Bayswater Tea Co.

I’m tired of oolongs. They can be tasty, but they are not flavours I want to experience 7 or 8 cups of in one day. 4 is good.

So. Black tea to the rescue. Black tea that is sweet and desserty and has bitter toasted hazelnut notes that make it taste like coffee. As I sip, I find myself relaxing. Mmm…

I just added a little soy creamer to this (I need to avoid dairy for a bit, it can make my tummy unhappy), and mmm. I’ll just sit here and enjoy this. I might make another oolong later, but for now this is divine.

I had this blend this morning. Yes, I added a blend as a tea, seeing as I accidentally have 75g of each, therefore 150g of blend.

I failed at math when I went tea shopping.

Anyways, this was delicious as always. So delicious. Especially with the maple whipped cream on top. It’s not an every day tea for me (despite the 150g!), but it’s soo good with its nougaty coffee hazelnut flavours.

Mmm.

Double sip down, since I polished this off along with Verdant’s chai spice. Not really gonna mix it, but I way overleafed just to get it out of the way and now I’m mega buzzed.

Brown sugar and half and half. Good but this kind of lacked depth. And as always, not enough vanilla.

Yet another one that I still haven’t yakked about despite drinking it about ten times already. I’m attracted to all things vanilla and chai. So vanilla chai? Sign me up, please.

There is a healthy helping of cardamom pods in here, pieces of cinnamon, and a dash of clove, but the ginger is rather sparse, and this is translated in the flavour. I get mostly cardamom and cinnamon. Don’t taste the black pepper, and as for the vanilla, it’s not that noticeable. If I didn’t know there was supposed to be vanilla in here, I never would have guessed that there was, in other words. But perhaps it’s smoothed out the spices.

I like it with half-and-half, but I wouldn’t buy it again.

I killed this one today by forgetting about it. It just tastes like hot hibiscus juice with a salty nut lingering taste. Whoops.

Look how quickly I move from Halloween to Christmas!

I’m picking up hibiscus, apple, citrus, vanilla, and something that could be marzipan or a combination of almonds and vanilla. It could even be the sultanas (grapes)! Zesty notes creep into the finish and then mellow out into a vanilla soup. It’s quite tart, and a couple sips is enough to make my mouth pucker.

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this one as much as I do. It’s a crazy fruit blend, reminiscent of David’s Kanpe tea (that had cinnamon, fruits, and hibiscus). I enjoyed mixing the Kanpe with frozen pink lemonade but I don’t know if that would work here due to the stronger notes of vanilla sweets. Maybe it would work better.

I can’t help but think I’d be delighted to smell this delicious, sweet and buttery herb sauce if it was over a chicken dish, or something. I had these chicken sausages a few weeks ago. They were of the basil, feta, and apricot variety and they tasted exactly like this blend. I’m picking up the slightest tone of leafy citrus bitterness, just like in those sausages.. It’s an interesting tea but I’d be lying if I said I’m sad it’s all gone.

The Halloween celebrations over here are postponed until tomorrow. It seems so strange to do all that stuff on the 1st of November, but I know my roommates and I will be less stressed then. To everyone who’s doing stuff tonight, I wish you a Happy Halloween! :)

And that’s a sip down. I’m actually kind of relieved to finish this even though I really like it. I think I just sort of got tired of it. I’d still recommend it, but I probably won’t feel like getting more again for at least half a year.

Having some of this cold brewed because lately, I don’t even know what I want to drink, and this is convenient. Very fruity, but more berryish than anything else.

As a side note, I’m super happy with David’s customer service because they allowed me to bring in the Nordic mug I purchased last month (which I luckily didn’t start using yet thanks to my weird hoarding/keeping everything perfect habits) and with a few keystrokes at the till, last month’s mug was able to count towards their 2/$35 sale.

I just picked this up the other day when I went to Vancouver to see John Cleese. The dry leaf smells like fruit leather. Mmm, so tangy and bursting with berries and and citrus.

I cold brewed this and I’m already finished the jug. It’s primarily berry with a hint of hibiscus. But the hibiscus isn’t too much in the way. The acidic citrus notes are very faint. Glad I picked this one up. I needed more stuff for cold brews.

This tea isn’t on their website yet, but I sure enjoyed it. I just steeped my last jug of it, and from what I remember, this is loaded with apple pieces and hibiscus, which isn’t surprising for a fruit blend.

The dry leaf smells madly of grapefruit. It’s so strong that around my desk area where I have my Bayswater teas lined up, it smelled like a freshly squeezed grapefruit.

Unfortunately, the grapefruit isn’t maintained so well in the taste. I’ve only tried this as a cold brew, and the liquor is a deep red. Looks a lot like cranberry juice. But I taste mostly apple. The grapefruit is quite faint in the background, but overall, it still makes a nice cold brew. I just wish there were more grapefruit!

Not a fan of this one. It’s relatively tasteless to me, though maybe i just needed to steep it for 6+ mins. It’s too bad, as i was hoping that this would be a decent walnut tea.

