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This one came today from Courtney and I could not wait to try it because I must try allll the rootbeer teas, and this one smelled incredibly intoxicatingly delicious.

I have to say though, ok, I literally zoned out for a solid 15 minutes trying to finish this sentence the taste of this one really fell short for me. Nothing like the smell, which was really saddening. Very weak in flavour :/

That said, this did have a strong vanilla flavour – so it probably could have really passed as a “float” tea had the rootbeer been kicked up a notch. Oh well, I was really happy to try it; one more of many rootbeer blends checked off!

Thanks VariaTEA for the sample. Chai really isn’t my thing, but coconut is so it’s been interesting waiting for enough of a “right” mood to test this one. Today was good enough combined with the fact I realized there’s only two bags of this so it’d be a quick sipdown (and so much is on the way ’cause of you crazy generous people).

This was decent for a Chai, but I struggled to get coconut out of it and for that reason I wasn’t really sold on it. But pleasant enough, I suppose.

I could write more, but I’m sorta tired and I keep losing focus and zoning out for long periods of time. I guess that’s the poor sleep this last week finally catching up to me. Maybe that’s good; I have an interview tomorrow so if I’m tired enough to go to sleep early today I can wake up feeling relaxed early tomorrow!

Sipdown (197/199)!

I am so out of it right now… Literally, I just looked up at the clock and realized I’ve been staring at my dashboard doing literally nothing for a solid twenty minutes. And then, my next thought was “what am I sitting on?”. Umm… the couch. I’ve been sitting on the couch for the last four hours.

Anyway, I got Tre to sip this one down this morning while I made my morning tea. It was not hard to persuade him to have a mug of Doctor Who themed tea; he’ll buy into anything Doctor Who, which is what I was counting on. Anyway – I stole a few sips post preparation and still found it gross, though a little less “brothy”. He liked it, and kept asking why I didn’t. I didn’t want to tell him it was because it reminded me of savory meat/vegetable soups…

But yeah, not sad it’s gone.

I cold brewed this one yesterday, strained it last night, and then had it today first thing in the morning. I actually thought it was much better as a cold brew than hot because it didn’t have that bit of finicky astringency to it, and the cinnamon was more muted so it tasted stronger of the fruits in the blend.

Lots of cranberry, and then more mild notes of banana and the mango. The big surprise to me, though, was how much more present the vanilla was! Usually the cinnamon is rather dominating but I felt the strength the cinnamon typically has was matched – if not exceeded- by the vanilla in this batch.

Also, the neat thing about cold brewing it was that because I used much more leaf I got to include a little bit of all the different chunks of stuff!

Had this about a month ago and thought it tasted soapy, so I hadn’t touched it since but I was portioning some out for a couple people a few days ago (most of it for Robyn), and realized I should try it again so that’s what I did last night.

Actually, it’s not as bad as I remembered it being. In fact, it was mostly creamy orange and rooibos, with just a touch of cinnamon to create this kind if “warm” nighttime cup of comfort. I mean, it wasn’t exceptional but the last bit of it (yay for not having a ton left) might be drinkable enough for me to not have to send it all away…

Not much to add on this one, except it really hit the spot last night despite all the little floaties. I have a lot of it left to burn through…

It seems silly, but after bad Fruits d’Alsace experiences the last few days I had to make this one last night to reassure myself that I hadn’t stopped liking it spontaneously.

Rest assured, it’s still really good. Whew…

Sipdown (198/200)!

This is a good example of a tea which tastes drastically different when prepared in different ways. Cold brewed, like I’ve had it in the past, it’s a very sweet and juicy peach drink with a refreshing and quenching bamboo finish. This cup, however, was prepared hot because I didn’t have enough left to make another cold brew out of it and it tasted a lot more sour and had a stronger pineapple/fuzzy peach (they’re sorta sour, you know?) flavour and was also a little less “refreshing” in taste.

That’s not to say it was bad hot – it was good still, just in a really different way. I think I do like the cold brew better, though…

Tre finally bought butter, so while my company was over last night we made Banana Pudding sugar Cookies, and I mixed in a whole bunch of the dry bits of this into the dough. I may have even overdone it a little bit because now my reserve of this is severely depleted. Maybe that’s for the better though? I still have tons of other teas and can take a break from this one for a while.

Anyway, the cookies were DELICIOUS! I really liked them, and I think my company did too – although Tre was being a butt and said they didn’t taste cooked enough, but I like when my baking is kinda chewy and he likes when he cookies are pucks and can get dunked in milk and what not.

I just wish I could have saved me from myself, because in the course of three hours I pounded back about 20 sugar cookies and then I felt a little sick all night from over eating (and now there’s no more cookies). Wah.

THE RECIPE:

Ingredients:

- A full pouch of instant pudding mix in whatever flavour you’d like (I enjoy banana or pistachio, personally)
- 1 Cup of soft butter
- 1 Cup of Flour (I use whole wheat, but all purpose or white would work too)
- 2 tbsp. of milk
- Approx. 1/2 cup of ‘add ins’ such as raisins (ick), chocolate chips, crushed nuts; this is optional

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Cream the Pudding mix and butter together in a mixing bowl (and your extras if you’ve chosen any)
3. Add in the milk and flour and mix together until a well blended and even consistency
4. On a pan, form tbsp. sized balls of dough and slightly flatten them; they should be spaced about two or three CM apart from the edge of the pan and from each other
5. Bake for 12 to 15 min. or to your own preference

Yeilds approx. two dozen.

This is what I served to my company while she was over last night (along with cookies, noodles, and corn because that compiles a pretty fucking awesome meal imo).

She didn’t really comment on it, but I got the impression she didn’t really like it and was just too kind/polite to say so. I snuck a sip from her mug while I was preparing it to see if it was done (using a spoon, because I’m not just gonna drink from her cup then give it to her), and I didn’t really like it either…

Anyway, this finishes up the sample from Rosehips, though I still have the very generous sample from Keychange to get through still.