Lupicia

I got this from Mastress Alita! Thank you! This is just what I need after a week of heavy winter teas.

This brews up to a pretty greenish yellow. Hot, it holds onto a bit of that distinct musky oolong aroma, but what I smell is mostly peach. That fermented flavor fades away as the tea cools. I love the idea of peaches and rose, and the pieces of dried fruit and rose petals look so nice together.

As far as flavor goes, peach is in the forefront. In fact, I can’t really taste the rose notes at all. (Not that I mind – I love fruity oolong blends.) Maybe it’s just the peach, but I feel like I taste osmanthus instead of rose. I adore osmanthus, so that makes this tea pretty perfect for me. Another winner by Lupicia.

Dark black tea leaves with chopped almonds. Has a wonderful almond aroma, like those almond cookies or almond biscuits. Light almond-cookie flavor. Sweet but definitely not oversweet. It was more almond than anything which can never really be a bad thing. They suggested having it with milk but I usually never add anything to my tea. Luckily I have more of it, and maybe I will try it with a splash of heavy cream next time. :D The sweetness was more like brown sugar, caramel not honey or artificial flavoring. Had a pretty strong buttery aftertaste (which I liked), and a long finish. I wouldn’t call it thick feel though, nor a buttery slickness but more just the nice taste of butter. I think that’s what makes it cookie-like. No astringency, no bitterness (not even the dark chocolate bitterness), malty, nutty, smooth. I look forward to trying it with a splash of cream next time. I think this would make a great cup of tea after a salty meal in place of a dessert.^^

Still happily working through my first Lupicia order.

Long dark strips of Taiwanese pouchong with bright bits of pink rose petals in it. Smells delicious, a strong aroma of fresh white peach, couldn’t smell the rose which is a good thing for me. Sat by too many people in my lifetime who wore heavy cheap rose perfume. That’s an instant headache. I digress lol.

The wet leaves were the same aroma with an added mild vegetal aroma of the pouchong. The light yellow liquor aroma was a faint peach. Taste profile was a delicate, light yummy white peach with very very faint good rose hints (good as in faint lol). The 2nd & 3rd infusions, there was a little astringent effect going on, pleasant physical sensation, that very slight drying out my tongue. I didn’t taste the coconut, meringue nor was it perfumey that I saw in some of the other reviews.

4g, 200ml, 212°F, 4 steeps, 1.5m, 2m, 2.5m, 3m

I love grapefruits. I buy a bag every week. I don’t care for sweet grapefruits though. I like them tart. Well, this tea captures what grapefruit tastes like… Maybe more like a pomelo because there is a little sweetness, the citrusy blast and then the “good” bitterness that kind of lingers for quite a while after you’ve finished eating a piece. It is mellow, not too tangy which is why I think of a pomelo more.

Again as with the other Lupicia that I tried today, it has a nice mild flavor but not as faint as the others. So far I got 3 infusions out of it, and it is still flavorful to me (2m, 2.5m, 3m) so I may go for another. I have no idea about resteeps when it comes to Western brew. I start with what they recommend and add 30 secs. Give me a holler if I’m doing it wrong. lol.

The description says “This tea has a mature taste”. I guess I’m immature because I got a chuckle out it. lol, What is a mature taste? If it has a mature taste, then I’ve been really mature for as long as I can remember hehe. I suppose it’s a good way to let the buyer know that it has “good” bitterness in it… And in this case, I am glad it has it. I dislike bitter unless its good bitter.^^ I like that it’s not too sweet and it tastes as a grapefruit should.

Highly recommended if you like grapefruit.

Medium-dark liquor with chocolate, caramel, strawberry aroma with a hint of leather, hay aroma similar to other Pu-erh but when it came to the taste, the leather taste wasn’t present and if it was, I didn’t notice it. :P

Like the Kotobuki, it was very mild, but yet a very pleasant taste. I liked this one much better (no rose at all that I can tell) and had hints of chocolate, caramel, strawberries, maybe even Kahlua-like with a little bit of rum-like and vanilla bean in there. When I was drinking it, I thought of chocolate covered strawberries, and if you blended it up, added a lot of water, this is what the juice would taste like. It was sweet but not sugary. I liked it very much. Hard to believe it’s Pu-erh though.

