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Why is this sweet?! I was hoping for a nice, straightforward tea that lives up to its name. Instead I’m tasting sweetness at the front of the sip, so much like stevia that I had to check the ingredients list. Stevia isn’t on there, so I’m guessing that the sweetness is coming from the licorice root. Unfortunately I can’t shake that stevia vibe and I really really dislike stevia. Thankfully this is a sipdown and I’m counting it towards Mastress Alita’s January 2022 sipdown challenge as paired with a favorite hobby because I drank it (or tried to) while decorating my planner for the week.

Second sipdown of the year and of Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge for January 2022! I divided this sample into two small cups so I could try it both straight and as a latte with oat milk & brown sugar. It’s definitely better as a latte. Both ways, the flavoring tastes like sugar cookies but I’m missing the snickerdoodle spice. Straight, the black tea is very present but pretty generic tasting – frankly I’d rather have the snickerdoodle flavoring be stronger at that point if I’m already having a dessert tea and there’s nothing interesting about the base. As a latte, the oat milk and sugar drown out the base tea and highlight the sugar cookie flavor, which definitely makes for a tastier and more enjoyable cup for my palate – think brown sugar black milk tea from the boba shop.

Pretty sure this is my first sipdown of 2022, finally! This bag is so so very old but I’ve been liking it more lately than I did when I first got it. Probably because the flavors have mellowed and melded better over time. Nowadays it actually is more carrot cake-y, especially with oat milk. For my last mug, I added some vanilla agave for an extra boost to the pastry vibe. Good choice for (literally) weathering a storm tonight. Stay safe folks!

edit This serendipitously counts towards Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge for January 2022! It’s a cream-flavored tea – there’s literally whipped cream flavoring in this. I think when I first bought this I wouldn’t have said so, because the carrot, licorice, and apple flavors were so sharp, but now that they’re more mellow I can enjoy the other flavors too.

With 2022 really living down to expectations, I’ve been finding more solace in being intentional about my tea lately. This week was particularly rough personally. I was hoping that Shabbat would be a good reset, but then I came back online only to learn of the Colleyville synagogue hostage situation. At least I was already drinking a good tea – this smooth, naturally creamy milk oolong. I drank four steeps western style before leaving the fifth overnight. Usually I gong fu any oolong from Te but today I really wanted just a big comforting mug of something that I knew wouldn’t disappointment me.

Celebrating my birthday today with Sueyoshi Tea Atelier #001: “Furusato no Hana” Saemidori Fukamushi Kabusecha from Kagoshima, from Yunomi. I had planned on going with a roasted oolong from my birth year, but then today came around and I found myself more in the mood for a thick Japanese green. This fit the bill so well – umami with grassy undertones and a thick mouthfeel that lasts through many steeps. It made me crave juice for some reason, so while I was drinking this I noshed on strawberry cheesecake and set up some iced tea with Te Company’s hibiscus for later. Then I watched the new Matrix movie with my SO, which I have some thoughts about but tbh am primarily obsessed with the hair and fashion. Not bad for a covid-year birthday celebration.

Love this hibiscus tea. It’s different from others in that it consists of whole hibiscus flowers, and has a different flavor profile than hibiscus usually does. Yes, it’s tart, but the tartness is gentle and secondary to the juicy sweetness of the brew (which is also delicious cold, but tonight I kept it hot). Delish.

Today was a fun teamail day, with deliveries arriving from DAVIDsTEA, Tea Thoughts, and Simple Loose Leaf! I was really curious about this blend so I broke into it right away. After two steeps I remain somewhat underwhelmed. It’s creamy and floral but I think I want to play around with it a bit more to figure out how to get the most out of this tea.

GeekSteep has me rewatching Deep Space Nine, and this is one of the teas I happened to be drinking with it. No actual planning went into that match but it’s memorable now because I was having a tea soda of this when watching the Duet episode, which I had forgotten is an absolutely gripping and incredible episode of television. Not a lot of shows even try to do holocaust episodes – even fewer do them well. Highly recommend both the tea and the show – and specifically Duet, though make sure you have the time to focus on it because you won’t be able to multitask. As always, this is a tea that benefits from following brewing recommendations strictly or else the pineapple flavor gets drowned out by the barley. The up side of this is that you can get multiple steeps out of it, and that making a tea soda is as simple as drinking about 2/3 of the cup, waiting for it to cool, and then adding seltzer.

Ok wow! I’ve been away from Steepster for a few years and things have… changed! Somehow I totally missed the news about the Adagio takeover? Would love to hear from folks who have been here throughout about how that has gone, if you are up for sharing.

Anyway, 2021 is finally over and hopefully this year will be just a smidge better for us all. In that spirit, I wanted to ring it in with a cheerful tea that I knew wouldn’t disappoint. This tea is really old now but it still delivers. I brewed exactly as directed, although I did add an extra teaspoon of leaf to compensate for the age. With a touch of brown sugar to bring out the flavor, it’s still perfection. The rose hits first, followed by cream mid-sip and ending on what I can only describe as somehow a bubbly note that really does evoke champagne. I even managed to get three good steeps out of it by steeping the third one for almost 20 minutes. All in all, a great tea to start the year with.

This smells delightfully like marzipan. It tastes like it too, along with notes of grass and umami. I get two solid steeps out of the tea. It reminds me of Della Terra’s Almond Biscotti blend, although that one had a cookie note absent here and this one has a grassiness absent there. The almond candy flavor is a dead ringer though.

This is probably one of my favorite DavidsTea blends even though it’s not particularly unique. It’s just extremely solid and tasty, especially if you drink it before it cools.