Lemon Lily

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Recent Tasting Notes

drank Sakura Latte by Lemon Lily
15575 tasting notes

One of two powders I picked up from Lemon Lily!

This one caught my attention for a few reasons. The first was the very simple ingredient list: powdered cherry blossoms petals and cane sugar. The second was the absolutely breath taking pastel pink colour. So stunning! I can just imagine the field day the creative director at DT would have taking photos of it.

I know it’s advertised as a latte powder, but I wanted to try it on its own first to get a more true sense of the taste. Whisked up it’s still a stunning pink colour. Fragile and soft and just really romantic looking!? I thought the taste, however, was lacking. Not unpleasant but just so incredibly light that I felt more like I was drinking the memory of sakura over the cherry blossoms themselves. I can only imagine that, with milk, it would have been even more masked.

So I think either you need to use a TON of the powder or this is really more of an aesthetic play over a flavour forward one. Both options kind of seem like a bummer…

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C2s0PrrOpqr/?img_index=1 (Second Pic)

Song Pairirng: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnGNKxk-F8E

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78
drank Canadian Maple by Lemon Lily
15575 tasting notes

Another Toronto Tea Festival buy!

Lemon Lily had a few interesting powders this year that I picked up, but aside from that this was the only LLT they had that caught my eye. Mostly because there was just so much maple sugar in the blend!

I made a giant mug of it a few nights ago and it was a little different than expected, but still very pleasant. More rooibos forward than I’d have imagined and despite such a large quantity of maple sugar the flavour was actually somewhat gentle and definitely not too sweet at all. As a first impression it was perhaps a smidge underwhelming but I think that’s because I had high expectations. My opinion after finishing the whole mug what that I could easily see this being the kind of tea that has a softer initial impression but ends up quickly being a long-term favourite because of the reliable flavour and the fact it’s not intense enough as to only fit very specific moods.

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Geek Steep S3E16 – Downton Abbey

This is the tea I drank while watching the episodes we’d selected. I knew pretty much immediately when we put this fandom in our season three outline that whatever tea I chose would be consumed out of a fine china teacup – and I held true to that.

As for the tea, I wanted something that had a strong “British High Tea” kind of vibe to it and this mash up of Earl Grey and Darjeeling was so strongly on the nose that I couldn’t dare pick something else. As someone with an almost embarrassingly large teaware collection, I know intellectually that very rarely is it the teaware itself that makes a tea good; it’s all just an accessory to a moment. But even still, there’s just something about drinking a good cup of Earl Grey from an antique teacup that just feels more correct. The bergamot is more aromatic and perfumed, and the black tea is more brisk and full-bodied. Plus, adding in handful of blackberries so perfectly ripe that they practically melt in your mouth certainly doesn’t hurt either.

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CwawdKqu5gJ/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COxBC7WkuIc

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drank Blueberry Pie by Lemon Lily
15575 tasting notes

Cold Brew!

I picked up a blueberry pie with my groceries over the weekend and, ever since, I’ve been really craving teas with that same thick, jammy blueberry note. I’m actually drinking this one currently, and it’s a little bonkers how eerily similar this blueberry taste is to that pie I so gleefully gobbled down. It’s not just that the blueberry flavour has the right amount of sweetness and that it lingers so nicely after each sip but that there’s a hard to explain thickness to the mouthfeel that almost makes the taste feel even more jammy – and it goes past the normal full body I’d expect from the black tea.

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drank Blueberry Pie by Lemon Lily
15575 tasting notes

Lemon Lily is a company that I’ve kind of had in my peripherals now for a few years, but no one has ever recommended them to me and I haven’t seen enough reviews to spark an order. They were at the festival though and I got to smell a bunch of their teas, so I decided to give them a shot and try the one that smelled best to me (this one) and the one that they identified as a best seller; review on that one at a later date…

We all know I’m a simple bitch who loves a blueberry blend, but I think the things that caught my attention with this one in particular was that is smelled shockingly sweet and juicy for an organic blend. In general, organic blends tends to have more “mellow” flavours because of the restrictions in organic compliant flavouring – among other factors that only add to the problem. The other thing I found interesting was the inclusion of butterfly pea flower. Not for the colour it adds to a blend (which makes sense thematically for a blueberry tea) but because they’re also so notoriously hard to source in organic…

I steeped up a mug last night, and I actually thought it was pretty dang good! I know I got some butterfly pea flower in the leaf I measured out, but I didn’t really see a significant impact in my steeped colour. Not that I particularly care, personally. The taste was nice. Definitely on the sweeter side, and not nearly as bright as I’d expected given the intensity and freshness of the aroma – but certainly not lacking in flavour.

