New Tasting Notes

The base is a little too prominent for me. I don’t get much chocolate flavor, but I taste plenty of coffee. So I don’t know that the mocha descriptor is super accurate. I liked this one more when I mixed it with other Teeccino blends that had more flavoring. This one isn’t bad, just a little plain.

No. Just no. This is day 7 of the Dammann Freres advent calendar (I’m suuuuper behind but hoping to finish it off in the next month or so). I just really didn’t like this one. It smells and tastes like Bazooka Joe bubble gum, which is not a profile that I ever expected, wanted, or, as it turns out, enjoyed in a tea. One of the rare teas I couldn’t even bring myself to finish.

Months and months ago, Cameron B. mentioned cold steeping hibiscus in lemonade. I’ve wanted to try it ever since, but only keep whole flower hibiscus around and it always felt wasteful to use that for an experiment like this. So I was pleased to get a sample of this with my Adagio order and finally be able to try hibiscus lemonade! The flower is very crushed up, so I put it in a tea filter bag, put the bag in a glass of lemonade, and stuck the whole thing in the fridge to cold brew. The lemonade started turning pink almost immediately. I let it cold steep for about four hours. Maybe I should have gone longer but I was really hot and needed something refreshing to cool off with! Unfortunately it was hard to tell whether the hibiscus really added anything flavor-wise. The color was a gorgeous, vibrant red, but it tasted sweet and tart in a way that lemonade usually does anyway. I’ll revisit this concept at some point, but this particular experiment seems to have had unremarkable results.

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Interesting that I never left a note about this. I certainly had enough to do so! It was…. okay. Spicy, gingery, but… almost too many spices? I don’t recall if I ever thought “gingerbread” too clearly. I’ll admit that I didn’t care for it enough to have finished it off myself – my husband was fed the majority of it via large mugs of tea with honey while sick, as he wasn’t averse to the flavour. I just have so many other teas and flavour profiles I’d prefer to drink.

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Sad to sip this down, but I still have other laoshan black in my cupboard that needs to be finished off. This one was just delicious, so rich, chocolatey, and smooth.

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Review for the Dec 2019 version (the remnants of my second and last bag). I let myself sip this delicious tea down because it got reblended, yay! I believe I tried the reblend in the advent calendar, and also stocked up, so it will be with me for a long time. This is similar to Vanilla-Whipped Lavender Grey, just without the lavender. Deliciously creamy bergamot and a solid base (it can get a touch too robust if you oversteep – learned my lesson).

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Got my Savoy order, which was mostly full of samples. Also grabbed a tin of Squash Buckling Chai, because it was sold out when I wanted to buy it last year, and I want it for fall!

Anyway, this one wasn’t for me. The berry has that chalky taste to it that I sometimes find in berry flavoring. Overall it just tastes a bit vague and generic, and the Chinese sencha base isn’t helping things either.

So sort of tastes like lemon and berry Tums-flavored dry grass.

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Another earl grey sipdown! This actually reminded me of Frank’s… lemon earl grey? Whatever it was, it had a white tea base, and was really good. If I haven’t missed out on the advent polling, I should locate that one to add.

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I don’t remember the final cup of this, but I historically haven’t cared for this tea, and don’t recall any particular revelation here. Raspberry flavouring sometimes comes off as waxy and fake to me, and I believe that was the case here.

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Glad I still have a large package of this left. It’s so good. An extra-citrussy earl grey, but not pithy/bitter. Delicious.

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I’m pretty sure I’m just not a fan of “honey” flavouring. It sounds so good but just doesn’t quite do it for me. Ah well.

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Review for Dec 2020 version (the OG). Just a perfect tea, great base, wonderful creaminess which blends the lavender and bergamot seamlessly. I think I powered through this entire pouch (small) in a couple months, which is not typical for me, as I don’t usually like repeats.

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Review for Dec 2018 version. Tasty as always. Not overly gingery.

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A fantastic final cup of this one. Sweet and full of flavour, good for at least 2 resteeps. One of the nicest white teas I’ve had.

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Too long ago to have much to say, but I remember enjoying it, as I’ve loved pretty much all of AQ2T’s snail bud yunnan-based blends. Rich and raisiny.

While I was super excited for this blend as I love Apple and cinnamon… it just didn’t do it for me. It was very lightly Appley and had no spice or caramel as expected. I steeped another cup to see if I didn’t steep it long enough but… nope I did it right lol.

