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I’ll tell you what I’m in the mood for! For Steepster to load these damn pages instead of giving me an error/kettle page! Minor tangent aside… I still don’t get clear chocolate notes with this tea, but I am getting the deep malty notes which are really nice, slightly sweet. It’s good, but probably not a reorder.

I put the rest of this sample in a mason jar in the fridge one night, swearing to myself I wouldn’t forget it the next morning… and did exactly that. I’m not sure how long it’s been in there at this point other than less than a week. I ran out of creamer about a week ago as well. Trader Joe’s rarely has it in stock because they sell out so fast and are limited by distribution on how many they can order for each day. All that to say no lattes for me. Still, this is a decent cup. As I’ve been sipping it I’ll run into one sip that has a flatness to it only to have it gone for a few more sips. I’m sure I didn’t do this tea any favors with days in the fridge. The start of the sip is muted, but towards the end the coconut comes out and there is a sweetness from the maple. I do wish there was a little more maple flavor instead of just the sweetness. Somewhere in the finish I think I get custard like notes. This was a fun tea to try!

This has been hiding in my cupboard for who knows how many years now. The package was open, but I’m not sure if I ever had a cup or just sniffed it upon arrival. It smells very peach/almondy. I get a clear peach almond in the sip and as it transitions to the finish more of the oatiness comes out on it’s own. There is almost a slight sweetness to the tea, but it’s vague in a pleasant way. It was a very enjoyable light cup that I seem to have finished before I knew it.

Going through my cupboard last night, I found three bags of AQ2T in my white/oolong bin that I totally forgot I had. One was unopened. This brightened my night up significantly! Steeping this tea this morning… the cup smells like those chocolate covered gummy candies you get in a tube from Asian grocery stores! I love those things. I get that candied chocolate scent with fruit underneath. When I sip on this, the scent translates perfectly to flavor. The white tea base keeps it light and airy like the candy. The finish is more of the same. It looses a little bit of the magic as the cup cools which creates such a dilemma for me: sip as quickly as I want to or slowly to stretch out the cup, even if it means it’s slightly less delicious at the end. I would totally order more of this if possible and would probably go into hoarding mode since it keeps so well.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGnIOUWA0o0/

Problem with having a home studio is that I’m home and my entire household knows where I am. They have access to me for every little question, need, meandering moment or argument they have. It’s Sunday and my hopes of unwinding this morning with a cup of tea IN SILENCE after a week or more of poor sleep is dwindling with every interruption. I want to shrink down and climb into this tea, floating like I’m Gary Oldman as Beethoven floating in the water with the night sky reflected into my cup listening to Moonlight Sonata in my head. There is such a comforting caramel orange flavor to this tea that I could sink into at the moment. There is an almost chocolate/burnt sugar note to the finish. I don’t think I was crazy about this tea when I first got it, but I’m growing to love it. Good impulse buy, 2019 Dustin.

I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea to buy. I guess I was overcome with… something… at the prospect of pumpkin flavored tea that departed from the overplayed spice category. I recall not liking their pumpkin spice tea and maybe figured that they couldn’t possibly go wrong twice and must have learned from the first time. Maybe I was just too excited to be out of the house and doing any kind of Halloween shopping, even though World Market’s Halloween AND pumpkin merch/products were a fraction of what they have been in years past. The checkout clerk confirmed it wasn’t just perception, they had indeed reduced the amount of merch ordered because of the uncertainty of Covid. I’m mildly crushed that the pandemic is chipping away at the Halloween boost I use to get me through the rest of the end of year holidays.
Tea. This tea brings me no joy and tastes of bitter disappointment. Fitting for a 2020 vintage. There is a sour flatness towards the end of the sip, some mild vague spice and maybe a hint of maple in the alkaline finish. I have also noted the past few days that if there is a cup of bad tea in front of me, I will mindlessly drink it and mentally complain with each sip of sorrow or repulsion, trying to force myself past it despite having a cupboard full of wonderful tea waiting for me. I’m doing it again with this cup. I miss the $11 I wasted on this tea. It could have been spent on a much more delightful cup.

The first thing that strikes me about this tea is the sweetness. It’s like stevia sweet with that weird tang, but the ingredients say sugar. It’s hard to get over. The creamy lavender part is nice, but that tang! Yuck! There is also a sour note in the finish. I think it gets worse as it cools. I love the idea of this tea, but not how it played out.

I’m a sucker for a banana tea so when I saw someone on IG posting about this tea I wanted to try it immediately. When I opened the box I was surprised to not really smell anything. Not a good sign. Once that tea bag hit the hot water the scent of banana exploded. The banana flavor it more apparent when the tea is hot. As it cools I first taste the tea base in the sip, then the banana comes out in the finish with an almost caramel note. It is pretty impressive for bagged tea from some brand that seems off the beaten path. I bet it would be great as a latte!

I’ve had a sample of this forever and am just getting around to oversteeping it. :( Walked out of earshot of my tea timer and got distracted. I’m trying to imagine what this would taste like steeped normally. I’m expecting parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme as the song says, but I’m really hoping there is no parsley in this because dried parsley is gross. I also can’t get that line of the song out of my head in Miss Piggy’s voice. Paul Simon was a guest on the Muppet Show and they performed this song with Miss Piggy impatiently yelling that line over Paul’s melodic voice. Classic. Also… strangely… I have a couple pieces of rambling fan mail that was intended for Paul Simon, but ended up in my hands instead. I briefly had a job answering fan mail for Eddie Fisher, Carrie Fisher’s father and Carrie once having been married to Paul was the link as to why this fan used Eddie’s address. I guess he figured Eddie would know where his long since ex son in law was and would forward the mail. The fan would ask odd questions of Paul and added the time of writing, which was something like 2 in the morning. I was so amused by those postcards. Anyways… tea.
This is savory for sure. I feel like I’m getting cranberry in with dried herbs. There is an unpleasant tang that I’m guessing is user error. It reminds me of one of the Theodor laponic blends that is very herbaceous as well. I can see this being an interesting tea if steeped properly, but that’s not the type of cup I ended up with.

Based on my first tasting note of this tea, it looks like I’ve had it around for seven years! I’m not sure if this is my last tea bag or if there are one or two more kicking around. I ran away from home for the weekend with one of my small roommates and grabbed my travel bag of tea which consists mostly of tea bag samples and my portable kettle.
The tea smells pretty good, but a few sips in and the flavor seems muddled. I can taste the strawberry and a deeper chocolate, but only if I pause between sips. Strange. I am enjoying this cup even tho what I really want is a cup of matcha, but such are the perils of traveling without my entire tea cupboard.