The NecessiTeas

I put the tea in a teabag and just let it continually steep. It is more apple than ginger today though and I find that disappointing.

As I keep allowing it to steep, the ginger is coming through a little more bit the apple is still the stronger flavor. I just wanted the burn today so I am sad that’s not the focus.

This tea smells great! I’ve read others mention it reminds them of Butiki’s 3 Friends, and I’d have to agree with that association. My first steeping of this was rough. The flavor was strong, but there was a hard edge almost like there was too much orange oil in the mix. A little creamer mellowed it out. The second steeping was much more mellow. There is still a little something distracting in the finish, but it’s a lot less noticeable. Both cups were steeped for 4 minutes. I feel like a bit of tweaking the steeping parameters could help deliver a better cup from the start. If/when I order this again, I need to make sure it is in a cooler time of year. It arrived to my house at the end of September during a touch of heat which started to melt the chocolate bits in the mix.

I rather enjoyed this one yesterday, though to be fair to the tea it wasn’t erally white chocolate or pumpkin. It was just kind of “chai.” So not true to it’s name is my opinion, though i did like the tea. Maybe it’s the wetter, cooler days recently but i have just wanted to curl up with a book and some tea.

Sipdown (275)

This was always meh to me. Not really white chocolate. Not really pumpkin. Mostly just chai. An ok chai at that. So A+ for concept since this screams “Fall” to me, but the execution isn’t really what I want it to be.

There is a lot of cardamom pods in this blend. Unfortunately, the chai mixture is a bit muddy so it’s mostly mediocre chai. I wish there was more white chocolate or pumpkin because I am not getting either in my latte.

Peppermint and floral are the two main flavours. Some brown sugar notes but this doesn’t scream Creme brulee to me.

Received this as a sample in a previous order and just finished it off. Really enjoyable! Tons of brown sugar goodness, and a nice balance of cinnamon. Would’ve been excellent with a bit of oat milk, but I was at work when I made it and had none on hand.

Nice amount of almond flavor, but would’ve been much better as a latte.

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I bought this tea. I tend to dislike coconut in teas, and I really dislike the flavor of butterfly pea flowers. But, the color when brewed and the promise of creamy lavender swayed me, I guess. It tastes pretty much exactly as you would imagine. Coconut, lavender, and very strongly of butterfly pea flowers. Not a bad blend by any means, just not something I want to drink.

A free sample from my last order.

I struggle a lot with chocolate and pear together as a flavour “in real life” (ie. in things outside of tea) because my brain has a hard time marrying the idea of dewy, wet juicy pear with chocolates. The only time it really works for me is when we’re talking a baked or poached pear type of situation where a lot of the moisture has been removed and it’s caramelized a bit. It’s mostly just a texture thing…

So, combine the fact this is a green tea with the fact that the pear smells like very fresh, dewy floral and juicy pear and you can probably see why I was skeptical if I would enjoy this tea.

Steeped up, it does weird things to my brain. I mean, it tastes perfectly fine – rich and cake-y chocolate meet sweet and ripe pear. The flavours are well executed, both present, and not too sweet or too grassy from the base. However, as my brain can think about is the disconnect between actual chocolate and pear that I mentioned above. I want to enjoy this, but there’s a mental block that I’m struggling to get past. Perhaps this is something that I’ll get past with time/repeated cups of this tea – but right now…

I feel a little squicky!?

Yesyesyes I LOVE this one! Having only drank it once before this sample from VariaTEA (thank you!) got lost in amongst my stash until I went on the hunt for a blackberry tea and stumbled across it again. The scent of the dry leaf is absolutely intoxicating, and it only gets better as the tea brews. Huge chunks of waffle and whole blackberries make it visually stunning, too, and the whole experience is rounded out by the incredible flavour. Even after following the recommended steeping parameters of 5 minutes at almost boiling, there is very little astringency and the black base comes across as very smooth with a honey-like sweetness that really compliments the blackberry note which is strongest overall. The maple is noticeable throughout the sip too, and the fluffy golden waffle comes in at the end, which surprised me. I didn’t add any milk this time, as I was enjoying the bright juicy blackberry notes too much, but I did add a drop of maple syrup and it amped up the waffle comparison by a notch. I just about guzzled my entire mug down, and am about to go and resteep the leaves even though I had planned to move on to another tea next! I think this is the only tea I’ve tried from The NecessiTeas, and it was an excellent introduction. I’ve added it to my wishlist already, checked out The NecessiTeas website to make sure they ship to the UK (they do!) and might be eyeing up a few blends I want to try once this comes back into stock and I’ve got through a sufficient chunk of my current teas.

