Thésaurus Tea

This. Was. So. Strange.

On paper the idea of a caramel and pineapple pu’erh really intrigued me, though historically I’ve been unimpressed by the combination of pu’erh and tropical flavours. One of my guilty pleasure “food crimes” is dipping cheese and pineapple pizza in caramel sauce, so this duo isn’t foreign to me and in my head there was a precedent for the trio of unctuous brothy shou, pineapple, and sweet caramel.

Fucking chamomile though. In ruins everything.

All this tasted like to me was bright, soda-type pineapple with just an unpleasantly aggressive amount of chamomile. I actually am left totally unsure whether the initial flavour pairing that drew me to this blend would have been successful or not because I just couldn’t focus on any other flavour…

Not sure what I’m going to do with the rest of the bag. Open to suggestions.

Adventaggedon Day Twenty Five – 1/3

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah to all my Steepster friends celebrating either!

Advent season is finally over, and I already feel a massive surge of relief and relaxation knowing that tomorrow I have no forced routine to maintain with tea drinking, tasting notes, or posting on instagram. It’s like the reverse of adrenaline – in a good way. That doesn’t mean I haven’t loved going through advents this year though, and it was a little bitter sweet sipping through these last cups today…

As far as I can tell, no fandom for this one – just a nice sentiment with a cozy spiced tea to go along with it for this last day. The dry leaf smelled a bit pickle-y to me so I was a little worried, but steeped it tastes fine! Notes of burnt sugar, oranges, clove, and ginger. Definitely a little decadent but equally brisk and bold with enough coziness to feel right for a day that almost feels suspended from the rest of the year.

Would I do this advent again? I think the price was a bit expensive for the serving sizes and there were a lot of teas that I didn’t love, but the joy of seeing the new fandom each day was so fun and I think this advent had the most teas in it that I’d want to repurchase large amounts of – so it was good for discovery. So… maybe.

Gonna have to think on it.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmm1_S6uW2y/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s72L59XE-4o

Adventaggedon Day Twenty Four – 4/6

Another Steven Universe blend! I really like this selection because it’s nerdy, yes, but if you don’t understand the fandom it also just feels like a really beautiful sentiment for this time of the year that’s supposed to be about spending time with loved ones, generosity, and kindness. Y’know, Peace and Love on the plant Earth…

The tea itself was nice too! It reminded me a little bit of the Princess Peach inspired blend from earlier in the advent, but I think I liked this one a bit better. It’s got a bit of and orange-y flavour but also definitely had a note that really made me think of nectarines too. Pretty straightforward (at least to these sick tastebuds!) but that consistency was well received and the level of flavouring perfect for the white tea base.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmkRKxwuisG/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hy85d_hyBM

Adventaggedon Day Twenty Three – 3/6

This is the first tea included in this advent where I just haven’t been able to figure out the fandom. Nothing in the name or printed out ingredients/blurb is ringing a bell for me, and when I went to check the website I didn’t even see this tea listed…

It’s another that I had early enough today that I don’t think my sinuses were blocked up enough to really taint my ability to taste too significantly. It’s chocolate raspberry flavoured and I found that really clear in the sip. The chocolate note is a little bit of a boozy chocolate liqueur note, but with the sweeter syrupy raspberry and brisk body of the black tea it works. It gives me truffle vibes, but also “high end” dessert cocktail. I was intrigued enough that this is something I might consider ordering.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmhsXY6ut-w/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7803h_cLsbc

Adventaggedon Day Twenty Two – 5/6

When I saw this tea today I was confused what, of the many fairies out there, this blend might be trying to reference. What a lovely discovery to see that it’s actually part of a series of blends inspired by Pokemon types! I will definitely be perusing the rest of the types later to see if any of the blends catch my eye…

Sadly, this one didn’t land very strongly with me. The combination of the rooibos and almond oil is pretty nice and gives a sort of poundcake-like profile, and I actually think that’s really thematically on point since there are actually several Fairy type pokemon inspired by baked goods. Where the tea lost me was all the flowers.

So, when you add a bunch of flower petals to a tea they actually rarely taste like the flower itself smells – mostly you’re adding them as a visual component. A few exceptions exist, like lavender or jasmine, but something like rose petals isn’t actually going to taste like roses. That’s what’s happening here with the calendula, cornflower, and other florals. Instead, what comes across is an almost stale seeming sour-note with a lot of accompanying astringency. Normally you wouldn’t use enough petals for their taste to actually be noticable, or you’d mask it through the use of other ingredients – sadly that’s just not happening here and so the taste is super not pleasant.

It’s a bit of a shame – I like the concept for this one a lot!

