T2

Another inclusion in T2’s breakfast set purchased during the boxing day sale. I was excited to see kiwi on the ingredient list, unfortunately I didn’t get that flavor. It tasted sort of pear-like, which I didn’t mind, but wasn’t as exciting as a kiwi black tea.

This was included in T2’s breakfast set that I purchased as part of their Boxing Day sale. It really tastes like kaya toast. It’s rich, buttery, and coconutty. I had it at work, so I didn’t have any milk to add to it, but it seems that would have elevated it. There is a bit of an oily mouthfeel that I didn’t care for, but overall it was a pleasant cup.

Made this as an iced latte with a new “barista blend” pea protein milk, sweetened with brown sugar. I love oat milk, but I couldn’t seem to finish a carton quickly enough. So, I found this pea protein milk that is in smaller containers and is shelf-stable until opened. It’s an excellent replacement for oat milk in lattes! Very neutral tasting, which is just what I was looking for.
As for the tea, it’s very tasty as a latte, and the brown sugar complimented it well.

I had been wanting to order from T2 for awhile, and their Boxing Day sale seemed to be the perfect opportunity, as many of the teas I had been interested in were on super sale! The box arrived a couple days ago, and it was really beautifully packaged. Opening it was like getting another Christmas present. As for this tea, it was very nice. Vanilla and caramel with a mild black base. Definitely would’ve been a bit better sweetened and with milk.

Got it cause it smelled really nice in the store. But after being steeped, it mostly just tastes like a bland black tea, kind of disappointed

Got it as a free sampler from T2 when I picked up some other tea.

Pretty good spin on a black breakfast tea. I find plain black breakfast teas to be too bitter usually, but this one is quite nice without being too sweet. Its not listed and maybe my pallate isnt as developed but I get a strong chocolate note.

I really like green tea but if I’m not in the mood it can be a bit too bitter for me to want to finish. This just adds a bit of sweetness to the mix with the strawberry flavoring that makes me want it all the time.

I was a little overwhelmed going into the T2 store for the first time, there was a lot of teas in a lot of boxes on all the walls, it looks great but just something to get used to.
I picked out this tea as well as a few other last month and I’ve tried it a couple of times. You can taste the black tea rather strongly, and has a nice chocolate, sugary undertone that I have become fond of.
My problem is that I cannot seem to always get the little caramel/toffee cubes when I take some out. I gently shake the tin, but I just think it could use more of them.

It is more of a flavored black tea than what I would consider a dessert tea. It is sweet but not a crazy amount and it still has that strong black tea flavor.

I should also note that the small 100g bags at T2 are not resealable so I ended up buying a tin for the tea, but I suppose you can always keep it in a plastic bag, and keep the plastic bag in the paper box that has the label on it.

This was a new purchase and one I am really loving.
It has that light natural slightly grassy green tea taste, complimented with hints of mint, rose, herbs and wood.
It is supposed to have beneficial qualities for your health and beauty. I am not an expect on all those sorts of benefits but I will try to do my best to research it some more.

This is a wonderful and light blend that I could see myself having often. It has the perfect balance of floral, grassy and mint goodness.

This is one of my favourite teas from T2. It tastes just like an ANZAC biscuit.

Cold Brew!

This was the flattest, dullest, and most boring cold brew I may have ever had – and, you know what, that’s fine. I knew it would be when I picked it out! My back tooth is still sensitive, so I wanted something kind of neutral to slurp back on the metro this morning that would still have some caffeine – and it also let me use up a good chunk of this sample as well so it was a win-win in that regard!

Under normal circumstances, this brew would have totally been a let down but it did exactly what I wanted from it today.

Ear infection Day Two: still in a horrendous amount of pain, and didn’t sleep much because of it. However, it’s less than yesterday so I’m going to take that as a good sign. I’m still relying heavily on a hot compress to manage pain and swelling, as well as ear drops and advil. Yesterday it was unbearable to fully bite down, but today it’s doable – although highly uncomfortable…

We’ll see how productive I manage to be today.

This was a cup I had earlier in the week – and it was originally shared with me by VariaTEA. It doesn’t look like T2 carries it anymore; but reading through the product description I believe this is Australian black tea? It’s phrased in a bit of a vague way though, and I’m not 100% sure whether that means it’s “tea that is grown in Australia” or if it’s more meant to be interpreted as an Australian specialty tea, the same way that English Breakfast is a “British Tea” but isn’t really tea from Britain.

