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Additional notes: Sad sipdown! This is a five year old blend and tastes brand new (somehow with COFFEE BEANS??) and I just love this mix of flavors. I really would like to buy more. Oh the trick of having sipdowns not lead to more orders… It’s dark yet sweet and not a gross sort of coffee. This is the perfect coffee puerh and so happy it ages so well. If a reblend is like this, I will be impressed. Raising the rating from 93 for consistency alone.
Edited to add: Also, previous steep sessions have had at least seven coffee beans in the infuser, and I only see ONE coffee bean this time… so all of that lovely coffee flavor must be a flavor addition of some kind? I guess I like that much more than real coffee.
2020 Sipdowns: 60

Additional notes: Sipped this one down.  Really it was missing the AMAZING bright lemon it originally had… and mostly reminded me of an Earl grey with lavender in the end…  So if the sample faded, I’m not sure how quick I would be to restock.  Maybe if it were ever on SALE….
2020 Sipdowns: 59

SO B&B’s sale started last night.  As usual, I get like a kid on Christmas morning and can’t wait to see the deals and in the bright eyed haze, completely forget that their website is a pain during the sale every single time.  This time the pain started minute one of the hour long pre-presale link.  It took 55 minutes to check out, RIGHT before the hour pre-presale was almost done. This morning at 10am, most everything in the sale is gone except for the 10-20% off items or things that aren’t actually tea like the little teapots.  I managed to grab a handful of things last night.  Possibly they will keep adding things to the site again, as the sale is supposed to last a few days.  They had some cheap teas that were retiring, I bought Lime Cola which I loved, and Beet It which was great as a fruit tea when I tried the sample before.  Also: Rainbow Chai, Fruit Pie Chai, The Night Before Christmas, and Yule Log.  I was really hoping to at least see Figgy Pud and Salted Caramel Lebkuchen, but they didn’t.   It was mainly Christmas teas from 2019… so they didn’t really bring too many OLDER teas back. I really wish B&B would learn supply and demand already!  And why only have the sale on the limited teas?   I would love sales on their tea wall.  But I’m a B&B addict and can’t help supporting them a LITTLE bit, at least during the sales (if the darn checkout lets me anyway).  I still have a buyban on, but I didn’t really get myself anything for my long ago Bday this year… I’ll just have to aim for six sipdowns this week. And I’ve really been enjoying revisiting some B&B teas lately!

Also from Cameron B!  Thanks again for all the lovely teas!  I’ve had this a couple times, just trying to find that darn chocolate.  I KNOW Lupicia does chocolate teas very well.  But this seems to be only banana.  I would never guess this was chocolate at all.  It’s also the Runts banana, which I’m not overly thrilled with, but this tea would have been even more disappointing with NO banana AND NO chocolate.  But at least banana.  The base uses two types of black tea, one of which is CTC and I kind of like when some black teas are like this – a balance of caffeine but also another type of black tea for flavor.  I’m surprised more companies don’t do this.  I don’t want every tea blender to do this, but this is fine.
Steep #1  // 1 1/3 teaspoons for full mug // 20 minutes after boiling  // 1 minute steep
Steep #2  // 2 minutes after boiling //  3 minute steep

A sample from Tiesta!  THANK YOU, Tiesta Tea! Unfortunately this tea was gone from their site quite soon after they sent it… but sometimes their teas appear and disappear a lot. This is a lovely green yerba mate mixed with all sorts of tropical fruits: mango, papaya, passion fruit, lychee and other fruits you might typically find in a blend. I thought this would give me a reading power boost while drinking it the other day, being a yerba mate blend.  But there are PLENTY of other ingredients here, making the yerba mate fairly unnoticeable.  So many tropical fruits!  But then they seemed to blend together to create a generic fruit flavor. An enjoyable one anyway!  These are the ingredients I want to see in a summer blend. I wish I had distinctly tasted these fruits, but at least the tea didn’t really distract from the book I was reading (Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘The Lacuna’ – also the perfect summer read.)

Another OLD full pouch from StarFevre!  Thank you again!  Still a smidge of flavoring remaining.  Oddly I don’t see these two fruits together often, but it works.  All very refreshing on a honeybush base.  I just wish I had been able to try it fresh, as this is a unique blend from 52Teas… heck, the honeybush is unique enough… I don’t know why more companies don’t use it.   But I can only imagine how fantastic this was when it was first blended. Poor tea.

