Pistachio Cream

This is a tea with a pretty distinct flavor which means you really need to be in the mood for it to truly enjoy it. When I first went about brewing the cup, I was not really that excited but smelling the rich cream scent of the dry leaf made me happy that a cup was a mere 5 minutes away. Now I am happily sipping away at the nutty, creamy cup of sweetness :)

Ok, so tea 3/5 of the new collection!

I really like Mulberry Magic, so I thought I would try this out. It smells divine! I’m not a big pistachio nut (ha! see what I did there?) but I do enjoy the creaminess to this tea. I may even prefer it to Mulberry Magic because of that. It’s very soothing and comforting. I wonder how well it would re-steep?

ETA: I re-steeped it for 6 minutes but it was bland/flat. Most DT’s don’t resteep well so I’m not that surprised.

Almost done my 20g so it’s about time that I actually write about this pistachio (near) perfection. I wasn’t too crazy about Mulberry Magic. Something about the macadamia in there that didn’t work well as a tea, but this tea smelled gorgeous in the store so I couldn’t resist. I mean, the dry leaf smells like creamy pistachio pudding.

When I was Skyping with my mom the other evening, she mentioned that Dr. Oz featured mulberries on his show so I reminded her of the bit of Gold Rush I picked up last summer, how I got her to taste a mulberry after, etc, and memories of those caramelly berries came rushing back to her. We then talked about the health benefits of mulberry leaves, so that inevitably led to the discussion of this tea. She’s been suffering from some hardcore peptic ulcers over the last couple years, so drinking tea is a literally painful thing. But this should be ok for her! Another reason why herbals can be so awesome.

Anyway, love how this tea brews up to a beautifully deep moss green. I find that you have to watch the steeping time though because the leaves can taste almost spinachy, or like beet leaves, if you leave it for too long, but get it right and it’s fantastic. The cream is very light here but definitely noticeable, and that pistachio is right on. Sweet pistachio, not bitter or rancid like how nuts can get. An excellent treat for when you’re craving some of that pistachio pudding.

While we were talking, my mom asked me if I tried it with half-and-half yet. Gosh, no I haven’t! I usually reserve cream for flavoured blacks, but with a herbal? Hmm. But it sounded like a crazy genius idea.

So I just did with this cup and it’s super fabulous. Looked like I was drinking a matcha latte but wasn’t. Now it’s even more like pudding.

That reminds me of Breaking Bad, how Lydia habitually drank her chamomile tea with soy milk and stevia. I’d always think to myself how gross that must taste.

I just learned the best feature of my new cheap porcelain teapot – unlike the tetsubin, I can just shove the whole works into the fridge without any worries!

This afternoon I pulled out what was left of the huge pot of this I made last night, and I can happily say I like it just as much – if not better! Yes, the chamomile is definitely present, but it’s easily ignored, and I still taste guilt-free spumoni that’s even more ice-cream-like now that it’s chilled. I am still very, very happy with this purchase!

And I’m making up a mixed bag of teas for a co-worker who’d like to try some loose leaf. He’s one of my husband’s friends (they nerd-out together to Sci-Fi movies I don’t want to see), and a coffee drinker, but likes TAZO Passion and Celestial Seasonings Peppermint. His wife is also going to have baby #3 in a couple weeks. Anyone want to peek in my cupboard and give me some suggestions of what to include?

So on the way to the NYC meet-up tonight (which was a lot of fun btw), I grabbed a cup of this to go, sampled pumpkin chai as a cold-brew and picked up a packet of sugar and spice. The hype for the new blends sucked me in!

This was a lot sweeter than I expected! Although I tasted pistachio, I kept wondering if they had put some other tea in there because it was so sweet. It didn’t however taste candy-sweet which was nice. It remained natural tasting and there was some herbal spiciness in there keeping the whole thing from going over the top. I don’t think I’ll buy this one, but it was quite yummy!

This was definitely the tea I was most excited about of all the new fall teas.

It does seem to be extremely similar to Mulberry Magic, save for the pistachios rather than macadamia nuts. I am enjoying this cup, though I think I actually prefer the Mulberry Magic. Perhaps it’s the addition of chamomile throwing me off?