This gives me Butiki’s-little-sister vibes, which is very exciting.

ETA: The base doesn’t hold up to a second steep, but that’s okay. The blackberry has faded too so now it’s like eating a jam donut.

ok so i could go for more of this. I’m counting on variaTEA to remind me next christmas lol I really enjoyed the orange chocolate of this one. I didn’t think to do a taste comparison between this version and the 52 tea version but i think this one is a tiny bit tastier because it’s truffle vs cannoli. BUT they’re both super delicious imo!

Sipdown (104)!

For some reason, in my head, I remembered liking this a lot more than it seems I did based on my last review. In reality, I think my experience with this cup was just about the same thing. Not an unpleasant tea, and very accurate to the super sweet and artificial strawberry, orange, and “pineapple” generic Easter jellybeans. Unfortunately, as accurate as it is, those jelly beans you get at Easter with the thick candy/sugar coating are pretty waxy and not super great tasting after you’ve had one or two. So, this was nice for the first few sips and then just a bit too much.

Glad to have sipped down the sample.

A free sample from my last order…

I’ve had teas with jellybeans in them before, and haven’t really been a fan despite actually loving jelly beans a lot. It’s hard to capture the distinct “flavours” of jellybeans though, aside from the really artisan/gourmet ones like Jelly Belly does, and so most of the time Jelly Bean teas kind of feel generically fruity which is just sort… meh.

When I think of what a “a jelly bean is” in a more general sense, what comes to mind is the bordering on flourescent ones that were kind of brandless that we always got around Easter. They came in green, orange, pink, yellow, white, and red colours and had a THICK sugar coating that was both kind of hard/tough but also a little waxy and crumble-y. Though you could probably describe them all as pretty much just sweet/sugary, they definitely had distinct flavours underneath that layer of intense sweetness. The white ones were the worst – to this day I have no clue what they were supposed to taste like, but they were garbage. The best ones were the red and the pink, which I think were probably cherry and strawberry respectively?? That’s kind of a lie – the best jelly beans are actually the black licorice ones, but I know I’m a SUPER big outlier in that opinion, and even I can admit that only a psychopath would include the black ones in a pack of Easter jelly beans, which are CLEARLY intended for children.

Those jelly beans were always great for the first three or four, but any more after that and the intensity of sugar and artificial fruit flavouring would kind of leave your mouth feeling numb and tingly. For better or worse, I think this tea actually eerily captures that nostalgic childhood experience and texture – the flavour is super sweet and artificial strawberry (just like the pink beans!), complete with the weird bordering on waxy quality that just coats your entire mouth in a thick film. It’s not exactly pleasant, though it’s not unpleasant either – and the first half a mug feels deeply good and nostalgic, especially if you like sweet teas like myself. The second half? Has the same numbing, intense artificial fruit thing going for it.

Mixed bag in terms of flavour/mouthfeel experience, but damn! This is a 10/10 in terms of accuracy!

This really does taste like some kind of chocolate pear dessert. Not quite a cake, but perhaps a pear tart drizzled in chocolate and caramel. There’s quite a strong caramel note, and the chocolate is distinct but not overwhelming or synthetic tasting. The pear flavoring isn’t my favorite, and is bordering on artificial. There’s a slight banana note to it as well. It’s quite sweet, and would probably do better as a latte.

Cold Brew!

This is the last cold brew from this past week. I found it pretty nice; I enjoy cold brewing rooibos blends a lot though I feel slightly conflicted because I prefer to start my morning commute with something caffeinated – though rooibos is super refreshing. In terms of taste, the rooibos comes through clearly but not dominantly. It does taste like cola, but a cola with more weight towards the citrus (re: lime) in the flavour combination. A little bit of a cola with more brightness/“higher” notes as well. Could use a bit more richness from the vanilla/marshmallow to round out the flavour, but it’s there just not in the intensity that I would personally prefer.

