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I never cared for this tea, but then I’ve always been a milk-and-sugar kind of girl. Now I’m on an ultra-restrictive diet (WHICH IS WORKING, I MIGHT ADD), and forced to take all of my beverages sans adornment.
HOLYMONKEY’SUNCLE, this is a tasty tea! I let it steep for longer than I wanted and I let it cool down for longer than I’d intended, but my goodness, is that coconut a great little taste when paired with rooibos.
It’s so creamy and PERFECT!
Mm.
MmmMMM.
Thank you, Jolly Jellybean, for making my diet easier.

I went to David’s for a bunch of fru-fru teas and decided that it was time to pick up a straight black to go with my Orange Pekoe. I smelled this one, decided I wanted it and bought 50g because I couldn’t justify spending $22 on tea that day.
I’ve already tried it and it was INSANELY sweet. I put in milk and honey and all I could taste was the honey. So I’m trying it this time with just a splash of milk.
The smell reminds me of the days of the honey latte when I worked at Starbucks. And those honey stir sticks. I don’t know if I like that or not. But mmmmm… This is one tasty tea! It’s rare that I can find a black tea that I don’t automatically want to pitch a crap-ton of sugar into, so this’ll be good for the waistline too. Bit of an interesting aftertaste (like a tinniness, but in a good way. The coldness, but not the metallics. Maybe? It’s been a while…). I’m going to try doing a second brew with this bag too, since I’ll be working late tonight.
Woo!

Time to get to work on a chilly afternoon and I’m feeling like I need something warm in my belly, so Mulberry Magic, I choose you! I’m also in a kind of zen mood today because I finally heart my baby’s heartbeat again (after 6 weeks between appointments) which settled down my inherent worry-wortness.
I nailed the smell of the dry tea: those little liqueur chocolates that you get at Christmas! It smells exactly, EXACTLY like those. And again, it has the unmistakable yellow cake batter flavour that just fills your mouth and makes you think of licking beaters while an oven set to 350 bakes your delicious, delicious treats. Now that Canadian Thanksgiving is done, all I can think about is Christmas (and how I can get away with not hosting any of the festivities…) I think I’ll be buying several tins of this as gifts for people.
Or maybe I’ll just buy several tins of it as “gifts for people” and then drink them all myself.

I wasn’t interested in this tea.
Like not even a little.
Mulberry Magic? There is nothing about that name that thrills me.
But it was the tea of the day today with Carrot Cake (which I was hoping was in the little shot glass I was handed) so I tried it.
YUMMY YUM! I couldn’t quite identify the taste, but when the girl behind the counter at the David’s in Polo Park said, “Cake batter,” that was 100 percent correct. I had baked a cake less than 24 hours prior — a fluffy from-scratch yellow cake to make my daughter’s 2-year birthday cake — and that was totally the taste I was getting.
I was there to buy Forever Nuts and Pumpkin Chai and accidentally also walked out with 50g of Mulberry Magic.
Now it’s on my terms. Steeped a touch heavy (a little over 1/2 Tbsp for my 12oz mug), but since I enjoyed it so much in the store, I will be drinking it naked.
I want to stick my finger in the steeper and lick that flavour off. It smells like it should be thick, dripping and contain raw eggs. (Those are all good characteristics.) The tea, too, smells like it will be shocking to drink a liquid instead of a batter.

Ooh, it tastes way different at home. It’s a little hotter and a little heavier. And it tastes like booze! As a pregnant lady, I really appreciate that. It tastes like some fancy after-dinner drink in a fancy restaurant where you’d be all, “Wow, this is delicious. I think I’ll make this at home for guests,” but you never do. THIS I would serve to guests.
I can see craving this around Christmas. And I can see making this Christmas morning to open presents.
So delish.

Slippers: check
Outside: dark
Listening to: work. And the INCOMPARABLE Mike Tompkins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtBeobpTcmk

Oh my.
Oh my goodness.
I usually pre-amble before I taste the tea but didn’t in this case and I AM IN HEAVEN! (Which either means that I died quite recently or that I sipped the tea before typing.)
I accidentally added way too much sugar — which I’m kind of thinking may be ANY sugar — but hoooooly mackinaw, is this a tasty tea.
I’ve only tried it from the store before and it was too weak for me. I tend to throw in a lot more than the suggested tea. I likes it heavy.
It tastes like a liquid pumpkin bundt cake with that beautiful white cinnamon-bun-style icing drizzled heavily over the top. I couldn’t ask for more from this tea. Even the aftertaste is like a food.
The tea itself smells so sexy that even though I’m currently pregnant (and drinking a black tea, DON’T JUDGE ME), I think I might be having twins now. I want to grab a handful and shove it in my mouth like a snack mix. Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Put a TBSP in a 16oz steep, added a tsp of sugar and a splash of nonfat milk. Next time, no sugar.

Outside: it is unseasonably hot. Like… CRAZY hot for Winnipeg. If you don’t know where Winnipeg is and have seen the movie Fargo, that’s pretty close. We had to turn the air conditioner back on yesterday because it was 83 degrees in our house and my daughter couldn’t sleep. Unfortunately it’s paired with a wind so sharp that it makes even kite-flying impossible. Oh well.
Listening to: Lonely Island with Michael Bolton singing Jack Sparrow. Whoooole load of swears in this song, so like heads-up. (As if you haven’t heard it already.)
http://www.youtube.com/user/thelonelyisland#p/u/0/GI6CfKcMhjY

I’m having issues with the tasting notes box. I didn’t steep it for 7.5 minutes; I steeped it for 6 minutes.

