Angrboda

Celebration/Comfort tea.

Celebration: New dashboard FTW!!!! That’s pretty much how I imagined it once people started suggesting tabs. I’m especially in love with the tab about notices about posts that I made. No more having to scroll through tons of notifications, keeping an eye out for my name. YAY!

Comfort: Taxes FTL! >:( Long story involving own stupidity and unexpected december expense. BOO!

Needless to say there was only one tea I could possibly drink today.

It doesn’t really work very well when the cup isn’t big enough that I can drain my small pot in one go, so for the next steeps I’m just going to transfer some of the leaves directly to my little cup and hope I can get it right. I don’t usually use these little cups… Eh well, I can add more from the pot and I can take some out of the cup. How hard can it be?

So yeah, this last bit of the first steep is a bit over-done. It’s got a slightly dry quality to it and the flavour doesn’t win from being somewhat stewed.

It’s a bad day when you need a comfort tea after having had celebratory tea! O.o

Luckily, the second cup brewed directly in the cup is more up to par with previous experience with this tea. It’s a bit strong, so I’ll have to remove a few of the leaves, but it’s definitely better. Much nicer and sweeter, even after leftovers of last night’s slightly spicy dinner. This tea works remarkably well as a dessert, actually. It can’t completely replace a good cake or ice cream or pudding or what have you, but it’s a nice after-meal tea.

I think I’ll stick to this for the rest of the evening.

Tonight I am absolutely for absolute certain going to bed at a decent hour! And I refuse to lie awake until half past 1 too.

So tonight I’m having just-before-bedtime chai. Tea before bed isn’t usually a problem for me sleep-wise, so what I’m really looking for here is the warm milk aspect to hopefully help me fall asleep afterwards.

Of course… There is a fairly good chance that this is going to be pretty awful, due to getting sidetracked and the whole thing boiling over. Gah! Yay for ceramic cooktop scraping things. grumble

The taste is a bit… concentrated. Especially in the sugar department. Probably due to having overdone it a bit on all the boiling steps, but it’s totally drinkable and the flavour hasn’t been significantly changed. It doesn’t taste burned or anything. There’s just less of it this time than there was the first time I tried it.

The fact that it’s sweeter this time helps with the pepper taste too. But I could still have lived without the black pepper. Easily.

And this me now going to bed at a decent hour. Goodnight steepsterites. (<—-and thank you Takgoti for this awesomesauce word)

Travelling Teabox planning in second stage now, as in taking addresses of participants and people (hopefully) signing up and stuff. So far this stuff is way easier to organise than I had imagined.

I’m making a pot of this here apricot tea because apricots are yummy and so by extension so should apricot tea be. I refuse to accept the rating I’ve already given it as truth. (And kindly don’t point out that peaches and pears are also yummy but just not in tea.) Secondly, I’m feeling like this sample has been kind of neglected. I can’t remember when the last time I had any of it was, and I’m frankly puzzled as to how there can only be about a fifth left of the sample tin. If I hardly ever drink this, then where did the rest go??? O.o

It tastes a bit watery… On the other hand I did just have dinner and it involved a lightly spicy sauce which may have affected my tastebuds somewhat. With my tongue in this state, it doesn’t even taste that apricotty. Looks like it won’t be today that I can shift the rating on this one. How sad. :(

Kitch3ntools inspired me to make me a little pot of this. It’s yummy! I’ve checked my local shop and they don’t seem to have any blueberry tea at the moment. There is a shop in the city where I work where they might have some. I don’t like their coffee grinders in the shop, though. I can’t actually taste the coffee pollution, but it’s enough that I know they ideally shouldn’t be there. It’s a snob thing.

So I’m drinking this while working out some guidelines and tentative travelling teabox planning (and wondering if maybe, just maybe, I’ve lost my mind). I’ve got nearly ten people so far, myself included, so that should be enough for it to be fun. Once I’ve got the guidelines worked out, I’ll start collecting addresses and plan the final route.

