Cornelia Bean

Last cuppa from yesterday; was just looking for a herbal tea that I hadn’t had in a long time and this one jumped out while I was rummaging through my stash…

It was kind of weird; sort of a waxy tasting pineapple. I want it to be juicy, fresh pineapple with undertones of citrus for the ‘mimosa’ aspect but it was just somewhat weak/watery citrus and that aforementioned pineapple note. Noooopppeeee.

Late night evening cuppa.

I definitely let this steep for too long because the liquor was so sickly sweet; it tasted like I was drinking some sort of pineapple syrup; maybe like Italian soda syrup!? Even the mouthfeel of the liquor was too viscous and syrupy to be really enjoyable. I mean, I certainly like pineapple A LOT and I don’t mind a good sweet pineapple flavour either but it needs to be balanced with something else so it’s not so one note OR it has to be more mellow. This was overwhelming and ultimately not as enjoyable as it could have been steeped at a more controlled time.

So, like, four or five minutes verses fourteen.

Early evening cuppa.

I was certainly feeling the caffeine from my earlier session with Camellia Sinensis’ Jin Die so I needed something caffeine free to kind of mellow out a little bit for a while. This was part of my vacation haul, and I’ve been pretty excited to dig into it so I figured why not give this one a whirl.

Is it just me or have a lot of companies been going for this “Pineapple Mimosa” flavour lately, though? I know I’ve seen a few companies here on Steepster but even just in general I know I’ve seen others that aren’t on Steepster just from cart building on different websites in the last year or so. I think the first time I heard of it as a flavour was when DT did it a few summer’s ago as part of their cocktail collection. I liked it a lot then, but it was really new to me as a concept. Is this is a thing now outside the tea world that the tea world has then set out to replicate or is it a thing that’s unique to the tea world!?

It’s good though! Very, very strongly pineapple flavoured without a lot much else going for it other than sweetness and apple undertones. I mean, I like pineapple A LOT – it’s my favourite fruit and definitely in my top five favourite foods of all time. So, you know, I’m down. I could see this being a little too cloying or “candied pineapple” tasting for some though, and if that was the case I could see people easily being turned off by it. Understandably, as well. It’s a touch weird as a hot tea though; I think I’d be much more into it either iced or cold brewed…

Also, even if I like the profile doesn’t mean I’m sold on this whole “pineapple mimosa” thing as a concept. I mean, a mimosa is champagne and orange juice – right? So even if we’re, in theory, replacing the orange entirely with pineapple shouldn’t there still be something in this to replicate the flavour of champagne? ‘Cause right now it’s essentially just a sweet but straight up pineapple flavour. I think if you, as a tea company, really were committed to the idea of a pineapple mimosa you’d do something to introduce another flavour here to actually give a proper nod to cocktail you’ve named your tisane after.

But that’s just my opinion.

This was my first tea of the day today. I got up a little earlier than usual and I decided to use the extra time to watch the season finale of The Good Doctor with a mug of tea. It was a really good but deeply emotionally upsetting finale, so really I spent the first hour of my day sobbing like a baby while sipping tea in between emotional wailing…

The tea was really good though – crisp and clean notes of mint and lime a top such a full bodied and strong earthy base of pu’erh. I was actually a little choked up (on top of my already emotional mood) to see how empty my tin of this is! I know I don’t tend to reach for it often, but I also really don’t want to run out of it! It’s such a unique pu’erh – I’ve not seen anything like it, and it’s really consistently quite good too!

Another tea that I drank in a little bit of a heat induced delirium. I know I had it kind of lukewarm, because I brewed it hot but then felt too hot to drink it at a hot temperature; and I’m pretty sure I drank the entire mug of it in one big gulp. It had the cooling feeling of mint, but I don’t actually recall really observing any of the details regarding the taste of this tea…

I feel like I must have just been really craving lime this week, because I pulled this one from my stash the day after I brewed up A Quarter To Tea’s Toasted Coconut Lime green tea blend, and when I was drinking it the notes that were resonating with me the most/making me the most happy were the incredibly bright, sweet lime notes. So much so that I just wasn’t focusing on anything else going on in the tea.

One track tea mind.

Iced.

I still can’t taste any rum in this one; I’ve been brainstorming ways to introduce the flavour into the tea though. I think what I want to try and do is reduce this down into a tea infused simple syrup and then mix that with some Ginger Beer and dark rum to make a tea infused Dark & Stormy…

As for this brew; it had so much punch from the lime! Just a really intense, vibrant flavour contrasted by notes of undergrowth, wet leaves and earth, and woody qualities from the pu’erh base. It’s a weird contrast between something with so much life and the danker pu’erh notes that almost have a decrepit forest vibe to them. It works though.

Currently sipping on this one.

