Aiko

I’m not big into “flowery” sorts of tea, but this makes for a very nice post-yoga-workout brew. The lemon balm gives it a sort of cleansing feeling and overall is very relaxing. The flowery-ness is apparent, but not in an overwhelming way, just enough to be soothing and fragrant.

No notes yet.

Sipped this earlier today while sitting in the sunlight, and filled a couple pages in my handwritten journal with flowery language about it that I won’t bother you all with. But in summary, this tea went something like this: Earthy/Minerally > Extra minerally > Meaty/savory/smokey > creamy/sweet(?!)

Of course in my head it was something more like being part of a hunting tribe tracking prey through the mountains in the harsh winter, then celebrating the successful hunt with much feasting. But that is just the sort of thing that happens in my head when nothing exists but myself and a cup of tea.

This tea makes me feel less sad regarding the ’06 Tea Trail offering that is no longer available.

Wow, this is an interesting one.

The most challenging part of this tea was trying to get an even distribution of the various elements into a single serving size. While all the heavy pu’er settled into the bottom of the pouch, the flowers, herbs, and spices sat on the top, so I think about a third of the chrysanthemum flowers in the pouch ended up into this serving, and not a whole lot of the actual tea, hah. I guess each serving of this tea will be a little different, just due to slightly different proportions of the ingredients.

I’ll have to give more detail on this when I’ve had more time to mull it over— it’s really a very intriguing and unique blend; my first impressions are that of… an herb-crusted steak, or a fragrant beef broth. Definite comfort brew, almost like a savory chai.

Sigh, I really try to avoid fangirling, but the team at Verdant Tea is just awesome. This was from my first monthly tea subscription package, and having access to this limited offering just feels like I’m a part of something special. And the tea came along with a lovely description of the teas and the stories behind them and why they were chosen for that month; it’s so very apparent that these guys have a lot of passion for what they do, and it’s wonderful to get to share in that passion.

As for this tea, it’s a little boggling to taste rice in a tea that isn’t genmaicha. But I’m also getting a bit of warming spice, and definitely a lot of savory elements. A tea to tide me over when dinner is running late, I think. Very happy to have the opportunity to try this.

Books. The rinsed leaves, they smell like books. Rows and rows of well-loved library books. I think this is my new tea to sip while reading.

I have needed this so long. I finally got my Verdant order in (One of two, anyway, my monthly-tea-club box is due in two days, if tracking is to be believed) and it feels like Christmas.

Mostly the package is full of samples, but I sprung for a full ounce of both this and the chocolate phoenix chai, despite not having tried either of them.

So while excitedly ruffling through the box of little foil packets, this one jumped out as the one I just had to try first. I needed something cooling and calming, and this seemed the best candidate. I agonized a little about how to brew it at first; this tea is interesting in that it does not fall into the category of “cheap flavored black” that would prompt me to western-brew it, but I’ve never gaiwan-brewed blends involving herbs and spices before, and I imagine they infuse at much different rates than the tea leaves. Eventually I settled on western-brew, for now: four grams to twelve ounces of water. I’m pretty sure I’ll have to try gaiwan-brewing it at least once though, to satisfy my own curiosity.

I finally opened the pouch. The aroma of the dry mix alone is amazing. The first words that come to mind are “real” and “clean” I know it sounds odd, but this is my first step into Alchemy blends and it’s already abundantly clear that this is a rung or seven or two-hundred above the standard of flavored teas sprayed with artificial flavors; these ingredients are so fresh and fragrant. I can smell the mint, but it’s not overpowering, the cinnamon and fennel (I love fennel), too, are playing their role but not stealing the show. Despite the herbal stuff very present in this tea, it doesn’t have that “herbal” pungency (I’m not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, heh). All the ingredients— and there’s quite a handful of them, are dancing in a balanced harmony. I can’t imagine what a challenge this must have been to create.

The visual appearance of the tea is enchanting, both dry and while brewing. While dry, I am reminded of a curious forest full of twisted branches and dotted with alluring flowers. While steeping, the chamomile flowers and marigold petals float to the top, spiral-dancing at the slightest motion, while the tea-leaves unfold at the bottom to envelop the spices. The mint leaves seem a bit non-committal, uncertainly bobbing between the surface and the bottom. If you have a clear brewing vessel, I would really recommend watching the show.

