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From Meowster!  Thanks so much – started these steeps Sunday, finished yesterday. Steepster is finally allowing me to post about this today. I haven’t tried nearly as many W2T as I would like to try.  Meowster kindly weighed the sample – 4.5 grams.  The flavor is hard to pick apart.  Maybe I’m losing my taster for pu-erh like I am for oolong.  The four mugs were very consistent, though the first steep was distinctly like coffee somehow.  This one would be excellent to use as a coffee inspired flavored blend anyway.  Otherwise, the flavor was always smooth, sweet and very inoffensive with a scarlet tint to the brew.  This was great, but after the wonder that was 2016 Poundcake and this being W2T, I thought it would be even more special than it was.  It looks like the handful of steepster notes agree – nothing too special about this one but ALWAYS appreciative of trying any tea!
Steep #1  // 4.5 grams for full mug // 22 minutes after boiling  //  rinse// 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // 12 minutes after boiling //  2 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 3 min
Steep #4 // just boiled //10 min
2020 Sipdowns: 71

From the last teabox! One of those fun teabox finds — I’d never heard of this. I thought this was blueberry flavored matcha in a teabag but it is mostly small bits of green tea in the teabag. I’d say it surprisingly tasted like matcha anyway, with enough wisping around in the mug. It ALSO tasted of blueberry, so that’s nice. Sometimes it’s important just to note that a tea is actually tasting like it’s supposed to. I liked it!

Thank you so much for passing this along, derk!  derk wasn’t thrilled with this one and we had a swap we were building, so I requested this one.  I love these types of pu-erh that look like a candy bar that you break a piece from.  This one just happened to have lilies in it.  By the time the fourth steep had unraveled in the basket, there was an entire big lily blossom floating at the top, not to mention the smaller petals throughout.  Wow!  It’s amazing how tea unravels sometimes.  The flavor was very consistent throughout all four steeps.  A very dark shu — I couldn’t really taste anything floral per se, but the pu-erh is very delicious on it’s own.  The main note being starchy and bakey like a good rye bread.  Nothing offensive here at all. But also not terribly distinct.  I do like how dark it is though! Now that it’s cooler weather… let the great chai avalanche commence!
Steep #1  // 1 square for full mug // 20 minutes after boiling  // rinse // 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // 18 minutes after boiling //  2 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 5 min steep
Steep #4 // just boiled // 11 min steep

From StarFevre! An entire pouch – thank you! (From Frank’s 52Teas days.) I’ve had this a few times and this will be a quick note, because though it is older than the hills this tea that should taste like cucumber and mango (and even has mango cubes!) now somehow tastes like LIME?!?! I’m not sure how that happened, as it is obviously stored properly in the original pouch. Mango and cucumber is leagues away on the flavor spectrum than lime. hmm. For a lime tea, it’s fine but certainly not as delicious as a 52teas blend that is intentionally lime. Nothing to blame but age here. But the description says this was inspired by salsa, so maybe the lime is the only flavor remaining.

Additional notes: Can finally post a note after a day of 404 errors. This is the saddest sipdown. It was one of my favorite traveling teabox finds of all time because personally I would never go out of my way to buy a tomato tea ( I hate tomatoes like Mastress Alita hates bananas but apparently not quite to that level, because I tried this), but I’m totally fine with finding odd blends in a teabox that I might not usually reach for. I got these few teaspoons to last quite a while! This was fantastic every time I steeped it up. Maybe it’s the smaller last dregs of the pouch that made a difference but this was so wonderfully flavorful and pizza pizza pizza. I didn’t want this tea to last past this summer, so into the steeping basket it went. I’m glad it was enjoyable to the last drop. A perfect blend I would love to see again!
2020 Sipdowns: 69

Additional notes:  I had to snag a pouch of this old favorite during the sale!  I’m surprised they still had this available, as I think they discontinued it a while ago.  Though I haven’t had a new harvest in a while, I can tell this is vastly different from what I remember.  In the harvest from a few years ago, I could taste more guayusa and definitely more cola flavor. I wouldn’t even guess this had any cola flavor.  Now it’s very tart lime and very one noted.  Ah well, glad to have fresh guayusa anyway.

