1216 Tasting Notes
Autumn Harvest! Time to sipdown another of the T2 sampler stash (and one day, I’ll finally get through them all!)
Again I brewed the whole shebang to a single cup (5g sampler in a 350ml coffee cup, and their instructions claim to use 450ml!), and gave it a long steep (around 7-8 minutes), and even so, I can’t help but feel this one is tasting a bit weak. I had a different apple tea of theirs with the same brew ratios about a week ago (Apple Crumble) and it had a very rich and tangy fruity flavor, and I was hoping this would be the same, just lacking all the sweet caramel of the other blend. I love tart ‘n tangy so I’d be fine with a plain apple tea, but the flavor here isn’t as sharp and juicy as I was hoping for. It isn’t bad by any means, but if I was going to drink something like this, I would need about double what their little sampler provided to get the sort of flavor that I like, I think… and I already used less water than even they recommended! It tastes a little oddly artificially sweet to me, too. I don’t really mind a sweetness that I can attribute to something, but here it just seems… odd and uncomplimentary, because it isn’t really making the apples taste like Red Delicious, and it isn’t a caramel sweetness, it’s just… there.
If I could really leaf this up, I might like it, but as is, especially compared to T2’s Apple Crumble tea, it’s just underwhelming.
Flavors: Apple, Sweet
Preparation
Autumn Harvest! This is a black tea I picked up from Snake River Tea in Boise, Idaho, on one of my yearly Anime Oasis trips. After a search for the ingredients I found it was sourced from major blend wholesaler Dethlefsen & Balk. Last year I wanted to stock up more of it because I really liked it, so I ordered more of their “Pomegranate Black”, but when I got home, I noticed the leaf looked different. Sure enough, I looked up the ingredients online, and realized that it was not the “Pomegranate Cranberry” that they had before and the ingredients were indeed different. Snake River Tea had replaced the Pomegranate Cranberry they were sourcing from Dethlefsen & Balk with TeaSource’s Pomegranate Black (this made me even more disappointed because my local coffee shop that actually carries tea here in town carries a small selection they source from TeaSource, Pomegranate Black being one of them, so I can easily get some of that tea whenever I want. I really wish I had realized the Boise store had replaced that blend! Bah!) So, this is a sad sipdown of this one. I’m on a strict tea-ordering hiatus for a while, but one day I will have to find another source online that is specifically wholesaling this particular blend so I can restock it.
The leaf is lovely with this tart fruitiness from the cranberry and pomegranate, but also has this light floral undertone. The steeped cup is a nice, rounded dark brown cuppa of black tea with some lovely cherry tones, and it brews fairly dark and leaves some lingering astringency, but the cup is mellowed a lot by the natural sweetness of the fruity and floral flavor notes of the tea.
Neither the pomegranate or cranberry flavors are particularly dominant in the blend, but they do mix together to create a very unique and pleasant fruity flavor; it’s deep, just a bit sweet, and has a tart edge that compliments the black tea well. I think what I like best is that the fruit flavor adds a light dimension and doesn’t taste heavy, overpowering, syrupy or incredibly artificial like many fruit flavored blacks can tend to do. And I love how that tart fruity note is complimented by the sweet peony petals in the blend! They leave a pleasant fragrance lingering on the cup, and give the back of the tongue this mellow sweet floral finish that keeps the fruitiness from becoming too tart and the tea requiring some sugar or honey to balance it out. At the same time, the floral notes are just subtle enough beneath the fruit flavor and the rich black tea that if you normally don’t like floral teas, I don’t think you’d find it off-putting.
Such a nice blend, I’ll miss this one!
Flavors: Astringent, Berries, Floral, Fruity, Malt, Red Fruits, Sweet, Tart
Preparation
Autumn Harvest! Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Americans! This morning I decided to brew up another of my T2 sampler stash, a blend of bergamot, jasmine, and pear flavorings. I really enjoyed Bird & Blend’s (now discontinued) Jasmine Poached Pear, which paired jasmine and pear on a green base, so I have a feeling I’ll like that flavor combo on an earl grey tea too. Not quite the same, but perhaps a good enough substitute since B&B seems to rarely bring back their discontinued blends?