I ended up getting three 12oz steepings out of four grams (and perhaps I could have coaxed more out, but there is just only so much liquid I can fit in my stomach). The first was where most of the chocolate flavor was; and although I suppose I should have slowly sipped and savored it, I found myself rudely gulping it down; I think somewhere on Verdant’s site, this tea is compared to mint-chocolate ice cream— that is spot on. I bet this will be pretty amazing iced, too. The second steeping was probably overall the strongest, highlighting more of the mint and spices. On the third steeping, the herbal notes are a background to the Big Red Robe and the Laoshan black; a wonderful finale as the blend returns to its roots.

Maybe I am a little overenthusiastic about this brew, but it’s been such an overwhelming past several days, and this is truly a little piece of heaven in all the chaos. Just going through the process of preparing tea does wonders to shed the stresses of the day, but combined with a tea like this, it’s honestly magical.

It’s strange how tastes change… develop… I dunno.

I remember when I first tried this half a year ago, I initially thought it really overwhelmingly astringent. So I later reduced the leaf amount to make it more drinkable. Today, noticing there was only a little bit left in the bottom of the sample pouch, I emptied it into my 90ml gaiwan. It turned out, ehh, it was a little bit more than I thought. like five grams worth, when I only needed about two.

I had forgotten this was a tea I needed to use less leaf for, and kind of winced when I looked it up in my notes. But what was done was done, and I was going to drink this tea.

I very tentatively tasted the first steeping, expecting the same mouthful of dryness I got six months ago, and…. got something entirely different.

It was indeed a very strong, intense brew, but there was very little dryness to be found. Instead, I had a mouthful of… nuttiness, but creamy-nuttiness, like….almond-butter soup. Which is way more delicious then it sounds. And there is a definite aftertaste of cinnamon spice that I find myself enjoying almost as much as the taste of the tea itself.

But what changed? Why is it, that when I brewed this same tea six months ago, I could hardly stand the first few steepings? Conceitedly, I would like to think my tastes have just greatly developed. When I first tried this, it was among one of the first pu’ers I had ever tried. Now, having tried several, perhaps I’ve adapted to the dryness somehow and can “taste past it” if that makes any sense?

I guess I can’t rule our that it might be the tea itself— pu’er is supposed to morph over time, after all. But I have a hard time imagining such a drastic change in flavor could take place in just six months, and considering the packet it was in was (I assume, I guess I could have misjudged) sealed, it would have aged incredibly slowly, if at all.

My brewing vessels, my water source, my methods.. they’re all the same as far as I can tell. It’s a mystery. But I cannot complain; I am enjoying this tea more than ever. Too bad this is the last I have of it.

Last of this. I got my email notice the other day that my Verdant Tea monthly-club shipment was on its way, along with another ~$50 order I made because I have absolutely no patience or self-control when it comes to tea that I want to try. I was hoping that joining a subscription-based tea club would curb my desire to make these massive tea orders… nope. Instead I spent weeks wondering what teas would arrive, browsing the site again and again, hoping that month’s subscription would include something or other. I figured I would wait until my subscription package came before making an order, in hopes that it would tide me over, but … no, I just couldn’t wait. Oh well; at least I will have a ton of tea to look forward to… to sip alongside my 10cent instant noodle dinners that will be all I can afford to eat, hah.

Anyway, since I have so much Verdant tea on the way, I don’t feel so bad sipping through what’s left of my stash. Though my sense of smell is not functioning at its best right now, I can still really enjoy this. It’s making me ever-so-slightly tea-drunk; I feel a bit hyper-sensitive to touch, I think. It really is at its best full, savory, brothy flavor when brewed super-hot though. Sigh, I will miss this, but I am really looking forward to all that will take its place.

Kukicha is always so pretty. That’s something you can’t really say about most gloppy-when-wet Japanese greens. But from a color variation standpoint, I do love to look at it.

I remember when I used to sip this stuff alongside some grilled brown onigiri. Too bad it takes like two hours to cook brown rice and by then I would need to leave for work.

Still, it’s nice and woody, fragrant and comforting. Not a blow-you-out-of-the-water tea, but a nice way to start the day, not to mention stave off a scratchy throat.

