Angrboda

The last untried tea from the pu-erh sampler. I wasn’t too impressed with the loose green pu-erh, so really I’m just hoping that by being pressed into touchas this will be somehow different and better.

The smell when I poured it into the cup wasn’t really too assuring. Sweet and extremely butter-y. Little bit salty too. In the cup where the liquid is at rest, there is the well-known pu-erh smell too, but at this point I still have the vast amounts of melted butter fresh in my memory and it comes across as too little too late.

This is salty. It reminds me a bit of TeaSpring’s Long Jing, which I don’t think I’ve actually posted about yet. I think I’ve got notes for that one in my Backlog Later files. I didn’t care much for that one either, as I recall, due to the amounts of salted butter notes in it. I wonder if this stuff might be based on Long Jing, or a Long Jing type tea.

I can pick up a little of the characteristic pu-erh earthiness, but again, it’s really just too little too late.

I have a strong suspicion that whoever invented this type of tea did not have the likes of me in mind at the time. I can drink this, but I’d sort of prefer not to. I’ll probably finish off the samples just to be rid of them because I don’t like throwing stuff out unless I really seriously didn’t like it, but it’s definitely not something I’d purchase another time.

Give me a proper ordinary pu-erh anytime.

Lexitus was in Germany recently and brought this stuff home for me. I asked for something fruity, and fruity was exactly what I got. This stuff is nothing, really, but dried fruit. Apples, strawberries, pineapple, papaya and carrot pieces, along with a couple of things I had to look up, namely elderberries and beetroot.

Beet.

Root.

My german is rudimentary at absolutely best, but I was pretty sure that I had that one right. I was just kind of hoping that I was wrong.

It doesn’t have hibiscus in it. It doesn’t say so in the ingredients and I can’t spot any in the actual… can’t really say leaves…. mix either.

But it does have a very very very bright red colour. Like hibiscus-red. It smells mainly like a hot mix of apple and strawberry juice.

It doesn’t, thankfully, have any hibiscus flavour, so now I know they didn’t try to hide some in there. I can usually pick up that metallic flavour of blood hibiscus even in small amounts, so I’m feeling much safer now. I’m not surprised beetroot would produce such a colour (if you are peeling both potatoes and beetroot, do the potatoes first and the beetroots after, unless you want funny coloured potatoes. Just saying)

Not a lot of flavour as such actually, which surprises me because the dry mix has a very LARGE aroma. The pineapple especially is really tearing at the nostrils.

I can find the apple, mostly. The strawberry needs a little searching for, but it’s also there. A dash of pineapple is there too with the elderberries. The papaya and the carrot doesn’t seem to have much of a presence and I suspect the beetroot is mainly there for the colour.

On the whole it’s a wee bit on the tart side, which for me is a bit odd, because I generally prefer the more sour apple sorts. I’m sure I’ll finish off the bag that the englishman bought for me easily enough, but I’m not going to be heartbroken when it’s gone.

I might try mixing it in with some of the black tea my Turkish colleague gave me. I never seem to get around to doing that turkish tea brewing and I didn’t really find them over the top wonderful in a western style brewing. A small amount of this stuff mixed in should be able to give almost anything a bit of a lift.

All in all, not bad.

CHAPTER 2 (Lexitus said I should call it that, the mocking … thing!)

I’m on steep 1½ now. My first cup was only about half the contents of the little pot I made, so I still had the other half left. I dumped a spoonful of the turkish leaves into the pot and topped it off with boiling water.

The result is a darker red and with the addition of some real tea, it’s actually quite nice. There’s a very sweet sugary note suddenly that wasn’t there before. It tastes like the strawberry is really brought to the front of the flavour this way.

It’s possible that I didn’t steep it long enough the first time around, but for me it just seemed a bit flighty and lacking without the solid base of tea underneath it. It’s got some support now and becomes more of what I had initially expected of it.

I’ll give it a nudge upwards from 64 points, and will likely be having it this way in the future.

I’m so pleased that Auggy liked this one as much as she did! I knew I was right about it having a strong smoky note, even if by my usual seat-of-the-pants western brewing of standard amount of leaves + standard amount of water for until-either-forgotten-or-impatient brewing style, it was a bit difficult to reproduce.