Boo, totally over-steeped the 2nd infusion. It was much stronger though lol. o.O Cats began fighting…

porcelain gaiwan, 212F, 4g, 200ml, quick rinse, 2.5 min

Background: I have zero experience with flavored teas. Majority of my life, I’ve only drunk non-flavored. I have tried over the years one here and one there when I’m at a hotel but unfortunately never cared for them. I once bought a caramel apple tea (Yogi) and it was horrible. I still have it sitting on my shelf. So for the most part, never bought any. If I didn’t like my matcha (non-flavored), I’d use that in a smoothie with added fruits.

Since I joined this site, you all make these sound so interesting, and I think I never gave them a fair chance so… I got my first Lupicia order today and am very excited. ^^

First Impressions: Tightly rolled green ball, little bits of pink-orange bits. Smells kind of like the fruity cough syrup but with plum aroma, some sweet citrus (not orange nor grapefruit).

Will finish this after I try this :D

Back :)

Light amber liquor and it still smells a little like cough syrup but with a plum aroma. It is a very light and mild taste. I was surprised because I don’t usually do western style brewing and thought… A whole 2.5 min?? Omgosh it’s going to be too strong. It wasn’t. Yummy taste with grass, floral, light sweetness and nice plum notes. There are also hints of rose but thank goodness not overwhelming (If it wasn’t for the rose, it would’ve got higher marks. I don’t really like rose.). Very smooth mouth and throat feel. Both infusions went down fast hehe. I liked it. It is a far cry from the few I’ve tasted in the past. Doesn’t taste artificial at all, and thank goodness it didn’t have that artificial sweetener taste. It was a good experience. (Whispers: Yes!)

Afterthought: Oh yeah a few months ago, I tried Adagio grapefruit and peach oolong. Forgot about those. I guess those are classified flavored as well. I liked the grapefruit but not the peach one so much.

Holiday Tea-son! I am saving the tea that came out of my Bird & Blend advent calendar for my Doctor Who viewing this Sunday, so I’m making this sampler I got from an expired Lupicia holiday pack last April during a mottainai sale for my work thermos today

The brewed tea smells very fruity, with some spice notes. The base tea is fairly strong and produces some drying astringency after the sip. The tea has a somewhat sweet apple flavor, and there is a slight cinnamon flavor after the sip, but it is quite subtle. There is supposed to be cardamom and currant notes in this tea, but I’m not really picking up on either. The black base is quite robust, and it feels more like a weak apple/cinnamon flavoring over the top.

Not my favorite. I’m really only getting much of an apple flavor, and I prefer Lupicia’s Apple Black a lot more than this. If the other flavors had presented themselves, that may have changed my feelings some. I suspect the sampler sachet vs. the loose version of the tea may make a big difference, too; looking at the sachet I’m not seeing any full cardamom pods or cranberry pieces like in the picture here on Steepster, it pretty much just looks like plain black tea leaves. I’m assuming there are only a few flavorings in the sachet version?

Holiday Tea-son! This was included in a Lupicia holiday sampler of some sort that came out last year, and I picked up on the super-cheap from a mottainai sale last April! It’s just a classic English Breakfast black tea blend of Indian, Kenyan, and Sri Lankan black teas, but the packaging of the sampler is all cute and golden and covered in snowflakes and Christmas ornaments and a puppy with some sort of holiday-colored collar. Eh, whatever works. Good enough for me to count it under the theme, and it’s a quick-and-easy sipdown. I do enjoy an English Breakfast during my Doctor Who episode viewing. Feels so… thematic.

This was a very robust blend. It was quite malty, with very strong citrus notes, creating a strong lemony flavor, with a light peppery note at the end of the sip. The strong citrus flavor combined with the hint of pepper reminded me a bit of yuzu (just with a more subdued peppery taste). Even though I used my typical brisk steep, the black tea produced a fair amount of bitterness and a strong astringency on the tongue. Enough so that I decided to add a bit of honey to this one.

