Wanderlust

This is a tea which grew on me – at first try it was not what I was expecting (too mellow, too natural. Too classy… And yes, those are not bad things, just not what i was expecting somehow!) but each time I loved it best. So rebuying a new package of this how could I not love this at first sip? It´s even better than I remembered. Very smooth and mellow, a really classy flavoured tea.

Some brewing tips, this resteeps very well as long as you are using a bit more tea than usual (maybe 25% more) and do not use the first steep´s water too hot. If so, it´s definitely worth it to keep using the leaves till the tea stops being great – you can probably get a couple more good steeps out of it.

thank you Scheherazade for this sample. Jury is still out on this one but man did the aroma of this steeped tea blow me away. Talk about apple crumble in a cup. What i’m not sold on is the weakness of the tea, which may just be my steeping times or the leaf, so i’m not going to hold it against the tea just yet. I have more left to try this again with, so we shall see! Either way happy to try it :)

Back to this tea. I’ve neglected it a bit of late, but it seemed like just the thing this morning. As ever, it’s a lovely tea. It’s quite delicate in terms of flavour, but I definetly get apple and cinamon, and the green tea base is smooth and only very lightly grassy. Next to chai, I actually find this a very comforting tea. I suppose apple pie reminds me of home cooking and winter, and that’s what this tea smells and tastes like. Warm apple pie. Yum!

EMPTY THAT BOX!

This is a green blend which Cteresa has shared with me. I had received a sample from Le Palais des Thes of a very similar blend containing green tea, apple, almonds, cinnamon and ginger. I thought the ginger in that one was overpowering all the other ingredients and rather ruining the experience for me. I don’t care for ginger. This blend which Cteresa shared with me has all of the same ingredients except ginger, so she offered to share so I could compare them. This also gave her the opportunity to share a number of other Yumchaa teas with me, because I had been contemplating an order from them. Sadly I haven’t really been completely overwhelmed with the ones I thought I would like so far, but I still have a few to try out, so I’m not discouraged.

Anyway, this particular one was the primary reason for her to send me that little care package, and now it’s turn has come. The company description of it compares it to apple crumble which, with these ingredients? I can totally see!

Let’s just get one thing straight here.

I. Love. Crumbles.

Based on this and the company descriptions? My expectations are positively soaring on this one.

The aroma is definitely not disappointing. It has a whole lot of apple in it along with a smidgeon of cinnamon around the edges. It smells very sweet as well, which I attribute to the almonds. Almonds, to me, taste quite sweet, especially when they’ve been chopped and cooked in some way. There may be some of the base tea shining through as well, but it seems all tangled up in the apple, so it’s difficult for me to tell whether it’s all flavouring or if some of it is naturally occurring.

The base tea is very strong in the flavour, however, surprising me with an unexpected note of leafy greens. Spinach perhaps, or rocket salad. At first it came with a stab of disappointment because it made me think that the flavouring would be weak and undetectable.

My fears were soon abated because barely had I thought the thought before the apple wormed it’s way in underneath with a slightly tangy note. Unmistakably fruity.

This then made me aware of the cinnamon which, if you think of the flavour experience as a circle with the most prominent notes in the center, keeps along the edges of the flavour. Discreet and out of the way, but definitely very present.

The almond element is very elusive though, but I think I caught a glimpse of it just as I swallowed and in the aftertaste.

Apple crumble? Yes, I can totally see that connection.

Better than the ginger-y LPdT blend? Immensely so.

This blend was like made for me, or something!

well Scheherazade is right, it is a kind of apple pie green. and i like my apple teas i sure do!
even on a super hot day in the summer. apples forever!

So, the day before yesterday started off really well (tea-related), but went very badly downhill (not really tea-related, except for this tea). Then yesterday started horribly (not tea-related, except that I had to rush out of the house w/o my morning cuppas), stayed pretty bad (I think it shot my tea tastings for the day, too – will get to those if Steepster starts being happier), and then got resolved (included a nice, cheery night-time rooibos – ditto).

