T2

Blehhhhhhh. I was so excited to try a rooibos matcha. But do you know what the second ingredient in this is? Beetroot. And it tastes like straight up beets. When I added sugar, then it was just sugary beets. Extra milk didn’t help either. I like beets, but not so much in tea/desserts. Yeah I’m getting rid of this one. Let me know if you want a beet tea. 0% red velvet, 100% beets.

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this one after I had such a bad experience with T2’s Matcha Berry Ripple, which was pretty much a week straight of Torture Smoothies to finish off. But, I loved the Mint Chip Matcha, so… maybe better luck here?

Whisked in vanilla oat milk, then sampled before adding to my breakfast smoothie. So… definitely better than the Berry Ripple. I think both the Mint Chip and this one have cocoa powder, maybe that’s the secret. This one isn’t as good as the Mint Chip, because the orange still has a bit of that artificial, chemical bite that the Berry Ripple had to its berry flavor, but mixed with the chocolate, its smoothed out enough to almost be inoffensive… it is, at least, drinkable. The Berry Ripple flavor was so bad that even tossed into a smoothie with ample real fruits, that chalky, artificial berry flavor overwhelmed everything, including the real fruits. I at least get the feeling that isn’t going to happen here… guess I should find out?!

Tossed the cup o’ matcha latte into the blender with a cup o’ frozen tangerine slices and a few spoonfuls of yogurt (my typical “Sara hates nanners and needs to smooth out the smoothie” option). Delightfully chocolate, the artificial orange flavor is still pulling through a bit, but is tamed a bit more against pulverized tangerine, which I didn’t get with the Berry Ripple. The chocolate definitely helps a lot.

Not the chocolate/orange experience I was hoping for, but not as bad as I was fearing after the Berry Ripple debacle. No Torture Smoothies here.

I was hoping this would be sweet and nutty. Instead it’s a bit appley and sour? It’s sort of like a too sour version of DT apple custard. With a shorter steep, it’s more pleasant, but still, why would I drink a less good version of another tea?

sampler sipdown

made it as a night cap. It was so sweet and tangy. It was an artificial sweetness that I couldn’t get out my mouth.

Enjoying this one this morning – thank you to VariaTEA :)

This one is perfect for a chilly morning. I steeped this one then ran outside to shovel the front walk and sidewalk, and this was the perfect temperature when I got back in.

This one seems to be a perfect breakfast tea, minus any astringency. Just a deep morning flavour that goes down smooth.

Another tea company I may have to check out! I almost forgot how much fun swaps can be haha.

Thanks VariaTEA for sharing this one (and many others)!

Made this one while trying to catch up on school work and volunteer stuff after getting back late Friday night.

The dry scent was very “breakfast blend-y” and the steeped scent is similar. The taste is a nice black tea with the slightest astringency, but nothing overwhelming at all. I’m actually really enjoying this one overall. I’m excited to have so much to enjoy!

Another Sampler Sipdown

This one was surprisingly very good amidst all the meh teas that came as a part of the sampler. The dry leaves smell like a pancake breakfast. The tea itself is very nutty and the taste like toffee or candied pecans. It was delicious and sweet. It would make a great dessert tea. I was surprised by how much the sweetness did not overpower the tea.

Another Sampler Sipdown.

The dry leaves smelled of strawberries and cream. It was lovely. The brewed tea was weak. The flavor profile was not as fruity as I would have liked this time to be as well. The sencha tea which was the base was missing from the flavor profile altogether.
The flavor profiles from this tea reminds me of a similar tea from Murchie’s that was better in my opinion.

Another meh tea from the sampler.

Meh. This tea came as part of a sampler set. The base was quite nice but the floral notes and the lemon balm did not work well together. It was lavender heavy on the taste and the other floral notes were missing. I didn’t realize it had jasmine and other flowers until I read the ingredients.

Perfectly average. A bit of cinnamon and chocolate. The vanilla taste is somewhat artificial.

