Tickled Tea

Trying out another sample from Tickled Tea. I brewed this iced. 1 tsp leaf, 500 mL cold water, about 45 minutes to steep. I think this would suit a bit of sweetener, but it is still good on its own.

This was a slight letdown. I was hoping for creamy fresh orange, but this is just a bit of orange zest and red rooibos. Really boring. It isn’t a bad cup, just not what I was hoping for. There is nothing creamsicle here. Just rooibos and dried orange skin. None of the vibrant freshly squeezed orange flavour or creamy vanilla ice cream flavour I had hoped for.

This isn’t really Bellini flavoured, but I love the cardamom fruit combo a lot more than I expected to.

The main flavours are dried apple, peach, orange. Notes of raisin are spices come through. Heavy cardamom flavour, a pinch of fruity hibiscus to counterbalance the sweet dried fruit. I really enjoyed this iced, and I find the peach/cardamom a unique and tasty combination.

This one wasn’t half bad. It’s peach and more and comes across as being pretty fresh i think this one would have been interesting as a cold brew :) thanks variaTea!

Also…so very close to my sipdown goal haha 1 away from hitting it, though i did make my more important weight goal, so i’m not complaining! here’s to august tea drinking!

soooo many teas! i had hopes for this one but sadly they didn’t work out. This is more coconut rooibos than it is pina colada. I appreciate the thought, but this just doesn’t live up to it’s name. Ah well, at least we tried.

Sipdown (316)

This is coconut rooibos. There isn’t much else going on. The rest of my sample is going to Sil so hopefully she has better luck.

Cold Brew Sipdown (312)!

I liked this one so much as a cold brew than I did as a hot tea, but I still don’t know that it’s something I’d want to purchase again. There are so many similar things out there that I think are just slightly better executed.

The flavour was much more mellow than my last cup, and I think I liked it a lot better that way – it almost came off as smoother, and more refreshing? It had lots of notes of blueberry, raspberry, and elderberry; but weaker than last time. It really does give off a juice-like vibe! No trace of the black tea base though, and I think even a glimpse of it would do something to improve the overall body of the tea, and improve the flavour.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, much less stevia taste too!

- Strong stevia flavour
- Sweeter berry top notes; jammy blueberry/elderberry
- More of a tart/sour finish with some LIGHT astringency
- Can’t taste the black tea base at all!?
- There’s something weirdly familiar about this but I’m struggling to place it
- Overall I don’t mind it but it’s not that exciting either

Cold Brew Sipdown (335)!

Finished this one off yesterday, in a somewhat unconventional way?

I had originally intended to just have it alongside my supper, which was a very sweet and buttery dish of pumpkin stuffed pasta, with some Gouda just sprinkled over. I thought it would be a nice compliment, because it would be somewhat confectionery which would compliment the buttery elements – but would have some contrasting flavour from the banana.

However, the banana flavour in the tea was COMPLETELY absent and all I really had was just a very, very full bodied black tea with lots and lots of cinnamon notes, some nuttier undertones and then the bread-y qualities of the CTC Assam base. Also, an incredibly thick mouthfeel. It was a little too confectionery, and I felt like it wasn’t working with the dish because the flavours were too closely aligned, so I abandoned my original plan and set the tea aside to drink later.

When I came back to it after eating, I decided to do something a little more different. Inspired by one of the threads on the DB about “Tea Floats”, I added a couple baby scoops of vanilla ice cream and hoped for the best. This worked much better and made for a significantly more enjoyable sipdown.

I mean, there’s really no getting past the fact that this is supposed to be a banana tea and it doesn’t taste like banana at all but the sweetness and creamyness of the vanilla ice cream at least paired well with the intense cinnamon notes, and it softened some of the intensity of the very full bodied, and strong black tea flavour.

Definitely wont miss this one; it was just such a let down.

Cuppa tea from this morning.

I was pretty excited for this one; banana black teas tend to treat me well so seeing this as an option on Tickled Tea’s site definitely made me curious. I was a little disappointed to see it was a CTC blend though – I can just imagine how tannic/strong it’ll likely be. Interestingly, the base doesn’t wind up being my biggest complaint overall. Mostly, I was disappointed by the fact that this is actually wildly oily mouthfeel wise. I don’t know what the cause is; but its a major oil slick! Gross…

The taste isn’t terrible though: it IS very full bodied with a lot of black tea base but the base it very malty and bread-y and that only makes the “bread” aspect of the title/flavour profile feel more put together and accurate. I get some nutty notes poking though; sweeter ones, but not distinctly walnut. I also feel like I’m getting some hints of cinnamon and banana in the undertones. Personally, I don’t think that for a tea named Banana Bread the banana should be an _under_tone but what can you do?

