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I picked up this package of powdered Hojicha mix in a Mitsuwa in San Jose on a vacation once. Mixed up as a latte, I found it way too sweet (and I have quite the sweet tooth!) I notice that “beet sugar” is the first listed ingredient, so there just seems to be way too much sugar in this particular mix for even my tastes (and I don’t mind when my matcha mixes are pre-sweetened, in general). I tend to use sweeter types of non-dairy milk as well, which probably just exacerbated the problem.

So today I decided to make a milkshake out of it, since that is something my brain already expects to be extremely dessert-sweet, using Lactose-free vanilla ice cream (and just a bit of vanilla oat milk to help with the mixing). I do think I preferred it that way than as a straight latte — I think, if I ever made it as a latte again, I might have to “cut” it with a straight cup of hojicha to see if that balances it out a bit better… something to try in the future!

Will try to find other creative ways to get through this (rather large) bag and use it up, and then I will definitely look for a different brand of hojicha powder in the future.

A freebie teabag from the 2018 San Francisco International Tea Festival. I’m having a horrible migraine today and thought something like this would be fairly inoffensive since my GI goes cray-cray at the same time my head goes boom. I couldn’t rip open the outer package to the teabag and had to get the kitchen scissors, which cut the top off of the interior teabag, so I had to empty all the contents into one of my own fillable teabags, which was slighly more effort than I wanted to put forth while feeling like this, but meh. It was done and the tea was steeped.

I really just smell grapefruit and orange zest coming off the cup. That is mostly what I taste, too, but then, I’ve never had milk thistle and am not sure what it should taste like. The grapefruit is a lot lighter tasting than I usually get when it is used in teas, and I really like that (I’ve started to warm up to it as a flavor presense as of late, even though I don’t care for the plain fruit). It’s like there is a light, milky, slightly floral/herbaceous note that was tempering the grapefruit from being too abrasive, and it actually worked really well. If I was going to drink a grapefruit-flavored tea, I actually think this would be my choice. It’s coming off a little more as a generic citrus zest note, but very pleasant.

Ya… I dig this! Not something I’d ever think to try so I’m glad I got the chance to try it!

It just felt like an EG morning today. I had this single teabag that I grabbed from a freebie pile at the Portland Tea Expo in 2019 — I’ve always liked the Twinings of London bagged teas I’ve had (I particularly like their Lavender EG, but it isn’t sold in my local store) but realized I had never tried their bog-standard. Brewed it up this morning. Smells delightful. I feel like I’m getting a bit more of a lemon-lime aroma from the bergamot this morning, but I might just have limes on the brain because I had a Coconut Lime smoothie for breakfast.

It’s good. Some bagged EGs are too astringent/sour for me, but this one is nice and smooth, at least with my typical 3 minute steep time. The bergamot is pretty strong and the cup is quite citrusy in its flavor notes… I am tasting a bit of lemon, lime, and grapefruit, with the lemon/lime note being more noticable toward the beginning of the sip, and the grapefruit being more prominent toward the end of the sip and in the aftertaste. The berg is present enough that I can’t really make out specific notes of the black base, but it is malty, warm, holds the berg well, and very smooth without any astringency after the sip. There is a little bit of dryness left on the tongue, but that seems to be from the strong citrus flavors.

Could easily drink more of this.

Finally got into the tea record for this one… These 404 errors are getting more than a little annnoying…

This is a sample I got in a tea exchange a while ago from AJRimmer, thank you! My sister had to work this weekend in my town and was staying at my place, so I made us this tea to go with some pumpkin cake for dessert after dinner.

I really like the scent of the dry leaf in the bag… there is a strong pumpkin spice aroma (especially cinnamon), but also a cookie-like quality. I’m getting the same scent off the steep cup, except it isn’t as pleasant to me as the dry leaf… it feels somewhat artificial, like an autumn-scented Yankee candle. The flavor is definitely not as nice as the aroma. The rooibos is coming off quite overbearing here, and I’m getting that brassy/medicinal note that I very rarely taste from red rooibos, as well as a strong woody note. Of the pumpkin spices, I’m mostly just tasting a strong cinnamon presence, with perhaps a bit of allspice… and there is a subtle caramel note that I’m not sure if its from the rooibos or a flavoring. There may be a flavoring in here not meshing with me, as well… I think I’ll try it a few other ways to see if I can’t improve it over the straight cup (perhaps a latte with a little maple syrup added?)