I thought this was fine – but it had a rather bland flavour, without a lot of nuance to it or any particularly striking flavour notes. Sort of a brassy/malty combo? It reminded me most closely of an average quality Ceylon black. Good for mindless drinking, and likely good with milk/sugar but not exceptional on its own.

Hot in the mini matcha maker, from DT…

I definitely didn’t enjoy this the first time I had it but something about having it this time was definitely better and it’s bothering me that I don’t know what the difference was. This time is was fruity and bright with a pleasant berry flavour. Not too sweet or bitter. Reminded me heavily of DT’s Sunset Matcha sans orange/citrus component…

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CDtf5vjgbry/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqJ74ERC7K0

The second matcha from T2 that I got to try!

Conceptually, I was less interested in this one that the Jaffa Cake inspired matcha. I’ve tried loads of berry matchas; so there’s definitely steep competition (pun intended) for this one. I also had the fear, after the last matcha, that this would also be oily…

Thankfully, I experienced no issues with the matcha being oily at all! Plus, it uses the same/similar beetroot/berry powders that DT uses in their Sunset Matcha blend so when you whisk it up it doing become that pretty dark maroon colour. That’s definitely cool, and would certainly be more impressive if I hadn’t seen the same effect from DT/Bird & Blend already…

However, taste wise!? This is abysmal! It tastes super chalky and gross, just like Flintstones chewable vitamins! Ewww! I don’t even know what else to say – that was the first thing that came to mind when I drank it and it was so intense that I wasn’t able to shake that comparison. Despite the oiliness, I actually finished my mug of the Jaffa Cake blend. I couldn’t finish my mug of this one…

I’ve heard good things about the flavoured matcha from T2, so I was really excited this week when I got the opportunity to try out two of their flavoured matchas – and when I smelled this one!? Man, I was in heaven!

I’ve had Jaffa cake before, although I’m blanking right now on where I actually tried it. I know it’s a chocolate orange sponge cake type thing, though – and from my memory I recall thinking it was pretty damn good. So that was promising to me, as a matcha flavour! I have to admit though, from the moment I started whisking this tea up I began having some serious doubts…

For starters, I just could not get this matcha to froth. However, it also had the absolute oiliest surface I’ve ever seen on a matcha; like, there were little droplets of oil collecting on the surface of the whisked up matcha. Gross! They translated to the taste of the matcha too; very oily. At least it wasn’t gritty though, which was actually a fear when I noticed how quickly the cocoa powder blended into this was settling on the bottom of the matcha bowl…

Taste wise!? It’s a solid B minus. The chocolate and orange both come through, and taste pretty nice – a little creamy, not overly sweet or bitter and pretty well balanced. I do get a jaffa cake vibe, which is a good thing! However, the finish is pretty chemical to me – especially the lingering orange notes. So, that lingering chemical taste combined with the general oily quality? Big no, for me.

I could see this as salvageable in a latte – but straight up like I had it? I wouldn’t try it again that way…

I enjoy Sleep Tight an hour before bedtime, extremly calming

Sipdown (621)!

Ok – I’m just gonna say it, Raspberry Licky Legs is a terrible tea name. It just sounds revolting. Is that an actual thing in Australia? Like a candy or something!? I’m imaging that the ‘licky’ in ‘licky legs’ is supposed to be like licorice since I’ve seen that done by other tea companies – but it’s still unfortunate.

This was a weird tea, regardless of the name, though – the dry leaf smelled really nice: a bright raspberry note with the sweetness of licorice making it pop a little more, without being too licorice. Kind of reminded me of the smell of Red Vines, but more raspberry? However, steeped up there was a very strange savory/brothy element to the infusion that really through me for a loop – like drinking an infusion of very sweet, smooth liquid raspberry flavoured red licorice if someone had spilled just a bit of chicken noodle soup in the cup. Started off good, then just moved to a very weird place. Also some floral chamomile notes; which felt out of place too and just aren’t my thing in general.

Thanks for sharing this one VariaTEA – it was an interesting experience, and a really unique tea but I just don’t think it’s for me.

Sipdown (615)!

Another share from VariaTEA! Thank you for spreading the tea love!

So, I realize that the name Caramel Pop is supposed to be a play on ‘Caramel Popcorn’ but also a sort of action-y sounding word – because tea companies just love “action words” like pop/blast/burst/splash/etc. that “convey excitement and intense flavour”. However, that is 100% not going to stop my stupid monkey brain from interpreting the name of this tea as “Caramel Soda”, and while I’m sure that wouldn’t be quite as weird as what I’m picturing (I mean, Cream Soda is a thing) it still sounds… off.

