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It’s my birthday! Whee!

I am very much one of those people who make a big deal out of birthdays. I decided to ring this one in with something light and sweet and summery to distract me from the cold. This tea tastes like optimism tonight.

Next up is some Butiki Lavender Chamomile to lull me gently to sleep…

I picked this up during BrewTEAlly Sweet’s stash sale. It called out to me a few nights ago, during my New Year’s Eve tea cocktail streak. I’m calling this concoction a White Chocolate Snowman.

recipe:
1.5 tsps Della Terra White Chocolate
7 oz water
180 F
3 minutes
½ oz Baileys Original
stir

The result is a creamy drink full of rich white chocolate flavor with a strong vanilla note. I actually used 1 oz of Baileys, but it came out too strong. I changed my recipe to call for ½ oz instead. Alas, this is a sipdown, so I can’t test out the mod.

This came out of the foil package in a cloud of dust. But ok. I tried it anyway.

Actually, this is quite nice. The mandarin and orange flavors lay nicely over the sweetness of the honeybush. Not a “rush out and buy” tea, but I would reach for this if it was complimentary at a hotel, conference, training, etc.

This is earthy, but… more like dirt. The caramel toffee flavor is delicate but pleasant. The aftertaste, on the other hand, is less than pleasant. I think this might be what people mean when they complain of pu’erh tasting fishy. I was going to play around with multiple steepings. I couldn’t even finish the first one. Thankfully, I only picked up a little bit of this during BrewTEAlly Sweet’s stash sale. This is a sipdown.

Um. No. Just no. This is all peach and almond. The almond is slightly more dominant than the peach. They’re both fairly natural-tasting, but way way way too strong. An almond aftertaste lingered on my palate long after the sip and long after I was done with the cup. I couldn’t taste the tea base at all. The best I can say for this beverage is that the flavors are distinctly themselves (i.e., the almond tastes like almond, not marzipan, and the peach tastes like peach, not generic stone fruit).

Two wrapped sachets of this tea came in the sampler I picked up at David’s Boxing Day sale. I pawned the other one off on my officemate first chance I got. This is a total miss for me.

cocktail recipe:
1 teabag Celestial Seasonings Peppermint/5 oz boiling water
steep for 10 minutes
add 1 oz Kahlua
add 1 oz Bailey’s Original
stir
microwave 20 secs on high

Minty boozy awesomeness! Coffee, cream and mint blend perfectly, with a nice alcohol kick. This reminds me of peppermint bark. A word of caution: the alcohol is definitely present in the flavor, but this is such a smooth drink that it goes down faster than expected. Huzzah for no work tomorrow!

Many thanks to MissB for the inspiration :-)

I was planning on a different cocktail for the stroke of midnight, but I was still sipping on this when the ball dropped. Happy New Year everybody! I’m so glad to have found Steepster in 2013 and look forward to being part of this wonderful community in 2014 and beyond. Best wishes to all for a happy, healthy, and safe year. May all the bad events of the past year stay in the past and may this year bring only good tidings. Hey, a girl can dream. :-)

Ahhh. I am so very very excited about the fact that I got to leave work early today and don’t have to do any work tomorrow. I plan to try out some tea cocktail recipes tonight. I’ll let y’all know how it goes!

But to kick the evening off right, I shall begin with one of my all-time favorites. I had this with some cheese (Humboldt Fog) on toast. The jasmine aspect of the tea complemented the cheese well. As always, a comforting and delicious cup.

This is a consummate summer drink. It’s grapefruit, through and through, with a slightly floral finish and substantial body. It was nice enough warm, but it works best as an iced tea. Be warned: this is crazy caffeinated. I made a teapot for my family yesterday around 8pm and ended up finishing off the last two cups myself. Big mistake. I couldn’t fall asleep until near morning.

I got this from Laurent at Nina’s Paris at the Taste of France festival back in September. Thanks!

I tried this at David’s Tea today. It’s not bad, but not something I felt the need to buy either (even at a 40% discount, though I am a little tea shopped out after Black Friday).

It starts out nice and ginger-y, not very strong but definitely present. It reminds me more of gingerbread cookies than gingerbread proper. After a while, the flavor becomes creamier, almost like dunking a gingerbread cookie in milk. A creamy, slightly ginger-y flavor lingered for about 10 minutes after I finished the cup. I think the big issue with this one is that it tastes too artificial for me. Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

This one makes me wish I could drink black tea regularly :-( This is a nice bold cup. I got a solid four steeps out of these leaves (Western-style brewing). Each steep had a nice thick mouthfeel and zero astringency. The first steep was full of malty nutmeg creamy goodness, as was the second. The third steep really caught me off guard because it was so lush with honey notes. The fourth steep was slightly weaker than the rest, but still quite solid. Overall, an impressive blend.