Southern Boy Teas

So, I’m going to be at my parent’s house for eight days starting Friday to house and dogsit while they’re in Puerta Viarta (mildly jealous, but eh). The saddest part is that I’m far more concerned about how much tea I should bring and such than any other aspect of this. Because I know I drink more tea while I’m there because there’s not much else to do, but I don’t want to, like, pack a suitcase of tea.

Oh well. I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

The name of this tea has made everyone I’ve told it too giggle uncontrollably. I appreciate that in a tea.

I also like the banana candy-type flavor paired with the slightly malty black base. The banana kind of sneaks up on you towards the latter part of the sip and then explodes with a sweet banana flourish.

This isn’t my favorite of the SBTs I’ve tried so far (I think that might go to Rainbow Sherbet), but I like it and would definitely consider having it on hand again.

This one was taken out of the HH teabox a while back since I happen to love 52Teas banana blends. This is actually one big tea bag for a pitcher of iced tea, so I just busted the bag open to have one teaspoon hot. Even though the leaves are tiny, the taste isn’t bitter right after boiling, but that’s because I only steeped for two minutes. The banana flavor is nice as usual, but on its own without the extra ingredients that usually make up a nice 52Teas blend, I can see how this might be considered artificial tasting. But this is a long way from being unbearably artificial, it tastes fine to me! Thanks monkey! I love the bakey bready black tea base… tastes like I’m eating banana bread!

After Fiance and I finished the Cherry Limeade SBT in record time for us, I went for this one. And after cold steeping it overnight, I was really excited to try it!

I love it when excitement is well warranted. This really tastes like sherbet. Initally, I get lime, then orange, and then the raspberry, but the best moment is at the end of the sip where they all kind of come together and bcome a spoonful of guilt-free sherbet. It’s even a little creamy.

I personally didn’t add sugar because there’s a bit of natural sweetness, but I can’t see it as anything but delicious and even more sherbet-ty then.

(And only 5 more reviews till I hit 500! Yikes!)

I cold-brewed this tea a few days ago but only now got around to putting sugar in it. I’m somewhat sick with a cold but there’s cleaning that needs to get done today and I’ve gotten a late start to it.

This tea, when cold brewed as long as I did, which is about 12 hours, has a nice dark rich tasting base and some sweetness on top that must be the cotton candy/caramelized sugar. If asked what the sweetness was, I wouldn’t have said cotton candy, but this is nice tasting all the same. Not quite up to the razzleberry standards but still pleasant to taste.

I am always impressed at how the actually does resemble rainbow sherbet. Served cold it really does seem as though you are enjoying the liquid version of the tasty treat. It is sweet but also slightly tart just like the dessert.

After 16 hours, this turned out to be yet another tasty SBT! This perfectly captures the flavor of rainbow sherbet right down to its icy, fruity deliciousness. Yet another restock!

Grabbed some more of this during a recent purchase and yessss, still fantastic. I’m a fan of Frank’s Razzleberry blends in general and this one’s pretty great. I originally was going to make a Birthday Cake SBT but it was a little alcohol smelling when I opened the package so I thought it best to air that one out a bit. The one time I ignored it, the iced tea tasted of alcohol also and I’d rather not ruin a tea bag like that. Should fade in a day or a few. Likely I’ll have finished this tea by then and possibly the resteep as well because it’s fantastic.

I read in one of the reviews that someone made a tea slushy out of it and got me to thinking. How does one do that? poured with ice cubes into a blender? hmmm.

Finally found an iced tea method that works for me, provided I follow it. Tea for my 2 quart pitcher – 8 cups worth or the SBT packages. 8 hours – timed by the oven timer so I don’t forget. Take the tea out immediately and then toss or save for a resteep. Add sugar (a spoonful per cup right now so 8 for this which is an insane amount of sugar but I wanted something sweet so I don’t care). Pour over ice and drink. Working pretty well so far.

Haaa, finally an iced tea that I manage to not screw up, even though I tried my hardest. First I forgot that it was steeping in the fridge so it steeped for..I dunno 48 hours? I added sugar, not sweet enough. Added more sugar, barely too sweet. Hopefully on the second steep I can get the sugar right and hopefully remember that it’s in the fridge, though it’ll probably take a few days to get through 2 quarts of the first steep all by myself in the middle of winter. Nice break from hot tea and I just need something cold sometimes that isn’t as boring as water.

