Hate to say it but this would be better suited for the British drinkers, who like a strong cup with milk/sugar.
Due to the tiny size of the leaf, it infuses very quickly. A tricky one to brew if not for milk. The astringent qualities come out so quickly.
Next time less leaf. If you can make it past the astringency you’ll find it has a fresh feeling on your palate.
Filled with some malty and dark woodsy notes of mahogany.
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Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: Teakruthi
Description
This low grown full-bodied blend was hand-plucked from the shade of the Sinharaja Rainforest in Sri Lanka. Made from the highest quality leaves, Rainforest Indulgence offers a unique flavour. Rather than hand-rolling to bruise the leaf and introduce oxidation, this tea was produced by a modern mechanical process to tear the leaf and oxidize. Only limited amounts of Broken Pekoe (BP) grade Ceylon tea is produced, so this tea is truly a special morning treat. This strong tea is reddish-orange in colour.
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Earl Grey Lavender/Teageschwendner -Ashmanra-
Nearly everyone has heard of Earl Grey, and I find a lot of people either love it or absolutely hate it. I am somewhere in between. I can really fall for the RIGHT Earl Grey. The trademark flavor of Earl Grey is bergamot, which is a type of sour orange. Most Earl blends are Ceylon black tea with bergamot oil, but Ceylon tea can already be very lemony and when you add sour orange…well, it just isn’t for me. It would be more palatable with milk and sugar but I don’t usually do additions. When you put a quality bergamot oil on Keemun or an a smoky base…now, that’s a different story. Or if you add cream flavor to counter the sour citrus, again, I can get on board. This one puts lavender second in the name, but I am finding it first in the flavoring, right after tea base. There is orange oil here as well, and I think that further gives a real roundness to the cup, as opposed to a punch in the tastebuds. The sweet floral lavender and cheerful orange takes the hard punch out of the bergamot and softens it into a very nice cup of tea, strong enough for breakfast (for me), yet smooth and sweet enough to be thoroughly enjoyable even without additions. As baby bear would say, this is “just right.”
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Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Teageschwendner
Description
Heady bergamot flavor meets the sweetly floral aroma of Lavender. A wonderful reinvention of a beloved classic!
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Hot Cinnamon Spice/Ohio Tea Co -Skysamurai-
Artificial flavor. You are a bane to the tea world.
And yet when it comes to cinnamon tea like this I have a small part of my world reserved for you.
You would be completely different without that accursed thing. This brings me back to Pike’s Place Market in Seattle.
To the left you will find a shop that sells Orange cinnamon tea very much like this one. Ohio Tea Co does a very good job with this imitation though I still prefer Marketspice as I feel theirs is stronger. It could also be due to the type of tea bag they used which makes it so this tea can’t fully realize its potential in the water.
Now that I don’t drink many teas with flavors I feel myself getting a bit of a headache so I am glad I only got one bag. But the headache was worth it. I think. Something still bothers me about this one though. It starts off nice and strong and then it just drops off a cliff or like a part of the flavor runs into a wall and the rest keeps going. It is strange.
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Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Ohio Tea Company
Description
This blend brews very sweet even though no sugar is added. A cinnamon lover’s dream come true. A combination of hearty Chinese and Indian black tea and invigorating cinnamon.
Many cinnamon teas have a watery aftertaste due to the use of low grade teas. The black tea here has the stamina to last through the whole tasting process.
Ingredients:
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(Sad) Sipdown #4- Mom’s Birthday Cake Black Tea/52 Teas -CuppaGeek-
Sipdown #4 on my sipdown/tea time journey for 2021 and what a sad sipdown it is.
52Teas is a beloved tea company to many tea enthusiasts. However, the both awesome and sad part about 52Teas is each of the teas are a limited edition in their own way and typically if you fall in love with a blend- you have to ration yourself or your tea loving heart might be broken. Reason is- 52Teas literally blends up a tea a week throughout the year so there is always new and fun teas to try but on the flip side- restocking on a blend that you adore doesn’t always happen.
That is why this is a sad sipdown. This blend may actually be my favorite 52Teas blend ever edging out Graveyard Mist ever so slightly, more than likely due to my new love of black teas. This blend literally has it all- a little sweet, a little spice, and a little sass. And no matter how you brew this gem, the flavors are always spot on.