Oof, this matcha has an overwhelmingly strong biting, artificial strawberry flavor to it. It may be a pretty pink color, but it has zero matcha/green tea flavor, and the berry flavor just feels like a punch in the face. I just got through a bag of Lupicia’s Matcha Au Lait Strawberry, which still had a nice, vegetal matcha flavor but a sweet “candy strawberry marshmallow” sort of flavor to it, and compared to that, this is just not really doing it for me. Even used in a berry smoothie, that artificial strawberry flavor overpowers everything — even the flavor of actual strawberries! (How???) If I use a very small amount of powder and use coconut milk for my latte it is slightly better, as the flavor of the coconut milk helps temper it a bit.

I really enjoyed T2’s Mint Chip matcha, but not a fan of this one. Hoping to get through my bag rather quickly…

This is terrible. Couldn’t get past a sip. Not eggnog in the slightest. Sickeningly sweet vanilla flavoring, and stevia. Blech.

This does indeed taste like mulled wine. The hibiscus is appropriate here, helping to create a tart wine base. Some nice orange present, with a lovely blend of spices. Clove and anise are dominant.

This is one of those teas that you have to have cold. Even then, though, it’s quite tart and cidery. I can’t tell that it’s pomegranate clearly either. I really didn’t like my first two cups of this, but I found my third one tolerable. I’m now using this up by brewing large pitchers of it since I’ve finished all my rooibos that I was using for that purpose. Brewing such a large amount and having it sit for days seems to tame it a bit. Really couldn’t recommend though. Just tart and not that interesting.

Sample Sipdown!

Smells like citrus (general). I can smell hint of grapefruit. The infusion smells like cleaner but I don’t mind it. Like the other citrus teas it tastes like cleaner with a hint of grapefruit. Again, I don’t mind the cleaner taste. It was okay. Nothing too exciting .

This is quite interesting. It tastes like apple peels, mild ginger, and some black pepper. I’m getting very much a ‘autumn in the orchard, with overripe apples on the floor, and wisps of hay everywhere’ vibe, and I’m loving it. 10/10 for vibe, 6/10 for flavor.

I’ve had this for years but never really tried it because I didn’t think it would be my thing. Spoiler alert: it’s not. It’s named for a Forest I believe and that’s fitting because this makes me think of a forest floor. Petrichor is the word that comes to mind as I drink it. It’s a bit coppery as well. It’s not bad but I also don’t want to drink it again because it’s just not to my tastes. It’s going into the swap box.

So fresh, sweet, fruity, and refreshing. I just love rooibos! I feel like you can taste the green rooibos more, which is great because not enough blends use green rooibos! The flavors shine the most cold. The resteep is just as strong as the first as well. So simple and tasty.

Dry: It smells nutty almost like candied brittle that you get around Christmas.

Liquor : smooth and smells a bit like pancake syrup! It has a slightly bitter notes at the end. I had it with a bit of oat milk which brought out the taste of syrup . Tasted a bit like walnut pancakes.

Smells very sweet and a lot like perfume.

It is a little disappointing that the bergamot flavor is missing from this tea. It is really floral with the rose flavor being the star of the show. Its okay

Thanks so much to amandastory516 for sending me a sample of this one! I actually sort of love it! Even though there’s a lot of genmaicha in there, it’s not the main flavor at all. I feel like I taste sage and a bit of fruitiness. I’m enjoying drinking it at room temperature.