Steeped aroma smells a little fishy, but the tea tastes fine. Actually, tastes more like lime than anything else, with sweet earthy and rum undertones. Even though it has rum notes, it’s not overly boozy though. Actually quite smooth despite unpleasant aroma. I want more mint in the actual sip ‘cause right now there’s none – but at least I get mint in the aftertaste as a haunting shadow of flavour.

Tempted to add actual rum…

Another more unique flavour Pu option from Cornelia Bean!

To be perfectly honest, when I grabbed this one I wasn’t totally sure I was actually going to like it but I thought it was super unique/I’d never seen a pu’erh flavoured like this so I figured I’d probably really end up kicking myself if I passed it up. Today, I made it iced in my tea press because I figured that it’d likely be well suited to iced prep since it is inspired by a cocktail.

I actually enjoyed it quite a bit! My first observation was actually just how straight forward I found the flavour to be. The top notes are light, fleeting earthy tones from the Pu’erh base and then the body is a very full bodied, stretched out lime note that persists for quite a long period of time, but then finishes really crisply and cleanly. I think a lot of that freshness and crisp/clean profile can be attributed to the mint in the blend, although I don’t actually think the profile of the tea tasted all that minty. It was really unique seeing a lime flavour on a base like this, and I liked that it was sweeter and not really acidic/sour. Really satisfying, actually!

I think this would make a KILLER cocktail base too! Maybe I’m influenced a little by the music I was listening to, but I’d like to see it either paired with tequila or a mix of rum and ginger beer! That would be so good.

Song Pairing: https://youtu.be/GshEzAUVcvQ

Geek Steep S2E21 – The Witcher

Early in the start of recording this podcast episode Marika commented that her first thought for her recording tea was a shou and I think I must have subconsciously been thinking the same thing because for this fandom shou pu’erh just feels so… right…

However, in the moment, I just felt like this sweet and comforting black licorice flavoured tea was exactly what I needed. This tea is a blend just packed full of polarizing flavours (something true about both of the teas we chose to drink while recording) but thankfully for me thick, coating molasses rich black tea and camphorous pu’erh are flavours that I just love so much.

Great tea!

Just black licorice, baby!

https://i.giphy.com/media/3oz8xTcvjApMyFW0x2/giphy.webp

Still delightfully sweet black licorice goodness, with a hint of sweetness and creaminess. Nothing about the flavour had changed over time at all really, but that’s a good thing!

You ever wake up in the middle of the night with a deep craving for something? Well, that completely happened to me a few nights ago. I found myself wide awake at 4AM with the strongest craving for this tea. I managed to get my ass back to sleep, but not before rummaging through my tea stash to find my bag of it and packing it into my work backpack to bring with me to the office the next day to drink there.

Sure enough, I made a HUGE mug of this first thing when I got into work the next day. Literally the biggest mug that I could find in the whole place! Which, actually, was pretty damn big. I really, really wanted those thick and intensely sweet anise notes though! It was like getting bit on the tongue with black licorice – totally not for everyone (in fact, no one else in the lab liked this tea AT ALL – they all found it too licorice-y), but 100% a flavour that I adore.

Thank you, weird middle of the night cravings, for making me revisit this one.

Midday cuppa from yesterday!

I really wanted something sweet and dessert like, but in a non-conventional sort of way. By which I mean I didn’t want the typical chocolate/caramel/vanilla/etc. sort of tea. For me this was just a logical pick, because although it’s got some spice elements (cinnamon) and a really molasses and earth heavy undertone black licorice/anise are just a very enjoyable sweet taste to me!

Made a big mug of this one, with a nice and equally big handful of black licorice. It was an explosion of licorice flavours both in the drink and in the accompanying snack. Super rich, and sweet and just a little bit bitter. The tea also has notes of wood, earth, molasses, and cinnamon; but mostly delicious anise/licorice.

Mmmm!

Evening pot of tea!

One of the things I found really cool about Cornelia Bean when I went to the store was the diversity of their Pu’erh selection. A lot of local tea stores or tea/coffee joint stores tend to have VERY limited Pu’erh options: a generic shou, maybe a sheng, and possibly like a dessert pu’erh? You know, chocolate or toffee? Cornelia Bean had some really unique options though, which I definitely took advantage of – grabbing three of the several flavoured pu’erh options they carried.

Dry, this one smells strongly of black licorice/anise. Obviously that’s to be expected with a name like “Anise Pu’erh”, so if you’re smelling this one and expecting that not to be the case then that’s kind of nuts? If you do like anise/licorice, though, then this is right up your alley! So potent and aromatic. Just rich, indulgent and so intense.

Steeped, it’s a lot less monotone in flavour than the dry aroma would have you believe. I mean, it’s clearly a really strong black licorice/anise flavour but it’s not the only thing coming through. There’s also a mix of fairly strong earthy and woody notes, which give this a bit of an unrefined/natural sort of quality that I’m digging quite a bit. Other things going on in this are some cinnamon undertones, and a bit of an almost salty finish? The saltyness of the pu’erh combined with the black licorice notes REALLY makes me think of Salmiak, ie. Finnish Salted Liquorice.

