Tea Desire

I left a cup of this to cool at my desk while I was out tonight, with zero sugar added. I can taste more of the pepper now, as well as the cardamom and ginger. Chocolate had completely disappeared however, yet ginger still lingered, co-mingling with the pepper kernels. I think I like it better warm and with a touch of Truvia, however I did gulp this two cup sized mug in less than ten minutes.

Oh, wow. This is a complete surprise.

Out of the bag, this definitely smells like a chocolatey chai. Steeped, there’s more ginger than a chai smell, although I can smell the cardamom as well. Drinking it… wow. Really, wow.

The first few (too hot) sips were bold and strong, with a definite chocolate start. Now that it’s cooled a touch to be comfortably devoured, it’s amazing. Hint of chocolate first, followed by ginger and cardamom, and finishing with some sweetness and licorice. I can, and will, drink this contentedly for the rest of the day. I remember the website saying this isn’t a punch-in-the-face chocolate, and they’re right… it’s still lovely and adds depth.

EDIT: This took 2tsp of tea per cup. I bought 50g of it, and this will only net a total of 6 cups of tea. I’ve put the last two cups -worth in my tea swap box, just because I think it needs sharing (and I’ll definitely order more, soon). Works out to be $1.25/cup, which is just fine with me.

Yep, me again. What can I say, I brewed a lot of this! :)

Now that it’s almost completely cooled and sweetened, it has a completely different flavor again. Faint chocolate comes first, then unmistakably black tea for a second, then a stronger chocolate flavor followed by… hard to describe. A creamy, cake-like feel that lingers, along with a lot more of the dates coming through. It sits on my palate for a long time. I’m upgrading it a bit because I like it more now, for the complexity and challenge in even describing what it is I’m tasting.

Cooled yet still warm, I’m getting just black tea from this. Added some Truvia, and it’s now merely sweetened black tea, with a hint of astringency and vanilla-y notes. A few seconds after the sip, I’m getting a lingering feel of dry sweetness from the dates, and a touch of cookie/cake. Much better hot. See previous notes for how I felt when this was just finished steeping.

It’s the name of the tea that got me buying this one, and I had high hopes when it arrived that it would become a new staple in my house.

I should note that this, my first order from Tea Desire, arrived a DAY after I ordered it, along with free shipping. Also had a handwritten note inside thanking me for my business, along with my name spelled properly. Always a plus!

Dry, this actually does smell vaguely of an oreo cookie. Sweet, cakey. Steeped, it just smells like black tea. I was a bit surprised by that, and really stuck my nose in there to see if I was missing something. Nope, just tea.

I’m sipping right now as it cools, and while a bit hot for me to get a good feel for it, I’m surprised at how much this does taste like an oreo cookie further into the sip. Initially it’s definitely a black tea, which then dissolves into a creamy feel, along with notes of chocolate, cake and a deep, rich yet faint sweetness, likely from the dates. All that’s missing is a hint of vanilla, although with this sore throat maybe it’s there and I’m just missing it.

Going to wait for it to cool down a bit and try some more.

Sipdown (192/194)!

Finally, all gone! Out of cupboard, out of mind! So…

No more milk oolong for a while – they’re just NOT my thing.

Found this in my closet when I was looking for sample to bring back to the kitchen. I had completely forgotten I even had this one stocked! So since there wasn’t a lot left (one more cup other than this one) I brought it with to finish off.

Hot, this tasted SO very bland and unappealing; like stale hot water. Ick.

So, I left it and let it get cold and when I came back to it and took more sips I was happy to find it was a fair bit more flavourful; kinda like watered down condensed milk. Like, creamy caramel rich but also really watery. Kinda “meh”, at best, overall.

I’m just happy that the people I shared this with for the 12 Days of Christmas swap have, at least so far based on tasting notes, all had much more success with this one than I have. Milk oolong just isn’t my thing.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas Steepster gave to me eight maids-a-milking…

So, I was supposed to have left for Regina by now for my ‘vacation’ but the road conditions are absolutely terrible and my Dad decided to wait until tomorrow to come get me. That just means another day of tea drink and laziness I guess – which I’m not really complaining about…

This was my pick for the 12 Days tea swap! I think the reasoning behind it should be obvious enough. Or, at least I would hope so. Originally I was going to go with Della Terra’s “Minty Cow” but I didn’t have enough left to split between 12 people so I went with this one instead! Tea Desire is a company that I think many people are still unfamiliar with – especially those in the States so I thought maybe this would be a neat way for them to become acquainted.

