Geek + Tea

Sipdown (1333)!

I was sad to have finished this tea off back in January because the green apple flavouring in it is truly sublime – and it makes for such a lovely combination of warming and comforting spices and very fresh, crisp apple that is so intriguing to me as a combination. However, I’m trying to be more mindful of not holding onto the last cup of tea simply because I’m not ready to be done with it yet – there’s not really an advantage to that…

Plus, I know there’s another Geek + Tea blend from the advent that had quite a similar apple note – I’m just blanking on the name of it. I’ll get to revisit this lovely flavour again though, it the main point there.

Adventaggedon Day 6 – Tea 2/6

Mixed feelings here because I don’t think I really understand the link with Gryffindor all that much, but damn if this wasn’t delicious. It’s basically a green apple Chai, but with the tiniest hint of Lapsang. Y’all know I’m a total slut for a good flavoured tea that uses Lapsang…

It’s more than that though – the bright, crisp green apple flavouring used in this tea blend might just be one of the nicest and freshest green apple flavours I’ve ever experienced in a tea. Right now, the only thing coming to mind that I would hold in such high esteem would be Dots & Loops from Auguest Uncommon – and it’s funny that comes to mind because it also has fennel in it which is one of the main spice flavours I got in this blend. Sweet green apple with that anise-y fennel pop and warming cardamom with a hint of smoke!? Oh, be still my heart! It’s the nicest flavoured Gryffindor blend that I’ve ever had – but it just doesn’t… feel right!?

But what would a “perfect” Gryffindor blend be like for me!? I don’t know why, but the only thing immediately coming to mind is Turmeric – and I also think a black tea base just feels much more right than this mix of green tea/black tea/rooibos.

I don’t know – what do y’all think!? What would the perfect Gryffindor tea be!?

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIeSOftgdHs/

W is for… Wit & Wisdom!

Sipdown (1394)!

I didn’t realize until just now exactly how many “W teas” I managed to squeeze in for this alphabet challenge – but it was actually quite a lot!! This was a nice cup, but I felt good about finishing it off. It’s a very simple, leaning a little more sweet and jammy, blueberry flavour on an average white tea base. Tasty, and relatively appropriate feeling for Ravenclaw house – but I do actually own very similar teas so saying goodbye was easy. I’m not creating a “hole” in my stash right now…

Adventaggedon Day 4 – Tea 6/6

Y’know how I know I’m definitely not a Ravenclaw!? I opened up this tea in my advent this morning and then say on my bed for a solid minute trying to figure out how this related to Harry Potter before it finally clicked.

Once I got it, I loved it though! This feels like a fun approach to a Ravenclaw blend – you’ve got the house colours captured perfectly and the flavour was just delightful. Light bodied, soft white tea with gentle, sweet and fresh blueberry notes – it’s flavourful, while still being delicate. I’ve tried a handful of different Ravenclaw blends now, and this is probably my favourite so far – just an honestly nice cuppa. Plus, the little pops of purple from the heather was so cute!

Can’t wait to see their interpretation of a Hufflepuff blend!

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIZC-u1gDbW/

Sipdown (1291)!

Gonna try and do much better at sipping down advent teas earlier in the year, this year. A bunch of these Geek + Tea blends are close to sipdowns, so that might be a good starting point.

This was a nice mug but it really, really tasted like cola to me this time around. Like, an orange flavoured cola!? It was good, but weird – and I wanted more chocolate. I got cola last time too, but not as strongly. I guess it’s the combination of ginger/cinnamon and the orange giving off the allusion, since cola is citrus and spice. The funny thing is that if this had a name like “Cauldron Cola” I would be super into the flavour, but as it’s meant to be a chocolate tea it just seems out of place and like a let down to me.

Ultimately happy to have tried this tea but I genuinely don’t know where I’m landing on it…

Adventaggedon Day 2 – Tea 4/6

This is another “12 Teas of Christmas” style advent, so I’ll be alternating back and forth between this advent and the 52Teas one – like I mentioned yesterday. It’s also Harry Potter themed, so I’m very excited to get a little injection of fandom with my advents this year!

