sTEAp Shoppe

SIPDOWN! (243)
Oh man… this IS delicious. I made a cup of this to drink while i had my meeting with china tonight and sadly i didn’t get a chance to drink most of it hot. However i have to say this really does have that caramel, chocolatey taste. This is on the order list for my upcoming order from the steap shoppe.

Thank you tastybrew for a sample of this one.

I’m sorry to say that I totally ended up drinking this and got to the bottom of the cup without really paying attention to what i was drinking. Not that it was bad, but we were watching a show and I guess i was involved with it :) I have a bit more that I’ll use to make a proper tasting note but this was a pretty good tea – though the specifics escape me :)

another tea to say goodbye too. Tea cupboard is organised and i’ve been working for the last little bit while sipping on multiple steeps of this. On the plus side, my cupboard again feels like it’s organised…though that being said, i have another 27 or so teas on the way and no room for them haha

While i’ve enjoyed this a bunch, i think this won’t be a restock for while, or until i’m craving a delicious cinnamon bun type tea in the future!

Almost at the end of this tin. I’m not sure i’ll repurchase – not because i don’t enjoy it but i am a)losing my tea mule and b)find that there are other teas i tend to reach for first.

That being said, this is a great tea! and i highly recommend it for anyone looking for a delicious dessert tea that tastes like a cinnamon bun and resteeps REALLY well, without becoming a wimpy flavourless tea in the resteeps :)

this was a tea from this morning since i knew i could resteep it this evening when i returned home. I’ve had a few cups of this today now and i’m always pleasantly surprised by how long the flavours last making this a really enjoyable tea to savour.

it’s late so really quick notes. I had this today and i think i’m less enthused by it now after drinking up large quantities of the tin i picked up. good to know. still tasty but less so.

this was my other tea today and i’m happy for it. While i still love this one, i love it a little less than when i first picked it up, and i am starting to prefer the flavours in brioche. However, this is still a tasty delicious tea that i’m happy i have in my cupboard! :)

Tea of choice for a baseball game? This one! I thought of you while I was there terri!

trying to catch up on a few backlogs from the last few days. It’s been a really long few days. Still enjoying this, though i haven’t managed to achive the same perfect from it as when tastybrew sent me her sample…i think she put magic in it. :)

Backlog from yesterday – this is still my favourite from the steap shoppe

mmmm this was my take around toronto tea for today and was a nice end cap to this afternoon’s tea with raritea you should all be jealous. we went for tea at the king edward hotel today in toronto and it was aaaaamaaazing! at least in terms of the food lol. The tea was really enjoyable, but by far was overshadowed by the sammiches and desserts.

This tea? a wonderful not as sweet tea to end the afternoon while i do some “work” for work. ugh.

…and it’s time for another round of Sil plays catch up! Holy crap is work busy these days. We’re getting ready for another release weekend on top of having to interview folks and try and finalise a multitude of projects. I’d love to get home before 5 any day now! On the plus side, I have tea with Raritea to look forward to this weekend plus a mini swap and dash with her and Kittenna woot woot! Only downside? My cupboard increases yet again! haha

Same old with this one, though it was a little different this morning. I accidentally mixed it with no.18 from Steven Smith. Yeah i was tired while making tea. The mixture? not half bad as the SS tea but through the cinnamon and delicious just a little. Not much of a change, but a minor change nonetheless. Still a favourite though! woot woot!

awe yeah! cinnamon swirl bread is in the house! 4 oz of it. So yes…i’m a happy camper, especially with the resteep value on this one. It was the perfect tea to go along with today’s work fiascos in the morning. I’m really glad i have this now when i want it instead of jsut the memory of it from my swap with tastybrew :)

backlog as i’ve been mia for a few

sipdown! on this one and i’m sad to see it go. I’ll be picking up more of it since this is not only a tasty delicious cup of goodness but it resteeps incredibly well. Hard to beat that!

dear tastybrew ZOMG! Yeah i’m still loving this. I resteeped the crap out of the little cup that i had a few days ago…. and then needed to have more today. Oh yes..you will be mine. all mine!

Thank you tastybrew Seriously..i just need to quit now. I mean when i first started out drinking dessert teas, i thought 52 teas cinnamon roll honeybush was like oh man! it’s a cinnamon roll..fast forward a few months, i for sure don’t love it as much as i once did and now there’s this tea.

This is a cinnamon roll, minus the overly sickly sweet taste that comes from the icing…which is perfect from me because what the puerh DOES bring, is the delicious bread aspect to this tea.

i’m only on my second re-steep of this but it still hasn’t lost any of it’s punch. It’s like WHAM! EAT ME! i mean..drink…drink…but holy moley. Yeah there will be more of this in my cupboard. And the brioche that i had a couple days ago from american tea room? Yeah…this one will be in my cupboard first. Not that there isn’t room for both but this one needs to come home now.

Thank you so much tastybrew

Backlog:

One of sTEAp Shoppe’s “Simply Teas” offerings, and I like it a lot! It’s a really rich and delicious Yunnan, with lots of gold tips. Sweet, notes of spice, earth, caramel. It’s a fantastic “rugged” tea … very, very good.

Here is my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/02/15/flecks-of-gold-black-tea-from-steap-shoppe/

Made a pot of this to share with my Mom. Used the smaller cups so there’s an extra cup for one of us.

