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Sipdown (302)

Had this earlier while playing Life with my sister and brother-in-law. We’re basically playing board games, watched Soul, and are taking it easy. This tea fit that perfectly because it was an easy drinker that was good and smooth and flavourful but didn’t require a lot of concentration to enjoy.

Sipdown (303)

Going into 2021 with one less puerh in my stash and I feel good about that. Alas, it’s a decent puerh so this was probably the least stressful to drink. The key with this one is the mint is the strongest flavor, rather than the base. However, I don’t get much more beyond mint and the dense puerh mouthfeel so personally I’d rather have a mint tea on a different base if that’s the flavor I was looking for. Nevertheless, thank you Roswell Strange for introducing me to a decent puerh.

Matcha Latte Sipdown (304)

I am surprised this didn’t already have a page but here we are.

A single serve package of this was given to me by Sil. The reishi and maca make this not as appealing to me but I am happy to give anything a try one…well, maybe not happy…willing to try anything once is probably more accurate.

I made this as a matcha latte using cows milk instead of nut milk as suggested. It’s meant to be like a hot chocolate but the flavor is definitely more earthy than the hot chocolates I am used to. Also, the powder has definitely settled at the bottom for the most part. The more I mix that powder in though, the stronger the earthy/mud flavor is.

Thank you Sil but I do not like this at all. It’s always fun to try something new though!

Iced Latte Sipdown (305)

My sister and I chipped in to get my brother-in-law a nespresso for his birthday. We also grabbed the aeroccino aka the milk frother. He was very surprised and very excited. He was like a kid and wanted to try all the things but it only arrived around 5 pm and having cup after cup of coffee and espresso seemed like a bad plan. So when he wanted to try the cold froth option on his frother, I said we could drink one of my caffeine free teas.

He loves caramel and this was one that I saw recently so it was in my mind. I made this while he frothed the milk. Unfortunately, this, like many of the other teas from this company just wasn’t great. We took one sip, looked at each other and dumped it. It was mostly bland and the little flavor we did get was a woody rooibos.

Tea Lemonade Sipdown (306)

I wanted something refreshing and to me that means a tea lemonade. I tried to find something that sounded like it would go well made that way and this fit the bill. Alas, this is tea bought for $1 and the green tea base wasn’t the best quality and it was pretty broken up. That means there is a lot of flavor from the base and it’s sort of a musty grass flavor…plus lemonade. Not a good combination.

Matcha Latte Sipdown (307)

Thank you Roswell Strange! This was one of the flavors I was really eyeing so I was very happy when I blindly pulled this one out earlier. I was less excited when it had a weird buttered popcorn scent when I dumped out the powder. Thankfully that didn’t transfer to the flavor, not entirely at least. This is buttery though, in a butter caramel sense and I’m okay with that. The caramel flavor is very thick, which makes this really sweet and decadent. I don’t get much mint, which would be a nice compliment here. It’s good, though I think I prefer DAVIDsTEA’s Salted Caramel Matcha.

This actually smelled really good but I used 6 grams of leaf for 12 ounces and I think that was too much. It felt like a lot and the taste here is a bit overwhelmingly dry. It smells awesomely of vanilla and if you get past the bitter/dry, there’s a clear orange flavor with creamy vanilla on top. It’s the bitter that cuts through that completely ruins this.

Eggnog Latte Sipdown (309)

I have one serving left after this latte which is off to Sil so yay for sort of finishing this last tea from 2018!

As for this eggnog latte, it tastes like banana. There’s nothing wrong with that but I’m very confused. I’m okay with saying goodbye though.

Tasting note from a duplicate page deleted and posted here

This is my last 2018 tea. It is also the tea that I drank for a very brief part of the Squirrel Girl episode of Geek Steep. I did not intend for this to be the case. I basically made this tea because I need to work on drinking it. I made it along with another tea that I intended to drink while listening to the She-Ra episode of Geek Steep. I decided as the episode started to write some steepster notes and sip on this one while I did so. So I was listening and enjoying Marika’s cold brew disaster story and then realized it was the wrong episode! I let Marika finish because I was intrigued on how the disaster ended and then changed the episode. I have a better tea idea for when I keep watching the Squirrel Girl episode so it seemed necessary to move on.

As for this tea…I just opened this package. It has been sealed in my stash for 2 years. The sad part about that is that 52 Teas makes awesome blueberry baked good blends. Blueberry Cream Cheese Danish (even back when Frank was making the blends using his less than stellar black tea base) was one of the first teas by 52 Teas that actually captured my attention and sold me on the company. Yet I never seem to really reach for them (obviously since this was left unopened for 2 years!). Most of the time I pass them off to Sil, who appreciates them far more than I do (honestly, this may have the same fate).

This tea has a lovely blueberry flavor, despite its age. It probably was more flavorful once because for me this is blueberry and not much more. I also find myself missing the cheesecake twang of Blueberry Cream Cheese Danish. But, if you think of this as simply a blueberry black tea, its good.

This was my tea that I picked for the She-Ra episode of Geek Steep. It could be a cop out or it could be a glittery pink princess tea like Glimmer. You decide :P. If I am being honest, it didn’t feel right since She-Ra is more than a bubble-gum pop type princess show but it worked well enough that it could be tangentially related to the show.

As for the tea, it is lacking flavor but that is my fault. I made it iced in my iced tea press. and pushed down the ice far earlier than I was supposed to. So this is like drinking pink water with a touch of green rooibos flavor and marshmallow flavor.