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmfHdouubWR/

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

Adventaggedon Day Twenty One – 5/6

For a moment this morning I thought I was having another “Threehorn/Treehorn” incident but, nope, this one actually does say Treestar. No H. I believe it’s a reference to the leaves consumed by the dinosaurs in Land Before Time. Five year old Kelly wanted to eat those leaves so badly.

I’m not sure what I would have expected them to taste like, if I had been able to eat them. I definitely don’t think it would have been hojicha and carob. However, twenty-seven year old Kelly definitely was NOT upset to get a hojicha blend today. I didn’t think it was a particularly spectacular grade of hojicha, but it wasn’t too rough either and I loved how dark the roast was and the subtle hint of sweetness that the carob added. Thankfully, I didn’t taste the gynostemna at all.

Only real complaint for this one is that Thesaurus describes it as tasting like chocolate, which is just sooo not true. I don’t mind, but I feel like if someone bought the tea on the expectation of chocolate notes they would probably be disappointed.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmciwMSufdM/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuXU2FsMZZM

Adventaggedon Day Twenty – 6/6

Very, very much wanted to like this tea. It’s such a cool reference – not just because of Star Wars but because of the way the phrase “Nerfherder” has expanded as nerd slang since Star Wars. I knew I wasn’t going to like it as soon as I smelled the dry leaf though, and that was confirmed with my first sips. It just had such an awful taste of skunky gas station coffee. Really cheap and muddy with an unpleasant sourness.

There’s also jasmine tea in the blend, not that you can taste it at all with the coffee drowning it out – but if you could taste it how weird would that be with the coffee? The inclusion of it just completely baffles me. What could the blender have possibly been trying to acheive? It’s not even like there’s any low hanging explanation for it from a fandom side, either…

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmZ9_kDukMP/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HkuCjzXA0o

Adventaggedon Day Nineteen – 5/6

I haven’t watched Adventure Time in quite a while, so it took me a second to get the reference for this one – but I got there eventually. Definitely an interesting choice though – of all the Adventure Time characters you could pull inspiration from, this seems rather niche.

This tisane was… a lot.

I really, really thought it was going to be more lemony. Even after seeing the ingredient list, I figured that Thesaurus was maybe going for some sort of Lavender Lemonade vibe. Nope. Just lavender. It was so strong that you couldn’t taste anything else in the cup – I would have called you a liar if you had served me this blind and told me it was anything other than straight lavender. I mean, credit where credit is due – it didn’t seem like poor quality lavender and it could have been way more unpleasantly perfume-y or, worse, soapy tasting. This was still drinkable despite the potency. I would not drink it again, though.

Definitely hardcore missing the lemon part of “Lemonhope”.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmXZOHku6m1/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngTx6pcujcc

Adventaggedon Day Eighteen – 5/6

I went into this tea skeptical. The flavour description and ingredients list looked fine, if not maybe a little bit basic. Captain America isn’t my favourite hero, so there wasn’t necessarily any extra “pull” to this tea because of the fandom either. Though, I did appreciate that this wasn’t just another red/white/blue play – I’ve seen what feels like a million fandom blends for Captain America that have either sprinkles in that colour scheme or a trio of fruit flavours meant to fit the colour scheme. You know what I really want to see!? Where’s the peach flavoured “America’s Ass” blend!? Someone make it happen.

Anyway – this tea was good! There’s been a couple blends from Thesaurus that have just immediately dug their hooks in me, but this one felt a little more like a slow burn where the flavours were soft at first then grew to a point were they were just strong enough with a pleasant medium bodied and not too much sweetness. I get the maple (though that’s a little more “Captain Canuck” to me) and definitely red fruit as well. I know it’s supposed to be cranberry, but it reaaallllyyyyy read as cherry to my palate and I was definitely NOT mad at that.

I get the impression that if I were to buy this tea and drink it a little more regularly that it’s the kind of blend that would continue it’s pleasant slow burn to the point where it might become a more routine/habitual favourite. I’ve definitely been keeping a shortlist of blends I might want to order, and I’m adding this one to that list!

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmU0moLO1Ug/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MVay-7tkz4

Adventaggedon Day Seventeen – 5/6

I cannot express enough how excited I was this morning to see a A:TLA fandom blend this morning. I recently rewatched the entire series, and it caused me to rekindle my appreciate for it considerably. I know that Thesaurus has several Avatar inspired blends and I’ve been curious about them for a while – when I was last at the tea house they were out of stock so I didn’t get a chance to check them out.

I decided to brew this up in an antique Japanese cup/bowl that has the image of a little man doing various dances and tasks – it reminds me a little bit of Aang. I also used it as an excuse to rewatch some of my favourite episodes. I probably should have picked some of the episodes that are more directly centered around Kiyoshi but this was more fun.

