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I absolutely love lavender, and tend to grab any lavender teas that I can find, but as I discovered with this tea, unlike bacon you can definitely have “too much of a good thing” in the case of my favorite floral. I ordered from Lupicia for the first time recently (I couldn’t resist the lure of sakura teas!) and when I saw Lavender White on their site, it seemed the perfect kind of tea for a lavender lover like me.

I made it the other morning, coming off a four-day long migraine that was trigger during a bought of food poisoning. It was such a strong lavender flavor I thought that maybe I had used way too much leaf (I tend to use a bit more than average with white teas, because it is so light and fluffy; I was at work and didn’t have a tea scale available, so I usually wing it by using two teaspoons instead of one to account for the light fluffiness of the leaf on the spoon). The taste was a bit too overwhelming for me, but I will say it did an amazing job helping to kick the remainder of that waning migraine out of my head.

I thought maybe a cold brew might be better suited to it, so when I got home, I measured out the leaf on my teascale and let it cold brew for around eight hours in the refrigerator, then strained the tea. It had a much lighter, clearer color, and I was hoping it wouldn’t taste so strong. I did enjoy the taste better iced, it didn’t have the sort of acrid/bitter aftertaste that the warm cup had from such a strong lavender infusion, but the flavor still came off really strong and less of the light and delicate floral touch that I enjoy so much; I think the white tea is just too light of a base and there is so much lavender in the blend it is just too strong and overwhelming here. But I still wasn’t willing to give up!

So I — quite literally — decided to make lemonade of the situation! I added a few teaspoons of frozen lemonade concentrate to the mason jar of iced tea, gave it a brisk stirring to mix it in and dissolve it, and… perfection! There was enough lavender flavor to hold up against the addition of some sweet lemon notes to the brew, so the iced tea tasted just like a lavender lemonade. It was icy cool, super refreshing, and the two flavors complemented each other wonderfully.

For as much as I love lavender, I definitely will stick to lavender in blends; a little goes a long way! But I’m happy I’ve found a very tasty way to continue to drink this tea; I’m looking forward to the pitchers of iced lavender-flavored lemonade in my fridge once the warmer months set in!

Green March! I decided I needed a break from green teas so I decided to try this sampler I purchased from Fusion Teas a while ago in a yerba mate sampler set. Lime is a rather under-represented flavor overall in my collection, but I enjoy tart citrus flavors, so I’m certainly interested in exploring that flavor profile more. Green yerba mate leaves and a lime flavor profile just seems to fit in well for the “green theme” I have going for this month, so why not roll with it?

In the past I’ve usually found Fusion’s flavors don’t quite pop if I only use a teaspoon of leaf, and even they suggest a teaspoon and a half, so I usually go for two teaspoons. The leaf did have a very creamy lime scent, and I could make out some nuttiness in the aroma, but the brewed cup had a stronger aroma of yerba mate leaf (it reminds me of the scent of gunpowder green tea, vegetal and a little smoky), with heavy lime overtones.

There is a nice, strong lime flavor to the tea, and it accompanies the natural flavors of the yerba mate leaf well, which do actually manage to shine through the strong flavoring — though subtly — adding hints of grass and lemon-citrus as soft background notes. I do wish the lime was just a bit less strong, as it is hard to make out some of the other flavors in the tea — there is a very subtle hint of nuttiness left on the tongue in the aftertaste, and a slight coconuty sweetness to the cup, and I would’ve liked these flavors to be brought to the forefront a little more. Overall, though, if you like the taste of lime, it’s a nice tea. I found it growing on me a little more with each sip, and will probably use up my sampler trying out an iced batch, as I feel the lime flavor will really shine in a cold brew.