All in all, not my favorite breakfast blend. I’ve had several that came out very smooth, that I could drink plain just fine, and since I don’t really go for a breakfast blend because I want to add milk and sweetener, those are my preferred sorts of breakfast blends. This would probably be more suitable for those that like the robust sort of black blend that is more suited to adding milk and sugar or honey.

Smells so much like grapes right out of the bag! Reminds me of grape-flavored candy.

Home – 8:00 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 3

So this is an interesting one – an Earl Grey made with lapsang and longan fruit. According to the description, this is meant to be an ode to the original Earl Grey blend. Interesting!

Woof, the bergamot is quite strong in this one! I do taste a bit of smoke, but the bergamot is by far the dominant flavor. Apparently the longan fruit is from the same family as the lychee, which totally makes sense as this does have a lychee-esque note to it. It’s almost a bit floral, but tropical fruity at the same time.

I will say, the bergamot here is a bit too strong for me. It goes to a harsh and perfumey place, and actually makes the blend taste more bitter. I’m a fan of more subtle bergamot in my Earl Grey.

Maybe I’ll just leave the tin open a bit and hope some of the bergamot dissipates… Because otherwise I really like this tea! It’s a really interesting mix of sweet, savory, smoky, floral, and fruity…

I got this from Cameron B.! Yay, thank you for my first barley tea!

The aroma has me confused. Watermelon, yes, but also… coffee? Is that what barley smells like in tea? There’s also something kinda oceanic, like roasted seaweed. I have gone from confused to a little apprehensive.

The brew looks like black tea. Dark brown. My first sip is not as horrifying as I expected. However, it is nothing like any tea I’ve ever had before. It does taste like coffee. Like a somewhat sour, dark roast, but without that acrid bite. Just the flavor. And then there’s watermelon. I’m left wondering why this is a thing. Who thought these two flavors were meant for each other? It’s like I’m tasting some kind of culinary accident.

Sipdown 116/395

Chosen by the boyfriend, who raved about it and said that it tasted chocolatey (??). I remember getting this a couple of years ago and really enjoying it, then saving the last of my sample to savour it, and we all know that that means leaving it for two or three years while I acquire hundreds of other teas and it loses flavour. It also didn’t help that I didn’t really have enough leaf left for a pot for two, but I’m encouraging Ryan to get more into tea so I wasn’t going to say no. What kind of monster would do that to a fledgling tea enthusiast? I was disappointed that it was a shadow of the tea I remembered, but enjoyed the pot nonetheless. I do love chestnut teas, it’s one of my favourite flavours.

Sample from my swap with WhatSheSaid.

Home – 4:30 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 7

This is another one from Lupicia’s summer iced tea collection. I’m not sure what flavors it’s meant to have other than mint – my packet is in Japanese and there’s not much in the description here on Steepster.

I’m definitely tasting some citrus – I’m thinking grapefruit mostly. It pairs very well with the herbal peppermint to create a refreshing afternoon tea. The two flavors are quite well-balanced. I can taste a bit of the gunpowder green tea underneath the added flavoring.

It’s a perfectly nice minty green tea. Personally, I prefer spearmint to peppermint, so it’s not one I would stock. But I can imagine it would be very good iced.

I have a sniffle and it is starting to get cooler here, so I thought a hot cup of something would perhaps help.

I am pretty sure this is the last untasted and unwritten about herbal in my current stash. So yay, there’s that.

There’s a strong citrus aroma from the dry mix. After steeping, it’s an orange Fanta color and to the extent my sniffer can discern anything in its runny state, it smells a little lemony, a little more grapefruity.

The flavor reminds me of why I generally find green rooibos blends superior to red ones. It’s a pretty clean flavor delivery mechanism, without much in the way of its own to distract. To the extent I taste it, it’s a slightly reedy taste and completely inoffensive.

I like this quite a bit. I’d like it more if it was a bit sweeter, but hey, it’s grapefruit.

Home – 2:30 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 11

This is an interesting one from Lupicia. I was intrigued, so I had to order some – it’s simply a black tea with a generous amount of tiny golden osmanthus petals. I’m not sure I know what osmanthus tastes like? I’ve had it in teas before, but never as a main flavor. The dry scent is nectar-like with notes of honey – it makes me think of bee pollen.

