Old Barrel Tea Co

Steeped this one up over the weekend! I found that once my mug had cooled just slightly I really started to enjoy how the flavours were developing. Pleasantly nutty with a cozy level of cinnamon and lots of deeper dense brown sugar and molasses type notes that conveyed a lot of the flavour of good pecan pie filling. Not overly rich/sweet though and that I appreciate the most because, as much as I love a good slice of pecan pie, it’s one of those desserts that can get to be too much very quickly!

ashmanra’s Sipdown Challenge – “A tea that makes you smile”

Having a particularly grumpy work day. Lots of people on vacation and I’m left cleaning up the mess. Plus I’ve been feeling burnt out in general lately, so that doesn’t help.

I figured I would choose a tea that I really wanted, instead of my usual sipdown shenanigans. This was calling out to me with its cozy flavors and coffee beans for an extra blip of caffeine. I’ve been neglecting my Old Barrel teas, and teas I love in general, and mostly focusing on teas I want to sip through.

This was lovely, a wonderful comforting mix of sweet cinnamon, creamy banana, and that lovely deep coffee note alongside the earthy puerh. Scrumptious. It may not have made me smile, but it certainly improved my mental state! :P

A new-to-me tea company, yaaaaay! I heard about Old Barrel from TeaTuber “As The Tea Brews” (highly recommend her channel if you’re not familiar). She kept raving about their teas and they looked and sounded so interesting and yummy, so I decided to make them my monthly tea order for February. They’re based in the Southwest (New Mexico originally) and they have a lot of teas that reflect those flavors, based on things like horchata, green chile, empanadas, etc. But interestingly, they also have quite a few puerh blends, which I find to be unusual. I figured for my first order I would pick up their New Mexico sampler, and then added on a few more teas that I was most interested in, which brings us to this tea!

This is one of several teas they have that use coffee from local businesses (love it), and I tend to like coffee in teas so I was excited for this blend. Plus banana, yum! I have to say, I’m really enjoying this cup. The coffee beans and the cinnamon take center stage, with the banana mostly in the background until toward the end of the sip, where it becomes a bit more obvious. I like that it isn’t really sweet-tasting, despite being a dessert-ish tea. And the coffee isn’t bitter or acidic. The puerh base gives a nice richness, while the coffee adds yummy toasty notes which are so cozy with the warming cinnamon. For me, the banana keeps it from being a bit too “dark” and one-note, it’s such an interesting flavor and really makes the finish IMO.

Anyway, so far so good! I hope I like their other blends as much as this one. Oh, and this would probably make an amazing latte, I might have to try it that way soon…

AJRimmer Advent Day 18

I’m not a puerh girl, but this was much better than anticipated! The dry leaf was lovely and really did smell like a pecan pie. Brewed, it had a strong nutty flavor and aroma and (thankfully!) none of the earthy/fishy flavor I’ve run into with other puerhs in the past. It didn’t really have much of a “pie” flavor for me, but the pecan flavor was nice! Maybe I would have gotten more of the sweetness/crust with some sweetener?

Ooo weeee. That aroma! Straight up Pecan Pie to your nostrils! Creamy, nutty, and even perfect brown sugar pie crust. The wet aroma gives the sense of one mixing the wet ingredients together for the delicious pie that is to come. I’m having a hard time waiting these five minutes. The dry mix is just as nice to look at as it is to smell. The site says to do honey and a touch of cream but seeing as dairy doesn’t sit well with me I’ll just do the honey once I consume a bit without it. On it’s own the nutty notes are intense. This is by far the most intense nut tea I’ve ever had. You can also taste the pu er (for those who like it) but it curls up with the nuttiness in a way that you wouldn’t know it was there is you weren’t looking for it. Now onto the honey. Just a smidge. Hmm. At first, I wasn’t sure but I can definitely see this with a dash of cream and the flavors really popping. This is quite enjoyable!

AJRimmer Advent Tea #4

I had this one yesterday and I don’t remember a ton about besides that it captured the pecan flavor pretty well. I remember enjoying this!

This is not bad! I like the creamy cinnamon flavor. It could be a little more flavorful but overall it gives me a cozy comforting feeling.

This is a different take on pumpkin teas from any I’ve had before. It’s interesting! I get a lot of squash in the flavor, and the spices are subtle, but everything blends well. It’s really mostly that squash flavor, which I’m really finding myself enjoying. I get a nice two steeps out of it. I wouldn’t call it chai though.

I’ve been struggling with this tea because I really want to like it, but it’s not behaving. I don’t love it with milk, but I also don’t love it without. The last time I had it, I decided to sweeten it with horchata powder, which was tasty and made it taste pretty authentic. I’ve also enjoyed it with almond milk. I just find myself wanting more from this tea. It tastes like rooibos and a little like cinnamon, but I wish it were more decadent.

Made this over the weekend and it was just sort of weird. Very roasty and earthy notes of coffee but with an almost syrupy and soda-like sweet pineapple. There was a DT blend year and years ago called Grilled Pineapple that had a similar weird juxtaposition of a more candied pineapple note with a savory/roasted element that didn’t feel connected. That blend was honestly pretty bad, this one at least it more just strange. I keep hoping I’ll get used to it, and I really just never seem to.

So I was actually going to place an order with Old Barrel as a birthday present to myself, but turns out they don’t ship to Canada – so that was a bummer. Instead I settled for a mug of this strange pineapple and coffee blend that I still can’t decide if I like or not.

