1220 Tasting Notes
I’m so tired of rain!!! And tomorrow’s supposed to be even worse. It’s already been bad for my garden. I ran over there today around 10, because I thought it wasn’t supposed to rain until this afternoon and already the ground around my plot was puddling water. But I got a cucumber.
I realize I haven’t been drinking much tea, or I’ve been drinking the same tea in large 2 quart quantities. And now it’s probably going to dwindle more because I’m inevitably going to get back on coffee too considering the markout you get weekly as a Sbux employee. (Can you imagine if they eventually include something From Teavana in there??? I’d die.) btw my manager loves Harney & Sons so I’m gonna constantly be bringing her other teas to try haha.
Ok so, actually because it’s cooled so much I’m gonna spend the evening drinking hot tea. But first I was really feeling some matcha. I bought club soda to make Italian cream sodas but I couldn’t help but use the remnants of a bottle with some of this matcha. I think 1/4 the bottle was full so if I made a huge mistake by shaking it, I wasn’t going to get matcha water everywhere.
It’s. So. Good. It tastes SO much better this way. It tastes more like champagne but it doesn’t have the bite from the bubbles, while still having them. If that makes sense. I think it also takes away from the weird fruity gum flavor I felt this has some other times I have had it.
I’m going to have to reload up on club soda because I wanted to try tea pops too again, AND I have to try the orange/cola mix I love so dearly this way.
Teavana Peachberry whatever + Fruta Bomba, coldbrewed
Ok I thought Fruta Bomba was a green, but the leaves are really dark? I know for a fact it was this tea in this container but it just weirded me out. The entire tea overall turned pink, which I know is a result of Peachberry whatever jasmine ridiculous name.
I hadn’t had either of these in forever so I really have no idea which one is doing what. I did 4 tsp of each and their one common denominator is peach. Then there’s the hibiscus, the jasmine, the strawberry, but I’m not getting much else out of the fruta bomba one, no citrusy notes, not even lemongrass given how much of it looked to be in there.
It’s pretty much just fruity, unidentifiably fruity, with a bit of jasmine. I definitely would not combine these again, or I might use only 2 tsp of Peachberry.
BY THE WAY I GOT THE JOB! Well, conditionally on passing a background check. It’s w/Starbucks, I’m excited. I also got school all settled, I am doing 6 credit hours for the next 2 semesters so while not being able to finish this fall is sad, I have plenty of time on my hands. Also I learned that even though my GPA will likely suck around a 2.17 when I’m done, I can boost my GPA with classes before applying to grad school so if I do go that route it’s not pointless.
YAY
Congratulations :)
Congrats!
Congrats on snagging a job at Starbucks!
congrats! i think that means that your staff discount is passed on to teavana? dunno if you like them, but reduced cost tea experimentation is good, correct?
Thanks you guys! And yes it does, 30% and possibly in the future the weekly markout you get on something. I really don’t care for them due to starting to work for them but getting threatened for being a Steepster user, but there’s a couple I do want to try.
AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! :D
threatened… wait, what?
Thank you CHAroma! <3
yeah, I had just started, but I had to go to a wedding in FL for the weekend. I’m about to walk in to the rehearsal dinner and I get a call telling me to stop using my “blog” if I want to keep the job. I’m certain this will change now hopefully b/c Sbux is very different, but I wasn’t saying anything bad about the teas I was drinking or giving away secrets and just asking me to delete their tea logs would have sufficed. It really put a bad taste in my mouth as well as the shifty tactics and being treated like a complete idiot for pouring someone tea in an odd situation (language barrier, two girls trying to do stuff at once) and closing without any previous explanation on what to do. I was out of there after that. Told me I wasn’t working again for an entire week (how do you learn anything!) and goodbye.
I have no idea what the hell Steepster just did to my entire comment. I’m not typing the entire thing out again so basics: I logged Teavana teas on here. I’m on a short vacation to FL to go to a wedding, get call at 5pm Friday from DM threatening me for “blogging” I didn’t say anything negative, etc. Also treated like fool on two consecutive occasions, lose hours for it IN TRAINING, decide not to go back.