The smell of this through me off at first because I was expecting a more overt chocolate aroma and flavour, because of the name. The tea itself was very tasty, but I would say the strongest note was a fresh and slightly zesty orange followed then by cocoa, ginger, and a sweet graham note from the honeybush. A weird thing kind of happened with the loose leaf smell where it was almost cola-like in aroma to me, but I didn’t get that from the taste.

Today’s advent photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIUQkZLAFJz/

Sipped on a Western style mug of this earlier today. It’s definitely not a particularly high quality oolong, but in terms of taste it was serviceable. A little coarse and I got the feeling that even thirty seconds longer of steeping would have imparted a sharper green edge to the cup I wouldn’t have been fond of, but the medium bodied grassier leaning notes, hint of orchid, and slight nuttiness were nice – and of course, I’m a sucker for a good nerdy pun.

Grandpa style…

So, let me first say that I think Grandpa style was not the most advisable way to steep this oolong. That much seems very clear from my experience. It was just unfortunately not a very nice tasting cup; the florals were there but the oolong was very sharp and acridly grassy with astringent and bitter finishing notes.

My gut feeling is that, in general, it’s probably not a super amazing TGY but I think this method of brewing likely just highlighted some of the areas where it would have already been rough around the edges. I’ll learn from this for next time, though!

In general I feel like in the evenings I don’t take advantage enough of my big herbal tea collection as I should, but this week has come at me like a freight train and most nights I’ve really only had it in me to drink more “soothing” and “herbaceous” blends to help with the destressing of it all. Somehow this one crossed my mind, so I had a cup last night. It has a very mild lemony bright top note but more than anything else I couldn’t get over how distinctly this tasted like sweet potato. Just verrrrryyyyyy starchy with hints of that citrus note and some warming spices like cinnamon/nutmeg.

Made me think of latkes, baked sweet potato, and just other more savory/umami potato based noshes. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it though! I think most nights it might have been the kind of tea I’d describe as intriguing/interesting but not necessarily great but on this night… Well, I guess I just wanted the tea equivalent of “carbing out” because it was perfection.

Geek Steep S2E1: Wonder Woman 1984

I’m so excited to say… Geek Steep is back!

After a few months of break and a few more months of planning & delving into many new fandoms, we’re back for our second season – and on our one year anniversary as well! We’re doing a couple things differently with season two. To start, in order to better manage our time/prevent burnout with the second season, we’re putting the blog on pause. We’ve loved doing the longer write ups each episode, but they weren’t reaching as large an audience and so we felt like the time commitment for each wasn’t justified.

However, on a more positive note – we’ve added a new category to our episode rotation: Audience pick fandoms! We got a lot of good fandom suggestions over the coarse of the first season, so we’re excited to expand this seasons fandom line up to showcase some of your awesome suggestions! The first episode of our second season is out RIGHT NOW on all major podcast streaming platforms – if you can’t find us on the platform of your choice, let us know and we will figure out how to be there!

For our first episode back we were joined by our friend Tori of the IG and blog Siply Tealicious – this was one of the fandoms that she suggested over the course of our first season so it was a real delight for us to be able to bring her on to talk about it with us and help answer a few of the questions we had about Wonder Woman as a character on the large. This was the tea that I chose for myself to drink while recording because it was, obviously, too perfectly on theme to be ignored/not selected.

I did debate picking it for my actual movie watch, but I’ve had this tea before and it’s pretty soft and herbal tasting with more starchy notes as well. It’s a good, comforting cuppa but didn’t seem to have the right punch/intensity of flavour for such an action packed movie. Better, for sure, to enjoy over a fun conversation.

Earlier last week I recorded a podcast episode with Tori, from the instagram and tea blog Siply Tealicious & that episode was published yesterday on her podcast Quali-Tea Time which explores people’s tea journeys!!

I’m not gonna lie, it felt like basically the most egotistical thing in the world to talk almost exclusively about myself for an hour – but that was the point, I suppose. I think most people here on Steepster who are long time site members actually know most, if not all, of my “tea story” because you’ve lived through it with me over the last seven/eight years, but it was very flattering/humbling to be asked to share it.

