Pinky Up

After doing about two hours of experimenting and blending my palate decided it was time to drink something. Ah. The dry aroma of this one is lovely. Reminds me of so much at once. Cream soda. Lavender cookies. A sweet spritzer. I’m not picking up the same notes from the wet leaf besides a bit of lavender. The mouthfeel is soft with an aftertaste of lavender and sweet cookies. Mmm not quite sugar cookies but a slightly more savory version of the same. The main flavor is lavender coated with honey. Also a bit of cream soda.

Very good herbal tea. I like the tartness of the cranberry with almonds, cinnamon and orange peel. I do not taste the white chocolate. I am glad that it does not have artificial sweeteners or sugar. Delicious with honey. So far I like all the Pinky Up teas I have tried.

This brand promises a good substitute for sweet treats, and boy does it deliver! This really captures the flavor and rounded sweetness of matcha ice cream. Instant hit!

This tastes mostly like apple chamomile. It’s decent, but not as tasty as some bagged ones. Nothing about this blend tastes anything like confetti cake, which is quite a shame because the idea sounds so fun. It’s also a little fruitier than I prefer in a chamomile. Every cup I have of this, the apple is even stronger than I remembered.

Stevia ruins everything. Put it in and that’s all you’ll taste. The after taste gives a small sense of cobbler but the stevia bullies its way back in and that’s about it.

This seemed like a great morning cup – some mint to wake up with some sweetness to round the edges. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy the sweetness at all. It seems pretty hard to overpower peppermint, but it does. You get peppermint up front followed by an artificial sweetness that lingers; I tossed about half a cup and called this sample done. A sipsby fail for me.

Cold Brew!

I’ve been trying to think of different ways to use this tea since it’s, um, not good. I don’t really want to toss it out until I’ve given it at least a few shots different ways. Welp. Let me tell you, cold brewing is not the answer. A lot of the cardamom does come through and that’s definitely the nicest part. However, it still has so much of that really funky sour/borderline alcoholic (in a bad way) kind of taste. It was really hard to drink through this brew.

Oof. Ick. Ugh. Bleck.

I wanted to revisit and give this tea a second chance now that I have set me expectations a bit better with it, but it’s not good. The coconut has a funk and intensity to it, it’s cloying and sickly sweet, and the cardamom is just so out of place. Plus, the mouthfeel is very oily from all the coconut fat and white chocolate pieces. I just… it’s a no from me.

This tea confuses me a lot. It’s so, so incredibly busy and chaotic for something as simple in concept as a sugar cookie – and there’s frankly a lot of ingredients that don’t seem necessary. Coconut. White Chocolate. Cardamom.

In terms of taste, it’s very thin with mostly notes of coconut and a bit of a creamy undertone from the white chocolate I suppose. The cardamom is noticeable in the finish. It’s okay, but not great and it definitely doesn’t make me think of sugar cookies. Maybe pastries in a much more general sense? Maybe.

I guess I can’t totally fault the weird ingredient selection because in a more restrained percentage all of the ingredients I called out probably could add to a sugar cookie type of flavour – but it’s such a delicate balance because you want to taste qualities of them and not the distinct taste of each. Cardamom included, weird as that one seems.

I was a little worried about this one because the dry leaf visual sorta just looks intensely like finally chopped up cinnamon pieces with very little else to contribute flavour and the aroma is very aggressively cinnamon in the “red hot” kind of way that doesn’t exactly translate to cinnamon buns, which should have more of a bakery-style woody cinnamon note. However, steeped up I found myself impressed with the surprising amount of balance that was present! It’s still definitely majority cinnamon, but I think it would feel wrong is that wasn’t the case for a cinnamon bun profile. Plus, despite the smell coming off as red-hot cinnamon, the taste was _definitely the right type for this flavour direction. More warming with a softer sweetness. Very, very bakery.

There’s other things in the ingredients too like moringa and orange, but ultimately I don’t taste them at all. I think it would be weird if I did taste them but it also then begs the question of why they’re included. If I had to guess, the moringa is probably just to be able to loop in that superfood buzz word and give more of a wellness feeling to a generally perceived as decadent profile. The orange, on the other hand, really does puzzle me.

Cold Brew!

In my head I remembered this as being very sweet. Though it was a sweeter cold brew, it definitely didn’t come close to the way I’d remembered it – so I found that interesting. The rooibos was relatively forward, though more of that honeyed red fruit flavour that obviously played really well into the profile. I tasted rhubarb the most – like a baked rhubarb flavour but without being heavy/super cooked down tasting. The cherry was very surface level and candied tasting – like a thinner version of a maraschino cherry.

I enjoyed it a lot, overall!

Cold Brew!

Very, very sweet with a pronounced stevia note in the finish but I still didn’t hate it. Mostly because I like rhubarb a whole lot and this was very rhubarb forward with a nice candy-type cherry undertone. Finished it faster than a lot of the cold brews I’ve been drinking lately. Maybe as it gets warmer out I’ll be back to downing my cold brews as a faster rate.