WARNING TO THOSE WHO HAVE TEAKRUTHI’S HIBISCUS TYPE BLENDS:  They might have living bugs in them.
So a couple days ago I was going to steep up some of So Berry and was trying to pick out some of the hibiscus in my hand before putting the rest in the infuser.  I saw a tiny brown three segmented bug on my hand, looks kind of like an ant or tiny termite.  Thought it was a fluke.  Then there was a second one on my hand, so it was definitely coming from the pouch.  My pouch of So Berry was ordered in March.  Since then, I’ve been emailing the wonderful people at Teakruthi.  Then got curious just a minute ago and wanted to test the other teas.  My method:  I poured the tea pouches onto a paper plate, agitated the tea, and then kept it still for a minute to see them start crawling around.  The hibiscus focused blends from March had at least a few bugs before I stopped counting.  This one was particularly bad.  It was crawling. 
From a March 2020 order, these pouches have bugs in them:  Summer Isle,  So Berry, Serendipity and Ceylon Peach.  I feel terrible giving Teakruthi this news, because they are otherwise fantastic.   But I drank these teas… with living bugs actually living in them.  This is disgusting.  Serendipity I luckily didn’t even open before today, so I KNOW it isn’t a problem from my end of things.  I’ve never even seen these bugs before.  I sent some of you guys these teas!  Luckily not these four.

I tested ALL Teakruthi’s blends that I still have, by pouring on a paper plate and observing.  From what I can tell, these teas are FINE: 
Original samples from 8/2019: Ceylon Emerald, Lemon Kandy (though there was a big piece of what looked like pocket lint), Vanilla Earl, Colonial Mornings, Afternoon Ritual, Zen Mint, Ceylon Ivory, Majestic Chai
From 3/2020 order that were FINE: big pouch of Lemon Kandy, big pouch of Ceylon Emerald, Wild Monsoon, Southern Malt, Cinnamon Chai
I hate bringing anything to light that is negative about the great Teakruthi BUT I also don’t want my Steepster buds to be drinking living bugs.   They clearly have a production problem, at least with these four blends. BUT they do say they make really fresh batches, so the problem might already be solved by now?  I HOPE SO.   I’m also glad Teakruthi uses very thick quality, fully sealable pouches because if I had a bug infestation in all of my teas, I would be pissed. I know I’ve been lucky with the thousands of teas I’ve sampled, I think I only have found a tiny bird feather in one of them before. So yes, very lucky. At least I didn’t say this tea was the most delicious tea ever?  I guess I could taste the bugs. :/

Additional notes: Was craving this today and it’s still a SOLID SOLID tea. There is just something about black teas from a few years ago that just seem like stronger, sturdier but also more nuanced harvests. Newer blacker teas seem weaker to me, for some reason. This is aging well. raising the rating from 92. It’s still available for sale but yowzas is it pricey.

An interesting sounding green tea, mainly because it is a rare tea from South Korea.  The dry leaf has a mix of sizes and the aroma of some kind of fresh vegetable.   The brew is BRIGHT neon green but cloudy- cloudy with all those nutrients, I would imagine.   The flavor is almost like, blindfolded, I would guess that it is a cup of matcha and that surely doesn’t usually happen with all the green teas I taste, or really any of them that aren’t specifically matcha.  So if you want the flavor of matcha, without actually drinking a cup of matcha, here you go.  Otherwise, there is a hint of beans yet something fruity hiding in there. But mostly it tastes like matcha.   Very fresh and lovely on a day when I’m physically feeling cruddy.  Quite good – bright in color and flavor and reinvigorating. Better than I expected!
Steep #1  // 1 1/4 teaspoons for full mug // 35 minutes after boiling  // 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // 43 minutes after boiling //  2 1/2 minute steep

Additional notes: My sipdown of this one was so tasty, I just had to restock on my last order. Couldn’t help it. I was a BIT worried it wouldn’t be the same after so many years, and I’d say the coffee isn’t quite the same. Even upon opening the pouch, the aroma was more like a bitter, older coffee already, rather than the old blend which somehow seemed more sweet? Maybe I’m confused as to what “old” coffee smells like, because this is certainly fresh from B&B! It was probably more of an artificial coffee flavor that was used in the old days, especially as it never seemed to age, but I liked it for what it was. The pu-erh also seems to have some lighter coloring to the leaves now. Much more golden than before! The flavor is still good though — three solid steeps with only one heaping teaspoon. I just wish it could capture that perfect coffee flavor from before though.