Tea Please

Sipdown (280)

When I was steeping this, my brother-in-law walked into the kitchen and asked who was making hot chocolate. He then realized it was tea that just smelled like chocolate. Unfortunately, the rooibos comes through and drowns the chocolate slightly. Not completely but a fair bit. Like Roswell Strange said, it’s got a bit of a rum ball vibe to it but I wish it was more chocolate and less rooibos.

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Like Roswell Strange said, this is Forever Nuts! As soon as the water hit this, that became clear.

I loved Forever Nuts the first time I tried it and the next time something about the smell was just so off putting to me. I haven’t really enjoyed it, or any of the other many variations by other companies since. Unfortunately, this tea is among those variations that just isn’t for me.

Sample from variaTEA. Always love new herbals and this one was different AND tasty :) it was a few days ago but I would pick this one up again if I placed an order with tea please. Thanks lady!

Sipdown! I really like this one. Need to re-purchase this one if we ever do a joint order. Thanks for the share VariaTEA!

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This one was so weird. Good but weird. Because if I am being honest, I think I expected this to taste like Forever Nuts. Instead, it tasted like a fruity hard candy. I was genuinely confused the first couple sips because of that. I double checked the packaging and after confirming it was in fact Candied Almonds that I brewed, I checked out steepster and was happy to find Roswell Strange had the same experience.

The first sips were all red fruit candy…like strawberry hard candies. The more I drink, the more it tastes like apple candy. Still a fruit candy and not nuts. I don’t know if I need more of this but it’s nice enough and certainly took me by surprise.

Sipdown (1073)!

This is another from #SeptemberSipdown – the prompt was to drink a tea that you purchased but hadn’t tried yet…

This tisane is a very sweet and creamy/nutty pistachio blend that reminds me heavily of DT’s Pistachio Ice Cream blend! It was overall quite nice, but something about the aroma reminded me of Play Doh, even though that didn’t translate into the taste. It had a lot of date sweetness which complimented the nutty flavours, while also making it a little bit cookie/pastry sort of tasting.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CEuMy6vgp4W/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSRzttrHzs8&ab_channel=StillPigeon-Topic

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I feel like I always get my hopes up too much for Horchata blends because Horchacha from DT was so good and I want to force myself to believe that I’ll find another Horchata blend that comes close to tasting as amazing as that one.

However, that is NOT the case here and I am feeling really disappointed with this cup. It’s not unpleasant, but it doesn’t at all resember Horchata to me and it really only tastes like very strong almond extract/flavouring. So, sweet and amaretto type flavours…

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Ooh – I really liked this one! In fact, of the small samples I ordered, I think this is the first one I’ve come across where I would order a full bag of it. It definitely doesn’t taste like Pineapple Upside Down Cake to me, but it DOES taste very heavily of sweet pineapple. A combination between a more candied pineapple (like Pineapple Crush/soda) and also a sweet, syrupy “overripe pineapple” flavour. There was something to it that tasted almost waxy to me, but in a weirdly good and nostalgic way. I’ve had this pineapple flavour in tea before, but not in a long time and having it in this cup felt very nostalgic to me…

So yummy!

Thanks for the sample variaTEA! While this isn’t my favourite pineapple black, it’s an interesting one. The smokiness of the tea makes it a little different than others but probably also makes it a little less appealing because of the way it jives with the pineapple (I like Smokey black teas solo). Might add a little sugar and see what happens.

Sample from VariaTEA (or roswell?) and i was actually pleasantly surprised by this one. Not sure that i really got any blueberry taste from it but i did get raspberry cocoa. Probably would expect more berry flavour in this one given the name but i was good with the cup the way it was :) Thanks guys!

Cold Brew!

This was very good, and I’m happy to report that it tasted a lot like what I expected and wanted it to. I have a tea from Tealyra, called Lemon Lollipop, that I really adore and when I ordered this tea I was like 90% sure it was the same tea but I just wanted more of it, and was happy to support another black owned business through that restock. My thought now, though, is that there’s not the same tea but that they’re coming from the same supplier. The lemon flavouring is near identical and the ingredient cut sizes/visuals overlap too – but not perfectly. There’s little clusters of citric acid in this tea (similar to Lemon Smash from DT) and much large slices of lemon peel, and not nearly the same amount of candied fruit.

Basically, it’s a sweet lemonade/candied lemon type of flavour but also just slightly bitter/pithy which adds a nice layer to keep it from being too sweet/candied tasting or flat and one dimensional. VariaTEA wanted to know if it reminds me of anything specific, and I think the closest I could describe it to is probably a stereotypical Lemon Lollipop – like what the Tealyra blend is named after. There is something nostalgic to this profile though that feels more specific than that, but I can’t put my finger on it right now.

Anyway, happy to have lots of this on hand now! It’s a very nice lemon profile.

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I had this one on Monday or Tuesday – I can’t honestly remember which day because the week has blurred together so much. It was good, but not as good as I wanted it to be. I didn’t get any of the fun large cut ingredients in my sample that are in the product phone, and while I don’t know that the large dehydrated berry pieces would have made a big impact on the giant cinnamon stick might have.

