Tea Desire

Latte Sipdown (284)

Finished all 120 grams of this one. It’s good but after having this much of it, I’m good to have a break from it for a while. Thank you for sharing, Evol Ving Ness!

In the pursuit of sipdowns, I had this one as a latte today. I’m slowly getting through the 120 grams Evol Ving Ness gifted me after she felt our swap was unbalanced. I didn’t think so, so I was shocked but grateful to receive this (via Sil). Like Roswell Strange said, the tea community is truly filled with some of the most generous people!

I topped this with whipped cream and chai sprinkles and it’s pretty tasty that way. Nutty and rich, as usual. It was a comforting latte to drink while playing a game with my sister and brother-in-law.

This was so good as an iced latte the first time I had it and then last night I made another and it is was overly woody and nutty. It got dumped. Weird how the two were so vastly different and the worst part is I didn’t keep track of my steeping parameters so I don’t know if I did anything different. Boo.

I loved this in the past but overtime I grew slightly tired of it because I had so much of it. Then Evol Ving Ness bought me a large amount of it and while I don’t reach for it often, tonight I pulled it out. I used it for an iced latte when I couldn’t find my tin of Candy Cane Crush. I was disappointed initially because I wanted mint but this ended up being really awesome. Nutty but with a whole lot of rich chocolate too. It was a nice reminder of why I loved this tea to begin with. Thank you Evol Ving Ness!

Nope. Nopity nope. Nope. My cream cube experiment has gone horribly wrong. Everything is bad. This is somehow too buttery and watered down at the same time. Just a big old nope. It got dumped. What a waste.

I made this as an eggnog latte and another cup of caffeinated tea. Then I realized it was 11 and I should be going to bed and not drinking caffeine. Oops.

This tea makes for an awesome whipped cream topped eggnog latte. The nuttiness is very rich and heavy so as a latte the flavor is still very much present but nicely rounded out with some much needed creaminess. Yum!

Thank you Evol Ving Ness for sending a lot more of this for me to enjoy.

In an effort to never throw out food, I have a calendar on my fridge that clearly lays out all the expiration dates of food so I can plan meals around using up things that are about to go bad first. Except, even with the calendar it seems time is flying so quickly that I still get surprised by things about to expire. For example, my Greek yogurt is best before the 30th, which in my mind seems like it is still far away when it is actually in two days. Seriously, where did October go?!?

So in an effort to determine how to use up my Greek yogurt before it goes bad I took to Pinterest. I found an interesting recipe for a Greek yogurt coffee cake. Then I got lazy and decided to make a smoothie with Greek yogurt instead. As per usual, I grabbed a tea I thought might compliment the banana and vanilla greek yogurt smoothie. Walnut Truffle seemed like something that could be interesting and thanks to the extreme generosity of Evol Ving Ness, I have 120 grams that I need to work through. So, using a lot of leaf to make a concentrated version of the tea didn’t feel like a waste.

The concentrate was quite strong because unlike the cocoa rooibos from the other day, I can definitely taste the walnut truffle tea. It is actually a bit weird because I get the nuttiness and the banana at the same time but then that melts to the truffle flavor which is almost too rich for the smoothie. It is like a dark chocolate and walnut fudge almost that is too strong a flavor to just blend with the banana and vanilla in the smoothie. It is not bad but not the best smoothie I have had either. Fun to try though so thank you Evol Ving Ness for the chance (and many more chances) to revisit this blend.

Sipdown (341)

I was excited when this came back into my cupboard courtesy of Evol Ving Ness (thank you!!) since this is certainly a favorite. I was saving it for a special occasion though I wasn’t sure what that occasion would be. Well, today I discovered I was accepted to a law school!! I wasn’t expecting to be accepted anywhere, let alone get early acceptance. Now, even if I get rejected everywhere else…I AM IN!!! I am happy and very, very nauseous but I have a special occasion and so this tea get brewed up…as a chocolate milk latte.

This is chocolatey but with a big punch of walnut flavor. It’s like a fudgy walnut brownie and it’s awesome! Thank you again Evol Ving Ness for the chance to revisit an old favorite.

Sipdown (138)

I am definitely going to miss this one since it was always great. Creamy, nutty, fudgey, and awesome. No matter how long it brews or how much leaf is used, it just works. Simple and delicious.

Brewed this up as an iced latte. Since I wasn’t loving how my other iced lattes have turned out, I decided to use the same method for making teapops but instead of topping it off with perrier, I used milk. The result is better than former iced lattes but tbh I don’t think this prep method did anything for the tea itself. Same nutty chocolate taste but with milk. No change in flavor at all. It’s almost as if the two didn’t mix but rather they are co-existing beside each other.

Despite being from September 2014 this is still decadently rich. Smooth creamy chocolate notes swirl perfectly with warming walnut flavors. So awesome! Thank you Roswell Strange for keeping me stocked.