The Great Un-Steepstering of 2020 Review #10 (08/24/20)

I have tons of matcha that just doesn’t seem to be getting used up fast enough, and since VariaTea uses hers in smoothies, I thought I might give that a try… except, I have never made a smoothie in my life (culinary expert, I am not). I know this should be as simple as looking up a recipe and following it, except… every smoothie recipe ever uses banana, and I have the strongest banana aversion on the planet (perhaps the reason why I’ve never attempted to make a smoothie before). There can be one slice of a nanner mixed with 20 other fruits in a smoothie, and I’ll taste it and gag. So #projectsmoothie is probably going to get very creative, and have some spectacular failures along the way…

Yesterday I decided to start with this matcha, and try making a chocolate mint flavor profile smoothie. I found a banana-less chocolate smoothie recipe to work off of, and made some tweaks to it. In the end, I ended up with one cup of cold brewed peppermint tea, eight or so pitted Deglet Noor dates (much cheaper in my area than the larger Medjool variety), 1 tablespoon of chia seeds, 1 tablespoon of the Mint Chip matcha, 1 teaspoon of Nutella, 1 teaspoon of almond butter, 1 teaspoon of chocolate sauce, and about 8 ice cubes.

For my first attempt at a smoothie, the biggest issue was the dates, which didn’t want to chop up/mix in well at all (and I ended up eating them out of the bottom of the cup at the end with a spoon). But the flavor was very good! The mint chocolate was strong! Maybe just a hint on the bitter side, but in a pleasant way, like the kind of bite you get from really dark chocolate. I didn’t mind it at all, but I suppose that next time I could add more chocolate sauce or Nutella if I wanted it sweeter. But I think I might prefer it this way, I do prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate. The peppermint had a nice minty flavor, but mixed with the chocolate didn’t come off with a menthol taste, just crisp and cooling. I didn’t really taste “matcha” specifically, but I wasn’t really expecting to and was just glad that both “chocolate” and “mint” were distinctly featured in the smoothie flavors. Good flavor profile, just need to figure out how to integrate the dates better next time!

So, take two this morning. I probably should’ve stuck with the same recipe, but decided to try something slightly different, just because I wanted to “pre-make” the matcha this time to add in (instead of just throwing the powder into the smoothie) so I could taste it sans all the other ingredients to see what it tasted like on its own. So in this one I used one chopped apple, 4 dates (I pre-chopped them into smaller pieces this time… still trying to experiment with integrating the dates as a nanner alternative!), 1 tbsp dark choco chips, 1 tbsp cocoa powder, and 1 cup of matcha latte made with Mint Chip matcha in vanilla oat milk.

I was surprised to find the matcha, made on its own in the vanilla oat milk (a rather sweet milk), had that deeply dark bittersweet chocolate mint flavor, and it wasn’t coming from the ingredients in my smoothie yesterday! So, that’s a win. As I mentioned, I really like that deeply dark chocolate profile. Again, didn’t really taste any “matcha” under that flavor, even when separated as just a latte, but I really did dig the flavor I was getting.

Didn’t like this smoothie as much as the one yesterday, though, so of the two I’ll probably go back to the other (the apple just cuts the choco-mint flavor profile too much, requiring some cocoa powder to help offset, and that covers up a bit of the darker chocolate notes into something a bit more fudgy/sweet chocolately… though in hindsight, this probably was a better “breakfast option” choice.) Still had trouble with the dates, which like to “sink” below the blades of my blender regardless… my blender is old, an 80s monstrousity that is likely as old as me, if not older. If I want to continue #projectsmoothie (and especially if I want to use dates as a nanner replacement) I may have to upgrade!)

Excited to pull out some of my other flavored matchas!

Delicious when brewed then chilled with a splash on milk on a hot day. It’s a satisfying alternative when you crave sweets but don’t want all the calories. The caramel flavor gives it more depth than just regular chocolate.

I’ve been wanting to try this for quite awhile (Pineapple, caramel chai? Count me in.). I haven’t had huge success with other T2 blends, so was hesitant to pay full price. I recently saw that a giftset with this, Chiang Mai Chai, 2 cups, and a steeper went on sale for a verrrry reasonable price, so I went for it. Unfortunately, I find this pretty undrinkable. No pineapple. No caramel. It’s extremely spicy (not so much from the cinnamon, more from the pepper), and although there is no licorice root listed on the ingredients, I’m getting a strong licorice flavor.