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A while ago, I brewed up some Cafe Puer from Lupicia which is basically the same concept as this tea. I liked it a LOT, but then when I went on the website I saw that it was discontinued. Well, that’s what I get for drinking older tea. So when I saw David’sTea had a very similar tea, I knew I would have to get it. I stopped in on my trip to New York and picked up a small amount.

I brewed some today, and I think I didn’t use the right leaf ratio because it’s pretty weak. I can definitely taste the coffee notes, but it’s more like water with coffee essence. I bet there’s more to this tea, I just have to use more leaf next time. Until then, I’ll hold off on a rating.

This is the one downside to having small amounts of tea. You don’t really get a lot to play with. But with all the teas I wanted to try at DavidsTea, there’s no way I could justify buying 50g of each. Oh how I wish I lived close or at least closer to a DavidsTea.

On my latest trip to Davidstea, I knew I had to get this, but I only got a 1/2 oz since I didn’t know if I would like it. I’m a huge root beer fan, though, and I should have gotten more, but oh well.

I cold brewed this last night for 12 hours and it is absolutely delicious. I might try a stronger cold-brew next time. Or, since I’m reading people had difficulty cold-brewing theirs, I might try doing the hot-steep method and then cooling it off. Drinking root beer flavored tea hot doesn’t appeal to me too much ;)

I also tried to add a little seltzer but that didn’t really work. Tea was a little too weak for that. Whenever I get more, I’m definitely going to cold brew it a little stronger.

I had heard about the Red Leaf Matcha before from other Steepsters, but I was waiting to make my first purchase. And then, when I saw that Red Leaf was running a 50% off sale for one day on their Caramel Matcha, I was very tempted. While Red Leaf has many different flavors of matcha, Caramel is one of the highest rated. It’s also a nice universal flavor that’s pretty standard – I’ve had caramel before so I know what it tastes like. It seemed like a good started tea to review. I almost missed out on the discount, but at the last minute, I added it to my cart, and a few days later it arrived on my door. Not bad!

For the record, I am reviewing the 30g Caramel Matcha, Starter (Basic Grade), with Robust Flavoring (found here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/caramel-matcha.html). I didn’t realize Red Leaf offers so many different choices with your matcha. It was hard for me to pick, but I decided on the starter grade, since I’ve tried various grades of matcha, and I couldn’t really taste the difference. The level of flavoring was an even tougher choice for me. Originally I was just going to go with delicate, but after reading plenty of reviews of people who had the robust flavor and enjoyed it, I decided to pay a little extra and go for the robust.

In my small but mighty package was my receipt, and a nice pamphlet on the history and preparation on matcha. Like a kid on Christmas, I didn’t waste any time and I got right down to business (if only I attacked all my other tea orders with such vigor). First, I opened the matcha package (very carefully) and smelled the matcha with caramel. It really did smell delightful, and there is no mistaking that it was caramel. Then again, I did get the second highest flavoring profile. I have to wonder how strong the matcha smell would have been with the lowest. I’ll have to see next time.

Once I got the fantastic smell out of the way, the first step on the “How to prepare Matcha Tea” said I should sift my matcha first. I’m not fancy enough to have an actual sifter, so I just used a tea strainer with the finest holes I could find. It worked well enough, although it wasn’t as slick as I had hoped. One of the downsides was that a lot of the matcha powder was left on the strainer and was tough to get off. If I end up drinking matcha more, I may invest in an actual sifting unit.

Next, the directions called for adding two bamboo tea scoops to the bowl. I, unfortunately, don’t have a bamboo tea scoop, but thankfully the directions said 1/2 to 1tsp, so using a generic measuring spoon, I just measured out that. I don’t have a fancy matcha bowl, but I do have a very large mug bowl with a handle, so that seemed to work well. I poured the matcha and hot water (lower than boiling temperature) into the water. The next step was to whisk the matcha, and thankfully, I did have a matcha whisk. I remembered from a matcha class I took a while ago that you can’t just whisk it in an “O” shape, you actually have to whisk in an “M” or “W” shape to get that frothiness.

Finally, after some vigorous whisking, the matcha was done. I took a sip up to my lips and thought, “Wow! This is definitely green tea”. I could ever-so-slightly taste the caramel. I bet if I had matcha more often, I would have been able to detect the caramel easier. I really wanted to bring out that caramel taste, but I didn’t want to add too much to my tea. I decided to throw in a splash of sunflower milk, and that really helped to bring out the caramel notes. I’m sure adding sweetener would have helped more, but I want to keep the calories as low as I can, at least for the initial batch.

After the first batch, I wanted to try again and play around with the preparation parameters. This next time, I decided to forgo the sifting process to see if it really mattered. I also measured out a little bit more matcha this time to see if it would help bring out the caramel flavor more. Finally, I only poured a small amount of water in in the beginning. While this definitely helped me get a better “foam of bubbles”, it made it harder to mix all of the matcha in the water. I wonder if my option to not sift it had something to do with it. Once I did all the same above steps, I had myself a new cup of matcha. I tasted this just plain, and the green tea taste was even stronger – so much for the “more caramel” idea. I also decided to add some skim milk to this batch to keep it simple, and I think skim milk really works the best. It helps smooth out the tea, and I can definitely taste the caramel notes.

