Shuswap Infusions Tea

Finally a sipdown. This is a very basic blend of peppermint and cocoa nibs with some calendula petals. It is a fine blend, but I could get the same thing anywhere. I was hoping for something more cakey, with rich chocolate, and desserty.

A decent chocolate mint tea with vanilla, mint, dark chocolate, and rooibos. Sweet, but not as creamy and decadent as I hoped for.

Tea! I’ll just cut to the chase and say that I wouldn’t call this Chocolate Covered Strawberries. The half oolong base gives this a nutty flavour, reminding me of a banana nut muffin more than anything else. The strawberry is extremely gentle and I can smell the cocoa nibs more so than taste them. Very thin mouthfeel and not too astringent.

Overall, it’s decent but nothing special. There are a lot better chocolate strawberry teas out there.

The black and oolong blend is a winning combination. Black tea on its own can sometimes get too strong or bitter, but the oolong helps keep this balanced, while still giving the brew enough body. When brewed hot, the tea is smooth and sweet, even without milk or sugar.

There are lots of flower petals in this tea, many of them a rosy pink color, which makes for a delicate and pretty dry leaf. With these lady-like touches, this tea might be suited for a fancy tea party, or simply when you want to be sweet to yourself. I didn’t notice any papaya flavor, though it may be a part of what makes this blend sweet without any additives. The name of the tea is very appropriate, with fruity strawberries and rich cocoa nibs as the predominant flavors.

This tea would make a great Valentines-themed blend, so maybe stock up now to gift to your sweetheart later.

GCTTB
I’m not getting much pumpkin out of this, but I really like it. It’s more gingerbread – maybe with a hint of cocoa. Warm, soothing, a little spicy – definitely black tea in the back but as a nice addition rather than intrusive. Yep this what I needed on an brutal cold evening.

I know the person who owns this company and I often see her at the farmers market in town. A couple weeks ago, when she noticed me eying up this tea, she was nice enough to give me a sample for free.

The scent of the dry tea makes me think of nut brittle, sort of nutty and toffee-like – but when I added the water it changed to something like apple cinnamon (odd since there’s no apple in this blend, but that may be the rooibos). The flavour is mostly cinnamon-flavoured rooibos, though there’s a smooth undertone of vanilla that keep it from tasting too woody. There’s a bit of almond flavour if you tilt your head and squint, but more would be nice.

Not a bad tea at all – red rooibos isn’t really my thing so I wouldn’t shell out the money for a whole tin, but it’s nice enough for drinking in the evenings before bedtime (possibly with a cookie for dessert).

Backlog:

This was really … a disappointing tisane for me. It was the first tisane from the Amoda box that I was truly disappointed by. It wasn’t terrible, but, there wasn’t anything that really stood out to me as spectacular either. It’s a light, thirst-quenching tisane, but it lacks something … something to make it special. In my tasting notes, I mentioned that it needed something like spearmint or peppermint or cinnamon or ginger. Just something to give it a little bit of zing. An extra dimension of flavor.

Alright … but nothing that I’d ever order again.

Hot-steeped and chilled this one a few days ago… tasty tasty. I still think it tastes like berry juice, and not really of hibiscus at all. Delicious summer blend.

I was worried that this tea would be overly hibiscusy, so gave it a very cautious first infusion of only 2 minutes, which is crazy for a herbal. But I think I needn’t have been so careful – the hibiscus was not even noticeable, and I don’t think that it would have ruined the cup had I let the infusion go a bit longer. The tea tasted much like berry juice (how shocking!) – kind of like those 5 cent juicy berry candies that you can buy at a convenience store. It was actually pretty tasty! This might be one that I could sweeten and feed to the boy, if I decide to continue with my efforts to get him to drink tea.

I infused this a second time, and recall the liquor looking a lot more hibiscusy…. but I have no recollection of drinking the tea. I did leave a few teas on my nighttable over the week that I ended up dumping, and I suspect it was one of those. Oh well.

Sipdown. The last cup of this tea was just as good as the first one. :)

Wow, finally a pumpkin spice tea that does what it says on the tin. I took the tea plain this time, but I think it would be best with milk as the black tea base is slightly bitter. Even so it has a nice pumpkin pie/gingerbread flavour with hints of cinnamon in just the right amount of accent rather than overwhelm the other flavours.