In my organisational eagerness, I oversteeped the tea though, and now it’s got a slightly bitter finish note. It’s still good, though. Just a little… drier.

So I wasn’t around all day yesterday. And when I came home I just tried to check the dashboard, and quickly gave up. I left a comment or two at the boards, but that was it. I’d rather go to bed, so I did. This morning I just took the first page of the dashboard.
If anybody replied to comments I may have left, or if anybody wrote a review that I should totally see, or if you just think you wrote a cool review, or if you reviewed an awesome tea, or if someone else wrote something cool, could you link me, please? Yeah, it’s lazy but… Please?

This morning, uh, okay it’s nearly noon, I’m having a lazy resteep of this from yesterday. It’s the third infusion actually, so it’s gone a bit dull. It’s drinkable, but compared to the first two steeps, it’s just not really holding its own. I’m not giving it a fourth go, but I might just make me a fresh pot of this. I can’t get over how yummy this blend is. It’s just perfect in every way and I wish I could share it with you.

Hey Steepster Peeps and those who decided to follow Lexitus in particular? Did you know that apparently we are the Steepster Mafia? ;p It made me LOL. Does that make me Godfa- er… Godmother?

4th steep actually, with a crutch (as in a pinch of fresh leaves). I didn’t actually need any tea tonight after the pot of sodding Earl Grey earlier, but then Denisend made a forum thread about honey in tea and… I got inspired.

And for some weird reason this Gunpowder was my first thought. Sweetening a green tea, and a naturally sweet one at that. I’m nuts, obviously. This will either be spectacularly spectacular or spectacularly dreadful.

Yup. It’s actually spectacularly indifferent.

Gunpowder tends to have a sweet note naturally and the honey just added a little bit to it. Granted I didn’t add very much, but it still didn’t really swing it either way.

Editing: Done! Just dropping in my notes on the tea made during the day before going to bed. Didn’t make nearly as many infusions as I had thought I would.

2nd infusion much like 1st, in spit of being forgotten, oversteeped and lukewarm. Completely drinkable, shockingly enough. Would probably have been a different story had it been the first steep

3rd same as the others. More or less. One note has come out of it here and it reminds me of popcorn. I think my gunpowder thinks it’s genmaicha… At least now I know what to do in a pinch when I run out of genmaicha.

This would be the tea for the day, chosen because I want something that I can just recycle. I have Writing Ambitions today, so I’m going to be lazy about tea and try not to spend too much time on Steepster either reading or writing. (snort as IF! And while I’m dreaming I would also like a billion kroner.)

I haven’t steeped it more than two-three minutes here in the first go. It has a rather soapy smell today. Well, not really soap as such, I don’t really know how to describe it but soap is as close as I can get. This isn’t really surprising since I don’t know what the quality of this stuff is, but it came in an ordinary clear plastic bag without even a brand name on it and ‘Gunpowder green tea’ or something like that stamped directly on the plastic bag, so I’m inclined to think it’s probably not top quality.

The taste is strong and spicy and I can see why some would call it bitter. I don’t think it’s bitter, but it has potential to become so if oversteeped. It tastes like it would be good with a bit of mint in it, but I’ve tried that before, and I didn’t really think it worked as well as I had hoped. It might have been better with further experimentation, but the result wasn’t interesting enough that I’ve ever bothered trying again.

So, this is the tea for the day. We’ll see how much I can get out of these leaves.

And now you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got stuff to edit.

Good morning, Steepster.

We’re trying the Ceylon again this morning and trying not to oversteep it too much this time as experience showed us that we’re dealing with a pretty unforgiving tea here.

And it’s still as dark as coffee and it still has that very Ceylonish aroma. I’m a bit concerned. Why the heck did I say in my first review of this upon purchase that it was surprisingly mild?

