Angrboda

I have said this a hundred times already but I really do prefer fruity flavoured tea for the most part. There are noteworthy exceptions to this rule, but what it all comes down to is that these various cake-y blends don’t really appeal to me. I can’t really seem to find the ‘cake’ bits either so they just strike me as rather gimmicky and bizarre.

Jello falls in that same category, if I’m to be completely honest. However, I have learned from previous experience to just disregard the jello bit and focus on the lime bits. Which neatly makes this a fruity flavoured green tea and there you are!

Due to various activities before Christmas and then being away over Christmas we’ve been rather stuck on these for a while. I’ve opened the rest so I know what’s to come, but I’m not allowed to drink them out of order, so we’re still on it.

It smells sweet and tart at the same time, and once again the thoughts stray towards the sweetie shop. We’ve had one earlier that was very bubble gum-y, and this one has the same sort of quality. A bit more winegum-y, though. Which I suppose fits relatively well with the whole jello concept.

Sort of.

The flavour isn’t so much a sweetie as the aroma, though. I can clearly detect an ever so slightly astringent and rather vegetal green tea underneath the flavouring, and I have to say that while the aroma wasn’t really pressing any of my hopeful buttons, the flavour rather makes up for it.

It tastes like a green tea with flavouring, not flavour with tea. The flavouring is fairly mild here, a little bit tart and a little bit sweet, but above all fruity. To my vast surprise, I’m rather enjoying this.

Season’s Greetings, Steepsterites!

We have returned from spending a few days at my parents’ house over Christmas and my father’s birthday on boxing day, so we’re a bit whacked. Dinner has been ordered and we’re just winding down from all the social, and me, I’m trying not to think too much about the fact that I have to work tomorrow. Christmas was relatively good, and ‘relatively’ has something to do with some bad news we got regarding the health situation of a family member. Not unexpected, but bad all the same.

Yeah, we got totally behind on the 52teas christmas box, but I’ve opened them all on their appropriate days, so at least I know what’s coming. I have decided, however, that it’s cheating to drink them out of order. We’ll do it in our own time, I think.

Right now, we’re having the second steep of this tea which my parents in law sent me for Christmas. Or rather, it’s from Max the Cat who owns my parents in law. Max the Cat appears to have more tea-fu than we had previously given him credit for. Unlike my mother who has run out of the good bags that I’ve provided her with and tried to buy something that was a better quality than your average Lipton or Pickwick. What she ended up with were bags of a different brand, yes, but containing unflavoured rooibos, which I don’t like, or a questionable sencha. Bless. Well, she tried. I shall have to make sure to restock the supply up there for the next time we go up.

Now, this one from Max the Cat. Not only is it a very non-traditional choice of tea for them, it’s also loose leaf! I expect my mother-in-law must have had help in the shop or something, because I would be highly surprised if either of them have ever even tasted this type of tea.

Blissful Blends is one of those wellness shops that sells ayurvedic body care products and aromatic oils and what have you, so their selection of tea is likely highly limited. I found a link to their ebay store and that one didn’t even have any tea on it at all. Probably all you pu-erh conneiseurs out there would turn your nose up at the quality of this one, but me, I’m highly pleased with it.

When receiving tea as a gift, people seem to have a tendency to have chosen things that are known dislikes, so for this one not to be was a bit of fresh air. Also, it falls on a dry spot, as I’m trying to limit frivolous purchases as much as I can these days. (We also each got some money from my grandparents which we have decided ought be used on frivolity as they are gift-money. Some of mine will likely be exchanged for tea. We’ll see. It’s hard to decide what to buy with them) So at this point, brand new tea is the awesomest stuff!

I can’t make much comment on the first cup as it was had shortly after we came home, and I was in bad need of some tea, some warmth and some kitteh, so it disappeared rather quickly without too much in the way of paying attention.

This time, however, I can report that it smells quite barn-y and kind of sweet. Something akin to honey, but not really. Otherwise it’s pretty much a default pu-erh smell.

Same goes for the flavour. There’s a slightly tart, fruity start to the sip. Something berry-y, I think. Then it gets that earthy pu-erh flavour and finishes on a sweet note, which is not really honey, but not really caramel either. Something sort of in between.

All in all, it strikes me as pretty mild in flavour, and if I had to make tea for someone who had never had pu-erh before, I would hesitate to give them a cup of this, with the information that they can get a LOT stronger than this one is.

I’ve made it Western style this evening, but I shall have to try and short steep it as well eventually. I suspect it won’t come off as quite so mild and friendly in those circumstances. I would be nice if I could get it to show a little more teeth.

But right now? Being tired, cold and hungry? It’s made of liquid diamond and fairy dust.

This one seems to be extremely popular. Very hyped on Steepster indeed, and I seem to recall there being some sort of a petition to have it made permanent. I’m sure I saw that, and I believe it was about this one.

So I was fairly certain all along that it was bound to be in the box somewhere. And lo, I was proven right.

I have to say though, that I don’t really understand the hype. To me this both tasted and smelled rather like toothpaste. With marshmallows in.

For me the spearmint was almost the only thing I could taste. I could detect some marshmallow here and there underneath and nothing whatsoever of the base. Primarily spearmint.

I’m not familiar with spearmint in anything except toothpaste and chewing gum, so I can’t claim to find it all that pleasant in other things. So for the life of me, I can’t find the appeal in this blend at all. Neither could Husband, who asked permission to discard.

Had it been peppermint instead of spearmint I think I might have enjoyed it better, but as it is, I think spearmint is just way too sharp a flavour for me in general.

(Seems I’m not having an awful lot of luck with the Christmas box this year…)

Okay, I totally get the concept of various different sorts of cheesecake. I find it an amazingly appealing concept to be honest. I likes me some cheesecake, yes I do indeed, but I’ve only ever been used to a plain white one decorated with a bit of fruit, so actually flavouring one with fruits and whatnots is a whole new concept for me.

