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So I totally made a quick cold matcha blend tonight for after work out. Mocha, caramel and coffee! Blended it with milk and some ice. It’s actually pretty darn good :)

Well, after seeing so many posts from people ordering and loving Red Leaf Tea’s matcha, I decided to do some more experimentation with the flavours I have. I got the caramel and loved it, but the other three (strawberry, cheesecake and cookies and cream) have all tasted TERRIBLE to me. I don’t know what makes my taste buds so different but I just do not like RLT’s flavoured matcha.

Anyway, I took some of my (admittedly old) matchas and mixed them in cold water today. I went with cold to avoid potential bitterness as a lot of people have recommended it to me as an alternative to hot matcha. I used about 1/2 tsp of cheesecake as I found it to be very light and 1/4 tsp of strawberry as that is a roundhouse kick to the face.

I tried to build a froth but that doesn’t really work with old matcha and cold water so I gave in and started sipping. It smells like fake strawberry soap and bubble bath which is the issue I’ve had with strawberry all along. The taste is yummy for about 1.5 seconds and then it is all strawberry bubble bath. There is no way I am finishing this. I think the beau needs to use up the remains of our matchas and I need to accept that I just don’t like it. Ugh.

A nice relaxing cup perfect to melt the stress away

So, I combined Wild Cherry and Strawberry Kiwi from Citizen Tea as I only had one spoonful of each and I knew that I wouldn’t drink these hot.

I’m finding the cherry is definitely overtaking the strawberry. I’m getting little bit of strawberry but not a whole lot… which is okay I guess… probably wouldn’t combine these again…

Two DT perfect spoons of Creme Caramel rooibos, and one of Green Rooibos with a bit too much sugar, cold steeped in the fridge for close to 24 hours. DELISH!

I’m totally loving this. It’s sweet and caramel-y. It’s a nice dessert tea even though I’m drinking it before dinner. haha This would be a great way to kill some sweet cravings :)

SO TIRED! Stayed out a bit later than usual last night to play card games with some friends. We started the night with Gloom. It’s so much fun… kinda morbid by fun, and ended the night with a HEATED Dutch Blitz game. We played until we were exhausted. And now I’m even more tired… lots of strong teas today…

Anyways, today it’s not much of a combo, but I do want to record it. It’s Star of India with a vanilla-flavoured white sugar by the company Novaroma. I picked this pack up at Artwalk a few weeks back and thought I’d bring it to work to try as I’m drinking the most tea here these days.

The vanilla flavour is very subtle, but I can make it out. It’s making my tea a bit smoother than normal and I really like it! I only used half a pack as again, don’t want to make it too sweet, but the smoothness of the vanilla is coming through and it’s great. I’d get the flavoured sugar again no problem.

I am a worry wart… to the extreme… And I hate it.

I’m working at a temp place right now and the location they have me is at a place that does metal testing. They work with chemicals and all sorts of stuff… Yesterday I was asked to laminate something and I woke myself up at 1:30 AM worried that I forgot to turn the laminator off. I was up for like 30mins worrying that it was going to cause a chain reaction that would set the storage closet on fire, thus causing it to spread through the whole building and explosions would be going off all night as the chemicals combust and explode everywhere. The fire department would be called and they would trace it all back to the simple and lowly laminator that would be all charged and melted. And they would know it was me as I was the one who last used the laminator.

Being an imaginative person is great. But it can also cause some really messed up ideas that cause a person to worry!! Now I feel like a moron for worrying about it. And for making up such a ridiculous story in my head. lol And the worst part? I was positive I remember turning it off.

ANYWAY: Onto the combination. I used Saigon Chai by Davidstea and their cinnamon honey sticks. I used the whole stick. Shouldn’t have done that. It made it a lot sweeter than I would normally make my teas. I didn’t make the tea nearly strong enough, but the honey stick did make up for it a bit. I’m glad to have gotten them to try. I have found that if the honey is flavoured I don’t hate it in my teas ‘cause the flavouring masks the normal taste of the honey, which is something I don’t care for.

Long story short. Life is too short to worry. But if you can’t stop yourself from doing so, than at least treat yourself to special teas the next morning so you feel better. Saigon is a favourite. Now I’m already onto my second cup of tea.. I think today will be a HUGE tea day.

The Giant Peach Taste-off!!

I’ve seen that I have four peach teas, so now I should do a taste-off. Which of the peach teas will win? Let’s find out!

