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Dry leaf: Lime Jell-o to a T. a hint of fresh heavy cream.

Liquor color: Just like the photograph, light yellow-green

Leaves: Dry – large grey-green flat leaves. Wet – spring green with a silky sheen

Notes: Blimey, this is limey! The dry nose smelled so very much like the lime jell-o I ate in waves as a kid. Sipping on the tea brought jiggly, wiggly cubes of fluorescent green to my mind. I think I steeped it at a too low temperature, not much was able to be gotten from the first brew, aside from overwhelming lime. The second time I steeped it I got a much more mellow lime flavor with a creamy hint towards the end. The tea is quite sweet in it’s own right, I dare not add anything more. It brings back memories of ‘frog eye’ salad my mom used to make. It was a strange concoction of cool whip, a dry packet of lime jell-o, and cottage cheese. Sounds like absolute trash to me now, but I ate it by the mouthful as a child.

Even so this nostalgia-inducing beverage is a bit startling to me. Whether or not that is a good thing, I will never know.

Yet another sample form the Tippy Teas Sampler Pack! Boy, am I glad that I got all of them!

I like a lot of punch in my Smokey teas. This is a really nicely blended tea. I think I may like this one more than their Early Bird. I definitely get a bigger “POW!” factor in this tea. While the head notes are of that smoke and almost meaty bacon quality, I was able to appreciate the subtlety of the earthy and woody aromas of the Assam. I did get the fruity and lightly floral tail notes that is probably from the Darjeeling. There was also a light sweet note that played out quite nicely with all the others in this blend. I did order more of this, and it may become a staple slap-ya-awake tea.

When in doubt, Yi Fu Chun

This was one of the teas that I got from Ost’s Stash Sale! She had a few of Capital Teas in small sizes, so I got all three, since I could not decide on which one to get.
I have a couple more Ceylon teas in my cupboard that I have yet to try. I decided to try them all in the next few days to compare and contrast the flavor profiles. I have also been reading up on the history of the region to get some insight. I love doing mini research projects on tea!
Lucky for me that Ost did not like this! It’s my first time trying anything that Capital Tea has to offer, and I like where this is going. I managed to get three good infusions in my Camellia Sinensis porcelain-lined travel tumbler. The dry leaf is black-brown, with short, thin, twisted leaves. I smelled the ho hum woody-ness and malt. But when I brewed this tea up, I got a sweet nectar of pure honey, fresh and ripe stone fruits, with the lightest hint of milk chocolate. I had to make sure that I did not put any sweetener in my mug before steeping!
If you are someone who wants to try many different estate teas from a wide range of areas, give this one a go and check out capital tea! I am really going to have to look up their teas now :D

This is the second of the two free samples I received from Tealated!
The dry leaf is very pungent and sweet. It smells like some sort of candy. The pink starburst? The leaves look like a type of Chinese green. Probably not gunpowder. What do I know? The little pieces of rose hips and dried raspberry make up the rest of the stuffs in the bag.
This tea reminds me of Raspberry Gardens from Celestial Seasonings. But in a good way. I hated that tea when I got it years ago. No, the tea is sweeter, and thank god, no teabag taste or bitterness from the fannings.
I like how the freeze-dried raspberries look, especially after steeping. It’s just as if I have actual fresh raspberries in my infuser basket!
Just like the first tea that I tried, Cream of White Coconut, I steeped a cup hot for right this moment and then cold-brewed the rest for my smoothies. Today I added it to a lime/grape/strawberry Swiss chard smoothie. Very Refreshing!

Drinking this in my gourd this morning while doing housework. Yerba Mate is one of my great loves. There is nothing like a warm gourd amigo to help me get through my day. It makes my body feel light and airy, and hums around my feet and hands. Strange, I know, but this is the only way I can properly describe it.

Today I filled my gourd 1/6th of the way full. A tiny splash of cold charcoal-filtered spring water to awaken the leaves Added cooler water than what is usually prescribed on other websites, and ‘resteeped’ about six times. Tannins were lower than usual, and disappeared after the third gourd-full.
To me, this is the only way to drink mate :P Nothing else compares!

One of my biggest NOPES in tea is chocolate. In my personal tastes, the worst thing that could happen to tea is to have chocolate chips dumped in. I have been and always will be a picky chocolate consumer. However, when the tea itself has a naturally chocolate essence about it, I am far more accepting of it’s nuances. I think I saved this tea for last, only because of the name.
Upon opening the package, I got a healthy whiff of tart, juicy raspberries. The chocolate was there, but it was so subtle. Brewing the tea, the aroma of the Keemun stood out to me more. The earthy, grounded smell of a good Chinese black tea. Ahh. The flavors of the chocolate and the raspberry are softer now than on the dry nose. On the first sip, I notice the raspberry first, then the dark chocolate. When I say dark chocolate, I don’t mean Hershey’s ‘Special Dark,’ I am talking about Godiva’s 86% Twilight Delight dark. It was in the background, while the tartness of the raspberry was front in center along with the bold, malty, and earthy black blend. I am so glad that this was not too fruity either! Funny how my two least favorite flavor profiles in tea (Chocolate and fruity blacks) could come together and make me really enjoy waking up to this tea!

From my December 2014 Steepster Select Box!

I didn’t think I was going to like this tea. But I was surprised! The first two brews were a miss, but once I got past those two, I got a sort of cinnamon-y pepperiness that was very reminiscent of an Asian Beauty. The little stick tea was actually interesting to see come alive in my cup. The little twisty sticks grew and straightened out, not unlike some sort of phallic appendage I can’t mention on the internet. It was like sipping on a beachside bonfire, minus the sand in my swimsuit and the fire. I also got a nutty, toasted rice quality to it, at the beginning and the very end.
What an interesting tea!