Tea Desire

Darn it, too much steep time and I’m getting scratchy rooibos-throat again. Yet the toffee is sooo goood…. darn it!

I keep on steeping this colder and colder for my son, and it just gets better each time. He called before bed, “Mommy, make me MY tea please?” Of course, he meant this one. I had the rest of the cup. So delicious!

Less rooibos taste = less steeping time. The bits and pieces still melt. How do I know this? Because I brewed it up today with my son, who wanted a replacement for the Maple Pecan black he grabbed a bit of earlier, and so I made this with only lukewarm water. It was like liquid toffee! Tried it again just for myself tonight, and lo and behold, same result. Yes!!

This smells like coffee, has a whallop of rooibos, and tastes strongly of toffee and caramel – so basically, I need to avoid sending any of this to JustJames! :)

For anyone missing that trifecta however, I do strongly recommend this tea. There’s zero rooibos flavor, and just toffee caramel deliciousness. Huge thanks to Roswell Strange for reviewing it, just in time for me to order some along with my beloved Caramel Pu-erh.

This time around, I got strong whiffs of lemongrass as I opened the bag. I’m getting little in the brew as I drink it, more of a crumbly orange chocolate pastille. As it cools I get more orange and rooibos out of the mix…. and while I want to love this, it’s still less than my favorite, sadly.

1.5 tsp in 12 oz.

This smelled an awful lot like rooibos out of the bag, and after steeping, which concerned me somewhat. I can still taste rooibos, which drops it down a few notches for me. I do get orange right off the bat, although it smells strongly of lemongrass to me out of the bag. I’m missing any chocolate anything, although perhaps I’m comparing this to L’Automne by Fauchon, which has the chocolate right at the front of the sip. This is okay, and I’ll be good finishing it off, however I doubt I’ll order more.

Sorta Sipdown (162/166)!

Also going to 221Tea. I picked this one out next because I needed a non caffeinated tea to counter balance the string of blacks I had this afternoon, and because it’s surprisingly similar to the Orange Spiced Nut rooibos blend I had from Cuppa’T earlier today.

I have to say that I honestly prefer the Cuppa’T blend to this one – for a bunch of reason. Personally, I think the orange in this blend tastes sort of artificial and “soapy” and I find the sandalwood in it really detracts from the only winning quality this blend has IMO, and that’s the walnut flavour. Tea Desire does walnut very well, and the walnut in this blend tastes awesome albeit very drowned out/overshadowed by the other elements of the blend.

For me it’s too much going on and, like Robin would say in Young Justice, it leaves me feeling “whelmed” (not underwhelmed or overwhelmed – just right in between: sorry, I’ve been watching season one of Young Justice all day and I have a fascination with Robin’s vocabulary). I really hope that 221Tea finds it more enjoyable, especially since she’s a rooibos fan in general.

I, however, am not sad to see this one go although I am glad I made a final, departing mug of it.

So I picked this up and I can’t really remember why, but anyway I have about 50g of it now. So I thought I’d finally try it to see if I even like it.

Dry, the smell is kind of nice and kind of off putting? The orange and sandalwood are both very strong with only faint whiffs of the walnut (what I’m most interested in) and then a ‘medium’ rooibos base – wood chippy, but not medicinal. When it’s steeped up, it’s a bit more of a mishmash of all those flavours and it just smells ok.

Taste wise, I’m actually pleasantly surprised how strong the walnut is. It’s actually the most dominant flavour overall, and is consistent throughout the sip, sticking around well after you’ve actually swallowed the sip. Very tasty. Unfortunately, I feel like the orange/sandalwood really detract from how great this one could be. The orange is pretty present in the first part of the sip, and I don’t feel like it meshes well with the walnut at all. The two aren’t competing, but they just don’t get along. And, as far as the sandalwood goes, it’s distracting too and appears in weird and inconsistent aspects of the sip.

