Tea Desire

Whoops, guess I haven’t made any notes for this one yet.

I picked this up when I hit up Tea Desire at Metrotown during their closing sale (I should check to see if they’re still open and pick up a few more teas before they’re gone for good—they’re an underdog in the Tea Community, but they’ve still got some nice stuff, if you know what to look for). I’ve had it a few times, and I quite like it. Not their usual green-black blends, but instead a green-white blend. It takes to the pineapple and strawberry well. Pineapple’s more visible in the hot variety, but today’s post is actually about icing it.

I bought some bottled sodas last week, and kept the bottles and caps to reuse for iced tea. I bottled this and a few others (I’ll get to those when I sip them), then refrigerated ’em and forgot about ’em for a few days.

Opened this one up, sniffed it—delicious strawberry pineapple scent. Sipped it—love it. I’m inexperienced when it comes to ratios for iced tea, but I think I did pretty well for my first try. I did two heaping teaspoons for the whole bottle (355mL); steeped in about 250mL (3 minutes), and then poured in with a bit of crushed ice (as much as I could get in there—narrow necked, unfortunately), then put the bottle in an ice bath.

Very refreshing. Getting the green tea mostly. Not much of the white, as to be expected. Strawberry’s stronger than the pineapple. Didn’t use any sugar, and I’m loving it without, but as a fruity green I think it’d do well with it.

I’m going to have to make more. Bring them with me when I go camping in a few weeks.

I didn’t actually write a note on this? Jeez, this is the last cup of it.

It lives up to the apple bit, at least. Juicy with a nice base of green and black. Never got much from the almond. Not particularly creamy. But a good apple tea.

I happened by this store in Metrotown and decided to pop in since I’m always on the hunt for new teas – specifically coconut teas. I saw this one, which evidently isn’t on their website.

The scent of pina colada type teas always intrigues me. I found this to be quite similar to David’s Tropicalia. I’m thinking the Tropicalia is slightly more flavoured (but not necessarily in a good way) than this one, but I also haven’t had it for a while.

I’m happy I picked up 50g, I can’t wait to try this one chilled.

Ummm I tried this once, maybe twice, and was not impressed… so I sent it home with Mum this weekend – she loves green teas and this one will make her very-very happy.

Not much to say about this tea yet, I found it to be quite a mild green tea, with some faint grassy notes and a hint of sweetness as the tea cools off.

Another update from the library. My aunt sent up this tea and Tea Desire’s Earl Grey. The earl grey isn’t anything special—I didn’t expect it to be—but I’m pleasantly surprised by this lapsang. It’s nice—not fantastic, but it’s not sharp and burnt like Murchie’s. She also sent up a Britta water filter with the tea. I don’t think it helps the hard aspect of the water, but it removes the chlorine smell.

It’s difficult trying to keep my virtual cupboard in order. I’ve been keeping a paper log of teas that I’ve finished/gotten, so that I can update them the next time I get a chance to go the library and log onto Steepster. But work is fun. I need to take some pictures out in the field with my Libre.

Again, second steep is darker than the initial rinse steep. It’s definitely earthy; I’d say even muddy, but not dirt, rather soil. Is that an odd differentiation to make?

I somewhat forgot about the tea for quite a while, and the strong smell of the dry leaf’s faded quite a bit, as has the fishy aspect of the brewed tea itself, I think. At least I remember it all being a little different, but it’s been a while. I suppose it’s the tin I kept it in, and in most tea-storage practices this all would be a bad thing, but I think it really helped. I like it more than I remember liking it, although I never truly disliked it. At least if I take small to medium sized sips. I gulped some and it coats the mouth and throat most unpleasantly.

It’s recommended that you do the fifteen-second initialrinsingsteep. Which I did! However, I am still holding that initial steep. I figure, it’s there, I might as well try it. The tea leaves will still be in the infuser for the “Real Steep” when I get back.

The smell of the tea is… oriental. Which seems like a weird description, but really, I sniff it and it reminds me of Japanese foods. Sushi and whatnot. Ooh, pleasant. It’s also not as inky-coffee-black as people described. Just a good, dark tea colour.

First sip is fishy and earthy. Not… not in a bad way? Sort of coffeeish. Very earthy. It’s nit bitter, but is sort’ve charcoaly.

Second steep (20 seconds) managed, somehow, to be DARKER than the first. Smells the same though. Taste is similar, but a bit different—slightly more black tea-like, while still retaining the earthyness. Almost bitter, but somehow still smooth.

