Cameron B. select Send Message

Made this one into a lovely London Fog this morning. I used almost two teaspoons of tea instead of my usual heaping teaspoon and it came out perfect. I also used half whole milk and half half-and-half (lol) because I find that when I use pure half-and-half, the cream note can kind of overpower everything. Warmed the milk and frothed it up a bit with a whisk before adding it, then added a couple teaspoons of sugar. I think a real London Fog is supposed to have vanilla syrup, but I don’t have that lying around. :P Delicious! I love that light floral note in this!

Did a cold steep for six hours on this one. It came out a light and slightly murky yellowish green. As I expected, it pretty much just tastes like licorice root with maybe a tiny bit of cinnamon/orange/vanilla if you really look for it. Still doesn’t taste at all like green tea (or any tea). However, I find that I don’t quite hate licorice root as much when it’s cold, so I did drink this one as opposed to dumping it. Meh.

So this is my second jasmine pearl tea (the first being free sample from Yezi). I wish I could taste them both side-by-side, but without that option, I think I like this one a little better. The little pearls are tightly rolled and about a quarter inch in diameter. The smell of the dry tea is amazing – such a strong and sweet jasmine aroma. It smells like actual flowers, not like a perfume, which is a very good sign. The directions say to use a tablespoon (!) of tea per 8 ounces of water, so this is what I did. I think in the future I could definitely get away with using less per cup.

The brewed tea smells very jasminey, though definitely not as strongly as the dry (thank goodness). I can also catch a hint of a sweet, vegetal green tea behind the jasmine. I really enjoy the taste of this tea. The jasmine flavor is prominent and it’s definitely the star, but I can also taste the sweet and mellow green tea base. It came out a tiny bit bitter for me, but I think using less tea or maybe a tiny bit shorter steep would eliminate this. The aftertaste is very floral. I found this was delicious with just half a teaspoon of sugar – it seemed to round out the jasmine flavor.

This was another one of the teas that I put in to cold brew earlier. I didn’t necessarily think it would be good chilled, I’m just determined to try everything cold. May I just say… NEVER AGAIN! This is almost comically horrible, in a way that I almost burst out laughing when I took a sip. It’s just bitter on top of bitter with an aftertaste of roses. I don’t know, maybe florals just aren’t good for cold brewing.

Ew. Yuck. Blegh.

I put four teas in the fridge to cold steep this morning, and this was one of them. I have to say, I’m very impressed with this iced. It came out a slightly murky pale green with a brown tinge. I added some syrup and it tastes remarkably similar to ginger ale, but without the carbonation. I think I actually prefer it without the bubbles! The ginger tastes lingers in a pleasant way and the lemon is very mild and lovely. I could see myself drinking this chilled regularly. I guess I know what’s going to happen to the rest of that tin! :)

My last cup of this, aww… My sample from Yezi was big enough for two cups since this is such a fluffball tea. Since I think I neglected to say last time, the dry leaf is amazingly creamy smelling with notes of honey and sweet hay. I can’t wait to to try a creamy flavored bai mudan (I’m looking at you, Cantaloupe & Cream!). This time I elected to add a little more than half a teaspoon of honey because I felt it would go beautifully. And it did! Om nom nom. Creamy and hay-like with just a touch of honey taste on the back of the tongue. So far, white tea kind of reminds me of a milder version of honeybush.

I am determined to like this tea as much as everyone else seems to! For some reason I can’t seem to find the red fruit flavor that is apparently there but hiding from me. So I decided that this time I would try adding some dried cranberries (just happened to have some on hand). So I added about a tablespoon or so of them to a pyrex cup with my water and microwaved it until the water was up to temperature, then poured it over the tea and let it steep.

Smelling the brew, there was a definite tart fruitiness with vanilla and bergamot in the background. And it was quite tasty! Lots of yummy cranberry flavor. Next time I’ll use slightly fewer cranberries- maybe 2 teaspoons instead of 3. I could still taste the vanilla and bergamot notes but I feel like the cranberry overpowered them just a bit. This also might work a teensy bit better with a sweeter dried fruit like a strawberry or sweet cherry. Yay experiments! :D

Trying this lovely tea with milk and sugar this morning. I wanted it to be really creamy and latte-y so I brewed it up with 6 ounces of water instead of 8 and added those 2 ounces back in as whole milk mixed with sugar. Yum! I could stand for the tea to be a little stronger, so I may try adding extra tea in addition to reducing the water the next time I have this. Or I might try making it as a boychik chai and steeping it in simmering milk… Hm…

Okay, this is take 2 for cold brewed Strawberry Green Tea! After my first try, a cold brew for about 12 hours in the fridge that left something to be desired, I was hopeful that I could get the strawberry flavor to come out with a different technique. Yyz and Boychik each gave me a method to try in their helpful comments (thanks guys!). So this time I made this tea two different ways: I brewed it hot and then left it to chill in the fridge, and I did a cold brew for 6 hours instead of 12.

The verdict: this tea is just disappointing cold. Even with added sweetener, I got little to no strawberry taste out of either try. However, it was interesting to see the difference between the two methods. The hot brew liquid was a pale to medium slightly brownish green, while the cold brew was a pale yellow-green. The taste was also quite different: the cold brew tasted quite grassy and fresh while the hot was more vegetal and sweet. They were both pretty tasty, but with no strawberry… I guess it’s a good thing I like this one hot!

I have to say, I was a little scared when I read the ingredients on this one… Orange and vanilla (yum), cinnamon (meh), licorice root (his royal evilness), and sea buckthorn berries (…whaaaaat…?). This tea visually has the most “stuff” in it that I’ve seen from Kusmi – I’m assuming it’s chopped licorice root and the berries. The dry leaf smell is bizarre. There are obvious (and very powerful) cinnamon and licorice scents, but for some reason the overall smell reminds me of bubblegum…? There’s also definitely a sharp orange oil note. Smelling this tea made me sneeze – I think my nose thought he was under attack so he activated his ultimate defense. Yes, my nose is apparently a dude… Anyway, I brewed it at 175 for 3 minutes.

The aroma of the brew was much less worrying. It still smelled chiefly of cinnamon and licorice, but there was no bubblegum. I could also pick out the orange and a slight whiff of vanilla. Tasting it hot, the cinnamon and licorice kind of combine into one flavor and there’s a slight undertone of orange. I thought this isn’t so bad, added a bit of sugar, and let it cool a bit. Somewhere in the warm-hot range, I started tasting a lot more orange and vanilla, and it became a kind of spiced creamsicley tea. However, as it cooled past a certain point, I started to taste mostly licorice. Or should I say l-ick-orice? I read in a tasting note that this is better iced, but I can’t imagine how if it’s going to taste like eau de licorice root. I may or may not try it. Overall, this tea is not as bad as I thought it would be, but I would enjoy it more if it had more orange and vanilla flavor. Also, I don’t taste the actual tea in this at all. It seems like a strange flavor profile for a green, I would peg this description for a black tea.

P.S. – I was tempted to put “Sea Buckthorn Berries” in the flavors just to be a smartass, but it wasn’t there. No fair!