Oh well, at least it’s not unbearably bitter this time. It’s full and strong and just a hint of bitterness when I swallow. Not bad bitterness that comes with too long steeps or bad quality leaves. It’s the sort of bitterness that’s supposed to be there. It lends… I want to say ‘character’ but I’m wondering if I’m over using the word a bit. ‘Personality’?

Anyway, if it hadn’t been for yesterday’s chai-that-wasn’t-chai-experience, I’d have said it would work well with milk for those who likes milk tea, but having tried it and not really liked it much, I can’t make myself say that in good conscience. If you like sweetened tea, though, a bit of liquid honey might work.

Apparently I hadn’t actually hidden relationship info over Facebook way… Just had to reply to an all caps message from my aunt who demanded to know why she hadn’t been told about Lexitus. looks shifty I’ve only told my parents about it and was rather hoping they would leak the info so I wouldn’t have to. Obviously not. Curses!

So I need something fortifying. (And dessert-ish because I’ve just had dinner)

This is it. The hazelnut with the lovely sweet nutty woodsy smell. Like nuts smell in a cake with nuts in it.

Second tea I get today that turned out as black as coffee. Considering I ended up oversteeping the Ceylong this morning, I’m a wee bit concerned, but upon tasting nothing’s wrong with it. It’s JUST right, with that nutty hazelnut flavour that’s at the same time roasted and sweetish. I think it’s very good for a dessert tea, and since nuts in Denmark is often associated with Christmas in Denmark, it also tastes a bit Christmassy.

Maybe this is why it’s going so well with my other dessert which is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/aebleskiver

Also, I’ve added a load of people tonight (again) so apologies to those who may have been following the live feed when I uh flooded it a little bit.

Inspirational tea for the WIN! Literally, actually, as I just hit 50094 words on NaNoWriMo. Just now.

Leonard Cohen is now singing ’I’m your man’ for me and I’m on the second steep of this now. The tea itself can handle a resteep quite well, but the berries, not so much. At this point it might as well just have been a regular plain oolong. A nice one definitely, though. It has plenty of flavour and plenty of lingering aftertaste. Like it’s crawling down into every little nook and cranny of my mouth and sitting there saving the nummy for later. Slightly astringent at first contact with the tongue but it goes away again.

Also, it makes me think of those of you who now and then describe a tea flavour as ‘baked’ and I can’t for the life of me figure out what you mean by that, but this tea reminds me of it, so maybe it IS bakey and only my subconsciousness is registering it?

I should probably make a pot of Pai Mu Tan since that one has turned into my celebration tea, but really, I’d rather see if I can get a third steep out of this one. So I’ll do that.

I felt like something fruity, so I put the kettle on. And then I was too slow in cleaning out the pot, so it had cooled a bit before I was actually ready to use it. And since I had cleaned the pot in hot water (and the hot tap water gets really really hot where I live) the pot was already nice and warm. So that left me wondering if I should boil new water and use this to scald an already warm pot or what to do.

And then I thought of my raspberry oolong and decided to just pretend that it had been my plan to make that one all along (instead of the blueberry from Adagio). Perfect really.

I’m spending the day trying to bury myself in the last little bit left before I can say I’ve won NaNoWriMo. 2K to go. Estimated 30K to go before I reach the end of the story. The plan is to reach the 50K words to win NaNo and then continue writing and eventually finish the story. I’m not interested in publication at all, but when I’ve finished the story (If I ever make it) and it’s been rewritten and heavily edited I know where I want to upload it on the internet and will of course share the location of it if and when that time comes.

Anyway, this tea is going to help me do this today. It’s to give me some focus and concentration. Maybe I should have used a crappy tea, since if all goes well, I’ll end up with half a completely forgotten cup.

I have my tea. Leonard Cohen is singing ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ for me. I’m ready.