I gave everyone enough for at least two cups because this one can be relatively temperamental – I’ve had some truly great cups of it and others that were weak or seemed flavourless. I’m hoping everyone else experiences a good cup. Today, my cup is actually really good! I went with 1 tsp. steeped at about 75 degrees celsius for three minutes and it’s nice and caramel kind of sweet. Sort of like the sweetness of condensed milk.

Hmmm…

Something definitely went wrong when I made this in the morning. I have no clue what though…

For preparation, I used 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf steeped in 75 degrees Celsius water in my timolino for about 3 minutes. I’ve had a couple cups of this before (this is my third try) and each time I’ve been trying to switch up the brewing method a little bit so I can find the sweet spot on this one (like I did was Raspberry, also from Tea Desire). Today I certainly didn’t find the sweet spot.

I’m drinking this right now and it sort of just tastes like tepid water, with some very light oolong present in the aftertaste. However, light is the most important word used there. How strange. I saved the leaves, so I guess I’ll resteep when I get home and see if I can coax out a bit more flavour.

I’ve been trying to decide whether to restock this or not – but right now I’m definitely leaning towards no.

Made this again for work today, but only a mug worth (not enough to fill my whole 20 oz. water bottle). First time having it was on the comic con trip hot, but today I drank it cold. I’m not sure if I necessarily liked it better or worse, but it was really different that’s for sure. Maybe that’s because I was more prudent in steeping it this time around, or maybe the temperature just brought out different flavours.

Drinking at work, there was a light floral quality to the tea, and the light creamy ALMOST caramel taste I experienced hot was amplified at a cold tea: this was very creamy caramel with buttery notes. It was yummy right down to the last few sips – and it sure didn’t last a whole lot of time.

Still not sure if I’d repurchase – but this is an interesting one for sure. I think I need to drink it a few more times hot and cold before making my mind up. However, I need to show some love to my new teas as well as some other teas which haven’t been drank in a while, and I’d like to finish off a couple samples before my swap from VariaTEA arrives.

Woot! Got back from Central Canada Comic Con a few hours ago and managed to get everything all unpacked pretty quickly. And as soon as I was unpacked what was the first thing I did? Went to the DAVIDsTEA website to check out the new blends and then opened up a tab for Steepster to see how the reviews were looking so far. I have to say, it seems like the reviews for the teas I initially was interested in (Gingerbread Rooibos, White Chocolate Frost, and Spiced Fig) are not really making me want to try them: however the things sort of being complained about/disliked in regard to Choconut Oolong DO make me a bit more interested in it (I love licorice root).

I actually ended up with money left over from what I had budgeted, so I think that will go towards funding my next David’s purchase tomorrow after work. I’m not sure what new teas I’ll walk out with yet, but I will also be restocking on Main Squeeze and buying a replacement lid/steeped for my Timolino.

Best part of Comic Con was TOTALLY meeting James Marsters! I wish I hadn’t gotten really shy and nervous, because he was super friendly and nice (I got the shake his fucking hand!!!). We talked about Sarah Michelle Gellar’s breasts…

But anyway, I’m about to post tasting notes on all of the teas I had on my trip. I actually wound up having some really great brewing conditions where I was staying, so I probably could have brought some more finicky teas with me, but oh well – at least I had tea at all! My Dad has apparently started calling me his “tea connoisseur” and when we were staying at my Step Aunt’s house she seemed like she was trying to impress me with her “tea knowledge” (she was boasting about how interesting she is because she’s tried chocolate teas and knows there’s a difference between black and green tea). I had to try really hard to not “show off” or be rude, because she’s 60+ and meant well – but when I pulled out my bag of measured out samples and started answering her questions about what things were she seemed kind of overwhelmed and got really quiet…

So, for this one I steeped 1 1/2 tsp. for 12 oz. in 85 degree water in my Timolino for three minutes. I think next time I’m going to use a bit cooler water, and steep for probably a little less time.

Dry the smell was lightly milky and creamy with a very strong oolong smell and steeped, the smell was condensed milk (sweet milk smell) and quite creamy. I could still smell the Oolong base, though not as strongly as it came through for me in the dry leaf. I should mention now that this is my first “milk oolong” (although, I understand that it’s not a traditional milk oolong either), so I have nothing as a base for comparison.