It’s hard for any blueberry black tea to beat out Blueberry Jam, which is a DT blend that I just love but this would be a pretty suitable back up for me if I ever found myself in the highly unlikely situation where that tea was no longer available to me.

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68

Sipdown (617)!

A little bit brisker than I recall it being the last time I steeped this up, with a lightly astringent finish. Still a drinkable cup though; relatively average in terms of quality and more of a generic fruity sweetness over “cherry” or “vanilla” specifically – but it doesn’t taste bad! Thanks for the share VariaTEA!

VariaTEA

I totally forgot about this one. I had such high Hope’s from this tea that I bought at an ice cream shop and it was so mediocre

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68

This is the other tea that I brewed up when I got home from work tonight. A caffeinated pick to try and help with the whole staying up late/sleeping in tomorrow thing. Also just because I haven’t had this one in close to literal ages…

I definitely did that thing where I made my tea then set it aside and forgot about it for a while, so when I did get back to drinking it the temperature was weird and lukewarm. Flavour wise, it’s… interesting? I mean, I guess that’s the best word. The big thing that’s throwing me off is the fact that it tastes like under ripe bananas to me. I mean, that’s not a bad flavour but it’s just so far off from what it’s meant to actually taste like. Apart from the weird banana thing, it’s got malty cereal(ish) notes, a hint of grenadine, some malt, and a bread-y finish. It’s just so, well, weird.

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68

Many, many thanks to VariaTea for sending this to me… ages ago!

I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get around to; all my ziploc samples are in a different box/part of my cupboard and because of that they so frequently get forgotten about. I should really do something about that!

Anyway, my thoughts!

- A little bitter/astringent
- I get both the cherry and vanilla though!
- Probably would have assumed this was a sort of wonky Monk’s Blend though…
- Had I not read the ingredients, anyway
- Hmmm, maybe a little cough syrup-y as it cools down though?

Yeah; bottom line is that this one smells really good but when it comes down to taste it leaves me a little unimpressed. I don’t dislike it though, and I think with some tweaking it might be redeemable. My first thought is that it could be a sweeter iced tea, and if it works well with milk that might take the edge of some of that astringency/bitterness?

I’ll have to see what I end up doing, though.

VariaTEA

Yeah, I also was disappointed by this one especially when you take into consideration that it’s a specialty blend for one of the most popular ice cream shops in the city. It just fell flat. I hoped you’d have more luck.

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75

GCTTB

Hmm. This is ok. Woke up this morning in an adventurous frame of mind. Usually, I want my first tea of the day to be a sure thing, something truly worth waking up for. Today I was prepared to take a risk.

It’s raining here and the sky is muddled. As it turns out, the flavours with this black tea base are muddled too. Both the cherry and vanilla are bits of fly by, faint whispers of each on the tail end of the sip. I am enjoying this cup. That said, I think I would enjoy this cup far more had I not had greater expectations of the flavours that would be present. For me, this tea needs more experimentation.

Thank you, VariaTEA, for adding this to the box.

Flavors: Cherry, Cocoa, Vanilla

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 5 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML
Sil

yeah…it’s an indoor rainy eta drinking sort of day for me up here.

Evol Ving Ness

Yes, I have quite a list of things to do, but most can be accomplished with a mug of tea in hand or in my travel mug close by. The best kind of days.

Sil

i’m going to see how close to 60 i can get today :D

VariaTEA

Go Sil, go!

Evol Ving Ness

hahahha, Sil. You kill me. Go, girl!

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drank Cherry Vanilla by Lemon Lily
606 tasting notes

This makes me think of Cherry Vanilla coke, but without the coke under taste. I don’t know what it is about this one, but I absolutely love it. I added some milk and rock sugar because I prefer it that way. I find the sugar pulls out the cherry flavour much better. And I like the milk to just smooth it all out and bring it all together. This tea is just such a lovely blend.

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66
drank Sweet Jesus Blend by Lemon Lily
15006 tasting notes

Another sample from VariaTEA. this one is a miss for me. It’s not a bad tasting tea, it’ s just not sure of what it wants to be. All i got from this one for the most part was “sweet”

VariaTEA

This is actually a good description of this tea tbh.

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53
drank Sweet Jesus Blend by Lemon Lily
6444 tasting notes

Made this as a teapop. I think this is the best prep method so far but still not my favourite. It was actually sort of weird because when I poured it over the ice, it had a coffee with milk color to it despite me simply brewing the tea and adding nothing to it. I have no idea what is in this that would do that since I was expecting a clear liquid.