So yeah, this is really nice and I like it. Good to be able to try it in it’s original form for once when I love it so much as a Genmaicha.

Sipdown!!

So long Monkey Fart. It was fun while it lasted but we won’t be seeing each other again.

Weirdly enough, this cup is more black tea tasting than the last, while the banana is coming off far more subtle. Same tea bag, same pitcher, two different cups and two different flavors. I guess it is just me.

Also, my brother really isn’t drinking this so something tells me he is not a fan. That means this won’t be a reorder. Oh well.

I had this one before in my first order of SBTs and it was good but there were much better ones. However, when I placed my second order, I knew this was something my brother would be into so I tossed it in. Of course when I have him the bag of SBTs to chose from, he went straight for this one. So now I am sipping on this banana tastiness. Yum!

In other news, I came home the other day to my mom’s friend sitting with a glass of this in front of her. She told me it was very good and asked what it was and without a moment’s hesitation I proudly said “Monkey Fart”. Her face was quite priceless :P

Sipdown!! (195)

Two days ago I hit the 450 tasting note milestone, and now (thanks in large part to an inspiring competition with Roswell Strange) I am writing my 500TH TASTING NOTE. Unfortunately, it just had to be for a ridiculous little tea called Monkey Fart.

Luckily, the taste is not nearly as hard to get behind as the name. I have already said what I needed to say about this tea. It is a nice smooth black that sneakily transitions to sweet banana goodness. However, I decided to drink this up so that I could use the pitcher to cold brew another one of my SBTs.

On another note, I also intend to cold brew another tea but can’t decide which one. I am happy to take some suggestions. What teas (preferably blacks) have you guys cold brewed and enjoyed??

I am enjoying a small cup of this brew as I wait for a hot cup to steep. I love the convenience of having a pitcher of this in my fridge to get a quick tea fix. The base is a little stronger today (not sure why as there is no tea bag in it anymore) but I am still enjoying the banana flavor this tea leaves behind after each sip.

I have never been one for iced tea but then again until August I wasn’t really a fan of regular tea either. Now I have over 200 varieties and counting and really can’t get enough of the stuff. Joining steepster really helped broaden my tea horizons and I discovered cold brewing and realized just how easy it is. Thus I decided to give cold tea a second chance. I learned I enjoy that too (though not nearly as much as hot tea) and so I picked up a bunch of SBT.

I am not loving the name of this one (mostly because I don’t think I could honestly tell someone I was drinking a tea called Monkey Fart and not be at least a little embarrassed) but I am enjoying the taste. I coldbrewed this for about 15 hours and the result is definitely an interesting cup. The start of the sip is a smooth tasting black tea but as the sip ends, before you even realize, there is an explosion of banana flavor. The aftertaste is all banana and really quite good. So far I am very happy with SBT and can definitely see myself stocking up on these for the summer months. This one especially my brother would love as he is a big iced tea lover, a HUGE banana fan (like he will eat/drink ANYTHING banana), and I think the name Monkey Fart is just far more amusing to a guy. All in all, a nice, refreshing cup :)

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, SBT sent me this tea!

And this tea made the wait worth it! This is seriously awesome iced tea. I hope that SBT releases this one as a permanent part of the line, because I like this one a lot. Definitely the best one of the 12 teas of Christmas.

Crisp, cool and minty. There is a sweet, creaminess to it too that gives it a candy-ish taste rather than a strong, minty-toothpaste-y taste. This iced tea tastes like christmas, and it is awesomeness!

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/01/05/twelfth-day-christmas-southern-boy-teas-edition/

On the Ninth Day of Christmas, SBT sent me this tea!

Yum, yum, yum! This is one of the best teas of this christmas countdown. And I’ve loved quite a few of the teas that I’ve received … but this one might just be right there at that top spot.

A good rendition of a vanilla cola. Frank really nails the cola flavors that he creates, and this one is no exception. Nice notes of vanilla, the cola comes through and I can almost taste the carbonation of it. The black tea is not just a background flavor, either.

