The NecessiTeas

I just spent a couple of hours wrapping presents in front of a fire and drinking tea, so I’m riding on a post-holiday-activity high right now and need to SIMMA DOWN NAH before I trot off to bed. I figure that cranking out a few more teas from my backlog notes is just a good of a wind down activity as any, so here we go!

Lena and I swapped teas recently [well, she sent me teas in a timely manner; mine just got put in the mail yesterday, sorry Lena!] and this is the first one that I tried because it smelled so good and I thought strawberry shortcake sounded appetizing. Halfway through steeping, I thought to read her log, and I became a little scared that I wasn’t going to like this.

I found myself surprised in a very good way. The strawberries were definitely present in my cup. Distinctly strawberry, too, not unidentified-slightly-tart-fruit-taste which usually indicates the presence of hibiscus. And even more surprisingly, I could taste the little sponge cake, too, specifically the little yellow cups you can buy in a grocery store that come in a cellophane package on a plastic tray. Yes, it’s that specific to me. And even more surprisingly, I got a little hint of cream in the taste.

As a small disclaimer, this did not happen as blatantly as I am making it sound. It is a light, subtle kind of tea, but just strong enough for me to be able to pick out all the flavors. Drinking it quickly would not help with this tea because I mainly was able to get the flavors when I held it in my mouth and swished it around a bit. The strawberries lingered in the aftertaste with that kind of sweet tartness they tend to leave. Also, it is very possible I hit a sweet spot with the water temperature and steep time. I am going to have to try this again to see if I can duplicate the experience.

The tea was also so light that I didn’t go for a second steep. I might experiment later on, but something tells me it wouldn’t hold up well.

Really, this tea was firing on all cylinders. Afterward, I felt like I had just downed a very light, but very good strawberry shortcake. I’m not sure that I’ve ever had a tea that’s supposed to taste like a food item ever replicate it so closely. So thanks, Lena! This made for a very nice cup indeed.

Carrot Cake is a sumptuous and spicy dessert tea. It’s got a thickly pleasing cakey and nutty taste and aftertaste. I love me a great full-bodied dessert tea and I also like lots of variety in my pantry. The NecessiTeas has blended a truly distinctive mix. It’s not derivative of any other tea I have sampled thus far—and if you drink dessert teas you know that many of them are rather “same-ish” and the differences do not trumpet themselves forth.

While this tea is nicely spicy, it’s careful not to allow the spice to overwhelm the natural sweetness of a carrot cake.

One test I apply to a tea is asking myself this question: Must I have it in stock at all times in case of a craving?

There are many teas which I don’t need to have at my fingertips, although I like them. There are other teas which I would reorder in the fullness of time. There are teas I could cheerfully live without and there are teas that I will carefully avoid. This is a tea that I will reorder when my supply is running low-ish.

Silky Sencha, very good blending of the lemon and raspberry, no chemical whiff – an issue with me. Didn’t expect to like it as well as I did.

2.25g/6oz. Since I’m flavoring everything (namely matcha) lately I decided to flavor this. 1 teaspoon of spiced rum creamer added. The creamer does not cover the strawberry, although it does cover up the white tea taste quite a bit. It tastes like a steamer now. Allbeit a LOVELY steamer. There’s a wonderful, slightly syrupy, strawberry texture and the creamer brings out the shortcake component of this tea. The only thing I don’t like about this tea is that the leaves look like they’ve been put thru a spice mill which not only lead me to believe that the quality isn’t very good, but the leaves get caught in the cover of my teapot when I pour it.

infusion 5, 9 min. Liquor and aroma not much, if at all, lighter than infusion 4. Now THIS is the white tea I wanted! No strawberry or cakey flavor, but it is still sweet. A good white tea flavor. I’ll keep resteeping it. I actually like that by infusion 5 the strawberry is gone because it tastes like a completely different tea w/o steeping something different.

infusion 4, 8 min. Liquor and aroma are lighter. Can’t speak for the flavor again though- this one was mom’s.

3rd infusion… The liquor is just more like the 1st steep. The aroma is slightly lighter, still sweet but no cakey aroma. Really no cake flavor either although the strawberry flavor is still very much there. Because of that I’ll steep at least one more time.

2nd steep. Aroma is strong like the 1st and the liquor is only slightly lighter. Can’t speak for the flavor though, making this infusion for my mom who’s just starting her prep for her colonoscopy tomorrow. I’m still convinced there are some black leaves in here. There are a lot of dark leaves that are unfortunately also finely minced.

I got this in a tea swap (thanks Lena!:D) and it was labeled w/ just the name and company name. I was not around a computer when I prepared this to look at the “as directed” preparation so I guessed. Inspite of what the dry leaf looked like (green or white) I just assumed it was a black tea because most dessert teas are black. If I would have known this was a white tea, I would have not only prepared it properly, I would have been MUCH more thrilled about it because I prefer white and green teas and I’m always looking for more dessert teas.

The fact that this is a white tea is why I thought the liquor was pretty light for a black tea… medium brown. The scent was definitely that of strawberries… strawberry jam to be exact. When I taste it I can definitely taste the strawberry jam flavor, but (thankfully) I can also taste the pound cake that short cake is made from. But most importantly, inspite of me screwing this one up, I can still taste the tea. YAY! A sign of a good tea is you can screw it up buy not steeping it the way you intended to and it still tastes good. This would be good to use in a simple syrup to sweeten strawberries instead of plain water.

A strong banana with a slight strawberry taste and green tea. This I’s decent.

This was decent.

The banana I’s too strong in this.

Mainly could taste the roobios,then the bananna,strawberry,and chocolate. Good but really sweet.

This has white tea,angel food flavor,bavarian cream and strawberries. You can see the ingredients. I’t smells mostly like white tea and strawberry. I steeped this for a couple or so minutes. This tastes like white tea with a kind of sweet strawberry and a kind of cake cream to I’t. Pretty good. Would of been better if the strawberry tasted abit tart.

Word of warning this green tea got bitter no matter how short I steeped I’t. The berry and cream components were great but,the green tea base had to lower my score considerably.

This has black tea,roobios,coconut,and vanilla shavings. While I liked the black tea and the vanilla and the roobios gave a sweetness,the coconut was too strong. And well I do not like coconut.

Ok, take two.

Smell of leaves dry…amazing.
Smell of leaves wet…still pretty fantastic.
The tea steeps up all nice and dark…still smellin’ fab.

The taste is just not there! I can taste the angel food cake and bavarian cream flavors just fine…but that’s it. NO STRAWBERRY! And I see big ole hunks of strawberry floating around! If this tea was labled as “White Angel Food Cake” it would be spot on and I would be fairly impressed. Also, this go round, I steeped the heck out of it. Like 10+ minutes while I walked around the office making sure everyone knew it was Friday. Which it is. Which means that I will have a box full of tea at the foot of my door when I get home from work. Which is SWEET!

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend full of tasty teas!

I received this tea as part of a swap. After smelling the tea, I was amazed. It smells sooo good. It smells better than real strawberry shortcake. Really, I swear! I have a thing about smelling everything (food, milk (even if it’s never been opened), feet, odd smells) I’m all over it. Don’t judge. Anyway, the tea smells awesome.

So, after steeping a cup, it STILL smells great. I take a sip expecting a taste to match the smell. Nope. Damn! It just tastes like a slightly sweet white tea. Blast! I’m thinking about using a huge heap of new leaves on top of my already steeped leaves for my next cup to try to capture the smell in the drink itself. Why oh why?

Not giving up yet!

Whoa. An incredibly sweet smelling delight. Taste is more subtle than the fragrance but still produces a lot of crisp sweetness. Very good.