84

Welp. Now I see what all the hype is about. This is a pretty darn delicious tea! It certainly tastes like a delicious, sugary-sweet cinnamon roll complete with creamy frosting. Wow. When I brewed the tea up, I was getting a bit of a classic pu’erh aroma that I wasn’t too keen on, but it has dissipated and isn’t at all present in the flavour. It’s just really, really delicious tea. I used about 2 tsp of tea for an 8 oz. mug… I didn’t really pay attention to the directions.

Also, I have to say that sTEAp Shoppe’s sample sizes are great. Half an ounce of tea, so comparable to Della Terra, although the samples are a bit pricier. If there’s a sale at some point, I think I’d be likely to pick up more sample sizes, though! I have 5 other teas to try – hoping they work out as well as this one!

ETA: I definitely don’t care for the second infusion as much, although perhaps reducing the infusion time from 2 minutes to 1 minute would have helped. The pu’erh flavour makes a bit more of an appearance, and instead of the flavours blending well together, I get a heaping helping of strong cinnamon (like, from a cinnamon stick) plus the pu’erh, and that’s it. Not bad, but the first infusion was quite a bit better. Word is, this tea resteeps for many infusions, so I’ll keep it around and try a few more to see how they fare.

Preparation
Boiling 1 min, 45 sec

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Bio

I have always been a tea fan (primarily herbals and Japanese greens/oolongs) but in the last year or so, tea has become increasingly more appealing as not only a delicious, calming drink, but as a relatively cheap, healthy reward or treat to give myself when I deserve something. I should clarify that, however; the reward is expanding my tea cupboard, not drinking tea – I place no restrictions on myself in terms of drinking anything from my cupboard as that would defeat my many goals!

My DavidsTea addiction was born in late 2011, despite having spent nearly a year intentionally avoiding their local mall location (but apparently it was just avoiding the inevitable!). I seem to have some desire to try every tea they’ve ever had, so much of my stash is from there, although I’ve recently branched out and ordered from numerous other companies.

I like to try and drink all my teas unaltered, as one of the main reasons I’m drinking tea other than for the flavour is to be healthy and increase my water intake without adding too many calories! I’ve found that the trick in this regard is to be very careful about steeping time, as most teas are quite pleasant to drink straight as long as they haven’t been oversteeped. However, I tend to be forgetful (particularly at work) when I don’t set a timer, resulting in a few horrors (The Earl’s Garden is not so pleasant after, say, 7+ minutes of steeping).

I’m currently trying to figure out which types of teas are my favourites. Herbals are no longer at the top; oolongs have thoroughly taken over that spot, with greens a reasonably close second. My preference is for straight versions of both, but I do love a good flavoured oolong (flavoured greens are really hit or miss for me). Herbals I do love iced/cold-brewed, but I drink few routinely (Mulberry Magic from DavidsTea being a notable exception). I’m learning to like straight black teas thanks to the chocolatey, malty, delicious Laoshan Black from Verdant Tea, and malty, caramelly flavoured blacks work for me, but I’m pretty picky about anything with astringency. Lately I’ve found red rooibos to be rather medicinal, which I dislike, but green rooibos and honeybush blends are tolerable. I haven’t explored pu’erh, mate, or guayasa a great deal (although I have a few options in my cupboard).

I’ve decided to institute a rating system so my ratings will be more consistent. Following the smiley/frowny faces Steepster gives us:

100: This tea is amazing and I will go out of my way to keep it in stock.

85-99: My core collection (or a tea that would be, if I was allowing myself to restock everything!) Teas I get cravings for, and drink often.

75-84: Good but not amazing; I might keep these in stock sparingly depending on current preferences.

67-74: Not bad, I’ll happily finish what I have but probably won’t ever buy it again as there’s likely something rated more highly that I prefer.

51-66: Drinkable and maybe has some aspect that I like, but not really worth picking up again.

34-50: Not for me, but I can see why others might like it. I’ll make it through the cup and maybe experiment with the rest to get rid of it.

0-33: It’s a struggle to get through the cup, if I do at all. I will not willingly consume this one again, and will attempt to get rid of the rest of the tea if I have any left.

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