The contenders are: Peaches and Cream by Steeped tea; White Peach by Adagio; Peaches and Cream by Davidstea; and Just Peachy by Davidstea.

Two are white, two are herbals

So, comparing the white teas…
Peaches and Cream by Steeped: This one is peachy but it also has the taste of the other fruits (pineapple, mango, papaya). It’s not too bad… I’m torn about how I feel about this one.

White Peach by Adagio: a light peachy tea… This one doesn’t have anything extra in it. It’s strictly white peach tea.

Out of the white teas… I really have no idea which one I prefer… I’ve never been so stumped in my life! They are so similar and really only have the tiniest amount of difference. The Steeped tea one is a bit sweeter and the white peach isn’t as sweet… I don’t know but they are both really good. I think the steeped one is the winner… I think…

Peaches and Cream by Davidstea: This tea is amazing. It’s so sweet and creamy. It’s a very smooth peach tea. It’s a strong peach tea. It’s amazing how sweet it is, but it’s not bad. It’s just like a nature sweet tea. It’s such a treat to have! And the vanilla pieces in it is making it just amazing.

Just Peachy by Davidstea: This one is also amazing. It’s sweet as well and I’m definitely getting the apple taste from it.

Out of the herbals, I prefer the Peaches and Cream as it feels like a more true peach taste. But honestly, I’ll drink both quite happily.

This taste off was much harder!! I feel like my taste buds are overwhelmed by Peach! haha Now I need breakfast.

And happy 300th note to me!

Half Pure Chai, half Glitter and gold.

After being disappointed with Pure Chai from Davids, I thought I would spruce it up a bit with some glitter and gold. I’m trying to use up this Pure Chai I was given, but it’s just hard to when you don’t care for it… Sorry friend that gave it to me.

Anyways, combining these two is weird. They are having a power struggle to decide which one is the predominate one. I can make out the cinnamon from the glitter and I can make out some of the chai, but they seem to be such strong teas on their own, that they clash.

Don’t recommend this combo. You’d think that the combo would be dynamite, but it’s really not… Oh well… such is life.

Originally I had planned to make a latte out of the pure chai, but I still haven’t done that. Maybe at this point I’ll just give the rest of this away…

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the great blueberry taste off!!

This year I have received or purchased upwards of 5, yes 5 blueberries teas! So the time has finally come to pit these teas against the rest and see which one of them takes home the prize as favourite blueberry tea in my house!

The five teas are: Wild Blue by Flavours of Nova Scotia, Bluest blueberry by Steeped Tea, Wild Blueberry by Steeped Tea, White blueberry by Adagio, and Heisenberg by Adagio tea.
Three are black teas, two are white. Let’s see how they fair, shall we?
First off, the colours are devine of all of them. My favourite of the colours is Heisenberg for being a great pink or light peach colour, followed by the white blueberry, and the three black teas are pretty close the same colour for all of them…

Starting with the black teas:
All being enjoyed at first without anything added.
Wild blue is definitely taking the lead as the nicest of the blueberry flavour. Makes me want to eat a blueberry.

Bluest blueberry: I’m noticing the blackberry touch, and although it’s nice in its own right, it’s not my thing.

Wild Blueberry: I’m just not liking this one at all really. The hibiscus is making it weird and combined with the raisins, I just don’t feel that this one is for me at all. This one is really baffling to me. It’s not as bad once it cools down quite a bit, but I’m more of the type to drink my black teas HOT. I don’t usually wait until they are cooled down a bit.

Adding milk and sugar to the black teas to see if it changes my mind about them at all. The wild blueberry is softened and not quite as odd, but still…

The winner between the black teas is: Wild Blue by Flavours of Nova Scotia! Their blend of real blueberries and black tea is the one that seems to have the very best flavour! It shouldn’t be too surprising as the other don’t have any real blueberries in them, only flavouring.

Onto the white teas: (They both have cooled a bit now since I was focusing on the black teas. I think they taste quite good still.)

First up, White Blueberry from Adagio.
Lovely white tea base. Not bitter at all (yaaay steeping right!). The blueberries aren’t overpowering, but they are quite delicious. A subtle taste, but very, very good. The base of this one is very lovely too.