Green March! I purchased this tea blend from Shakespeare’s Corner Shoppe in San Diego, California, when I was there on a vacation last fall. It was their “featured flavor” the month that my friend and I visited for our high tea, so we were offered a cup of it while we were waiting for our teatime goodies to be served. I’ll be honest, this is totally not the kind of tea I’d be interested in off the name (I’m not a fan of raw cucumbers, though admittedly I don’t mind them cooked in things or flavoring water, and I also don’t care to eat raw watermelon based on texture, though I don’t have problems with the flavor of watermelon, though find most artificial watermelon flavorings, like that used in candies, pretty sketchy) but if someone is offering me free tea, unless it has a migraine trigger or bananas in it, I’m going to take that cup. And I was surprised how much I liked it! So I picked up a bag of it from the shop after the tea before we left.

This shop does have a few custom blends, but most of their teas are sourced, with this one being no exception. Since Shakespeare’s Corner Shoppe is a UK products novelty store as well as offering high tea services, I’m fairly certain they are using English Tea Store as the wholesaler for the majority of their blends. The ingredients and the look of the leaf is identical, and I can’t find this blend offered by other popular wholesalers like ITI and Metropolitan, so I’m pretty sure I’ve located their source.

I remember enjoying this tea as an appetizer during my high tea, but I find I don’t enjoy it quite so much as a warm cuppa now. It comes across with a very strong flavor that I find is just a bit too strong for me when I’m drinking a warm cup of green tea; I prefer more subtle fruity touches with a strong base of sweet, warm grassy notes when I’m drinking my green tea warm, and find that most flavored green teas are too overwhelming with their flavors, completely overpowering the tea base, and the heavy warm fruit flavors often just feel off to me somehow. This was no exception, and the flavor just felt strange and off-putting as a hot brew.

Iced, however, I really enjoy the flavor of this tea! This may be one of my favorite iced teas. There is definitely a certain refreshing touch of cucumber here, like quenching cucumber water, like I really enjoy. The watermelon flavoring doesn’t really taste like watermelon to me; rather, it is more like the Japanese “melon” flavor, something that comes across a bit like a cross between cantalope and honeydew. It’s very naturally sweet, and doesn’t require any sweetener; just chill and drink! (Though, I imagine adding some fresh sliced cucumber would probably make a lovely addition to an iced pitcher of this!)

This is one that I’d just forego warm and go straight to the iced tea pitcher.

Green March! I’ve been in a floral mood, so I grabbed this sampler of T2’s Green Rose out of my stash. The tea wasn’t quite what I was expecting, as it is a green tea fruit blend with some rosey floral notes, but it turned out quite nice!

The tea has a really nice aroma of mango and rose. There is a very distinct mango flavor, with some notes of peaches and apricots. It is very naturally sweet, with a floral finish that leaves a soft rosey flavor lingering softly on the tongue. I had been expecting a grassy, vegetal base with a fairly strong rose flavor from the name, but this tea is like a sweet, fruity mango-peach nectar with a kiss of rose petals; it is blended very nicely, with the floral notes managing to stand out just enough to the fruitiness to not be overwhelmed, which is what I had worried about when I saw all the fruit flavors listed on the packaging. To be honest, I think of all the T2 samplers from the big Christmas discounted sampler haul I picked up, this has been my favorite so far, and I certainly wouldn’t mind having this tea restocked in my cupboard! I’ll even forgive the fact that I can’t taste any of the base notes in this (I normally like a little of the green tea grassiness to shine through in my fruity green tea blends) because I’m just feeling this mango/rose combo. Mmm!

Green March! I recently put in a big order with Yunomi, and I was just shy of qualifying for free shipping and didn’t know what I wanted, so what better way than to drop some mystery tea onto the order? What I ended up getting was a May 2017 harvest of Kabusecha Saeakari from Marushige Shimizu Tea Farm. I’ve never tried (and I’ll admit, even heard of) Kabusecha before. From the description it seems to be a bit of a fusion between sencha and gyokuro, but the preparation instructions are definitely more like that of gyokuro. And I’ve never tried gyokuro before, so I was expecting a little wobbliness in preparation making this for the first time.

