52teas

Nice authentic banana flavor and buttery oolong. This tasted good both with and without soy milk. This was really high quality, though I’m not sure I tasted eggnog specifically. I’d happily drink it again though! 52teas banana is always awesome.

I placed a small 52teas order recently, and it just arrived yesterday! This was part of that order and a blend that I was intrigued by. I’m into it. The banana tastes like actual banana but a touch sweeter; I’m not sure if that’s from the influence of the toffee flavoring or the banana flavor itself is a bit candy-like. The general effect is like if you melted a Toffifee on a banana. It’s very sweet without crossing over into being too sweet. I also appreciate that it’s a bit nutty without being woody the way rooibos and honeybush often are. This won’t last long around here!

I brewed this as instructed, but my first cup started out a little bitter/astringent. I put it in the fridge overnight, and it tasted much better, especially with milk and extra sugar. On my second cup, I tasted mostly green tea with some chai spices and just a hint of fruit. This isn’t my favorite sort of profile, so I wouldn’t choose this one again. I wish I could have tasted the individual fruits more distinctly.

It’s back – for a very limited time! It’s a great wake-me-up kind of tea. A very bold, rich CTC Assam blended with marshmallow root & vanilla bean. It’s so good!

Please don’t click on the “buy now” button on Steepster’s page for this tea as it won’t take you to my website to purchase this tea, it will instead take you to a tea from Adagio that is not at all like this tea. Instead, visit my website if you’re interested in this tea! Thanks!

I taste mostly lemon plus mild chai spices. It’s a bit of a lighter chai than I’d prefer, but I feel like I get what this one is going for. Pleasant with milk and sugar. I steeped it for longer the last time I had it, and it tastes even better. I sort of do get both the lemon and chai vibes from this! It’s such a fun idea. It’s best cold.

Sipping on a glass of this – cold-brewed! As delicious as this tea is served hot, it’s even better as an iced tea! I cold-brewed it overnight, and it tastes so good. It reminds me a bit of a Moroccan mint blend with a twist of cantaloupe!

The mint is forward, but not overwhelming or in a toothpaste-y way. It’s just a crisp, refreshing note of mint with a juicy note of sweet melon. The green tea is smooth & earthy. A really lovely blend, I think this is going to be a perfect beverage during these hot days of summer!

Very smooth and creamy white tea, tasting more marshmallow creaminess than anything until it starts to cool and then the hojicha really comes out more. I am a hojicha fan, so that is a good thing! Between the huge pot made for breakfast with a friend and a pot for Ashley for breakfast, this is already a sipdown! (I just had the taster pack.)

This tea is so good (If I do say so myself!) It’s so good that my s/o has declared it’s one of the top 5 teas I’ve ever crafted. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it IS really good. The base is a Yunnan grown Assamica black tea (and it is beautiful!) and the natural flavors of the unaltered leaf is that of stone fruit & caramel/molasses so it suggested to me that I create a blend with stone fruit & something that would be enhanced with those dark, burnt sugar notes. Since I happened to have some freeze dried apricots on hand, that’s what I went with. I also added some peaches because I thought – a drunken apricot isn’t gonna notice that a peach came to the party.

The brandy plays so well with the caramel-y notes. It’s really a beautiful blend – and it tastes so good!

I wasn’t sure what flavor this was supposed to be, but I tasted something like butterscotch and possibly something fruity? It’s nice with sugar and milk at room temperature or cold. Not a favorite, but tasty enough!

Sipdown

I thawed a zucchini bread that was in the freezer tonight and made a huge pot of this for Ashman and myself to share. He liked it very much and thought it was a great pairing.

What a surprise this tea is!

I picked it because I like toffee and I like banana and I need some caffeine free options on shelf. I have never had the Chinese dessert Toffee Banana and didn’t know the tea was inspired by that until I read Roswell’s tasting note.

I steeped the tea twice and combined the two steeps. I was a little worried about trying that right off the bat without having sampled it before because not all teas can take that treatment. But this one can!

Wow! I never expected so much banana flavor! I have only had samples of one or two banana teas in the past and they did not have nearly this much banana flavor. And the toffee is so rich, with the nuttiness making the cup really have nice body.

I love this, and would definitely repurchase. I had it hot with nothing added. Paired it with a few squares of Milka Kuhflecken chocolate bar. YUM

Currently sipping this tea. When I first decided to craft this tea, I was surprised that it was not a tea that we had currently blended before. We had created the Banana Coconut Cream Pie Houjicha & then later the version with white tea & houjicha – but never just a Banana Cream Pie tea. How could that be, given my love for banana teas?

Anyway, it was high time I remedy that! I slightly overleafed this particular pot of tea and I must admit that it’s even better when a little overleafed (sorry!) It’s really good when prepared according to package parameters, however, when it’s overleafed, the black tea base tastes a bit more robust while not sacrificing the flavor of banana cream pie.

I taste banana, I taste the creamy custard and a hint of pastry. I even get a note of the whipped cream topping. So nice. An ideal breakfast tea when overleafed like this. While conducting taste testing sessions with this tea, there were a couple of times when I had forgotten that I had a cup of tea somewhere (lol) and I’d return to it gone cold. It was really good cold too! I also tried it cold-brewed and it makes a really nice cold brew.

This one is almost gone although I will be adding a couple more pouches to the website later this afternoon – so if you go to the website looking for it, please be patient with me!

I love this tea! The soda flavor is as delicious as ever, and the orange isn’t tart, just light and fruity. The resteep might taste even more soda-like. The green rooibos is smooth and nice. This makes a really smooth cold cup of tea. I will always say yes to more soda teas!