So overall, my first foray into flavored matcha was a success. I discovered I’m not quite cool enough to drink it straight, but adding just a little bit of skim milk brings out the flavor without adding too many calories. I would love to experiment more with matcha tonight, but I know it’s high in caffeine and I don’t want to keep myself up too long if I can help it. I look forward to trying more flavored matcha teas from Red Leaf and experimenting some more along my matcha journey.

Thanks to Azzrian for a sample of this.

Genmaicha can be hit or miss for me. Most of the time it’s a miss. I’m not sure what it is exactly. Maybe it’s the fact it’s not very tea like? Or just the overpowering flavor of the toasted rice? Hard to describe. But everyone always raves about it, so maybe I’m missing something. Anyway, when I saw this, I wanted to try and sample. I’ve never had genmaicha flavored with anything before, and the marshmallows mixed in intrigued me.

The tea smells really good. It really does match the smell of a marshmallow rice krispie squares. And brewed up, it’s not too bad. I was worried with toasted rice would be overpowering, but it’s really not.

I wonder if they plan to bring this around again. It is very unique..

Thanks to Azzrian for the sample!

I’m not much of a drinker, and when I do drink on occasion, it’s not usually champagne. But, I am a sucker for odd flavored tea, so I couldn’t pass this up.

I steeped it for the recommend 4 minutes, and it was a little too bitter for my liking. And then I steeped it for less time and it was still a little bitter, so I’m thinking it might just be the flavor of the tea. Since I’m particular about the types of champagne, this may be my problem.

I have been sick all this week. When you’re sick, your tastebuds aren’t up to par, and so I’ve been drinking a lot of mediocre teas since I don’t want to waste all my good teas. Since Teavivre is having an upcoming sale on these jasmine pearls, though, I decided to try them to see what I think. I don’t need more tea, and I’ll probably resist buying them, but if they were absolutely amazing I wanted to know.

They are definitely very good. Jasmine pearls are one of my favorite teas, and this is very nice. The flavor is subtle, but I only steeped it for a minute, so we’ll have to see what happens when I steep it for a whopping 2 minutes next time.

I do feel a little bad giving this tea a rating when I’m sick and I’m not 100%, but I suppose it’s all right.

Ahhh, Southern Boy Teas. I was hesitant at first to order this because it sounded like a lot of tea to make at once, but since I ordered a Grab Bag, I decided to go ahead and order this, too. And so began my journey…

This is supposed to make 2 quarts, and I didn’t have any 2 quart pitchers, so I asked the boyfriend what he had – and he brought over a very large (and very nice) Jack Daniel’s pitcher. Problem was, after measuring it, it was just shy of 2 quarts (it was 1 1/2 – d’oh). So we began the long process of figuring out how we could get 2 quarts of tea across multiple vessels. It seemed like too much trouble, so we decided to split the teabag in half and make one quart’s worth… and then save the other half for another time.

So instead, we made 1 quart of tea. And.. it’s not bad. The flavor is definitely not bitter, but I’m not getting a lot of berry taste either. I’m wondering if since the pitcher is open, it’s dulling the flavor. It’s hard to tell. I really wish I had a better quality pitcher that was closed, but we make due with what we have. In retrospect, I wish this was made in 2 – 1 quart pouches. It would have been easier to split up, and it would allow people to make 2 quarts if they wanted to.

I’m going to rebrew this another way and reevaluate my rating a little bit later, but for now, I’ll keep it at this.

Brewed hot, this was meh. I was wondering what all the fuss was about. When I let it cool – it was delicious, but unfortunately I only had one sample so I couldn’t really do a proper cold brewing.

So today, when I got my 52teas grabbag order in and this came, I just HAD to try it cold brewed and ……. WOW. This is amazing tea. I can taste the strawberries and the cream wonderfully. No sugar necessary. This would be a GREAT conversion tea to try and show people how great tea can be without any sweetener. I bet it would be even more amazing WITH sweetener, but for now I am just enjoying the pure taste of it. I can’t wait to share it with the boyfriend, who usually loves this type of stuff and says, “Are you SURE there’s no sweetener in there?”. I’ll keep you posted on what he thinks.

Thanks to Azzrian for this sample.

This is a pretty good tea. While I’m not normally one for desert type teas, it has a real quality taste that is definitely similar to an almond cookie. It doesn’t taste artificial or fake at all. I’m getting some cinnamon notes in here, but nothing is overpowering. I do agree it might be a little light on the flavor if someone wanted a more powerful tea, but it is definitely not unpleasant at all.

I’m already on the 3rd steeping and this tea is still going strong.

I borrowed this from a friend who has a big Teavana collection (and somehow seeing another’s tea collection in person makes me feel better about my own).

I picked it up because I’m a fan of Teavana’s MateVana. This isn’t bad, but it’s not great. I think they tried to make it taste TOO much like coffee, and at times it tastes artificial. This is discontinued, so I guess I should be glad I don’t like it too much, right? In fact, going through her collection, I realized Teavana has a lot of discontinued teas. That bites if you find something you like…