1578 Tasting Notes

80

I figured I should hurry up and try these taster pouches that I ordered from 52teas while some of them are still available for purchase. This one sounded too intriguing to pass up, especially when I tend to enjoy candy cane teas. There are even some little candy cane pieces mixed in with the dry leaf!

I shortened the steep a bit from my last marshmallow genmaicha blend, because I find myself to not be the biggest fan of the green tea used in these. It tends to have more of a rough, dry grass sort of flavor rather than a fresh one. So I was hoping a shorter steep would mellow it out a little. (As I say that, I notice that the pouch calls for a 2-minute steep. Clearly I should pay attention to these things rather than going on autopilot…)

It’s fairly tasty. I think the peppermint flavor and the level of peppermint is ideal, it has a nice fresh candy cane taste without being overwheming. I think I can taste the marshmallow and vanilla a little bit more than in the previous genmaicha? But it’s hard to say, since the mintiness probably detracts from it just a bit. I definitely get the toasty rice, nom.

It’s fun and festive! But probably not one that I’ll reorder, given that I already have a candy cane tea from B&B and am planning on purchasing a green rooibos version from Simpson & Vail sometime soon.

Flavors: Autumn Leaf Pile, Candy, Dry Grass, Marshmallow, Peppermint, Sweet, Toasted Rice, Vanilla

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 30 sec 2 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML
Tabby

There’s so much I want available right now. It’s to resist making an order…!

Tabby

hard to* Lol

Kawaii433

“I figured I should hurry up and try these taster pouches that I ordered from 52teas while some of them are still available for purchase. " -→ relates

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90
drank Banana Pancakes by 52teas
1578 tasting notes

365 Days of Tea Challenge – Day 20

Okay, serious business! I’ve heard amazing things about this tea, so now it’s time to try it myself. I am both a banana lover and a pancake lover, so this tea was made for me!

You guys, this is just stupidly good… I mean, come on.

To me, it tastes closer to banana bread, as there’s definitely a distinct nuttiness that suggests walnuts or pecans. It has a lovely bready or cakey flavor! The banana is super duper natural-tasting, and it’s definitely a sweet, ripe banana. Personally, I prefer greener bananas for eating, but for banana bread it’s spot-on!

Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely some maple syrup slathered over this particular banana bread. Or maybe it’s banana bread turned French toast! Yep, I’m going with banana bread French toast.

Regardless, it’s delicious. Smooth, sweet, maple-y, cakey, decadent banana bread goodness.

Now I’m just mad that this isn’t a permanent blend and I only have a 15g taster. I’m mad, Anne! :P

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs3TeeMFPC1/

Flavors: Baked Bread, Banana, Cake, Cinnamon, Maple, Maple Syrup, Nutmeg, Nuts, Pecan, Sweet, Walnut

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec 3 tsp 16 OZ / 473 ML
Sil

yep :(

Cameron B.

(cries on Sil’s shoulder)

Mastress Alita

And now you know why I sold out all the Foggy Coconut like a tyrant the second it finally reappeared. * shifty eyes *

tea-sipper

Is this why we all love 52Teas so much? The blends are rare and tough to grab! If there was overstock… maybe there would be less love for these blends (I will tell myself that anyway.)

52Teas

I’m sorry that I don’t have the room to keep all the teas in stock but at the same time, I’m quite humbled and appreciative to know that there are teas that people love and even more so that some of my originals are now getting that kind of appreciation too. :)

Kawaii433

I loved this one!

Cameron B.

@Anne – The next permanent tea should be a banana one! ;)

52Teas

I will announce another permanent tea with the holiday box this year – right now, it’s somewhere between a banana one or the foggy coconut.

Sil

Banana banana banana banana banana banana banana….did I mention? Banana? :)

Cameron B.

Ooh, that’s exciting! I would vote for banana, but the Foggy Coconut is very tasty too!

Mastress Alita

You guys are all against me. :-P #TeamFoggyCoconut

Cameron B.

@ Alita – It’s a conspiraTEA!

Mastress Alita

doing best telenovella impression of Valentina from RuPaul’s Drag Race GASP! I knew it!

Todd

Team Foggy!

Sil

i think there should be both a permanent blergamot tea AND a permanent banana tea…but start with banana haha

52Teas

@Sil – I need to take it in steps, right now it’s difficult enough for me to keep up with the four teas that are in the permanent collection! I am thinking that I will do one per year or perhaps one every two years – until I get to 9. 9 is the magical number where D’s teas will stop. 9 is the number there will be and the number there will be is 9. Eight is too few and 10 is too many. 9 is the number there must be. (Help, I have been possessed by Mojo Jojo!)