Auggy went by the recommendations on TeaSpring’s website so I felt inspired to do the same. And discovered that this meant twice my usual amount of leaves in half my usual amount of water. Oh dear me. The tin only have enough left for half a pot by my usual sloppy brewing style now. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Whatever shall I do??? (Order more. Right. Adding Tan Yang Jing Zhi to shopping list and hope desperately that that leaf grade is as good as this one. If not, I think I’ll cry)

Anyway, I’m definitely finding that when I brew it this way I get all those different layers I found at the same time instead of one overpowering the others. Interesting. I’m not as good at identifying each note as accurately as some you other people are, but if I drink this and compare it to Auggy’s post, then I’m finding I pretty much agree completely with everything there. Except the extreme amounts of cocoa notes in the aroma. I’d caught that one by myself.

It does win by being brewed properly like this, but the amount of leaves used this way is a bit of a hold-back for me. I’m too damn stingy for brewing like that, especially with this one! I mean money ain’t growing on trees, Steepsterites! Unless, apparently, you are growing this tea. $10.50 for 50 g. And the leaf grade that they have left now is $17.60 for 50 g. Just saying.

Wait a minute…

Is that…?

Can it really be…?

YES!!! IT’S THE ELUSIVE SWEET NOTE! I’M NOT CRAZY!

confetti

It’s been a while since I’ve been in a proper oolong mood. I had oolong yesterday, but that wasn’t a green one. I would say, though, that it was probably that one that gave me a push back to oolong territory and made me look in the NBT oolong sampler box. Most of the ones I have left are regional oolongs and a couple of more specific types. I wanted a green one, and I couldn’t be sure about the regional oolongs and I couldn’t remember about the chinese types which was green and which wasn’t, and rather importantly, I couldn’t be bothered to go look it up. Also didn’t really have time to do so because the water was already close to boiling.

So I went with the safe choice. It’s not exactly a new tea for me at all, but it was the only one I could be certain was a green oolong.

First impression wasn’t greath, though. I poured a few of the leaves out in my hand before putting them into the pot, and while they did have that pellet-y rolled up shape, they seemed small in size. Almost broken. TeaSpring’s TGY has the best leaves of the TGYs I’ve seen so far. They are large and with a clear deep green colour. These ones seemed to have a withered yellow tint to them.

There’s nothing wrong with the colour of the tea after steeping. It’s a pale golden yellow and completely transparent. The only thing here that could be even loosely described as murkiness is my own fingerprints on the glass cup. And that totally doesn’t count.

The aroma is barely worth mentioning. What is there is sweet and vegetal as it should be. There is just so very little of it. I really had to sit here and search for it and that’s just not right.

I’m sorry to say that the flavour here is as pale as the aroma. I’m brewing this by guesstimation like I usually do, so it’s not impossible that someone with the patience for it can get more out of it than I can by tweaking some parameters. It has all the right flavour notes here, sweetness, grassyness with a touch of nuttyness and a slightly acidic aftertaste. It’s just sort of muted a bit.

After the cup has been allowed to sit and develop for a bit, this improves considerably. It’s not inconceivable that sometimes a cup of tea has to ripen a bit and that this is one of those times.The flavour as such doesn’t change. The same notes in the same combinations and the same proportions. It’s just more intensive now and I’m feeling a lot more happy with this tea. I was concerned that such a pale flavour wouldn’t really hold up to re-steeps, but now I don’t think that’ll be a problem.

I still don’t think I can really justify rating higher than this, though. At least not at this point. Perhaps later.

At first I let myself be inspired by Madison’s Thai Chai to have the Coconut Cream Pie from 52teas, y’know, because of the coconut. So I went to get that out of the cupboard and ended up choosing this one instead. I’d forgotten I had this, and the discovery made me want this more than the other one today.

Apparently I’ve liked it before, judging from the rating I gave it. Can’t remember what I thought of it though.

I’ll tell you know though, that I can definitely taste some dark oolong here. One of those daaaaaark flavours. Borderline pu-erh notes. It even has a touch of that same coppery colour.

…This is oolong, right?

Topped with plenty of raisin flavour (I still can’t get over the fact that I like raisins now, apparently. Weird.) this is indeed a nice cup, so I think I agree with myself on the rating points.

I think the funny borderline pu-erh-y earthy flavour must stem from the fact that I’m used to and tend to prefer greener oolongs.

I have absolutely definitely taken this tin this time. I have checked the tin in my hand several times and not put it down between then and scooping out my leaf dosage.

