TeaGschwendner

Sipdown (272)

Sil stopped by this morning to do a tea exchange again which is probably why one of the teas she gave me in our last exchange caught my mind today. Also, the mix of rooibos and black tea, which usually I would not care for, appealed to me today because it split the difference between caffeine and the hydration of a rooibos.

This one has a great caramel flavor, though I think I prefer the caramel flavor in their plain Caramel tea vs. this one. Both are nice though. The rooibos comes through slightly in flavor, which takes away from this one for me. It does have a creamy element though, which adds to it. So overall it levels out and I am grateful for the chance to have tried it. Thank you Sil!

Thank you Sil for sharing this one with me! I have had salted caramel on the brain for a few days now and this is hitting the spot nicely (though I may make a salted caramel oolong latte later if the mood strikes). I was worried about the rooibos in it would be overwhelming since lately I seem to find rooibos flavor takes over, but its got a soft caramel flavor. There is some of the base but it works with the caramel rather than against it. It tastes like the soft caramel chews you almost only see on Halloween that come wrapped individually in see-through plastic with white writing. It’s not the best caramel flavor but its distinctively caramel and thus doing what I want it to do.

Latte Sipdown (324)

Sil did not have much luck with this so she sent some my way in hopes of me having better luck with it. Thank you for sharing!

In light of Sil’s issues, I decided to make the sample as a latte and I used a mix of homo milk and 1% to give it a bit more body. It’s not bad but also its quite bland. Maybe sort of nutty but not all that interesting.

Sipping this down from last year’s advent. It is also called Sahne (cream in German from what translation apps are telling me). I love big healthy servings of tea in my advents, but I also don’t like them because I’m left with a ton of samples to go through if I didn’t like the tea. I suppose I could compost them, but that would be sacrilegious! LOL! I could put them in my get rid of pile and maybe send them off to someone else to try in a TTB or something. With this I opted to dump both remaining servings worth in my steeping basket despite that method going wrong for me the other day with another tea. I never learn.

This tea is a little bland, which is probably why I didn’t bother making an entry for it in the Steepster database when I first tried it. I taste the cream they are going for, more of a vanilla on a malty base. Then I get some carrots in there because damn my snacking 10 minutes ago and then I almost get a mint in the finish. It falls into my “nice enough of a tea, but not very exciting” category. Sorry, Sahne or Cream or whatever your name is.

An Ode to Tea challenge – Z

Another fun challenge idea! I’m not quite finished with the Tea Tournament but I thought I’d start this. Thanks very much, Mastress Alita!  So my particular rules for the Ode to Tea challenge is that these teas MUST A) be a true sipdown! last steep session! OR B) be a tea I have never written about yet.  So I will have 26 sipdowns OR it will get me to write about a new-to-me tea!    I’m also starting at Z and working backwards because I’m already so far behind everyone anyway. :D
This tea is a sipdown!  It’s an odd one but tasty and unique.   It is the closest thing to being a Ruby varietal, while not actually being a Ruby varietal.  It reminds me of the almond nougat in one of those chocolates.  It’s really good!   WHOA though – seeing HOW EXPENSIVE this is now when I went to see if they still had it.  Whoa,  thank you again for share, SkySamurai and I’m glad I finished it while it was fresh!  Solid three steeps…. now wishing I went for a fourth.
2021 sipdowns: 43

SkySamurai’s mystery advent tea #4 backlog from 12/17
Hmm, I wonder if SkySamurai will try to trick me with some of these teas.  This LOOKS like a black tea, but slightly dusty or purplish.  But then the instructions say to steep at 185 degrees so now I’m really doubting if this is a black tea.  The brew looks very light brown but upon tasting it, it seems to me like a Ruby varietal.  That plumy, marzipan, but with a hint of menthol type flavor.  I really like Ruby teas.  If I had to have a second guess, I would think it was a very flavorful purple tea, but I don’t think purple teas are usually this flavorful.  The second steep is very faded in flavor, mostly tasting of minerals, so this is another clue that makes me think it is a Ruby varietal.  They always fade on me with the second steep. haha. Was I correct? NO.   Also never heard of zealong!!  This is apparently a black tea from New Zealand that has something to do with oolong!
Steep #1 // 1 1/3 teaspoons // 24 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 10 minutes after boiling // 3 min
2020 Sipdowns: 102 (one of Mandala’s puerhs – forgetting the name now…)

Tea advent – this is very nice, smooth, and yeasty. The first steep was a bit more balanced, with cocoa notes and no bitterness. Smells more cocoa than it tastes. The second steep is mostly yeasty and malty, like the grain mixture before its fermented into beer. There’s a striking difference between the first and second steep, I actually forgot it was steeping so it went a bit long, but that didn’t help the second steep retain much of the depth of the first. In all it was a yummy tea, glad I got to try it.

This is the first time I’ve had another tea resemble a Darjeeling without being one. There is no dry aroma but it does have a nice wet aroma with various wet wood smells. It has the muscatel notes but the presence of woody notes is stronger. The steep time is finicky. Two minutes is fine but I felt like it needed a bit more so I left it in longer. But it ended up being a bit too long. Luckily this is my second cup so I know this slight tannic flavor and astringent feeling are only due to the over steeping. Wet wood and forest floor after a rain. Just a brisk rain, not a heavy downpour. Can be steeped up to two times but the third infusion lost a lot.