I bought this on a whim last November for my stocking and kinda wished I had bought a second box. This has an excellent dessert flavour reminiscent of cream and digestive biscuits. It really says “cream” to me more than just being creamy or milky. It has a natural sweetness as well (but no stevia! hell yeah!). The biggest downside is that it is caffeinated. However, this does mean that the black tea base isn’t hidden or washed out like decafs can be. You get a lot of malty, strong black tea flavour. It’s got a very English tea with digestives thing going, which I love. I love digestive cookies (especially with tea)

The only way to drink this is with vanilla soy milk/milk of choice. You could also add sweetener if you wished but I don’t think it needs it.

I’ve missed you all dearly. I have a bunch of reviews saved that I want to post, so please excuse the spam.

I got this as a sampler from Well.ca and was delighted that they had a free sample I actually cared about. This is a wonderful peppermint. My teabag was called “Minty fresh” but it seems to only contain peppermint.

This is a fresh and strong peppermint with a lot of menthol. I brewed this sachet (single serve mesh sachet – but both the sachet and the wrapper are compostable/recyclable) in hot water (~90 C) for 5 minutes. I could smell the mint right away. Even as a dry leaf it smelled very potent. I’m impressed! It wouldn’t be my go-to just for cost reasons but this is one of the best straight peppermints I’ve had.

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This seems to be a nice sakura sencha, with dark shiny leaves and sakura blossoms and leaves mixed in. However, in my tin at least, the leaves were super broken, which made it easily become bitter. I found I had to shorten the steep quite a bit, and even then there’s a bit more bitterless than was probably instead.

However, otherwise it’s quite tasty. Very savory with a noticeable salinity from the salted blossoms, a thick texture and intense vegetal-umami flavor profile. Very spinachy, but with a touch of sweetness. As always, love the savory-floral flavor of the sakura.

A nice enough tea, but I don’t think I would buy it again. It’s quite expensive and I feel like some of my other options for sakura sencha are superior.

Ashmanra’s Sipdown Challenge | July 2023 | A tea that makes you smile

I wasn’t intending to use this tea for this prompt, but I made the last serving of it into an iced tea, and it unlocked a memory that really did make me smile!

Back in high school, at the height of my Lord of the Rings obsession, I was super active in various online LotR fandom communities (and was known by my elf name * hair flip emoji *). I befriended a group of fellow fans, and we chatted over AIM pretty frequently. One gal had a penchant for Snapple’s peach iced tea, which she called by its initialism/acronym: SPIT. I remember trying SPIT a few times, just because I knew she liked it.

When I sipped this iced tea today, I had a sudden memory of SPIT, which reminded me of those innocent days where I basically lived on the internet and would stay up till 6:00 in the morning over summer vacations, talking with my friends on AIM until I heard my parents wake up, at which point I’d scamper into bed and hope not to get caught. Those were the days! I often miss the internet of the early aughts, which I think is why I appreciate Steepster — it reminds me of those early, tight-knit, often fandom-based communities and forums!

2023 sipdown count: 41

I wouldn’t buy this since I’m not a big coconut fan, but I have to say that it was really quite decent. It didn’t require as much sugar as other unsweetened matchas I’ve tried, probably because the coconut brings some of its own sweetness. The coconut tasted slightly toasted, which was fun. It was well-balanced so you could still taste some matcha below the flavoring.

The infuser smells more minty than I anticipated. I steeped this for about 3 minutes and let it cool some as its a humid warm summer morning. There’s a nice pale color to the tea. I get more ginger and mint than mango and peach. It’s not a bad combo but just surprising. I do taste peach but no mango detected in my sips. I enjoyed it but not overly excited by it.

Because these Tea Forte teas came in a holiday sampler, I don’t have full information about them. I read the label and thought this would be a fruity, tropical tea. After having the mug, I did read reviews and went to the Tea Forte website to see more about the ingredients, it makes more sense now.

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Last one for June! This is one of my oldest teas, so feels good to get it finished off. It’s from the fall of 2019, purchased in Kyoto.

Still tastes yummy, just a well-rounded hojicha with a moderate roast and a nice touch of grassiness. Not particularly nutty, but has such a cozy autumn leaf sort of flavor profile. I don’t know that I would order this particular tea again, but that’s mostly because I always have a ton of Obubu teas lying around from my subscription. Always love a hojicha though!

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I enjoyed this one, it’s nice and lemony but in a soft, fluffy way. Like lemon drops mixed with clouds. Don’t taste much of the lavender or sage, which I’m actually happy about.

I don’t think I would buy it again, since it mostly tastes like lemongrass. But I did enjoy sipping through the small tin (although Old Barrel’s small tins can be so difficult to open lol).