The taste was creamy, and lightly reminded me of condensed milk or something else sweet and sugary: MAYBE a very, very light caramel flavour. I think I’d need to drink it again to be sure. It was slightly artificial tasting, and slightly astringent and i think the latter could probably be avoided with better steeping temperature or steep time. The oolong base came through very strongly but taste quite good.

I got an interesting phone call today…

It was the district/general manager for the calendar chain I work at. He was asking me if I would be interested in being the manager for a new branch they’re opening up at a mall here in the city. It was totally unexpected, and not something I had applied for or anything (I’ve only been working there just over a month now) – but I said yes because A) More hours means more money, B) I’d get a pay raise (which is awesome because I’m currently a minimum wage monkey), and C) It’s at a location even closer to my house! Only negative is it looks like I’d have to push back my trip up to Regina for Christmas by maybe a week or so (And I was already leaving to go after Christmas by more than a few days, so it’ll be a very late Christmas for me…). However, I am now in the running for this position and will likely hear back by Friday evening. Wish me luck?

Anyway – I made this for my morning tea as part of my initiative to drink up some of the blends I have excess of which I don’t plan on restocking or am unsure about restocking. This one falls into the unsure category. For preparation, I steeped a slightly heaping tsp. for 2 minutes in about 6 -8 oz. of water (the mug holds 8 oz. but I didn’t fill it completely – so maybe it’s closer to 6 oz.). The water was roughly 90 degrees celsius, so I’m hoping it wasn’t too hot but not really anticipating the best. I was being really impatient as I made this.

On a whim, I also poured about 1 1/2 tsp. of the peach syrup type stuff from the can of halved peaches I’m also eating.

Smell, is green tea with sort of a bubble-gum(y) bordeaux cherry aroma – which is like how it was last time. I think it’d smell good if not for the very vegetal scent of the green tea. It’s also a little medicinal cherry smelling – and that too is a turn off. The taste is very green tea, with the bubble gum bordeaux cherry mildly flavouring it. The aftertaste is a medicinal and leaves a funny taste in my mouth. I can’t taste how the peach syrup is tying into the flavour.

I guess I’d describe this tea as adequate. Maybe it’d be more to the taste of someone who actually likes green tea.

EDIT: After I’d finished my peaches, I poured off another tsp. or two of the peach juice into the tea, and this time I was able to pick up the peach alongside the cherry and it was actually much better. It really helped drown out the vegetal green tea, but I guess didn’t do a whole lot to fix the aftertaste. Now I want peach/cherry Bubblegum tea (which I STRONG Hubba Bubba type bubble gum flavour – or like, those little pink Double Bubble gums), maybe with a nice, light white tea base. Ooh! Or Double Bubble Mate tea would be good.

Last tea I’ll be having at home until probably Monday, maybe Tuesday. I leave for my comic con trip in just a few hours, and since I hadn’t tied this yet I figured I’d make some up and give it a proper review.

Dry leaf smells like black cherry ice cream and bubble gum: it’s very creamy and rich smelling with only a little bit of the green tea base’s scent coming through. My initial thought was that maybe this would be one of the few teas I find actually really truly benefits from added milk (to enhance the ice cream flavour I’ve thinking this might have). Out of the three teas I bought from Tea Desire, this is the one that my coworker Briana thought smelled the best: however she’s also REALLY into green tea, so maybe that had something to do with it.

I steeped about 1 1/2 tsp. of this for my 10 oz. mug for three minutes. The smell is a much lighter cherry with a more strong and intense green tea smell: not really a plus for me. It still mildly reminds me of bubblegum. I’m thinking maybe I steeped too long or the water was a bit too hot, because this has a sort of bitter taste to it, and is kind of astringent. The cherry taste is coming through, but less so in a sweet way and a bit more in a slightly medicinal way. I’m still getting notes of sweet bubble gum though, and that’s helping to save/redeem the cherry flavour. It’s a bit like bitter, astringent seaweed with a sweet, sugary cherry and bubble gum candy coating. I’m going to have to try this again with lower temperature water to be really sure about the taste.

Overall, right now, it’s kinda just… meh.

EDIT: Added some milk to the last half of the cup. It neither added to nor worsened the tea.

I almost forgot that I’d tried this in store today since it was their tea of the day! …Actually, it probably says a lot about what I thought of the tea that I forgot I’d even had it.