Hmm… I like this but I’m not quite sure how to describe the flavor. It sort of tastes like the way dandelions smell? So I guess that means it tastes like pollen? But that sounds weird to say, ha ha. Nectar is probably a better descriptor. It’s sweet and a touch fruit-like – closest to an apricot flavor, even down to the slight dryness reminding me of their fuzzy skins. There’s a touch of tropical presence as well (passion fruit?). The tea itself is mild, with malt and baked bread notes.

This is such an unusual tea, I’m not quite sure how to rate it… :P

As a category, cherry green teas are in my personal pantheon of flavored greens. Jasmine will probably always and forever be no. 1, and I like a good grapefruit green, too. But it’s really a toss up where cherry fits in. I want to say second, but I worry that the minute I say that something will change my mind. Let’s say top 3-ish?

This one has a strong, medicinal cherry smell in the tin, but after steeping it is much mellower and more subtle. The tea is pale yellow and clear, with a tinge of green.

I was a little worried because someone else compared this to Kotobuki, which I didn’t care for. But I like how this tastes. In any case, I like it better than the Kotobuki.

I’ve had some cherry green teas that were sweeter, and I think on balance I prefer a little more sweetness. But there’s a place for a cherry that’s not really sweet but still captures the essence of cherry. I don’t find this tart or bitter at all. Just not sweet.

Which makes it interesting. As we head in to winter, I don’t think this is the best seasonal choice - it’s spring-like and refreshing - but if I don’t run out of green tea before spring I’ll try to hold onto it until then when it will hit the spot.

I’m sure I’ve had this before, I just didn’t write a note about it.

There’s a strong smell of almonds from the dry leaf. The caramel is secondary, but it’s there.

After steeping, the tea is chestnut colored and surprisingly clear for a caramel tea. It smells pretty much like the dry leaf, but more diffuse.

The flavor is really interesting. It isn’t strong, and it’s an almost exact balance between caramel and almond. It’s not sweet, but it is mellow and smooth.

I really like it.

Home – 11:00 AM

Added this to my recent order, as it was the only flavor I hadn’t tried. I prepared it as a matcha milk, using the recommended 2 heaping teaspoons of powder for 8 ounces of soy milk.

Hmm… Well the base is pretty tasty, but I’m not really getting strawberry. The matcha is rich and creamy, with absolutely no bitterness. It has a smooth grassy flavor. The level of added sugar is okay for me, though really I would prefer it unsweetened so I could add agave to taste.

It’s good! But no strawberry for me…

There’s also not much in the packet if the servings are 2+ teaspoons each. So that also makes it a bit expensive.

Home – 10:30 PM

I added this to my latest order from Lupicia (which was mostly to get some Kumquat and Yuzu before they’re sold out for the year). This is the first time I’ve ever seen this blend on their site, so I’m not sure if I’ve just missed it in the past or if they haven’t released it for a while. Ripe Mango Oolong is one of my favorite teas, and this sounds sort of the like the oxidized version of that. The name means “fireside”, which I find quite charming. It looks and smells beautiful dry.

Yummmm…

This is scrummy (as Mary Berry would say). I feel like I’m tasting a little bit of grapefruit at the beginning of the sip, even though it’s not mentioned in the description. But it quickly transitions to full-on tropical, with strong and juicy flavors of mango and passion fruit. The oolong is extremely mild, with its flavor only really appearing near the end of the sip, after the fruit flavors have lessened a bit. It’s light and sweet, with a lovely and comforting mild roasty flavor. It really takes this blend to an autumnal place, even though these tropical flavors are generally more summery.

I will say, after drinking several (more subtle) Bird & Blend teas, the flavoring in this one seems a bit too strong. It very nearly approaches bubblegum flavor, but doesn’t quite get there. It must be the passion fruit flavor, as I don’t remember feeling that way about their other mango-flavored teas.

I’m not sure I would feel the need to stock both this tea and Ripe Mango Oolong, as the flavoring is somewhat similar. But I’m very happy to have this in my cupboard for now!

Ending today’s caffeine with a mouthful of butter. It even smells buttery in the packet.

