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I completely forgot I had a pitcher of this cold brewing. So, by the time I finally remember it was in my fridge and I had strained it, it had been cold brewing for over 24 hours. Eeeik!

That said, it was really good regardless! The current flavouring was very rich, and I actually got a strong taste of the champagne! There was also a light, vegetal taste to the tea but I actually found it pretty refreshing. I seem to not mind the vegetal quality of some teas when they’re cold brewed – maybe I should try more green teas as cold brews (although this isn’t a green blend).

Yet another way to enjoy this blend!

After my first banana tea of the day I couldn’t help but follow it up with more banana tea! I feel awful though, because I have two samples of this which I received from two different people and I can’t really remember who I received them from! I think one was from BrewTEAlly Sweet and I’m kinda sure the other was maybe from Janelle? Please correct me if I’m wrong.

For this cup I steeped up 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf in near boiling water. I had aimed for a 4 or 5 minute steep and was using the microwave clock to time it out, but then Tre came out to make his lunch and ended up using the microwave. He was sorta a dick and refused to wait the remaining 4(ish) minutes to heat up his food, so I waited for him to finish making lunch whilst the leaves were steeping. He said he was only going to microwave his food for four minutes but by the time he was done, the leaves had been steeping for nine minutes (four and eight minutes are not the same!).

Despite being oversteeped, I don’t think the cup was too bad. I’ll definitely need to remake this under the steeping parameters I wanted, though. I could taste the banana, and it was very natural tasting compared to the sort of candy banana taste from the 52Teas blend I enjoyed earlier in the day. That said, it was weird because the Stevia in the blend made the tea very sweet, and that didn’t seem to work too well with the natural, almost unripe taste of banana. Not sure why.

The oolong itself was pretty present, although it did taste a little off – likely from the oversteeping. It was a little vegetal which wasn’t too displeasing because it kind of worked with the banana, and I also got floral notes that reminded me strongly of the floral notes in Vanilla Orchid.

Overall, this was a good tea despite a steeping mess up (like I said, I’ll try it again), but ultimately while it was definitely drinkable and I enjoyed it, somehow I still felt a bit let down by it. Maybe my expectations were too high? I feel like it could have been much more than it was, though. As of right now, I wouldn’t look for it again once I used my samples up – although I’m sure I’ll be happy each time I make some of it!

Finally! I’ve spent all day trying to log teas but Steepster hasn’t been cooperating, and everytime I go to click on a tea’s page to Steepster crashes! But for whatever reason, it’s working now!

When I woke up this morning, all I could think about was banana tea – so of course I reached for my sample of this, generously provided by Lala.

Dry, this smell fresh and sweet: a combination of real bananas and banana candy with vanilla/custard notes, and coconut notes! And of course the 52Teas black base. I’ve tried Butterscotch Banana from 52Teas and that smell similar – though with maple notes and a stronger sweetness/candy aroma. I’m wondering how similar the two will be in taste…

Steeping parameters were: 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf in 10 oz. of water just under boiling, steeped for 2 min and 30 seconds – basically how I do all my 52Teas black. The smell was super rich and creamy banana!

Taste wise, this is definitely quite close to banana pudding! It was really, really quite delicious and had a slightly thicker mouthfeel which works to enhance the pudding idea. The black base was fairly light, which I liked since the 52Teas black base starts to get a little boring since it’s always very distinct and usually pretty strong, too. The banana was definitely sweet, candy banana and the vanilla notes made it more custard/pudding like. Very true to the title.

Like I said, I have a full pouch of the Butterscotch Banana which I worried it’d be similar to, and yes they’re similar but the Butterscotch Banana is much sweeter with almost maple kind of notes, and in contrast this feels just a little more like natural banana. If very much enjoy both and would be happy to have either stocked on a regular basis.

In fact, I’ve decided that I always want a 52Teas banana blend on hand! I think Frank does the banana flavouring very well – perhaps the best of any banana tea I’ve ever had.

I pulled this one out early this morning but I can’t remember why, and now that I’m making it I’m realizing increasingly that I’m really not in the mood for yet another cinnamon tea – but I’ve started steeping it so I might as well finish now.

Anyway, I recieved this from VariaTEA who I believe received it from MissB. For the most part I like teas like this, though I’m relatively hit and miss when it comes to plum.

For my parameters I’m using 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf in about 8 oz. of boiling water, steeped for 8 minutes. Dry, the leaf is strongly cinnamon scent with some light fruitiness that could be plum, although I’m getting more tartness than generally associated with plum. Probably from the hibiscus. Steeping up, the smell is more appetizing than I thought it’d be: definitely heavier on fruit than on cinnamon which makes me happy because I was regretting the choice of brewing yet another cinnamon tea.

