Featured & New Tasting Notes

2024 Holiday tea #2
MMM… had to pick up this new holiday tea from S&V.  I was hoping it would fill in a bit of my tea collection for Marketspice’s Cranberry Creme (though I suppose I could have just bought that one).  And it kind of DOES taste a bit like that.  It’s definitely got a sweet fruit flavor and a bit of a cream flavor.  I wouldn’t say it’s as tart as cranberry should be…  Maybe just a very tiny hint of cocoa. The second steep wants to prove me wrong, and the cocoa takes over while any cream and cranberry takes a backseat. I think it would have been even more interesting if the base black tea was more unique. And just wish there was a bit more obvious cranberry flavor.  This is certainly a welcome addition to my holiday teas.  OH and I went with the idea here from a couple days ago and went ahead and put my holiday teas that I have around me into an empty tree shaped tin I just happened to have lying around.  This is making these teas feel extra festive right now. :D
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug // 22 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 min

Advent Calendar 2024 – Day 5

Sigh, Simpson & Vail, why you gotta include such boring teas? Am I the only one who doesn’t like it when companies have super basic teas in their advents? Like, at least have the French vanilla chai instead. Anyway… At least it’s early in the advent I guess.

This is fine. I am personally not a fan of chai with spice flavoring. If it’s a chai with other added flavors, like vanilla or fruit or something, that’s fine. But to me, if you need to add spice flavoring in addition to the actual spices, you’re doing something wrong lol. It just makes it taste like something else other than chai, I guess. I like that this has anise seed in it, and I’m getting a nice anise flavor, but not a fan of all the added flavorings (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and clove).

For jam, today I have Purple Fig-Cinnamon Spread. I love fig, so naturally I adore this one ha ha. So rich with the right amount of sweetness and big chunks of fig. The cinnamon is actually fairly subtle, so the fig still gets to shine! :)

(originally posted under their normal Chai, but noticed after reading the ingredients listed on the advent that this was actually their Organic Chai.)

ADVENT DAY 5, tea 3/3

Oh dear, this one sounds fancy! Used all 5 grams in one western session; using only 80 °C water.

The dry scent and liquor scent is the same. Puffed rice / corn cakes, rice krispies, and so on. Naturally it reminds me the sticky rice oolong I had this year. It was very light in flavour as well as in the colour. Less vegetal than that oolong; more of the rice aroma here.

Delightful and probably a tea that I would buy for further experimenting.

Kelmishka Homemade Advent Day 5! The name of this tea sounded like it would be best cold, so I’m drinking this cold with milk and sugar. It’s nice! I taste a lot of cream flavor along with a little berry in some sips. I did try it hot, and it’s much better cold. I always enjoy trying a new S&V tea! Apparently this has cocoa in it, but I don’t taste that.

DIY Herbal Infusion Advent Calendar 2024 – Day 3
Name: Wildflower
Ingredients: linden, chamomile, lavender, rose, elderflower
Movie: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000 version)

A bit more of a conventional blend tonight. I love linden, and would like to see it used more often – I think it may be a bit more common in Europe, but I rarely see it here in the States. It has such a light and soft flavor, perfect for a mellow wildflower-inspired blend. I will say, there was more chamomile than I remember from testing, so maybe I added too much in the final version? It was drowning out the other flavors just a smidge, when really I wanted the linden to shine. Could still taste the soft floral notes of the lavender and rose though, and the effervescent elderflower. Such a pretty blend too!

A note on the movie, ha ha… We only watched it because my husband had apparently never seen it, and he agrees with my assessment that it is not only odd but just a bit creepy LMAO!

Homemade Advent Calendar from AJRimmer: Day 3

Deb always does the most with her blend names… and this one is actually quite restrained! :D

I have an odd weekly schedule these days. I’m at my internship M/W/F, then home T/Th for freelancing, homework, etc. Today is a home-day Tuesday, so I’m snuggled up on the couch with two dogs, one blanket, one cup of tea, and one bowl of oatmeal. It’s a bright, sunny day, but windy and cold, and I feel super cozy.

…however! After settling in, I got started on some freelance editing and neglected my tea and oatmeal. So I’m only just trying this tea now, and it’s lukewarm. Ah well. All the better to taste the flavors.

First impression is that this is a pleasantly mild spice tea. I’m getting ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon most predominantly, but they’re not overwhelming. The rooibos comes through very faintly, and more in scent than taste. There’s definitely a lightly bready note that’s evocative of cake (oops, sorry, “snack cake” XD), but I’m not getting any caramel except on the verrrrry back of a sip, and the vanilla is also minimal.

It’s interesting that this is a black/rooibos blend, because it really lets the spice cake flavors shine. I think I’d prefer a smidge more black tea to give it a bit of backbone, but that’s personal preference.

Overall it’s pretty smooth and pleasant, and not too sweet despite the maple and sugar. Deb suggests making it as a latte, and I bet it’d be excellent that way.