Interesting to see which sort of flavour it’ll have this time. Scent is sweet, fruity and somewhat astringent. Assam-y, although the sweetness isn’t so much a honey note as it is in Assams. There’s a hint there of something that could be slightly smoky, but on aroma alone I can’t really tell if it’s just an aspect of the astringency.

Now for the interesting bit. Are you ready Steepsterites? Has anybody started a pool on this? Will it be fruity? Will it be smoky? Will it be an Assam impersonator? Last chance to lay down your bets!

And the tea is…..

drum roll

Hmm… What is it, actually?

If anybody did start a pool on this, then I’d say you have all won. It’s sort of fruity, with a touch of Assam-y cardboard and a round of smoke. I’m beginning to think that it has been like this all along, but I have discovered these three things one at a time, and now that I’m aware that they’re around, I’m getting the full picture. Like a sort of jigsaw tea.

It is a very nice cup indeed, this jigsaw tea, and I’ll be sad when it runs out. Every time I have it I consider giving it a few more points. It seems to have been in limited supply because it’s gone from Teaspring’s website. They have one of a different grade still though. I just can never remember if special grade is better than refined grade or if it’s the other way around…

Smokies and pu-erhs are for me of the same sort of ‘flavour family’, if you get what I mean. So now that I ran out of Auggy smokies to try, I had the choice of going back to the wide selection TeaEqualsBliss provided me with or the education in japanese greens from EvaPeva. I chose to go back to the sampler sets from Nothing But Tea, because there are a few of them that I really want to buy and I have told myself that I’m not allowed to do this until I’ve gone through the samplers. In my small pot, I can get two sessions out of each sampler and I’ve also imposed the rule on myself that I’m not allowed to use the second serving until I’ve used the first serving of all the samples in a set. No, it makes absolutely no sense, but that’s OCD for you.

It’s been a while since I’ve been in these boxes and I haven’t really been in much of an oolong mood recently. I can’t really remember much of what I thought of the pu-erhs I’ve tried. I remember not being impressed with the green one, I remember really liking the orange flavoured one and I remember having fallen for the imperial one. Supply of the latter, iirc, being limited. Apart from that, I’m lost. No clue about any characteristics apart from the cowstableyness that is for me the definition of pu-erh. So no help there.

I’m brewing western style because quite frankly I don’t have the patience to sit here and mess with a million ultra short steeps. I’ve wasted most of the day already giving myself blood pressure problems over SimCity 2000, so the LAST thing I need right now is something that requires attention and thought process.

The colour looks great when I’m pouring the cup. It has that shade of coppery brown that looks just right. The aroma is sweet and earthy, and so closely related are pu-erhs and smokies for me that I was suprised to find that it didn’t have a smoky note.

Oh, but this is very nice indeed! It has a fresh sort of happy flavour. Earthy, hidden and slightly dusty, but it’s a happy flavour. This tea is saying, “I am finished! I am ripe and mature! Look out world, because here I come!” And then it bounces off in search of something fun to do.

I wish I had a better recollection of what the Imperial pu-erh was like, because I don’t really know actually if I like this one better or not or if it’s the same. I will definitely want to purchase one of them. Time will tell which one it’ll end up being.

I trust Auggy. If she says, as a fellow disliker of rooibos, that this is a good smoky, then I believe her.

Even if it has what looks like a LOT of rooibos in it.

I was a bit apprehensive of this one, going around poking the tin cautiously for a while now. It’s the last one of the Auggy-smokies, so there’s no way to postpone it any longer.

The dry leaves smell more woody and Earl Grey-y than I had expected. Spicy too. Pepper-y. I reminded of cayenne and such like. (I trust Auggy)

There is a sweet, honey-y smell from the cup when I pour, and when I smell a bit closer, there the smoke is. It’s not a very permeating note in the aroma, but it’s there. In combination with the rooibos it turns into a funny citrus-y note, which brings my mind back to the Earl Grey-ness of the dry leaves.

I trust Auggy.

Okay, here goes. This is me about to have rooibos blend. (This is me post-poning the moment, actually). I have my sugar dispenser within reach, just in case I need to drown out some of the rooibos. Okay. Insert trusting Auggy mantra here. Right. takes deep breath and gathers courage

Okay, this is odd.

sips again

This is unmistakably rooibos. sips But it sort of doesn’t taste entirely like rooibos. The smoke is doing some weird things to it. That special sweet/spicy/sour note of regular rooibos is very underplayed here, barely there at all, but it tastes a bit like there ought to be a handful of freshly cut wood chips in there.