The saga of the sore throat continues. I put absolutely no thought into this tea selection; it was the first thing I pulled out of my pu’er box. I just needed something hot on the throat, no more. It satisfies that purpose well enough. The taste is pretty unremarkable though. It’s not bad; it just tastes like very standard sheng. It’s pretty docile though, doesn’t seem as dry as some other sheng (which is good, the last thing I want is any more dryness in my throat). It does get pretty repulsively sour if left oversteeped though. Ever since coming across that weird strong sourness in another pu’er I tried, I seem to be very aware of it in other sheng, and I really don’t think I like it. It’s not like lemon-sour, it’s a savory sour, like vinegar or curdled milk. I wonder if that’s just a standard sheng characteristic (and I’m odd in finding it unpleasant) or if it’s something that can be avoided. I need to go back and try some of my favorite sheng with this newly-developed palette and see if I can find the sourness in them.

On a random note, I went to the farmer’s market today and picked up some radishes. Really spicy radishes. So I find myself wondering, what kind of tea would pair well with radishes? Hmmmm..

Why doesn’t this tea exist anymore? So sad.

Woke up this morning with the first sore throat of the season. I love the cooler weather, but it doesn’t love me. I’ve been saving the last of this stuff for when I really needed it, and today was the day.

The first time I had this tea, as noted by my previous review of it, it absolutely transported me directly back to my high-school years. It really seems to capture the essence of autumn, yet at the same time soothes away the health-related side-effects of the season.

I find myself a little saddened considering I may never experience this “flashback” tea again. There is a 2004 Tea Trail offering I’d like to try, but at $14.50 for an ounce, I’m admittedly a little apprehensive.

But doing the math, there’s about 28 grams to an ounce, and I use four grams a session; I’m getting seven sessions out of an ounce, putting the price just over two dollars a session— about as much as I pay for a cup of coffee on the way home from a frustrating work day.

But after a frustrating work day, I could just as easily tie into a relaxing gongfu session with a good tea, and enjoy it far more than I would absentmindedly sipping on coffee. So even expensive tea isn’t really all that expensive, and honestly, good tea is worth it.

I have a couple of different gaiwans around now. The one I use most often actually has fairly thick clay walls and a glazed interior. I love it because it holds heat in relatively well, and that heat is pretty important to bringing out some of the flavors in many of the teas I drink. But I also have a couple of very thin-walled porcelain gaiwans, elaborately decorated with pretty images. But I rarely use them, because they let heat escape so quickly that they’re better suited to the more delicate teas with low brew temperatures.

Usually I pick the tea out first, then select the appropriate brewing vessel, but today I just really wanted to use my little bird-and-flower printed gaiwan covered in mysterious Chinese characters that I imagine translate to, “Aiko, you drink too much tea.” So that narrowed my selection a lot, and I eventually settled on this Chinese green with cute mythology. I love teas with stories behind them.

I have a weird love/hate relationship with Chinese greens. I love their range of flavors, but on occasion, certain kinds make me sick to my stomach, for no known reason. It doesn’t seem to be a pesticide or quality thing, because I’ve had the same reaction to organic and high-quality tea in the past. Perhaps it is a matter of processing or something. But the strange reaction seems to be exclusive to Chinese greens— I’ve never had it happen with other teas.

Luckily, this tea does not make me sick. It has a very light, crisp flavor, of snow peas, I think. It’s a little one-note, but it’s a pleasant note. The leaves are of widely varying quality— some are tiny buds, some are broken pieces of older leaves. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be much longevity in this tea; only five or so gongfu steepings in, it is little more than slightly astringent water. Oh well. It was very nice while it lasted.

(What is with my tea reviews lately; they’re like three paragraphs of backstory and then one regarding the actual tea)

This is one of the yunnanist Yunnans I have ever had. Really, that is my first thought on sipping this.

To me, Yunnan blacks are the original dessert teas. Chocolate, honey, maltiness, sweetness. When my boyfriend spoils me with super-fancy handmade truffles from the farmer’s market, the kind you have to sit and savor not (just) because they’re practically two dollars apiece, but because they’re just that good, I reach for none other than a good Yunnan black tea to go with them.

I have a long history with Yunnan blacks, beginning with an Adagio signature blend “Silk Road” that I drank religiously every morning for breakfast. Soon I realized the element of the blend I loved most was Adagio’s own blend, “Mambo”, a mix of Yunnan black and WuYi oolong. It didn’t take me long from there to pinpoint that the Yunnan was what I was really after all along, and since then, I have taken a lot of joy in trying assorted Yunnan black teas from many vendors.