Tastewise, I’m still having trouble coaxing out the cherry and vanilla. I get the base and maybe some creaminess I can blame the vanilla for but cherry is completely MIA. Perhaps next time I’ll toss in sweetener or grenadine to help this out because so far it has been a miss for me.

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53
drank Sweet Jesus Blend by Lemon Lily
6444 tasting notes

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53
drank Sweet Jesus Blend by Lemon Lily
6444 tasting notes

I ended up waking up very early this morning so I had time to brew a teapop and between the cherry, vanilla, and grenadine, I thought this would be awesome. Turns out I was wrong. It’s not bad but it is not great. I’m find the flavors, though present, are really flat. I get notes of vanilla sweetness and a cherry/grenadine mix (think maraschino cherries) is probably the most prominent flavor and yet these flavors should be bright and sweet and dessert-like but they just aren’t. It is almost as if there is flavor deterioration but since this is stored properly and purchased fairly recently that should not be the case. I will continue to explore though and hopefully find a way to coax out the flavors.

Evol Ving Ness

Too bad. It showed such promise.

VariaTEA

My thoughts exactly. I have a lot left though so I’ll just have to change the steeping parameters and see what happens

Evol Ving Ness

Do you have any Monk’s Blend handy, the one with grenadine? That might make a good mix for a teapop.

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53
drank Sweet Jesus Blend by Lemon Lily
6444 tasting notes

I picked up a tin of this yesterday and was really hoping for the best given it was fairly expensive ($17/100g) however I think this cup was either overleafed (4tsps) or oversteeped (4min) because this isn’t all that awesome.

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53
drank Sweet Jesus Blend by Lemon Lily
6444 tasting notes

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60

Wanted to give it another try but still not a fan of it.

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60

Got this from the Toronto Tea Festival as I’m trying to cut coffee derived caffeine on work day mornings (really not a morning person…) and switch to tea derived caffeine instead. This looked promising, since it had a combination of coffee and tea. It has loose leaf puer and coffee beans, mixed with brown granules that I would guess is sugar and perhaps some other flavours. Trying this now just brewed in water, but I think this could work nicely as a latte. Taste-wise I find its still more puer than coffee, and thats probably because the coffee beans are still kept whole in this blend, so I can’t imagine a lot of coffee extraction going on.

I also found that because the leaves and coffee beans are quite light relative to the sugar granules, it takes a bit of work to scoop out a nice even blend of the tea, coffee and sugar. The one improvement suggestion I’d have is to have the sugar separately added which avoids this problem from happening – I think it’ll be quite uneven once I approach the end of the blend.

Flavors: Brown Sugar, Leather, Molasses

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 45 sec 2 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
Anlina

I really liked this coffee & tea blend if you’re looking for a different one to try. http://www.luxberrytea.com/collections/black-tea/products/cocoa-java-black-tea I’m not sure if their site is in CAD$ but theu do free shipping in Canada for any quantity.

leaf in hot water

oh that one sounds great! and they even have chocolate in it…yummm

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75
drank Cafe Caramel Pu-erh by Lemon Lily
15006 tasting notes

I figured i should try this as a straight tea before i finished up so i brewed this one according to the instructions in just water. The result very much reminds me of a latte – toned down. I get little to now caramel but i DID remove all the sugar from this package so maybe that’s what brings the caramel to teh yard – er tea…. Not a bad cup. but nothing i need to restock, especially given the amount of sugar that was added to this blend. :(

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75
drank Cafe Caramel Pu-erh by Lemon Lily
15006 tasting notes

after dinner latte – though tonight i used a sifter to get rid of all the sugar in my bag before i brewed it…HOLY CRIPES there was a lot of sugar in this. Lemon Lily – that is a vote against you since at the rate i was looking at, at least 20% of the bag’s weight was that sugar. and really? if i want a tea that is sweet, i can add my own. but you know what? this tea doesn’t need it.

Final Count: 155 which is up, but not so bad since i added teas to my cupboard today AND managed to sip some down!

TeaLady441

Cripes, I haven’t even tried this one yet! :O But I agree – that’s way too much sugar!

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75
drank Cafe Caramel Pu-erh by Lemon Lily
15006 tasting notes

Cavocorax and i split this one at the tea festival. As i was pulling this one out to brew it, i realised that there was a bunch of granules in the bag that i hadn’t remembered seeing when we divided the bag. When i looked at the ingredients though, i suspect that these are the palm sugar. i brewed this up anyway, though as i suspected it’s a little too sweet for my tastes. I made it in latte form to add to the creaminess but the sugar is a little much. I may see if i can filter the sugar out of the bag. Cavo – if you try this and it could benefit from some sugar let me know hahaha.