It’s supposed to have a lychee note too. I’m in the fortunate position that I actually know what lychees taste like (they’re very yummy) so I know which flavour to search for. And it is indeed there. A bit woodier than the real fruit, but it’s there loud and clear on the swallow and to some degree in the aftertaste.

The smoke itself, because the smoke is what’s important here, is not really very obvious when you drink this. Mostly I’m just sitting here considering what an odd general flavour it has, and then the smoke comes in as a sort of after thought. If it hadn’t been for the smoke, however, I’m really not sure I could have made myself finish the cup.

With the smoke it is a very nice cup indeed, but it’s not one I couldn’t live without. (Unlike that Andrews & Dunham Caravan… What’s to become of me now?) Of these four that Auggy shared with me, I would put this one as my least favourite. Which isn’t really saying much considering that I’m still giving it so many points.

My trust in Auggy suffered no damage on account of this tea, even if I was quite apprehensive about it at first.

What a strange and complicated tea.

Since Steepster is featuring Andrews & Dunham today, I thought maybe it was time for yet another debut for me. Because their Caravan is the third of the smokies that Auggy shared with me. I can’t actually remember what anybody has said about this one, which makes it a brand new experience for me. I’m expecting something Russian Caravan-ish.

Lovely smoky smell, but there is also a very sweet note here. Like syrup-y sweet. And something vaguely spicy.

As for the taste, OMG!

Oh! Em! Gee! o.O

So smoky! So sweet! SO GOOD!

It’s primarily sweet, as if it had sugar in it, and then the smoke is just rounding it off and preventing it from being too sweet. This is like SO seriously good. I’m all…

Excuse me, Steepsterites. I can’t finish this post. This tea and me, we would like to spend some time alone…

Thank you Auggy!!! (Again)

ETA: If I give it a double-lenght steep, I can get two good steeps out of these leaves. A bit thinner the second time around, but definitely still very nice. Little bit of cane sugar added to enhance the sweetness.

I do seem to have contracted a case of the mini-burps which is quite annoying, but hopefully not tea related…

No notes yet.

Goodmorning Steepsterites.

sigh

I have NOTHING to DRINK!!!

I briefly considered trying one of the remaining Auggy-teas, but eventually came to the conclusion that early morning boredom wasn’t really the right circumstance for that. Considering how quickly the cardboard-y note incarnation of the Tan Yang Te Ji vanished yesterday morning, I eventually decided to let myself be inspired by that and make some real Assam.

Ouch, hot!

Yes, it’s definitely reminding me of yesterday morning. A bit stronger perhaps but very similar.

I checked that I took the right tin yesterday.

But can we ever really be completely certain?

Unrelatedly, my TTB participants can look here (http://iarnvidia.livejournal.com/) for the first part of a couple of posts about the box. The second part should be up soonishly, I hope. (Yes, I know it was posted ages ago, but I thought it would be used for someone else so I didn’t tell)

And the oddness continues. Seriously there are strange things afoot in this tin!

I shall tell you why.

If you go check my other two posts about this one you will find the first one in january where I said that it was surprisingly fruity and sweet for a black tea, that it had a raisin-y note, and that if I hadn’t known otherwise I would have believed it to be a flavoured black.

The second post was the other day where most likely due to a slight over-steep it had turned totally smoky, and I couldn’t understand how that had happened, but I liked the tea better for it and gave it a few more points, from 76 to 80 if memory serves me right.

Then this morning I made a little pot for my travel mug. I wanted some of that smoke. And what did I get? Well, certainly not anything remotely smoky! Instead there was that distinct cardboard-y note that you’ll find in Assams. It was still a strong cup and I drank it with unusual haste, but it was still the third of three completely different cups.

And it is the same tin. I’ve checked.

I can’t for the life of me understand what’s going on here. Can tea-leaves have multiple personality disorder?

No matter what though, I can’t ignore the impulse give it some more points again.

I wonder what it will taste like tomorrow?