I wish this was just, ultimately, about the tasty walnut. So, my conclusion here is really mixed because the walnut is great but the rest is just a complete mess. I’m not sure if I enjoy the cup – so I think it’s pretty obvious that I also highly doubt I’d restock. I know Tea Desire has some other walnut options, so perhaps I’ll get around to exploring those to see if they capture the same tasty walnut notes.

Sipdown!! (217)

Well Roswell Strange, I think this tea is infinitely better cold brewed and yet it still is not my cup of tea. Having it this way, the rooibos is almost undetectable and weirdly enough the cream is the most prominent aspect. In fact, this is sort of like having an orange creamsicle sprinkled with a touch of cinnamon. A very weird combination if you ask me. Thank you for sharing though. I just think this tea and I were not made for each other.

I did not have high hopes for this one. Strong rooibos smell and distinct orange scent – both things I always avoid. However, Roswell Strange sent this to me in our most recent swap so I decided to give it a try.

It actually is not as bad as I thought it would be. The rooibos is pretty muted and the orange is more mellow than I expected. But they are both still there and strangely competing with cinnamon. Thank you Roswell Strange for sending this my way but it is not for me. I dumped the other 2 tsps into a water bottle and we will see how it fairs as a cold brew.

This was a surprise sample from MissB, but it sounds so interesting! I made it hot but I see that it also is great iced, which makes sense. Brewed up, it definitely smells creamy and fruity. Knowing that ther eis pineapple and coconut in it I can smell them, but if I didn’t know I would almost say custard.

Wow, this is super creamy! I probably overleafed it a bit, and there was definitely nothing delicate about this one. Coconutty (but in a very different way than a coconut pouchong), with a smooth texture and bright tropical fruitiness in the latter part of the sip. The green and white teas keep it light and bright. Quite nice, thanks for the sample MissB!

Cold Brew!

It’s been a long time since I last had this tea and when I found the forgotten tin in my tea cupboard earlier this week I really worried whether or not it would still be any good. If I’m being totally honest, it smelled a little bit off – probably from the coconut in the blend.

However, none of that slight dry leaf aroma funk transferred into the taste and I was immediately reminded why I liked this tea so much in the first place! It’s definitely fruity, with a simply divine apricot flavour that is unmatched to other LLT I’ve tried since discovering this blend – but more than that it’s quite silky and creamy! You obviously have some creaminess from the coconut that is slightly present, but it’s more of that vanilla custard type of sweet creaminess that comes through and words so well with the apricot. Like some kind of very light, maybe double churned apricot ice cream!? The artisan shit that costs like $9.00 a scoop at an over priced store with an instagram wall for photos – you know the kind.

It’s also just a smidge floral, and I love that tiny little bit of nuance it adds to the rich ad bright profile! It’s so nice rediscovering old favourites in my own tea collection – when you have as many teas as I do there are definitely things that get forgotten.

Drank this yesterday in a tea press with some eggnog in it. I think what I was craving was the apricot creaminess, and that was present in the cup…

But the eggnog definitely killed the profile. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking adding it in – I’m going to chalk it up to being exhausted/slightly loopy at 6:30AM when I was getting ready for work/making my commute teas. I don’t think I even finished the tea press; I hated the eggnog/apricot pairing that much.

Just a simple hot cuppa.

As always this was really nice and creamy with coconut notes, but I actually thought that this time around the apricot was a lot more tropical tasting – almost pineapple like in terms of flavour. Still very good, though!

Iced, with milk and lots of added coconut sugar because that’s just what I was craving.

Normally, I really strongly get apricot from this but for once this didn’t taste like apricot at all to me. It was obviously coconut heavy from all the flavoured coconut sugar but the rest of it was surprisingly lemony with hints of pineapple. Very, very creamy lemon and pineapple – but still. I also tasted a lot of grassyness and ginkgo!

I didn’t love, didn’t hate it – and it worked for its intended purpose: something smooth, creamy, sweet and very refreshing for the hot ass day.

Creamy apricot cold brew – not much to say about it otherwise other than it’s definitely going stale now…

This is a queued tasting note.

