Champagne Cider

186.

I had a lovely cup of this tonight while watching fringe and trying to organise/plan/explore flight options for florida for vacation. We owe our friends a visit this year but we also have a wedding out in cape breton that will be really bloody expensive and i need to find time to get away from everything so that i actually relax. I promised my other half we’d try somewhere new this year so i’ve been trying to figure out where that should be. I really enjoyed getting to try these amoda/butiki teas. Thanks again for the wonderful gesture dexter!

Sipdown, 258. :)

This tisane thing is delightful. I really like the apple flavour in it.

Good thing I (eventually) have another ounce coming to me, thanks to VariaTEA and the fastest group order known to tea people.

This is a necessary sipdown. I have a lot of teas coming in and I need to finish off some smaller ones so they don’t get stale.

Also, with the Amoda box teas I want to finish off the old ones before the new box comes! They might even have shipped already! :O

This one is sparkly and apply and very cozy. I should be going to sleep but I’m still getting used to going to bed at a decent time but so long as I’m on my bus by 8:09, I’m rocking! (And I can drink mate when I get to work. I only brought 10 teas with me. They said to make myself comfortable but I don’t wnat to scare them. Yet)

Sipdown!! (209)

Also TASTING NOTE 700!!

When Roswell Strange pointed out how close I was to 700, it got me thinking what tea would make for the perfect celebratory cup. This tea immediately came to mind. I mean, what is champagne for if not celebrating?

Tastewise though, this is mostly just honeybush to me. No cider, no champagne, just honeybush. I don’t mind honeybush so I am not unhappy but I am left wanting more. Oh well, at least now I know. Thank you Josie Jade for the chance to try this tea!

I expect there will be a number of tasting notes on this one, considering it was created for New Years. It’s just a quiet night here at home, with just over an hour and a half left of 2013 here on the west coast. Hubby is about to go out and get some sparkling cider and popcorn, and then we will watch a video…maybe Blackadder: Back and Forth, or perhaps the farewell to Matt Smith.

This one is certainly apple-y, and has that drying quality you find in champagne. As I have said in other notes, I like this one a lot and hope it (or something like it) becomes permanent. I’d love to see more honeybush blends as I can’t really do rooibos, but honeybush seems doable thus far…and a suitable caffeine free tea.

I’m surprised by my high rating the other day; I feel like I’m enjoying this more today than I did the other day? Definitely a cider with spices, really warming and lovely.

Thanks so much to Sil and… I don’t remember who sent her these teas :( But thank you! I excitedly got to trying them today – this was the first I brewed up. Overall verdict? Not bad. My initial sips could have been confused with a cup of unsweetened apple cider, though after it sat a bit longer, I could taste a bit of the honeybush (not unpleasant, just present), and the flavours didn’t meld quite as well. Still, one of the best approximations of apple cider that I’ve tasted, and I love how the cinnamon isn’t overpowering. Probably not a tea I’d seek out again, though.

I’m enjoying this as an afternoon cuppa. A little late, since New Years was last week, but I’m still in a celebratory mood! I’m not really getting any champagne from this, but it is a little like apple cider. The honeybush is really noticeable in the flavor, and the apple and spices just a little. I like it, and will gladly finish off the sample, but probably wouldn’t order more.

I woke up at 4 am today to check to see if our clinic schedule was posted for nursing school and it finally was! Luckily I have clinic on Wednesdays, so I didn’t have to get up and rush to the hospital this morning. I’m also feeling lucky because I didn’t get the 12-hour Saturday clinic like half of the class did. With clinic on Wednesday and class on Thursday and Friday, I have 2 more surprise days left of break! I thought about being productive and cleaning out my car, but it’s cold outside and I think I will just enjoy my surprise next-to-last day of break by reading and sipping tea. Hurrah! I hope everyone is staying warm in this crazy winter weather! We haven’t gotten any snow, but the high for tomorrow is 21 degrees, and I honestly don’t think that I’ve ever seen it that cold here. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!

-Dry blend has small pieces of brown honeybush with pieces of dried apples and small orange petals.
-Dry leaves smell strongly of apples and spices. Tea liquor aroma is of apple cider with a hint of cinnamon.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium orange brown color.
-Light apple flavor with a sweet spicy finish. Soft aftertaste of lingering honeybush with a hint of orange.
-Best with sweetener. Milk optional.
-Good tea. Dominant honeybush flavor with sweet apples and just a hint of spices. Not reminiscent of champagne.

I think that this is a good choice for this evening. One should always have something a little sparkly for New Year’s Eve. Even though it’s not actually fizzy, the concept is and that’s what counts! I had a nice evening out with my family. We visited some pretty Christmas lights and went out to dinner. The rest of my night, I think I’ll read a book and sip some tea!

The dry leaf of this tea smells a bit like spiced apple. Once water has been added, though, the honeybush kind of takes over and dominates everything. Sipping… it’s mostly honeybush with a little bit of spice. It’s not so much fizzy on the tongue as it is slightly tingly because of the spices. I do detect some fresh apple in the finish. The sweet honeybush returns to round out the sip.

I do like this tea and it’s different enough from other honeybush blends I’ve tried. I’m not dying to have this in my collection always, but it is such a lovely cup for this evening. Happy New Year!

This tastes just like an apple version of one of my favorite kosher wines, Bartenura Moscato. Crisp, not too sweet, and just a touch of bubble. I have no idea how Stacy managed it, but this does produce a (pleasantly) fizzy feeling on the tongue. Pretty awesome.

I actually first tried this tea on New Year’s Eve. I tried to make the cocktail recipe that came with it, but I had to substitute too many ingredients – sparkling apple cider for regular and rum for bourbon, and no cinnamon stick for garnish. It came out terrible. So terrible that I was entirely turned off this tea for over a month. Two nights ago, I finally gave it another shot. Two and a half 16-oz mugs later, the tea is all gone. So this is a tea-sad sipdown. Not a tea that I would keep in my regular rotation but one I definitely enjoyed. It’s more of a fall tea than a New Year’s tea, I think.

The recipe suggested by Amoda:
- 1 heaping tsp of Champagne Cider
- 1 oz bourbon
- 1 oz real apple cider
- cinnamon stick to garnish

Steep a cup of Champagne Cider. Leave a little room in the mug. After 5-7 minutes, remove the leaves and pour in the cider and bourbon. Stir with a cinnamon stick and enjoy!