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IT’S MY FIRST STEEPSTER BIRTHDAY!!!

I feel like I need to post a tasting note to commemorate the occasion. This will have to do. It’s been another deadline day for me today, which means staying in pyjamas all day, unshowered while staring at my laptop and wishing I was dead. Not a good day for a birthday/anniversary, overall. I chose to review this tea because it was one of only two cups I had today while I was working, and I don’t even remember what the first one was.

This is a nice tea to sip on. I chose it today since I needed calming down, and it actually kind of helped. The mixture of black and rooibos in the base makes it robust enough to keep me focused while relaxing me at the same time. I quite like the combined base! The predominant flavour here is definitely caramel. As somebody who grew up having treacle tart as dessert with school lunches, I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect match, but it definitely reminds me of the filling. There’s a burnt caramel, thick treacle-y note which transports me right back, and it’s actually very tasty. There’s even a suet-y taste, although I’m not sure if that’s maybe coming from the rooibos or my imagination. I’m missing the flaky pastry taste which would make this a spot on representation of a treacle tart in tea form, but as it is it’s a good tea and I don’t suppose you’d know the difference if you’d never had treacle tart before. I’ve just started considering making tea syrup, as I’ve read a few interesting things about them, and this might be a good place to start.

This is my favourite tea of all time, and what better way to celebrate my 100th tasting note? There’s nothing I can rate this tea other than 100, because it is just that beautiful.

After spending ages writing up this note and concentrating really hard on it, Steepster decided to crash on me and delete the entire thing. I wanted to give this tea an amazing review, but that will now have to wait for another time as I have work to do. So sad I lost my review! It was almost finished, too ):

This tea is crazy good. The scent is perfect maple syrup when hot, and then the woodsy base and the pecans come out to play when it cools a little, though the maple is still prominent. The flavour is fairly similar – sweet and maple syrupy when hot, with the Nilgiri frost becoming more prominent as the tea cools. This brings out some woodsiness and nuttiness, which work perfectly with the pecan, which also becomes more prominent when cooled slightly. I also get fairly strong buttery notes as it cooled, which I would tentatively attribute to the Nilgiri, although I’ve never had it in its unadulterated form. These buttery notes come across to me as pastry-like, and I think that one of the reasons I love this tea so much is that it reminds me strongly of a pecan plait – a Danish pastry filled with a thick mixture of pecans and maple syrup. I love the flavours of the pastry, although they’re maybe even better in the tea, in my opinion, but I have a couple of issues with them in that they’re so unhealthy and after the first couple of bites become far too sweet and sickly. This tea is the perfect alternative – all of the flavour amped up by a wonderful base tea, with none of the guilty, greasy-fingered queasiness afterwards.

The mouthfeel of this tea amazes me. It’s thick and syrupy while I’m drinking it, and afterwards I get a feeling which is difficult to put into words but it’s exactly the texture I associate with pecans.

I can get three wonderful western-style steeps out of this (4 mins @80, then 5 mins @80, and finally 5 mins @90), although now that I have a limited supply I will probably try to eke out all the flavour I can and maybe go for a fourth or even fifth steep. I once managed to get 7. I would like to try this gong fu, but I’m a little hesitant to use some of my already-far-too-small supply to do so, as I already know that I love it brewed Western style.

Drinking this is bittersweet. Each sip brings me closer to never drinking it again, and I just don’t know how I’ll handle that.

Decadent and elegant and so so good.

This was supposed to be a sipdown, but I did a silly thing. I was brewing up the last of my sample of this tea from MissB to share with a visiting friend, who asked me to pick out his tea for him. I had roughly 2.5 teaspoons left, so the plan was to brew 2 of that in my IngenuiTEA to make us a cup each, and then make a small cup with the remaining half a spoon to fill my travel mug up. I have to go into university as I have a lot of work to do which involves many late-night library sessions, and I thought one final big mug of this would be nice company.