Had this one cold brewed; after revisiting DAVIDsTEA’s Nutty By Nature blend I was really craving sweet apricot and this tea is definitely the closest thing in my cupboard to that profile. The cold brew was sweet and kind of jammy, but also thick and creamy. Apart from the rich, apricot flavour there was definitely coconut, vanilla, and sort of a creamed honey note as well. The flavour of the base was pretty masked, but I did get some of that light grassy flavour in the finish as the other more robust notes gave way a little.

Definitely satisfied that craving.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3AtRBlRQ-I&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ&index=164&shuffle=154

This is a queued tasting note.

Bright fruity apricot note that basically punches through everything else! Like drinking liquid happy! Good choice for a commute tea.

Cold Brew!

Not as creamy as normal; instead definitely more of a sharp, vaguely tangy apricot flavour with more of the lemon/lemongrass notes coming through than I’ve probably ever noticed. It was still good, but not truly satisfying as it was the coconut/apricot pairing I was ultimately in the mood for when I started brewing it up.

Tea Soda! But first I need to rant…

Even though I spent the whole day in the living room (not that unusual), I felt like I was holed up somewhere, under bed covers, avoiding the world. I don’t know why; but I just felt sad. All day. And Tre didn’t help; he’s gotten himself into this really, really weird situation. And frankly, I have no right to be mad at him over it – I just found it really irritating today, and I wanted to be alone.

Basically here’s what’s going down in the life of Tre:

His stupid friend Adam introduced him to a girl named Ally/Allie/Aly/I don’t really know how it’s spelled and he’s infatuated; and I honestly am really, really happy for him. He deserves to finally find someone to be happy with; but it’s a weird situation. He found out after like their second date or something that she’s best friends with our landlord’s eighteen year old daughter Maria. And, through this girl, he’s even hung out with her. I’m not totally sure why I find that so odd; Maria’s 18 and he’s 21 – that’s not a huge age difference. And it’s not even like she’s the one he’s interested in (that would DEFINITELY be crossing a line). I just have this gut feeling that if Rob, my landlord, found out about it that, despite how much he likes Tre and I, he wouldn’t be happy with them spending time together. And I guess maybe to some extent I still view Maria as a very immature child. She might not be living above us now but she used to and I can’t deny that we witnessed/overheard some incredibly childish behavior from her. Not to mention she used to throw house parties when her Dad was out of town (that he encouraged us to quietly ‘chaperone’) and maybe because I still view Maria as very childish I’m viewing her friend as childish, and kind of get the impression Tre’s taking advantage of her to some extent? Even if maybe he’s not.

Regardless, the whole thing makes me uncomfortable.

And then last night… Ugh, last night!

He left the house at one in the fucking morning to go out for a walk with this girl; whatever, I can get over that. Not any of my business no matter how uncomfortable I feel. However, I had work in the morning at 9AM so I made sure to tell him to be quiet coming back in because I needed to sleep. When does he get back? 5:30AM! And she’s with him. They woke me up getting in – though I pretended to be asleep because I really didn’t want a confrontation or anything. That’s a ridiculous time to get back – especially after what I said before he left. The cherry on top was that this girl, who I’m pretty sure isn’t older than 18, was clearly drunk. 18 is underage here in Saskatchewan; and I know underage drinking happens – hell I drank underage, but I’m not comfortable with that going on here at the house. We’ve always been very good tenants; no parties, very minimal drinking at home, and with her being a friend of my landlord’s daughter I just have an especially bad feeling about this. She spent like an hour in our bathroom throwing up – which I pretended to sleep through but just couldn’t.

They finally went to bed at like eight or nine in the morning? When I should have been getting up to get ready for work. Except I’d barely slept at all and felt like shit so I called in sick. I finally fell asleep at about 11AM, and I expected when I woke up that she’d be gone – but nope instead they spent the entire day here. And again, I kind of feel like I’m just being a super bitch without much of a right to complain because he can see whoever he wants to but I just really, really felt bad today and I wanted to be on my own. They left, to go to the mall(!?), at 11PM to meet up with one of this girls friends. And I’m thankful they’re gone now but what the hell!? There’s no mall in the city open that late! This whole thing just seems… Juvenile. And I have a bad feeling.