The good start to day-before yesterday involved a lovely email from Stacy of Butiki Teas and then two morning cups of tea from the swap cteresa sent me, neither of which will get onto the database here. One was a “random” Ceylon from a local tea shop – local to her, that is – which I found delightful, and which inspired me to order a Ceylon to try from PureAromaTeas. And the other was a home blended chai she made up with a Portuguese black tea, which was so good it made me walk around the house asking “Why have I never thought of chai for breakfast before?!?”. All I can do aside from that is check out the rough proportions of spices cteresa used, as they were spot on.

[skipping over non-tea-related woes] In the afternoon, I made a pot of Wanderlust for Cara and me, as she’s a big Yumchaa tea fan too. (By ‘pot’ I mean the Magic Infuser/Cha Cult I own.) Now, I have to say, with all due sorrow, that I’ve found a Yumchaa tea I didn’t like. Dry, the smell of the apple and cinnamon was lovely, but after steeping it went bitter, which it also tasted. I have to say that my taste-buds were not tainted by the bitterness of the day, as Cara also found it bitter, before I’d even said anything about it. I know Teresa wouldn’t have rated this one highly if it had been a problem with either the cinnamon or the green tea base, so I’m stumped as to what went wrong. That said, I’ve had teas I liked a lot less, but it was both Yumchaa and a Teresa favourite, so expectations were very high.

At least it rules one tea out of my next order from Yumchaa, thereby making life a bit easier! :? (If we ever get to London again, I’ll definitely try it in store though, to see if I still don’t much like it.)

This is an interesting tea.

I’ve only tasted one other Yumchaa tea – and like this one – it was kindly provided by Cteresa, thank you!.

Both that one – Notting Hill – and this one are similar in the way I can’t exactly put my finger on. It is as if they share some of the same ingredients, which evidently isn’t the case (according to the descriptions). Actually the one is a black tea and the other (this one) a green tea. So the similarity is rather surprising! Perhaps it’s a sameness in the way the flavors blend, because they do blend very well…

If apple crumble is a kind of apple pie or tart (I’m not sure), this doesn’t really remind me of that. Or rather, this tea has too much character to compare to something as mundane as apple crumble. The comparison to hot apple cider however does ring several bells.

If – like me – you don’t really like apple cider, you should still consider this to try this tea. Although this tea definitely reminds me of hot apple cider, it does not taste exactly the same. It’s sweeter and more mellow. Also it’s not as “heavy” to the stomach.

In the winter there are always a number of Christmas markets here in the region. Usually they have these little stalls serving hot wine, hot apple cider and the like. People sit outside in the cold (with no more than some heat lamps) savoring those hot alcoholic beverages. This tea would be great for such an occasion.

On the one hand I can already see myself happily sipping this tea after a cold winter walk through the woods, on the other hand I’m fervently awaiting spring and this doesn’t make me a believer it’ll be coming anytime soon … so that makes rating it honestly at this particular moment somewhat difficult. I’ll hold on to my thoughts on that subject for the moment and have a few more cups… :-)

One of my current favorite green tea blends. I like the crispness of the sencha with the spice and sweetness of the apple and cinnamon. The almond adds a bit of creaminess as well.

This tea just didn’t work for me. It’s one of those that smells amazing – like hot cider – but just doesn’t do much for me flavour-wise. I steeped it at work, though, which means I couldn’t watch the temperature as precisely, and did 3 minutes as I usually do for flavoured greens. It was just kind of like slightly flavoured water. Eh. It’s quite possible that I just did it wrong, but I can’t be bothered buying it just to give it another chance. Sorry tea.

I seem to keep going up and down with my perception of Yumchaa teas. I first thought they weren’t that impressive, but then I decided I liked a number of them a lot (Ginseng Guardian, Red Christmas, Red Chai, Chelsea Chai, Enchanted Forest), and then I decided I was really quite disappointed in a lot of them (Wanderlust, the whites don’t really blow my mind, Caramel Sweetheart, the Earl Greys are ok but not that special – though a few friends love it, Blueberry Hill didn’t really live up to its reputation, neither did Regent’s Park).

And then I went and developed an aversion to both the Chai-y rooiboses, which about halfs my chosen Yumchaa teas. And Enchanted Forest doesn’t seem as enchanting as it first did. So yeah… I think I may be over Yumchaa. Too many other teas in the ‘pond’, especially with all the ‘free shipping for orders over…’ options :)