Cold brewing didn’t make this much better, in fact i think i’d probably argue that it made it less drinkable. ah well, at least i tried!

i have to agree with cavo on this one. It’s not a bad tea but it’s not nearly what i want it to be. I’m going to try cold brewing this to see if that makes a difference. But it’s mostly a strawberry black with a hint of something else going on. sorta.

I’m going to echo Kittenna’s comments on this one – smells like strawberry rhubarb, tastes like a pretty generic basic strawberry black tea

I’ll stick to bayswaters creamy delicious teas instead!

The other week, I walked all the way to Bayswater from the downtown hostel (was in town for a show) to load up on these teas I was so in love with back when I lived on the Island. I swear it’s not just me, but I feel like the majority of the black teas in their gigantic canisters were on the older side. This tea just doesn’t smell the same. More chemically and a tad stale? Plus the chocolate bits have a white film on them, indicating that the tea has been sitting. Maybe they aren’t as popular as they were five years ago?

More importantly, in terms of flavour, the base does taste a little dusty or dare I say cardboardy. The coffee flavour is there but there is an odd chemical undertone, but not sure what it’s from. I grabbed 100g out of nostalgia in spite of the tea not smelling like it used to in the canister. Now I’m hoping I won’t be regretting that soon.

Ohhh, this is tasty. Having this after having a few cups of S&V really makes me appreciate the chocolate in this. I’d say Bayswater does chocolate better than S&V, and even H&S.

With 2% milk this is like a creamy chocolate covered coffee bean. SO GOOD.

WOW. Looks like I enjoyed this one a little too much. I never logged it until now, and it’s my very last cup! Of all the Bayswater teas I bought last month, it’s also the first one to go, with Divine Temptation trailing closely behind.

I know some of the West Coasters thought this one smelled a little strange in the store, and I agree, especially after you smell ones like Creme Brulee and Divine Temptation. The chocolate just seemed too heavy and almost earthy, maybe.

But this is like Creme Brulee with more chocolate and creaminess. With half-and-half, it reminds me of a coffee chocolate truffle, dusted with cocoa powder. It transports me back to the French chocolate truffles one of the German delis in Edmonton carries.

Oh great, now I want either more of this tea or a box of those truffles.

Or both.

This sip down is kind of a cheat. I cold steeped the rest of the leaf in a jug but it’s been sitting there for days because I quite frankly don’t want to drink it. I know I’m being wasteful, but I’m just going to dump it down the sink, give my jug a good scrub, and put something else to cold steep.

Never worked as a hot brew for me because the hibiscus gets waaaay too tart, yet the almond and spice notes work.

But as a cold brew, while the hibiscus works, the spices and almonds are weird. It just wasn’t meant to be.

I was brave enough to make a cold brew. I wanted to switch things up and try something different so I grabbed this since it’s not exactly that great hot either.

You know what? It somehow works better as a cold brew despite the spiciness. The fruits comes out more. It just tastes juicier and more three-dimensional. It’s not too tart either. I didn’t get any marzipan pieces as I was pouring the leaf into a filter so there was no almond, but that’s ok.

Now I’ll definitely have no problem finishing this one off. Up until now, it’s just kind of been sitting on my desk doing nothing.

I can has actual Christmas Stollen? The local bakery makes it quite well so I can’t wait until they roll that out again.

This though? I’m not sure if it truly resembles Stollen. This is crazy tart cherry, with more tartness from the hibiscus, then a bunch of spices partying it up in the background. I feel like this resembles a drunken party more than anything else. Don’t ask me why.

The first couple times I had this, I got zero almonds, and had no idea where the marzipan even was. Finally tonight, when I poured some into my measuring cup (yep, that’s how I steep my tea and I’m proud), a couple balls of dried marzipan plunked into the cup. Unfortunately that extra debris which turned the steeped tea into a murkier, chunkier…. thing, didn’t give it much almond flavour anyway.

There’s something very acidic about this too, almost like vinegar. Strange interpretation.

This just makes me want a Stollen black tea.

I’m getting close to the end of my sample so I thought I’d do a quick note.
This does taste a bit like chocolate and orange but it’s not really my thing. Not enough chocolate? (Is there ever enough?) Ah well. I might give up on Chocolate Orange teas – I think I’m expecting actual chocolate orange. :P

Yay, a sipdown! Thanks again Cavocorax!

One of the truest rhubarb/strawberry teas I’ve tried, though it really only holds up to a single infusion before becoming quite muddled. I’m quite over that flavour pairing though (at least for now), but I definitely do prefer it with this black base as opposed to a green.

Ok, not too surprised about this one, but although it smells like strawberry rhubarb, it tastes like a pretty generic basic strawberry black tea, which is too bad. Oh well – as others have said, the creamy teas from Bayswater appear to be better than the fruity ones!

Thanks for sharing this with me Cavocorax!