It does seem creamy, and the mulberry leaf base is wonderful. I’ve found pistachio to be a fascinating flavour in the few teas I’ve tried with it. I’ll enjoy the rest of my sample.

So I happened to find myself walking by David’s on Bleecker in NY the other day and thought I would drop in to pick up a tea to go, and I ended up getting a perfect tea mug for the office. I chose this tea as my tea to go because it was late-ish and I decided an herbal would be good. I’ve never tried mulberry leaf tea, so I was intereseted in this noe.

This was pretty good, but also kinda weird. It was somewhat sweet, and definitely nutty and creamy, but it also had a somewhat odd perfuminess to it. Would be interested to try this under more controlled circumstances (and not out of a paper cup), but I don’t know that I’ll seek it out again.

I do love this tea. I am so glad we got a sample of it with an order for me to try. I really do often write off pistachios and pistachio flavoured items without even trying them (I am just not generally a pistachio fan). However, I am a mullberry fan and this is just such a nice, green tasting tea. I find that the leaved unfurl so nicely and it really does benefit from a good long steep. Now that I have tried a few teas that feature chamomile fairly prominently, I can actually taste the chamomile more in this tea. I think the natural sweetness of the chamomile really compliments the mulberry leaves. This is a nice tea and one I really enjoyed this afternoon!

I got a bit of this to try, because it smelled delicious (creamy and nutty. Ahem) and the Sugar and Spice just smelled like cloves.

I really like this one. It’s very similar to Mulberry Magic, but without the weird walnut-skin flavour I got from the nuts in that one. I think there’s also a bit more of a creamy flavour in this one. I made a tea pot, iced half (I’ve gulped it down, yum!) and left half hot (just starting to be drinkable). It’s very sweet, and even sweeter and creamier hot. It tastes a little green as well, probably because of all the chlorophyll in those leaves! I think I might prefer it iced, because the coldness makes it feel less sweet and pudding-like, but it’s pretty good hot as well.

It also expands a LOT. I used 1 tbsp in my 16 oz tea pot with a large basket, and the leaves started lifting the lid!

If you like pistachio pudding or Mulberry Magic, this one might be something you enjoy.

Wow. Well hello there, chamomile tea disguised as delicious pistachio and cream. Wow wow wow.

You know, there’s being misled because the tea smells amazing in the package, even more amazing as it brews, and then the inevitable let-down as you take your sip of subtly flavoured water, and you hopefully swirl your tongue around your mouth, trying in vain to like the tea that you had such high hopes for.
This wasn’t even that.

I don’t even know what happened, to be perfectly honest. I actually followed the instructions for a change, and didn’t even add any milk or sugar as I typically do. I’d actually had this iced to go when I had my David’s tea episode the other night because they had like six iced pitchers that hadn’t been used and didn’t want to waste it. Cold, it tasted delicious: creamy even without milk, and very refreshing (I can imagine really liking it in the summer, actually). But hot? just wow. If you don’t like chamomile, stay far, far away—the base hits you hard in the face, and even a tea-idiot like me could pick that up. On the flip side, however, if you like chamomile, you’ll be wrapped in a robe made of chamomile, complete with an accompanying pair of chamomile slippers, and just for good measure, there’ll be a CD softly playing chamomile-flavoured music in the background (this tea will make you believe that such a thing exists).

So, here’s the plan. I’m not giving up yet, especially because I know there’s a flavour profile lurking in the depths of these leaves that I just need to coax out. So here’s the plan. I’m going to double up on leaves next time, and head over to my good ol’ buddy cream, and I’m hoping that’ll temper the chamomile down epically. I was muttering this exact plan to myself actually, and my fiance overheard me.
me: “Hmmm, I can fix this right up. If I just double up on leaves, add in a buttload of cream, that oughta temper the chamomile right down. Yup.” )(I followed that proclamation up with a self-satisfied grunt)
Him: “Darling, you’re not, like, renovating a bathroom! you sound as though you’re deciding which walls to knock down, how much dry wall to use, and which landscaping company you’ll be calling in next!”
So yes, it was quite the experience. Kind of a disappointing day in the world of tea, sadly.