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Taking advantage of the day off to try some new teas! This one was a birthday present from my mom from a local loose leaf tea shop; it’s not one I asked for and not a flavour I would have ever chosen for myself, so I’m a bit surprised how much I’m actually liking it.

I think the orange flavour is the best part of this one: it’s not soapy, which I find is a real issue with orange flavouring in rooibos blends, and is in fact very juicy and fresh tasting in a pretty natural way. It’s also relatively sweet. The nuttyness in this blend is also present but in a more subtle “lurking in the background” kind of way. As for spice? Not really all that present – which is odd because there’s a metric butt fuck of peppercorn in the dry leaf: something which is very responsible for why I was so hesitant to try this one initially…

Also, I might as well post this here: There are a couple 52Teas blends that I’m looking to get rid of. I don’t want to trade them: I’m just looking to decrease the amount of black tea in my cupboard which I currently don’t drink. If no one is interested here I’ll just post them in the “Take it Away” thread. Also, my preference is that they go to the same person – but if I need to split them to get rid of them that’s ok too. Only shipping within North America, though…

- Maple Bacon
- Pancake Breakfast (and possibly)
- Butterbeer

All are in their original packaging, but not sure exactly much is left of each one.

EDIT: There are a few Tea Desire blends I’m ok with parting with too. I’ll list those ones here as well, and same deal as before: I’ll ship anywhere within North America and would prefer if I didn’t have to split them. Original packaging, etc.

- Oreo Cookie
- Amaretto
- Walnut Orange

I’ve been holding onto this sample from BrewTEAlly Sweet for months now; honestly I think I’d mostly just forgotten about it to be honest. It was an added in sample back when I purchased some tea from her, so it was never really that present in my mind.

Recently I was looking through my stash for coconut teas to try cold brewed though, and I rediscovered this one with the intent of cold brewing it. I didn’t take that route today though; I made it as a hot cuppa instead. I’m pretty glad I did too, because sipping on it I’m not sure if the flavour would have been strong enough to make it through a cold brew: the black/white base combo is easily the strongest flavour and I think that would have been especially present in a cold brew.

The coconut is the second most noticeable flavour and is light and buttery in a sweet, almost pastry like way. Because I also was drinking a Pina Colada mudshake as I was sipping on this there were a few sips that seemed more tropical but more than anything I think that was the flavour of the mudshake carrying over to the tea in between sips.

I’m not sure what the difference between Roman chamomile flowers and regular chamomile is or if there even is one, but I can say that I did like the chamomile in this blend: I felt it softened the whole tea, took the edge off the black which made the black base work more with the white base, and created a calming drink overall.

This is yet another discontinued white/black DT blend which makes me a bit sad: I can see this as something I’d buy 10g of on impulse in store – though not something I’d want to restock in quantity.

Tre ordered in pizza and cheesecake for his birthday yesterday, and what always comes with the pizza we order in? Nestea. So of course it’s in the house again – although this is the last one for now.

Drank it just now while watching this amazing documentary on Netflix called Mortified Nation. If you have Netflix I 100% recommend watching it – I literally laughed out loud and I cried and it was just super fun to watch. Basically it’s just adults reading their real life diary entries out loud to a crowd of people. If that sounds awesome to you; watch it. If it doesn’t – I promise it’s better than I made it sound!

Here – just watch the trailer and make up your own mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3DmdV9XByY

So, I really debated picking up some gin yesterday (even though I’ve never had it) because it was incredibly hard to resist the pun “Gin and Redberry Tonic”. I passed on it though; I already had an embarrassingly large amount of alcohol to take with me on the bus ride home.

I did add some alcohol to this though: I had a cold brew going in the fridge and as I was straining it out last night (11 hour cold brew) I added a couple shots of vodka. The vodka mixed decently and the drink was fruity and fun with lemony notes, but I found the overall taste to be really weak: more than anything, I think that’s because the original cold brew was pretty underleafed to begin with. I only used 1 tbsp. of leaf and considering RBT is a fruit blend I know I should have used more.

Something to consider again in the future: I still have lots of dry leaf for this blend and many more cold brews ahead of me.

