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TTBC2 #4

This was a nice late night “snack”, better than I expected. The coconut is detectable and tasty, I was afraid that the chai spices would smother it completely. The rooibos part was not too bold, merging with the other flavors pretty well. Nice, neat cup, especially if you don’t expect any fireworks but still crave something sort of unique.

Backlog – one of many.

This tea is GORGEOUS, period. It looks so cute with all the pieces of chestnut, much better than the picture on Lupicia’s website shows. The fragrance knocks you off your feet even if you’ve never actually had chestnuts (I haven’t) but the flavor is truly a masterpiece. Buttery, nutty perfection in every sip with a hint of bitterness that, I imagine, would be characteristic of chestnut flavor. The base tea, which seems to be sencha (i might be wrong though, LOL), is perfectly combined with the flavoring, too.

The best thing was that when I re-steeped it, I didn’t expect to get as much chestnuttiness, but there was even more of it! Next time I should have 3 steeps and see how that goes.

This is going to be my staple, for sure.

TTBC2 #3

This is a nice, although pretty uneventful, green tea tweaked slightly by the pleasant sourness of a cherry. I guess it’s a cherry, because I couldn’t quite tell just from the taste. I think it smells more like it than tastes like it. The base (a sencha?) is not bitter, but then is not much of anything else.

As the tea cools down the “cherry” flavor starts to taste a little powdery, kind of like cough medicine that some people mentioned in their reviews. I didn’t really detect that when the tea was hotter.

Either way, a nice afternoon cup, nothing I would crave or need to have in my cupboard on hand, but I’m glad I could try it!

TTBC2 #2

I decided to start my day with some flavored black tea from the Traveling Box organized by Dr Jim. I picked this one.

There was barely a teaspoon left of it, and it was the very bottom leaf pieces of the bag, so bear that in mind when you read the rest of my review. I steeped it and got a greasy-spotted, muddy infusion. Oh well, I’ve seen it before, doesn’t necessarily mean the tea will be disgusting (right?…).

Unfortunately, it was. Nasty. No detectable base whatsoever. The “chocolate flavor” just tasted like water in a neglected pond must taste – sweet with dying and breeding of micro-life. Well, okay, maybe it was not THAT bad. But I couldn’t finish the cup. There was just not much more to it than wrongness and the kind of sweetness that would put you off candy and sweets for at least a week.

I think it could be because I had the very last of the bag and underleafed it (although I tried to pour less water over it than usually, to compensate) so I don’t feel quite right rating this. Perhaps in the future I will be able to try it in a more proper way, although I am not looking forward to it at the moment ;D

Backlog. Last night I decided to have some non-caffeine tea from one of the swaps / a traveling box. I was actually thinking of a rooibos blend but then I realized I had this tea from Jennkay and that it’s time to finally try some David’s Tea stuff.

I am usually very wary of herbal teas, especially if they have chamomile in them, because they tend to just taste ODD. There’s this weird cloying bitterness to chamomile sometimes that makes the whole tea rather on the gag-some side. I didn’t seem to mind chamomile in this blend, however, and the whole thing was rather enjoyable and even dessert-like.

I have no idea what dulce de leche tastes like, but I could definitely detect some creaminess in the cup. Not a whole lot of bananas, just a little bit, not sure if enough to justify the name. I am sure my tummy was happy with this concoction and my taste buds did not scream in terror, so it was good.

Thank you for a generous sample of this, Jennkay! I still have at least 2 servings left of this and I see myself craving it some late night.

TTBC2 #1

Okay, so we had this crazy weekend. Especially crazy Saturday night. I love beer – so it is not hard for me to go a little overboard with it, especially if there’s reasons to celebrate and be merry in general. Yeah, Saturday night was fantastic. Sunday morning was NOT.