The smell of the tea is quite nice. Real chocolate-banana smell. Kind of like a banana split from DQ if you got it with no strawberries, no pineapple and no ice cream.
I’m trying this one milk-and-sugar because I’m feeling poorly and want an extra treat.
Steeped and in my mug it has more of a baked goods smell. I baked banana chocolate chip mini muffins using a coffee cake recipe i found online for a road trip and this smell reminds me quite a bit of that one. It’s amazing how heat can change a smell.
I don’t like the taste at all. The banana bits taste alcoholic and the chocolate comes through more as a slime on the roof of my mouth than it does as a taste. The smell is lovely; the taste leaves a lot to be desired. And oddly it doesn’t seem to pair well with the milk and sugar that I added, a problem with rooibos that I’ve never had.
I haven’t been on Steepster in months (moved to a new town, been busy, been summer, got pregnant), and it makes me a little sad that this tea marks my return to reviewing teas. I mean, it’s drinkable, but I won’t be reaching for this orange bag of tea to satisfy my tea cravings until my other flavoured rooibos are gone. Le sad.

Sitting: at my desk in the kitchen (taking a break from work) with the window wide open to let the cool air in.
Wearing: slippers and a zip-up sweater.
Listening to: Escape Is At Hand For The Travellin’ Man by The Tragically Hip – http://www.thehip.com/albums/index.html?CheckIT=21_2033&SongID=2033&AlbumID=21&LyricID=2033#21_2033

“I guess I’m too slow. But you said any time of the day was fine; you said any time of the night was also fine.” – The Tragically Hip

I went to David’s Tea specifically for this tea today, and it happend to be the Tea of the Day. The smell of caramel popcorn overpowered even the Kernels popcorn shop literally around the corner from David’s.
I’ve got to admit that I would probably have walked away with this one regardless of what I’d been looking for.
I’m steeping it a little heavy and at the top end of the suggested steep time because the sample I tried in store was a touch on the weak side. I’ve also added maple syrup instead of sugar. Which may prove to be a mistake, because I don’t know how much to use. We’ll see. It smells like the popcorn balls my uncle Tom made for me when we were very little and he was using the cabin at Clear Lake at the same time we were. One rainy night, he made up some popcorn and forbade us from eating it. Then he busted out the marshmallows, butter and microwave and we watched in awe as the marshmallows expanded to envelop the popcorn. Then he buttered his hands, formed the popcorn mixture into balls and handed one each to my brother and I. To say that my brother and I thought we were eating little bits of heaven doesn’t even say enough about it.
He never made them again and my parents never even tried to.

Now on to the tea.
The smell is overwhelming, even from my little 8oz mug.
It’s quite clear, with just a tint of honey in there, which I don’t care for. I like my tea to look like something.
Holy MACKINAW!! I just dipped my finger in to see if it was cool enough for me to sip, and my FINGER tasted like caramel corn. More, I think, like double hit butter corn from Kernels, actually. Wow, it’s tasty. I may be in for a treat. (Alternately, I may have steeped/sweetened it too aggresively.) We’ll see.
Mmm, mmm, mmm, wow.
No, it’s good.
It has more body than I expected it to. It’s like drinking a thin pudding (which sounds way grosser than it actually is.) And the body totally matches the smell in intensity. Next time I may actually back off a little bit.
Wow, Movie Night. You’re really making this day (dreary enough that it seems like evening all day and only 7 degrees outside. Come on, stupid weather, seriously??) seem a lot less sucky.
Yum, yum, yum.

Well, today brought heavy rain, heavy snow and sleet.
So naturally I took the opportunity to clear all of the winter gear out of my closets and brew some fresh iced tea.
Screw you, Nature. I’m going to enjoy my spring!
I didn’t use the recommended way of brewing iced tea (brew double-strength and pour over ice) because I had time to let it cool, so I just brewed up a 4C batch of Orange Pekoe, mixed it with two and a half ounces of simple syrup and sliced up a lemon to throw in the jug. It looked a little strong to me, so I also added a cup of cold water, but it turns out that it didn’t need that at all, because it’s the tiniest bit weak now.
Otherwise, it is DELICIOUS. My husband is a Good Host iced tea die-hard, so I don’t think he’d enjoy this as much as I do, but it is absolutely perfect. I can see brewing up a jug of this to drink on the deck with my daughter after a nice morning of gardening. The lemon is critical, I think. It adds interest to what could otherwise just be cool tea. But it mixes really, really well with this orange pekoe.
The tea itself has zero bitterness to it (which I’ve found sometimes icing tea can tend to bring out) and is just refreshing and zippy.
Yum! Perfect for drinking while sitting at the dining room table, looking out on the diagonal bombardment of snow on April 3rd…
(Stupid Nature…)

OH, my beloved Forever Nuts!
To my delight and surprise, you were hiding in wait in the little cardboard box sent directly from David’s Tea as a prize for me for entering a Steepster review contest on Twitter. I knew to expect an arrival of tea; I didn’t think to expect an arrival of three of my most favourite teas!
You and your cousins (Cinamon Chai and Orange Pekoe) were nestled all snug and tasty in the little cup-sized box, wrapped in tissue paper. I haven’t been able to find you for AGES in the for-real David’s Tea at Polo Park, so I have been trying to hide my disappointment.
In my haste, I added a little bit too much brown sugar and quite a bit too much whole milk, but you managed to shine through, your absolutely delightful princess pink staining the water and milk alike and your oatmeal-muffin tastiness coming through in smell, taste and happiness.
You make my #1 Mom mug seem even better than it already is and you make my working late into the night seem like nothing.
I love you, Forever Nuts.
Do you love me too?