I like the vanilla. It’s nicely strong and bold and it’s a very pleasant taste. I do not like so much the Ceylon base and my mother agreed when I talked to her. There’s just something not quite right with this combination. This ranks around the middle of the pack for vanilla black teas. This would have been much much better had the Steap Shoppe chosen an Assam or something for their base. Then I would buy again. In this instance, not going to.

Full review tomorrow (April 3) on http://sororiteasisters.com/ but here are snippets:

Upon first sip you will get a sweet raisin note, a light grape essence, not nearly as muscatel as some Darjeeling, and you may even think that it is a rather light, bright, tea with a clean finish. But wait… sneaking upon your unsuspecting taste buds is a rich, full mouthfeel, almost creamy, velvety, with a nutty, woodsy, backdrop of flavor.

I could see this tea being quite excellent iced, but it requires no additives and I feel adding any thing, even sweetener, would ruin this perfect cup.

I been sipping on this one a little bit today and yesterday because the weather around here has been cool like in the fall, This is a nice one very light and fruity, the taste of the apple and cranberry go together so nicely that i can’t single them out separately because they unite as one delicious unique flavor and the flavor of the tea itself is a nice light oolong with faint floral notes. I should have gotten this one around Christmas or Thanksgiving time because it would have been perfect with some Thanksgiving turkey :)
I also enjoy eating the fruits out of it after I drink it that makes it even better, Yummy!!!

Hay is for Horses but better for Cows, Toads can eat it but i think we’d rather drink it, This one taste sweet and like Hay with an almost buttery smooth mouthfeel, Saying taste like hay is not a bad thing at all it’s really damn tastey, many white teas i’ve tried have had slight haylike taste just not so much as this one and never in a bad way.
The dry leafe has a sweet almost floral aroma to it that is very pleasing, my sample got crushed in the bottom of a box because i had to box up all my teas and move them around into another room due to renovations and when I pour some out in my hand the little pieces of leafe feel very soft and fuzzy like goose down in a soft pillow.
Some teas feel really good when you hold it in your mouth and swish it around some, this is one of them.
I did decide to try this one with a little sweetener added and it was delicious, reminded me of the taste of honeycomb cereal from when i was a kid.
Very good tea, I’m really starting to like white teas more and more these days :)

Thank you Janet for this sample of your new tea creation!

Everybody knows that I’m a Puerh Nerd and proud of it!
A Puerh Nerd is a Tea Nerd that smells like dirt! (That’s a joke!)

It was another Georgeous Morning on the Frontrange today! Birds singing and traffic reports to beware of SUN GLARE (which I think is amusing since my home in California wasn’t as close to the sun as living in the Rocky Mountains!).

Cinnamon Swirl Bread sounded like a festive and fresh beginning to my day.
Right when I was setting up my teapot, I almost missed the first ingredient ‘2008 loose Puerh’, thinking the tea had a black tea base. (Good thing I read the label more carefully!)

Janet ‘only’ uses organic, fair-trade ingredients, listing them on the package. The label explained timing, how to do multiple steeps and suggested 5 (or more) making this a great tea value.

Could the flavor really deliver though? I’ve tried so many blended Puerh’s that get it wrong!

A lot of thought went into the ingredients. I was confident that the puerh, cocoa nibs and cinnamon would do well through multiple steeping, but the black tea was also hearty and didn’t become weak through 40 ounces of testing.

Taste:
Janet created a delicious cinnamon bakery bread tea, no doubt about it!

The cinnamon isn’t sour or overdone! The tea doesn’t taste like chai or cinnamon tea, it’s what it says…bread! KUDO’s!

(I added some more sweetener and milk to make my tea even richer but you wouldn’t have to…)

Would order this tea? Absolutely! It’s one that I’d play around with even, adding a little ginger now and then, or orange. It’s what I do.

The body is smooth, rich and substantial because of the puerh.

Ah that word came up didn’t it, Puerh! What about that?

If you’re a puerh lover and want a punch of puerh flavor, forget it. You can’t really taste the puerh. It’s lending body and richness to this blend. It’s one of those wheat-bread puerh’s.

Anyone fearful of puerh, who might have pulled back from trying this blend anticipating an earthy or fishy taste is safe!

You can’t taste the Puerh, but you get all the health benefits!

This tea is a winner from sTEApShoppe!

Backlog from yesterday.

This another from sTEAp Shoppe and another winner. I don’t typically like citrus-y or fruity teas, but this mentions being good for when you have a cold and as I seem to be living in a period of neverending colds from the little creatures in my house, I thought I’d give it a go. Super glad I did. It tastes like a soothing lemony-apple cider, which is funny as there isn’t any apple in it anywhere. It must be the mulling spices that just make me think of apple cider. I really like the look of this too. Thew whole slices of lemon and lime are really appealing. I’m going to need to order more of this soon as I almost went through my whole sample pack yesterday and my cold is still holding strong. Definite winner.

I haven’t had this one in a long time, but wanted a puerh to really wake me up this morning after being sick the last few days. I also chose this so that I wouldn’t have to pick another tea for the rest of the day. I think I steeped this one like 5 times before I finally decided I’d had enough. This tea is awesome. I think I have enough for one more cup then I’ll finally have to re-order. It’s definitely a cupboard staple.