Congrats on the job. I hope things work out for you!
i hate it when a site clips my posts. hope your short holiday goes well?
Oh I’m not, that was just the context of when I was threatened. On vacation.
This comes far later than intended, I should have just put it off till morning but I meant to do it 90 minutes ago! I went to a yelp party tonight, it was ok, I always feel left out but eh. This one guy there, he’s a yelper too, but he takes pictures not even as one of the official photographer and tbh he’s the best. LOOK AT THIS. http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/yelps-deco-dence-otps-first-yelper-party-marietta?select=eIHKdZKe6TLJwd4PhkjbZQ#jgwwq6EtoVO24tx2MVeutg
I have no idea how that is such a good picture because he was trying to get one and this little fly was getting all up in my face and I was trying to watch it to swat it away before that haha.
ok so I really really oversteeped this as a coldbrew. Like I hadn’t finished up my tons and tons of Sansa Stark tea so it kind of sat there a bit longer than necessary. It’s strong. it’s not very sweet. Though, I have never been much of a fan of this blend. There’s vanilla, but there’s really nothing else to it imo.
Well I used half the bag so at least there’s not much more.
So I got this last week even though I wasn’t to ~ the episode ~ and thankfully even though there is an actual spoiler image on it, it’s oddly printed so I had no idea what it was even implying.
Until tonight. After I watched said episode. Then I understood.
ALL
THE
FEELS
when you find out how to get this tea (which is REALLY EASY and I feel dumb for not understanding) it suggests steeping in your own tears. Totally could have. btw I don’t think it’s possible to get this outside of the sample but I assume you can repeatedly get the sample since it let me add it to my cart again so I could get those great steeping notes.
Anyway the person who helped me out with getting this told me it was really good. It smells really good. But it’s super, super floral. I made it iced because I can’t be triflin’ with hot tea right now, plus hibiscus that’s warm is pretty meh.
So the hibiscus and rose petal are the strongest flavors, not sure if they really go together. For a bit there when I first tasted it, I was expecting someone to just pop in and yell THE LANNISTERS SEND THEIR REGARDS at me because even for someone who loves floral teas, it’s pretty overwhelming.
Since usually after the ice melts a good bit, iced teas start to taste better, I let it hang out. I could get a bit of the apple but definitely no blood orange.
It’s not that bad hibiscus wise. I can tolerate it without adding sweetener. I think maybe I’m losing the orange to the hibiscus, when I think about it, there’s a pretty similar flavor between blood orange and hibiscus.
I’m going to go lay down and cry now that I am finished with the glass. Although, I have an interview tomorrow FINALLY so cross your fingers!! And I will hopefully be over my GoT feels by then.
best of luck at the interview! i bet you’ll do brilliantly…
Good luck on the interview! I knew the red wedding was coming cause I read the books. Husband’s reaction was pretty amusing though. :)
Thank you both! I wanted to read the books first but begging for access to my parents’ Comcast account to get HBOgo was free LOL
I was going to try placing holds at the library but I think I’ll be better off saving my money to buy my own copies.
I suggest you buy the books on Kindle, especially for the last book. It came out 2 years ago but it’s still only available in hardcover, it’s GIGANTIC, and it costs $35. Kindle edition was only $15 and fits in my purse. ;)
BTW, how did you get this tea? I scoured the web but I think I’m missing something…
Good luck with the interview!
And I better hurry up and read all the damn books. We just finished watching Season 3, but I’d rather have read the books in advance so I can cry quietly in my room when I get to these parts, instead of being surprised as terribly as I was.
CHAroma – search the first listed name for this tea ;D I was dumb enough to try just “wedding” and so when I figured it out it was a huge DUH moment. I need to get a kindle. I use it on my laptop for cookbooks but I don’t know if I could sit and read very long on here. I have a second interview on Saturday so perhaps I shall have one soon!
Yeah, still can’t find it. I found a tea called The North Remembers, but it has different ingredients and doesn’t mention the Red Wedding…oh well.
Good luck on the second interview!!!
