Cameron B. select Send Message

Another subscription tea! From the 52teas October selection.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a Clark bar, but the description mentions Butterfinger as well, which I am definitely familiar with. I’ll have to remember to look for Clark the next time I’m in the candy aisle… You know, for science.

The base tea here is nice, it’s a black gunpowder which is unusual. I’m getting a very mellow smooth and bready flavor from it. The chocolate note is nice here, it’s not overly artificial and the combination of cacao nibs and chocolate chips means even I can taste it. :P

I will say I’m not sure I get toffee or peanut butter. There is a nuttiness that does remind me of peanuts a bit, and perhaps a slight buttery hint. So maybe more like peanut clusters for me?

Either way, it’s tasty but I’m not in love with it.

This came out a bit weak with the recommended parameters.

I can taste some spices, especially the ginger, and a hint of fluffy goodness along with some rice. Whispers of greatness…

I’ll have to remember to try it again tomorrow with more leaf. :D

This is from my Sips by box for November.

I’ve had a rather tumultuous experience with August Uncommon. There are a couple of their teas that I really like, but also a few that I thought were just bad. Hasn’t stopped me from recently ordering more samples, though! They added a lot of new teas while I was away.

This one is nice enough. The base tea is rather smooth and unremarkable, with a soft grassiness. I really like the vanilla here! It’s sweet and custardy and cakey and lovely. I would love to see this vanilla flavor used in an Earl Grey cream blend. The cardamom is mild but present, and strongest at the very beginning of the sip and in the aftertaste.

The flavors complement each other well, but for some reason they just don’t add up to a remarkable tea. Something more is needed, perhaps a hint of lemon or raspberry? I think this would also probably be tastier on an oolong base, or at least a nuttier green base. So it’s good, but not great unfortunately!

Okay, let’s get this over with…

I’m trying this more out of a feeling of obligation than any desire to drink it. I would feel weird not trying a tea at all and just putting it in my swap pile. So here we are. I am fully aware that I will likely hate this, I do not like rose and the dry tea smells overwhelmingly of it…

Yeah no, I hate this. It has a very strong rose flavor that reminds me of perfume, and a bit of a powdery quality. I do get a bit of clove at the end of the sip, which is pleasant enough I suppose.

No, just no.

I’ve sort of been avoiding unopened tea packages in an effort to keep them fresh longer while I sip down older teas. But I realized I really should probably keep up with my subscriptions instead of ending up with a giant backlog. Plus, it’s more fun to drink them at the same time as everyone else. CommuniTEA and all that!

This smells very true to its name in the pouch, sweet and candylike mixed fruits with orange being the primary aroma. I admit, I pulled out the bigger fruit pieces and broke them up, otherwise I find it hard to get a consistent flavor between cups.

Yum, I definitely like this one. The base is tasty but not too strong, and it has a nice smooth and thick flavor with notes of malt and honey. The fruity flavor is quite candylike, reminding me of the hard candies my grandmother used to have in a crystal dish on her coffee table – the ones where the raspberries actually look like raspberries. And I think there might have been some ribbon candy in the mix, too? Anyway, back to the tea. The fruit flavors I taste most are orange and strawberry, with a bit of raspberry in the background as well. The raspberry seems to come more to the forefront at the end of the sip, which is lovely.

Yummy! And definitely true to the name. I like how it manages not to be too cloying even though it does remind me of fruit candies.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American tea friends and their families!

Ugh, so tired from a veritable flurry of cooking this morning and afternoon… And of course, from eating. ;)

I placed my first Black Friday order, from Harney & Sons, so I thought I would celebrate with one of their teas. I originally had Heirloom Bartlett Pear in mind, but saw this beautiful blue tin in my cupboard and changed my mind. Plus, it seemed a great excuse to try out my cute new 8-ounce teacup from David’s… (As it turns out, these sachets have plenty of tea for a 12-ounce cup anyway, but oh well!)

I feel like this tea is somewhat underrated on Steepster for some reason… It’s such a light and soft Earl, with the sweet hay and oat notes of the white tea forming such a comforting base for the subtle bergamot. There’s a nice honeyed note as well that adds a lovely sweetness. It’s not the most complex of teas, but I find it so delicious in its simplicity.

Such a lovely way to relax while petting a snoring pug and watching Kiki’s Delivery Service. Ahhhhh…

Sipdown!

Trying to keep up the trend of sipping down old swap samples, this one is from Arby! I’ve never tried yabao before, but it sounds mighty interesting so here we go. I had a hard time deciding on steeping parameters, as the Western directions on their website are more like a hybrid style. In the end, I just steeped it like a black tea since it called for a temperature of just under boiling. The buds are quite fluffy so I used a whole tablespoon for my 12-ounce mug. Dry scent reminded me of oatmeal with a bit of a fresh vegetal note added in.