These days I even gongfu brew them, something I never would have imagined years back when I was gulping mugfuls of milk-and-sugar laden Silk Road every morning while watercolor painting sheets of would-be origami paper. But that distinct Yunnan-y flavor takes me back, regardless.

So a while ago I ordered a ton of samples from puerhshop. Pretty much anything I could order in a sample size, kind of blindly. And most of those that I have tried, thus far, has been, to be quite honest, not terribly remarkable. With all fairness, as far as I know, young sheng (what most of these samples are), according to my research, are for aging, not immediate drinking, so I guess I’m not surprised. But I keep hoping by drinking a ton of it, from different areas/factories, I’ll at least get some sort of….learning experience.

This tea, though. This one is different, kind of strange. It feels very thick and heavy in the mouth, almost oily. And it has this very distinct sour taste. It’s like a bowl of hot and sour soup. Very savory. I’m actually not really sure I like it (the sour note puts me off a little) but it’s just very surprising as compared to all the other pu’er I’ve had lately.

The sourness gets really pronounced as the tea cools, to the point that I can’t bring myself to drink it at that point. But it’s just so very interesting. I can’t get over how heavy it feels, a nearly clear liquid with the mouthfeel of.. whole milk or even cream. I’m actually starting to feel full from sipping on it; my brain seems to think I’m eating something substantial and nourishing.

I went and reboiled the water five or so steeps in, under the logic that if the sourness is more pronounced as the tea cools, I should try keeping it as hot as possible. It actually does help a little— the sourness is still detectable but in a much smaller amount.. in fact, in this tiny amount it tastes more familiar.. I think that little element is actually present in many other sheng I have tried; I just didn’t really notice it until it was really in my face. So this has been a learning experience, after all.

I’m really going to make a better effort to keep more notes on these assorted pu’ers. Most of them aren’t on Steepster; I had to add this one, for example. Pu’er doesn’t really seem to have much of a following here, so I seem to be kind of stumbling through the dark. But at the same time, it seems pretty exciting.

Okay, this is much better. I tried some really old, lost, forgotten genmaicha earlier today, and it wasn’t doing it for me. This is much better.

Actually, this tea might be as old as that genmaicha; I’ve had it so long I don’t remember when I got it. But it was still unopened, sealed in it’s little 10g sample packet. I went ahead and just emptied the whole thing in to my 8oz kyusu. Light and grassy and refreshing. On the third steeping now and still a pretty full flavor. I tend to prefer the deeper-steamed stuff, but this is still pretty nice. 10g/8oz might have been overkill, but ever since I took inventory of my tea and discovered how much I have going stale, I’ve been trying to finish off all of the tiny bits of teas I have here and there.

That, and I’ve just been seeking out Japanese greens today because I woke up this morning craving rice. So I put a huge batch of brown rice in the rice cooker, mixed with coconut milk and a little green curry powder, and I’ve been eating off of it all day. And for whatever reason, Japanese greens seem to go pretty well with rice.

Mmm, rice. Some days I think I could live off of green tea and rice.

“Best enjoyed by August 2011” Um, oops.

It’s not that I haven’t had this tea in over a year, it’s that I apparently suck at FIFO’ing my tea; I’ve been using the fresher packets with no knowledge that this one existed. But I dug it out while doing tea inventory and kind of felt bad for neglecting it.

So today I find out what, uh, “aged Genmaicha” tastes like. It’s not bad. Just kind of flat and not a whole lot of flavor. It’s still got the nice toastiness I love from the brown rice, but that really dominates over everything else. I guess the rice doesn’t lose its flavor as quickly as the actual tea.

Japanese greens are wonderful, but they seem to go stale so much more quickly than other teas (the processing method, I believe) so I try not to keep a lot of them on hand at once. Too bad it’s not really economical to order one packet of tea at a time with shipping costs and all.

It’s kind of a shame; this is one of my favorite Japanese green teas when it hasn’t been lost in a dark corner for years. I am sorry, tea, I will try to be a bit more vigilant about drinking you before you go stale >:

So a friend of mine recently bought a new house, and as a housewarming gift I gifted her some assorted teas. Some of the teas in the assortment were flowering, and she sent me a picture of one of the blossoms floating in her clear glass mug. It was so pretty, and I realized I hadn’t had flowering teas in a long, long time. So today at the store I picked up a “petite bouquet” box of Numi’s flowering tea. This was the one I grabbed out of the box at random.