Sil

@anne haha i hear you on that. We appreciate all that you do – would rather see you take it easy than burn out and quit alltogether! there are always monthly reblends :)

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85
drank Melon White Tea by Lupicia
1578 tasting notes

Swap Sample Sipdown! (38)

Another Lupicia sample from Kawaii433! Their Melon Oolong is one of my most beloved teas, so of course I had to try the white tea version.

The melon definitely works very well with this base as well. The white tea has nice creamy oat notes, and they meld with the melony goodness to form a sort of melon milkshake flavor.

Personally, I think I prefer the oolong version as it has a bit more juicy punch, and I don’t feel the need to stock both versions. But this is really tasty as well, and I’m very happy that I got to try it. Thank you, Kawaii! :)

Flavors: Creamy, Hay, Honey, Honeydew, Melon, Oats, Smooth, Sweet

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 2 min, 0 sec 3 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML

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Swap Sample Sipdown! (37)

Mystery sample! This one is from Arby and is labeled “Japanese Sencha 2018”. I quite like Japanese green teas, though I haven’t been drinking many lately. I do have quite a pile of unopened sample packets from Yunomi to get through eventually… This one looked as though it had some stems mixed in as well as leaves.

This is perfectly tasty! It has a nice vegetal spinach flavor with a lot of sweetness. There’s a tiny bit of pleasant bitterness creeping up after a 1-minute steep. I also taste some nice and somewhat creamy grain notes.

It’s not terribly complex for a sencha, but it’s very enjoyable nonetheless!

Flavors: Bitter, Creamy, Grain, Oats, Smooth, Spinach, Sweet, Vegetal

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 1 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML

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70

Swap Sample Sipdown! (36)

Thanks again to VariaTEA for sending this one!

Unfortunately, this just never materialized for me. I sort of get where it’s trying to go with the marshmallow idea, but to me this mostly just tastes like a mediocre genmaicha with maybe a slight suggestion of vanilla.

I think I may order a sampler packet when it’s back in stock, just to see what it’s like when it’s fresh…

Flavors: Dry Grass, Grass, Toasted Rice, Vanilla

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML
VariaTEA

Why does tea have to age? I wish the flavors stayed the same forever and we could just hoard and hoard to our hearts content.

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365 Days of Tea Challenge – Day 19

So today, I went to The Steeping Room in Austin for a lovely early afternoon tea! Unfortunately, the tea that I had does not appear to be available for sale on their website, so I’m putting the note here (under Random Steepings) instead.

I ended up having three different teas while I was there. The first two were the Noble Concubine (gui fei) oolong, and the White Tea #18, which is a Taiwanese white tea. The third tea was a resteep of my boyfriend’s Milk Oolong. At The Steeping Room, the servers present you with the wet tea leaves on a small dish along with the steeped tea, and they’ll resteep the same leaves multiple times if you simply ask.

The gui fei was very tasty! It had yummy sweet dried fruit and honey notes along with a very light floral and peach aftertaste. The white tea was less memorable for me, and I couldn’t find much complexity in it. It tasted much as I would expect for a generic white tea – like hay and oats. I was surprised, since the description mentions eucalyptus and camphor notes, which I didn’t find at all. The (unflavored) milk oolong was smooth and silky with a lovely peaches ‘n’ cream sort of flavor. I drank the second steeping, which was just as flavorful as the first.

For food, I had a duo of scones. Their scones are some of my favorite menu items, as I feel they’re very well-made. This time, I chose the Cranberry Walnut and Mixed Berry Spelt scones. Though I felt there was too much walnut in the cranberry scone, it was still very tasty, especially with the included honey butter. The spelt scone was delicious, and reminded me of a fluffy biscuit with mixed berries inside!

For some reason, I decided I should also get dessert! I got the Flourless Chamomile Almond Torte, which was beautifully textured and delicious. It was plated with fresh fruit and drizzled with honey. I was so full of tea and food at this point that I brought half of my dessert home with me!

Anyway, I would highly recommend The Steeping Room to anyone who might find him or herself in Austin! Price-wise, it’s a little bit on the higher side, but I feel the quality is worth it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs1ElRKlqFH/

Leafhopper

Sounds lovely! Not surprisingly, Gui Fei is one of my favourite oolongs. I also have dessert envy. :)

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80

Swap Sample Sipdown! (35)

This is one of several teabento samples that VariaTEA was kind enough to send me. Thank you! ❤

In my past tea life, dianhongs were some of my favorite teas, and especially the fuzzy golden ones. So this one is right up my alley! I love the animal associations with these teas, they’re so cute and this one is indeed golden as a lion’s mane. Plus the image of a lion with a curly mane is amusing to me… Perm gone wrong?

