Stash Tea

More of a setting note than tasting. We had breakfast for dinner at our favorite diner. A meal there is usually accompanied by fresh orange-carrot juice but since my boyfriend brought home a family-sized bag of Nerds clusters candy and I heavily indulged in them, I didn’t want anymore sugar. Chamomile was on the menu so I opted for that instead of an evening coffee because I’ve had insomnia lately (overmedicated thyroid, blergh).

Anyway, this was a surprisingly pleasant follow-up to a tri-tip scramble with a side of steamed vegetables and sourdough toast. The chamomile was a powdery mess in the bag but it was fresh and soothing, not dusty with age, which I welcomed before our weekend sunset walk at the wetlands. A great heron greeted us with peace as it stood motionless in a black pond near the entrance. We strolled clockwise this time instead of counter-clockwise and that made the walk seem twice as long even at a brisk pace.

My favorite time of day to walk the wetlands is near sunset. The angle of the sun captures so many textures less apparent earlier in the day — the slick mudflat with a lone set bird tracks imprinted; a narrow channel flanked by drier, flakier mud; gnarly, bumpy pickleweed in shades of green to orange to red; spartina grass blades that create a wavy delineation between mudflat and slightly higher ground; dry grasses swaying in the slight breeze; and the rippling blue-black water of the river on the other side of the levee.

I found a few giant dried thistles and pulled out the fluff from one of them. The fluff is almost coarse yet soft and is white with tan tips. I will try to make a paintbrush!

Mild and soothing, decent chamomile

September Sipdown Challenge Prompt – Sipdown a Sample!

The site is running as slow as molasses in January. Clicking like on a post takes me to an ever spinning new page instead of lighting up the wee heart. Come on, tech team! We believe in you! Get us running again!

This sample was a tea mail surprise from GMathis – many thanks! It really came in useful today. Brekkie was late but I had to teach, so lunch was literally a slice of deli turkey I grabbed from the fridge and a glass of chocolate milk to wash it down. I walked as I “ate” lunch.

I wanted something to sip on for a couple of hours of afternoon teaching and it was the perfect time to try this.

The label says white tea at the bottom but the first ingredient listed is rooibos. The rooibos is somewhat temprered by the white tea and flavoring, though. It added a nice fruity note to the fruity flavorings without being overly woody. It smelled very nice in the cup. Enjoyabke, and I would drink it again if offered.

The pear flavor is so authentic! It really is like biting into a juicy pear – delicious! I taste a pretty average green base, but mostly that tasty flavoring. It’s really lovely cold.

Decaf & Herbal TTB, tea #9

I took a bag of this just because of the wrapper and yep, that wasn’t a tea for me. Very sweet, with long-lasting effect; oils of spices instead of solid spices and overall it was a little too much and muddled flavours all together.

As I couldn’t notice anything but sticky sweetness and mish-mash of spices, I am not really a fan. Maybe a combination with some robust black tea would make it much better and tastier.

Very heavy on the lavender and with a slightly liquoricey flavour. It is also a bit minty (tulsi often tastes like liquorice and mint). Tasty but a bit powerful and the vegetal notes are a bit strong for me. I don’t like this lavender as much as most other lavender blends I have had.

When it’s warm, I notice a decent amount of chamomile. When it’s cold, I taste a lot of floral flavor, plus some fruitiness. My partner noticed some honey notes. This was much better than I thought it would be, though not something I’d need a whole box of.

One never appreciates a quiet house quite so much as the evening following VBS Family Night, which we celebrated with an ear-splitting interactive show akin to Nickelodeon Double Dare or Slime Time Live. Nine-year-old girls can hit a note two octaves above treble clef E that could slice metal. (I loved my little pod of seven kids and nothing you do for children is ever wasted. It was a good week.)

But my private end-of-week celebration is much quieter tonight with a nice cup of this summery blend I found by accident at one of our pricier local natural food stores. It’s my second attempt: I steeped the first cup and put it in the fridge to chill, which ended up in a cold half-pint of artificial honey flavor.

This round, I was more attentive to water temp and scanty with time (pulled it just before three minutes) and it’s much better. Honey and vanilla, yes; but the subtle tangerine that I could barely detect in the cold version isn’t overwhelmed this time around.

A while ago I had really enjoyed steeping a teabag of Tazo’s “Pumpkin Spice Chai” along with some straight houjicha, finding they complimented each other very well. I finished up the Tazo teabags before the houjicha, but when I went back to my local grocery to restock, they no longer had the Tazo “Pumpkin Spice Chai” so I grabbed a random other chai from what they had available, which was this one. And I found, as I do with most grocery store chai options, that I hated it. It uses waaaaaaaaaaay too much spice oils/flavoring rather than whole spices for my tastes. I sometimes do okay with the cinnamon flavoring used in teas with those sweet “cinnamon candy” sort of blends, but here it just comes off as really artificial… and the clove and cardamom oil tastes really strong. I like clove in tea (I realize it is a polarizing ingredient in chai) but this just punches you in the face with it.

Needing a way to use up the teabags (I hate being wasteful of food I’ve already spent my dollars on), I’ve been using them up making tea pop. My first batch turned out pretty awful because my CO2 canister was at the bottom so it didn’t fizz up properly and made the tea really bitter, so a fresh CO2 canister and a little added sugar syrup later and it’s servicable in pop form. Still a little clove heavy, but it works much better as a fizzy carbonated cold drink and I can use up the teabags four at a time making the base coldbrew. One more liter to go to wash my hands of this chai!

A late night cuppa that I pulled out because I wanted something relaxing, a little bit sweet, and kind of minty. Well, this incredibly lush and round feeling spearmint flavour of this blend checks off the last two criteria on that list while also masking the chamomile in the tea that takes care of the relaxing part. Very nice cuppa.