I picked this tea because I’ve talked with Tori before about fandom-y things because of my podcast Geek Steep and I know she’s a massive Wonder Woman fan so it felt like a really great way of tying in that love of all things nerdy & kind of honoring her during her podcast. It was my first time brewing up this tea, and to be completely honest I don’t remember a damn thing about it because I was so focused in on the conversation and the adrenaline that comes with recording (I am a super introverted person, so it takes a lot for me to have the focus/energy to record – even just audio) that it felt like at one moment I had a full mug of tea and the next I had an empty cup…

I’d like to explore Wonder Woman on our podcast at some point (we almost did it instead of Birds of Prey), and if we do I hope Tori will consider being a guest for the episode. If that ever happens, I think it’ll be safe to say this tea will probably make a reappearance.

Brewed this one up this past “May The 4th Be With You” – aka Star Wars Day! I made it in my Rebel Alliance teapot too, for extra Star Wars nerdiness. This is one of my favourite of Geek and Tea’s blends; the combination of Lapsang Souchong and oolong is smoky yet smooth and roasty, with the perfect sweet note of maple syrup to end the sip. I don’t know that I believe Vader would be a tea drinker, but if he were this is probably the kind of cuppa he would love!!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cr1W-64uzfD/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOPTLDG5ibA

…and we now come to mug of tea that I’m currently finishing!

Let me tell you, after 24 straight days of having me teas all selected for me in the morning it was very weird to wake up and basically be able to choose anything. It felt freeing and also so intimidating. When you own more than 1500 teas which one do you start with!?

Obviously the answer for me, because I’m predictable, is something smoked. Truly though it’s just what I was feeling. I got up out of bed and very quickly this tea popped into my head. So I made it! I love the smoky body flavours of the tea though because they’re perfectly grounding and lovely with the roasted oolong and mineral/char notes but also temper what is a very sweet and rich maple syrup flavour that the tea has as well. It’s just a really nice blend, and I feel perfectly happy in this moment finishing it off.

Geek Steep S1E9 – The Mandalorian

I’ve been waiting basically since we began the podcast to find a good time to drink something from Geek + Tea during an episode, and this blend which is an overt Star Wars reference just screamed at me “now’s the chance!” so that’s what I went with for my rewatch pairing…

I explained a bit more in depth on the actual podcast episode, but obvious Star Wars reference aside I thought that this was a really good choice for the show just in terms of flavour! Marika put it best, but Star Wars has the awesome ability to take a futuristic and alien/space focused world and make that technology and futuristic vibe still feel old and lived in/used. Most of the first season of The Mandalorian takes places in these isolated and war torn locations throughout the galaxy or in more seedy criminal hubs in off the beaten path locations – this sort of intense/harsh smoked flavour feels like what you would likely be smelling at almost all of these settings, and that deeply pulled me into this rewatch.

Also just a side note, because I know I didn’t mention it on the podcast episode – as much as this tea tastes like maple it also has a weirdly distinct sort of root beer aroma to the dry leaf and steeped it even tastes a bit like sarsaparilla. I liked that a lot, but I see nothing in the ingredients that should be causing it so it was just sort of weird.

Our Website: https://www.geeksteep.com/
Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geeksteep/

My Geek Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CHfg4B6gDOj/

Listen to us on Buzzsprout:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1286036/podcast/website

DB topic:
https://steepster.com/discuss/42133-geek-steep-a-new-tea-and-fandom-podcast

If you want to get caught up on the Geek of The Week for next Thursday, the spoiler for our explored fandom is at the bottom of our latest DB post!

Just a very average tasting cup of Earl Grey. Nothing to write home over, but also nothing to turn your nose up at either.

Again I find myself pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this EG…

I still sort of refuse to believe there’s no vanilla or cream flavouring, because aside from a medium bodied and smooth bergamot flavour accompanied by fresh rose there is definitely a sweetness and creaminess that feels like it should be coming from a vanilla or cream flavouring. It’s almost like a cream that’s just on the verge of sugars in it caramelizing. I love that note in this tea.

Slightly bumping my rating up from the 76 it was at…

So pleasantly surprised by this tea!

I’ll be really honest, I bought it because I thought the name/pun was too good not to. I don’t really like Earl Grey very much though, so I expected to get a clever tea pairing for the next time I read an X-Men comic but not a blend I overly enjoyed. It was worth the trade off.