The steeped tea is a very dark cup, and smells mostly of the pear. The black tea itself is quite smooth with very mild astringency but the flavorings are so strong the base can’t be tasted much. The flavor tastes overwhelmingly of the bergamot, which comes off quite strongly, followed up by a floral jasmine sweetness. Since the bergamot is a little stronger than I tend to prefer, when it mixes with the floral, it comes off a little perfumey tasting on the tongue (though thankfully not at all in the aroma, so it isn’t bothering my migraine sensitive head at all). The bergamot and floral do mix well together, it just feels like their balance isn’t quite right, somehow. The jasmine can’t quite attone for a slight bitterness I’m getting from the bergamot, here. The pear hits later in the sip and fills out the mouth nicely afterwards, and I do like how these flavors go together… it’s just the strong open of bergamot at the beginning of the sip that seems to kind of throw the whole balance of everything off. I think if that had been toned down, the whole thing would’ve pieced together beautifully. As it is, it isn’t a tea I’d care to revisit.
Meh. B&B, can you please bring back Jasmine Poached Pears? Please? Maaaaaaaaah.
Flavors: Bergamot, Bitter, Floral, Pear, Perfume, Smooth
Preparation
Autumn Harvest! So I decided to try something different tonight, and make a sweet potato tea! I actually ordered from this company specifically when I found out they had a sweet potato chai because I wanted to try it so badly, and I’ve been saving it specifically for this theme month. I’m Idahoan, so I mean… I have to try the potato tea, right?
The dry leaf had a very earthy, somewhat musty scent, which comes out in the brewed cup, but the spices pull forward in the aroma more strongly as well; it’s a very sweet spice aroma on top of the musty earthy scent (it reminds me a bit of the aroma of ginseng, just without that medicinal quality, actually). And surprisingly… that’s actually what the flavor is reminding me of, too. I’m getting strong notes of an earthy ginseng sort of base, with a mildly warming spicy finish on the back of the throat. There is a slight licorice sweetness, but not a loud pop of it or lingering flavor note of it. The spice that leaves the most impression with me in the cup is the clove, but I’m fairly certain it’s the cinnamon and ginger leaving the pleasant lingering warmth. I’m a big tulsi lover, but I’m not picking up on it strongly here; I’m suspecting I’m used to the three-variety tulsi blend and this tea may just be using one of the three types, producing a more mellow flavor, but since it is a very clove-like plant, that’s likely why the clove spice is really coming forward in the cup.
Well, this was surprising. It isn’t what I was expecting steeped sweet potato to taste like, and ginseng tea is definitely not one of my favorite things. I have been okay with it paired with licorice root in the past, but it is very hit and miss for me. The spice blend in this is superb, I absolutely love the heavy clove flavor, the gentle yet warm hit of spice at the end of the sip, and that mellow sweet licorice touch, but that ginseng tasting base is just too much for me. There is just something about that flavor that tastes dirty instead of earthy to me… I’ll be able to finish the sampler, but I wouldn’t care to procure more of it. But I definitely have faith that these small family-farm tea blenders are good at their craft, because the blend of ingredients itself is good, it’s just my personal taste that doesn’t care for this. If you like ginseng tea and chai spice, you’d probably love this. (Really, did anyone else know that dried sweet potato tastes like ginseng? I feel like my palate has leveled up tonight!)
Flavors: Clove, Earth, Licorice, Musty, Spices, Spicy, Sweet
Preparation
Butiki once had a potato pancake and applesauce tea! Such a strange thing to see and think “tea!”. Sweet potato makes more sense to me in a tea category.
I’ve had many sweet potato desserts but they actually tasted sweet and desserty (comman flavor in Japanese desserts). This tea didn’t taste anything like that, though.