Heisenberg: SO delicious! It’s got so much going on in it, but it is just absolutely divine! I’m getting the raspberry and apple with the blueberry and it’s making it an almost sweet treat! I didn’t realize there was black tea in this one at all. The pairing of everything is just SO out-of-this-world amazing, and nothing is overpower. it’s just all seems to work together in harmony so well.

The verdict for the white teas is: A two-way tie. I know, I didn’t want to do it, but I can’t chose. They are both out of this world! They both have their own greatness in different ways. The White blueberry is great for being simple, but still delicious, while Heisenberg has a great combo of a bunch of things going on and it seems to make it almost like a great dessert blueberry tea.

Anyways, to those that made it to the end of this tasting note with me, I wish to thank you for reading all the way through and hopefully laughing with me over this fun tasting event here at TheKesser’s house. I’m not too sure if there are other teas I have that are close together flavour-wise that I can do this with, but if not, then at least there will always be… the blueberry!

SO much tea, too many options, too much love for all things tea!!

Today I haven’t had any tea yet (it’s 4pm). That’s just ridiculous!! Who waits ALL day before diving into their first cup of tea?! ;)

Anyway, another combo! This one is very similar to my last mixing, but this one is Chocolate cake from Davidstea and a mystery black tea!
I’m so mad at myself. I got a few of my plain black teas mixed up and now I don’t know which one is which, so I’ve just been drinking what I have and enjoying the surprise.
But chocolate cake with a spoon of mystery tea seems to be working quite well for me today. I’m enjoying it. It’s a very subtle chocolate tea now instead. I’m liking it much better.

Last night we had a few friends over and for the first time they saw my tea cupboard! haha My cousin that came over said she was jealous. haha

Anyway, so my husband mentioned that there are a few teas that I have that I really haven’t drank ‘cause I don’t care for them even though I bought 100g thinking I would fall in love. And one he mentioned was Ice Cream Cake by Davidstea. I bought a bunch of that one, but really don’t care for it all that much. It’s not terrible, it’s just too sweet and not really my thing come to find out. So my thought this morning was to dig it out of the back of the cupboard and mix it with something to make it less sweet. And guess what?! It worked!

So for this mixing I paired 1.5 tsp of Ice Cream Cake from Davidstea with 1 tsp of Canadian Breakfast from The Metropolitan Tea Company!

What a fantastic pairing! I added milk and it made it nice! It wasn’t crazy sweet. If anything, it was more of a plain tea with a hint of something else sweet, but not crazy sweet thankfully! I told my hunny that I like the combo and would probably end up finishing it now and I think he’s happy. I know I’ll enjoy this combo.

1tsp of English Caramel at the Tea Haus
1tsp of Courtlodge from the Metropolitan Tea Company

The last bit of my courtlodge was combined with English Caramel, and steeped for 3 mins.

I found that the caramel flavour was still there and nice and strong. I didn’t lose any flavour really from the courtlodge. If anything, the courtlodge just seemed to enhance the malty, basic black tea flavour that I get from black teas.

I love the English Caramel, but I’m finding that I’ve definitely hit my limit with this tea. It’s really good, but I think I’m done with this one. I may give what I have left away to a friend. I don’t know if I’ll finish it or not…

Another tea mixture this morning!

1 tsp of Hazelnut cream
1 tsp of English caramel both by the Tea Haus

I find that the english caramel is definitely the more powerful flavour in this mix. I didn’t notice the hazelnut really at all. I was hoping it would be a bit stronger as I was sorta looking for a nutty flavour, but it didn’t really come through.

Have you ever had a tea that you loved and drank so much of it that you’re sick of it? I’m getting that way with the English Caramel. I bought like 200 or 250g and I’m actually finding that I’ve hit my limit with this tea. I’ve had other teas that I can drink like 700g of before and never been feeling that way, but this time… I dunno… maybe I should try something different…? I’ll play around and see what I can do with it.

1tsp of English Caramel by the Tea Haus, 1.5tsp of S’mores by Teaopia.
Milk and sugar added, but only a bit…

Honestly, not the best combo. I’m finding that the english caramel to be too strong. It actually feels like it’s overpowering the entire goodness of the s’mores tea. My thought when adding these two together was that it would make a caramel-y s’mores tea, but I’m finding that it is just killing it. I don’t know if maybe I should have used less of it, or maybe just used a different caramel tea.

I’m thinking I might try the s’mores with like Oh Canada. Something that is light but caramel-y.

Chance Combinations?! Yes pls!