The tea was okay. It’s fairly ginseng forward, so there’s a pleasantly woody sweetness that coats the palate, and this was complimented by more floral notes of chrystanthemum. It’s maybe a little bit dull?? I think, probably, removing the gynostemna would help a lot. I know that there’s very deliberate things each ingredient is supposed to represent in this blend, but this herb has such a pungent bitterness to it that I think it’s actually dragging down the sweetness and life of some of the other ingredients.

That aside, I just love the direction for this blend. There are so many references to tea in A:TLA thanks to Uncle Iroh – and ginseng tea is actually one of the first mentioned by name as well. I can absolutely see this blend of ingredients fitting into the world of Avatar perfectly. I think it would feel much more out of place if this was something wildly flavoured, so I’m happy with the direction that was taken instead.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmSPlmfOy2m/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8uUnEGCtGU

Adventaggedon Day Fifteen – 5/6

This was the last advent tea I drank today and I got it in right under the wire. It’s obviously more of a “sleepytime tea” so I didn’t want to drink it before my commute or during my work day. Honestly, though, it’s such a clever angle for a Firefly inspired blend – definitely really smart!! I didn’t like the tea though; it’s very chamomile forward with an aggressive amount of licorice root and neither of those are ingredients that I enjoy. It felt “classic” though as I was drinking it – totally wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this tea sells really well for Thesaurus. Seems like it’s got the perfect foundation for it.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmNGE2juu53/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DiWxcilWtU

Adventaggedon Day Fourteen – 3/6

Other than my embarassing Edward Gorey mix up, this is the first fandom blend we’ve encountered in this advent where I really haven’t had any substantial knowledge of the inspiration – checking Thesaurus’ website this seems to be Castlevania inspired!? I’ve never played the games or watched the anime though, so I definitely don’t understand any reference that’s being made here…

I thought the ingredients list of this tea looked chaotic in a messy way, but the idea of a “Wintergreen Chai” seemed promising. The dry leaf actually smelled a lot like rootbeer which quickly peaked my interest. Steeped up, it kind of tastes like rootbeer too. Maybe rootbeer if it was extra anise-y in taste. It makes sense that’s where my sleep addled brain went though, what with the wintergreen and other spices.

It’s not my favourite blend we’ve tried from Thesaurus, and I’m noticing they seem to have a thing for star anise in a similar way to butterfly pea flower. However, I liked it more than expected and I don’t think I’d pass up a cup of it if offered again.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmKhQbAOFKi/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btgi3TPL3AE

(Had to do some googling to get today’s music pairing, since I’ve been trying to stay on fandom theme with this advent.)

Adventaggedon Day Thirteen – 5/5

So I remember talking to Marika about this tea months ago, right after Comic Con. She had talked to Robyn (the owner) and asked for, I believe, the tea she wishes was a top seller that isn’t and this is what she was given. Somehow, it didn’t click for me at the time that this was a whiskey flavoured Lapsang blend – and also that it’s inspired by the Witcher. I think, truthfully, my brain had assumed that (with a name like this) it was something Teen Wolf inspired…

Well, this tea is phenomenal. Once again, I hate how predictable my preferences are. I opened the bag tofay and immediately knew this was going to be my favourite Thesaurus blend yet, and fuck me I was right. It’s so deliciously boozy with really distinct whisky and smoke flavours with just a kiss of maple sweetness. I was entranced as I drank this tea today, savoring each and every drop. Yup. Will 100% be buying this one.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmH8V5nOYdw/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPiz96e8w4k

Adventaggedon Day Twelve – 5/5

I have to say, I’m really enjoying all of the Cryptid inspired tea blends.

The dry leaf aroma was pretty different than what I had imagined given the ingredients list and description. More vanilla in a creamy custard sort of way, but with an almost almond-y pastry element too.

Steeped I thought this was really unique! The dominant note was kind of like a really good vanilla pudding with elements of sweet almond/marzipan, a hint of red fruit, and a very light tangy citrus-y sourness that presented sometimes in the top notes and sometimes in the finish – I think that was the sumac. On paper it feels like those should kind of be competitive and hard to weave together flavours, but I found it both soothing and playful. It’s one of the more dynamic and nuanced of the Thesaurus blends so far and I think I actually would buy this one!

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmFXjHXOWrV/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQAxleAGpd8

Adventaggedon Day Eleven – 5/5

I feel like maybe I like the idea of this tea more than the tea itself, but it’s also not an unpleasant tea. It’s inspired by the Mario games – specifically the character of Princess Peach. This is not the first tea I’ve come across inspired by this character, and of course all of them have the obvious common denominator of being peach flavoured.

