Trader Nicks Tea Company

Drank this yesterday and sorta struggled with the mug? I really wanted to like this blend, but something about it just felt off to me. I guess, to start, I expected a muffin inspired blend to either be more buttery or just have more of a baked good note in general and I felt like that was missing for me.

But that’s not really what was off to me. I think the whole mug just seemed rather heavy? Like, the blueberry note was the strongest thing in the cup but it was simultaneously very floral leaning in a heady sort of way, and also more of a cooked blueberry note (which makes sense for the concept) versus something fresh – and that combo of deep florals and dense fruits felt very… I don’t know? The thing that comes to mind is that is made the cup seem weighted in an unbalanced way. Like everything was being yanked down?? It doesn’t help that the green base had a little bit of a bitter and medicinal edge.

I did taste caramel and vanilla though, and both were pleasant with the blueberry. Still didn’t do anything to brighten/lighten up the cup though, or offset the harsher elements of the base….

I think this is one of those times where the pun in a tea name and the flavour concept are both so good that it makes you go “well, what else could it have possibly been”!? So, I was pretty stoked for this one…

The dry leaf smell was polarizing in our office. I really liked it and felt like there was something about the chocolate and strawberry combination that reminded me a ton of freeze dried “astronaut ice cream” but a couple poeple in the office felt like the strawberry was sort of sour in an off-putting way. I couldn’t see it, though.

Steeped up I wasn’t exactly disappointed as I did really enjoy the flavour. However, it was pretty much just a very pleasant chocolate covered strawberry taste to me with some maltiness from the black tea base and a really nice level of body. I didn’t get vanilla or really much in the way of cream/ice cream. That said, I think it’s one of the nicer chocolate teas I’ve had in a while. Definitely a more “euro” chocolate note with a lot of inherent fruitiness and less density/richness than we’re accustomed to here in North America, but the fact it’s paired with the strawberry makes it work IMO.

Happy (belated) Star Wars Day!! This year, I’m spoiled for options when it comes to Star Wars themed tea blends, so I’ve steeped up a cup of Brewbacca which is one of the tea samples I just recently got from Trader Nick’s that I haven’t had a chance to try yet. This blend of hojicha and rooibos is toasty and very comforting with sweet and cozy notes roasted almond to go alongside more mineral and woody kind of notes from the two bases. I do think I’d have preferred this blend if it were just a hojicha base because of the heavier body and deeper coffee-like notes of the roasted green tea. Plus, it would have held up a little bit better with the added milk. However, the hojicha is the stronger of these two tea bases anyway, and the flavour is still really rich and nutty. It feels like a very spot blend for everyone’s favourite wookie, and ended up being a great choice for today!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6jxG1tOq2R/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0vsNFO2pDg

Cold Brew!

Trying this one tonight while I work on catching up on tasting notes. I love banana teas so much so when I was placing my order this was top of the list out of the newer blends for me to add – even with the green tea and chamomile inclusions.

The dry leaf smelled very good – super intense and sweet banana in that way that rides the line of banana taffy and the delicious banana flavoured medicine you’d get as a kid. For sure not for everyone, but it had me salivating!

The cold brew is… interesting. It does start off with that banana medicine sort of flavour albeit a lot less sweet than you’d think it would be, and there’s even an undertone that’s a bit chocolate-like. However, the finish is, like, actually medicinal. Not in the fun penicillin way, but in the more bitter and unpleasant.It’s not as bad as it could be (I’m drinking through it), but I wonder how much of that is because this is a cold brew and this style of brewing tends to really scale back bitterness and astringency. I also really hate the inclusion of chamomile. In general I feel like it’s a dumb ingredient to add to caffeinated teas, but it’s musty floral note also isn’t helping with this finishing flavour IMO…

I think I need to try this again hot to really decide how I feel. As of right now, it’s not living up to my expectations but I have this sneaking suspicion it might be one of those teas with a learning curve where you have to get your brewing just right.

Drinking a mug of this currently and it’s… okay? To be fair I am drinking it lukewarm since I got distracted by writing other tasting notes and kind of forgot that I’d brewed this up, so maybe it would be better if it was hotter. However, the peach and mango combination is giving me really strong feelings of deja vu and I’m not exactly sure why. They’re a little bit creamy in nature, but also have a slight floral undertone and a bit of an overall “artificial” taste. I think it’s the floral and artificial combo that’s not landing for me. Not half bad, but nothing to write home over either – and I’d probably reach for a lot of other peach or mango teas over this one.

Had this one at work on Friday and I remember thinking it was only just fine. I think the problem is that there are too many fruits, so the flavour gets really muddied and fruit salad-like in a not super great way. You just lose any clarity of flavours and distinctness, which doesn’t make it unpleasant but maybe just a bit forgettable?