It’s very smooth overall; and makes for a sweet and relaxing evening pot of tea that works as a dessert flavour, albeit not your typical one. I’m a fan!

Sipdown (842)!

Unfortunately not a great sipdown. The initial flavour was baked apple and cocoa powder, but the first was just so drying (and this is a fruit based herbal, it shouldn’t be drying at all) and chemical tasting; like plastic!? All in all this has been an increasingly less joyful tea to drink as I’ve explored it, so it sucks to say this but I really feel like I can’t finish this off and leave the rating intact at a “90”…

So, dropping it down and moving on from this blend!

From earlier in the month… Why do I have this rated so high!?

I know I’ve liked it in the past, but my last few cups have been SO apple heavy and sweet without nearly enough chocolate or marshmallow to truly warrant the name “S’mores” that I just feel like I have to lower my rating, even if those apple dominant cups do sometimes taste really good.

The dry aroma of this tea smelled really good this morning when I was trying to choose which teas I wanted to bring to work with me and that’s why I selected it – but I’m really now that the reason I was into the smell was because it smelled sweet and I was mostly just craving sugar…

When I steeped up the tea I had the exact same issue that I’ve had nearly every time I’ve made this tea – there’s simply too much apple in the blend! Today, that seemed to really bother me more than other days: I wanted creamy marshmallow/chocolate deliciousness and not sweet apple.

This was a really late night tea; I don’t remember much about it other than I was craving something sweet so I measured out extra marshmallow pieces into the dry leaf. It was creamy, with apple undertones but largely I just recall this having a vaguely ‘hot cocoa’ sort of quality to it that I found cozy and comforting.

Kind of like hot apple juice, but with a crispness to the finish and undertones of chocolate. Where are the marshmallows though!? I know that there were at least four in the leaf that I used for this cup, but I really don’t taste any creamy or toasty qualities that I’d expect from a S’mores tea…

Left the teabag in this while I was drinking this; didn’t ruin the cup but did make for a lot more apple notes in the infusion – kind of buried the chocolate a little bit. The result was an infusion that tasted more like apple slices dipped in marshmallow fluff rather than S’mores. Still delicious though.

Drank this one yesterday on shift;

It was a really busy day though, so I wasn’t able to stop this one from steeping until over an hour after I’d started steeping it. As you can likely imagine, that didn’t make for the best cup of tea. It was a pretty bad, lukewarm temperature and the flavour was very weighted towards the apple in the blend. In fact, it mostly tasted just like hot, thin/bland apple juice with some cocoa undertones. Very weird, kind of unpleasant.

I 100% don’t blame the tea though – I still think if I’d drank this one when it was still fresh and hadn’t let it steep for such a long period of time it actually would have tasted delicious like it did last time. I only have myself, and the busy day to blame. Such is the reality of working retail in December, though.

Last cup of the day!

So, unlike DT’s S’mores tea that they launched this year – this one is a herbal tea and the marshmallows in it are GIANT! I mean, totally NOT full sized marshmallows but the ones in DT’s blend look like a joke next to these guys. Plus, because marshmallows are so light there’s a ton of them in 50g. Technically speaking that means that this tisane probably isn’t actually vegetarian friendly. I’ve been a pretty damn strict vegetarian for around thirteen years now, but admittedly marshmallows are the only thing that I don’t withhold from my diet. I mean, I don’t go out of my way to eat them but they aren’t a deal breaker for me personally.

Steeped up this smells pretty heavenly; it’s mostly a mix of milk chocolate and apple aromas but there’s a marshmallow creaminess to it too! Very sweet overall, but with a softness. I imagine this will be a comforting/relaxing flavour. It’s weird ‘cause to me personally there’s definitely a summer/autumn association that comes along with S’mores ’cause of camping but yet the flavour profile works so well year round/as a wintery thing.

First few sips now and… Ahhh!

I was right; this is a really relaxing/comforting blend! It’s got three main flavours; two of which are ones you’d generally heavily associate with S’mores and that’s the marshmallow and chocolate. The last one is apple; but it’s just as much of a buttery apple as it is a sweet and very lightly tart one. It’s a touch weird, but not unwelcome. I don’t get the graham cracker, which is the other flavour note I would say is pretty linked with S’mores and without it being part of the profile this is almost more of a mashmallow topped hot chocolate kind of taste. I say almost, because it’s just a bit too much marshmallow to really drive home that hot cocoa association. So, I guess it sort of falls in this weird purgatory between the two associations?

I mean overall, this is damn smooth though and not overly sweet or lacking in flavour. I’m greatly enjoying it both as a dessert tea sort of profile and as a calming/relaxing night time option. It’s a very, very solid cup!

Song Pairing: https://youtu.be/z7SUrvYzjGU