A very nice and seasonally appropriate mornin’ tea!

ADVENT DAY 2, tea 1/3
I have to admit, I am a little bit cheating with my Advents. If next day is a working day; I took all teas out a day before, to choose if I should bring some to the office. Today I have this oolong and two caffeine free blends.

How I wish I took at least one to the office! Albeit I wouldn’t have much time for that there, it would be more comfortable than drinking all three just a few hours before jumping to the bed.

So, right away when I arrived home, I took this tea and decided to brew it western (though I can imagine using all 5 grams in gaiwan), again keeping half for next session as I don’t really want a strong caffeine boost at 6 pm.

It smells wonderful! Orchids, lilacs, meadow flowers, that all is in the pouch of dry tea as well as in the mug and steeper. The liquor is thick, floral and creamy; with sweet and long mouthfeel, with several layers, each one revealing the flowers mentioned before.

The leaves after 3 minutes steep doesn’t look completely expanded and used; and now I am not sure if I want to try another steep or another tea.

This reminds me of other delicious fruity 52teas green teas. The base is so smooth with not a hint of bitterness. The fruitiness is fresh and authentic. This one is simple, but it’s another reminder why I almost only ever get my green teas from 52teas. Every sip is so pillowy and delicious. So refreshing cold.

So tasty. Bergamot is light and balanced nicely with the custardy flavor.

I made a pot of this to drink last night with my family as we socialized. I was trying to taste the mango, but all I got was honey vanilla and pear. Very yummy and would make a good iced tea. Brewed the leaves again in a large mug and it was just as good this morning. I would add this to an order. :)

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – November 2024 Tea #4 -A tea that means autumn to you 

In no way close to an actual sipdown, but this one is definitely one of my most autumn teas.  Caramel and apple and smoke on a black tea base that I wouldn’t call perfect for an autumn tea, as it’s a bit weak, but I have had weaker black teas… I think even the smoke flavor is fading a bit here. The age of this? I’d have to check back to when I was complaining there were no longer caramel cubes in the blend…

edited to add: after checking, this batch is now almost 4 years old. sigh.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – November 2024 Tea #3 – A tea for which you are especially thankful

I hope all that celebrate are having a great day today.  Always thankful for the Steepster crew! As usual, I am about two months behind on reading tasting notes, so I hope you are all doing well. May have just sampled a little too much of the stuffing I just made.  oops.  This is always one of the teas I am most thankful for, as it is one of my favorites, always a perfect brew and also one of the rarest teas to find, not only because it is usually limited on the time it is sold, but also now due to the international shipping.  Also, it’s a perfect tea for this particular holiday.  So good. 

A sipdown! (M: 6 Y: 93)

A sad sipdown of tasty tea. But life is too short to drink bad tea. And all teas must be drank before they go bad. This one is from autumnal flush 2023; so year old tea. Nothing is telling me it’s “old”. I know… I have (and we all have) much older teas in our stashes.

I prepared it gongfu. And, oh boy, it works. First steeps were a bit weaker, however then the flavours I mentioned in my previous note started to glow. Baked bread with honey, stonefruity aftertaste, orange zest, all together with velvet mouthcoating feel. A little bit of astringency.

The aroma of used leaves is definitely a bread, made from rye, almost black one as mostly (or only) rye flour was used. And mixed with pumpkin seeds, that’s it; hints of dark malts are present as well.

As the vendor description suggests, this tea lands somewhere in between a hong oolong from Taiwan and a wild black tea (e.g. taiwanese Shan Cha). It is more bitter than the former and more fruity than the latter. It also remains interesting for many infusions. Overall, I am quite happy with it, especially for drinking in this late autumn weather.

The aromas are flowery, vegetal, and leathery. The taste is spicy, bitter, floral, sweet, and woody. There are hints of mushrooms, nectarine, later on also malt. The mouthfeel is buttery and gets astringent towards the end of the session. The aftertaste is pungent, fragrant, and biting with a long-lasting sweetness.

November Sipdown Prompt – your oldest black tea

After buying tons of this tea during the pandemic, I was shocked to see that our current tin is past the best by date. This was the first black tea that Ashman enjoyed without milk and sugar so we bought tons of it, and at the beginning of lockdown there were articles circulating that said black and puerh tea might have a small amount of efficacy against those types of viruses, preventing high viral load, so Ashman drank some each day.

He expanded his palate and now he drinks a lot of black teas plain, so I guess that is how this one started to get neglected. It is delicious, though not a breakfast favorite for me because I like the oomph of Keemun and such. It is definitely nice gong fu style, and a very good tea, and we will probably repurchase it one day when the cupboard gets lower. It is a nice afternoon or summer time breakfast tea, for sure.