Yum, this is smooth and delicious. It has those lovely creamy, malty sweet potato and honeyed bread notes that I would expect from a golden dianhong. There are also some mellow earthy flavors that, for me, are a hallmark of Chinese black teas. On the lighter side, I taste fleeting notes of nectarine and fuzzy apricot, along with a clear and lingering sweetness.

Yummy, love it! I know I also have some unopened dianhong samples from TeaVivre, so it’ll be interesting to compare those with this experience and explore the style a little more.

Flavors: Apricot, Baked Bread, Brown Sugar, Creamy, Earth, Honey, Malt, Molasses, Smooth, Stonefruits, Sweet, Sweet Potatoes

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML

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80

Sample Sipdown! (34)

Whoa, there must have been a lot of blackberry leaf in the bottom of this sample packet, because this is way sweet. In fact, it’s too sweet.

The buttery and creamy caramel is still enjoyable, but the overly sweet quality of it is making me rethink my plans to order a full-size pouch of this one…

Hmm, what to do…

Flavors: Butterscotch, Caramel, Sweet, Wood

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML
Kittenna

One day I’m going to break down and order from August Uncommon… this tea sounds like one I should pick up!

Cameron B.

Their teas are very hit-or-miss for me, but there are a few that I really enjoy. This one was much better in my previous cup, when there wasn’t so much blackberry leaf. XD

Mastress Alita

@Kittenna: If you need to sample Dots and Loops, A Field in Innsbrook, or Psychocandy, just message me. Back when I ordered they didn’t offer the smaller packages, just the tiny samplers (which were often sold out) or 100g tins so I ended up with a bunch of tins that are way bigger than I would ever need. I’m happy to give out samples from them.

Evol Ving Ness

Mastress Alita, note that Kittena is in Canada, AFAIK.

And Kittena, Customs dinged me over a hundred dollars on my AU order. AU reimbursed me, but GAH!

Mastress Alita

Ah, Kittena’s profile didn’t list location, so I didn’t know. Ya, I can’t ship outside of the US, unfortunately.

Lexie Aleah

A Field in Innsbrook sounds interesting! I guess they must not sell that one anymore as it’s not on the website. I was going to say that they have free shipping all the time now I believe but since your in Canada I guess that wouldn’t apply.

tea-sipper

Okay… you need to slow down with the sipdowns…. I am at ONE for the year. haha

Cameron B.

@tea-sipper – The sample size ones hardly count! I’m only keeping track of them because sipping down samples is my main goal right now. :)

Mastress Alita

@tea-sipper: Every sipdown is sacred! One sipdown is still a sipdown!

tea-sipper

Mastress Alita – That’s the way I see it.. sacred sipdowns. haha. Sipdowns are tough, especially if you either love or hate a tea.

Kittenna

@Mastress Alita – Yes, sadly in Canada, but I appreciate the offer! I do have a friend in NY though, which might be helpful at some point.
@Evol – That’s brutal. Knock on wood, customs hasn’t hit me yet, but I’m sure it will happen eventually! Glad you were reimbursed, but that’s so crappy for the company. I hope it doesn’t happen often for them!

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98

Swap Sample Sipdown! (33)

I was thrilled to find a great selection of unflavored oolong samples in my swap package from Kawaii433! I’ve been digging straight oolong lately for some reason, so it’s amazing to have so many to try. Thank you Kawaii, you’re the best! ❤

Of course, I have to try this one first. I absolutely love the sticky rice oolong from David’s Tea, and that’s saying something, as I don’t generally find David’s blends to be all that good. So I’m very excited to try another sticky rice oolong from a source that specializes more in straight teas!

As expected, this is friggin’ fantastic! It has a splendid sweet and sticky rice flavor that makes my heart go pitter-patter. But there’s also more complexity than just that. There’s lashings of butter and cream and even sweet corn and popcorn notes. Of course it’s deliciously silky smooth, which when combined with the sweet and creamy notes makes it almost custard-like in flavor. I would even go so far as to say I taste a hint a vanilla in here, though that’s probably just the sweet cream flavor tricking me!

And, of course, that’s not the end either. There’s a satisfying nuttiness that goes beyond rice, perhaps suggesting cashew or macadamia nut. And underneath all of the luxurious, almost dessert-like flavors, soft floral and gentle stonefruit notes that linger on the tongue long after the end of the sip.

So rice! Much wow!