Today for my “me tea time”, I prepped up water at 212F and allowed the tea to steep between 3-4 minutes and cool for a moment or two. This tea is just such oh sooo good.. The black tea notes hang in the background while the orange, dates and ginger mingle together in perfect harmony. There is a sweetness that I think is supposed to be the cake part but I’m getting more vanillaish notes than anything else. I paired this tea with a stroopwaffle and was truly enjoying my me moment today.
I’ve enjoyed several tea pots of this lovely and sadly, this is the last of this blend in my stash. I do spy with my little eye another cake blend currently available on 52Teas so I might just try that one out but if you ever hear of a reblend for this one, I encourage you to check it out. . .or maybe I don’t. . .more for me (haha).
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Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Description
This blend is no longer available but click below for blends that are.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Tea Time with Friday Afternoon Tea – CuppaGeek-
Each and every year, tea enthusiasts take a look at their tea stashes/cupboards and decide to take an earnest attempt at sipping down the tea that they currently own for a variety of reasons. This year, I’m joining in on this venture for a different reason- I want to dedicate more time to myself. 2020 was a hard year on my family. Between one of our son’s being diagnosed with cancer to losing a beloved member of our family to an extremely hectic and challenging political cycle (my 9-5) to everything in between which includes basically being a “single parent” for a good chunk of the year while my hubby took care of our son, Parker while he was getting treatment at St Judes. For so many, 2020 will always be an exhausting and stressful year. But, it is time to now look at 2021 and make new habits and choices to set the year off right.
One the new habits I am truly striving to establish for myself is literally time for myself. I am very fortunate to have been working from home for a few years now but with the kiddos also being home and remote learning, that tea time that I always really enjoyed fell by the way side. And I have too many delightful tea goodies to have that happen. So I have literally set up time each day on my calendar to take a moment, pop onto Steepster, log my teas, see tea lovelies everyone is enjoying all while enjoying a cuppa myself. If you aren’t familiar with Steepster, I highly encourage you to check it out. Steepster is a great place to log your tea tasting notes while engaging with other like minded tea friends. A lovely environment that I am thrilled to be engaged with once again.
To start 2021 off right, my Black Friday Friday Afternoon tea order finally arrived on 1/3 so I thought these would be a nice treat to ring in the new year. I mainly ordered a variety of black flavored teas but my mystery sampler was also included in this order so there were various tea samples to dig into as well.
#1 Sipdown:
I’m No Prize was the first sample I grabbed. This blend is black tea, ginger root, star anise, rose, jasmine blend with cinnamon flavoring. I’ve been seeing a lot of rose flavored chai blends lately and the idea of mingling floral and spiced flavors was incredibly intriguing. Brewed up with water at 212F and steeped for 3 minutes, this tea was a joy. You could literally pick out each flavor on its own and they all worked together nicely. Pops of ginger, star anise, and cinnamon worked wonderfully well with the rose and jasmine.
I was able to get a few infusions out of the sample serving and enjoyed every sip. Really lovely blend and one I could see re-ordering more of in a heart beat.
#2 Sipdown:
Butterfly Blend was the second sample that grabbed my attention. A black tea blend with honey, strawberry, orange peel and lemongrass. When I first opened the sample- the first thought that came to mind was how much this tea smelled like a strawberry candy. I was eager to enjoy this one so I prepped up my water at 212F and again allowed the tea to steep for 3 minutes. Sadly, I think my taste buds are changing and this blend was too sweet for me. The first sip – my taste buds were super happy. Super sweet honeyed strawberries was what I was getting. However, after a few more sips, it was like I needed a bit of something else to round out that sweetness, possibly even a bit more black tea. The blend itself is beautiful to look at but just doesn’t seem to be the right tea for me.
#3 Sipdown:
Courtesan’s Blend was the last of the three samples I enjoyed during my tea time sipdown. I will be honest, I’ve received this blend a few different times in my mystery samplers from Friday Afternoon and I have never really enjoyed the blend. But again, looking at the ingredients I should. Oolong, clove, cinnamon, and vanilla flavoring. All sounds delightful. When you first open the sample pack as well, the blend smells delightful. To my dismay, those aromas (for me) did not translate into any noticeable flavors until the very end of each sip if not the after taste. Then I could pick up the oolong, clove, and cinnamon notes. If the flavors were more pronounced, I have a feeling I would be in love with this blend. But after trying this blend so many times, I think this one just isn’t for me.
All in all, not a bad little tea party (that spanned a few hours might I add). The winner for me is I’m No Prize which is already on my list to re-order the next time I order from Friday Afternoon.
Let us know if you have any tea related goals for 2021. We’d love to hear them!
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Where to Buy: Friday Afternoon