I’ve done this one before, but I wanted to log it here also as I think it’s a great combo. From the Tea Haus, their Swiss Chocolate and the Hazelnut Cream. 1tsp of each for 3mins. Milk added. The tinest amount of sugar added. Equals chocolate hazelnut bliss! I’m in love. :) And it’s going to help me use up what I have.

Mystery tea!
I ordered Cherry Buds from Kally, a rooibos… and opened my packet to find… a green tea??? Hmmmm.
They are sending replacement tea, but in the meantime, I am trying to figure out exactly which blend this is. None of those on the website correlate.
It smells like overly concentrated floral perfume mixed with Cherry. I suppose it could be pomegranate?
Also there are dried rose petals. Which leads me to think… Cherry Rose tea! only Kally does not have a Cherry Rose green tea!!
Bah.
I brewed up a mug, and it tastes almost as perfume like as it smells. Not really my thing.
In the background there is a distinct fruitiness that could very well be cherry though it’s hard to distinguish through the perfume haze.
The base is pretty smooth. Definitely green. Sencha? Maybe? I can’t find that typical grassy profile, but again, then there is so much ‘floral’ going on that it could very well just be hidden underneath. I’m sure it will mellow out over time.
Oh well, it’s essentially free tea. If anyone wants some, let me know!

Part of Day Six of the 12 Days of Christmas tea exchange

I mixed these two following the suggestion of the Day 6 teaist tattooed_tea. This was a great idea!

I’ve only ever tried Adagio’s genmaicha tea and didn’t really care too much for it. So pairing it with something else was right up my alley. I love anything strawberry so naturally these pairing would be perfect for me.

The Wild Strawberry tisane has a hint of hibiscus (hiss) but the genmaicha cuts it down considerably. Likewise, the tisane masks some of the burned popcorn taste I associate with genmaicha.

This tea smells and tastes like a bowl of Special K strawberry – YUM! :)

What could be better than Eight Candles & Butterfly Kisses blended together? Both of them by themselves. A good idea in theory, but not in execution. Running terribly low on both. Looking forward to Della Terra’s sale Friday and a stop at Tehku Tea on my drive home from Thanksgiving. I will stock up on both as they are the teas I seem to be choosing each day :)

Good morning, Steepster friends. Enjoying a cuppa Della Terra’s Love In A Cup mixed with Candy Cane this morning in the winter wonderland of Middle Of A Cornfield, Ohio. SNOW!!! There is a reason I will never leave this great state: I love weather! Nearly all kinds of weather except HOT weather. Snow has to be my favorite.

So I have a tin of tea at church for when I need a cup of tea at work. It has genmaicha and I absolutely love genmaicha :)

Last week I brought some peach oolong with me in a sandwich bag to make. I had some left in the bag so I put the bag in my tea tin (without really thinking about what that would do to the taste of my genmaicha).

So this evening I made a cup of genmaicha and it was peach genmaicha. Surprisingly good. But not toasty genmaicha I was hoping for. C’est la vie.

On a totally different note, this is my last night on Steepster as I am giving up internet/cable until I pay off my student loans. You’ll be mostly seeing me post in the mornings :)

While looking through my samples this morning, I decided to blend a couple. I wanted a chocolate-y coconut-y blend. I took my Coconut Oolong from Zen Tea and blended it with Teajo’s Dark Chocolate Dream. If I blend these two in the future I will use a bit more Dark Chocolate Dream. It is a nice smooth cup of coconut tea with just the lightest hint of dark chocolate :) Dessert for breakfast. YUM!

PG Tips + Plantation Mint makes a good strong tea. Let the Plantation Mint steep for about 7 minutes and the PG Tips for about 4 minutes.

I’m in the home stretch! Only 3 weeks until winter break, and then Rayn and I head to Utah for 6 days to see the in-laws.

We love peppermint tea in this house. Right now I’m sipping on a combination of Peppermint from Adagio (good all by itself) and catnip from an herb shop here in SF (not that kind, tsk tsk, I mean HERBS). I read that catnip is calming and can also be good for tummies. I’m happy to report that unlike when my cats have some catnip, I am not attempting to travel as far as possible simply by rolling, nor have I slapped or bit Rayn yet. ;) This is a pretty nice bedtime/happy stomach tisane.

And if you want a quick laugh, here’s a short video of my kitties hopped up on the ’nip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrpFPPf3MMo&feature=plcp