Taste wise – I’m actually surprisingly quite happy with this tea! The cinnamon is there but despite not being in the mood for cinnamon at all right now, it’s actually really tasty. Even better than that, I did not get the hibiscus overload I was expecting and on top of that I could taste the plum (and it tasted good)! All that said, despite being very surprised with this tea I don’t find it exceptional and therefore wont be seeking it out. I am glad I have at least one more cup left though!

This might be the best cup I’ve made of this one so far – lower than boiling steep temperature, for two minutes and then allowed to cool down so it’s consumed at the perfect temperature!

However, despite this being a really good cup, I’m still having issues really getting into this tea. I want to love it, but at best I just really like it? Sigh…

I was really craving fennel after drinking that rhubarb tea (I know, definitely a weird follow up craving) and I instantly thought of my sample bag of this blend with all the super tasty candy coated bits of fennel! For whatever reason, they taste like little crunchy Licorice Allsorts to me… Mmm!

So, I prepped myself a mug of this: 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf in a 10 oz. mug steeped in boiling water for… Well, I oversteeped it and instead of a five minute steep it got an eight minute one. Whoops.

Taste wise the first thing I noticed was totally the ginger; bleck. Of course I knew there was ginger in this (it’s hard to find gingerless Chai), but I was hoping it’d be a bit more subtle or masked. However, that being said, I also get a large amount of cardamom/cinnamon/and the fennel I was looking for! Yay! I also gets notes of vanilla and just a generic sort of candy sweetness (probably from the candy coating).

As it cooled there was more fennel and less ginger! Hazzah!

As someone who doesn’t really love Chai too much and would be content with one or two good Chai teas and nothing else (I’m thinking of Chai Apricot and Pumpkin Chai, atm) this isn’t so bad. It did a pretty good job of satisfying my fennel craving. I do so love fennel. I think I prefer to just eat the little candied fennel bits straight out of the tea and skip the ginger, though…

Anyone know where one might buy something similar to just the candied fennel?

God Damnit Steepster! My super, long ass tasting note got gobbled and now I get to rewrite it…

So, I’ve been moping around the house miserably all day now, not really accomplishing much of anything. I suppose I took a trip to the post office, but that just ate a bunch of time and wasn’t really fruitful at all. And, I guess I did a load of laundry and took my first shower in what, four days? I was starting to smell myself, so that had to be done…

I also haven’t been drinking or making much tea today, which I really should get on. I did apply a few places right after I first woke up, but it just feels like I’ve had a totally meaningless few days. I think Tre even noticed that I’m feeling a little “blue” because he interrupted my game of solitaire to talk to me, which he like never does. But anyway, I decided that so I have something to do I’m going to fully and properly review two new teas every day until I A) Have a job again or B) Run out new teas to review. I’ve also plugged in my 3DS to charge and once it’s ready to go I’m going to finally beat Pokemon Y, since that became really low priority when I was working full time hours. Once it’s beat, I think I’m also going to put together a proper competitive team.

I’ve been hesitant with trying this blend (one of two of my BF order teas I’ve yet to try) because I had such a strong, adverse reaction to Peach HoppiTea and I was concerned I’d have the same reaction with this blend as well, because of the hops. However, I had to pull it out when I put together VariaTEA’s swap package and I haven’t put it back yet, so might as well have it now.

Dry, it doesn’t smell bad at all which is a great relief because the smell of Peach HoppiTea made me physically ill. THis blend it very strongly scented with rhubarb in a sweet and also tangy way, with strong notes of cinnamon and a spiciness that I’m sure is supposed to be the hops. I also get whiffs of the black base, although not a lot. There’s virtually no presence of the vanilla in the dry smell. For steeping I used 2 1/2 tsp. (the recommended leaf was 1 tbsp.) in 10 oz. of boiling water steeped for four min. and thirty seconds. I made this a bit weaker than suggested just as a precaution incase this did make me feel ill.

Steeped up, the smell is significantly less strong though that’s not to say it doesn’t smell flavourful. I still get a large presence of rhubarb in a sweet and a little tangy way, but the vanilla is also almost just as noticeable. It’s definitely smooth and creamy and I’m feeling it sort of tempers the tartness of the rhubarb. The cinnamon/hops are there too, but a little more gentle, and definitely sitting in the back.