Woah, that is an intense and effervescent cola flavour!! Definitely some vanilla, but mostly that almost fizzy feeling combination of citrus and spice that just brings cola to life. I thought at one point I was distinctly tasting lime flavour, which wouldn’t be that weird for a cola profile…

I swear I’ll write a more thorough tasting note at some point, but we have now hit the point in the evening where writing tasting notes feels like knocking my head against a wall so I’m just going to be lazy with these last few ones.

Made a nice big pot of this, with tons of honey and plant-based milk. Definitely the best batch I’ve made so far- perfect balance of strawberry, marshmallow, and toasty rice.

Added a bit of honey and it really brought this tea to life.

I love Marshmallow Treat by The Necessiteas (and marshmallow flavored teas in general), so was quite excited about this one. Both strawberry and genmaicha are winners for me, so I thought this was a must-try. There aren’t nearly as many marshmallows in this as in the regular Marshmallow Treat (which I guess is an easy fix because I could just add some), but the flavor is definitely impacted because of it. It’s much more like a genmaicha with a bit of strawberry. I didn’t add any sweetener, but I think doing so next time will amplify all of the flavors.

I love marshmallow flavored teas, so I’ve been wanting to try this one for quite awhile. I was so happy to have grabbed a bag when it was restocked. It’s packed full of sugar- brown sugar, marshmallows, sugar crystals, and it pretty much tastes as such. Not really a marshmallow flavor to me, and actually tastes like the sweetest Taiwanese milk tea you’ve ever had. It’s mostly brown sugar. I didn’t dislike it, it just wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. My boyfriend, who has a massive sweet tooth, loved it. So, this will be reserved for him.

Cold Brew Sipdown (889)!

This was a weird one for me – I do typically like coconut a lot when cold brewed, which is why I chose to finish this tea using this method, but it didn’t translate exactly as anticipated? The flavour was simultaneously VERY sweet with creamy and toasted coconut notes a plenty, but also very thin feeling at the same time!? Aside from the coconut, there was a clear almond/marzipan flavour that I thought worked quite nicely chilled. The weirdest element was this bright fruity note, that reminded me a little bit of the taste of steeped out apple but also a touch of pineapple – and that kind of forced a “pina colada” feeling into this blend that just doesn’t feel like it should be there. If I’m gonna have Pina Colada, I want it to be sweet and creamy – not toasty and nutty. So that’s really where the disconnect came from…

Still okay overall (and definitely NOT a bad blend) – but this one isn’t something I want to have around, and it just doesn’t completely mesh with my idea of what a coconut macaroon tea should taste like. Though, there’s still some overlap.

This was a free sample from my recent order!

The dry leaf aroma was definitely off smelling to me and it made me feel a little unexcited to try the tea – it was a very sharp, and sour smelling coconut but not in the sense that the coconut was rancid/had gone off. Like, sour flavoured. I could not figure out why anyone would think that was a good idea…

However, it steeps up much nicer tasting than it smells. Certainly a rich and sweet coconut flavour, and a little bit apple-y which may have been the weird/off thing I was smelling – but the flavour definitely is NOT sour. It’s also really nutty and sweet; there’s actual marzipan in the blend so that certainly supports that sweet, creamy nuttyness that carries throughout the cup. It’s nice because it’s a sweet and creamy blend with lots of richness but it’s not a heavy feeling cup. The one con I have is that it’s highly slick and oily in terms of mouthfeel with so much oil droplets gathered on the top of the infusion and rim of the mug. Kind of gross, but still good tasting – some milk would help mask a lot of that and compliment really well, I think.

Cold Brew!

I’ll admit, as a hot brew I didn’t really “get” the appeal/praise that I’ve heard about this tea. However, this cold brew was definitely a game changer for me. It’s still a little bit fruitier than what I would personally want a cotton candy blend to be, but a lot of the things I found really distracting the first time, such as the sharpness of the apple/hibiscus in the cup and the more cosmetic feeling dragonfruit flavour, weren’t drawn out through this method of brewing. Instead it was much sweeter and almost creamier, with a distinct cotton candy/fairy floss type of vibe. I would liken it most directly to the soft pink cotton candy from carnivals that I’m pretty sure is slightly strawberry flavoured, only more of a spun sugar “raspberry” than a strawberry.

Also, it was the most gorgeous rich pink colour! And distinctly pink, not a pinkish red.