It was pretty full bodied, with a more bitter dark chocolate note. I actually liked the slight bitterness because it differentiates this from the overly rich/sweet and sometimes waxy chocolate teas out there – it somehow also feels more authentic with the bitterness. Also means that it’s got the legs to stand up to milk! The undertone was more jammy blueberry, and it was okay but I expected the berry to have a stronger presence in the blend overall given the tea’s name…

Cold Brew Sipdown (281)

This one will be missed. It’s a delicious candy lemon cold brew. I’ve been drinking it throughout the day per today’s September Sipdown prompt.

This tastes so familiar. Not like lemonade but a lemonade candy perhaps. It is driving me nuts because it is something I have had before and I just can’t place it.

With that said, I really like it. It’s very refreshing, sour, and also sweet. I am having it cold brewed and enjoying it a bunch. Looking forward to when Roswell Strange tries it as well since she may know what it’s reminding me of.

Cold Brew Sipdown (1041)!

I have not forgotten about the many teas I have acquired from Black Owned companies this summer; but in this massive influx of teas that I’ve had I also haven’t been able to cycle through everything as smoothly/efficiently as I wanted to.

This was pretty nice for what was a very simple blend though! The dry leaf smelled like the rich, chocolate “Rum Balls” that my mom makes around the holidays – so, boozy chocolate. Steeped, it’s very sweet and chocolate forwards which is of course what you would expect from a blend called Chocolate Truffles. It has a hint of a boozy chocolate liqueur/sweet rum note, and is also just a touch fruity.

Not something I’d reorder, but certainly a pleasant brew!

I like this tea and it’s pregnant lady friendly because it has no hibiscus. I cold brewed it and after one sip handed it to my sister (the pregnant one. I am definitely not pregnant) and told her to try it since she’s been driving me nuts for a tea she could drink.

This tastes like strawberry and has a sparkling wine effervescence. Roswell Strange nailed it when she said Prosecco gummy bears from Squish because it tastes like that.

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First tea of the morning while I grind on some data entry (Nutrition Facts Tables will be the death of me) this morning from home – chocolate seemed like a much needed piece of comfort and sweetness for the morning I expected to have…

I enjoyed this one – it’s not something I’d want to purchase a bigger amount of though. That’s primarily because I rarely feel drawn towards chocolate teas – especially more “plain” chocolate teas where I don’t have another flavour to offset the chocolate note. That said, I thought it had a nice cake-y quality and the dark chocolate felt natural without being too sweet or being oily/gross in the cup. It did have a bit of a chocolate liqueur taste too. What I actually liked most about it though was the hint of coriander mixed in – the subtle spice to offset the chocolate was such a nice, simple change of pace and elevated the cup a lot and went a long way to keep this from feeling flat to me.

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Sipped this down at some point during the first Steepster Freeze a week or so back…

I am what I call an “exploratory” tea drinker & part of that means sometimes eating the tea. I was very shocked when, prior to steeping this, I add a piece of almond from the dry leaf and it tasted very sweet and fruity, in a way that was almost like a strawberry hard candy! It was quite tasty, but it was like one of those moments where you accidentally drink someone else’s drink instead of yours and they’re drinking Coke but you were drinking Rootbeer – both are good, but tasting Coke when you expect Rootbeer is going to give you an initial feeling of “What the fuck is wrong with this!?” and revulsion because the flavour just isn’t right…

Steeped up, that intense candy like fruity sweetness actually carries through REALLY strongly into the profile of the cup. I suppose I can’t be upset that a tea called “Candied Almonds” tastes like candy, but it’s just such a different type of candy than what I would have expected from this tea. I like that strawberry/cherry type of note and I did taste some almond but it’s really different from my expectations.

Sadly this was a “one cup and done” type of sample – but I think if I were to drink it again knowing that I was going to experience that type of flavour profile that I would probably enjoy it a lot more. As it stands, this cup was fine once I got past the initial surprise of it all.

Cold Brew Sipdown (1026)!

This was very refreshing and chuggable, but one thing that really stood out to me is that despite the fact this is supposedly an orange cookie blend (even though I’ve seen it carried by other companies as an orange nut or a spiced orange profile) all I could taste when I drank it was a vaguely fruity bubblegum note. I guess it’s that combo of orange and spices? That can be a tricky balance. It was weird how much like bubble gum it tasted like, but I did still really enjoy it and if I didn’t know alternative vendors for this blend that are more accessible to me here in Canada then it’s a tea I would probably pop onto my wishlist…

Cold Brew Sipdown (1015)!

This is Forever Nuts – and I knew when I got the sampler that it was Forever Nuts from the ingredients list, but you can’t opt out of just one sample, so…

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, as has been pointed out here on Steepster many times before, Forever Nuts is a blend carried by many tea companies under different names and sometimes with very slight variations. I don’t believe there have been any variations made here.

I like Forever Nuts well enough, though it’s not my favourite. I did go through a “Forever Nuts” phase as I think many DT fans often go through. As a cold brew, the cinnamon and sweet roasted almond notes come through a lot, with just a bit of apple to round it out and sweeten it up. It tastes like an apple fritter or some kind of apple crumble. Very refreshing, easy to sip on, and not disagreeable at all.

Personally, I have amazing (and cheap) access to Forever Nuts whenever I want it just by way of working at DT so this isn’t something that I’d buy from another company. Just doesn’t make sense for me personally. I think the name here is really fun, though! I’ve never seen another company sort of take this direction for the blend, and I like it.