TeaTaxi

Another one from variaTEA quelle surprise and this is one that i think would make a better cold brew. Something about the green in this one has a little bitterness to it but the creamy strawberry in this is really delicious.

creamy rasberry flavour – agree with VariaTEA on that one. Brewed this up hot and drank it both hot and cooled off and while it’s a decent cup – no woody roibos here – it’s mroe raspberry than rhuberry heh

I made this and today it tastes like chocolate. Last time I had this, it was all honey. That’s really weird. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this is now ice cold.

Sipdown (145)

Maple? Not so much.

Chocolate? Maybe a hint of milk chocolate at the end of the sip.

Honey? Hello honey! You are most definitely present and quite delectable. Paired with the malty base, this is making for a nice blend. It’s weird because if I had to guess, I would have assumed this was a straight black as opposed to a flavored blend.

brewed this hot, drank it mostly cooled heh. I like this one…a little strawberry, a little apple…some pear. Light in flavour but sweet, not sour like a lot of fruit herbals. I’d pick this one up again i think even with the light flavour because it’s smooth and different than other blends. thanks variaTEA!

This is very similar to DAVIDs Mango Fruit Punch. Very similar, though this may be sweeter. And I have A LOT of Mango Fruit Punch so this sample is certainly enough for now. Always fun to try new things though.

The peppermint is strong in this one today. Limey and mint.

This certainly isn’t DAVIDs Lime Gelato tea but it actually has a pretty realistic lime flavor. This isn’t the sweet and creamy tea that I expected thanks to the DAVIDs version but rather it tastes a bit like drinking lime juice, tart but bright. I don’t know if I would call this “gelato” though. Perhaps it is more of a sorbet? I think that is how the peppermint is playing into this. It is not coming through in flavor but rather giving a cooling effect to help perpetuate the frozen dessert/sorbet element. It’s interesting how these elements are all coming together so nicely and I am really enjoying this cold brew, even if it is not exactly what I was expecting.

I can taste the chili…super, super subtly. Like I need to concentrate to even notice it there. This is really a sort of meh tea.

Our ice maker has been having issues for the past week so today my step dad decided to take it apart and see what the issue was. That meant no ice for iced teas, teapops, or iced lattes (other than the few scraps I was able to grab for my Turtle Dove latte) so I tried to figure out what would make a good hot brew to try.

I decided to go with a rooibos from Tea Taxi because I was curious as to how their base would hold up against hot brewing (since it usually stands out more in hot cups than cold brewed). As soon as the water hit the leaf, I could smell the base which was not a good sign. Now that I am drinking it I am definitely getting the base. It’s not an offensive base but it is essentially all I am getting which does not reflect well on the tea.

It’s main flavors are supposed to come from the peppercorns and chili powder. There should be a spicy kick if those are the focus of the tea (usually these are secondary flavors and not the stars) and there isn’t. There’s nothing but rooibos. This is the first TeaTaxi tea that truly disappointed me. Hopefully other brewing methods will help coax out the spice otherwise I am stuck with a plain rooibos tea and that is definitely not all that appealing to me.

ETA: If you drink a large amount at once, you get a tiny spice tingle at the back of your throat but really not much

Iced latte of the day and it actually tastes like a strawberry milkshake, complete with the fake, but tasty, strawberry flavor. Really enjoying this one and the hot brewing/milk really tamed the base.

I cold brewed this for at least 15 hours overnight and the end result tastes just like a strawberry milkshake…if a bit of grass fell into the blender. The forefront of the sip is all creamy strawberry sweetness but then a vegetal flavor creeps up from beneath the dessert-y element of the drink. I’m thinking this may do better steeped for a shorter period or perhaps iced. Luckily I have more leaf to experiment with since this definitely has potential.

One of the packages I got is just 1-2 cup sample sizes and they come in these adorable tiny tins. However, I was surprised how jam packed these tins really are seeing as I was able to make an iced tea and still have some leftover.