Flavors: Apricot, Butter, Cream, Custard, Floral, Honeysuckle, Nuts, Popcorn, Rice, Rice Pudding, Roasted nuts, Smooth, Stonefruits, Sweet, Thick, Toasted, Vanilla

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML
Kawaii433

Yay glad you liked it! It’s always on my shelf if you want some more. :D

Cameron B.

Oh don’t worry, I’ll be ordering a 100g bag of this from What-Cha once I sip down some more teas! ❤

Kawaii433

hehehe ok! :D

CrowKettle

This one is amazing! Glad to see it’s getting lots of much deserved love :)

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60

Swap Sample Sipdown! (32)

This one is a bonus sample given to me by tea-sipper!

I had no idea Easter egg nests are also a thing in the UK! In the States I often see them made with chow mein noodles. Now that I’m thinking about it, I really want to eat some! XD

This is mostly just a chocolate black tea with a bit of added toastiness from the rice. I don’t really get marshmallow, though there were three mini marshmallows in my infuser, and they all melted fairly well.

Chocolate teas often taste somewhat thin to me, almost watery. This one does suffer from that a bit, and the base tea is not flavorful enough to make up for it. But that’s okay, this was a limited tea so I’m somewhat relieved to not be in love with it!

I think I would have enjoyed this more if it had a larger proportion of genmaicha to it, as the black tea doesn’t seem to be adding much here.

Flavors: Artificial, Chocolate, Cocoa, Smooth, Toasted Rice

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 2 min, 30 sec 2 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML

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Profile

Bio

Hi, I’m Cameron! I’m a 30-year-old software engineer currently living in Austin, Texas with my husband and our two pugs, Gobo and Ume. I tend to cycle between my different hobbies, and they include knitting, video games, board games, miniature painting, bento, baking, and – of course – TEA! But really, what I’m best at is collecting hobby related-things… ;)

I prefer my tea lukewarm or at room temperature and without milk or sugar. I will often sweeten iced tea. I brew Western style, and fluctuate between using mugs or teapots with small cups depending on the season. Occasionally I’ll brew Gongfu style when I’m in the mood. I also use a kyusu for Japanese teas.

I am always up for a swap! Just let me know if you’d like to try something in my cupboard.

Current Subscriptions:
52teas
Bird & Blend
Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms
Sips By

Tea Preferences:
I enjoy both flavored and unflavored teas in many forms. These days, I drink mostly flavored teas, and I tend to gravitate most toward black, green, and oolong varieties. I do have a special fondness for straight Japanese green teas, however.

Fruit: All of them! My ‘go-to’s tend to be in the red fruits, stonefruit, or citrus spectra. I also really love apple, banana, berry, fig, lychee, melon, pear, and rhubarb flavors. Tropical fruits aren’t among my favorites, but I still enjoy them once in a while – especially mango and pineapple. I am not generally a fan of coconut in tea, though there are some exceptions.

Dessert: I love creamy vanilla and marshmallow flavors, along with anything in the caramel family such as butterscotch, toffee, or maple. Chocolate is also a favorite, though I’m often disappointed by it in tea. And don’t forget anything buttery, cakey, or cookie-y!

Floral: I’m a little bit more particular in this category. I very much enjoy jasmine, even strong jasmine, along with sakura and chamomile. But I’m not crazy about rose or lavender flavors, and I prefer hibiscus in moderation only.

Spices: I don’t generally find myself drawn to masala chai, but I do enjoy spices combined with other flavors. My favorite spices are the warm ones, especially cinnamon, nutmeg, anise, and cardamom. A bit of heat from black pepper or chili is okay too, as long as it’s not overwhelming! Ginger can be a lovely accent, but I find it difficult to drink as a starring flavor.

Aromatics: I’m obsessed with Earl Grey! I also love cooling flavors such as mint (especially spearmint), pine, juniper, and eucalyptus. I am not a fan of strong rosemary or sage in tea.

Favorite Purveyors:
Bird & Blend
Dammann Frères
Kusmi
Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms
Lupicia
Taiwan Tea Crafts
TeaVivre
Yunnan Sourcing

Tea Rating Scale:
90-100: Outstanding! Permanent cupboard resident
80-89: Great – a possible staple
70-79: Good, but I wouldn’t buy it
60-69: It’s decent
50-59: Meh… I may or may not have finished the cup
40-49: Ick. Couldn’t finish it.
00-39: Repulsive, I spat it out

I will sometimes refrain from rating a tea if I feel I’m too biased due to my personal dislikes, or if I suspect the sample has been compromised by age.

Location

Austin, Texas

Website

https://www.instagram.com/cam...

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