This is… odd. There’s definitely a crisp piney flavor, which I greatly enjoy in tea. It leaves a nice cooling sensation in the mouth and throat as well. There’s also some honeyed sweetness, and a lingering sweet aftertaste that coats the tongue and throat. A touch of floral? Something a bit cooked-green-beany near the end of the sip, and a very slight creamy oatmeal note underneath it all. Honestly, I was hoping for more oatmeal. There’s a strong and clear mineral note as well, like a cold stream running over stones.

Somehow the initial part of the sip reminds me of freezer-burned popsicle or something. The strong mineral and pine notes combined with the nectar-like sweetness are likely the culprit here. But in the middle and end of the sip, the vegetal and creamy grain flavors come out and change the dynamic a bit. Overall the mouthfeel is quite thick and coating. Noticing a bit of astringency after each sip as well.

Strange but good, I suppose! :P

Sipdown!

This is a (long overdue) sample from Kawaii433. I miss her! I heard she’s locked out of her account, I hope that gets resolved soon! She sent me a single piece of this and the rose version in our last swap. I love the cute star-printed plastic wrappers! :3

I figured I would steep this grandpa-style as the dragon ball would like take a bit to unfurl and I don’t generally do a lot of resteeps with my usual Western style. Using one piece for a 12-ounce glass tumbler so I can look upon the loveliness as this unfurls! Starting with 175-degree water for now.

I was surprised that the chrysanthemum blossoms softened and lifted off almost immediately! They floated to the top and settled there, being lovely and fluffy and pretty. Unfortunately I don’t think I taste them at all due to the enormous amount of tea here and the fact that it’s a rather robust Dian Hong variety.

The tea itself is rather intense (due to the concentration vs. amount of water) with strong, dark earth and leather notes. There’s a powerful maltiness here as well, and some softer wet wood flavors in the background. I get perhaps a hint of a very dark wheat bread. The wood increases a bit in prominence at the end of the sip, and lingers on the palate. I think I taste a very slight menthol note among all the deeper flavors.

Overall, it’s not my favorite. The tea itself isn’t terribly complex, and I tend to prefer the slightly lighter, more sweet potato-y Dian Hong teas. Unfortunately I didn’t taste the chrysanthemum at all, which honestly doesn’t surprise me given there are four small blossoms for such a large amount of black tea.

Still, perfectly pleasant to sip on at my desk while I work. :)

The first sachet to try from my random Amazon impulse tea purchase! OSULLOC is a Korean company located in Jeju province, which is an island off of the south coast. A lot of their teas seem to have native ingredients blended in with locally produced tea. And the packaging is so pretty! So naturally, I couldn’t resist buying a sampler… https://www.instagram.com/p/CH_h3TYAqph/

The directions recommended 5 ounces of water per sachet? Which I promptly disregarded since the sachets looked normal size and used about 8 ounces of water as I usually do (although to be honest, I’ve never measured it and could be completely wrong in my estimate…). The packaging calls the tea “post-fermented”, which immediately made me think of puerh. However, the listing here calls it oolong and the leaves also resembled an oxidized oolong or black tea. The liquor is also quite light amber in color, so… Your guess is as good as mine.

I will say, this is a lovely tea. To be fair, I don’t get a lot from the base tea, perhaps a hint of autumn leaf? The tangerine flavor is lovely and relatively accurate in my opinion, with a nice bright zingy flavor that make me think of clementines. There’s also a very sweet floral note that reminds me strongly of osmanthus. It melds so well with the tangerine here, which is the most prominent at the beginning of the sip. The osmanthus note is mellow at first sip, but then grows and shines near the end. The aftertaste is a pleasant mix of acidic tangerine peel and sweet floral nectar.

Overall, I’m very happy with this one. It’s a lovely light and very aromatic tea that feels fancy and special. The tangerine flavor is great and reminds me of my beloved Kumquat from Lupicia. A great start to my OSULLOC experience! :)

Dug this one out from the back of the cupboard to sip on while making pies this evening. I swear, my pouch is about 70% jasmine flowers ha ha.

This is okay. The oolong may as well not be there for all the flavor it adds, though perhaps it contributes to the mouthfeel a bit. The jasmine is quite strong, but it would probably be fine on its own. But when combined with the strong lemony orange flavors, it comes off somewhat perfumey. The orange reminds me a bit of candy, and the citrus flavors in general come off a bit artificial here, which I know they aren’t.

I feel like this tea could have been really good if they had just toned everything down a little bit. It would be nice to taste the oolong, for one, and the jasmine and orange are just too strong here. Oh well, I like the concept!