Dry leaf of this one doesn’t smell like a lot so I wasn’t totally sure what I should expect, but steeped up it’s pretty lovely! I realized as I was sipping that I don’t know if I’ve ever seen cherry and rhubarb combined together, and it’s a pretty fun pairing. The top notes were a bit more of a tart rhubarb with a hint of edge to it, and then the body was deeper/sweeter and more cherry-like. As the tea cooled the cherry came out even more. I think my only “con” is that the finish is a little artificial/cloying and I do taste the stevia. I don’t actually personally mind stevia in teas, but the “one two punch” of artificial tasting cherry with stevia bordered a little bit on the line of too much.

This tin has felt like it’s been staring at my from its spot on the shelf, so I made a early evening cuppa a few nights ago to sip while watching some shows. It was sweet but the notes of white chocolate and roasted almond were well balanced and I got that slightly grassy umami hint of matcha too. Not a favourite, but at least I don’t feel like the tin is glaring at my anymore.

Cold Brew!

Not gonna lie… this really feels like a dupe of DT’s Matcha Ice Cream blend, which I’m like 95% sure predates Pinky Up releasing this tea. The visual/ingredients list are close to identical and, while I definitely don’t think DT can “claim” the matcha ice cream tea profile, it’s an odd coincidence since some of the ingredients like planed almond aren’t necessarily things you would generally associated with ice cream…

That said, it’s a fine tasting tea! I think it’s a little too thin in taste and body to really work super well as a cold brew, and it tastes largely just sweet and vaguely nutty/creamy. However, there’s enough of a foundation here that I feel like it was translate/scale up better with a hot brew.

As I mentioned in another tasting note, I was really craving apple this past week. So on Friday while working from home I ended up making a mug of this specifically because I know that despite the name it has such a warm and cozy apple pie-like flavour. A hint of cinnamon and nutty roasted almond, but mostly a mix of sweet and syrupy baked apple. Totally satisfied the craving.

Once again I feel obliged to point out that this doesn’t taste anything like a red velvet cake in the slightest. However, the roasted almond, baked apple, and cinnamon notes are all so cozy and comforting that it feels like a very snuggly kind of cuppa. Makes me think of warm apple pie or apple crumble straight from the oven.

Iced Tea!

In the nicest way, whoever in Pinky Up’s R&D or Marketing teams who decided this blend tasted passably like Red Velvet Cake must have been high that day…

I mean, there is quite literally not a single aspect of this tea that tastes anything like Red Velvet Cake even in the slightest. No chocolate. No cream cheese or other types of frosting. No cake. So I would HIGHLY advise against buying this tea if that’s what you’re looking for.

With that said, it’s not an unpleasant tasting tea. In fact, it reminds me very distinctly of something in particular and that’s DT’s Forever Nuts. Sweet and apple-y with a really robust roasted almond note and some cozy cinnamon! However, I think this might appeal to me more than Forever Nuts because it’s caffeinated! The idea of that sweet nutty apple pie profile but on a yerba mate base is really fun and appealing to me, and though right now it’s not a profile I reach for often I think having it be energizing would be something I’d gravitate more to than the herbal mix.

Sipped on this Sunday morning!

It always surprises me just how strongly the papaya in this blend tastes. Like, for it to compete with such a red hot style of cinnamon flavouring is just impressive. Theoretically a flavouring like that should just totally drown out something delicate like papaya. Instead it’s fruity, floral and spiced in a really playful and delicious way that just channels the best kind of tiki drink vibes!

So many layers of flavour! I picked this one out last night because I felt like the tin was literally staring at me, and cinnamon seemed like something nice and relaxing for the evening. I had sort of forgotten that, yes, this is a bold red hot cinnamon flavour (like cinnamon hearts) but it’s also kinda fruity too – and the papaya was surprisingly strong in this cup. Most surprising, though, was the floral undertones. Didn’t remember this being floral and floral with cinnamon was… unique. Not bad, but unique.

This is part of Pinky Up’s summer iced tea line up, and even though I’m not drinking it as an iced tea today I think it’s a really fun and different take on a summer profile – cinnamon with different tropical fruits like papaya! It reminds me a lot of a long gone seasonal tea that DT once put out called Superfood Splash that was basically a cinnamon banana. Very much that whole tiki vibe kinda thing…

I get mostly sweet red hot cinnamon as I’m sipping on this, but there’s an undeniable fruity and slightly floral undertone of more mellow “orange” tropical fruits. Not orange as in citrus, but more of a mix of mango and papaya. Mostly papaya. I wish it was a little bit stronger to hold up to the potent cinnamon, but it’s nice in an unexpected way!

This has a pleasant amount of lavender in it so that the flavor comes through pretty clearly. I also definitely taste some honey. The rooibos base doesn’t have any negative or weird flavors. I’m drinking this with almond milk, and it all tastes pretty desserty and nice. Pinky Up doesn’t seem to make teas that are as complex or sophisticated as other brands, but I’m satisfied enough by this one.

The flavor here is a fresh, sweet mint. It’s really clear and pleasant, which is wonderful after I’ve had a few murky ones lately. I have to say that there’s nothing that reminds me of macarons. Actually, there are a bunch of ingredients here, but I really only taste the spearmint, which I could have gotten much cheaper elsewhere. So this tastes pretty good, but it doesn’t live up to its fantastic sounding name. It also includes four kinds of sweeteners, which seems pretty pointless since I prefer to sweeten my own teas.

This one was alright, definitely apple pie flavored. I just have another apple pie flavored tea that I enjoy more with more flavor, so I won’t repurchase this one.