I was mainly concerned getting the right temperature. I don’t own a food themometer, and the lowest setting on my temperature-control kettle is 160 degrees F. The recommended steeping temperature for this tea was 122-140 degrees F. And while I do own a small porcelain Japanese teapot, I don’t have a fancy gyokuro-style set with the water-holder dishes and whatnot. So, I winged it. I used the lowest setting on my kettle, poured that into my teacup, let it sit while I measured out 4 grams of leaf to put in the teapot, then moved the water to another teacup just before dumping it into the teapot, hoping by that point it would be in the proper temperature zone. While I’ll never know for certain, after my cup steeped for the recommended two minutes, the resulting steep certainly didn’t feel more than just a little above tepid to my tongue, so hopefully it was in the ballpark?

The first thing that struck me was how much of a salty aroma the tea had! The flavor was very strong; I didn’t find it unpleasant, but was not used to such a strong savory taste from my tea having never had it before, and I had to sip through the infusion very slowly. It did have a thick umami profile, with salty notes and vegetal seaweed flavors that reminded me of a seafood taste similar to shrimp. There was also a bit of grassiness and a sweet finish that comes with nice green tea. I didn’t get any astringency from the cup at all; it was very thick and smooth.

The second steep brought on more of a sencha flavor, with a more prominent grassy taste, but notable deeper, umami seaweed notes in the finish of the sip. By the third steep, the umami notes had waned from the cup, but it still had a pleasant vegetal flavor and made for a relaxing cup of green tea.

The first steep was certainly the most unique, but I think it’s going to take a bit of adapting to get my palate used to those strong umami notes. (I’ll get there; once upon a time, I used to not be able to drink bergomot, and now I have more earl grey blends in my cupboard than I care to count). So at the moment that second steep was my favorite, which brought out more of a blend of the new flavors and old, familar notes. I’ll have to continue to work with this tea… apparently the flavor can change a lot depending on temperature and steep times, and I’m especially curious to try it iced!

Green March! Well, I’m finally able to drink tea again, after a lovely bought of food poisoning from my birthday dinner. Still dealing with the fall-out migraine from the ordeal (which is now on it’s fourth day… meh) but I’ve moved from Gatorade and mint and ginger teas to other liquids now. I still haven’t had a very large appetite, but have always found Genmaicha tea quite nice at breakfast time… sort of has a Rice Krispies cereal-appeal, while being light on the stomach and warm and comforting, you know?

This genmaicha is a standard mix of bancha leaf and toasted rice, though I have to question if The American House knows anything about genmaicha, since they actually list “popcorn” on their website’s ingredient list (are they actually adding popcorn to their tea, or are they really just so daft they don’t realize the “popcorn” looking bits are just popped bits of rice from the roasting process? If there is one thing that rankles a library cataloger like me, it is listing inaccurate information, ugh.) But the tea is good, with a smooth vegetal flavor, and nice nutty overtones from the roasted rice. It’s a fairly balanced genmaicha between leaf and rice (and doesn’t include nearly so much popped rice as the image on their website would lead one to believe!), that produces a tasty tea, though I’m sure there isn’t anything special about it. Even if it’s just a simple run-of-the-mill genmaicha, it makes me happy. I think this will always be one of my favorite teas.

Green March! This is the only matcha in my collection; I ordered it from Matcha Outlet, but from what I can tell, they used to be Red Leaf Tea. I don’t have any “proper” matcha gear yet (I finally ordered some today with my b-day funds!) so I’ve just been frothing it up in my milk frother (eh, it gets the job done in a pinch). I like it latte-style, so usually I froth the matcha up in a bit of water first, move it to a mug, and then froth up the milk and add it second.

The matcha is quite thick, rich, and very grassy in flavor! I find that it has some sweeter floral notes just beneath the grassy taste, and a very subtle fruitiness, with a bit of a vegetal astringency on the finish. When prepared as a latte, the almond milk removes that astringent bite on the finish, and brings out more of the sweetness in the cup, as well as adds a lovely creaminess, and since the grassy flavor is very rich and strong, it holds up well through the almond milk.

This was a beautiful, rich creamy green cup on a rainy St. Pattie’s Day!