The liquor was a sort of medium orange colour with yellow hues and, when I tried it I had no information about what was in it other than the sales lady told me it was a flavoured green tea. I can’t say the name of the tea really did anything to educate me about what flavours I might experience.

Upon drinking, I was hit with a really vegetal taste next to something overwhelmingly fruity. So, basically high vegetal taste and high fruit taste (but the flavour wasn’t distinct enough to tip me off on which fruits I was tasting). There was also some unpleasant astringency. I wasn’t really a fan, and I think the sales lady could tell because she really didn’t suggest any green teas for me after that (even though I did end up buying a green tea it was one I had inquired about, not one she suggested).

I just looked up the tea on Tea Desire’s website, and I guess the fruit I was tasting was strawberry and raspberry. I’m not really a fan of green tea in general, but I’m learning to love flavoured green teas (or at least tolerate them). I’ve had strawberry green teas I’ve been much more happy with, though. There’s also sunflower blossoms in the mix, and thinking back now I guess I can see that. Still, not really my cup.

Sipdown (115)!

Finished this one off a few nights ago as a cold brew. It came out as more of the floral, ‘fresh from the garden’ raspberry type flavour I’ve experienced with this one with some very light peachy undertones as opposed to the more sweet, creamy and confectionery raspberry that this one often demonstrates. Not that that was a problem; I still adored the flavour and this tea will be missed. And I have to say, I hate that since I’m not in Saskatoon anymore I can’t just go down to the mall and easily grab myself another 50g to restock because if I could do it that easily I totally would. But next time I’m there I’ll aim to stop in to Tea Desire to restock anything I might want to.

Unrelated; but I am definitely getting sick. I’ve got the most stuffy nose right now and definitely look more ‘puffy’ than normal. GREAT. That’s totally what I wanted for Christmas, Santa! How’d you know?

:/

So, my brother bought some miracle berries a while back and I’d yet to try one so the other night we had some fun with flavour tripping. We tried an array of sour things like Salt & Vinegar Chips, Lemon Juice, sour candies…

All of which were DEFINITELY improved by the miracle berries. But you know what was really, really good with miracle berries? This tea. The raspberry flavour was just surreal with how tasty it was. I was hard core salivating and slurping it up like no one’s business. It’s just the best I’ve ever tasted it. Which honestly kind of pisses me off though ‘cause I definitely can’t afford to buy miracle berries just so I can flavour trip every time I want to drink this.

Damn; so good though.

Sweet creamy, buttery raspberry strudels…

But Gong Fu so there were many, many cups to be enjoyed by myself and Zak and Wheezie!

Can’t go wrong there.

Made this as tea soda while having a fun, lowkey games type night with my family. We played a couple rounds of Sushi Go! which I picked up months ago (after seeing it on Tabletop) but haven’t had anyone to play with yet. It was super fun and easy to pick up – I’d love to play more to try and work on the strategy side of it.

This tea soda was really nice; I was saying to someone in the Steepster chat the other day that I hadn’t found an oolong yet that I really like as a soda which is why I chose to make this one tonight. It wasn’t very strong/powerful and actually had more of a subtly flavoured “Carbonated Spring Water”/spritzer kind of vibe but I think that was actually a good thing because it meant I could taste some of the delicate aspects of the tea like the floral and peachier notes of the oolong. And of course the raspberry.

Also, I already wrote today about doing the written part of my test but I also did the presentation portion too. This module’s presentation was a comparison of two similar but different teas highlighting what makes them different and even though I prepped to talk about oolongs on a whim I switched to talking about Chinese and Japanese green teas. I think I did well; wish me luck! I probably wont know how I did overall for another couple of days, though.

From yesterday.

I was pretty sure I’d screwed up the prep for this one; the water was hotter than I thought initially, and I oversteeped it by a good few minutes so when I got around to drinking it I was braced for an unpleasant, bitter mug. Surprisingly, it was delicious!

The buttery/confectionery pastry part of this that I normally experience was all but erased and actually the taste of the oolong itself was pretty drowned out too; instead this was a really sweet and lively raspberry flavour with a touch of green backdrop. I wouldn’t call it necessarily natural tasting – more like a really good raspberry candy. But I guess it does draw some comparisons with super overripe raspberries. The kind that just fall apart in your mouth. It’s fantastically delicious.

And today’s word of the day is… “emanate”.

Emanate means: “to send forth : to come forth : originate”.

This has been sitting in my kitchen waiting to be made for a while; so many times I’ve thought of CBing it for convenience, but I’ve had it that way and it’s not on par to the hot cup. This cup was hot, and I’m glad I waited.