I don’t feel like it’s very fair to judge a tea like this by its flavor; I certainly don’t pick up flowering teas off grocery store shelves because I’m looking for a high-quality, fresh-picked tea experience (come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve actually bought tea off store shelves in at least two years). I’m seeking more of a visual experience here; maybe a nostalgic one, even.

The taste is pleasant though. It’s not complex, it’s not especially interesting, it doesn’t bring any flowery descriptors to mind, but it is a light, gentle flavor that nicely accompanies the experience of watching the leaves unfold.

When dry, you can easily see the little white flower in the center, but as the tea “blooms” into a round, sizable pompom of green-ness ,the tiny flower almost gets lost in the bundle. I guess flowers don’t expand as much when wet as tea leaves do.

I resteeped this many times, just adding more hot water to my little 8oz mug when I drank it down, until no flavor was left. Again, the flavor was nothing special, but held up pretty well through the steepings, probably around three or four. By the end, I was suitably relaxed.

Overall, very nice. I should make a note to keep a few of these around for days when I’m just need some relaxing eye-candy.

Man, I haven’t bothered writing about tea in so long. Sometimes it just feels better to just drink and enjoy it though, rather than think too hard about how to best describe it.

I actually gaiwan-brewed this; it’s actually been a long time now since I’ve broken out the old IngenuiITEA to western-brew anything in. Funny how my preferred teas and brewing methods change throughout the years. Six months ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of sipping a black tea like this without the addition of milk. But today, I’m enjoying the soft chocolate and spice notes alongside a piece of buttery apple pie from the local bakery…just wonderful.

Oh man. I may be in love.

This is one of those times when I like a tea so much I don’t want to write about it, I just want to sip and savor it. Maybe later I will give more detail but I just wanted to record somewhere how much I like this, in case I forget to come back to it.

I know, worst review ever, right?

Thank goodness.

After two previous experiences with rotten, fishy-smelling shu, this one is a welcome change. I’ve been re-steeping and sipping on this for more or less twelve hours, and it’s pretty much just mildly tea-flavored water at this point, but it is so so soothing, and has been good company to cut through all these jelly-covered breads I’ve been nibbling all day.

See, I went to a farmer’s market the other day and met this really nice guy selling homemade jellies. He treated me to samples— several heaping spoonfuls of the freshest and most flavorful jellies my tongue has ever enjoyed, and I left with four jars. Now I am spreading it on anything and everything, and sometimes the fruity-sweetness gets to be a bit much. But luckily, I have this this tea, dark and and savory and a perfect balance to the syrupy-sweetness.

I am going to seriously gain ten pounds. Off of jelly. And it will be totally worth it.

I may have spoken too soon last time when I mentioned that I was feeling a tendency towards shu pu’er, because they last couple of teas I tried were both shu, and they were hardly worth writing about. But I’ve also been doing a lot of homework on pu’er over the last several days, trying to learn all I can about it, and seems that “terrible” shu is relatively common.

From what I’ve read, shu/shou/cooked pu’er was developed in an attempt to mimic aged sheng. So it goes through a sort of speed-fermentation process to achieve this. Sometimes this goes over well, and the resulting product is ready to drink. But there’s also a chance that the fermentation goes off, and the result tastes like bad fish. Sometimes the “bad fish” shu will benefit from aging in the sense that it will sort of “air out” and the weird “off” flavors will mellow, but just how much shu pu’er benefits from aging after that is highly debated.

Really, a lot of aspects of pu’er seem to be highly debated or at least conflicting. I can already tell that reading about it is only going to get me so far… that’s why I just dropped $60 on a handful of assorted samples from puerhshop.com. Most of them are sheng, since I am honestly a little leery about shu since my last two encounters with it have ranged from “meh” to “ew,” but I realize that those off-flavors are not present in every shu, and there are certainly ones out there that I adore.

But the more research I’ve been doing, the more I’ve been intrigued by sheng. It seems that sheng holds a lot more possibility for variety than shu, and while there are certainly times when I just crave shu’s dark earthiness, I am intrigued by what’s out there in the sheng-world.