I am bad at hints so here’s the full way: put in red wedding and the picture will pop up in the search, click it and it’s added.
And thank you!
I am mad this seems to not be able to be purchased otherwise because I’d love to have more, or I’d like to know who came up with it since I figure it must be one of the people w/a whole series of GoT teas.
I understood the hint, it just doesn’t show up for me. LOL! Don’t worry about it. I was mostly just curious what the spoiler image was.
OH haha that’s weird. do you want me to take a screencap of it so you can see?
Yes please – I can’t find it either. :P
ok here you go http://i.imgur.com/U7rw7aI.png
just type it in, don’t press enter or anything and click on the picture
That’s so weird. It still doesn’t show up even if I do exactly what you did & don’t press enter. That’s soooo strange! Hahaha! Well thanks for the link. ;)
Thanks for showing the pic! Man, I have no idea why that doesn’t show up. I guess it’s not one you can order?
Nope, I’ve tried finding it or even similar artwork to even find who possibly came up with it, but nothing. I saw on another site someone say it doesn’t work anymore. I just tried it and it doesn’t come up for me now either. booooooo :(
I may try recreating it because it was so good iced.
I’m now watching hockey because I have watched 10 episodes of Game of Thrones in about 3 days. Oops?
Anyway since I felt I used a lot of tea on the pitcher of iced tea, I decided I’d cold steep it too. This bunch of tea was less pink in color and looked a bit more like black tea, so I intermixed the two, which was much needed. I tried a glass of what I had originally steeped and it had become completely tart – no underlying cream flavors at all.
In the future I will probably just make this on a cup by cup basis.
Tea and hockey is exactly what i’m doing right now. Good choice :0
I hate the Bruins and dislike the Blackhawks and yet I can’t stop watching them. So good.
Bruins are going down! I’m a habs fan. Naturally, that makes the bruins (and the G-d leafs my worst enemies)
Hey, I know nothing! I’m sure when the next season starts I’ll arbitrarily pick some team (though now with you I know two people who watch hockey. And they like the Bruins! Oh no)
yeahhhh fellow habs fan!! sens too. it’s been nearly two months and i’m still mad, but ughh in the future i CAN’T WAIT
The funny thing about this tea’s description is that I have been knitting a blanket while watching Game of Thrones. I bought this because it sounded good out of all the Stark based custom blends, so I got it. It smells amazing, and I thought it’d be good iced.
I oddly feel like the pouch wasn’t entire filled though? It seems less full compared to a couple of my others that I’ve yet to open…It seems actually it’s heavier compared I guess. I used almost an ounce to make a pitcher of tea…jeez. Kind of an expensive iced tea.
So the strawberry tea in here is the strongest ingredient because the tea is bright red.
It’s really good though, I really can’t taste black tea at all until the very end, but the vanilla cream is there. The hibiscus isn’t terrible, it tastes more like strawberries.
I’m just sad it takes so much to make iced tea :( Next time I’ll be less impatient about it..
Am I allowed to smirk at the knitting comment? :) lol. I thought it was a dying hobby
haha well in high school it was a huge deal to knit because the cool chemistry teacher (a guy!) knit. He even led a knitting club. I really stopped knitting much after high school but my mom asked me to knit a blanket for my grandma, who lives in a nursing home and is constantly cold despite the fact it’s not bad at all in there. I’ve been working on it for a year because I can’t stand doing it still but I know how much she’ll appreciate it so I’m trying to finally finish it up.
Then definitely it’s dead with me LOL
I just taught myself! I figure there’s enough geek related patterns out there that it would be worth it. I’m making a Tardis cover for my kindle right now, and after I want to knit something with the Stark wolf on it. If you go to ravelry.com. There’s a pretty active community – not just older people. :)
Course that doesn’t mean it isn’t dying.
ooh I should do that too if I have yarn sitting around for it.
I mean maybe it’s just fine but where I am there’s such a lack of even your general sort of craft store. I think the only craft store even in my city of almost 100k is a fabric store, although maybe this really sad Michael’s is just on the border of being in the limits.