BUT then I did the silly thing. When I’m making 2 cups worth in my IngenuiTEA, I often find that the first cup pours out really strong and the second pretty weak, due to the settling of the leaves in the pot. To counteract this, I’ll pour the cups back in so that they mix and then refill the cups right away. I usually do this over the sink, to avoid messy spillage, but today I was in a hurry so I thought what the heck, what harm can it do to pour it over the bench? There’ll maybe be a few drips to wipe up, so what. Only I wasn’t paying enough attention to what I was doing, and I ended up pouring the first cup back in while the IngenuiTEA was still sitting on top of the second cup. Of course, this meant that the mechanism which releases the tea was open, and the tea I poured in just came flooding straight back out, and ended up all over the bench and floor, including under the microwave D: so I ended up having a really tiny cup and saving the also tiny remaining leaf to make a final cup which I can properly concentrate on for my sipdown. Sigh.

Briefly, though, I am still loving Cara’s fandom blends. They are seriously inspired. This one is just like Moriarty – seemingly sweet and delicious at first, with a kick that isn’t discovered until he’s already got you hooked. I prefer this to the ‘Moriarty’ tea by Cara, as there’s a lot less ginger, but it’s definitely still present. I am very glad MissB was kind enough to include in in my mystery box, as it was a wishlist tea I didn’t have too much hope of trying, seeing as the UK Adagio store doesn’t stock it. (I seriously hate how limited it is compared to the US one). This tea actually reminds me a lot of the ‘Mycroft’ blend, which I love. Despite not containing any of the same teas, when combined their ingredients are very similar. Both start off with a chocolatey, sweet chai flavour which translates as spiced cake (I believe it’s meant to in the Mycroft blend). Only where Mycroft finishes with vanilla and cream notes which evoke frosting, Science of Destruction lures you in and then hits you at the end of the sip with a spicy ginger kick. Super yummy, and great for these cold winter nights. I wish I hadn’t wasted nearly a whole cup. ):

tl;dr – I temporarily disengaged my brain and poured tea everywhere, and I wish I hadn’t because this is tasty.

Another one down, and this time no waste! This is my favourite SBT to date, albeit out of only three, and the only one I have managed to finish fully before it started to taste of fridge. As with the others I’ve tried, I brewed the teabag for 3 minutes in boiling water then topped it off with cold water and left it in the fridge. I added four teaspoons of brown sugar, but I don’t think that did much, as the resulting tea was not very sweet. I think if I had added more sugar the syrupy pop taste might have came out more.

As it was, the black tea base was more prominent than the cola and lime. From the strength of the scent from the teabag, I thought it would be stronger, and I personally would have preferred some stronger flavouring, so I think I will cold brew next time I make an SBT, but I know that Frank wanted the focus to mainly be in the tea, with the flavours enhancing it in the background rather than taking over, and so for that I think he’s done a good job. It does make sense really – if you want to taste lime cola and no tea, you buy lime cola. If you want iced tea with a hint of lime cola, this is the one to go for.

The black base is a touch astringent, but nowhere near as bad as it was when I oversteeped the last time, and it has a nice malty note which is interesting with the cola. Both the lime and cola come through together at the end of the sip, and it’s quite an authentic lime cola flavour. The scent is more ‘cola bottles’ but the taste is not as artificial. I managed to finish off the quart of tea in two days, which is saying a lot for someone who rarely drinks iced tea. I wanted to make another quart but the teabag, although kept in an airtight container, went mouldy overnight ):

Sipdown 24/304

Final tea from the 12 Teas of Christmas 2014 box.

I was hoping to end the box on a high note, but sadly that was not the case. I’m not loving Frank’s green tea base (and green isn’t my favourite in any case) and ginger is one of my most hated flavours. So really, this tea was never going to be for me.

My first cup was surprisingly alright. Toasty rice flavour pairs quite nicely with the ginger to turn it more into a ‘gingerbread’ kind of flavour, it turns out, but the base went bitter quickly. I had another cup today to refresh my memory prior to writing up the note, and oddly I got a super strong cola smell from it. It was more ‘cola bottle sweet’ than actual cola drink, but it was unmistakably cola nonetheless. The cola translates into the flavour, too. This time around, all I could taste was cheap cola bottle, and didn’t get any gingerbread at all. There was a hint of popped rice in the background, and the base was just as bitter as before even though I was extremely gentle with it.