I actually really like this one. I don’t know why but so many times when I brew this, I expect the black base to be overpowering and so with each cup, I am shocked by just how much this tastes like just like a walnut truffle. Seriously. It has a rich chocolate truffle flavor with a beautiful full-bodied walnut taste to compliment it. Delicious! Thank you Roswell Strange for helping me stock up!

Sipdown!! (173)

Thank you Fjellrev for introducing me to this tasty, tasty tea. I don’t mind saying goodbye because I know it will be shortlived. My awesome tea triplet has 25 g waiting for me :) Sipping on it now, it is a bit weaker than I remember but still good. The black base is a little more prominent while the truffle flavor is a touch muted, though I think that was due to a bit of an oversteep on my part.

Thank you Fjellrev for sharing some of this with me. I don’t know why, but I was not expecting this to be as good as it is. I guess I thought it would be a one-note nut tea as opposed to the rich nutty chocolate I am getting. It truly lives up to its namesake – this is a walnut truffle in liquid form and it is great!

I got this one from carol who in a mini swap. I was hoping this one would be better, but it tastes fairly weak to me. I could find no steeping directions. I tried it at 1:30, which is normally about what I would steep a green for, and there was almost no anything to it, so I added another minute. That helped some, but I still don’t get a lot of flavor from it. It’s a little sweet from the fruit in it, but that’s about it. Oh well. Maybe if I had more leaf that would have helped. It was worth the try, though.

UPDATE
I wrote the original part as I was part way through the cup. As it cooled, I found this got better. Still not amazing, but better. I bet this would be good iced as the flavors seem to come out better in the cooler temps. If I see this again in any of the tea boxes I’m involved in, I will definitely grab it and try it that way.

thanks for another sample, Miss B! This blend sounds as heavenly as the name. Green & white tea, pineapple, and lovely tiny yellow roses! The taste is nice, though the first steep seemed like it could have more flavor.. probably the fault of the temp and the steep time. But the white & green tea makes a unique yet mild enough base for the creamy flavor with the pineapple. I can’t really taste roses, but they sure look lovely. The second steep had more pineapple! Very nice.
Steep #1// 30 min after boiling // 2 min
Steep #2 // 25 min after boiling // 3 min

Sipdown!! (163)

I am going to miss this creamy apricot-coconut deliciousness! It truly is a unique and delicious cup of tea and it is amazing. Thank you Roswell Strange for sending some of this my way.

I am having this again because Roswell Strange has been kind enough to offer to grab me some when she goes to get me Buddha Bamboo. However, although I am enjoying it quite a bit, I don’t know if I am quite prepared to commit to a large quantity of it. It combines apricot and coconut beautifully in a delectably creamy cup. However, I just don’t reach for white teas too quickly and I feel it might get lost in my large cupboard. Perhaps when I get down to a reasonable amount of tea…

So apparently I was in the mood for coconut because without even realizing it, I brewed up this cup and Creamy Coconut by Bayswater. Luckily, this is more than just coconut. Instead this is a tasty marriage of coconut creaminess and Tea Desire’s spectacular apricot flavoring. Thank you Roswell Strange for sharing this with me because I quite like it. I might need to add this to the Buddha Bamboo I asked you to pick up for me because I want more! At least I got enough for some more cups left in the sample.

Oooh this is flat out tasty! TY MissB! The caramel and pu’er just match amazingly well! The caramel adds a nice flavor and sweetness that just melts into the earthy pu’er.
The only thing I don’t like about this blend is the pu’er has a fermented flavor aftertaste, but everything else is soo good!

Sorta Sipdown (163/167)!

Sending this one off to 221Tea as well. I actually really enjoy it despite how low my rating is; the problem is that it’s super finicky and hard to get right – so good cups are, in my opinion, few and far between. I’m hoping she has an easier time with it though.

This cup was actually pretty good; the almond/amaretto was thick and strong and tread the line between sweet and bitter very well right up until the cup cooled down, but even then it only slightly took on a bitter edge. However, I also kept my steep time on this short: 1 and a half minutes.

So that’s my parting advice to you 221Tea – if you want more good cups than bad cups don’t let your steep time go over two minutes! If you keep things nice and short this can be a really lovely, marzipan like dessert tea. And who doesn’t want that, right?

Bitter almond indeed.

I was oddly craving this so I set out to make it in a timolino for work: because this gets bitter quickly I was going to only do a steep of two minutes, but I was poorly multitasking by getting dressed, doing my make-up, and watching Big Brother while it steeped and time got away from me. Really got away from me.

This steeped for at least twelve minutes. Likely a lot longer. I packed it up anyway for work hoping that it’d somehow be salvageable, but it wasn’t. Ick, nope, and more nope. There was nothing but astringency and bitterness.