So like I mentioned in an earlier toasting note today, yesterday was my roommates 20th birthday – and the celebrate we had a few drinks. Well, I may have gone a wee bit overboard on the alcohol that I picked up from the liquor store.

All in all I walked away with:

- Bottle of Butterscotch Schnapps
- Bottle of Rootbeer Schnapps
- Case of Banana Mudshake Vodka
- Case of Pina Colada Mudshake Vodka
- Case of Caramel Mudshake Vodka

Combine that with what we had at home…

- Triple Distilled Vodka
- Vanilla Vodka
- A bottle of red wine Tre’s dad gave him for his birthday

(We finished off the Wildberry Vodka a few days ago; sadly before I got a chance to make a Blueberry Jam and Wildberry Vodka cold brew)

…And there was lots to drink. But hey; he’s 20 and I’m 19 – now’s the time to get that out of the way, right? Plus – I knew I didn’t have work today and neither does he so that wasn’t a concern either.

Anyway, what I ended up doing was mixing half a bottle of Banana Mudshake Vodka with half a glass of cold milk, and a half tsp. of this matcha. The result: an incredibly smooth and creamy banana pudding type drink with a faint tropical edge from the alcohol. Delicious!. Tea and booze might be my new favourite thing. Incredible, really!

Had one of these suckers at work today while I was on break: I needed something cold to contrast the super sweet cinnamon bun I was having for breakfast/supper. At this point my Cantaloupe and Cream cold brew was long gone, so this was the least offensive option out of what we have stocked in the Pop Coolers.

Wasn’t so bad: though it did feel like I was pairing sweet with sweet and there were a few bites/sips where it felt like too much.

In the timolino at work, though a good portion was saved for the walk/ride home.

This made for one hell of a delicious, creamy coffee/chocolate drink yesterday and it was the perfect warm little cuppa to hold in my hands as I bused home after closing. It made the dreary day feel less dreary and kept me warm and comforted on the quick little walk from the bus to my house.

The coffee notes outweighed the chocolate in this cup, and there were also light woody notes from the rooibos and almost caramel like notes – though I’m not sure where those ones were coming from. Not that I’m complaining, at all, though.

Just stellar.

Cold Brewed overnight and brought to work yesterday. Thankfully not even my crapping thermos could taint the delicious, fresh taste of this one! I really, really enjoyed polishing it off and if felt like I was enjoying a nice, airy crisp Spring day with each sip (lets be honest, more like a gulp…). Of course then I’d look outside the store windows and see the onslaught of rain that refused to let up all nine and a half hours of my shift and I’d feel dreary again…

I shared a bit with my coworked Bobbi too; although she didn’t like it – but she admitted it was probably because she doesn’t ever drink tea unless it’s heavily sweetened – and I have a major aversion to sweetening my teas.

I have a few backlogged teas to get through so I guess I’m gonna slowly work my way through that over the next few hours. Thankfully I have all of today and tomorrow off from work. I certainly appreciate it after my nine and a half hour shift yesterday.

You know what else was yesterday? Tre’s Birthday! He turned 20. To celebrate I brought home a bunch of different alcohol and we drank/had cheesecake. That’d be why I have all the backlog; I fell asleep after getting a bit hammered.

Anyway, this tea is actually from two nights ago. It was my final tea of the night and just something really calm and serene to wind down with. Nothing special or different about the usual taste; although I did notice the needles looked… “frothy” while they were steeping? Meh, whatever I guess.

Overnight cold brew.

Man, I do not regret buying a full 100g tin of this: it tastes amazing just like last time! Lots of berries; like a berry cocktail, really. I mean, the black base isn’t present but I’m perfectly fine with that.

A think it’s time for a new water bottle though; the one I use for my cold brews is about four years old and it’s very worn out. This is the second tea in a row (but not the second in total) that has tasted pretty foul after sitting in here a while/reaching room temperature – and no matter what I do to clean this guy out it still seems like the bottle is retaining flavours of previous teas. I don’t know; it’s a bit hard to explain…

At least I drank 90% of this before it reached room temp.