Overall though, not a bad cup, and one i’ll likely to keep brewing as a latte. It’s a nice coffee/tea blend as far as coffee/tea blends go. I’m not the worlds largest fan of that sort of thing, but it’s a nice thing to have occasionally!

TeaLady441

LOL. Thanks for the warning!

Sil

personally i want the sugar gone.

leaf in hot water

I got this at the tea festival too! finding it hard to measure out the tea, beans, and sugar consistently, the difference in size is too much to keep things uniform.

Sil

i got rid of the sugar. it’s unnecessary

Indigobloom

I was curious about this one too but more because I really wanted to buy something from them to try and it was the only one that was a somewhat non standard tea (caffeinated). Ultimately not a good enough reason. Still, I’m glad to see it reviewed :)

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40
drank Avonlea by Lemon Lily
350 tasting notes

Tried this cold-steeped (are you noticing a pattern here? I am, in fact, trying to get rid of tea samples I was less fond of by cold steeping them). This is still just the weirdest flavour combination ever. It smells and tastes quite spicy, lots of ginger and also some cinnamon. But then there’s the tartness of the hibiscus, which is just a really odd thing to mix with those spices. I don’t detect any maple, and the honeybush is also pretty mellow this way. Weird weird weird. Anybody want the rest of this sample?

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40
drank Avonlea by Lemon Lily
350 tasting notes

Another weird one! Postal Teas / Lemon Lily, you’re not impressing me. This one also has a powder visibile in the bag, though the powder is sweet and obviously maple. The ingredient list has “Canadian Maple Flakes”, so I guess if you beat those up you get Canadian Maple Dust. Steeping instructions were “2 tea spoons @ 200F for 4-6 mins”. I measured out a level (1.5) tsp and then topped it up a bit to make 4g for my 10oz mug. Water at around 90C, steeped for 4min.

Ok, in the bag, this smells extremely gingery. So I was ready for it to be a ginger-honeybush tisane, and then… huh, the steeped liquid smells mostly kind of earthy or plant-y (is that the honeybush?). The taste is slightly tart from the hibiscus (it’s not overdone, but… I’m still not sure why it’s there in the first place?). I’m only getting ginger in the aftertaste, with a slightly warming quality. There’s a very slight sweetness from the maple. I don’t detect any cinnamon. I don’t understand this tisane at all! Like, it’s not terrible, I’ll drink it, but I do not see what the point was of combining this particular set of ingredients. I’m just stting here, sipping, going “but… WHY?”.

Flavors: Ginger, Hibiscus, Rooibos

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 4 min, 0 sec 4 g 10 OZ / 295 ML
yyz

It sounds like they were trying to do something inspired by the Carribean drink Sorrel and failed. http://hungry-belly-recipes.tumblr.com/post/40522408967/sorrel-drink-caribbean-drink

Sorrel is related to hibiscus and tastes like a milder version of it. If sorrel itself isn’t available I know some people that use hibiscus for the drink.

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40
drank Pomteani by Lemon Lily
350 tasting notes

This is a weird tea. In the bag, with the black tea leaves, safflower petals, and citrus peel, there’s this granular, powdery substance. The lemon lily website has “pomegranate powder” in the list of ingredients they use, so I’m guessing that’s what it is. I tasted some of the powder left behind on the scale, and it… didn’t really tast like anything. Weird. Steeping instructions on the label were “2 tea spoons @ 212F for 4-6 mins”. I measured out 1.5tsp (one level “tea spoon”) and it was 3.4g, which seemed like plenty for my 9oz mug. Steeped for 2 min, tasted, it was kind of bland. Steeped for one more min, tasted, it was starting to get a bit tart/bitter, so I figured it was time to stop. This brews into a dark orange liquor. It smells like… red fruit, could be pomegranate I guess. It actually smells like it has hibiscus in it, though it doesn’t. It tastes mostly citrusy and slightly sour/bitter from the orange and lime peel. Where is the black tea hiding in all of this? If I were tasting it blind I would assume this was a tisane. Bizarre.

Flavors: Citrus, Red Fruits, Sour

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 9 OZ / 266 ML
TeaNecromancer

yeah, that does not sound like a tea I would be fond of

Lindsay

It left this brown, powdery debris at the bottom of the cup. o_O

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