However! This surprised me with nice it was. I mean, it’s not a new fast favourite or anything like that but I didn’t find myself struggling to get through the mug of it or grimacing at the bergamot. In fact, it was surprisingly smooth and even kind of creamy as if there was a vanilla element to the tea – although I don’t see vanilla or any type of flavouring listed with the ingredients. The bergamot was light to medium bodied, and primarily the flavour was just this silky floral that I enjoyed – nice notes of rose, which I found really soothing.

Always nice when a tea surprises you!

Haven’t had this tea in a while but I was really craving rhubarb so I dug it out. It’s fantastic with that bright yet somewhat more cooked and jammy rhubarb note, the really rich and malty black tea base, and then that little bit of earthiness from the ginger. Not really a hot/spicy ginger at all, but I think that’s for the best because it really lets the rhubarb shine!

Been a moment since I last had this tea so I decided to just go for it. The black tea was medium bodied and malty with a warming floral undertone. I thought that very gentle sort of floral vibe married well with this more baked and stripped down rhubarb flavour and both complimented the soothing earthy ginger notes. Kind of just a comforting cuppa with all the main flavours in attendance but just respectfully giving each other their needed space.

Cold Brew!

…it’s a sipdown, but not one that’ll decrease my cupboard total since I’m just polishing off the little bag from the advent calendar and not the larger 50g one that I already owned.

I wasn’t sure how this would taste cold brew, but I’m enjoying it currently as I work on these tasting notes and treating me well. I think the rhubarb comes off as more vibrant and flavourful when steeped hot, but I like that with this style of prep I’m getting this very smooth and consistent fresh rhubarb, minus the tart bite, with a muted ginger. It’s still very flavourful and has a pleasant natural sweetness but it’s just more grounded and rounded – less “high fruit” and “low tingly ginger” – so a different experience.

Adventaggedon Day 8 – Tea 4/6

Today was a real roller coaster of advent selections! There were some teas I was really not excited to see, but there were also a ton that got me super stoked and this blend falls into that category. It’s the only one from the Geek + Tea advent, so far, that I’ve been familiar with and it’s also my favourite Geek + Tea blend just in general!

I have a big love of tart, sweet and creamy rhubarb teas and the balance of that rich rhubarb flavour mixed with a subtle-y warming and spicy ginger makes my heart sing. I made a full teapot of this to sip on over afternoon meetings because I knew that I would adore it and I have a 50g bag of it anyway so I didn’t feel bad about deep diving into my little advent pouch.

Love this one, would definitely recommend!

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIjkTExg-d5/

Another tea I’ve been drinking a lot of recently!

I tried finding rhubarb pie at the grocery store recently because I was craving it and it just wasn’t carried at the moment – but when I got home I realized that this was the perfect was to satisfy that craving! Lovely warming spice, but mostly a good rhubarb! I enjoyed this mug a lot – it’s not my favourite rhubarb tea in my massive stash, but I think it might be my second…

I’m trying really hard to write tasting notes right now, but I’ve attempted to do so for over a dozen teas today only for the pages to show up as 404 Errors – I know that’ll go away, but it’s super irritating. Yes, the site is running at “100% Capacity”, but had it not being doing that already for years prior to Adagio’s takeover!? Sure, the start of things was NOT great overall but at least you could write a damn tasting note more than 5% of the time…

Anyway – that frustration aside, I’m happy to have an influx of more geeky teas in my stash. I bought I bunch with the goal of having teas I could use/talk about on the podcast (Geek Steep) but this is a damn good tea regardless. It’s maybe the least overly fandom-y of the new tea additions, being inspired by Harry Potter. The dry leaf smells fucking incredible – one of the freshest smelling rhubarb teas I’ve ever come across. I should really update my Steepster profile; rhubarb has been something I’ve liked in tea for years now but it has quickly become something that I adore in tea.

I see it most often paired with custard/cream or strawberry, so it’s cool seeing a new flavour duo! The ginger is nice – why the rhubarb has a refreshing sweetness and freshness that hint of warming spice makes it feel more baked and autumnal. I can see the Rhubarb Crumble inspiration coming through, and it does feel like this would be something appropriate for The Burrow.

Nom nom nom.