Birthday Cake

#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #155 overall / Tea #26 for April
Monday 04/19 —Bluebird Birthday Cake hot plain latte (half & half for milk) for Micah as I always make him something in the morning when I’m home during weekdays (either off or working afternoon/evening shift) since he works M-F 9am-6 pm remote.
#tiffanydrinkstea #tiffanys2021 #tiffanysfaves #tiffanyinthe614 #tiffanysteasipdown #sipdownchallenge

2021 Sipdown 28/365!

This was a sample teabag from an order (late 2020 I believe) – amazingly something different than I’d received in my previous 3 or so orders (I’ve received the same samples so many times now, a change was nice!). I don’t know that I’ve ever had this one before, either. Ultimately, I am happy to only have had a single teabag of this, as it’s not quite my thing. Initial impression when I opened the teabag was that it reminded me of DavidsTea’s Alpine Punch – likely picking up the rooibos/marzipan aromas. Flavour is kind of a muted rooibos/marzipan, with a bit of a lingering cakey sweetness. Unremarkable.

Sipdown! (6 | 210)

After I had this one last night, I saw that there was only one serving left, so I figured I would just finish it off tonight.

Not much else to add, doesn’t taste like cake to me. Mostly just tastes like rooibos with a bit of amaretto, and possibly a hint of caramel. Meh!

I didn’t get around to drinking this yesterday on my actual birthday, so I finished it off tonight instead as a latte while we did the virtual pub quiz over Zoom. Usually this isn’t something I get excited about because it’s vanilla, and my dislike of vanilla is well-documented. As a latte though, it really shone! I mean it’s still just vanilla and not very exciting, but it was sweet and creamy and indulgent, which is all you can really ask for of vanilla. I had a break from actual birthday cake today since I had so much of it yesterday, and this was a good substitute so that now I’m ready to overindulge again tomorrow! My cake has fresh cream, so I’m going to have to finish it all in one go. Wish me luck! (There’s not actually that much left).

Sipdown 242/402

I usually only ever leave one review for a tea, but I’m sad to say that my impression of this one has changed completely since I rated it a 99 three years ago. The new bag of it that I have doesn’t taste at all like the last one, which was basically my perfect tea. This one is just sad, muddled, very lightly flavored rooibos. I had a few cups of it, but I’m passing the rest along, unfortunately. I don’t know if they changed the recipe or what, but it’s a bummer. I had a similar experience recently with their Nuts About You tea, but I didn’t bother to update my review before finishing my new bag of that.

Mmmmmmm, no. This tastes like a lightly vanilla scented rooibos and that is it. It was hard to pick out any flavor at all and was shockingly disappointing. Straight to the get rid of pile.

June Wedding! Something new! (At least relatively… I ordered this from my first Bird & Blend Co. order, back when they were still Bluebird, and if I got a tea within this year, I still consider it “new,” pretty much, though I do believe that order was in January). I tried to drink this back in March on my birthday, but then I got food poisoning, soooo… ya. Haven’t bothered to try it again since then, and don’t really have any memories of the tea, either, as other (much more unpleasant) memories of that evening left a more lasting impression. Since it is a good friend/coworker’s birthday today, this is the tea I decided to bring to work today, so I decided it’s probably been long enough to give this another try.

The dry leaf has a pretty heavy rooibos aroma — a sharp almost cough syrupy scent, but more honeyed, and there is a lot of nutty notes and something very sweet to this aroma as well. My steeped cup has a pretty smooth rooibos base, and I’m picking up notes of vanilla and cherry… if I sort of let the flavors linger and cool on my tongue, the aftertaste actually does remind me of the flavor of confetti cake. I find it interesting that the nuttiness in the aroma comes out as fruitiness to my tongue in the cup. It’s a nice, sweet, desserty tea.

Cue sad music I was really hoping this tea would make a nice latte, something for staying up late nights at the hospital. Keep me warm while finishing up charting patients. Unfortunately the taste of this tea is much like the paper I’m charting on. Bummer. Sounded so good.

So this was a sample that was included in the last shared ordered I had with Marzipan & Liquid Proust. I should have included it in one of their boxes. This sounds delicious and I wanted to like it so bad. . .but my arch enemy struck again! So alas, this tea just wasn’t for me. Made me sad. I wanted a sprinkled birthday cake filled cup of love. Instead I got a funky weird woodsy taste cuppa that I could barely take a drink out of.

Anybody interested??

Comment on my blog and I’ll draw a random winner. This is basically a full ounce with a tsp missing. . .I’ll include other goodies too!

http://www.cuppageek.com/index.php/2015/05/28/tea-of-the-day-birthday-cake-from-bluebird-tea-co/

Birthday cake! Thank you for the sample, KittyLovesTea! The description says black tea but I don’t see any black leaves in my blend or in the picture of the tea. This is mostly rooibos but whoa is Bluebird’s rooibos some of the best: all smooth and delicious. It’s almost like strawberries! I can see why the rhubarb cream blend works so well. I think the sugar from the adorable star sprinkles are improving the rooibos. Other than that, I only see purple flowers in the blend and there isn’t much flavor other than the rooibos itself. I’m not really sure how this tea could claim to be cake, maybe it should just be called “birthday”. As a rooibos blend, this is a win. Rooibos haters could be swayed with Bluebird’s base, I think. I used a Tsac and there weren’t any rooibos particles in the mug. The second steep was good too, but it lost most of the strawberry flavor for some reason. Not bad, but I’d definitely prefer my favorite teas on my birthday (very well could be many of Bluebird’s blends).