It’s so nice to see so many Steepster olds coming out of the woodwork, seemingly or coincidentally after the announcement that Steepster will rise from the dead after the Adagio takeover. Welcome back to you all!!
Another from JakeB – embarrassed to admit I didn’t even try it yet.  But thank you again!  I must have been less than enthused about the “300 year” claim.. meh.  It seems all the tasting notes for this have been from four years ago.  So possibly I’m not the only one avoiding this tea?  The one Steepsterer who seemed to love it used about four times the leaf than I would typically use. I’m going to try to be very patient and really cool the water down to see what happens with this sheng.  What happened was a very consistent flavor of very plain sheng.  It wasn’t bitter, it wasn’t unique like Poundcake was ridiculously unique the other day.  Simply very plain.  If you want to know what typical sheng tastes like, here it is.  So I guess the “300 years” is the “selling point” here.  It’s not bad, it’s not very interesting, but at least it’s consistent.  But that could be from waiting 50+ minutes to cool this water, which I usually do not have patience for.  So possibly there was no chance here to oversteep. Maybe I should try using a ton of leaf next? But I can’t imagine that going well for my tastebuds.
Steep #1 // 54 minutes after boiling  // rinse // 45 second steep
Steep #2  // 55 minutes after boiling //  45 second steep
Steep #3 // 52 minutes after boiling // 45 second steep

Another from StarFevre!  THANKS AGAIN.  Had to make a note of this for the summer!  It’s a very berry heavy blend, but also very hibiscus heavy.  I’m not sure if it’s due to age or correct hibiscus usage/blending, but the hibiscus doesn’t take over too much.  Plenty of berry flavoring otherwise.  There is supposed to be vanilla here, which I wish made more of an appearance.  Also some sort of cream flavor WOULD have been lovely here.  But I like this!  I’ve had it a few times and it’s very consistent and balanced – just the right tartness.  The second steep is also very worthy — very dark and deep red.

Thanks so much for allowing me to sample this, AJRimmer!  I had forgotten what lebkuchen was, even though other Steepsterers had been talking about it, but immediately upon sipping the tea, it clicked: GINGERBREAD.  I was wishing I had kept this to try in the colder months, as it is a thick, spicy, warming blend that is perfect for autumn/winter.  I could hardly ask for the tea to taste more like gingerbread, but somehow it is vastly different from B&B’s ‘Gingerbread Chai’ that is also very much like gingerbread.  I wouldn’t say there is anything salted caramel about this blend, but possibly it tastes like salted caramel when much fresher.  But otherwise, it certainly has a thick, chewy aspect to the tea that could only be gingerbread.  A simple addition of caramel cubes would have made this more caramel – though I’m not sure how vegan those typically are (and B&B is only vegan, I think?) I will be enjoying the last of this in the colder months!
Steep #1  // 1 1/2 teaspoons for full mug // 20 minutes after boiling  // 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // just boiled //  3 1/2 minute steep
2020 sipdowns: 57 (Teavivre – Nonpareil Anxi Qing Xiang TieGuanYin Oolong)

Additional notes: Almost a decade old, how in tarnation is this still pleasant tasting? Coconut and banana, still very much present and not spoiled. The black tea still very deep. Very much enjoyed a cup yesterday and the remainders cold this morning.

This was from JakeB quite a while ago – thanks so much!  Since this is a cake, I’m assuming these are supposed to be aged black/red teas?  YS has a black cake from 2014 listed on their site, so I’m assuming these cakes are supposed to age a bit.  One can dream anyway, for my aging cupboard. But since JakeB sent four cakes (have since rehomed one of the four) it would take me quite a while to get through these cakes!  The leaves in the cake are fairly compact.   The first steep’s flavor is very light and bland, probably because the water was too cool to properly unravel the compactedness of these leaves.  The second steep was VERY dark and deep and more of what I’m looking for in a black tea — the leaves had also fully unraveled by then.  I wonder where the “drunk” in the name comes from, because I could swear there was a boozy quality to this second steep, that I normally wouldn’t notice in black tea… This is fine, an the only black/reds I have within full cakes.  So I guess I will have to be content with that novelty, as it stands this just tastes like BLACK TEA to me at the moment.
Steep #1  //  20 minutes after boiling  // rinse// 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // 2 minutes after boiling //  3 1/2 minute steep