Autumn Harvest! This pumpkin tea has a soft spot for me, because it was pretty much the first loose leaf tea I purchased that got me into tea, back when I was on a vacation Labor Day Weekend back in 2016 (I think the other tea I bought that vacation was a Cinnamon Plum herbal full of hibi that pretty much everyone on here would hate, but that cemented me as a hibi lover for life… I’ve just about sipped that one down, too!) It’s simply time for these oldest teas to go, even though they hold dear memories for me.
The tea steeps up a lovely rich amber color and has a lovely spicy scent. This is one of those pumpkin teas that actually has a savory, squashy pumpkin note, which I really like. The black base is medium bodied and there is a notable cinnamon spiciness that is left on the tongue and creates a warmth and sense of coziness. It isn’t too overbearing, as there is a natural sweetness to the cup from the maple crystals that balances the cinnamon nicely.
This is a pumpkin tea that is far less “desserty” than others; the whipped cream and caramel flavorings just don’t really pop in the cup, and it doesn’t really have a “pumpkin pie” flavor, so if that is what you are looking for, this isn’t really the pumpkin tea for you. To me, this tea tastes a bit more like pumpkin squash roasted in cinnamon and sweetened with just a hint of maple, and the taste it leaves on my tongue just makes me think of autumn… that spicy, warm feeling just reminds me of fires and fall leaves on a cold morning, somehow.
It does have “latte” in the name, and does hold up to making latte style quite well! When making this tea as a latte, I like going in with extra leaf, and using vanilla almond milk. Personally, the tea evokes such strong feelings of autumn to me when drunk plain that I actually prefer it sans milk. It’s a bit stronger, spicier, and just has a unique savory flavor profile that I haven’t quite found in any other pumpkin tea. But it’s all a matter of personal taste!
It’s a nostalgic tea for me. The closest taste match I’ve found to this one is 52Tea’s Pumpkin Chai, which is equally nom, but also comes and goes sporadically. I try to avoid Spice and Tea Exchange these days because their prices are highway robbery (as a tea newb I didn’t know better!) but maybe next fall I’ll restock this one, just for old time’s sake.
Flavors: Cinnamon, Malt, Maple, Pumpkin, Spicy, Sweet
Preparation
Autumn Harvest! I got this sampler from Ost’s cupboard sale, so thank you Ost! This tea is apparently a pear/prickly pear flavored tea, which really interests me (I love prickly pear candies)!
The tea steeps a very dark yellow color, and smells berry sweet with some floral notes. The flavor isn’t very noticably pear, though. I’m getting more of a watered down pineapple, lacking its tanginess, a very soft and mellow strawberry, and a floral sweetness, but I’m not tasting pear at all. It actually is reminding me a bit of that pomegranate/dragonfruit white/green blend I had a few nights ago, just lacking the pomegranate berry flavor. But it has that same light, silky mouthfeel, gentle fruitiness, and floral overtones.
It’s fine, but a bit underwhelming. For something advertising prickly pear, I was really hoping for that particular note!
Flavors: Floral, Pineapple, Strawberry, Sweet
Preparation
Autumn Harvest! Going nutty again today, though this is my only macademia nut tea (honestly, I don’t think I’ve even seen any other macademia nut teas!) and it’s on a rather unique base — yerba mate (another rarity, as yerba mate blends in general are rather rare). The smell is interesting to me, because I’ve had plain yerba mate and it tasted just like gunpowder green tea to me — vegetal and like tobacco smoke — but this smells just like a nutty coffee with a bit of vanilla creamer from the dry leaf. It’s soooooo appealing! I usually only get roasted mate because I don’t care for that tobacco smoky taste, but this doesn’t even have a hint of that from the aroma.
Steeped up the tea is lightly golden, and the tea tastes very similar to the aroma. It isn’t a strong coffee flavor by any means (nothing like roasted barley) but I’m getting it. It’s a bit vegetal too, a bit like dry hay, but I’m not getting that smoky tobacco taste that turned me off so much from plain, unroasted mate before. The flavoring of vanilla and macademia nut oils is wonderful! It’s not overwhelming, but it really does seem to bring out that sweet, nutty coffee feel, and it’s so natural, too. The nut is very forward on the sip, and the vanilla just adds a sweetness that sort of lingers at the end, and the two flavors compliment each other well.
