Pluck

Thanks, VariaTEA!

And it’s a belatedly posted sipdown!

#long time ago internet hiatus sipdown

Sipdown (1285)!

I did a tea sample reorganize earlier in the week and, while doing that, I noticed that I only had a cup worth of this tea left – so I sipped it down earlier this week. It’s a nice lemon ginger profile; more lemon typically although I felt like there was a fair bit of ginger in this last cup too. Maybe some that had fallen to the bottom of the pouch? I like that I can taste the white tea just enough to justify it’s use, but it’s flavourful and soothing too.

I probably wouldn’t buy this again just because I think I’ve learned that I prefer that lemon ginger profile to be caffeine free, but this was a pretty nice tea overall and I enjoyed having it in my stash. It feels nice to sip it down though – it was probably one of the oldest white teas that I owned.

Had this yesterday, it had been a while since I last had it but it was about as tasty as I remembered. Sweet, medium bodied lemon with a hint of ginger – but more emphasis on those lemon notes. Weirdly, I felt a little bit as if I was getting a pastry element and that was super unexpected. Nice cuppa though.

An overall average cup of lemon ginger tea, that I let cool just slightly too long – leaving it a weird temperature just a hair above room temp. Oh well, at least it’s an average tea anyway, right?

Cold Brew!

More lemon than ginger in terms of flavour, however definitely had that spicy warmth in the back of the throat that’s so distinctly because of the ginger. I’m not sure that I mesh with that quality in a cold brew. I mean, I barely mesh with it when it comes to hot tea – so it’s just a bit extra weird in this case. Loved the lemon note, though!

More lemon than ginger – always a win, in my books.

I don’t think this one is amazing and scooping out the tea leaf today I noticed that the tea itself is really broken up looking. However, it’s a smooth and easy drinking profile – and I like the delicate nature of it compared to other lemon/ginger profiles I’ve tried before. Having the combo on a white base definitely helps with that.

This cup was almost a little apple-y, too.

Large pot of tea for the mid afternoon, paired with a lemon infused milk chocolate!

I’m sort of neutral/iffy about this tea!? I mean, I don’t LOVE ginger and it’s more lemongrass than natural lemon notes but every now and then it just hits me in a certain way and I find it to be a delightful, comforting flavour that’s perfect for relaxing with. Light to medium bodied profile, and smooth – more lemon than ginger (my preferred ratio) without much distinct flavour of the white tea in the blend.

I actually bought the chocolate I’m eating, which is from Theo’s, specifically because I thought that the lemon notes in it would be an interesting pairing with this tea. Normally I’d avoid white tea for a chocolate pairing because I think it’s too delicate to usually stand up to the rich taste of chocolate – especially milk or dark, but I expected that the distinct notes of lemon would be a good compliment to the lemon in the tea and that the presence of ginger would be enough of a differing flavour that there would still be some contrast of flavours, even if they’re still complimentary.

I actually REALLY enjoy this coupling, though I was definitely right that the chocolate has more presence than the tea so I’ve been very conscious of only eating very little pieces at a time.

Decently smooth lemon white tea with only hints of ginger; kind of tasting like a hot lemon water to be honest. I guess, in a way, that’s what it was anyway? The mug was cut short though; I had it on the back of the counter and a tea guide accidentally spilled a tin of tea and a lot of the leaf fell into my mug. Probably drank about half of it though, and it was fine. Would be better suited as a sick tea sort of thing though, I think.

Hot cuppa, with Christmas supper!

I over steeped this one a little bit in all the commotion of getting the table set for our big, fancy Christmas supper – and sadly you could definitely tell that the tea was burnt because it had a pretty bitter finishing note to it. Not intolerable, but absolutely present.

The rest of the tea was ok – more lemon than ginger, I’d say. Also, definitely the distinct taste of lemongrass on top of generic lemon as well. Christmas dinner involves so many different, strong flavours and dishes though that the taste of this was largely masked by everything else I was eating. So, I’m definitely going to have to revisit this when I can give it a lot more care in terms of steeping and attention when I’m drinking it. Until then, leaving this one unrated since I really didn’t get a proper tasting/representation of what it can offer in terms of flavour.

This tea, along with two others were in the marked-down section at work, so I snatched them up right away. With my employee discount all three only came to $5. I have plenty of fruit tisanes which are good iced but that many that are meant to be drank hot. And right now it’s definitely edging into hot tea weather.

The cinnamon flavour is nice, and not overwhelming and there is a distinct fruity apple flavour, but the sweet, baked pastry part of the ‘apple crumble’ is missing. It’s too tart to really taste all that dessert-like although it has a nice autumn-y vibe that makes it pleasant to curl up with on a cold autumn evening.

Made this as a latte and this certainly is an aptly named tea. Creamy, ginger baked goods yumminess. Check out my full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2017/06/06/ginger-snap-from-pluck-teas/

Drinking this one currently – the dregs of the mug.

I know I’ve had some back and forth with enjoying this blend, but this cup definitely falls on the side of being more unpleasant. Taste wise it’s kind of mediocre – kind of a muddy/gross smoke and jasmine combo with earthy/mineral tasting rooibos. It’s a profile that doesn’t know what it wants to be. The real negative today is definitely the aroma coming from the cup – it’s very reminiscent of burnt Play-Doh! Barf!

From last Sunday…

It’s also been a while since I last had this tea, but something compelled me last Sunday to get out of the house and go for a walk so I made this in a travel mug and took a walk to a part of my neighborhood that I hadn’t explored yet. I chose this tea in particular because I wasn’t a little caffeine but not a lot – and this is a perfect solution to that problem!

