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Happy Mother’s Day! Today the prompt is “drink a tea that reminds you of your mother.” I’m the only tea-drinker in my family, so my Mom doesn’t simply have a “favorite tea” I could pull out, so I had to get a bit creative. Since her birthday is Halloween, I figured it was a good excuse to pull out this old favorite at a very un-seasonably fashionable time! (I have reviewed this before, here: https://steepster.com/mastressalita/posts/375451 )

I prepared this as a latte, with 12 oz. of tea and 4 oz. of warm and frothed vanilla almond milk. This is such a delicious, decadent latte! Nice and foamy on top, sweet and mildly spicy. Very warm and comforting! I’m getting a lot of a sweet cinnamon early in the sip and more clove popping late in the sip and the aftertaste. The base is warm and sweet with a strong vanilla presense which can even be smelled in the dry leaf. While I never expect “pumpkin spice” (a spice blend) to taste like pumpkin, this tea actually does a pretty good job of conveying pumpkin pie. One of my favorite pumpkin spice chais I’ve tried thus far!

Not changing my initial rating because this still holds up!

Flavors: Cinnamon, Clove, Nutmeg, Pumpkin, Smooth, Spicy, Sweet, Vanilla

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 16 OZ / 473 ML
gmathis

Just now seeing the prompt, but it’s a good one. I’ll have to see if I have a couple bags of Constant Comment left!

Mastress Alita

Always a solid choice!

tea-sipper

My dad and his sisters all have birthdays on holidays too (or one has the day after Christmas.) My aunt is a Halloween baby! The other aunt is St. Patrick’s day! So they share days with you and your mom. :D

Mastress Alita

You know what’s even weirder? My Dad is New Year’s Eve!

tea-sipper

WHOA. haha

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Comments

gmathis

Just now seeing the prompt, but it’s a good one. I’ll have to see if I have a couple bags of Constant Comment left!

Mastress Alita

Always a solid choice!

tea-sipper

My dad and his sisters all have birthdays on holidays too (or one has the day after Christmas.) My aunt is a Halloween baby! The other aunt is St. Patrick’s day! So they share days with you and your mom. :D

Mastress Alita

You know what’s even weirder? My Dad is New Year’s Eve!

tea-sipper

WHOA. haha

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Bio

Hi! I’m Sara, a middle-aged librarian living in southern Idaho, USA. I’m a big ol’ sci-fi/fantasy/anime geek that loves fandom conventions, coloring books, simulation computer games, Japanese culture, and cats. Proud genderqueer asexual (she/they) and supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. I’m also a chronic migraineur. As a surprise to no one, I’m a helpless tea addict with a tea collecting and hoarding problem! (It still baffles me how much tea I can cram into my little condo!) I enjoy trying all sorts of teas… for me tea is a neverending journey!

Favorite Flavors:

I love sampling a wide variety of teas! For me the variety is what makes the hobby of tea sampling so fun! While I enjoy trying all different types of teas (pure teas, blends, tisanes), these are some flavors/ingredients I enjoy:
-Dessert/chocolate/vanilla/caramel/cream/toffee/maple
-Sweet/licorice root/stevia
-Vegetal/grassy
-Floral/lavender/rose
-Spices/chais
-Fruity
-Tropical/pineapple/coconut
-Bergamot (in moderation)
-Roasted/nutty
-Tart/tangy/hibiscus/rosehip

Disliked Flavors:

There are not many flavors or ingredients that I don’t like. These include:
-Bananas/banana flavoring
-Hemp/CBD teas
-Smoke-scented teas/heavy smoke flavors (migraine trigger)
-Perfumey teas/extremely heavy floral aromas (migraine trigger)
-Gingko biloba (migraine trigger)
-Chamomile (used in blends as a background note/paired with stronger flavors is okay)
-Extremely spicy/heated teas
-Medicinal flavors/Ginseng
-Metallic flavors
-Overly strong artificial flavorings

With the exception of bananas and migraine triggers, I’ll pretty much try any tea at least once!

Steeping Parameters:

I drink tea in a variety of ways! For hot brews, I mostly drink my teas brewed in the western style without additions, and for iced tea, I drink teas mostly brewed in the cold brew style without additions. Occassionally I’ll change that up. I use the https://octea.ndim.space/#/ app for water-to-tea ratios and use steep times to my preferences.

My Rating Scale:

90-100 – Top tier tea! These teas are among my personal favorites, and typically I like to keep them stocked in my cupboards at all times, if possible!

70-89 – These are teas that I personally found very enjoyable, but I may or may not feel inclined to keep them in stock.

50-69 – Teas that fall in this range I enjoyed, but found either average, lacking in some way, or I’ve had a similar tea that “did it better.”

21-49 – Teas in this range I didn’t enjoy, for one reason or another. I may or may not finish them off, depending on their ranking, and feel no inclination to restock them.

20-1 – Blech! My Tea Hall of Shame. These are the teas that most likely saw the bottom of my garbage can, because I’d feel guilty to pass them onto someone else.

Note that I only journal a tea once, not every time I drink a cup of it. If my opinion of a tea drastically changes since my original review, I will journal the tea again with an updated opinion and change my rating. Occassionally I revisit a tea I’ve reviewed before after a year or more has passed.

Inventory:

My Cupboard on Steepster reflects teas that I have sampled and logged for review, and is not used as an inventory for teas I currently own at the present moment. An accurate and up-to-date listing of my current tea inventory can be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/xjt9ptx3 . I am open to tea trades (within the United States only!) at this time. Note that I will not trade teas that I currently have in a quantity less than 50g (samplers, 1oz packages, etc.) or any teas that are currently still sealed/unopened in my cupboard.

Contact Info:

Feel free to send me a Steepster PM, or alternatively, check the website URL section below; it goes to a contact form that will reach my personal e-mail.

Location

Idaho, United States

Website

https://teatimetuesdayreviews...

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