I plan to finish off the sample, but this isn’t one I’m going to miss. I am always grateful for the opportunity to try a pumpkin tea I haven’t had before, so thanks again, AJ!

This was a free sampler I got while attending a tea blending presentation at the Portland Tea Expo 2019. It’s a simple mint rooibos blend, but that is precisely what felt like hitting the spot tonight.

Tastes how one would predict a mint rooibos blend would taste. It is very smooth, on account of the rooibos being blended with honeybush, so it is tending a little more nutty/honey with more subtle wood notes and just a touch of a vanilla taste, and the mint is Oregon spearmint, which might just be my favorite of all the mints, so it is refreshing, leaves a cooling sensation on the throat, without having an overwhelming hit of menthol.

Simple and satisfying.

Had some time before a doctor appointment today, so decided to get the little 180ml pumpkin pot out again and go through another of the old 2017 Dazzle Deer samplers. This time I’m taking on my least-liked tea-type, pu’erh. Though I admittedly have had much more experience with shou than sheng, so I wonder if I can get a different experience than the “dirt and marsh water” that I usually taste…

Used the full 7g sample and filled the pot to 140ml (so it wasn’t quite to its capacity) with 205F (lowered to 195F, and then 185F) water.

140ml miniature teapot | 7g | 205F (Dropped to 195F, 185F) | Rinse/10s/15s/10s/10s/10s/10s

The wet leaf after the rinse smells like wet autumn leaves, raisin, bitter melon, and sour vegetables. The first infusion has a surprisingly sweet/floral aroma!? As well as honey, and raisin and autumn leaf. I definitely have never had these kind of scents in a pu’erh before… and… it tastes good to me?! What the frack, this has a lightly floral (lilac? lotus?) taste, a touch of that fruity honeyed raisin quality, and then a slightly more bitter vegetal (cabbage?) finish. On the second infusion the tea had suddenly grown uncomfortably bitter (the description for the tea says it has “no bitterness or astringency” so I can’t help but feel like I’m doing something wrong?), so instead of increasing the steep times for each infusion like Dazzle Deer’s site had recommended, I decided to try sticking at the 10s and also lowered the water temp slightly to 195F. That helped some, but it still was a little more bitter/astringent than I prefer… What happened to that lovely first steep?! Lowering the water temperature even further (185F) helped a little, but I still felt an almost medicinal bitterness left afterwards on my tongue. Only by my sixth steep had it mellowed, but by then I was tired of the tea and ready to wrap up the session…

I think this is closer in flavor to something I would like (while I never seem to have much luck with shou, unless it is in flavored blends), if it weren’t for the bitterness that overtook the tea after the first steep. And I don’t know if that bitterness is a sheng problem or a Sara problem. Will need to explore further.

I recently have acquired some new teaware, and today I finally had the time to pull out one of my new pieces, an absolutely adorable tiny little 200ml bronze-glaze pumpkin with a matching glazed cup. I’m still working on my old, past-the-best-by pure teas so I decided to brew this oolong sampler I had from Dazzle Deer… a May 2017 harvest that I still had in a sealed pouch. Oof. Used 110ml of 205F water for the 7g, brewed gong fu style.

110ml miniature teapot | 7g | 205F | Rinse/30s/35s/45s/55s/65s/80s/90s

This was a roasty oolong, with notes of wood, char, smoke, roasted nuts, and walnut; not my favorite flavor profile, but it didn’t have a level of roast that breached into that level of sooty uncomfortableness I can easily get from roasted or smoked teas. The flavor didn’t change much throughout the session, though as the leaves opened up more in later steeps, it did gain a very subtle floral quality and the tea smoothed out a bit more, becoming a bit more rounded and sweeter during the early portion of the sip, with the end sip and aftertaste retaining a stronger roasted/char quality. By the fifth steep the flavor was starting to wane, and I decided to stack my sixth and seventh steeps together to use up what was left in the thermos of water I had prepared.