How about a backlog? The good thing about backlog notes is I can make a post even when I’m not actually having any tea. (No specific reason, just drinking something else at the moment) The bad thing is I don’t really want to write up the ones that I didn’t like, so there’s a certain lack of balance in that document…

My Golden Moon debut and the second one of Auggy’s gift teas I’ve tried! When Auggy told me about what she would like to gift me with, she mentioned that this Lapsang Souchong has a surprisingly sweet flavour for an LS. It reminded me a bit of that sweet phantom note in A. C. Perch’s Lapsang that try as I might, I can’t find again.

The leaves smell very smoky, and the actual tea is smoky too. Quite smoky, in fact I’d say. Smoke is just not the first note I’m finding.

At first there is something way more substantial. Something solid. It’s (work with me here, Steepsterites) a bit like pu-erh, only without the earthyness. Without the cowstableness. I mean, it doesn’t taste like pu-erhs at all, it just sort of creates the same flavour intensity sensations.

Then, after that, YES!!! There it is! Sweetness. That same sort of sweet note that has disappeared from my ACP Lapsang. Smoky smoke is smoky, but underneath it the sweetness lies. I can only describe it as kind of thick. It’s not a specific flavour other than ‘something sweet’, but it tastes like something that would come in globs, not in puffs or powders.

There is also a small note of some kind of leaf-y something. It’s not grassy or fruity or any other word that suggests right-off-plant-ness, nor is it an earthy stored note like pu-erh. It’s in between. Like dried flowers (except it’s not a flowery flavour either) or leaves pressed between the pages of a heavy book

I seem to be using a lot of energy describing what this tea isn’t and very little energy on what it actually is. What it is is very nice indeed. I just wish I could recreate this same sweetness in my ACP lapsang.

All in all, I’m totally getting the whole camel driver vibe here.

Dead tin.

For dessert tonight with plenty of milk in it. A little too much milk, actually, if I’m to be honest, but it’s still quite nice. It gives a good clue of what it would have been like with a little less milk, but a milk with a slightly higher fat content.

Or is that just me being unhappy about the supermarket not having my usual brand of milk, so I had to get a different one? And they didn’t have any cartons left of the fat content level that I usually drink? Wrong milk all round.

Thanks to Auggy, I can have my Samovar debut! This post is actually part backlog and part recent because I’ve got two different sessions and two different preparation methods in it.

Western Style
This is the backlogged bit. I started out making this one western style, primarily because at the time I had forgotten that this was the one to try with jam and milk in it. I didn’t realise that until afterwards.

The dry leaves smell strongly of ashes. Being a smoky tea lover, this is to me a good thing. (Ironically though, I abhor cigarette smoke…). Once brewed up, it still smelled smoky but also with a creamy sweet note to it.

The taste, however, was not as smoky as I had expected. It did have smoke, but it was still quite smooth. There was a sweet note too, which originally I thought of as ‘the absence of honey’. Once I tasted a bit more thoroughly, concentrating on it, I decided that at first it was a reminder of fruit, but then developed in the mouth and turned sort of darker. Samovar’s description mentioned apricots, but I couldn’t really find any properly apricot-y apricots, but I could agree that the initial fruityness of the sweet note could very well be apricots. It added a slight tartness to the smoke sort of.

When it cooled off a bit, I was surprised to find it turning almost flowery. I don’t really understand how you can have flowers and smoke at the same time, but evidently you can. It defies logic, but it works.

I decided that based on this session I would give it about 85-90 points, and the next time I would do it the russian way. Jam and all.

Russian Style
This is actually quite similar to the turkish brewing method that I have posted about before, in that you first brew a concentrate and then dilute and sweeten it to taste. The difference here is just the additives used. In Turkey they use only sugar. In Russia apparently jam and milk is popular.

There wasn’t any description on how exactly to make the concentrate (or ‘zavarka’) so I decided to just use my normal amount of leaves and half the amount of water with a long, about 13 minutes steep. Of course, I’m curious about such things, so I had to taste the zavarka by itself before continuing. It was indeed very smoky, but not really as super-strong and astringent as Samovar’s instructions said it should be. So it probably should have been stronger. That’s just a shame, though, because I was given this sample as a gift and therefore have limited amounts of leaves available. I didn’t want to use them all up for the sake of this one cup.

I diluted it half zavarka/half water, added a splash of milk and a large teaspoon of raspberry marmalade. Samovar said to use strawberry jam, but I didn’t have any and when I asked Auggy, she thought that raspberry marmalade should work just as well.