I approve, oh yes I do.

But.

Pumpkin? sigh I have had a number of pumpkin flavoured teas in the past, and not a single one of them have actually been something I can look back at and think ‘gosh, how nice!’ Pumpkin flavoured things have consistently had some sort of soapy flavour to it and I’ve never really been able to work out whether it’s a pumpkin aspect or me having had bad luck.

Caramel, however. Caramel is a very positive addition to the mix. Even if the pumpkin doens’t work out for me (again), perhaps it’ll be weighed up by the caramel.

On the whole though, these cake-y flavoured blends aren’t really the ones that appeal to me the most, and therefore it wasn’t that big a deal for me to reach the decision to declare 52teas generally Out Of Bounds. (Note, this has nothing to do with Frank or his company and everything to do with the fact that I consistently get to pay customs and imports fees on his parcels. I imagine this would be true no matter where I the US I bought from, and it’s really annoying to have to pay for my tea TWICE this way. With this Christmas box the fee was actually slightly more than the price of the tea. It has kind of stopped being funny and I’m not made of money.) This Christmas box is the frivolity I allow myself when it comes to this company.

Now, I have to admit I forgot to smell the leaf before brewing but afterwards it gave me a truly bizarre aroma indeed. Mulled wine? Mulled wine! Mulled wine and caramel pumpkin cheesecake has nothing at all in common that I can think of. Husband agrees with me on the mulled wine note and suggests it might have something to do with it smelling of cloves. I find myself rather wishing I had a glass of glögg now…

The flavour doesn’t give me this association, though. At first when it was at its hottest, I got a fair bit of caramel right at the front of the sip, followed by something rather subdued and vaguely recognisable as pumpking, but without that soapy note. What a relief, I thought.

Then the doorbell rang and the cup of tea got a short cooling off period while we dealt with that. It was the cat-sitter who’s looking after Charm and Luna over Christmas stopping by to pick up a key. I’d completely forgotten she was going to come, so I had to search in a mild panic for the stupid key because I couldn’t remember where I put it the last time. I found it though.

So coming back the cup, I find that it had developed a bit as tea are wont to do. Now there’s only a wee bit of caramel, mostly on the swallow, and a WHOLE LOT of soapy tasting pumpkin.

sigh

I can’t say I can find anything cheesecake-y in here at all though. Maybe a smidge of something that could be cream cheese, but that’s really it. I wouldn’t have thought of cheesecake on my own at all. Just pumpkin and caramel.

I’m feeling a bit torn as to how to rate this. While it was all hot and fresh and the caramel was the strongest note, I thought it was surprisingly good. At this point where there has been a completely role reversal, I’m less convinced. I think I’m going to give it around 70-ish and make it a compromise between the two.

Okay, the next tea! Again, I was sceptical as soon as I saw the label.

I almost always am when I see ‘Earl Grey’ and it’s not a black base. Earl Grey is a black tea. The end. Any other base with bergamot is simply bergamot flavoured. But then that’s just personal taste, really. And honestly, it’s also splitting hairs. Yes, I’m fully capable of seeing this myself.

Now, in the past I’ve tended to have a rather rocky relationship with Earl Grey or really most anything bergamot flavoured. Often it turns into a grey, dusty, kind of floral and somewhat attic-y sort of flavour for me, although there have been a few exceptions here. The smoky Earl Grey from Kusmi being a famous example. Gosh, that one is Teh Nom!

I also, these days, have a somewhat rocky relationship with white tea. I had a period where Bai Mu Dan was what I kept on hand as Celebration Tea. These days I get mostly a funny sort of squash-y, cucumber-y flavour profile from it which I don’t really care much for in my tea.

So what we’ve actually got here so far is a tea base I don’t much care for flavoured with a fruit I’m not a fan of.

Great.

Well. Minus times minus equals plus, right?

Then there is the black currant. I’ve been fairly fond of black currant flavoured tea for as long as I can remember. That flavouring has never really let me down. On top of that there was a black currant flavoured white tea from 52teas that was extremely pleasant. So looking at it this way I’ve got something which I know to be a hit with some bergamot in it.

Actually in spite of my misgivings about bergamot in general, the idea of the bergamot and black currant combination struck me as rather appealing. I would have just felt more confident about it if it had been on a black base, I think.

Now that I’ve gone around and been ambivalent about this whole thing for a bit, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I think it sounds pleasant.

The aroma is fairly close to how I remember that black currant flavoured Bai Mu Dan smelling only with a modicum of citrus added to the mix. Well that’s good enough.

The flavour was really much the same way, only it gave me a number of funny associations. First I thought it had a somewhat floral sort of note to it, but that went away pretty quickly. Then I thought it gave me a funny sort of plastic-y association, but that note did not go away. It stayed and after a few sips I was able to pin point where it was coming from.

It’s chewing gum. Not any particular flavour or kind of chewing gum, but that sort of feeling that you get in the mouth when chewing gum. I think it has to do with how the aftertaste is highly fruity and very long, as though it’s somehow sticky and has attached itself to my tastebuds. It’s like I’ve just been eating a lot of black currant and bergamot flavoured sweets. Winegums, maybe. Something that makes the mouth sticky.

And that brings me back to the base again, because now having tasted it, I still think I would have preferred a black base. This white one seems too delicate for this massive amount of fruit, and a black base might have been able to hold it up a bit better.

I am not having this under the best of circumstances, I must admit, because I made it upon coming home from work. Therefore I am gulping like my life depended on it (which it very nearly does!) and quite forgetting to pay attention. So today’s post might be a little superficial and stuff.

I’ll start with the beginning, namely when I opened the envelope yesterday. After having been sceptical for the first two days, this one finally got my hopes up for something that we would enjoy. Husband has a weakness for almost anything to do with lemon, so I was certain that he would like it. Me, I was struck by how much it smelled like a cross between a lemon surprise pudding and the sort of lemon pudding that my dad used to make when I was younger. (Unfortunately he can’t make it for Husband as gelatine is an important ingredient and Husband being vegetarian. He tried with agar-agar once, but it didn’t turn out very well at all).

After brewing it still has this lemon pudding medley smell. Lemony, creamy and sugary. I was pleased.

The flavour I was expecting was something a lot like these lemon puddings, and of course you just can’t do that in tea. You can get something that imitates a thick, creamy, custardy consistency, but you can’t actually get it. And the aroma was making me want that consistency.

I got over it though. You just can’t always get what you want.

The actual sip gave me initially green tea, then a funny flat note, and then a bunch of lemon-y lemonness. I don’t know what the flat note is. I can’t really describe it as anything else. It was just a feeling of flatness right there in the middle of the sip, like the first bit and the last bit weren’t properly connected. It didn’t make the tea unpleasant in anyway; it was just a bit odd, that’s all.

After the cup had been standing there for a bit and been allowed to develop slightly, the flat note gradually became shorter and weaker and after a few more minutes it was completely gone, so if I had just waited a little longer before sipping the first sip, I wouldn’t even have encountered it.

I always find it interesting how a tea can completely change character just by being left on its own for a few minutes. I’m especially noticing this in green and oolongs. Black teas do it too, but not to the same degree. They’re much more consistent in flavour most of the time.

Anyway, this did indeed live up to my expectations, if not completely then at least nearly, and Husband, predictably, gave the thumbs up as well.

I’m seriously craving a lemon-y pudding now, though! I tried my hand at aforementioned lemon surprise pudding earlier this year because I know it’s a favourite of Husband’s and it was for his birthday. It turned out really awesome (even with the dividing of eggs which is something I normally try to avoid as much as possible), so perhaps one of these days I’ll do it again.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a few top secret items to wrap.

Okay, apparently we are continuing in the bizarre section. Smoothies, for me, is not something to do with breakfast. But then again you Americans eat some odd things for breakfast sometimes. For me, a smoothie is an afternoon-y sort of snack food. But okay, I can just disregard the word ‘breakfast’ and think of it as a sort of fruity creamy flavoured tea, right? Right! Suddenly it doesn’t sound so bizarre anymore.

Haha, win! The human psyche is so easily manipulated.

GOSH! This stuff pongs! The entirety of Tea Corner currently reeks of cheap bubblegum and all I did was open the envelope to see what was inside. We’re not actually having it yet, because we just had the cotton candy one, but I opened it now so that I could be sure to see what it was for the first time that way instead of coming at it later when people had started posting about it.

Crumbs, I’m not really looking forward to this one now. O.o

It’s a honeybush base, though, which is not something I’ve had for a long time. I think the last time I had honeybush was that pina colada flavoured one that I didn’t like because of the alcoholic notes and before I discovered the ways in which rooibos can actually be made acceptable to me. By blending it with fruit. Surely honeybush should be acceptable under the same circumstances then, yes? And this time without icky alcoholic notes. That at least sounds interesting.

Yeah, a honeybush with tropical fruits. I can totally do this. I’m feeling much more positive about the prospect of drinking this one now. Maybe I’ll make it after we’ve picked up our Christmas tree.

Well, it turned out that I didn’t make it until today after all so we’re a day behind still. No matter, though. It suits me fine. I made this and served along with breakfast because although it isn’t something with caffeine in it, we normally have a black tea, it was called something with breakfast. So when else should we drink it, really.

Oh yeah and we did pick up a christmas tree by the way. The kitties are curious, but seem to like it. They have never seen a christmas tree before. None of them have tried climbing it yet, but they like sleeping under it and Luna has been beating up a couple of the lower branches. We haven’t got much in the way of ornaments, but we’ve been mass producing paper ones yesterday and for me also this morning, so it’s beginning to look like a christmas tree.

Now on to the tea. After brewing it still smells rather a lot like cheap bubblegum, but there’s a little smidge of banana emerging as well. This, I thought, does not bode well. I do like fruity flavoured teas, but there is a limit. Even for me. On top of that, most of the flavours in this stuff is what I would call tropical fruits, and I haven’t really had much in the way of luck with those in the past. I’ve had a few that were great but many that were just mediocre and generic fruit.

So with some trepidation, I sip the cup and I was surprised at how not unpleasant it was. I thought the flavour was pretty strongly banana and with some of that generic ‘tropical fruit’ underneath. Then there was a note of something sweetly spicy which I attribute to the honeybush base. I haven’t had a plain honeybush in years and years, so I don’t remember any sort of accurate flavour profile for it, but I think it was something along these lines, yes. As it cooled and developed a bit in the cup there was a strong note of citrus emerging in the flavour. Mostly orange, but also a touch of lemon.

It had a sort of thickness to it in the mouth which I think added to the smoothie aspect of the flavouring, but other than that, it struck me as merely a tropical fruit flavoured honeybush. I wouldn’t have had smoothie associations myself, had I not seen the word on the label.

So it’s not bad, but it’s not something I would go out of my way for again.

Husband reports that he too was somewhat pleasantly surprised, although he thought it had a medicinal note to it.

I have looked in the next envelope, the one for today (the 16th). I think he’ll enjoy that one!

We actually had this one late for a number of reasons.

1. As the majority of people on Steepster having this 52teas advent box are on the North American continent, I’m several hours ahead of them. In order to make sure that I don’t spoil everybody’s surprise by having it at a time which is correct for me but way too early for all the rest of you, I have decided to drink on the correct days (or as close as that can be managed) and post with a day’s delay.) Possibly this is silly because someone has to be the first, but there you are.

2. Husband was under the weather and having the first tea of the box, and this flavour in particular, seemed a Bad Idea Indeed. It’s not really the sort of flavour that settles one’s stomach.

I had already peeked at what it was before he came home, so that’s how I knew it probably wasn’t something we should have on that day. I have to say that it suited me quite well to wait a bit. This company does some pretty bizarre flavours sometimes, and I have to say that to me this is one of the more crazy ones. Even now I cannot imagine this as a tea flavour. I couldn’t imagine it being very good, at least. So frankly, I was feeling a bit scared of it.

And do you know what the truly absurd thing is? I love caramel or toffee flavoured tea, so I’m not sure why this, also a sugary substance, seems so outlandish. It’s sort of the same sort of ‘family’, isn’t it?

Well. I thought that it would probably either be horrid or it would be very nice. I hoped it wouldn’t be horrid. I hoped it wouldn’t be totally sugared, because I just don’t do sweetener in tea. For many people a modicum of sweetener in a flavoured tea seems to bring out the flavouring more. I have tried it a few times, but that has never worked for me. All I get out of adding sweetener to tea is astringency. It has certainly never ever EVER made anything ‘pop’ in any sort of desirable way. Even the smoothest unbreakable Chinese black can be ruined completely for me if sweetener is added. So I’m afraid that what I was expecting here was a cup of sugared black. WAY too sugared black.

Even so, I’m trying to keep an open mind here. Keep myself prepared for the possibility of a positive surprise.

Well. It doesn’t smell like candy floss to me. It smells more like marshmallows and dry milk to be honest. Given my misgivings about this as a flavour to begin with, I find this rather reassuring. It makes me think that while it might not actually taste like candy floss to me, at least there’s a chance that it won’t just be black tea with sugar in it. Because let’s face it. Candy floss is nothing but sugar.

After steeping it actually does smell like candy floss. Possibly because it’s hot how. That is to say, it smells strongly of warm sugar.

Sceptical Cat is sceptical.

At least it still has that marshmallow-y feel to it. I’m not a huge fan of candy floss, except when I visit Tivoli in Copenhagen. It’s the only place where I want to eat the stuff and that’s more because of the feel of the place than for the having of candy floss at all. It’s… It belongs there. In other words, I’ve only had a few times in my life and have never been able to finish one off. I can eat maybe half and then I’m done with it. Possibly this is also part of why the flavour in tea strikes me as so absurd. If this had been released on April 1st, I would have wondered if it was an April Fool’s joke. (Although nothing really beats the infamous Tuna Melt Green Incident). But I do like marshmallows and that sort of foamy sweets, so…

Right. Enough with the dragging of heels. I’m going to taste it now.

I’ll count to three and then I’ll sip.

One …

Two…

Two and a half…

Two and three quarters…

Three!

Tastes… weird. It’s not quite the ‘black tea with sugar’ phenomenon that I had feared, but it’s pretty close. Neither as it candy floss. Even less is it those marshmallows I keep smelling. I don’t know what this is, but it’s not something I’m sorry I missed out on. To me, this is just some sort of generic sweetness, complete with accompanying astringency and stickyness, although not much this time.

I feel I ought to attempt to analyse the flavour like I normally try to do, but all I’m getting here is ‘sweet black tea’. That’s it. That’s all. I tried, I really did.

This was not for me, although I suspected as much already when I saw what it was. At least it wasn’t at all as vile as I had feared. This, although, not really to my tastes at all, is at least drinkable. And I would still rather have this than real candy floss.

Seems I’m the odd woman out on this one.

I’m not entirely on speaking terms with my tummy at the moment. Or rather, it is not entirely on speaking terms with me. That seems to be a trend around Steepster at the moment. I was catching up on people’s posts and there were a number of you that mentioned having tummy troubles.

Luckily Fleurdelily sent me a bag of this stuff in her parcel, so I’ve got me a weapon to deal with it. And I still haven’t got a return parcel put together. Really, it’s getting both embarrasing and ridiculous. At this point, however, I will probably have to say that it has to wait a little while longer, and then I solemnly swear I will have one in the mail before mid-January! It’s all due to Christmas and some other things going on right now meaning I try to be frugal and spread out extra expenses a little bit. (On the upside on that front, it looks as though January will be the last payment on my student loan! YAY! And Husband has just finished paying his as well. Those are some excellent expenses to get over and done with.)

Anyway, I’m having this peppermint tea in order to try and mollify Mrs Tummy a little bit, so I really ought to tell you about what it tastes like and whether or not it’s working.

Gosh! Minty! A bit strong too. And that’s really it. What else is there really to say about peppermint? I honestly can’t think of anything. I’ve been sitting here sipping and trying to analyse the flavour like I do with regular tea, but all I’m coming up with is ‘mint.’ So I’m throwing in the (tea) towel and moving on.

As for whether it’s working, I inhaled as I slurped the first sip, and I could feel that menthol-y feeling all the way down in my esophagus. It’s still there. It feels like breathing in frosty weather. I had a slight bit of acid burn, which seems to be soothed slightly by this, but it’s still there. It’s too soon to tell whether the tummy will become less rumbly, though, but I hope so. We shall see.

As it is, I think soothing the acid burn, even just a little bit, is worth a load of points, because that feeling is really very irritating indeed.

(I really do need to stock up on a few herbs for medicinal purposes. We haven’t got very much of the vile-but-soothing Throat Tea left either, but since that’s only chamomile and licorice root, I expect it’ll be cheaper to mix it myself.)

Greetings Steepsterites!

NaNoWriMo is well and truly over and I made it with 50,010 words at ten minutes to ten last night. The last two hundred words or so were a bit of a struggle but Husband had told me I wasn’t allowed to go to bed until I was finished, so I pressed on. I’ve been unable to get any sort of a decent lead at all, hovering around par all month. Have a look at my stats page to see how close I’ve been! (http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/angrboda/novels/village-on-the-sand/stats) The validator gave me a little less than my other word counter did, but still enough to win, luckily, because my eyes felt like they were full of sand! I can now, with great relief, go back to only 750 words per day and those don’t even have to be novel-y words. They can be anything. This post, for example, counts.

So let’s celebrate this by drinking something I haven’t tasted before, and I chose this oolong from Fleurdelily and I think I’ve found the correct entry in the database. The bag it was in matches the bag on the picture anyway, so I’ve decided it’s close enough.

I’ve been holding off on this one for a while. Not for anything to do with my expectations of it, whether I was afraid of trying it or whether I expected it to be so awesome it had to be saved for later. The real reason is actually as stupid as this; I liked the bag and didn’t want to take scissors to it. There. How’s that for a silly reason? I steeled myself today, however, and am now giving it a try.

The dry leaf smelled wood-y and a bit leathery. A bit like brand new rawhide footwear. A strange association, footwear, but I chalk it up to the fact that I’m breaking in new winter boots which just happens to be made of a rawhide-like material. I think it’s synthetic actually, but they still have that smell. After steeping it’s more wood-y and not a trace of boot to be found. Instead there is a hint of something floral and a good deal of something toasted. Quite nut-like too.

The flavour surprised me. I’m afraid my very first thought was ‘fish!’ and my second thought was ‘but nice…’ so it was all rather confusing and peculiar. Now that it has been standing and developing for a few minutes, however, the fishyness has gone away and left behind something quite pleasant. It has a relatively strong floral aspect, not something I usually enjoy much, but it’s not so perfume-y and unpleasant here. Underneath that is a wood-y sort of note that is just default oolong flavour to me, and again something kind of toasty as well. The aftertaste has a mineral note to it, but not overwhelmingly so. I’m rather enjoying it, and Husband just shouted from his room that he did too.

Very first order of the agenda here, can we all please agree that the country is called NEpal and that there is no such country as NApal? Thank you. This seems a common error, and some people do it with such consistency that it can’t be a typo. NEpal. (Sorry, but it bothers me. I can usually overlook this sort of thing, but certain mistakes just jars the eye. Same with the whole palate/pallet/palette thing. (Hint, on Steepster I can with 99.9% certainty guarantee that you want ‘palate’))

Secondly, Fleurdelily shared this one with me, and I’ve been slightly afraid to try it. I’ve tried a couple of Nepalese blacks before and found them quite Darjeeling-y. But then I seemed to see a lot of good things said about it on Steepster. Claire even had a discussion board subject. So I decided it must be time to be brave.

The leaf doesn’t look like Darjeeling and it doesn’t really smell like it either, although there is a certain note of that Darjeelingesque grassy floralness.

After brewing it smells quite flora, but not in a sharp, pointy way like Darjeeling. There is a sweet, slightly malty note and also a touch of something that reminds me of raisins and other dried fruits. It’s kind of like a much milder version of Assam, rather than Darjeeling-y.

The Darjeeling-y note is there in the flavour as well, but honestly, I would have been surprised if it wasn’t. It’s not as unpleasant as I find it to be in Darjeeling, though. In Darjeeling it’s sort of stabby and pointy and gives me a funky, sour aftertaste, but there’s none of that here. Again it’s mostly like a milder version of Assam with Darjeeling aspects mixed in.

Dooars! That’s what it reminds me of the most.

If you enjoy this, try if you can find something from the Dooars region, and vice versa. Where Dooars leans more towards Darjeeling than Assam, this is sort of leaning in the opposite direction, but it’s still giving me that same feeling of middle-ness.

It’s not my ideal tea (being not Chinese, really) but I’m enjoying it much more than I had expected I would. Very interesting

I have nothing new to add to this. I just wanted to say,

I aten’t ded!

This stuff is bagged!

Bagged tea from TeaSpring. Now I’ve seen everything.

Each bag is wrapped in its own little colourful foil satchet, and I’ve seen that from TeaSpring before, but I never suspected there would actually be a bag inside. I thought it was just fairly costly stuff and therefore portion wrapped. I’ve seen that before from TeaSpring. I can’t remember exactly which tea it was, but it was a very special, blessed on an alter sort of ceremonial leaf for a specific sort of occasion. Which I’ve also forgotten what was. I can’t even remember what the type was, but I think it might have been oolong. Anyway, that’s not important for this one. It was just to say that I’ve seen TeaSpring sell portion satchets before.

This one is the last tea from my Explore China order from TeaSpring uh some time ago. This last tin somehow managed to hide among the parcels I received from other, generous Steepsterites and has gone untried.

This tea is from Zheijang, which is on the East coast of China, just north of Fujian. As far as I can tell, in spite of the name, it has little to do with the Long Jing we know as a green tea (Dragonwell). As I understand it, it is made from the same leaves also used to produce Dragonwell, but these have gone through a different preparation and taste nothing at all like Dragonwell.

It’s not really a black tea either. Not as such, because the process is not the same as for black tea. What it actually is is unknown because the producers are keeping it as a closely guarded secret, but it is apparently a reinvention of a method lost for 300 years. (How this is possible is rather beyond me. How can they know if they’re even close to getting it right? It’s not like they can do a direct comparison) It is apparently somewhat similar, but not the same as, the method used for producing pu-erh, so this tea therefore also has some of the same qualities as pu-erh, including the tendency to age well.

At first this smelled like steam-ironing cotton. No really. That smell you get when you release steam from the iron and get a cloud of it in your face. Steam and cloth. Probably especially if you use laundry soap without perfume in it like we do in this house. I swear I even heard that sound the iron makes, the blob and hiss, in my head.

After a moment, this goes away and is replaced by something that reminds me strongly of licorice root. This note first snuck into the ironing cotton note and then gradually took over, as though it was heavier than the steam and needed more time to actually rise from the cup.

There’s something else in the aroma too, something which I can’t really place. A bit like caramel, but not quite. A bit like fruit, but not quite. A bit like something creamy sweet, but not quite. A bit like marzipan, but not quite. I’m sure I know what this smell is, but for the life of me I can’t get any closer than this.

The flavour has a strong note of licorice root and ginseng. So much so that I had to go and check the details to see if there might have been additions made to the leaf. This does not appear to be the case. It is, in fact, not even mentioned anywhere in the company’s notes.

How odd! Me, I don’t understand how they could possibly miss it. And no, it absolutely can’t be contamination carried over from other teas I’ve had today. I don’t even own anything with licorice root or ginseng in it at the moment. (Except the vile Throat Tea, which totally doesn’t count as we only ever touch that one when ill)

I don’t think I’ve ever come across this note naturally occurring before. How interesting. It is definitely licorice root and ginseng, though. With each sip, I’m more certain. I even get a hint of that funny licorice root-y feeling on the soft palate when swallowing.

Underneath the licorice root-y and ginseng-y note there is something that does taste akin to the average pu-erh. It has the same sort of earthy taste, but it’s milder. It’s not as deep and dark, less broth-y. Pu-erh is for me a very strong tea, one that reminds me of caves and dirt and great big holes. This is sort of the same thing, only up in the sunlight.

I’m rambling, aren’t I? These associations that different flavours invoke are fun, but sometimes they rather get in the way of things. It’s easier when all I get is a colour.

So what I’m trying to say is, it’s kind of like a very mild (possibly slightly thin) average pu-erh, with natural notes of licorice root and ginseng.

I don’t much care for licorice root or ginseng in my tea, to be honest. I love licorice, proper Danish licorice which has nothing, nothing I tell you, to do with anise. Anise does not taste like licorice and supposedly licorice flavoured jelly beans are anise flavoured, actually. FYI. Come to Scandinavia and I’ll show you real licorice. And it doesn’t even have to be the salty sort or the salmiakki sort either (although you’re welcome to try those too if you’re feeling brave. Personally I think those two are the best sorts of licorice in the world).

I’m rambling again. What I’m trying to say here is that I otherwise really enjoy licorice flavoured things, but not in tea. For some reason I just don’t feel these days that licorice root and tea go all that well together. (A couple of years ago I was of a vastly different opinion) So these notes in this tea is rather a turn off for me, and will cost some points here.

Bonus points for being interesting though, because it really is! If you are a pu-erh enthusiast, then I would suggest that you try this one out, bags and all, because I think you would find it really interesting.

Steepsterites, when was the last time you got four flavourful steeps out of one traditional teabag full of fannings? I can tell you exactly when the last time that happened to me and that is approximately just about never.

Until today!

This stuff is holding out quite well, although I’m not going to try and get a fifth cup out of it. The fourth is already on the decline, so I don’t think I would get much out of another go.

Fleurdelily shared this one with me. There were loads of teabags of this one, and I’ve kept a third of them for myself and sent the other two thirds with Husband to work, where he’s enjoying the change of pace from his usual lemon and/or earl grey. I feared that if I didn’t I might never get around to drinking all of them up. I’ve had this a few times now, though, and I can now say that I don’t think I needed have any such fears. It’s really surprisingly enjoyable.

Very broth-y in flavour and reminding me a bit of cooked mushrooms.

I thought this tasted odd earlier today! It was stacked with the Troika tin which is nearly the same colour. I must have made the Troika instead and never realised it.

GOSH do I feel dumb now! LMAO! :D

I think this was the one that Fleurdelily sent me.

Initially I had a little happy when I saw this, because I like berries in general in tea. I just had the one bag and that turned out to be lucky because when I went to make it, I had not seen that it has hibiscus in it.

I cannot abide hibiscus. It tastes like blood. All metallic and sour. Ew.

At first I had a small suspicion when I poured water on it, and it immediately started bleeding a strong, bright red colour. However, while this is a tell-tale hibiscus sign, I have learned that it’s not the only ingredient to do that.

Not until now when I came to post did I see the truth of the matter.

And even if I hadn’t, I would have found out by the aroma. Let’s just say that this does not smell like any raspberry I am willing to eat. It’s all sour and ugh. Luna the Cat appears to agree. This aroma does not give me very high hopes for the flavour.

No, indeed not. It doesn’t taste like a raspberry I am willing to eat either. It doesn’t taste like raspberry at all! It’s just all sour and hibiscus-y. I can’t drink this without making a face, and trust me, I have tried my very best here.

Which leads me to a bit of a rant, frankly. American blends with berries seem to be loaded with hibiscus nine times out of ten. I have even seen people here on Steepster marvel at the fact that berry-flavoured blends without hibiscus even exist. What’s with all the hibiscus, people? It does not taste like berries! Berries are not sour by definition and not all berries taste the same, so if you take the trouble to actually use berry flavouring alongside the hibiscus, why do you insist on making it taste uniformly tart with hibiscus? Do you even have tongues to taste with?
It is possible to make something berry flavoured without letting it even stand next to a hibiscus flower. As far as I can tell this is largely an American phenomenon (do-doo-dodo-do), and I have never ever seen a European fruit or berry blend that contained hibiscus, while still claiming to be a plain fruit blend. Ever. Never ever ever.

Now I realise that this is a raspberry herbal and that implies that there are different sorts of things in it that aren’t tea. Raspberry leaves and raspberry flavouring, this I expected. But rosehip and hibiscus, just to make it red and tart, oh so very tart indeed, this I don’t understand. Does raspberry not taste sufficiently like raspberry on its own?

So chalk this down as a massive disappointment from someone who has been curious about raspberry leaf for sometime and believed she was going to try it at last. I don’t need to try hibiscus. I know what that tastes like.

I’m sorry, Fleurdelily but this one was just not for me at all. To be frank, even if I had seen that it contained hibiscus, I would probably have tried it out anyway because you never know when something otherwise unpleasant suddenly shows up in just the right combination. I had that experience with rooibos that was sent to me and it completely turned my opinion of rooibos upside-down. Just ask Cteresa. I suppose I’m vaguely hoping that the same thing might happen with hibiscus, but I’m not really super-optimistic about it.

Gosh, I think I botched this pot. Bit strong…

Anyway, I think I just had an epiphany of sorts. Does ‘Hong Cha’ mean ‘black tea’? Or rather, ‘red tea’ given the Chinese denominations?

If yes, can I always count on the word ‘Hong’ referring to the type, or is it only if it’s combined with ‘Cha’?

When one woman’s ick is another woman’s nom, it’s awesome that we can share. fleurdelily didn’t care for this one, and although it’s far from my Perfect Vanilla Black, I can guarantee that it will get legs to walk on in this house. :)

Return parcel will follow. Eventually. Please be patient with me…

Fleurdelily sent me a couple of these bags, and also some strawberry ones of the same brand. I’m mentioning those here as well because the packaging of these bags is amazingly attractive. All colourful and with large drawings of the fruits in question. The sort of packaging that says ‘you KNOW I will taste good, because I look so good!’ From the moment I took them out of the box, I was looking forward to trying them.

That happens very rarely for me when I see bagged tea!

I’m having the peach and passionfruit now, and I must say that peach is a funny thing for me. I like peaches to eat and peach-flavoured things in general, but have always avoided it in tea because it is very much a hit and miss flavour for me. I never know what I’ll get with peaches in tea, and there doesn’t seem to exist a middle of the road for me.

Apart from the packaging, I must admit I wasn’t expecting much from a bagged tea in the peach-flavour-liking department, but perhaps it’s the addition of the passionfruit that does it here, because this one is actually quite pleasant. (Could also depend on what sort of base is used, I guess)

I think it has passionflowers as well as passionfruit actually, because there is a fairly floral taste to it, which prevents the peach from getting that nearly cloying flavour that I dislike in peach tea. Ironic really, because I don’t normally care much for floral teas either.

This one tastes quite warm and autumn-y, which is a surprise because I always connect tropical flavours with summer, but there is a sort of spicy note in here which may be the floral aspect or something else entirely that just says autumn. It fits the current grey and wet weather rather nicely.

I’m pleased with this.

I finally got around to this one, and it’s just as well, because it’s taking up a lot of space on my desk. I’ve taken to keeping the teas I haven’t posted about yet on my desk next to the computer so that they don’t disappear in the collection or end up like the four red fruits black from Le Palais des Thes which we’ve gone through 200 grams of and I never actually posted about it. I thought I already had!

So yes. New system. This system keeps them in full view at all times, and encourages me to get to them faster so that I can get my desk back!

This one is from the Verdant order I made some time ago and had been standing there un-opened, taking up a lot of space. I usually have pretty good experiences with Dancong and tend to find them very similar to Da Hong Pao, but somehow more me.

I suspect this is one I’ll be drinking throughout the day today. It’s wednesday, which means I’m off work (oh I luuuuurrrrve working part time!) and I’ve got a to-do list the length of my leg. Well, nearly. Two pages anyway, with half the usual margins and slightly smaller font size. 116 items. Many of them are tiny things that will take maybe five minutes but which I’ll forget to do otherwise so that’s why it’s so long. This approach worked out awesomely for me last week with nearly 80% completion and Husband commenting on the all-round tidyness of the house when he came home, so I’m repeating the success. So here we go. A tea that can be repeated easily throughout the day.

To that end I started out with twice my normal amount of leaf and half my normal steeping time, and the result is something that smells remarkably like honey. And milk, somehow. Or at least sort of creamy. The aroma isn’t very strong, so that’s all I can pick up at this point.

It tastes like Dancong. That’s my first thought when I tasted it. Tastes like Dancong. Um, right. I should sincerely hope it would! O.o And also like oolong. (Duh, brain. Pull yourself together with the associations, please!) That sort of dark, slightly woodsy and kind of humid oolong-y taste that all oolongs must have. If they don’t, it’s a serious flaw for me.

I also like my darker type oolongs to have a sort of caramel-y note. Not outright caramel flavoured, because for some reason I can’t actually imagine that would work, but a natural swet and creamy note that invokes caramel. This is not a requirement in the same way that the oolongness is, but I do prefer it.

Third, it must not be too floral in flavour, and this is where Dancong and Da Hong Pao part ways for me. Da Hong Pao has a tendency to be more floral for me than Dancong. This is not always so, but it seems to be a tendency.

This one has the oolongness and the honey-y, caramel-y creaminess and none of the floralness that I could find. The flavour is somewhat delicate though, and I suspect I could actually easily have left my steeping time at my usual two minutes, even though I had used more leaf. I didn’t really take the volume of the leaf properly into account when I thought I doubled it, so I suspect that I actually used close to my normal amount although it looked like a lot.

Mind you, this is very nice, but do hope that I can bring some forcefulness out in the flavour in the next steeps.

The second steep is back to my normal steeping time. The flavour is the same as the first steep, only stronger this time. All the notes are there and in the same amounts compared to each other. They’re just less delicate now. This is what I hoped would happen.

I’ll take a break with it now and leave the computer before this hospital e-learning course drives me completely batty! It’s mandatory and involves watching a little film which I have now restarted more times than I can count because it just won’t play right. I officially give up! throws up hands

This one came from Auggy and one of the last ones I’ve got left untried from her massive parcel.

I’ve only had milk oolong a few times before and have never quite been certain what to make of it. I’ve liked it, but I have never fallen head over heels for it like so many other people seem to have. Two, I think I’ve tried, and mind you, I have not even the first clue about whether either of those two were actually flavoured with steamed milk (I think that’s how it’s done?) or with the milky note naturally occuring and I don’t know which this one is either. It’s possible that the difference between these two types may mean a rather large difference in the head over heels department.

This one tastes primarily green oolong-y. At first when I just made it, there was lots of milky aroma and the first few sips had lots of it in the flavour as well.

Now that it has sat here and cooled slightly and developed a bit, the milky note has been pushed rather to the back. It is now there in the aftertaste and peeking out here and there in the actual sip, but not really able to get a word in edgewise.

So what I’ve got left seems like it could have been almost any sort of green oolong, just not counting the aftertaste. Somewhat vegetal and slightly sharp, it reminds me of dark, leafy greens, and with a very strong oolong-y wood-y touch to it.

Because I know it’s a milk oolong, I can pick up on the milk in the aftertaste and in between here and there, but if I hadn’t known anything about that, I wouldn’t have been able to guess. And do you know what? I almost think I prefer it that way. Milk oolong in general sounds like something that I might find a bit cloying if overdone and I definitely like this one better than the first one I ever had. I remember that one primarily because both the smell and the flavour of it gave me associations of warm yoghurt. (I’m fairly certain that one had been made with the steamed milk, actually)

It’s been too long since I’ve had a regular green oolong, so I can’t actually tell if I like this better than green oolong in general or the other way around. I’ll have to have a regular soon, but right now I’m finding this one rather enjoyable and not at all what I had thought I would get.

Dear foreigners! Have you ever had elderberry soup or is that a German and Scandinavian thing only? When I saw that I could by dried elderberries to use as a tisane, elderberry soup was the first thing that popped into my head. Elderberry soup is a treat for dessert in autumn, I think. Piping hot, and possibly with a scoop of good quality vanilla ice cream. Clearly then I had to try this.

That combined with the fact that I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen elderberries (or elderflowers for that matter) in conjunktion with tea or tisanes. I don’t know why it’s so rare.

So obviously I had to try this. I really very much had to try it.

I went in to ask Husband if he also wanted to try a cup and he gave me a thumbs up sign before I had the chance to tell him what it even was. So we shall see where that bit of bravery will take him. Or foolhardyness, possibly. We shall see.

The berries are just berries. No leaves, no additives, no nothing. Just berries. They smell a bit like dried cranberries, actually, but then again elderberries do have that same sort of tartness to them.

After having been steeped, the aroma is elderberry soup alright, although it’s obviously not as viscous as the soup. It’s not quite as violently purple either which I have to admit came as a slight disappointment to me. Half the fun of elderberry soup is eating something with that colour.

The flavour is much milder than the soup too. I admit I was a bit worried, because if it was as strong as in the soup, it might get to be a bit much pretty quickly. I like the soup as an occasional treat, as mentioned, but I can only eat so much of it at the time before it gets to be too much.

I don’t think there’s any danger of that with this tisane. It’s quite mild and pleasant. Fruity, slightly tart and kind of semi-earthy in flavour.

You know, I really don’t understand why this berry doesn’t get used in flavouring tea! To me a strong flavoured berry like this seems totally obvious to flavour things with. With the amount of flavouring that comes out of these dried berries alone, however, it should be totally easy to make my own. Any otherwise dull tea should be spruced up considerably but adding a spoonful of these to the leaf. Elderberry soup usually has apple in it as well, so an apple flavoured tea without probably be awesome to use as well.

I’m not sure I would buy these again, just to drink them on their own like this, but I could totally see myself buying a small stock to experiment with mixing in other teas.

Husband, bizarrely, thinks it tastes like tomato soup. I don’t know, Steepsterites… Tomatoes??? O.o I can’t even!

This is my third green tea in, oh, about a week I think! It all started that day when I suddenly had this green tea craving. It’s a whole little phase with me, I think. I wonder how long it’s going to continue, because it’s a peculiar time of year to develop such a phase.

Still, I don’t mind. I would like to be more of a green tea drinker, but it’s just more than reasonably difficult to find any that can truly compete with my love for the black tea types.

But, here is another one! This one I got as a sample from Chaplon with my recent order and I initially chose it because I thought it was an Indian green tea flavoured with lemon. I didn’t actually bother with reading the description until now, because it turns out that it’s a blend of Sencha and Chun Mee flavoured with lemon oil from a variety of lemon called Indian Lemon.

Aha. Learn every day and all that jazz.

The dry leaf smelled mostly lemon juice-y and after brewing there is something along the lemon note which must be the base tea. It’s just coming across as sort of spicy. Kind of pepper-y, bizarre as that may sound. There are also the more standard sort of green tea notes, the vegetal leafyness, but mostly it’s lemon and this funny sort of spicy sub-note.

The flavour is not as fresh and perky as I had expected. It doesn’t give me that sort of ‘Ooooh refreshment!’ spike of tartness and summer that lemon normally gives me. I think this is caused by the blended base. Had the base been a single tea, it would have been a sharper flavour, I think. As it’s a blend of two on their own already pretty flavourful teas, the base has become far broader and has much more presence. It seems to cover many more flavour points than any single tea of each type could, and somehow manages not to make a mess of it. And stretched over this whole thing, is a fairly strong lemon.

And it is a strong lemon. This lemon reminds of those really cheap Earl Greys, where the bergamot has been stretched with lemon flavour. It’s actually very close that same flavour, only here it’s much better than in something pretending to be Earl Grey exactly because it’s not claiming to be an Earl Grey.

As a flavoured green tea, this is very nice, and I suspect Husband might enjoy this one. I have used half my sample for this cup and will make sure to share the other half with him.

As something to take care of these green tea cravings, however, it’s not really working. It just seems like an entirely different beast than a clean, single-type green tea.

Damn and blast! My post disappeared! That stuff never happens to me. That’ll teach me not to write in a different place and copy/paste like I normally do.

Anyway, the gist of it is the following,

-My nose and tastebuds are still broken. Or re-broken, as they worked briefly.
-I am touching base with familiar favourites and reacquainting myself.
-Still have a cold to some degree, but do not feel otherwise ill, so it’s tolerable.
-I am getting ready for NaNoWriMo, and would like to hear from the people going by Butchcraft and Nephele on nanowrimo.org so that they can tell me who they are, as they don’t appear to have ever been added to my inter-site spreadsheet and I’m sure I must know them from somewhere. So if they see this, could they please contact me?