After my last teabag, I don’t have high expectations but one can always hope. This is, again, a cupboard tea from the vrbo in Kauai. The aroma starts kinda peachy, kind of grandma’s potpourri in the bathroom, and part very synthetic candy. The wet tea bag… It’s like a mix of wet leaves and someone decided to be funny and sprinkle peach flavoring on them. The taste. Nope. Just a lot of nope. I didn’t even steep it the entire time. It’s one part bitter, one part compost that is not being taken care of properly, and the last part is all synthetic notes.

I have an old box of this in teabags, which I have decided to drink down over the next few nights. One Royal Albert 1990 – Bouquet mug of approximately 400ml, two teabags at a time, just a way to keep my mouth busy so I don’t snack or drink Sprite all through the evening now that my caffeine sensitivity’s gotten a tad too high to allow for anything caffeinated after four.

The bags, I must say, smell lovely. Vanilla and winter spices are balanced and all this needs is a hint of pine to smell very much like an ideal Christmas, at least to me, a very overenthusiastic-about-Christmas sort of person. Another of my interests is perfumery, and although I don’t usually go in too heavily for gourmands, I could see myself wearing this a lot in winter, if it was a perfume. Since it’s a tea, though….

I’m going to blame the effects of the decaffeination process on the leaves for why I struggle a bit with it as a tea. If I drink it straight, it tastes a bit harsh. If I put some milk in it, it tastes too thin, as though I were just drinking 1% milk with the ghosts of some spices in it. Neither experience is what I hope for when I smell the teabags. It does serve its function of keeping me out of the Sprite and the food, though, and there’s only a couple of more days worth left in the box, so it’s all right.

TTB sample! This was much better than I expected! I drank it cold with plenty of sweetener, and it was tart, but in a pleasant way. I tasted hibiscus and berry and something a tiny bit exotic. It was pretty pleasant!

This is my go-to morning tea. It has a sufficient amount of bergamot, though to be fair, I always want more. I drink mine with a little honey and lemon and it’s a good start to the day. Is it fancy? No. Is it good. Yes it is. It’s a sturdy tea.

I saw this tea while I was shopping online at Sobey’s and gleefully added it to my cart, only to discover that it was out of stock. Bah humbug! After I asked around, including here on Steepster, my mom managed to find a box at Bulk Barn of all places, and gave it to me during the holidays. I steeped two teabags in 355 ml of 200F water for 3, 5, and 7 minutes.

This tea smells like an After Eight: strongly minty with hints of chocolate. In descending order of prominence, the flavours in the first steep are mint, cocoa, lavender, and vanilla. I tried to up the lavender quotient by using two bags, and while it kind of worked, there really wasn’t as much lavender as I hoped. Not surprisingly, the aftertaste is quite sweet. I don’t mind the milk chocolate flavouring, though it does come off as a bit artificial. The second steep is much like the first, though the mint is a bit tamer. The lavender peaks out in the final steep, though that’s probably because the other flavours are starting to fade.

This is a nice holiday tea, though not as unique as I anticipated. As chocolate mint teas go, it’s pretty good.

Devon Bartholomew Advent Day 25

There’s a lot going on in this blend, but somehow it works! The lavender is subtle enough that it just adds a bit of interest to an otherwise typical milk chocolate peppermint Christmas tea. My only complaint is that I found it a bit thin and lacking in body; I think I would have enjoyed it more on a black tea base. Still an enjoyable end to the Advent, though! Now on to trying the new tea I got for Christmas. :)

Devon Bartholomew Advent Day 21

It was a busy weekend around here, so I have some catching up to do on tasting notes! From what I remember, this was a pretty classic jasmine green tea, which didn’t really stand out in a good or a bad way.

not sure about this one… it’s chai, so of course it’s very comforting and nice for the chilly days we’ve been getting here in mtl, but that fake rum flavour can be a bit offputting. tried preparing this the “traditional” way one would make masala chai (not so traditional of course since these are tea bags lol) and it was a LOT better than simply steeping it in hot water. still, that rum flavour is a bit too weird for me and i don’t think i’ll be purchasing this again – i was just a bit curious as i usually quite like stash’s offerings.

Pretty good with milk. I would order this to have on-hand.

Courtney sent me 3 tea bags of this festive tea; thank you!
I was a little hesitant brewing this while it’s still just November; but decided to give it a try as I wanted something simple (yep, tea bags were preferred), if possible mouth (throat) coating and had a tooth for something sweet.

Well, as I have a sore throat, I wanted to have it coated with a good tea and well this quite delivers it! It had all expected flavours. Hot chocolate, refreshing peppermint and floral lavender. Not much of vanilla in my cup; but maybe I wasn’t just focused enough. Definitely an easy-drinker and I liked it in the mug. I wasn’t a fan when I took it from the outer wrapping, the aromas were sooo strong.

I’m kind of warming up to this one…our office feels like a rainforest in the mornings and a glacier by mid-afternoon, and a caffeine-free warmer-upper is welcome. Mostly rooibos and cinnamon (the “granny’s spice cabinet” kind, not the red hot candy kind) with a little natural sweetness from both ingredients.

Do your less-tea’d friends make assumptions about your tea preferences? Mine often jump to the conclusion that “You’re a tea person, so you must like chai.” So I’m usually overstocked on gifted chai versions I might not select for myself.

(That said, the thoughtfulness of a coworker who brought me this little box was a pleasant surprise during a week throughout which I have been feeling like a cranky dragon.)

This dragon breathes cinnamon, and lots of it. But as that is my favorite chai ingredient, no harm there. It’s a nice counterpoint to the rooibos, and with a little concentration, you can pick up the remaining spices. A little milk and sweetener would have improved my first cuppa, but it was pleasant and drinkable without.