As for the tea, I know litchi (lychee?) is meant to be floral but I think the Jasmine is just too much for my tastes. It has a nice strawberry rose flavor at the front of the sip, similar slightly to my beloved des roses et des bonbons (though not as good as that), but then the Jasmine comes in with an almost drying floral quality that I’m just not loving. On the plus side, their green tea base seems really mellow which means no vegetalness in this cup. Hopefully that stays consistent with the other greens because I have their Strawberry Sundae green tea cold brewing and it would be a shame if the base overshadowed the amazing smelling flavors.

Sipdown (136)

I got new fruits for my smoothies and vanilla pudding in addition to chocolate so now I can get all sorts of creative. I decided to go with raspberries and vanilla to finish off this tea and the smoothie just heightens the whole raspberry sorbet thing this tea has going on. It is nice, albeit not my favorite smoothie that I have had.

I cold brewed this and I am getting a generic raspberry sorbet flavor and slight (very slight) rooibos. Wouldn’t say I am finding any rhubarb in this cup but that’s ok since the creamy raspberry is quite nice. This could make an interesting teapop…or iced latte…or regular latte (though I wonder how the rooibos holds up to being hot brewed as it usually stands out more than in the cold brews). Also, this is the one time where a building flavor helps the tea as the more I drink, the more sorbet I am tasting and the less the rooibos comes through.

I cold brewed this for basically three days and it was just too much. It was like watery juice and the whole thing just tasted off.

Got another little sample of this in one of the monthly envelopes. This went down fast and smooth. I didn’t pay much attention but it must have made for a good iced tea seeing as the whole thing was gone in like 20 minutes. This isn’t a tea I would specifically place an order for but I would definitely toss it in the cart if I needed a little something more.

I debated having this in a smoothie or as a teapop and then when I looked at the leaf I had left, I realized there was just enough for a simple iced tea. Not that that is a bad thing. Sipping it now, I wish I remembered the cold brew of this better but from what my note says and what I remember, I think the cold brew is better. This seems to have more hibiscus upfront and only after that subsides do you get strawberry. Kiwi has basically disappeared and you really have to focus to get even the strawberry. This is not to say that it’s bad, just cold brewing would be my preferred method if I were to get this again. And I think I could get this again.

I’m not a lover of kiwi so don’t hold me to this but this cold brew actually does taste like kiwi to me (or at least what I remember of it). At first I got typical fruit tea where there is a sort of generic fruit punch type vibe with a tiny tartness from this rose hips/hibiscus (though nothing over-the-top or offensive) but when I actually paid attention to the drink, instead of sipping mindlessly in class, I did get kiwi. Not only that, I got strawberry as well and the two flavors actually do blend quite nicely. I can see how this evokes the idea of a smoothie. It would be worthwhile to try as an iced latte alas the hibby will probably put a damper on that due to curdling.

Cold brew Sipdown

I think my initial love of this tea has dwindled as it is nice but also a generic fruit tea. TeaTaxi has better fruit tea offerings so I think I am okay to say goodbye.

For my birthday my friend took me into DAVIDsTEA and let me pick my own gift. I picked up the iced tea press and decided to christen it with a kiss…iced kiss that is. This is still a very pleasant tea but also generically fruity. Apple and pear are both prominent, though those tend to be the base in so many fruit blends that this just seems like it is a tea I have had time and time again. It is good, don’t get me wrong, and a fruit tea I could enjoy in the summer but it is also a little played out.

My tea taxi order arrived today. Yay! It is so cute and so many new teas to try (https://www.instagram.com/p/BG69U6BvJa3/?taken-by=rachel12610)!! It was hard to pick where to start so I just grabbed a tea that I though would be good iced. With a name like Iced Kiss, this stood out.

Now that I am sipping on it, I am actually enjoying it quite a bit. The flavor is very light but there is enough going on to keep it interesting. The initial flavor I got was strawberry but as I continue to drink, the pear builds. Of course the apple shows up now and then but it is really the other flavors that are standing out this time.

Just my favorite Rooibos!