So yeah – not the most amazing tea ever; there’s some mouthfeel weirdness and I don’t think the banana is strong enough but the rest is pretty decent. Overall, it’s average and drinkable. Maybe forgettable?

Tea Lemonade Sipdown (376)

So I coldbrewed this in lemonade because last time I mostly just got the green tea base. This is very lemony and no green tea or stevia to be found. Very sweet and very lemony. Though I can’t be sure the tea is contributing much to the lemonade, I can say that this tastes drastically different and much more lemony than the island mango tea lemonade I had earlier (which was made with the same lemonade) so either that Tea diluted the lemonade or this tea is doing something.

I made this in my iced tea press on Sunday and am only drinking it now. I worried about the stevia but that isn’t particularly offensive. Alas the green tea is very grassy and I am finding that to be less than appealing.

Sipdown (317)

My AQ2T box arrived today so I am back up in numbers. I can’t be mad though because all the teas sound awesome. I look forward to tomorrow when I can start exploring them.

Tonight I am exploring a tea from a different company. This tea tastes rather familiar though, despite this being the first time I tried it out. That’s because vanilla cupcake is very much like DAVIDsTEA’s Birthday Cake (just as Roswell Strange said). Given the comparison made by my tea twin, I made this my favorite way to make the DAVIDs tea…as a cold brew.

This definitely has the vanilla cake batter deliciousness, though it is also a touch citrus and the rooibos base, as it was with the other Tickled Tea rooibos I tried, is still quite present. It is alright but not worth going out of my way for given Birthday Cake is so accessible and, in my opinion, is slightly better.

ETA: the more I drink, the less I notice the base. Just silky vanilla batter. Upped the rating a bit.

Roswell Strange had success with this tea and it inspired me to give it a try. However, this is a weird one. Peach Bellinis were my go-to beverage when I was old enough to drink and I can say that none of them I tried had the spices that this tea does, or any spices at all for that matter. For RS, the spices were subtle but in my cup they are the strongest flavor whereas the peach is sorta in the background. This is drinkable but not my favorite. At least it doesn’t taste like cheese.

Iced Tea Sipdown (274)!

So, I hadn’t originally planned to drink this one today but after an exchange with VariaTea I decided today was as good a day as any to bust it out and see what my thoughts were. It’s very hot in the house today, so I went with an iced cup. The exchange between VariaTea and myself was interesting: this tea tasted like cheese to her and that really through her off, and I was of course morbidly curious whether it’d tasted like cheese to me hence the expedited steeping of it.

So… bottom line I don’t think this one really screams cheese to me. In fact, I doubt I’d have pinpointed any of the flavour as cheese if the idea hadn’t already been planted in my head. That said, I there were moments where I was like “well, kind of…” and I can definitely see where she was coming from.

Like, I smelled both the dry leaf AND steeped leaf after the infusion had been strained out actually kind of did smell sort of cheese like – however neither me nor my whole family got the flavour of cheese from the steeped tea liquor itself. Mostly, everyone agreed it was a sweet strawberry flavour. Personally, I also thought it was a touch apple-y and had a bit of a tart kind of rhubarb/hibiscus thing going on too. Also, a little creamy from the melted down white chocolate. It didn’t perfectly melt though; I could see little strands of it floating in the liquor which was a bit gross.

Now, it’s a bit of a stretch but with the creaminess of the white chocolate combined with the strawberry I can sort of put together the overall flavour of, like, strawberry cheesecake? And so in that way you COULD say this tastes like cheese? I think it must probably be the white chocolate in the blend that was being weird for VariaTea though. What else would it be!?

Bottom line – I thought this was pretty nice, but there was a little weirdness to it and it is my biggest miss from Tickled Tea thus far. Still drinkable, though!

Iced Tea Sipdown (275)!

Nabbed this one because really how could I not? Have I ever been known to turn down a pina colada tea!?

I wont make this review long because honestly the flavour of this one was incredibly straight to the point – hints of rooibos base, sweet pineapple, and LOTS of very fresh tasting coconut. I thought the balance between the two was good, and the sweetness was just right without there being acidity from the pineapple or that weird lotion-y thing from the coconut.