Also, who knew I owned so many coffee cake flavoured teas!? Certainly not me! I ended up drinking two over the coarse of the day but I actually had at least three that I could have made – maybe more.

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CpxoE_fuAkC/ (9th Pic)

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaTMrKnq4CI

Yup. Still weird.

I think I’ve decided that I like all the bits and pieces of this tea. The sweet pineapple notes, the heavy roast of the coffee, and the slightly nutty oolong. I just don’t quite like how they all fit together…

This tea is so, sooo weird! I still can’t decide if I’m into it or not, but one thing is for certain and that’s that I doubt it’ll ever produce a dull cup of tea! This one tasted like pineapple soda mixed with dark roast coffee and it wasn’t bad but my word it was strange!

Geek Steep S2E13 – Pokemon: Sword & Shield

This is the tea that I chose to drink while recording – something that was gifted to me by Marika and, I believe, also the first time one of us has drank a tea on the podcast that also had coffee in it!?

It’s a weird tea because it’s a combination of pineapple, coffee, oolong, and rooibos and those are DEFINITELY all things that don’t sound like they should mix. I found it to be both off putting and also immediately captivating. There’s a roasted earthy quality to the coffee/oolong combination but the pineapple is a syrupy sweet soda style of pineapple and that’s… unique when paired.

I don’t think the name is accurate at all, but it kind of tastes like grilled pineapple? And, really, I fucking love grilled pineapple so maybe that’s just much better than it actually tasting like the cake!? It’s certainly a tea I’ll be drinking again outside of the podcast because it’s something I’m gonna need time to wrap my head around.

I’ve sampled this before, and courtesy of Michelle, I’m enjoying second helpings! Today’s steep seems sweeter than I recall it, although that may be because my taste buds expected strong unflavored unleaded first thing in the a.m. I can find all the expected elements: a little mineral from the pu-erh, sweet without being too cloying, and a sprinkle of nuttiness on top. Might not open your eyes in the morning, but it’s a good lo-cal alternative to a pecan danish from the donut shop.

I had just a little Pecan Pie Pu Erh left, hoarded through warm weather, and as it’s really starting to feel like fall (sorry, ye who still sweltereth), I brought it out for a stroll. It has an absolutely delicious pie crust vibe, and without any additions, a nice little mix of sweet and savory that’s making me smile for no reason.

AJRimmer, is this the kind that has some vanilla rooibos in it as well? Whether it does or doesn’t, I am especially thankful for the sample you sent my way!

First thing I noticed: It most definitely smells floury like Aunt Nancy’s homemade pie. She set the family gold standard of pecan pies with local pecans the size of your thumb. When I was little (6-ish), my big brother (14 years older) and I had a deal: We’d share a slice; he’d eat all the pecans and I’d get the goop and the crust, which we all know is the best part.

Steeped straight with no add-ins, there’s plenty of pecan flavor and scent (especially with bag left in the cup) but not a lot of syrupy goop. I think I may be able to fix that next time with a little milk.

Another more simple and toned down blend because I guess that’s just where I’ve been at in terms of the cravings I’m having while working from home lately. I love the pecan note of this blend and the subtle cinnamon and brown sugar notes are a welcome compliment to it. However, the star is really the base! Pu’erh is such a nice choice with these milder decadent tones.

This was a gift from Marika!

It smells nice and I’m immediately attracted to the idea of a pecan pie tea on a pu’erh base – seems like such a good compliment because shou can really hold up well to rich and indulgent profiles. The tea is milder flavoured that I expected overall, but I’m digging it! The pecan flavour is really good and I think it toes the line between roasty generic nuttiness and sweeter almost maple-y pecans very well. There’s also cinnamon in the tea and y’all know that I love when pastry/baked good inspired teas use a little cinnamon. However, I feel like the cinnamon is almost the strongest flavour here overall and the result is that this really kind of tastes more like a cinnamon pecan tea than a “pecan pie”. I don’t necessarily want it to be sweeter, but to be a pecan pie I feel like it needed more of that brown sugar sort of pie filling/goop.

As a cinnamon pecan blend, though? Yum!

Thanks to AJRimmer, I’m having a little caffeine-free break from chores. Her original tasting note for Apple Empanda captures every mental note I was making to set down here. The apple and cinnamon mesh nicely with honeybush, the honeybush adds a nice little caramelly note, but I kept hunting and hunting for the crust. Not being a blender, I don’t know how difficult it is to replicate pastry, but teas that do so accurately are hard to find.

That said, this was still really pleasant, better with a snoodge of lemon pie and a piece of marzipan … we did a Branson holiday run yesterday and went just a tad overboard at Kilwin’s confectioners. (More shopping overkill confessions to follow.)

This was our next tea of the night as we continued our shift into flavoured tea blends. In the past when Marika has made this tea for me I’ve found the anise quite strong, but in this case I got a lot more smokiness from the Lapsang Souchong and woodiness from the rooibos.

This past week Marika was kind enough to have both my mom and I over for supper and this was one of three teas that wound up being served throughout the night. While my mom didn’t love it (because of the smokiness of the tea) I have to say that Marika is spot on in identifying my flavour preferences because the smooth sweet woody smoke notes mixed with the distinct nuttiness of the rooibos and a prominent note of anise had me deeply in love with this tea from first sip.