But enough rambling now, this tea. I didn’t even know I had it, and I must have gotten it in a swap or something because I’ve never ordered directly from EoT. I had a little sample amount of it stashed in an old Adagio sample tin.

This stuff actually reminds me of a white tea or maybe a green tea; rather clean and clear and crisp. A bit dry, and very easily turns harshly astringent if brewed a bit too long. I’ve read that dryness/astringency are characteristics of young sheng that subside with age, so maybe that would change with time? I suppose I won’t ever know since I only have this tiny sample size, but being such a novice to all this, I can’t help but speculate. With short steeps though, this is really a nice relaxing afternoon tea.

Looking at the leaves I’m noticing a lot of stem, like maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the mix is stem. I’m not sure if that’s normal in a tea like this or not, but it’s an interesting note. The leaves are fairly broken, and there are a few buds mixed in with more mature leaves. The assorted shapes remind me a bit of looking into a bowl of chex mix. The color of the leaf is very nice, a sort of olive green mostly, but a few leaves are tinged with a lovely rusty reddish-brown.

Just another chronicle in my journey to understand pu’er!

So the last (and first) time I tried a milk oolong, I was put off by its “so-strong-it-must-be-artificial” milky flavor. I was still curious to try other milk oolongs, but finding one that wasn’t artificially flavored I could tell was going to be difficult, as the definition of a “milk oolong” does not seem to be set in stone. So when I noticed Teavivre had both a flavored and unflavored milk oolong, I figured hey, there’s no way the unflavored version could be flavored! I know, that sounds silly, doesn’t it.

This really is interesting, and definitely not artificial in the subtle flavor. I can honestly say it’s like nothing I’ve had before. It does have a very creamy, heavy feel to it, and is just slightly floral without being perfumey. It also has another flavor, one I can’t quite identify, but it reminds me of….a nice hotel room (I swear I have the strangest “flavor notes” ever…).

It’s good, but to be honest I probably should have picked a different tea tonight— I’m just really not feeling oolong-y. Gladly Teavivre is generous enough in their sample sizes that I have enough to try this again on another night (or three) when I can appreciate it a bit more.

Some note in the far far back of this tea reminds me of…Christmas. It kind of fades in and out and I keep losing and trying to find it again. But I think I’ve nailed it… worcestershire sauce. That must sound really strange, but the only time we ever made worcestershire-laden chex mix was during Christmas in my household; that’s what I’m reminded of.

I’m starting to understand why people might spend huge amounts of money on fancy yixing pots. Aside from the whole seasoning and making tea better over time thing, I hear they retain heat wonderfully, and with this tea, as well as the last pu’er I tried, I realized that my favorite flavors are best teased out on the first steeping immediately after the water is reboiled.

It’s funny, because I generally prefer to brew most teas at a lower than suggested temp. A lot of this is probably because I spent an extensive amount of my tea-life drinking Japanese greens, which are so easily destroyed by too-hot water. That, and I have an higher-than-normal aversion to astringency/dryness, which hotter water tends to bring out in most teas. But as I’m trying more sorts of pu’er, I’m learning how wonderful higher temps can be in pulling out those shy, complex flavors.

Right now my water setup isn’t exactly ideal— my water is boiled in my fancy electric water heater in the bathroom, then goes from that into a preheated thermos which I take to the desk for my tea session. Meaning the first pour is maybe just under 200 degrees (the best steeping in the case of this tea), and as the thermos sits there losing heat, the water gets progressively cooler until it’s empty and I have to go refill it with freshly boiled water again. I can’t exactly haul my water heater out to my desk… and I’d just rather not have tea sessions in my bathroom. I look forward to the day that I have a kitchen to cook (and make tea) in.

I have a confession to make though, I specifically brewed up a sheng today because I’ve noticed that the last several shengs I’ve tried have been very effective in eliciting a tea-high euphoria, and I have been under so much stress that I guess I wanted something a little more than a standard relaxing session. I wasn’t disappointed, but I wasn’t floored either— the euphoria is pretty manageable. I think it’s more effective on an empty stomach.

I may be a bit of an addict. Over the past several days my gaiwan and little fish cup haven’t left my desk; I only dump out old leaves to replace them with new ones. Meh. I need to clean out my tea inventory anyway; that way I’ll feel less guilty when I go to order new tea!