Obviously I loved it.

So far, I think I’m 3/3 for enjoying these Tickled Tea blends! While I do already have a caffeine free pina colada option in my cupboard, I could probably be persuaded to add another. After all, it is one of those staple flavour combos for me…

Cold Brew Sipdown (276)!

This one was a lovely, surprise add in to my Tickled Tea order which I then decided to cold brew because I figured that it would come out similarly enough to DAVIDsTEA’s Birthday Cake blend for it to be enjoyable that style.

I was definitely right in that assumption: I think if you were drinking the two blends cold brewed side by side you’d likely be hard pressed to find a distinction. It’s smooth, vanilla cake batter – essentially. Tasty, to be certain, but not super stand out either. A solid option for those looking for a sweeter, caffeine free option to cold brew or make iced.

I just did a quick check on both websites as well, and for 50g you’re looking either pretty much identical costs – so, unless you have an employee discount like I do, it’s not a better deal either way. It would totally just boil down to, in my opinion, shipping costs or if you were interested in other teas from either vendor. Something to consider.

Sipdown (277)!

New, to me, company! I definitely first saw this company on VariaTEA’s instagram feed; some of the flavours they offered seemed pretty unique and samples were an option so I ended up getting twelve different samples; plenty to get a good feel of the company.

I don’t know why I chose this one to drink first: I knew I wanted an iced tea, and it definitely looked like the kind of flavour that would work well for an iced tea but apart from that something about it just… stood out.

- Kind of a weirdly buttery peach smell to the dry leaf?
- The dry leaf hardcore reminded me of peach strudels
- The taste is brighter/juicier and more candy/cocktail like
- Does retain a HINT of butteryness to it though
- Also notes of sweet apples
- The spices seemed like a weird touch to me, but honestly I’m into them!?
- Like, they’re just BARELY present but the soft hints of allspice and ginger work
- It just makes the brightness of the peach extra vibrant
- Don’t know that I agree strongly with the name…
- But I’m REALLY into the tea

I wonder how long they’ll be keeping these summer exclusive teas around for, because I was actually SUPER impressed by this one and if I ended up liking enough of the blends I would actually definitely consider grabbing more of this one. I think it was a good intro to the company, for sure!

Sipdown (355)

I am going through my tea drawers again and came across this tea. It is over a year old and I was dreading drinking it because last time I had it, it was disgusting and smelled like cheese. Thankfully the year did it some good because that cheese is gone. In it’s place is a sort of strawberry-ish tea. A run-of-the-mill fruit tea. Nothing special but at least not disgusting. Raising my rating from 28.

Tasting note 3500!!

I hoped when I got to this note I would have some special tea picked out but that didn’t happen since this sorta snuck up on me. What I do have is this fruit blend that seemed exciting in theory but when I was brewing it, it had a pretty strong cheese/cheezwhiz scent going on and now I am afraid to try it. It’s iced and it’s next to me but it taking that first sip is daunting in light of the off-putting scent.

Alright I tried it. Here’s the thing…it doesn’t taste like cheese really but it also doesn’t NOT taste like cheese. I think the culprit is the apples. Or the strawberries. I am not really sure. However, this tastes…not correct. Anyone ever had shitty apple chips that sorta taste like apples but are also gummy and weird? Because it is sorta like that…except more off. Yeah, basically this could have been worse but it is by no means good. So far Tickled Tea is 0/2. Maybe this is better hot?

After my attempts and failures with making a creamsicle tea by putting vanilla matcha in orange juice, I decided I would try someone else’s attempt to make a creamsicle tea. Lucky for me, my Tickled Tea order arrived with samples galore, including this one.

I opened the adorable pocket-sized tea packet (about 3 perfect teaspoons of tea) and set this up to cold brew, my go-to method for the various creamsicle-inspired rooibos teas I have come across. I left it overnight and this morning I got to sipping as I added my 25 new teas into Steepster’s database (the downside of finding a new tea company).

First thing I noticed, even before drinking this tea, is that the smell is very much that of its namesake which was promising. Alas, the rooibos base used in this tea is a strongly flavored one so it does contribute a fair amount to the flavoring as you drink. It takes over with woody notes that do sort of give way to a citrusy orange. That combination is a little too medicinal for my liking but the aftertaste is all creamy deliciousness. Just sucks that the path to getting to the lingering vanilla creaminess is through rooibos-infested waters.