I just feel like everyone I knew who knit doesn’t anymore, and those generic type craft stores never have much yarn on sale. I used to work at A.C. Moore (pretty much only on the east coast) and they had such a glorious yarn area. They had your $2 acrylic but then you could get alpaca, super cool ribbony yarns, etc.
I just realized I live about a mile from a yarn shop I went to once trying to find a certain green. I may have to go back and look at it!
There were two cool shops where I used to live, one I even got to advertise in the yearbook but both are gone now :( That’s why I kind of figured it was dying in interest but of course it could have just been the economy there, since I have been assuming this shop went under too.
I used to crochet, & have thought about taking up knitting, but it will probably never happen. I already have too many things to do, I doubt I’d ever find time to knit. Still, on the rare occasion that I visit a craft store, I always end up in the yarn department. The last time I almost bought stuff.
So I coldbrewed this for a really long time. It didn’t make it gross or anything though. It’s a lot like an apple pie herbal with a bit of rooibos in it. It’s not bad. It’s a bit more cinnamon flavored than I’d really want in an iced tea.
This really is the only Art of Tea sample I bought that I have even slightly enjoyed.
The problem is though that its name has a cocktail connotation, as does the description, and the tea does not match it whatsoever.
When this one became available online I loaded up on half a pound. I’ve now used up two of the bags I think. I am still convinced I’ve only used up one but I find no proof of it anywhere. It’s that good I hope I have more.
I typically make it hot and then leave it sitting until it cools. This is probably not the best option right now because I’m sure it’s still a gram of sugar per cup max but that’s a lot of sugar right now. I should probably water down the rest since I have powered through it today.
Still as delicious as ever. And it’s going to have to keep me occupied since I have to wait until morning to get my Adagio order. ARGH MAILMAN WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST PUTTING MY MAIL IN THE LOCKERS.
I REALLY wish the notes on here would have some semblance of organization…having your own listed first would be marvelous. I’m trying to find out if I ever coldbrewed this before, I’ve logged this tea five times but because the first time was in 12/11, that comes up first, and because it barely has any likes, it bumps me all the way to the FIFTH FREAKIN PAGE. In fact last time I logged it I bitched about this.
Answer: I coldbrewed it after the first time trying it. Guess I better commit that to memory now.
So I got this going last night when I realized I finished off a gallon of the pink lemonade iced tea already.
If you bought tea from me, it’s going out tomorrow. It was going to today but after I ate breakfast I felt like hell and my stomach is now realizing what’s happening (I’m doing a Whole 30) and oh it was not fun until about 3:30pm.
Then all I felt like doing was going to my garden and seeing what was grown…I had another huge zucchini. In 4 days I’ve picked 30 ounces of zucchini. I’ve picked 3 jalapenos too. There’s a lot of standing water in the mulch around the plots and it’s attracting mosquitos :( I got so many bites and I was only there less than 10 minutes! The deluge of rain lately has really screwed everyone’s tomato plants…they all look horrid on the bottom halves. I hope they’ll be okay. I’ve got some little bell peppers and cucumbers on the way soon.
I ate a lettuce wrap burger that I knew would be okay to eat because otherwise I was definitely not gonna eat nearly enough food for the day…and finally felt okay ot nap. That felt good, but I slept till 7:30 hahaha. So finally after that I got around to getting this out of the fridge. For being in there about 24 hours it didn’t get gross.
I. LOVE. IT. I need to do this more often. I think I far prefer it this way. It seems less bergamot-y and more fruity with a nice creamy vanilla flavor too.
Too bad I only made a quart of it and I’m already polishing it off.
PS anyone have any ideas of how to eat zucchini I’m already tired of it :(
I dislike zucchini, but my family loves it. So try eating it raw with lemon pepper on it. Baking it into zucchini bread or muffins, put it in any kind of stir fry or casserole, shred it into a coleslaw.
bread stuff is off limits for now :( but I did see a recipe for brownies that involves zucchini that will be back in later, and I’m sure I’ll still be picking zucchini then. I’ve actually never eaten it raw so I’m going to have to try that! I always saute it and for some reason raw it has never appealed to me, but at the same time I’ve never actually tried it to know for sure.
