Easter Egg Nests

#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #234 overall / Tea #14 for June
Thursday 6/10 — B&B Easter Egg Nests 20g started brew 6/8. Cold-brew pitcher fan girl for life.
#tiffanydrinkstea #tiffanys2021 #tiffanysfaves #tiffanyinthe614 #tiffanysteasipdown

Latte Sipdown though I never added this to my cupboard so the number of teas stays the same.

This was on of the bajillion teas Roswell Strange shared with me back in December when we finally met and it seemed like a fitting tea today given its Easter. Thank you, Roswell Strange and Happy Easter, Steepsterites!! Hope everyone is able to celebrate in their own way, despite all the crazy.

I decided to make this as a latte because chocolate-y blends often make for nice lattes. I also decided to top the latte with a touch of whipped cream and some festive and colorful flower sprinkles. However, as I tried to take my #365daysoftea photo, the whipped cream kept sinking so I kept adding more so that touch became more like a dollop+. Oops. So this became a latte with a bunch of whipped cream.

It is a bit thin but overall has good flavor. I get a slight roastiness and a lot of chocolate. It’s nice. Similar to Snowball but maybe a bit lighter in flavor. It’s made for a nice treat but I won’t go out of my way for this.

Umm. When you are craving for some distnctive tea and take this one…

But it was bit better than last time. But still I am not fan of this blend. Cacao genmaicha with black tea base is not for me. This time it was with two marshmellows so that was right amount for two tea spoons I guess.

Very roasty, then cacao notes and in the end sweet.

It wasn’t bad, but no, I am not a fan of this blend.

I was pretty sure I wrote a tasting note on this one about 6 months ago, but Steepster says otherwise. It’s as a remember- not as great as I would’ve hoped. I love genmaicha, and the idea of a chocolate genmaicha sounds so good. But, the thinness of the chocolate in this one really detracts from the overall flavor.

At first, this one is pretty similar to their black forest tea in taste and smell. After the first taste, the flavors diverge and this one gets a tiny bit of an almost graham cracker undertone. The main flavor is the kind of weird chocolate-ish tea. For my resteep, I added milk, and the cup took on a toasty marshmallow quality. It was quite tasty! I just don’t like the way they’re adding in their chocolate. Somehow all these flavors combine to make quite a tasty tea. With or without milk, it’s turned into one of my favorites from B&B.

Sipdown (1418)!

I didn’t realize I only had a cup of this left, so when I was looking for a first cuppa for this morning I decided to take the sipdown even though I wasn’t super heavily craving a chocolate tea. It smells really lovely with the same kind of sweet boozy chocolate notes that the chocolate rum balls my mom often made around Christmas smelled/tasted like.

The taste is not as good as the smell but it’s not bad! Chocolate hits first with a medium intensity and a bit of a thinness to the body. It very much reads to me as chocolate flavouring versus actual chocolate; no cream/fudginess/bitterness of real chocolate. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, though. After that it’s the roasted notes of the toasted rice – like a genmaicha without the greenness. It’s a little flat/stale overall, but to be fair this sample is old and it’s actually still held up impressively well considering that.

Won’t miss this in my stash, though…

(Side note – I’m SO proud of myself for not looking at the B&B summer sale at all! We call that character growth, my friends!)

This tea sounded quite delicious, so despite only being able to get it in a 50g package (I know there was a sampler, but I wasn’t interested in 2/4 teas, I think), I picked some up. First immediate impression was that it reminded me of DavidsTea’s Chocolate Macaroon. Maybe it’s the cacao nibs and some of the flavourings? Sipping it stirs up those same memories, but it definitely has some different flavours. For one, there’s kind of an alcoholic note that I’m picking up. Kind of like a chocolate liquor. It’s interesting; I’m not sure what I think of it quite yet. I also can taste the popped rice, which gives me the impression that Chocolate Macaroon has been mixed with genmaicha with chocolate syrup on top. Sounds weird, tastes ok, but not a favourite. Might be good with a bit of milk and sweetener, but I think it’s too light to latte without using up the whole bag.

I bought this last April (when Bird & Blend was still Bluebird!) but my package was still sealed! I’m not too worried about freshness… it at least smells wonderful upon opening it up to try it! Very chocolately, and I also smell coconut? That actually worried me (given the age), so I double-checked the ingredients. Nope, no coconut. It really smells of it, though! I’m getting strong Mounds candy vibes from the dry leaf aroma… that is only a positive as far as I’m concerned!

I steeped this one slightly longer than I usually steep blacks, just to make sure the marshmallow bits would melt nicely into the brew. The finished tea is a caramelly tan color and still has a Mounds sort of aroma to me, with perhaps a bit of a caramelly sweetness.

The tea definitely is quite sweet; I think this would have more of a cocoa bittersweetness/dark chocolate flavor from the cocoa shells if it weren’t sweetened up so much by the marshmallow. I do still get more of a dark chocolate flavor than milk chocolate, but am curious how it hold up as a latte, and if that would change the chocolate flavor thanks to the addition of milk; I’ll have to experiment and try that sometime. I am still getting a strong coconut note in the flavor, and despite having popped rice in it, it doesn’t present as particularly roasty or nutty in flavor like genmaicha; there are some subtle caramel and nutty notes that pop toward the end of the sip, but cocoa and coconut are the dominant flavors. It does feel quite warm and satisfying and it is quite desserty.

Swap Sample Sipdown! (32)

This one is a bonus sample given to me by tea-sipper!

I had no idea Easter egg nests are also a thing in the UK! In the States I often see them made with chow mein noodles. Now that I’m thinking about it, I really want to eat some! XD

This is mostly just a chocolate black tea with a bit of added toastiness from the rice. I don’t really get marshmallow, though there were three mini marshmallows in my infuser, and they all melted fairly well.

Chocolate teas often taste somewhat thin to me, almost watery. This one does suffer from that a bit, and the base tea is not flavorful enough to make up for it. But that’s okay, this was a limited tea so I’m somewhat relieved to not be in love with it!

I think I would have enjoyed this more if it had a larger proportion of genmaicha to it, as the black tea doesn’t seem to be adding much here.

Discovery TTB #17

Chocolate-flavored teas tend to be hit and miss for me, but this one is quite nice! The toasted rice adds a nice dimension to the chocolate flavor and keeps it from being thin and flat. I’m not really getting much marshmallow, but still enjoying the combination of rice and chocolate. Not a standout, but I’d drink it again.