So there’s my rant for the week; anyone who actually made it through all of that and has any advice to offer would be appreciated – I don’t know if I’m out of line being upset by this. Regardless, I just had to voice it to someone, even if that’s just here on Steepster to inevitably be ignored.

As for the tea soda – it was like my only moment of ‘escape’ today. For a brief half hour I got to curl up and watch some Netflix and sip on this super creamy, kind of tropical tea concoction that made me feel like I was somewhere (anywhere) else. The mellow, sweet coconut and apricot notes ended up very well suited for a tea soda format. Fruity, but different…

This is totally 70% of why I went into Tea Desire in the first place yesterday.

I was down to my last two(ish) cups of this one, before measuring out the leaf I used for this cold brew, and I wasn’t ready to be out of it yet. It’s just such a good creamy apricot tea. The very gentle floral rose notes and honey notes present in today’s cold brew made it seem much more nuanced than usual as well. And it was very refreshing!

I’m happy to have another 50g to play with; fingers crossed I go through it slightly quicker than last time though. It’s not the leaf went bad/flavor deteriorated but I just felt kind of guilty for ignoring a pretty solid blend.

4218

No, that’s not the number of teas in my cupboard – it’s actually the produce code for Apricots according to Sobeys. I started training there last week, and part of my new job is memorizing the produce codes for about 200 different things. So, to help, I’m going to look up the produce codes for relevant things in my tasting notes: I think associating them with something like that might help remember them. So far, I’ve only got about 30 down…

Also, FYI, I’m writing this note (and every other note today) from Calendar Club, my other new(ish) P/T job. Just like last year, there’s a block on the internet but you can back channel around that block in the same way so hello stable internet connection, my good friend. It’s been about two weeks since I’ve had one at home hence PART of the reason why this queue is gonna be so damn long. We even called our service provider last night (again) to try and work through it, but after being on hold for 36 minutes we gave up. Ergh!

Unfortunately, my more detailed notes for what I’ve had the last couple of weeks is at home so I’m going almost solely by memory. What do I remember for this one? Well, to start I had it as a latte. Something about the creaminess and apricot (4218) aspects appealed to me. I remember just faintly tasting the coconut in the blend (4261) and then a light fruitiness not totally distinct of apricot but reminiscent of stone fruits. Mostly, the fruit was covered by milk though.

I think it’s something to try again but maybe more generously leafed.

So Design a Tea’s Tropical Snowflake put me in the mood for this one, and I was more than willing to steep myself up a cup and satisfy that craving. With the more than agreeable state my cupboard is in right now, making what I want when I want it is a satisfying luxury I feel I can afford.

It’s been a while since I had this one I think, and when I opened the tin I was blasted with the strong and INTENSE aroma of rich, sweet apricots! And then steeped up this was perfect; creamy, rich and buttery coconut with juicy “ready to explode with juice” apricot. And yes, despite the intense flavours going on this one still manages to real all of that back in and maintain a soft, delicate but full flavour.

When you want apricot; nothing tops this one.

Man, I really need to up the rating on this one! It’s just grown on me so much, and I find it incredibly delicious now. The trick, I guess, was the not cold brew it but instead ice it; that brings out much different flavour notes. Plus, it still holds its own plain too.

Anyway, creamy tropical coconut (I love white coconut blends, I’ve discovered) and a very bright and juicy apricot flavour with an underlying presence of pineapple. It’s like a twist on your typical “Pina Colada” type drink. Plus, the white tea is lovely, and the green tea hardly makes itself well known.

Yes, when I run out of this I’ll likely get more; though probably not until I have space to put it in a tin instead of leaving it in a bag. High value/restock teas get the upgrade to a tin! I’m sure I must have some white teas that are currently in tins which I don’t want more of…

Oh, my custom “Earl of Goji Wine” blend! Yes; this can have the tin space from that one.