This is probably the best unroasted yerba mate I’ve ever had. Will definitely be keeping this one around!
Flavors: Coffee, Hot Hay, Nutty, Sweet, Vanilla, Vegetal
Preparation
Autumn Harvest! Another from the great T2 sampler stash from the January 2018 after-Christmas clearance sale. This tisane mixes apple, chicory, and cinnamon with almonds and hazelnut brittle, and the brewed cup is a dark caramel color and smells incredibly sweet, reminding me of caramel apples.
I brew my chunky herbals on the stronger side (I dumped the full 5g sampler in the infuser to make a single 350ml cuppa) and am glad I did, because I am getting a really full, juicy green apple flavor in this cup. There is a sort of melted caramel sweetness to the cup, but it isn’t too sweet, which I actually like, allowing the fruit a nice tanginess. There is only the most subtle hint of some cinnamon sweetness toward the end of the sip, but the spice doesn’t really come through much here; this is mostly an apple tea with a good balance of tart and tangy fruit notes and sweet dessert notes. I like this one!
Flavors: Candied Apple, Caramel, Cinnamon, Green Apple, Sweet, Tangy, Tart
Preparation
So, I had this again, as a warm cuppa this time, for my Doctor Who watching today. I actually found I liked this better this time than the first time I tried it, which was as a quart of iced tea… maybe I’d had it in the fridge a little too long and the flavors had muted a little too much, because as I recall, it had sort of a generic berry flavor, but I wasn’t able to pick out any particular fruit flavors. I still found the base very bland (meh, Lipton) but it at least wasn’t bitter or astringent (so honestly a step up compared to CTC bagged Lipton I’ve had), but I at least tasted a sweet strawberry flavor and what tasted sort of like artificial grape this time.
I mean, still incredibly average, but better than what I’d originally scored this as, so I’m bumping up my rating a bit.
Flavors: Artificial, Berries, Grapes, Malt, Strawberry, Sweet
Preparation
Autumn Harvest! Spice night! This was a free sampler from the San Francisco Tea Festival. Normally the teas from Kikoko are cannabis-infused (this particular one normally contains 20mg CBD and 3mg THC) but the samplers were not infused so they could be given away at the festival (otherwise I would not have been able to bring it back to Idaho, heh). I have an intolerance to THC, anyway (tried it once for migraines and had a very nasty body rejection that ended in a most unpleasant cleaning of my bathroom… ugh). Sort of wish they offered CBD-only versions of their teas, as I would be sort of interested in trying something like that, but I digress…
Since derk described this one as a spice bomb and I’m a bit of a spice wuss, I made this as a coconut milk latte (I’ve always enjoyed how turm pairs with coconut milk as a flavor combo). This gives the spice blend a nice golden milk flavor, though it does have a little added depth. The turmeric is the dominant note, with that slightly earthy citrusy flavor. It somehow tastes a bit like a cross between orange zest and lemongrass for the citrus, but it’s very pleasant. The ginger is leaving a dull heat in the back of my throat, and I can taste a much more muted licorice root flavor there as well, and I imagine it would be much stronger and unpleasant to my personal tastes if I wasn’t using the sweet and creamy coconut milk to balance out the spice. The ginger, turm, orange peel, and licorice root is what is leaving the most impression; I’m not sure if I’m just not picking out the other spices, or if they are just being dulled since I went latte. In any event, this is a pleasant cup for my personal tastes, putting the spices into the zone that is giving me a bit of heat but not burning my mouth, and balancing the turm nicely with the sweet coconut, so I’m quite happy. It’s very soothing as a caffeine-free chai before bed.
Flavors: Citrus, Earth, Ginger, Lemongrass, Licorice, Orange Zest, Spicy