Raspberries? Check.
Smooth, buttery green oolong base? Check.
Mild floral notes making the juicy fruit really pop? Check.

So all in all, a really flavourful and fun cup. Not especially appropriate for the season/weather, but who cares? Not I.

Took advantage of having a bag of this at work today (because I bought some earlier this morning to top of my practically empty tin), and I made a cup of this in my crappy Dollarama mug alongside the Frankberry I was having!

Oh man, this was so good and so needed! It was really nice having something familiar that I know is reliably good! It just tasted fresh and buttery like hot out of the oven pastry with creamy, sweet raspberry glaze drizzled all over that motherfucker. The oolong base was really present too though; in a lightly floral/grassy but not over the top or competitive way. It was so good!

Oh, umm, in other news I’m officially going on a second date with the guy I went out with on Tuesday. He invited me to Saskatoon’s annual “Barcraft” which is a Starcraft (yes, the video game) tournament hosted in a pub? I don’t know anything about Starcraft so this should be fairly interesting I guess? Hey, if all else fails I can just get drunk right?

Cold Brewed: In total, thirteen hours.

This is pretty good; the oolong is strong and the raspberry very sharp. Overall it’s super refreshing (and helping the fact I can’t take a shower right now a lot more tolerable) though I’ll admit to being a little bit disappointed overall.

If I had never had this hot, I’d probably be really impressed – except I have had this hot, many times, and so I know that this cold brew is missing the incredibly buttery, flaky pastry taste this usually had and the trade off of using so much leaf to make a cold brew simply isn’t worth it because this tea is amazing and spectacular with the pastry quality.

So, down the road, I’m 100% sticking to the hot version of this one.

So, VariaTEA’s tasting note on Apple Strudel Pistachio really put me in the mood for pastry, except I’ve had lots of rooibos today so I wanted something with a different tea base (otherwise I would have just brewed up the same thing) – and this was the first thing I saw which fit that criteria.

Of course, right after that she posted a note for Pineapple Angel Food Cake Shou Mei which I also gave her, and still have some of which I hadn’t tried. That would have fit nicely too, except I’d already started making my cups already.

Anyway, this is still wonderful! My delicious buttery, flakey raspberry pastry tea! I know RiverTea has an equivalent to this too, so when I inevitably put in my next RiverTea order I’m gonna try to remember to get a sample for comparison’s sake.

Also, I spilled half the mug of this over my laptop – but thankfully I reacted quickly and everything seems to be fine and in working order. Thank God.

I have come to the reluctant conclusion that I am sick. I didn’t want to admit it – but after getting home from work last night, making a bowl of alphaghetti and then promptly falling asleep from 7PM to 11AM without even touching the alphaghetti, I don’t think I can realistically deny it much longer.

I mean, it makes sense considering how stuffy I was yesterday during work on top of having a killer migraine, and just being an irritable bitch in general. I just don’t have time to be sick. And so, despite feeling crappy I came in to work today anyway. I just can’t afford to not come in…

I’ll admit to being glad I left the house though – otherwise I probably wouldn’t have checked the mailbox, and today I have two parcels in it for me! None of my BF orders, but still exciting none the less. The first was from VariaTea and contained a whole bunch of herbal teas (thank you!). This one arrived at the perfect time, because I could really use some of DAVIDsTEA’s Cold 911 to help curb my cold. The second was from CrowKettle – and I’m very excited to try out those teas as well (especially Peach HoppiTea – it smells AMAZING)!

Anyway, I chose this one today for work because I wanted something fruity but not specifically herbal – and this seemed like a good fit. For preparation, I steeped 1 tsp. in 8 oz. of water (about 75 degrees Celsius) for three minutes. This was poured into my water bottle. I then resteeped the leaves the exact same way and poured into my water bottle as well.

I’m drinking it now in addition to some cinnamon hot chocolate froyo, and it’s really delicious. I’m not sure if it’s because of the combination of having it with the frozen yogurt, but the raspberry is a little sharp (kinda lightly tart) today. However, it still finishes with really rich, creamy, buttery raspberry pastry notes. The second steep of this usually is quite strongly oolong tasting with minimal raspberry, so drinking the first and second steep simultaneously makes for a nice even balance.

I don’t know if this is specifically doing anything for my cold, but it’s very delicious and I’m happy with this morning’s tea choice.