Taste wise, this is a flood of rhubarb in your mouth with a super thick mouthfeel and the creamy taste of vanilla. This is followed up with a still present but more light rhubarb tastes and notes of cinnamon/hops. I need to make this for Tre sometime because he’s definitely more knowledgeable about hops/alcohol in general and I want his thoughts on whether he gets “ale” out of this. The last alcohol inspired tea I served him was Ontario Ice Wine, and even though he hated the taste he was able to instantly name it for what it was supposed to be, without any prompting. As it cools, the vanilla/rhubarb get a little more intense and the hops/cinnamon get a little less noticeable. The aftertaste is sweet, creamy rhubarb although it left a kinda numb(ish)/tingly feeling in my mouth like cinnamon or clove teas sometimes do.

Overall, I’ll pleasantly surprised with this blend. At this point, I’m not sold that I’d need to buy more of it but it does make a good cuppa. Who knows, maybe I’d throw it into a large order to reach the free shipping mark – although, it really doesn’t take a lot of work or effort to build up a large enough cart with Butiki to reach the free shipping threshold.

I’ve been so into this one lately and even though I’ve always enjoyed it I’m not sure why I’m currently just so enamoured with it. I ended up cold brewing myself just a single cups worth of it (and am now cold brewing some Champagne Cassis), which I guzzled on the way to the post office. That was at like 2 PM and was my first tea of the day, and has actually been my only tea so far today…

I need to get on that.

I’m relieved and pissed over going to the post office though. I finally sent out the last swap I owed which is always a good feeling. I look forward to reading the reviews from those samples! However, it’s frustrating because the whole reason I went to that specific post office was because they sent a slip to me saying I had a package to pick up by the 24th or it was being returned to the sender.

When I got there, turns out they didn’t have any mail for me and the pick up slip was sent out in error. There are two post offices closer to my house, and yet they always insist on sending my stuff to the farther away location! I would have gladly taken the 10 min. walk to either of the closer locations to send out that swap, but instead I wound up walking 40 min. there and 40 min. back for nothing…

It’s just a little infuriating.

I swear I looked at the clock not even five minutes ago and it was just 6:00 PM, but now it’s nearly 11:30! Where does the time go! Oh well, I’m not even remotely tired, so I can still get a few more episodes of Chuck and some good cups of tea.

Robyn gave me a tin of this for Christmas and even though I hated it as an iced tea just a few weeks ago I figured that I’d try it hot and at least give it a fighting chance before completely dismissing it. She knew it wasn’t in my cupboard which is why she picked it out, I guess she just didn’t know why it wasn’t in my cupboard.

So, I’m using 1 1/2 tsp. (barely) in 10 oz. of water. I kept my water temp. and my steep time both very low in the hopes of preventing this from turning this into a bitter/chemical mess. I also paired it with some heavily butter and ketchup shaker soaked popcorn because I might as well be having at least one thing I really enjoy.

The problem is this smells so promising! Just absolutely juicy and sweet and delicious. But based on the reviews I’ve read and my own experience prior to now it just can’t deliver. That said this mug’s not super bad. It does linger especially close to that perfume/chemical line – but at least this time around it’s not bitter. It’s way more peachy than I remember experiencing with the iced cup I had, too. That’s a plus in my books.

I won’t write it off completely yet – maybe I can perfect the ‘art’ of brewing this particular blend, though it seems daunting in how finicky it is. Usually I have no patience with finicky teas, but this one was a gift so I’m going to at least put in a little effort to make it work…

Made a cup of this while putting together a DAVIDsTEA sampler package for Zach Guillen! I know I promised to have it sent out by today, but had some unexpected things come up this week (horrible tooth pain, becoming unemployed again…). I am going to postal jail to pick up a package tomorrow though, so this’ll be sent out then.

I remember when Lala did the same for me, just with different companies, when I was brand new to Steepster! It was incredibly kind of her, so I really wanted to take the opportunity to do the same for someone else and since I have an excess of David’s blends it made sense for me to send some samples to someone who had no local store and would be limited to buying 50g quantities of something they couldn’t even smell online. Since I’m late sending this, I also added in two Della Terra samples as well.

Anyway, this tea was supposed to just get steeped for like three minutes but because I was distracted portioning things I ended up forgetting I was even making tea, and so this got a steep time of upwards of ten minutes. However, despite that there’s practically no difference in taste other than just the absolute slightest bit of bitterness.

Very creamy with the sweet cream cheese kind of icing taste I just adore with this blend and then a sort of cakey-spiciness to it! Not a cinnamon bun to me, but more a spice cake. Yummy regardless! And now that I know it handles long steep times well this is likely going to be a more frequent travel companion for me.