I’m kinda snickering to myself, though for perhaps a stupid reason. I went to search up this tea to write my tasting note, and I got as far as “Very Big Hill” and noticed that DAVIDsTEA’s Alpine Punch was still one of the options in the drop down menu. For whatever reason, that really cracked me up.
Urghh… Three hours left. Time is going by VERY slowly and I’m running out of things to do to keep occupied. I know I could eat up time by browsing various tea websites, but I don’t want to stoop to that since my wallet is strapped enough as is. I’m trying to come up with a reasonable list of baking to make for Christmas. Right now my list is looking like:
- Pistachio Pudding Sugar Cookies
- Banana Pudding Sugar Cookies
- Carrot Cake muffins w. Cream Cheese icing
- Peanut Butter Marshmallow Cluster drop cookies
And I’m thinking one more thing would sort of round everything out. Maybe brownies? I like brownies…
Because I can’t cook to save my life, and Tre will be at work (so I can’t guilt him into cooking Christmas dinner for me) we’ll be ordering in pizza – which I think is a perfectly acceptable Christmas type dinner. I’m also gonna prepare a couple cold brewed teas, but am not sure which ones yet. So, still have that to figure out. Hmm, maybe I can use my Christmas planning as something to do to pass time by.
Anyway, back to the tea at hand (or rather, in hand). When I saw this one on the 52Teas site I knew I had to try it out, and wouldn’t you know I seem to be the first tasting note on it! No pressure, right?
After getting really into loose leaf a few months ago I basically cut all pop out of my diet with the exception of the occasional “cheat” drink (I let myself have one pop once per paycheck; so every two weeks). The three I’m having a hard time letting go of, however, are Root Beer (and now I have a tea alternative), Dr. Pepper, and Mountain Dew. So, the prospect of a replacement Mountain Dew tea has me super excited!
I actually gave the first cup away, which was hard for me to do. My favourite cashier Shelby from Tea Desire had expressed an interest in this blend so I brought it in the day it arrived in the mail (fingers crossed that she’d even be working that day) and gave her the honors of opening the packet and having the first cup. Sadly, I had to catch the bus before I got to hear her thoughts on it!
Dry, the leaf smells amazing and is basically bang on for Mountain Dew. I need to figure out how to make air freshener or something similar out of tea leaf, because I keep going back to the packet just to take the chance to smell it. Mmm!
Today when I was making it I decided I finally had to have it and couldn’t put off trying it any longer. I’ve never had a honeybush/rooibos blend from 52Teas before so I wasn’t totally sure if there was a generally “accepted” method to making them – so I went with 1 1/2 tsp. for my timolino steeped 6 minutes in boiling water. Essentially what I’d do with many of my other rooibos teas.
(Side note, I just had someone knock an entire shelf of box calendars down, kinda shiftily look side to side and scamper away without even the slightest effort to clean them up. On top of that, are debit/credit pad isn’t working at all today, and when I called about getting someone in to come repair it the response was “It’s too cold to come today, and we don’t work Sunday – so we’ll be there to fix it sometime on Monday”. Urgh! I was cold today too coming to work, but I fucking did it because THAT. IS. MY. JOB!)
The smell was kinda sugary lemon, with some lemon zest/rind type – faintly like Mountain Dew, but there was something missing as well, that I just can’t place my finger on. And, this time it’s not the absence of carbonation (though I really wanna try this as tea soda) or the fact I’m drinking it hot. It’s something else.
Taste wise – the first thing I get is a distinct taste of honeybush – straight honeybush. And then, oddly enough, I get notes of both lemon rind and graham crackers. I’ve seen Lala describe honeybush/rooibos as tasting ‘peppery’, and this is actually the first time I’m finding that too. Huh. Odd. In the body of the sip I’m not particularly impressed – but the aftertaste does come awfully close to tasting like Mountain Dew, so there’s still that. I’m wondering if I just messed up in how I brewed it or if there’s contamination in my timolino from the last time I used it (which would be for DAVIDsTEA’s Read My Lips) – although I did try to thoroughly clean it out.
I definitely need to try again at home, maybe with different proportions and in a nice, fresh, clean mug. But my thoughts right now are that this is one of those teas that sounds like a good idea and has an amazing smell dry, but just doesn’t translate the same in the actual steeped tea. Kind of disappointed, honestly.
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Your baking list looks awesome. I almost never bake brownies but have been thinking of doing it for the holidays this year too. With the pudding cookies, do you add pudding powder to the batter?
Pretty much. It actually gets creamed into the butter.
Ohh ok. Interesting. I should try that sometime!
Omg you should make look at buttermeupbrooklyn.com; her maplesnaps are out of this world.
I can’t believe maplesnaps are actually a thing! And no molasses. I need to try those out. :)
I just looked up that maplesnaps recipe – I think I need to make these as well!
Mmmm, all of those recipes look so good D:
Your baking list looks awesome. I almost never bake brownies but have been thinking of doing it for the holidays this year too. With the pudding cookies, do you add pudding powder to the batter?
Pretty much. It actually gets creamed into the butter.
Ohh ok. Interesting. I should try that sometime!
Omg you should make look at buttermeupbrooklyn.com; her maplesnaps are out of this world.
I can’t believe maplesnaps are actually a thing! And no molasses. I need to try those out. :)
I just looked up that maplesnaps recipe – I think I need to make these as well!
Mmmm, all of those recipes look so good D: