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Queued post, written May 7th 2014

I’m cold to the bone and quite tired which probably doesn’t help with the whole body temperature thing either. But it’s May, dammit, and I refuse to turn the radiator further up. I was up late because I was watching the first semi-final for the Eurovision Song Contest. Denmark is hosting this year (and there’s somewhat of a scandal behind the scenes because the whole thing has turned out to be a LOT more expensive than various people holding the purse strings had initially been told, so suddenly there was a slew of extra bills. I expect that’s why Denmark has such a rubbish song this year. They want to be certain they don’t have to pay for it again next year) Also, regarding the countries that qualified for the final on Saturday… WTF, Europe??? O.O And can someone please explain to me, using small words and diagrams, why exactly Armenia’s ultra-boring song is the bookmakers’ favourite?

KS had this tea yesterday and it made me think I should have a sample of it too. The name rung a bell, so I had a rummage through the box of untried things and lo and behold! Courtney had shared a sample with me. How lucky am I?! I need a bit of luck after all the wrong songs qualified and only half of the good songs did.

When Husband and I were in Norwich for our honeymoon, we had caramel flavoured hot chocolate (which didn’t taste very nice) and it smelled quite like this tea. Very cocoa-y and very caramel-y, but both notes are so strong that they keep trying to out-do each other. The whole thing becomes quite toffee-y. The cocoa note also has a tinge of wood-notes to it, which makes me think wood notes and cocoa notes are ‘related’. Same way that the same note in a Keemum can be floral or almost smoky.

The flavour has a wood note as well and it’s the first thing I notice. After that, the tea becomes quite sweet and sort of in between caramel and honey. KS told me, when I asked about whether he thought it was a strong tasting tea, that he thought it tasted like a sort of mix between Dian Hong and Fujian. I find that’s a very accurate description, actually. The honey-y notes from Dian Hong and the cocoa-y notes from Fujian.

I thought this tea was very enjoyable indeed. I would probably have enjoyed it even more, had I not been distracted by curious activity going on under the road bridge on the other side of our garden fence. A guy had parked there and proceeded to unpack a drum kit. He spent a good hour arranging drum kit and some mats around it and just generally going back and forth between his drumkit and the car. It was highly mysterious and I could see it all from my window. Turns out, I think it was some sort of activity the local school was doing, because a group of ten children showed up accompanied by another adult who took photos and sat there as audience while Drum-Guy drummed at them for maybe ten minutes or so. Then they spent some 20 minutes playing on the playground on the other side of the bridge and cleared off, after which Drum-Guy spent another hour packing everything back into his car. Two hours arranging, packing and unpacking for ten minutes drumming! I hope the children got something out of it. But anyway, all this unusual activity meant that the tea got somewhat cold before I could finish it.

No problem, though, because it tasted eminently resteepable and I also have enough leaf for one more go.