The ingredient list of this tea intrigued me so I decided to make this the first tea I tried from the mystery tea box Katiek sent me while I was out of town.

I have to agree that this tastes like black tea plus lemons and that really is a surprising flavor to get out of this tea since lemons are not on the ingredient list. It was pretty disappointing hot so I decided to do a huge pitcher cold steeped and see if any of the other flavors came out. Even after 8 hours they didn’t, but I did notice that the lemon flavor wasn’t as overwhelming (a plus for me since I don’t like lemons). Either way it isn’t a terrible tea, just little disappointing. I’ve been drinking a lot of it the last few days in an effort to sip down my samples and I definitely prefer the cold steep.

I got this tea in a swap from jessiwrites … it is a lot like tropicalia, but quite a bit more tart… i’m not sure I like that.. I think for me there is something about pineapple teas that doesn’t sit right.. I love pineapple, I just haven’t stumbled upon the right pineapple tea for me yet.

Sipdown! 841. Yeah… that number just isn’t decreasing. I haven’t had time to drink much tea lately, and when I do, I don’t want a sample. Sigh.

Anyhow, hot/cold-brewed this, and yuck. Hot, it is definitely reminiscent of Tropicalia, but cold, it gets quite tart, and isn’t sweet at all. Perhaps sweetened it would taste okay, but as a cold-brew, I only finished it because I was desperately thirsty for something cold right then. Dropping the rating – a herbal tea like this has gotta be good cold-brewed!

Thanks to Courtney for a sample of this one! Sadly not a sipdown yet, but hopefully I’ll remember to chill the rest so it’s a sipdown tomorrow.

This pretty much tastes like DT’s Tropicalia, I agree. No candy bits (a bonus) and a bit more tartness, which I wasn’t as fond of. I’d pick Tropicalia over this one most likely, although I really wish it didn’t have candies in it! Whine, whine. However, this is still a pretty reasonably tea, and a far cry from some of the pina colada atrocities I’ve tried.

Thanks to Lynne-tea for a sample of this one, which I think I’ve had previously, though not brewed myself.

This is a lovely example of an earl grey cream. Light on the bergamot, heavy on the creaminess and vanilla; I would swear that someone put cream in my tea. No bitterness at all with a 3-minute infusion. This is pretty darn delicious – delicious enough that I may very well pick this one up as my go-to EGC once I drink down what I have (which consists mostly of small samples from various places, including Upton).

Very tasty. Thanks again for the sample, Lynne-tea! Much appreciated :D

Sipdown! Honestly though, I drank this tea cool and quickly, and although it was good, I probably can’t make any more comments on it. I’d drink it again, but it wasn’t anything overly special.

Thanks again to Lynne-tea for a delicious tea sample :D

I was most interested in this tea because it contained dragonwell (and I adore dragonwell), but now that I’m a bit more knowledgeable, I know that the flavours of dragonwell really don’t lend themselves to flavourings. However, this tea works quite well. It’s basically coming off as a strawberry-flavoured green, which is quite pleasant (although…. tiger town???) There’s a hint of green tea flavour lingering in the aftertaste, but the base really isn’t very prominent. Overall pretty tasty, but not something I’d purchase myself.

Old sipdown #8. Wrote a good review on this prior, yay! I don’t remember it at all…

Thanks to Lynne-tea for some of this one! I’m making a good effort on my box from you today :D

So, lately I’ve been off of cinnamony/orangey teas, but I figured I’d give this one a shot anyways. And to my surprise, I really like it! I suspect the flavour is a bit muted due to age, but for whatever reason, I am really enjoying how everything works together. I’m tasting chocolatey flavours plus just a hint of spice and floral. I suppose that I haven’t actually ever had a cinnamon/chocolate/rose tea before. There was one “loop” in the infuser for this cup… I’m not sure what flavour(s) it may have contributed.

Either way, this was pretty tasty! I’ll probably enjoy my second cup of it in the rather near future, since I found it to be so enjoyable. (Yay, that means sipdown is imminent! The only problem is that none of these teas were in my cupboard count, as this swap arrived when I was very busy last year, and I just didn’t get around to noting down everything that I was sent. Sigh.)

Thanks for this one, Lynne-tea! I’m hoping to get through everything you sent at least once by the end of tonight (assuming nothing has been misplaced elsewhere. There was a random sample from momo in the box too, which was odd.)

Love it! You can really taste the mango bits in it.