Actually, this tastes pretty decent though. It’s caramel-ish and has a good overall sweetness and amount of body, with a bit of toasty notes from the Genmaicha. I do get a fruity undertone, kind of apple-y, that is a little weird but it’s not bad or unpleasant. Just unexpected, really. I think it’s very, very hard to nail a true, pure caramel flavour in tea, especially with thickness/body and the creaminess that actual caramel has; I’ve been really on the hunt for a good caramel tea in 2019 and haven’t yet found one despite trying probably close to a dozen now…

I think this falls somewhere roughly in the middle of those dozen or so caramel teas; in terms of accuracy to that rich caramel note that I’m craving deep, deep in my bones.

I may have found my perfect casual drinking chai. I enjoy the orange peel in it, and it has a spicy zing without being too peppery. (I enjoy those kinds, too, but stronger flavors require very particular moods for me.) The vanilla softens it, but there is still plenty of spice flavor – cinnamon is strongest, but I’d say definitely a bit of ginger and pepper. I think the company says there is cardamom, too, which I would believe – I’m not very good at picking it out as an individual flavor, but I always seem to enjoy teas with that as an ingredient. It’s a touch on the weak side for me, so if I want to add milk or coconut creamer (yum in this!), I have to make it extra strong.

This one definitely needs to be brewed at a lower temperature, or it’s just nasty. Brewed correctly, it only has a mild genmaicha taste that is well balanced with the green tea and the sweeter nutty flavors. I didn’t realize it was a genmaicha tea when I bought it, or I probably wouldn’t have done so as I don’t tend to care for them. However, I like it now that I have it. It does have a strong genmaicha scent, which I don’t personally care for.

This is a less sophisticated version of Whispering Pines’ Cocoa Amore. I always get a chocolate flavor from vanilla, so this is a nice black tea with a vanilla/chocolate flavor. It doesn’t have a ton of depth, but it’s definitely nice and enjoyable.

Sampler Sunday! This is the last of the mass discounted T2 sampler stash I bought back in January 2018. This is a strawberry-flavored green tea.

The steeped tea has a lovely sweet-yet-tangy berry aroma wafting from the cup, and it’s a very bright yellow color. The flavor is quite nice, but I think if this had been steeped any longer than the two minutes this would have gone vegetal astringent — that was probably the maximum for the amount of leaf that was in my doubin as it tastes quite bold and just verging at being pushed for a green tea. Thankfully, it is not, and also thankfully the green tea base itself isn’t overwhelmed as I am tasting a really nice grassy flavor from the tea that I think compliments the strawberry well, especially to bring out a “spring garden” sort of vibe. The strawberry in this is actually really nice and I think I prefer it to a lot of strawberry flavorings I’ve tried, because there is a nice tart bite to it! It hits the tongue with the typical candy-strawberry mellow flavor that I usually get from strawberry flavoring but very quickly turns tangy and berry-like on the back of the tongue, and since tart/tangy flavors are particular favorites of mine, I find it very appealing. I do think that if I could compare this side-by-side with Lupicia’s Tokio that the base green tea from Lupicia was better and they also had a comparable noteworthy strawberry flavor, so if I wanted to stock a strawberry green I’d go for Lupicia; Lupicia also sells in smaller sizes (50g) compared to T2 (100g). Size matters. * shifty eyes *

Nice pot for Tea-ster. I don’t celebrate myself, but wish well to my Steepster crew that does!

Sampler Saturday! I think I only have two of these T2 samplers left, both green teas, and I was in a green tea mood while watching some anime tonight. One was a peach green and one was a strawberry green, and I decided to start with the peach. The dry leaf had a pleasant, fruity peach aroma.

The tea steeps into a lovely soft peachy-orange color, and has a peach but subtle floral aroma. The flavor is fruity but not too overwhelming; the peach doesn’t come off as strongly as the aroma, and I’m fine with that, since I like my fruity greens to be more on the softer side. It gives me a bit of a peach rind feel, and is rather juicy and pleasant, sweet with a slight tartness on the finish. There is still a subtle sweet grassiness beneath the flavoring which I like; I prefer my fruity greens to not be so potent that the green tea gets overwhelmed and can’t shine through. There is a very soft, sweet, floral quality to the tea as well, that compliments the grassy and fruity notes well.

It’s a nice peach tea. Not as nice as the peach green teas I’ve tried from Lupicia (I think I prefer their base green and peach flavorings more) but a perfectly servicable and welcoming pot.