Really, really good. Almost as good as the lime cola. Almost!

http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/01/02/ninth-day-christmas-southern-boy-teas-edition/

On the Eighth Day of Christmas, SBT sent me this tea!

And I love this one. This one delivers the coconut cream pie! Creamy, coconut-y, and decadent, like someone liquefied a slice of coconut cream pie and mixed it with black iced tea. YUM!

The black tea is well-balanced with the flavoring. It is creamy, vanilla-y and coconut-y. Notes of butter give off a sort of “pastry” like flavor. Really yum.

Here’s my full-length article: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/01/01/eighth-day-christmas-southern-boy-teas-edition/

Holy Crap this stuff is good! I could probably drink this everyday! It reminds me a lot of those old fashioned vanilla cokes where they use the vanilla syrup to make it. So good!

This one is really good, I get a nice fruit and cream taste. I thought that sherbet would be a little tart but it wasn’t, so that’d be my only gripe. I’d reorder this one…

This one is pretty good but not especially memorable either way. At least I don’t hate it… but I was hoping for stronger pink lemonade taste.

I received this with the SBT sampler from the Zoomdweebies kick starter. I would not have bought this otherwise. So I am stepping into uncharted territory here, I’m ok to try something new but not sure how it is going to go.

Backstory: I don’t like bananas. I will each the greenest banana you can find me, but it is remotely even close to yellow, I don’t want it. I can’t even tell you the last time I had a banana. So it goes without saying, I also do not like banana flavoured things.

Ok back to the real time story: I made this as per usual. Tea bag in about 2 cups boiling water for 3 minutes, added white sugar (maybe 2tsp?), filled the pitcher to the top and let sit in the fridge over night. The dry tea bag smells strongly of banana flavouring. But it also kind of reminded me of the pear SBT. Iced this tea is a dead ringer for banana runts. (I am really going off memory here becuase the last time I had a runt was eons ago, and I couldn’t even tell you when the last time I had a banana runt was because I would pick them out – but anyway, the first thing my brain said to me after drinking this was banana runts).

Its actually not horrible. Tastes strongly of banana, slightly artificial but in a way that banana flavoured things taste. It is sweet but not too sweet. I am glad I did not add any more sweetener to it. I will definitely be able to drink the pitcher of this but I would not repurchase. Not that it is a bad tea, but it is just bananas! (hehe)

Trying out the steepster app! Pretty jazzy. I have a bunch of SBT bags from the zoomdweebies kick starter and more will be coming so time to always have iced tea around! This one was sitting in my living room for some reason so I decided to make it. I sweetened it just a little while it steeped which was just right.

I think I have had this one before but I might be thinking of the Cuba Libre tea haha but this is similar minus the boozy flavor. It’s delicious and refreshing and it doesn’t even matter if it’s cold outside.

Backlog:

If I had to choose a favorite between the SBT Lime Cola and the SBT Pink Lemonade, I’d have a difficult time choosing … and I think that the lime cola would win out only narrowly because the Lime cola works well as first a cold-brewed tea, and then I can resteep (hot-brew) the pouch for a second half-gallon of tea. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very successful with the cold-brew of the Pink Lemonade, and so I have to hot brew the pouch, and the second infusion of the hot brew … just isn’t flavorful enough for me to go through the effort. HOWEVER … the Pink Lemonade is so tasty that it’s actually worth it to me to buy the pouch for just one half-gallon of tea.

So … perhaps taste wise, the Pink Lemonade wins out over the Lime Cola. But value wise, the Lime Cola wins.

This is really, really, really good. I love all the flavors in this and I can taste them all: the lemon, the raspberry, and the sweet cotton candy notes. This tastes like a trip to the county fair. It’s sweet, tart, tangy and just plain YUM!

A really spectacular iced tea. Amazingly good.

Backlog:

A fairly good Pear iced tea. I liked the second infusion of this tea better than my first cold-brewed infusion. The second infusion I hot brewed, and the flavor was softer, smoother, and there was less of a perfumed essence to it. I think it was the perfume-i-ness that threw me off on this one a bit with the first cold-brewed infusion. With the second infusion, this perfume-i-ness had subsided and I could enjoy the sweet, delicate pear flavor and the brisk black tea.

Not bad.

It was