Luckily, I had this traveling box with me. I took some other teas with me, but none of them were herbals. And let me tell you, black tea didn’t do me much good. Since we were all hanging out at a fairly secluded cabin, my teaware was pretty limited there. I was using french press there for steeping most of the time but the guys at some point decided to make coffee in it and I couldn’t clean it out properly afterwards. Which made me decide on something in a bag: I opened the traveling tea box and I saw this lonely bag of Harney & Sons’ Peppermint sitting on top. I knew that it was exactly what I needed.

I generally don’t like tea blends that have any kind of mint in them but I will never underestimate the nice effects that straight mint can have on you. Occasionally I do have it. Like earlier today when I really needed it. It was agreeable, refreshing and pretty strong. It helped my tummy and my general well-being a notch or a notch and a half. Nothing miraculous, yet it was what I needed at the time.

I found the best way to sip down on the teas that I have been avoiding for that reason or another – I take them to our cabin where my husband and I spend most of the year’s weekends when the weather allows.

The weather KIND OF allowed us this weekend to venture staying for one night, so I grabbed a few tins of tea that needs finishing off badly.

I managed to finish Della Terra’s Christmas Tradition ;) I am close to downing Adagio’s Chorange Pu Erh and Earl Grey Lavender. I also made a little dent in Yunomi’s Sencha of the Summer Sun and Della Terra’s Cinnamon Bun.

So, yeah, that’s how sipping down gets done – by giving myself very limited choices ;D

I’m finishing my sample of this. It’s okay. That’s all that can be said about this – OKAY. I think pear might not work for me as a tea flavoring. And it makes tea smell a little bit like urine.

However, I did give in to the Golden Moon’s free shipping offer (code: freeshipping, US only) and today ordered an ounce of Sugar Caramel Oolong (it was dirt cheap – $4.99) and about 9 samples of their teas that I haven’t tried yet.

Also, I’m waiting for some nice day off to sample swap teas or the ones that I have recently acquired. I don’t work many hours a week (~25) but DO they wear me out…

From the description and reviews, I knew I would love this tea.

I knew it was my kind of black tea, sweet and non-astringent, with beautiful intact leaves, turning into liquor of ruby red color. And that’s what I got! The aroma is absolutely tantalizing, it smells just like honey (http://youtu.be/7EgB__YratE).

I was a little surprised by the taste. While it was honey-sweet, the sweetness would stop somewhere in mid-sip and turn into something more bready and doughy – a complex note that I haven’t experienced that much with similar black teas. The second steep is not as sweet as the first, and I don’t really mind it. It is definitely a kind of tea that is “the same but different” – just like the other Chinese, sweet blacks I have had, but more unusual.

While it doesn’t beat my (so far) favorite Jin Pin from Yezi, it is very close. It is something that I would like to re-stock, perhaps not continuously, but from time to time.

I just made a little pot of this for my husband and me and I will probably keep re-steeping it late into the night (well, not TOO late). My hub, who generally drinks whatever tea I happen to be drinking at the moment without any fuss, and who never says much about any of them except for labeling any and every fruit flavored tea as smelling like fruit loops, today expressed the following about this tea: “It’s very creamy, it reminds me of an oatmeal stout”.

While I, a huge stout fan, didn’t really see that much connection with an oatmeal one, or any other one, for that matter, I can totally get the creamy part, and I understand what he was trying to say. Because this tea, that starts off as grey-green and beige beautiful wiry leaves and ends up as hay yellow liquor, is gorgeusly creamy and is a real joy to drink.

The only thing I seem to be disappointed about is that there’s not that much oolong element to it. It just tastes like a delicious white tea (which is not a bad thing!). I think I detect some green-styled oolong qualities in the aftertaste but they are VERY subtle. However, they might come out to the front more with subsequent steepings.

EDIT: OOOH, yeah! It is definitely an oolong. The second steeping of a copper color revealed lovely and slightly TGY-like notes. But the refreshing sweetness of white tea still shines through, which makes this tea truly unique. I am definitely going for the third steeping of this after my shower! (+ I’m upping the rating a bit).