Maple Cheesecake Ti Kwan Yin

Over the holidays, I went to Connecticut to spend Christmas with my boyfriend and his family. I didn’t take any of my tea, and I haven’t had many cups since my return. Work is dead. There’s no one there.

I came home and wanted a nice cup of tea, and I’ve found that this is often my choice for such occasions. There’s not much left now unfortunately, probably only enough for a cup or two. I sure will miss it when it’s gone.

I haven’t even finished my 52teas 12 Teas of Christmas sampler, let alone written notes about them. I will promptly return to writing regular tasting notes after New Years.

I apologize that I’ve been M.I.A. from Steepster for a while, but I have the best excuse. My boyfriend of five years proposed on Christmas Eve, so we’re engaged!!! :D

This is the perfect tea to sip and break the news as I return to my tea blogging routine. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Yay! I am finally getting around to trying this one.

And it is so good. The Ti Kwan Yin is toasty and creamy and compliments the flavors of Maple and Cheesecake very well. The Oolong is the strongest flavor of this cup, but I can taste the Maple and Cheesecake also. The cheesecake is the softest flavor of the bunch, but, there is this tangy cream cheese kind of flavor … and I just picked up a pastry kind of taste too. The flavors develop as I sip. I can’t wait for my second infusion to see what it brings.

YUM! Seriously YUM! I am so glad that I got a pouch of this while it was available.

I am a big maple freak and I love this tea. When I opened the bag it smelled like those maple leaf shaped cookies. I was worried it was going to be too much. But, it’s awesome. Once brewed the maple is just a nice compliment to the oolong. The ooling tea is still fully present in the cup and the two flavors go together very nicely.

I also would like to see this one in the permanent collection because when I run out of this one I might cry.

I am on a big oolong kick and this tea is lovely, it did not disappoint me at all. This is a highly fragrant tea – my nose went into the bag and I was all smiles. Picked up lots of maple and a bit of creaminess as well. Definitely a great dessert tea, after one infusion the leaves unroll and open up, here it is at the height of its’ flavor. After multiple infusions, the maple/cream flavoring does get milder but you’re still left with an exceptionally smooth and mild oolong which is good for several infusions more. I should mention I drank my tea with vanilla soymilk which might have helped with the creaminess factor.

This smells amazing wow oh wow yummy maple! I could just sniff this all day! Does that make me weird? Anyways, the tea is a very pretty tea with the little yellow petals in it. I brewed this up and was surprised when I smelled the tea again. It was very mild maple with more of a vegetable smell.

The color of the tea is a pale golden color and at first I wasn’t sure if I steeped it long enough because the color was pretty pale. The first tastes of a nice oolong tea with just a hint of maple… hmmm I like my tea to have a bit more flavor but as I have learned with the cheesecake teas from Franks the cheesecake flavoring usually develops when the tea has cooled a bit. I let it cool and the tea is getting more maple flavored. Not to bad, well the last bit of my tea cooled completely and there is the cheesecake flavoring, still not as strong as other blends of franks but it is there! I am really glad I was able to purchase this one, now I may resteep and see what if anything changes in the tea!

I got a sample of this compliments of ChAroma. The dry mix smells delicious, as all 52teas blend do. I think I used too much water in my brew—I wasn’t paying attention when I put water into the Breville. So it probably is needlessly weak. Another of the perils of a ridiculously early morning, botched tea. I can taste the oolong in this, and little hints of maple. No cheesecakey notes, but I’m rather not surprised. No rating, since I appear to have botched the preparation.

Very nice oolong! Flavors very complimentary. Smooth and mild, slightly sweet but no single component is overwhelming. Smells absolutely brilliant. Another limited tea I wish weren’t limited. Truly becomes exponentially more enjoyable after the first steeping.

This was reblended (in a sense) recently, and reminded me I had some of this original blend from Ost’s cupboard sale (thanks Ost!) Which means this is quite old, and I’m trying to weed the oldest teas of my cupboard, so I pulled this for my Sunday afternoon tea.

I was surprised that for it’s age, I was still getting a lot of maple aroma out of the packet. The steeped cup smells of maple, though not quite as strong as the leaf, with some floral, honey, and nut notes. The flavor definitely still has a lot of warm maple notes coming through; I also taste roasted nuts, walnut, wood, caramel, honey, and a subtle vegetal note. Mostly I taste sweet caramel maple flavor on a slightly earthy/woody roastedy nutty base, which is actually quite pleasant.

I didn’t have high expectations based on the age but this is actually a very nice blend; if I can clear my cupboard enough that I can mentally warrent new tea coming in, I wouldn’t mind trying the newer version.

So, I found a sample from Ost that I hadn’t tried yet and it’s pretty good – though I feel like it would’ve been better if it was fresher. I had to add sugar to bring out the maple flavour more, but other than that I taste the oolong, which has a creamy milk note to it, almost like quangzhou… Also a slight vegetal taste, but overall its a nice maple tea !

52 Teas’ oolongs always tend to hit the right spot for me.

“The tea’s gestalt is like maple dressing on a really tasty salad. And if maple salad dressing does not exist, I would like to claim credit for the idea and become a zillionaire off it.

(leaves) (returns) I just used Google. Someone’s already thought of it."

Full review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2017/01/17/maple-cheesecake-tie-guan-yin-from-52teas/