I can taste three things here. Milk, smoke and raspberries. It’s a bit like eating a raspberry cream cake in a smoke-filled room, actually. I can definitely see why they would call this a meal in itself because it almost is. It’s more smoky this way than when brewed western style, I assume because of the zavarka. The raspberries give a funny tart sort of flavour too that reminds me of hibiscus. I understand now why hibiscus is so often used to imitate berries. The difference here is, though, that his actually tastes nice. Whereas hibiscus is quite simply, in a word, undrinkable.

I would be hard pressed indeed to say which of these two styles I preferered. The western style gives a very good cup and it’s more than good enough for everyday use. The russian style seems more luxurious. To be reserved for special occasions, like when you want to be a little extra good to yourself or when you need a little extra comfort.

Or a celebration. It kind of tastes a little bit of birthday.

Having had both the western and the russian style, I’m ending up at a solid 90 points.

I made a pot of this to drink while I started reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I had maybe one or two sips and thought, ‘mmmmmm…. tea!’ before I forgot about it and only remembered it four chapters later when it had of course gone ice cold.

Waste of tea, but awesome book!

I can’t remember who it was that I saw mentioning having liked it (JacquelineM, was it you?) or on whose recommendation they had read it, but whoever you both are, THANK YOU!

Odd.

Like… Odd!!!

I’m getting a very strong smoky note in this one tonight. Like, not just strong flavour, but proper smoke. I did use this cup for Lapsang Souchong last night, but I rinsed it out and I never had trouble with flavour bleed like this before, ever. It should not be possible that this is merely contamination.

How very very odd!

Last time I logged this I was all about the fruity and slightly floral notes. Well, fruity is a bit of a stretch in this one and floral is just completely out of the question.

How did this happen?

It’s possible it oversteeped just a bit. Apparently this turns smoky (and somewhat astringent) with a longer steep. Interesting. I’ll even give it a few more points, because while the milder incarnation of it was nice enough, I definitely like this stronger version better.

Good evening, Steepsterites.

Yeah, hi. It’s me. I aten’t ded. At this point in the post I rambled on for a handful of lines and then decided it was a load of rubbish so I deleted it again. Let’s just say I’m just dipping my toes cautiously in the Steepster pool again here because I started missing a lot of people. Also, I received a gift from the wonderful Auggy with samples of some of her favourite smoky teas, some of which I have already tried. Don’t worry though (or worry, depending on how you feel about backlogging) I’ve taken notes on them and some other ones.

But for now, I think a come-back tea ought to be a well-known one. And old favourite. One that will allow you to reflect on the situation rather than the tea itself. One that calms and soothes. Comforting, yet with a refreshing taste.

And this one seemed to fit.

I’m sorry the entire post turned out to be a rambling pile of woe-ness. I tried really hard to avoid it, I swear. I’ll just take my cup to bed and read some Asterix or something.

Feel free to go back to your regularly scheduled dashboards now. Nothing to see here.

This is actually the second steeping of this one. Tonight it’s my trying to ground myself again tea. I need it because I’m presently in a foul mood and have been fuming over an issue all weekend. It doesn’t even help that I just submitted my tax deductables and I’m expecting a refund. It helped a little, but I’m still pretty annoyed.

This is one of my first ever green teas. I think it was this one or gunpowder that was my debut, not counting bagged cheap ones. It has really cute twisty spirally leaves and I have a soft spot for it because of this.

These spirally leaves, however, are tightly twisted and they interlock with each other, so that when you take a spoonful of leaves out of the pot you have to pay attention because chances are there are more leaves on your spoon than you were counting on. It’s so easy to use too much leaf here.

After having been accu aqua acqaui getting to know Sencha lately, I was actually struck by a surprising initial thought in this one. It didn’t remind me that much of Sencha as I drank it, but the initial sip where I wasn’t paying too much attention had the same green vegetable-y flavour to it. It was just for a moment and then it turned back into something else. Being in the mood I was in at the time, I can’t actually tell you what it was that changed, but it just did.

Second steep is very sweet. Not really much else in the way of flavour notes, but this is good enough for me. I’ll enjoy the rest of it this evening.

But yeah, I’m still pretty irritated. My presence might be scarce for a while. I feel the need to hide and hibernate and let the irritation burn out, so I may or may not be around, but I’m still reachable by PM or email. See you around, Steepsterites.

My last bag. I’m having it for dessert tonight and I’m trying to make it stretch to my entire little teapot rather than just a cup. Hopefully it won’t be too thin. Nothing wrong with the aroma though, so I’m feeling confident.