Wasn’t particularly excited by the tea, but I loved the little teapot which was so easy to use for gong fu, did a good job of keeping sediment out of the pour, had a smooth pour and didn’t burn my fingers like I have trouble with using gaiwans, and the cup also felt very silky smooth in my hands and didn’t have uncomfortable heat from the hot tea. It felt really good to use the new teaware and I’m looking forward to using them in many more sessions!

Steeped this up as a replacement cuppa for the sink-drain-bound-rancid-coconut-tea. I thought looking at this dry leaf there was coconut in it, too, and got worried (as I know this is very old, I believe I got this cup sampler from Ost in a 2018 cupboard sale, and have no idea how old it was when she graciously gifted it to me then!), but double-checking the ingredients, it is just finely diced licorice root I’m seeing (unlike y’all, I like licorice, so that’s fine). Dodged a bullet there, phew!

Steeped up, the liquor is a pretty red color, and it does smell quite nice, albeit I can’t help but be reminded of the cherry cough syrups I had to take as a child from the scent. While I am getting a bit of that from the cherry flavor in this tea, it doesn’t wane entirely medicinal since I am tasting the black base… albeit much more faintly than I’d prefer, which I believe is entirely due to either age or amount of sample leaf I had available. If that maltiness were just a bit more present/stronger, I think the black cherry flavor wouldn’t have quite the dominance that I’m getting in this particular cup, and its that flavor that keeps swinging my head toward cough syrup. The flavoring itself is actually quite spot on for what it is trying to capture and the tea is very sweet and smooth. I can see where it is going, but it doesn’t quite get there for me. I’m willing to swing my rating a bit more generous than I’m actually feeling since I do believe age may have affected the base more than I’d prefer.

Thank you, Ost! Very glad to have had the chance to try a tea from DT’s past! They are a rarity in my particular area of the US.

This was a freebie in my freebie bag from the 2018 San Francisco International Tea Festival. And it has coconut in it. My bad.

It’s a bagged tea, in a rather nice sewn cloth sachet, and I couldn’t really make out from the aroma of the dry leaf if the coconut had turned, and being incased in the sachet, I couldn’t sample a bit of coconut, either. So I heated the water and prepared to brew the cup as normal. As soon as the hot water hit the leaf, the very distinct aroma of rancid coconut hit my nostrils. Welp. My GI has been hell lately, so I’m not about to take a chance with that. Down the drain it goes.

No rating on account of turned coconut. Though Todd drank his sample only a few months after the tea festival, and I see from his review he described it as “sour.” That almost makes me wonder if these already had turned coconut in them before they made it into the freebie bags for the festival…

Noticed I had half a cup of coconut milk left and I wanted to use it up, and I had some Golden Milk mix in the past that I quite liked in coconut milk, so I thought I’d try this matcha tonight, since it uses a rooibos base rather than green tea and thus is caffeine free (I switch to herbal-mode after 6 pm). Wisked up half a teaspoon as a warm latte with 50/50 hot water and coconut milk.

While I have enjoyed other flavored matcha by Bird & Blend I’ve tried in the past (granted, they were with actual green tea matcha), I am not a fan of this. The separation is pretty bad, leaving a sort of “cinnamon grain” texture to the sip. And it doesn’t taste like turmeric to me at all? It tastes very strongly of rooibos and cinnamon spice. It’s a strong cinnamon flavor too, with a bit of that honey/woody red rooibos taste beneath. It is quite heated, which is likely the doing of the multi-spice blend used, but other than getting the hot sensation in my mouth, I’m just not getting the flavor. And then the coconut from the milk, which was meant to compliment the turmeric (as I like that flavor pairing), but since I’m not tasting any turm at all, the coconut flavor seems very strange juxtaposed with the rooibos and cinnamon.

I mean, I will be able to finish the cup… but meh. Big pass for me, and I will definitely be finishing off the little sample tin by dumping it into a pumpkin spice smoothie this weekend.