I’m starting to wonder if there’s something off with Frank’s ginger flavouring or ginger pieces as I’ve noticed this misplaced cola note with several of his teas now, and ginger seems to be the connecting thread – this, ginger pumpkin cheesecake, and witches’ brew chai. Odd. Has anyone else experienced this?

Day 11 in the 2014 12 Teas of Christmas sampler.

I had a second cup of this this afternoon to refresh my memory, as it’s been a couple of weeks since the last time I drank it. Inexplicably, something rather drastic has changed in those two weeks. It’s a good job I remember really enjoying this tea the first time round, or I would be rating it pretty low. I thought I had steeped it the same both times, so I’m not really sure what has caused the difference…

So the first time around, this tea was delicious. Even my little brother loved it. It was fresh strawberries, with vanilla and cakey flavours. It reminded me more of cake and ice cream than custard, but who’s going to complain about that? I was expecting more of the same when I brewed it up today. The scent of the dry leaf was how I remembered, but when I added the water I recoiled a bit. Almost straight away, there was a strong smoky odour which became more powerful than the strawberry smell. First sip confirmed that the smoke was also in the taste. Yuck. Who wants smoky strawberry? The creamy cakey flavours has disappeared, too, so I was left with a very disappointing cup. I still don’t understand why. At first I assumed the sample must have been contaminated, but that’s not possible – it’s in a sealed pouch, and was stored with the rest of the twelve teas sampler, none of which have been contaminated. I read through a few of the tasting notes from other steepsterites before writing up the note, and noticed that Kittena has noted a similar smokiness, which leads me to think it’s just a feature of the tea which I managed to avoid with my first cup. I will definitely have to experiment with steep times, amount of leaf and water temperature to try and coax out the deliciousness that I got first time around.

Woo! Upping my rating for this massively. I am so glad I ordered an ounce of this before it ran out. My first sample was definitely ruined, because this one is way better. It is absolutely delicious. Bold Assam with caramel and vanilla flavours melding together beautifully. Yummy. So so happy I ordered more of this.

So I think that this was tea 10 from the 12 Teas of Christmas box. The label just said ‘peppermint patty’, but I can’t find that in the system and the one I have definitely has coconut in it – there are huge shavings in the dry leaf.

Dry, the tea smells coconutty and minty and is quite strong. This mutes quite a bit after brewing, and the malty base takes over with the coconut and mint taking a back seat. The taste is very similar – a strong, malty base with a fair amount of astringency (will try steeping below boiling next time), with a mild minty flavour. After adding a sweetener and a little milk, the base mutes and doesn’t hide the flavours as much. It’s actually pretty nice. Creamy mint in the sip, with a nice coconut aftertaste. Still, I get no chocolate. That’s not specific to this tea, though. I hardly ever get chocolate in tea, so don’t hold it against it.

I’ll finish my sample, but don’t think I’d buy more if it was available.

Day 9 from the 12 Teas of Christmas 2014.

This is heavy on the clove and cardamom. A little too heavy for my liking. The pumpkin flavour is very natural, but it has a taste I would identify as ‘raw’, if that makes any sense. I prefer a sweeter, more ‘cooked’ pumpkin flavour, but that’s just personal. I bought this in my last 52teas order before I opened the sample from the box, so it will be interesting to see how the reblend compares to the original. I will write up a more detailed note next time I drink this, but I can’t really remember much more about it for now. I enjoyed it, but I prefer the pumpkin chai from DAVIDs.

I’m not going to lie, I was confused and a little disappointed to see this as day 8 in the 12 Teas of Christmas box. Confused because this definitely doesn’t say ‘Christmas’ to me – it actually screams ‘Halloween’ – and disappointed because I already own this one. Oh well.

Right from opening the pack, I could tell that this reblend was way different to the original pouch I have. The smokiness is a lot more pungent, and there is no ‘cola’ scent which I noted the first time around. It smells very savoury.

The flavour is pretty similar to the scent, savoury chai with a fairly strong smokiness. It’s not really for me, but looking back at my previous tasting note it seems that this reblend is what I expected from this tea the first time around! A much better match for the name, but a much less enjoyable cup for me.