Mmmmm. Nom.

I was looking for a black tea, actually searching specifically for the bag with the Irish Breakfast from Adagio in it, when I fell over this one, also sent to me by TeaEqualsBliss. I don’t know if this is actually a relatively common flavour for green teas or if it’s another one of Adagio’s whacky flavours. It’s not one I can recall having seen before anyway.

It smells really nice! Sweet and fruity of rhubarb and also of strawberries. It’s reminding me very much of the strawberry and rhubarb puddings of my early childhood, often served for dessert by my grandmother. I’m finding myself looking forward to this to an extreme degree. Based on the smell alone we are looking at something close to 80 points here!

Cross your fingers that I don’t get disappointed, Steepsterites. I don’t want to get disappointed in general, and I especially don’t want to get disappointed by something that smells like this.

After steeping it smells very rhubarb-y! All the strawberry smell is gone here, but there is something else that smells like it could be almost lemon-y. An extremely sour lemon, mind, but still lemon-y. Hello, oxalic acid! My teeth are already a little bit concerned about the coming acid assault. But all is not perfect here. It has gained a semi-synthetic smelling sweetness too. I think it was the one I identified as strawberry earlier.

It’s surprisingly sweet in flavour. The rhubarb flavour isn’t overwhelming, but clearly recognisable. Underneath that it’s a citrus-y green tea. Somewhat water-y and weak, though. All Adagio say is that the base is a chinese green, but I should like to know which one. I brewed it like I normally do all my greens, but it tastes a bit like I should have used more leaf.

I do wish it had been stronger than this. I’ll still give it around 80-ish points, but if it had been stronger then I would definitely have given it more. And it’s definitely also a flavour that I would be interested in trying from another brand if possible.

I find myself now desperately wanting that pudding that my grandmother used to serve…

ACK! Argh! Ack! Erk! Argh!

Gunpowder + spearmint gum = spitty!

I made use of the random tea picker today and it suggested this generic gunpowder. Okay, that’s a fair suggestion, I thought, given my foray into japanese greens. Let’s see if I can spot a significant difference.

First of all the colour is way more yellow and non-radioactive. A deep, warm colour and not in the least bit toxic looking.

Smell has a prickly note. I’ve seen people who find this type of green a bit on the smoky side and I’ve never been able the get that. Maybe it’s that prickly note they experience as smoky. I find it more sort of… I want to say citrus-y but that’s not quite it. It’s not fruity as such. Maybe there’s a vague hint of smoke, but it’s not smoky.

Tastewise, it’s definitely different even if my tongue is still semi-paralysed by the unfortunate gum incident. It’s not at all the green vegetables in this one. This is more abstract in flavour. It doesn’t really taste that much of anything other than green tea. It’s sweeter than the japanese and it’s not as much an explosion of flavour. It’s rounded and just calmly fills the mouth.

This probably makes no sense to anybody other than me…

Maybe if it hadn’t been for the chewing gum, I could have been more specific. This, however, was not to be.

It’s been a while since I’ve had my beloved tie guan yin. Jillian even sent me the rest of hers so I could compare that to TeaSpring’s but I haven’t even got around to that yet. But last night when I came home from Lexitus’ it had been snowing. Another five centimeters or so. Not a lot, but we’ve had snow on the ground non-stop since before christmas. And when I went inside and started looking at the news apparently at some point the police advised people to avoid unnecessary driving… Stop! Snowing! OMG!!!

This totally called for a fortifier, so I had a bag of something or other cheap before going to bed, and this morning I’m making it up to myself by having made me a nice pot of this stuff. This gorgous glorious 100 points worth stuff.

The first thought that struck me when I poured the first cup was about the colour. I thought, no wonder I liked the neon-coloured Sencha. I think I’m pre-programmed to like that. This one, after a three minute steep, had that exactly same colour too! Maybe a little paler. But definitely neon-green-ish. It would likely have changed though if I had given it a slightly longer steep, but I was a little impatient.

My impatience also means that the first cup has gone a bit weak. That soft, round grassy/butter-y flavour is still there. The sweetness of it is still there. It’s just more fleeting and not as easy to find. Topping it up with a bit more from the pot that has steeped longer helps, but for another time I’ll just have be more patient with it and let it have the usual five minutes. For me they just can’t be spared it seems.