Aside from the peach, this is also apparently lychee flavoured!? I have to say that I both smell and taste the peach, but not so much the lychee. Speaking of smell, there’s something about the dry leaf and steeped tea aroma of this blend that doesn’t agree with my stomach and I cannot place why. Thankfully, it doesn’t translate into the taste which is more of a bright and juicy peach candy flavour with a bit of a floral undertone. I suppose the lychee could be adding to both the overall juiciness and the floral characters. There’s also something, as the tea cools, that’s a bit like bubblegum. Honestly, I’m not mad at it – peach bubblegum almost feels more spot on as inspiration than peach and lychee. I’m not crazy about the split black and white tea base. It’s not bad but it’s slightly muddied, and I think this blend would be stronger if it was only black tea or white tea. Probably white.

Overall, I feel like I would need to try this again before really making my mind up. There’s promise, but I need a better feel for consistency of flavour and how things like icing or cold brewing it would affect the taste.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmCyvUVuvAB/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49z3i-eNC9o

Adventaggedon Day Ten – 5/5

This tea is apparently supposed to be inspired by one of the characters from She-Ra and The Princesses of Power but I couldn’t actually figure out who it’s supposed to be a reference it. None of the “evil” princesses are really magic users, and also all of them seem to be covered by other blends in this collection. So, I spent a lot of this mug trying to work on who this was supposed to be for – and I just didn’t get there.

That said, I thought the blend was okay. It’s supposed to be a spiced rum flavour, and I think that’s a stretch – though it DEFINITELY tastes spiced. Well, really one spice. Star anise. This blend is pretty much defined by that sweet, coating black licorice flavour. I love star anise so it was hard to not like this tea even though it seems to be failing at doing what it wants to be. Aside from that sweet and pungent flavour, the rest of this tea seems confused. It’s a little bit fruity in a very loose citrus way, and also perhaps a touch bit rootbeer-y from the sarsparilla but those flavours are more of a muddled backdrop that don’t seem to properly connect to anything else happening in my mouth.

It’s definitely not the weirdest tea we’ve tried from Thesaurus – but it’s not the strongest either, and I think I finished the cup with more questions than answers.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmAN8XEuu6t/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9oX8lPNP0M

Adventaggedon Day Nine – 4/5

To the surprise of literally no one, this blend of mango and Lapsang Souchong was probably my favourite tea to be included in the Thesaurus advent so far. God, I hate how predictable my tastes are. Why am I so predictably in love with everything smoked!?

I think, arguably, there could be more mango in the blend – it’s present and I think distinct enough that I’d name it as mango even if the queue wasn’t present in the name. That more than can be said of several of the call out flavours for some of these Thesaurus blends. It’s just possibly a little thin, but I also know that DT has spoiled me when it comes to thick, juicy and syrupy mango flavoured teas. It has no right to blend together with the whisps of smoke, petrichor, and resin that the pine smoked Lapsang provides, but the two are a smash hit for me. This feels so perfect for its fandom influence. Like, the most perfect I’ve seen from this company thus far.

Also! This is another blend that I already owned, so I decided to add to the serving that was given using some of my own tea leaf so that I could make a giant pot of this tea in my big Star Wars teapot. My inner nerd just needed that. It was too perfect not to.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl9pKW2Oh2i/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YDKxcdIXBs

Another tea that I had such a long time ago at this point.

My friend Neldon is doing a research study about modern gongfu culture for his anthropology degree, and I volunteered to do an interview with him as he gathers data. This is what I was drinking while we had that call. It was nice because it was petty mildly flavoured so it didn’t distract from our conversation, but the flavour it did have was soft and woodsy with just a hint of maple and tulsi sticking out among the flavours in the cup.

Adventaggedon Day Eight – 5/5

There was a lot of pressure on this tea today because it’s something that I own a 50g bag of but haven’t tried yet. So I would have been really, really disappointed if I hadn’t enjoyed it. I actually found it really pleasant though, even though it was very different than I’d imagined it tasting when I bought it.

The staff at Thesaurus had really sold this to me on the idea of it tasting forest-y and that’s what the little blurb seems to indicate it should taste like as well. In reality I would call this more of a maple tea than anything else – a pretty tasty maple flavour, though! Although, I suppose technically maple could be described as a forest flavour – it does come from trees and here in Canada maple tress can sometimes significantly add to the make up of a forest’s plant life. It’s just not the first thing that would come to mind.

