingonberries, I’m here for ha ha.

Sadly, this mostly just tastes like a generically grassy Chinese sencha. There’s a touch of grapefruit flavor, but I don’t taste the lingonberry at all. I’m not sure how, since this has dried lingonberries and lingonberry powder in addition to the flavoring…

Honestly I’m really sad about this one. Maybe I’ll try a slightly shorter steep next time, but if it’s not any better I may just dump the whole bag. I can’t imagine who would want to drink an almost plain Chinese sencha… :(

Yay, it’s the last one! I wanted to finish off this box today because I was just tired of seeing it sitting on my tea nook counter, lol… :P

It’s a nice one to end on, actually. This is a caramel and cream rooibos and I can actually taste the flavoring! The caramel is a dark caramelized brown sugar sort of note, and paired with the creamy vanilla it actually reminds me a bit of crème brûlée. Not that the vanilla is particularly custardy, but the pairing is still giving me that sort of vibe. Tasty!

As for the box in general, there were certainly a lot of duds, but there were also a few that I would be interested in trying in the loose leaf format. Plus it was fun to try 20 teas for such a reasonable price! :)

Nordqvist Adventure teas tried: 20/20!

The third in the trio of white animal tea confusion, lol! This teabag is grapefruit, strawberry, and vanilla (which matches the loose leaf for White Tiger), but the existing loose leaf entry says apple, pear, and grenadine (which matches the teabag for White Elephant). Not sure if they’re in the middle of swapping the animals around and they just haven’t updated everything yet…? (shrugs)

I do get a sense of citrus from this one, though it’s too faint to identify as grapefruit. There’s a vague fruitiness that could be the strawberry as well, but no creaminess. Ironic that the last one had a creamy note and yet didn’t have vanilla flavoring, while in this one I don’t taste the vanilla…

Anyway, all three of these tasted extremely light, as if some flavor had been lost. I wonder if they’re older, which could make a bit of sense given the creature confusion. But this collection is still available on their website with the same animal names and ingredients, so who knows…

Nordqvist Adventure teas tried: 19/20

Another separate entry. This teabag says it’s apple, pear, and grenadine flavored, while the existing loose leaf entry says grapefruit and aloe (which matches the White Tiger teabag lol). So confusing and weird…

Anyway, another one with super mellow flavoring. I get a sense of fruit and creaminess from it, which doesn’t really match the flavoring, but maybe the creamy notes are coming from one of the fruits. Regardless, I certainly wouldn’t be able to tell what it was supposed to be flavored as. I would probably guess strawberry and cream?

Nordqvist Adventure teas tried: 18/20

So… Normally I wouldn’t bother creating a separate entry for a teabag version of a tea, even though it is a bit different with much smaller leaf pieces. Frankly, I just don’t care enough. But in the case of these white animal teas, they seem to have swapped some of the flavors around versus the loose leaf…? The white tiger loose leaf says it’s grapefruit, vanilla, and strawberry flavored, but this teabag says it’s grapefruit and aloe flavored. Very strange.

Anyway, the tea. I remember hating the grapefruit and aloe white tea from the Moomin advent, which I assume is the same (although that one was a sachet with loose leaf inside, rather than a traditional teabag). But this one doesn’t really taste like much? I get some mellow, musty hay notes from the white tea, but not getting any citrus notes to speak of. Flavor loss maybe?

Regardless, it’s still more enjoyable than the Moomin version… XD

Nordqvist Adventure teas tried: 17/20

Another animal-themed rooibos! I think this is my third one, so I assume I’ll have one more.

It’s nice enough, definitely very mellow. The orange is subtle but discernable, definitely an orange candy sort of orange. I love those orange slice gummies that are coated in sugar, so I’m not complaining. It goes quite well with the woody rooibos too. There’s a hint of zesty bitterness in the background.

A “pleasant but nothing special” sort of blend.

Nordqvist Adventure teas tried: 17/20

Another quince & elderberry tea? It looks like they only make three, so this should be the final one. Odd that they make both a quince-elderberry black tea AND a quince-elderberry-honey black tea…

I enjoyed the other version, and this one is nice too. I don’t taste anything remotely berry-like, but the sweet and mellow pearish notes are nice, and have a bit of a honeyed note even without the added flavoring. Definitely more like canned or cooked pears rather than fresh ones, as it lacks that crispness. The base is smooth and unassuming, with a bit of a biscuity note to it.

Pleasant tea, but I think I prefer the version with the honey flavor.

Nordqvist Adventure teas tried: 15/20

Lots of tropical black teas in this box, and fruity green teas.

This one is peach, orange, and pineapple, so I guess only partially tropical. It’s really nice actually. I’m not the biggest fan of peach tea, I’m fairly picky about them and I usually prefer it on a green or oolong base given the choice. But this has a nice mellow peachy flavor that is a tad artificial, but the tarter orange and pineapple help pull it in a fresher direction. It ends up almost tasting like a peach, really.

This is one that I would consider ordering in the loose leaf version, if I were already ordering from Nordqvist. And that’s saying something, considering peachy teas aren’t my jam. :)

Nordqvist Adventure teas tried: 14/20

I think this one suffered from a bit of flavor contamination, from being in a box with mostly flavored teabags. They’re all individually wrapped, but the wrappers are just paper so they don’t completely seal in the flavor.

Anyway, this was quite bland but did have a mellow grassy flavor to it. But then there was also a hint of some fruity flavoring, I assume from an adjacent teabag. Oh well, it didn’t seem like this was great to begin with anyway. :P

Nordqvist Adventure teas tried: 13/20

This is an apricot-pineapple-passion fruit black tea, but to me the fruit flavoring is extremely nondescript and more subtle than it should be. Sort of just generic and slightly sweet? Mostly I taste the base tea, and it’s smooth but nothing to write home about.

Meh!

Nordqvist Adventure teas tried: 12/20

This is fine but nothing special.

It’s smooth and has that haylike quality that I often find in later flush Darjeelings. It reminds me of autumn leaves and is a touch malty as well. There’s some dried-fruity sweetness in the aroma but I don’t get any in the taste.

Good for mindless sipping as I work, but not something I would order.

Nordqvist Adventure teas tried: 11/20

Man, so many green teas from this box lately!

This one is cherry and vanilla, and I didn’t have high hopes for it. Honestly though, it’s not bad. The cherry leans more maraschino than lollipop, which is an improvement in my mind. And the vanilla is quite light and fluffy, yet creamy. So overall it’s sort of like whipped cream mixed with chopped maraschino cherries.

Better than I expected! Still probably not something I would order, not being a cherry lover, but I enjoyed the cup.

Nordqvist Adventure teas tried: 10/20

Another elderberry and quince tea ha ha, but this time on a black base and with the addition of honey.

I like this quite a bit more than the China Green I had the other day. I can taste more of the quince, which has a syrupy sort of pear-ish flavor to it. As for the elderberry, maybe a hint? It’s definitely very faint. The honey isn’t overbearing and pairs beautifully with the quince. Sometimes I really hate honey flavoring, but here it’s well-restrained and doesn’t remind me of a cough drop.

Very pleasant tea, with a sweet and mellow fruity flavor. I’m not sure I would go out of my way to buy it, but I might consider picking up some of the loose leaf if I were to order from Nordqvist at some point.

Nordqvist Adventure teas tried: 9/20