I knew I was planning on preparing tacos for dinner tonight, so I decided to cold-brew this tea overnight so that I could have a delicious iced tea today that goes really well with tacos! (I’m sure that it goes well with other foods too, but the mango/lime combo screams tacos to me!)

Anyway, this blend is so good. The combination of mango & lime is a winner. The mango is pleasantly sweet-tart & the light green rooibos base is really refreshing, while the lime brightens the sip. It’s light, sweet/tart & thirst quenching.

This tea is really good hot, but I prefer it cold-brewed. It doesn’t need sweetening, but I find that with a little bit of honey – it just brings it to a whole other level. Amazing!

I finished measuring out this tea last night & I decided it was time to have a cup! The aroma of this tea was absolutely INTOXICATING as I measured it out. I truly adore this tea.

I have to admit that when it comes to cherry teas, I tend to be just a little timid about it, because there’s a very thin line between cherry flavored & tastes like medicine & if I’m going to be totally honest, more often than not, one person’s cherry taste is another person’s medicine. So, putting a tea out there that tastes of medicine is a bit intimidating.

I’m happy to report that – there’s not a hint of medicine in this cup. Just sweet black cherry notes, hints of fluffy vanilla marshmallow & of course, a rich, chocolate-y note from the Fujian base. I love how well this one turned out. So good!

The first time I had this, I found it a bit underwhelming. I tasted some chai spices, but they were sort of average. I didn’t taste anything that reminded me of cake batter unless you count the too much sugar that I always add to tea. I found it a bit more flavorful on my second and final cup, but I guess I wanted a bit more than an average chai.

June 18 – Picnic Day: have tea outside

Sipdown

Nicole sent me a taster pack of this and it is one of the teas I was most excited to try. I served it Sunday for Father’s Day, a half gallon iced, and made another half gallon today.

I have had every meal and my snack outside so every tea has been outside today! It is hot but not humid and with the fans going in the shade of the carport in back it is very pleasant to sit and look at the garden.

This has such a fresh and fruity aroma, and I love that I can drink it anytime of the day or night because of the green rooibos base.

This is a sipdown, but does it really count when I have more on the way?

Sample sipdown! I definitely oversteeped this all three times I made it (distracted, not timing, etc.), so the woodiness of the rooibos came through stronger than it probably otherwise would have. Luckily I like rooibos! I think the blackberry and apple flavors are pretty solid here. The apple probably gets a boost from the chamomile, which is a nice combo. Would I have chosen this one myself? Probably not, because I’m not big on blackberries, but I’d happily drink it again!

This tastes pretty bready! Nothing really makes me think pumpkin though. The base is quite hearty, especially with a longer steep. I also taste mild spices. I wish I could taste pumpkin!

I’m a fan of 52teas making more whip teas! The pineapple one was amazing, and this one is delicious too! The balance between light, fresh strawberry flavor and creamy marshmallowy flavor is perfect. I think steeping shorter than 3 minutes is best to eliminate any bitterness. The last cup of it was particularly pillowy, though it does need some sugar to bring out that flavor.

June Sipdown Prompt – World Environment Day: drink an organic tea

Sipdown edited to add – enjoyed it cold and sweet so I steeped it hot, added sugar, drank one cup and put the rest to chill for tomorrow lunch.

This tea was in my huge haul sent by Nicole! Many thanks!

I tried this tea three ways – hot and unsweetened, hot and sweetened very lightly, and cold steeped and sweetened.

Hot and unsweetened – I mostly tasted green tea, with the gunpowder flavor dominating, and chun mee being the second strongest layer. It was a well done green tea blend for the base. I was hardly tasting any flavoring but I think the grapefruit was so similar to the flavor of the greens in the base that it wasn’t coming through as a separate note. I added the tiniest hint of sugar and picked up a little of the vanilla. As the cup cooled, both the grapefruit and vanilla became more noticeable. I mainly felt it was a very enjoyable green tea and the flavoring was a whisper.

Then I cold steeped a carafe to use as sweet tea for lunch. I added a little hot water and sugar, swirled it until the sugar dissolved, and topped up the carafe with cool water from the filter. Then I added the tea leaves. I left it in the fridge for about five hours.

I don’t cold steep much. Usually I just make tea in advance and chill it for a few hours to a day. I was worried that it might really not extract much flavor since I am somewhat inexperienced at cold steeping with the exception of puerh, which I have cold steeped a lot.

The flavors are more prominent this way than prepared hot to me, and I taste both the bitter (normal) flavor of the grapefruit and the desserty vanilla, but they are still somewhat light. Good enough to have two glasses at lunch!

Next time I drink this, it will be a sipdown. I think it is a very good tea for anyone who enjoys gunpowder green tea or grapefruit flavor.

Sipdown

Another tea shared by Nicole. Thank you!

I did not expect to love this way as much as I do. I didn’t expect to dislike it, I just didn’t know how true the name was.

Velvety is so apt here because this tea is a caress from sniff to sip. I love the aroma. It is soft and enticing, and there is a little candy-esque vibe. Ashman does not like oear flavor in teas but he really liked this one. It resteeps well so we got two small pots and one fairly large pot from the taster pack.

Good enough to have you looking forward to getting up for breakfast. Lovely.

Just adding a quick note to say I tried this as a sweet iced tea and it was marvelous. The spices were perfect for me. I did also try it with milk but preferred it without as the milk tones down some of the spices and the tea has a lovely clarity (in taste and appearance) that I preferred unmuddled. Delicious!