A sad sipdown! This was good to the last drop. This was a gift from White Antlers, whose comments I really miss on here!

Creamy, boozy, chocolate tea. I am so glad it is available not too terribly far away at Tin Roof Teas in Raleigh. I will wait until I have a few more sipdowns to replace it, but I really do want this one back on shelf.

For the prompt: A tea from a place you’d like to visit…what do I do? I don’t want to visit anywhere. I want to stay home. I am a dyed in the wool homebody.

Well, the only place far away I have been is Ireland, and I would love to go back there someday but I don’t have any tea from there that I can recall, so a tea that evokes something very Irish and Scottish will have to do.

This was a gift from White Antlers and there was a whole bag of it. It is nearly gone, and this is a definite re-order unless I come across a better boozy, rich tea and I don’t expect that to happen. Thankfully, it is sold at Tin Roof Teas in Raleigh, NC and easy for me to get.

Ashman and I don’t drink, but I bet this would be an awesome tea to add a little burble of something on a cold night. As it was, I enjoyed it for a lovely breakfast alone on the patio on a rare, cool, low humidity morning. Perfect.

I had whiskey flavored tea for breakfast. How is your day going?

Felt weirdly tired last night but didn’t go to bed early. Dog woke me up at 3:45 to go out. His walkies schedule has been off due to patio work. Laid in bed until 5 when I heard our gate rattle and saw the motion sensor light go off. Took dog back out to seek intruders. Usually it is a raccoon, possum, or cat, but this may have been one of the many domestic rabbits that escaped from a neighbor who was trying to start a rabbit breeding operation. No culprit found, but apparently there were fascinating scents left behind because doggie didn’t want to come back in so I let him enjoy the excitement of running back and forth, nose to ground experiencing all the rich aromas of whatever had made the early morning visit.

I had a cherry vanilla bagel in the freezer and decided to do a crossword and have early brekkie while everyone was still asleep. (Wow, I’m old.) This seemed the perfect tea for today.

I don’t really know anything about whiskey, or whisky, but I did taste a sip of Bailey’s Irish Cream once at my son-in-law’s behest. It was tasty but the fire of the alcohol didn’t super appeal.

This tastes similar, with cream and cocoa and boozy taste sans fire. I feel like there is vanilla with the cocoa as well.

Now the dog owes me a cuddle and the world owes me a nap. And since I have seen three black and white bunnies from where I sit, I am betting it was rabbits that set off the lights.

This was a most welcome gift from White Antlers, as I had been looking at whiskey flavored tea for some time and hadn’t ordered yet. This one is a winner.

Its a lightly flavored sweet tea and it is one of the few pineapple teas where there isn’t a generic tropical flavor . I can really taste the pineapple! The black tea base is more of the background flavor here.

Smells and tastes like orange. I love orange flavored teas and end up a little disappointed a lot because the flavor of the orange does not always come through or it overpowers the base tea. This one is a good balance of the orange and the oolong. The light notes of orange mix with the lightly toasted oolong.

The almond is more mild than I expected, but the black tea is rich enough that I decided to not mute it by adding milk. The almond has that sweet amaretto quality to it. I’m sure it was stronger when it was fresh, but even now, this one seems pretty high quality.

Actually this might be my least unfavorite lemon rooibos I’ve tried. Usually, they’re like floor cleaner to me. Here, the lemon is mild and not too fake, and it really seems to mix well with the rooibos. It’s still not an excellent tea, still a bit weird tasting, but I’m happy to have enjoyed a cold cup of it.

With milk, this silky smooth incense tea may end up as one of my favourites over time. There’s sandalwood alongside all of that anise, vanilla, jasmine and spice too. Such a happy tea (except for maybe the tea name, which is a bit outdated in my neck of the woods).

Steep Count: 2

Edit Apparently, there is lemongrass in this, and anise + vanilla aren’t listed as actual ingredients (flavouring may fall under “natural flavours”). Regardless, I like this one a lot. I swear I’ve had it before under a different name too; there’s a bit of nostalgia to this blend.

This was included as a sample in my most recent order. Thank you!

Compared with the more pithy grapefruit teas I’ve been drinking lately, this one is kind of muted (or gentler). As a hot cup, the base is kind of smoky and vegetal, like asparagus. The citrusy grapefruit and guava are equal parts bitter and sweet. The guava in particular adds a mild flowery element.

As a cold brew the green base is smoother and subdued.. everything is actually. It was pretty sweet and mild, but refreshing enough.

While I prefer a more pithy and nippy grapefruit flavour and less smoky green teas I did enjoy the novelty of the guava here; it’s a different ingredient than what I’m used to! It smells lovely too.

Sipdown! I like having this one on rotation periodically in to my cupboard. It’s not a knowck your socks off tea, but it’s one of my preferred “cacao” teas…likely because it’s not trying to be hot chocolate and has a bit of spice to it.

Had this earlier today. I keep meaning to try it as the box suggests – as more of a latte version, but i forgot. AGAIN. Like the chocolate/chili of this one. Wish i could take advantage of 1$ shipping promo with tea G again