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Well, I made this in my timolino for work – but then when I got home I fell asleep for a straight seven hours (just like I did yesterday), so when I cracked the timolino open to try this highly raved about tea, it was stone cold…

I’m not really getting a ton of flavour from this now that it’s cold; maybe some cinnamon in the mid sip, and a little more of a baked bread kind of vibe in the aftertaste. It’s really disappointing, actually – I feel like I’m totally missing out on something that’s supposed to be so good!

I have enough leaf left from the sample that Courtney gave me to give this one more try tomorrow; fingers crossed I don’t fuck it up!

For now – leaving this ratingless…

I cold brewed this over night (for six hours) and brought it to work with me, though because I went home a few hours early I didn’t end up drinking it until the walk home.

Basically, my wisdom teeth were acting up and everyone could see I was visibly in pain, so because it was so slow today (Sunday’s are always slow) and there were two other keyholders there, I had the OK to leave early. Now I’m at home highly medicated on pain killers. Welp.

This was ok as a cold brew; the pineapple definitely came across. However, it’s much better hot; for whatever reason I didn’t get any of the lovely spongey cake when it was cold. Soon I’ll be out, so I’m definitely noting this so I don’t make the mistake of cold brewing the last of it!

Now back to more Vince Vaughn movies…

Recently, I bought 50g of this which I’m splitting 50/50 with VariaTEA – I hadn’t tried it before, but she said I’d like it so I took the plunge since it was pretty affordable, and I’m not going to be stuck with a ton if I don’t.

At Tea Desire, in store, when you smell the teas they use this elaborate fan set up to waft the smell towards you (instead of smelling directly like you can at a DAVIDsTEA) – because of this, the scents usually aren’t so strong – so when I get an overwhelming smell of one of the teas, that’s typically a good indicator for me. This was one of those blends that just smelled intensely good; pure walnuts! And you’d hope so, right? The dry leaf is LITTERED with giant, whole walnut halves.

Now that it’s steeped up; it smells really nice – definitely walnut, maybe kind of “maple” like, and with aspects of something chocolatey. Even though none of those things are inherently related to it, I’m kind of reminded of Christmas. Hmmm…

Now that I’m drinking it; it is really good! VariaTEA knows my tastes so well; this really does perfectly capture the flavour of walnuts. Though is there really no chocolate in this? It’s not in the ingredients list, but man is it in the flavour. How peculiar. It almost reminds me of Tea Desire’s Oreo Cookie – but I think this is better. Also, echoing my ingredient confusion; there’s apple in this!? Totally doesn’t come through in the taste. Oh well; the walnut shines marvelously, and that’s really all that matters, right?

This is much better than the Walnut Orange I have from Tea Desire (which is what I was hoping); that blends captures the flavour of Walnut brilliantly too, but the orange completely and utterly detracts from it.

And now, I think I’m going to have a Vince Vaughn “Mini Marathon” and watch The Internship and Delivery Man – I’ve been dying to see them both for ages now.

Sipdown (179/181)!

Well, sort of a sipdown. I made a cup for myself to help settle my stomach after gorging on supper (it was the first home cooked meal I’d had since the Grand Opening of the new store last week – and man did I take advantage of that), and then I tossed the rest of the sample into VariaTEA’s growing swap package!

I know she, too, wants to try as much Genmaicha as she can – so I figured I’d share since RiverTea samples are so generous anyway.

This is good, though! I mean, there’s nothing shockingly special about it, but it’s still good. I think this cup is leaning a bit more to the vegetal side, and personally I like my Genmaicha to lean towards the toasty rice, so I wouldn’t order this in any quantity – but it’s still enjoyable.

Sipdown (180/182)!

For the longest time, I felt really bad about taking the easy sipdown on this one just because it was the last of the bloom teas provided by VariaTEA, but recently I picked up some new ones from a local store, so I can bring on the Sipdown!

VariaTEA warned to not use boiling water with this one, so I patiently waited for the water in my mason jar to cool down because cannon balling the bloom into the water. It’s opened up fully now, and I must say I think I was expecting a little more. There’s not really much colour to this one, and I’m a bit disappointed. I think the DT blooms from VariaTEA spoiled me; they were breathtakingly beautiful and nothing had compared since.

But at least this one delivers on taste; it’s gentle, and light and peachy in the best sort of way. I mean, I’m a little fickle about peach in anything – but this feels spot on for me right now. I only filled the mason jar halfway because I wasn’t sure if I’d be feeling this one, but now I wish I’d done the full 25 oz. – I could definitely, happily drink more of this tonight.

So yeah, I’d maybe want a few more blooms of this (no more than three), but for taste not show.

Sipdown (181/183)!

This is a cold brewed sip down; for a short six hour steep too, which is nice because it didn’t allow the sharp, fruity hibiscus to become overly drawn out and powerful enough to drown out the more subtle pumpkin flavour.

So, this is definitely more of a creamy pumpkin, with light fruitiness and apple notes and a wee bit of cinnamon. It’s one of the better cold brews I’ve produced of this, so I’m happy it’s the one I’m ending on. Better to leave on a nice note than a sour one – almost literally, in this case.

I wont be restocking though; it just wasn’t that good. I’m glad I tried something from a local store, though, and that I was able to share it a little with some other Steepster members (even if they didn’t really like it much either).

Tasting note 1111!

Because “11:11” is supposed to be for ‘making a wish’ I tried my hardest to think of a tea I could mark this note with the kind of celebrate that, and this seemed like a good enough choice, though I think Della Terra’s Eight Candles maybe could have accomplished the same idea.

However, I’m working on sipping down this one especially, so I chose this one. I cold brewed it; and it’s pretty awesome, I’ll admit. Like vanilla frosting. I think it’d work well as an iced latte. However, like I said, I’m looking to get rid of it so I don’t especially want to be thinking of new ways to try it that could make me want to buy more; I just want to chug it down.

I think I have one or two cold brews of this left?

Today’s shift was hell, though only because I was functioning on maybe an hour or two of sleep, if that. So, I made this up as a timolino work tea because I knew I’d need the extra energy. I also brewed it up extra strong.

I have to say, it did help a little bit – but totally not anywhere near how much I needed it to. At least it tasted amazing! It had been a while since I’d had this one and I’d kind of forgotten just how good it is.

Thankfully, I got off at two and was able to sleep for a blissful six hours when I got home! I’ll probably be up all night now, but at least I’m rested again – and after tomorrow’s shift I have two days off so that should let me sort out my sleeping patterns a little…

I’m failing on getting my tasting notes for the night done efficiently…

Also made in my timolino this morning for work. I added milk as well, because I thought it’d go well. I think it drowned the subtler flavours out though, because mostly I got milk with a very starchy aftertaste.

Not gonna lie; I totally dumped out 90% of this.

Wah wah wah.

Made this in a timolino for work (and I very nearly forgot it at work), and I added some milk. I think I must have really been in a “52Teas” kind of mood today.

It was SO GOOD with the milk in it though; it’s hard to describe – but buttery, and a little like licorice, and a little like cream soda, and a little like rootbeer, and of course very thick and creamy from the milk. Mmm!