Cold Brew!

This was pretty good! Light to medium bodied and fairly white tea forward, but with a refreshing and mild addition of different fruits. It’s supposed to be blueberry and starfruit which I think is so clever for an R2-D2 inspired blend. I mean, the starfruit pun is just inspired! I do taste the blueberry here, and it obviously works really well – the white tea and blueberry pairing is borderline classic at this point. The starfruit kind of just adds a very light and more ethereal “tropical” undertone though – it’s not strong or distinct enough to really read as anything specific to me. However, I enjoyed that it gave this otherwise very predictable combo a bit of its own little flair and twist.

This was so familiar tasting and it took me most of the mug to realize it was reminding me of DAVIDsTEA’s Chocolate Rocket yerba mate blend. It was the thick, jammy raspberry notes like what would be used as filling in pastry combined with that super fudgey, dark truffle-like chocolate note. Not really any roast, which is a differentiation between the two. I rarely drink straight chocolate teas, but I like chocolate with fruit and I think this is such a greatly balanced pairing. I even resteeped it, which is rare for me. Definitely lost a lot of the richness in the resteep but the raspberry note was still there and it was still a nice cup of tea.

Made myself a GIANT mug of this because I was so confident from the dry leaf aroma that I was going to love this tea. I was right, and really it was actually the raspberry note in the blend that sold it for me. Very jammy and cooked down in a way that evoked lots of memories of different raspberry pastry fillings or even the jelly in a raspberry jelly filled donut. The chocolate notes were very ganache-like, and had a decadence to them without needing to be super heavy and cloying. I liked that it was raspberry and chocolate without cream, as well! I think not having that note to smooth everything out only added to the richness – especially since there wasn’t much high note sweetness either.

Made a mug of this a few nights ago and really enjoyed it! Something about the combination of lemongrass and sweet coconut always feels just a little bit Thai-inspired to me, but that’s not a bad thing at all. It’s just kind of interesting to be drinking a Frozen inspired blend and have Thailand front of center in your mind. It’s a smooth tea though with a nice medium-ish sweetness from the coconut and candied pineapple that does a good job balancing out what is a pretty heavy handed lavender note. Were it not for the sweetness and fruitier flavours I think this amount of lavender could easily come off as soapy, but the overall blend is really cohesive and does a fantastic job course correcting those flavours. Plus it’s blue, which I guess some people care about.

Though very lavender forward, the blend is also pretty sweet with notes of vanilla and sugared coconuts and almonds that, when all combined together, taste a lot like lavender macarons or even sugar cookies with a thick lavender frosting. However, there’s also soft citrusy notes of lemongrass to the undertones that adds a bit of a more unique spin to the otherwise decadent profile. I found it very unique and, to be honest, a lot better tasting than I’d expected. It was nice to see some more substance here than just the cool blue colour from the butterfly pea flower in the blend which (imo) can sometimes be a little gimmicky. It did make for one of the most perfect “tea splashes” I’ve ever caught on camera, though! So, y’know, I can’t totally write off the aesthetics…

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6cMMcWONoP/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MheUPvapEOQ

Cold Brew!

Well this is sure a familiar tasting tea! I thought it more than likely would be based on the visual and description, but I wanted to try it anyway. Essentially it’s DT’s Mango Fruit Punch but with a heck of a lot more flower petals in it. Tastes very sweet though with that really syrupy, bold mango and orange flavour combination that’s verging on juuussstt a bit saccharine tasting. It’s playful while also being the type of flavour that doesn’t feel weird to describe as “loud tasting” and in that way it seems pretty damn fitting for a Donald Duck kind of blend!

Y’know it’s autumn because all week I’ve been craving cinnamon teas. This tea specifically was one I started the week seriously dreaming about. Steeped up, that red hot/cinnamon heart candy as EXACTLY what I was looking for. Bold, sweet and warming and gently balanced out by a little brightness from the hint of orange. Definitely less orange than I’d remembered, but I’m not mad at that.

This tea smelled exactly like what I expected it to based on the website description. Really, really intense and sweet cinnamon and clove combo (more the cinnamon, though) with a hint of orange. Major Bigelow’s “Constant Comment” sort of vibe but also other teas like DT’s Orange Spice/The Spice is Right or Harney’s Hot Cinnamon…

Steeped it’s actually less sweet and aggresive than you’d expect given the dry aroma, but it is a verrrryyy bold and brisk cup of tea with really tannic, robust and malty black tea to go alongside a very commanding cinnamon note. Just a hint of orange, but nothing super bright or sweet – it compliments the cinnamon well though. A little drying, perhaps, both from the tea base and the clove – but that makes sense to me as it’s kind of positioned like you would drink this as a breakfast blend and those usually have a fair amount of astringency and overall body because they’re expected to be taken with milk and sugar. I’m sure both of those would taste excellent here.