This is, I gather from the name, an Alishan. It’s made up of rolled balls of tea that are dark to medium green, with some stems in the mix.

After rinsing, I steeped in the gaiwan at 195F starting at 15 sec.

The tea is a light, butter yellow color, clear, and has a slightly floral scent. But the main smell is butter.

Taste: butter.

The subsequent steeps: butter.

Fortunately, I love butter.

Now I must go lie down as I woke up with a sore throat, and it isn’t really getting better.

Autumn Harvest! I picked this one up from Ost’s cupboard sale, so thank you Ost! The leaf of this is a CTC black composed of dark little pellets of tea, dried apples, and a strong, sweet apple aroma. It smells like green apple skins.

I gave the tea a brisk two minute steep, given the CTC nature of the leaf and the fact I don’t like my blacks on the heady side. Brewed, the tea smells much sweeter, more like the sweeter red apple variety. I was surprised how mellow the cuppa was, since whenever I see a CTC base I’m expecting a really strong, brisk cuppa, and this steeped up a very dark color! But the short steep must have been just right (at least for my tastes!) as I have a very smooth and mellow base, that is a bit malty, with some subtle honey and citrus notes, but mostly the tea has a very juicy apple flavor. It’s sweet, but against the black tea, it doesn’t feel overly sweet, and it doesn’t taste strangely artificial, either. I think I’d prefer a tangier green apple flavor than the soft and sweet red apple flavor here, but it’s definitely nice, regardless (you know me, I like my hibi teas, of course I prefer green apples over red, I just like a little more tang on my fruit… I prefer green grapes, too!) It’s definitely different than the strong apple herbals I’m used to, that are simply packed with apple flavor… this is a very subtle sweet apple touch on a black base that is so lacking of bitterness and smooth it is really hitting the spot on an autumn morning. It is also a great accompaniment to my peanut butter toast breakfast.

Home – 5:30 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 17

This flavor was in Lupicia’s iced tea collection from this past summer. I love ramune sodas – they’re unabashedly sugary and so fun to drink with the marble closure. They come in several fruit flavors (my favorites being strawberry and melon) but the original flavor is sort of like a combination of bubblegum and lemon-lime soda. It sounds weird, but I actually quite like it, and I’m not normally a fan of bubblegum-flavored things.

The dry leaf smells extremely grassy. I noticed it was somewhat broken up, so I steeped it for 2 minutes instead of 3. This actually comes fairly close to original ramune flavor. It definitely has that bubblegum taste, but to me it falls short on the lemon aspect. The base tea is quite grassy, but also sweet. There’s also a bit of added sweetness (I think) from the sugar candies.

Really, to me this is mostly a bubblegum green tea. Maybe next time I’ll add a lemon slice to my teapot. ;)

Home – 1:00 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 19

Yay, I’m under 20 teas remaining! :D

It’s interesting to me that Lupicia seems to be rather obsessed with wine-flavored teas. They must half a dozen different ones that I can think of off the top of my head, in addition to a few more muscat or grape-flavored ones. It’s very unusual.

Anyway, this one is a strawberry and sparkling wine flavored black tea. I adore the big sugar crystals that they’ve added, they remind me of quartz and are so pretty. I don’t generally approve of tea with added sweeteners, but honestly I don’t taste the sugar at all in the steeped tea. I think they’re too big and hard to really dissolve much.

This is definitely an Indian black tea base. It’s got some bitterness and astringency using my usual steep parameters. I feel there’s possibly some Darjeeling in here, and I did see some green among the spent leaves.

It’s definitely got some muscatel notes, which does make it seem wine-ish. It’s a bit sparkling on the tongue. The strawberry is definitely candy-like. There’s also quite a bit of floral presence, and it’s too much for me.

This will definitely be one to pass along, as it does end up quite floral and the muscatel notes only accent that even more. It becomes almost perfumey to me.

I have a bag of this from Ost, I think. The smell and taste are rather like bubblegum. That’s not a flavor I usually like, but it works here. Hot, I did not enjoy this, but it tastes pretty good cold. I still wouldn’t want more, but it was nice to try.