Zucchini tater tots or pancakes! Or hollow out larger ones, add spicy sausage, marinara and parmesan then bake. Or dice into fry sized strips, coat with egg and panko/parmesan blend with lemon pepper then bake on a cookie tray. Om nom nom!
Dice or slice them, blanch them, cool them and freeze them. :) Then you can eat something else for a bit and no food is wasted.
I envy the time you get to spend in your garden. I don’t get home from work until the Mosquitos come out. I’m certainly not doing any gardening then!
As for zucchini, you can make a nice light soup. Onion, garlic, broth, zucchini. Cook. Blend. Cream if you want. Eat.
You can add whatever flavors suit your fancy. Also nice chilled.
And just another shout out to zucchini pancakes. With feta. So tasty.
I tried to do a whole 30 in January, I maybe made it two weeks and definitely had a few chocolates in there, lol. I’d like to try again sometime!!
I’m waiting for my veggie garden to start growing. For zucchini I’ve used a julienne peeler to make “noodle” for chicken “zoodle” soup, or with an avocado cilantro sauce…. You could maybe layer it like you would eggplant to make lasagna too!
I didn’t read the other comments yet so I apologize if these have already been suggested :)
I think combining everyone’s ideas is going to be best…chop up, freeze, make these pancakes in the future. Also in the future: not let these silly zucchini grow so much!
I wish the garden had benches or something because it’s such a nice spot. But man the mosquitos were not fun. That was the middle of the afternoon too, I thought I’d be safe! But the standing water was that bad :( I’m waiting for the stuff on my patio to grow. I at least have all the herbs available but I’m kind of disappointed that the tomato plants there have just grown upward and done nothing otherwise. Maybe someone sprayed around there for bees without saying anything :[
I love to make stir fry with shrimp, onions, bok choy and zucchini; and zucchini-potato latkes with tzatziki!
You can also cook zucchini blossoms. Nip that problem in the bud… Literally! :D
I’ve had them tempura fried before…I have been so tempted to pick some of them on the ones on my patio since they had so many more but now I think it’s purposely dropping ones way too early on me on purpose. Though zucchini from there will actually be a normal size so clearly I need to go after the garden ones haha.
Grate them and pat dry. Mix in a few beaten eggs,salt and pepper pepper and fry like latkes. I’d experiment with pancake batter, grated zucchini, lemon and cardamom.
Grilled zucchini is delicious!
USPS said my order wasn’t coming till Monday so I was psyched to check my mail last night and find these already arrived!
First off I like that they come in bigger bags now, although I’m guessing the need to make the labels bigger played in that too. Over the seasons I was not drinking iced tea I lost my ability to carefully open the smaller packets these came in last year.
I did the usual steeping of the bag in 2 cups of water then transferring it to a pitcher filled with ice and cold water. I then put the bag in a quart of water to cold steep it for a second steep since getting 2 uses out of these bags is great.
I always think these taste better after chilling in the fridge overnight so I didn’t even try it last night, but it was definitely the first thing I did this morning. Straight out of the fridge there wasn’t much flavor, but as it warmed at room temperature, out came the pink lemonade flavor. You can definitely smell the cotton candy in here over any other flavors, but you don’t taste it. It does its job at just adding sweetness, which is great because sometimes the grapefruit seems a bit heavy, especially as it gets too warm.
When it’s right it tastes just like a mix of pink lemonade and iced tea, minus the it being super sweet. I’m sure if you do sweeten it, it’ll be even better, but I quite like it how it is.
Honestly this might become my favorite SBT already.
I’ve been drinking the same tea over and over too. It can easily happen. Awesome work experimenting with the matcha and club soda! That’s really creative!
I have so many samples & swaps I need to get around to, and I’m chugging along at only 2 or 3 (if I’m lucky) cups a day :/
For the last 4 days I’ve been making tea, staring at it for hours and hours and then pouring it out. Doesn’t matter which tea. It’s getting very wasteful. I don’t know why either. And I still can’t get my iced tea right.