Honestly I liked it a lot. It’s not the most unique blend out there by a long shot, but I much prefer a black tea base to the rooibos that I see this flavour profile often executed on because of the caffeine, and I will almost always opt for a loose tea over a bagged tea, like Constant Comment (though bagged is very convenient for travel). DT’s version of the profile is a green tea base, and y’all know how I feel about that. Though I guess DT also has Silent Night, but that’s much more orange forward.

Anyway, this one works for me!

Another fruity green tea blend from this week…

This was a pretty average tasting cup to me. Relatively grassy and green tea forward in a medium bodied and ever so slightly dull kind of way, with sweet notes of tropical pineapple and strawberry gummy candy. I felt a bit like there was missing acidity to perk up the flavours and make the final cup more vibrant and full of life. But there wasn’t really anything unpleasant about it either. Just very middle of the road. What it says it’s gonna be, and really nothing more or less…

I got a pretty large Trader Nick’s order in a few days ago. I was running low on their Circle of Life blend that I adore and wanted to buy more, and since they’re a bit annoying to order from here in Canada (shipping is high + duties) I figured I’d just go all out and get a TON of samples in order to make paying for shipping feel more worthwhile. Plus Disney inspo teas are fun!

This is the first one in the box that I brewed up. I, of course, had to do the sniff test with every sample I grabbed and there were A LOT that smelled appealing but the note of sweet, juicy and almost over ripe pineapple from this tea was just calling my name. It was very good brewed up! Not quite as intense as expected given the smell, but definitely a really strong representation of both that sweet pineapple and juicy strawberry flavour that it’s meant to taste like. I didn’t even mind the green tea base. It was quite smooth, and worked with the tropical sorta lean.

I will say that this is definitely not the flavour I would have expected for a Pocahontas inspired tea (especially Colours of The Wind). To be fair, I don’t necessarily have a better suggestion but pineapple/tropical flavours just feel like the wrong vibe to me.

And total side note, I think I realized while selecting teas for this order but I don’t think Trader Nick’s has any Mulan or Tarzan inspired blends!? And that just kind of made me a little sad – I think there’s a lot of fun things you could do with those two movies as inspiration…

I couldn’t remember exactly what this tea was called, so in my notes I have it written as “stalactites” which isn’t the furthest off! It’s lightly fruity and a little coconutty. I love a lemongrass-heavy tea. It’s really refreshing cold! I remove the butterfly pea flower so I don’t have to taste that flavor. Frustratingly, the coconut is starting to turn already.

Sipdown & Backlog

I was working while sipping this down, so the notes will be brief. “A light black tea base with a sweet lingering allspice aroma/flavors.”

I feel like this is a blend I’ve had before from a few companies, just with butterfly pea flower and maybe a few other ingredients added. I enjoy the cherry flavoring they use. It’s not too tart, just fruity and nice. I did remove the butterfly pea flower and would probably buy a similar blend from a cheaper source instead. The cherry and coconut combo is super refreshing!

Finally getting around to trying this one!

Chocolate teas aren’t usually my vibe, but I was really intrigued by some of the other flavours described in the blend and overall I thought it was a very refreshing take on a Beauty & The Beast inspired tea (which are often rose flavoured) so I wanted to give it a try. I would say I was sort of “whelmed” by it? It’s a very smooth brew with a more medium to full bodied base. The bourbon does come through and the chocolate is also rather rich. Something about the combination, however, just makes me think a little bit of those more low-quality chocolate filled with alcohol. It’s not that it tasted bad, but as soon as that imagery popped in my head I couldn’t quite get it out.

I’ll definitely give this blend more shots, but for me it wasn’t a smashing success.

What a fun website! If you are a fan of Star Wars and/or Disney be sure to check these guys out. The blend I’m drinking is from the Teatiff TTB. The dry aroma is fairly pleasant but with a slight sour note. Kind of makes you pucker your nose like a sour candy does to your tongue. The taste is filled with earthy notes bits of pineapple and florals. I’m not a fan of citrus in green tea but this isn’t bad.

This tastes mostly like jasmine with a little bit of fruit. It’s pretty light and mild, but a bit more floral than I prefer. I’d call this one unremarkable.

TTB sample! I taste a mild nutty flavor, but I don’t get much more from this one. I don’t love the puerh base here. It just adds a tang that doesn’t go smoothly with the rest.

The fruit is nice and bright, though I don’t love the tea combination below it. I’d prefer if it were just black tea. Though the white tea might add a bit of a light floral aspect which I guess I can appreciate. Overall, this isn’t bad, just not as nuanced as I’d prefer.