It was actually a nice walk; cool air and a gentle breeze but not cold. Having a thermos of warm tea obviously helped as well. Not my favourite tea, but this wasn’t a terrible cup. Sort of a weak/mild maple and smoke with a woody undertone; definitely fitting for a name like “Canoe Lake” and appropriate for a walk to the park.

I’d actually not been to this park before (as mentioned I explored a new area of my neighborhood) but it was pretty nice! Decently sized, with some play structures, a large soccer field, and lots of trees. The most exciting part though was finding a pool! I really love swimming – and when I lived at the condo building in Regina I loved that we had a private pool for tenants. I was swimming there literally every day, until the sexist desk attendant/pool attendant told me I couldn’t anymore unless I wore “proper swim attire”. I was wearing swim trunks and a tank top, instead of a woman’s swimsuit – something that the men who used the pool ALSO wore. I did call her out on the sexism, and she told me I could take it up with the condo board but she wouldn’t change her mind without them overriding the decision. I never brought it up, because the condo board already HATED my roommates (noise complaints…) and I didn’t want to cause more conflict. So I just stopped swimming…

Anyway; the point is that as long as this public pool isn’t equally sexist and as long as I don’t have to pay to swim then I think I will be swimming a lot this summer! Very nice to have a pool so close by…

In my tea press, with a little agave.

I feel like I may have made a bit of a mistake brewing this one in a tea press because it came out a lot more smokey than I remember it being and now I’m not sure if that smoke smell is going to come out or not… Ah, crap.

Taste wise this was fine. I think the fact I chose the word fine over even just ‘good’ probably says a lot about the quality of the tea. It’s like maple pancakes and liquid smoke, and I’m SORT OF hear for that? But also it made me feel kind of nauseous and the smoke note has a really artificial quality to it. It’s just very weird and poorly executed…

Hot, straight.

I liked this one a lot this first time I tried it iced but this time around something about it was really off putting to me – like, after drinking around two thirds of the tea I actually started to feel quite queasy. Not to mention, it made my mouth feel strangely numb?

My manager Dani took a sip and thought maybe it was the Lapsang that was bugging me, that definitely wasn’t it though. It was almost like it was something about the cocoa in it? That flavour was just bugging me a lot. I don’t know – hard to put my finger on.

I’m decreasing my rating, though from a 74 to 57…

So, recently placed an online order with Chapters for a couple new tea focused books; I’m trying to expand my tea book collection a little more! Right now, I’m at something like seven tea themed books, give or take a few, with a new one on the way. But of course if you’re gonna order from Chapters you’re adding in something tea related!

I’ve tried a few Pluck teas now, most of which I have got from Chapters and they’ve been a little hit or miss honestly. However after browsing the tea options online right now, this one sort of jumped out at me because it’s just kind of unique/different. So, I tossed it in. What could it hurt?

Well, it showed up yesterday so I brought it along to work and made an iced cup!

This tea is weird – though not in a bad way.

So, it’s definitely a smoky flavour overall but it also has a lot of sweetness to it. Basically, it’s kind of like a smoky maple flavour, which is weirdly delicious! There are a lot of ingredients here as well that just seem a little out of place; like the jasmine for example. I don’t know that I particularly tasted jasmine in the cup so it wasn’t an issue, but why even include it? What is it doing? Also, it’s got licorice root which I worried would give it that really unpleasant sweet aftertaste but no… that didn’t happen either.

So, as much as this is kind of just a weird burnt sugar/smoky maple toffee flavour I have to admit that the woodyness of the rooibos in combination with the smoky notes actually do really make me thing of summer campfires, which kind of actually hits the nail on the head in regard to the name of the blend. It’s strangely outdoorsy feeling, which is weird because it’s kind of just smoked maple but yeah. I totally get that camping kind of vibe from it.

This also probably would have made a lot more sense as a hot tea as well, but I’ve gotta say the iced sweet smoke flavour wasn’t bad. Again, and I know I’m getting repetitive, it was super weird/strange – but pleasantly so. Yeah, I’m going to tentatively say that I really enjoyed this tea and will probably enjoy it a lot in the future too…

I was all excited for this chai because it had a little something extra…muskoka cranberries. I was intrigued to see how that added to the flavor. Unfortunately, even though this was an alright chai, the cranberries are MIA and that was a little upsetting. Check out the full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2017/05/16/muskoka-chai-from-pluck-teas/

So I have had this tea twice now and I really don’t like it. Hot, it was downright disgusting but at least iced it was a bit more tolerable. Think ginger and lemon and then a bunch of random herbals thrown in to throw you off. Check out my full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2017/06/29/ctrlaltdel-from-pluck-teas/

This blend has a list of ingredients a mile long, meant to remind you of campfires and sugar shacks, I found that most were lost in the mix. I got smoke and maple but it was thick and maybe even a bit stale tasting.

Check out my full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2017/09/06/canoe-lake-blend/

Another GCTTB6 sample! Only two servings left in the baggy, I’m probably going to keep it and drink two pots of it over the next few days.

A warm spiced tisane on a very cold winter evening. It should be a perfect pairing, but I’m actually thinking this would be better iced. I did make sure I only steeped it for 2-3 minutes to curb the hibiscus’ sour, but there is still a bit more acidity than was warranted. I would have gone with more citrus and apple instead of rose hips and hibiscus.

The cinnamon is really good in this though. It doesn’t have any hint of sickly sweetness or artificial flavour. I don’t know if I’ve ever tasted cinnamon done so well; I am very impressed with Pluck.

I also like that they used green apple in this (granny smith variety), the flavour comes through really nicely.