The other day Rijje reviewed a Ceylon tea and didn’t much like it. This morning I wanted a solid, plain black and weirdly enough Rijje’s review put me in mind of some Ceylon. Yes weird, I don’t know how my head works either, but there you are. Imagine my surprise when I looked in my cupboard and found this!

There’s just something about a tea as black as coffee and you’re almost expecting it to have completely different smell. That Ceylon smell really is special, isn’t it. Sweet but strong and kind of roasted. It reminds me a lot of your average English Breakfast Blend. Not that strange since Ceylon is often a big part of those blends.

Ack, I oversteeped it a bit, which it so cannot handle. Next stop Bitterville. Rather astringent and it’s hard to pick up any proper flavours to review, due to my own negligence. (Which is ironic, since JUST YESTERDAY I was sitting around all smug claiming to be able to brew a decent and consistent pot of tea through guesstimation. Of course, that was about dosage of leaves and not steeping time, but STILL! GAH! feels silly)

So, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I added a little bit of cane sugar and I added a little bit of milk. I almost never do this. Very few teas IMO are nice with a little milk, and it’s not just depending on the tea, it’s also depending on the situation and the people I’m with. My colleague, with whom I frequently go to a specific cafe/tea house, is just about the only person that I will sit and drink milk tea with. Our cafe visits have turned out to be highly ritualised. Same table, same chairs, same tea, same scones. The only things that vary are the things we talk about and the cake he have.

Furthermore, and this is really a snob-thing, I prefer to add milk to the cup first and not last. When added last it’ll go in and settle below the surface of the tea, like it’s not properly mixed. It looks weird and then you have to stir to get it mixed right. With milk in first, you get it instantly mixed right and you save the spoon. One less item to wash up. Yes, this makes PERFECT sense in Angrboda-Land.

Anyway, this tea with milk and sugar isn’t working for me. At least not today and not in this situation. I’m reminded of the chai I had yesterday, because although that one was based on Assam I feel like I’m sitting here drinking a chai where somebody forgot to add in all the spices. On the other hand, if I was to try and attempt making my own chai mix, this might be a good base for it.

Today and this morning, though, I’m feeling slightly let down.

Fifth steep of this for dessert. I had fourth steep in my travel mug this morning.

Yes, I am still celebrating.

The observant Steepster Peep will have noticed that I added this to my cupboard yesterday. The Great Chai Adventure continue, this time with actually buying a real, proper chai blend in my little local shop. It was the only one they had so that made the choosing a non-issue. Do or Die.

I Did.

I made it like Lena F described in the forum thread about chai, only half the amounts she wrote in case I didn’t like it.

It was mild and smooth with the milk, much like the ones I’ve already had to go in the last couple of weeks. On top of that though there was the pepper. Prickly on the tongue and throat. I think this might actually be that flavour I found in my first ever chai that led me to believe I didn’t like ginger. Or part thereof.

Overall, it was nice, but I could totally live without the pepper. I’d like it much much better if it didn’t have that pepper in it.

EDIT: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The Evil Enabler has struck again. Meet Lexitus, previously mentioned boyfriend. Say hello, Lexitus.

I am breaking out my celebration tea! And I’ll tell you why, Steepster Peeps! Today I have, after some successful grovelling and begging, convinced 52Teas that shipping to Denmark would be a really good idea. And just a short while ago I placed my order! So not only have I discovered a new place to shop with very reasonable shipping fees, but I have ALSO for the first time EVAH! been able to get the Steepster Select item. I’ve been really good at saving money this month in spite of falling off the wagon a few times in order to buy tea, so although I’m not getting paid until monday, I decided I was allowed. It was really hard to choose. I dithered for ages. In the end I more or less closed my eyes and pointed.

Can we say WOOT!!!!

It was so worth being scolded for creating a horizontal scrollbar with my squeeing.

I love this tea. I really really do, but I hope I got the dosage right. Large leaves, narrow tea scooper. Do the math. Have also patiently steeped for as long as the shop said to although it’s still twice as long as my brain says would be a good idea.