(For the record, this matcha also makes a delicious pumpkin spice latte during the winter months, too!)

Full Review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/tea42/

Top o’ the Mornin’ to ya! It’s my day off, it’s my birthday, and I’m pretty content to just sit on my butt and drink tea all day, quite honestly. And what better way that to start off the day than with some Irish Breakfast?

I don’t keep many Irish/English breakfast blends around because they aren’t my favorite, but last winter I picked up an amazing deal on a bunch of T2 samplers, so I decided to make the Irish Breakfast one this morning. The only other Irish Breakfast blend I’ve ever had is Twinings of London’s bagged blend, which I had to take with milk and sugar because it was that sort of black tea that was just a bit too strong and astringent for me otherwise. Surpringly, I am not having any troubles with this one; I’m not sure if my palate has simply adapted to blacks since then, or this blend, having only Ceylon teas and lacking Assams is just more to my palate’s liking. So far I haven’t felt the need to immediately go running for the milk to take some of the bite off. I did only steep at the lower end of the spectrum, for two minutes instead of four, so maybe that’s the secret for me when it comes to these stronger straight black teas.

It has a pleasantly malty taste and a thick mouthfeel, with a mild astringency in the finish that is not biting, bitter, or unpleasant. I’m picking up on some subtle flavor notes of baked bread and citrus. This tea could certainly take milk or sugar, but the fact it doesn’t need it for someone who typically has a hard time with straight blacks like me speaks volumes.

I’m quite enjoying this sampler sipdown with my sugary apple fritter. Tea and donut… a breakfast of champions!

Pre-birthday cuppa. My long-time friend who is now also a coworker makes the best cookies, and he knows my love affair with Nutella, and always uses it as an ingredient in the batch of birthday cookies he makes me and brings me at work. Today is birthday cookie day (this year are some yin-yang peanut butter-Nutella cookies! Mmmm!), since this Saturday (St. Patrick’s Day) didn’t fall on my Saturday schedule. So I grabbed this chocolate hazelnut sampler I picked up from Citizen Tea to accompany!

It’s good! The base is chocolately, but has a warm nuttiness to it, too. It’s very smooth and sweet. I think my only issue is it that I wish the tea felt a little fuller and the flavor a little richer; I’m getting the impression that I’m going to have to double-leaf this to get the kind of experience that I’m currently craving out of this, based on my initial cup. Some decent flavor notes are there, they just aren’t popping enough to really wow me, and the base feels a little weak. I’m of the personal opinion one shouldn’t need to use extra leaf for an average cup, so I’d say that’s my one complaint with this otherwise tasty tea.

I got a free sampler of a tea called “Vietnam Vanilla” from tea web vendor California Tea & Herbal when I ordered from them a while ago (they had a few of my favorite blends stocked in 2 oz. sizes, and I was having a hard time finding other vendors having anything smaller than 4 oz. available; I just don’t need that much tea on hand, storage space is an issue and it takes me forever to drink a quarter-pound of tea!) After a bit of research, I’m fairly certain that their “Vietnam Vanilla” is actually just wholesaled “Colonille” from SerendipiTea; I could be wrong, but I found at least one other black tea blend in their line-up that matched another of SerendipiTea’s blends, which makes me pretty confident I’ve found the right tea. It however may be an earlier version of the blend, since the ingredients listed are just Vietnam black tea and (presumably artificial) French Vanilla flavor, which differs from the updated Kosher recipe of Colonille which now includes vanilla beans and natural vanilla flavor.

Old recipe aside, this tea is amazing! The base is super smooth, and almost has a chocolately richness with a slight honeyed sweetness to it, and just a hint of some cherry notes. The vanilla flavor just gives it this sweet, creamy taste that is really divine! It somehow makes me think of Neopolitan ice cream after it’s all melted together at the bottom of the bowl; a little cocoa, a little cream, and a hint of berry sweetness. Fantastic dessert tea! This is proving to be an all-too-enjoyable sipdown while I patiently wait for the RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars S3 finale digital release from Amazon to finally hit my inbox.