I expected more cedar, but I got little of it. The tusli, however, was a delicate background note that I found a pleasantly surprising compliment to the maple! The whole cup was pretty smooth and once I had a better handle on what to expect I relaxed as I drank it and just enjoyed myself. It’s probably one of the better blends from Thesaurus that we’ve had in the advent thus far.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl7EWxIOUU2/

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

Adventaggedon Day Seven – 5/5

Okay, the butterfly pea flower has to stop. I saw the name today and just immediately know I was gonna hate this, and true enough I did. I get the Jurassic Park reference, and it’s the first time the use of butterfly pea flower has felt justified for the fandom inspiration so I wanted this to work. Plus, it actually did steep a lovely baby blue colour too! However it tasted so flat and dull, with the same brutal burnt and pungent butterfly pea inclusion. It’s supposed to be blueberry, but it doesn’t translate at all.

And I know people suggested removing the butterfly pea flowers – but they were, like, literally more than half the blend. At that point what was left in the sample wouldn’t have even produced a good mug of tea either. So, I’d rather drink the tea “at intended” even if I expect to not like it.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl4gObROvMk/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj2cxA3jexY

Adventaggedon Day Six – 2/5

I am an idiot.

So, context. Each day of this advent only has a single number on the brown bags, and a separate print out in the box that lists the name of the blends by day along with a little blurb about the inspiration and the ingredients. I open all of my advents first thing in the morning and I must have been SO TIRED when I read the sheet because I was convinced the name of this tea was Treehorn. Innocent enough mistake, right?

Only, I didn’t understand the fandom reference. This was the first tea where I was like “Huh, not sure what this is referring to.” I even sent Marika a DM on instagram to see if she got it, and she was also confused. So I googled “Treehorn” to see if I could figure it out. The only thing that even came close to making sense to me was the Treehorn Trilogy, which is a book by Edward Gorey. Now, if you’re not familiar with Edward Gorey I wouldn’t blame you. He’s an illustrator known for his rather macabre art style. Perhaps his most famous work being “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” – an ABC book telling the story of how a child died, for each letter of the alphabet. If you like dark humor it’s actually really quite good. I haven’t read the Treehorn Trilogy, but knowing who Edward Gorey was my thought process was ’Welp, who am I to say whether this is a fandom or not. On with the tea!" and I continued to go about my day…

Now, the tea itself was nice. It’s a cherry and cranberry blend, and the dry leaf was actually beautiful. Really bright red fruit bits contrasted about the base. Probably the most aesthetically pleasing tea from Thesaurus so far. It leaned a little medicinal, but I didn’t mind it and I thought the red fruit note with the overall woodiness was actually kind of enjoyable. Maybe could have been a little more tart to better convey the cranberry, but I wasn’t complaining. In my head, all of these even made sense knowing the tone of most of Gorey’s works. And hell, you could even argue that the inspiration here was as literally as picking blood red fruits for a dark and sometimes bloody author.

And because I’ve been picking music related to each fandom, I even shared a song on IG today with Edward Gorey in the name (I was so proud I found one!) with a creepy little krampus gif to go along. Then I got home, and just glanced at the sheet to double check the ingredients. I saw the name of the blend. Threehorn. Fuck.

Triceratops. This is a bloody triceratops inspired tea, because Theasaurus has a huge thing for dinosaurs…

Anyway, here’s a link to the Gashlycrumb Tinies:
https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2015/03/17/the-gashlycrumb-tinies-a-very-gorey-alphabet-book/

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl16y9KOY7N/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyCeHIy-ieE

Alternative Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz0AxmNdRPw

The first song is what I ended up sharing, but I actually wanted to use this second song. It just wasn’t available in IG’s music database.

Adventaggedon Day Five – 4/5

Too tired tonight to pull up Thesaurus’ website to properly add this one to the database…

This was a black tea blend, though, we a whole mess of ingredients. The main ones to care about are apple and lime flavouring, since that was supposed to be the primary flavour of the tea, and more awful butterfly pea flower. If Thesaurus keeps insisting on adding BPF to every blend I feel like this may turn into the kind of situation I had last year with Kiani tea adding glitter to shit that just didn’t need glitter…

This one could have been so cool. When I saw the name and the fact it was lime/apple flavoured I figured we were gonna get some kind of cool poison apple type vibe with a tart and sour profile. Instead it tasted almost entirely of butterfly pea flower. Pungent and floral, like yesterday’s cup, but also a little bit stale and cardboard-like and just a bit like burnt sugar. There was a hint of apple and lime on the tail end of the sip but it was soooo faint. It was hard to get through my travel mug of it.

Honestly, this blend was just lacking in so many regards.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/ClzWCzSvEvU/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkpgz3uQ58U