2024 sipdown no. 78

This is a very pretty tea with bright red raspberry pieces throughout. I haven’t examined closely enough to find blackberry pieces, but I’m sure they’re there. The taste is slightly acidic, due to the berries. The tea itself gets a tad lost and the overall cup is a bit thin, but the quality of this blend is so high, it’s not bothersome.

During the weekend and today afternoon I am trying to focus on this tea I bought during my stay in Germany. I bought it because the name (Erzgebirge was a mountain range nearby, Ore mountains in English) and its nice aroma. I thought it would be perfect for sunny days, but I just opened it with first snow. It was a sunny day, though!
It smells very citrusy and tropical, something between lemons and grapefruits, hints of pomelo and tangerines.

When drank, by my brother and his girlfriend; and me on the very next day, we weren’t able to recongnize the flavours though. When I told them it should be citrusy and mostly orange, they were “like really?” and when I tried it… I couldn’t notice them that much as in aroma too. It was tasty though; very easy-drinking, not so tart nor bitter, not sweet but nicely fruity.

Tasty, but what was the intention of this tea and its flavors, who knows.

PS: Giving away some teas for shipping only here: http://steepster.com/discuss/6840-official-stash-sales-thread?post_id=239862#forum_post_239862

A sample with my order?! Yes, please! This smells so very caramel like. It says English, but my brain thinks French because it reminds me of Fauchon’s caramel tea. The flavor was rich on the sip with roasty caramel, but there is something alkaline in the finish. The flavor seems to get a little more hollow and flat as it cools. Definitely better when hot. Maybe I’ll resteep and try adding some creamer. I don’t know that I’d buy this one since I have a similar caramel in my cupboard, but I wouldn’t pass up another cup either.

additional notes: Revisiting this blend yet again, as now I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘Demon Copperhead’. It tastes the same as it did last time. :D

2024 Sipdown Challenge | November | Cookie Monster’s Birthday: You know what to do!

Yeah, yeah, it’s not November 2, but who cares when the tea is so perfect for the prompt?!

After nearly a year of being very demure, very mindful when it comes to buying tea, my restraint has officially gone out the window! So now I’m cramming new teas into my tea cupboard and realizing I need a better storage solution.

As I was putting together my homemade advent for the swap, I had a lil brainstorm and decided to pull a bunch of seasonally appropriate teas from my stash, put them in a basket, and leave said basket out by my tea/coffee corner where I can’t miss it.

This approach is helping me (1) get into the seasonal/festive spirit, and (2) be intentional about sipping through my stash! Usually it’s out of sight, out of mind, and I have to go digging through my entire stash to find something that appeals in the moment, which means I often just default to the daily drinkers and old standbys. But now, I have a carefully curated basket of seasonally appropriate blends ready for me.

All to say that this tea made it into the holiday basket, and I finished it up yesterday evening. I never quite got a hit of that iconic buttery sugar cookie flavor when drinking it, but I enjoyed the playful sprinkles and the mild sweetness. And, yes, now I want real sugar cookies. :)

2024 sipdown count: 41

This smells so good in the bag, but it is steeping to something a lot lighter in flavor. It tastes all high and mid notes, with no bass, leaving it light, airy and with a floral feeling. I added some milk which added some depth on the lower end, but I’m not sure that was all the adjustment needed. Looks like I’ve tried this tea at least 3x now. Maybe it’s just not for me.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – November 2024 Tea #1 -Tea with caramel or maple flavor

2/3s of the month gone now and I am only on prompt #1 for November!  Where does the time go…. One of my favorite rooibos blends almost gone now (next time).  I will miss it!  Mixing caramel and cappuccino flavors is a genius idea, yet obvious.

I prepared this tea gongfu, 5g / 125 ml, 90 °C water, several uncounted steeps.

I did my best trying to focus on this tea after work, but somehow it just didn’t click to me? It was tasty enough, but nothing supreme to me, light and clean taste, but somehow watery; just hard to get any flavour to be honest… I got some flavour after long steeps only.

Yes, the aroma of the wet leaves was nice indeed. Maybe it’s the berry notes that Leafhopper noticed. I will keep it without rating. Because it seems it can be a wonderful tea, but probably something went wrong today. What it is, I dunno. Sad panda grateful to derk.

Sometimes when I take the first few sips of a tea the flavors will hit harshly. A few sips in things seem to mellow and I’m left with a nice cup. That didn’t happen with this tea. I steeped it for 3m and every sip of the first 1/4 of the cup were bold and overwhelming. The rose dominated and was so overpowering that it was bitter. Once I put some milk in it all changed! The rose instantly mellowed and the cardamon came out. There is just the hint of it maybe thinking about pepper notes and then that fades. I like rose and I love cardamon, so this was an intriguing tea to try despite the fact that a lot of B&B’s black teas are a miss for me. I’d wager that with the addition of some sweetener this cup would make an amazing chai. I’ll have to try it on the next cup, but this one is almost done. Glad I took the gamble and added this to my order!