But once again I’m both surprised and relieved. It’s awesome. It’s celebration in a cup.

Now, if anybody wants me for anything for the next week or so, I’ll be waiting by the letterbox.

Suzi logged this yesterday and reminded me that I still had some left in my sample tin. I bought it primarily because of the odd name. Never heard of this fruit before, but if I ever get to South America (doubtful, considering my fear of travelling) I’ll have to make sure to try and taste it.

It’s sweet and fruity and tastes tropical. If I knew what the fruit really tastes like ‘au naturel’ my review of it might be difference, but as it is I’m thinking it’s a fruit I might like. So this is my morning cup on this grey and dismal looking thursday. I understand the majority of you lot have a holiday today, so I’m guessing a lot of people won’t be around. Wow… bad day for me to get addicted to the live stream, but there you are. My life in a nutshell.

And now I suddenly realised WHY I’m doing my backlogs out of order.

This is from this morning on the way to work. I was feeling really tired and in an oolong-y mood, so I made this for my travel mug today.

This tea is not suitable for travel mugs. I couldn’t smell it at all and when you don’t get the full experience, you just get a tea that has an annoyingly sour taste. It was drinkable, but suddenly, without the smell, it just turned all blah.

And here’s the reason for the out of order backlog.

I’m having second steep now. I saved the leaves mostly because I didn’t have time to clean out the pot before leaving, so I figured now that I came home, I might as well just steep them, having already learned that they can easily carry a second steep. I needed this. It’s just much much much better when I can get the full experience, and when I’m not putting two thirds of my attention into trying to wake up properly.

Apparently I’m doing my backlogs out of order. Oh well. This is from today, the train trip home from work.

Takgoti wanted me to try the spicy chai at that bagel place too, and today I was feeling brave enough to do so. I just got the smallest cup they had in case I didn’t like it.

Turns out it wasn’t really the sort of ‘spicy’ that I was expecting. I was think ‘spicy’ as in sort of ‘hot’. Not cayenne-pepper hot, but something that would definitely be felt a bit in the throat while sinking. Instead it was a more warming spicy, and it was actually quite sweet.

I was also a little concerned about the fact that it had ginger in it, and I’m under the impression that I don’t much care for ginger. The first chai I bought for myself ever and tried to make had something or other in it, a strange flavour that I can’t quite recall anymore, but when telling others about it, they said that it was most likely to have been ginger. This didn’t seem to have that particular flavour. Or at least not in a concentration where I couldn’t get it down.

I could smell cardamom very clearly. I wasn’t even in doubt about it. I could taste a little sweetness from cinnamon too and I was a bit on certain about whether or not it also contained vanilla.

It reminded me of the elephant vanilla chai, except not quite as sweet. It wasn’t the same sensation of drinking something that was actually supposed to have been a sweet dessert, but it was much better than I had feared. I can’t really decide, though, if I liked this one better than the elephant vanilla chai or not. In some ways I did, but in some ways I didn’t. I can get a medium sized cup the next time, although I still don’t think I’d be able to drink more than that of any of them without it becoming way too much.

Oh my god, I was with my boyfriend yesterday after work so I didn’t have a chance to check Steepster at all. I just curiously peeked in at the forum last night when I was checking email and replied to a couple of topics, but I haven’t read most of them yet and I haven’t read any of my dashboard pages at all since… tuesday morning, I think. And this last week I’ve been on a rather an enormous adding spree for no other reason than clicking the ‘follow’ button is way more fun than it logically ought to be. I just like adding new people, it makes me feel social. Probably a subconscious response to being such an anti-social person in real life.

I’ll just do my backlogs while gathering courage for tackling the rest.

First up, a backlog from yesterday. I was at a course and this was the tea served. Or rather, it was the topmost teabag in the pile provided to choose from. I wasn’t feeling picky and I’ve always liked strawberry tea.

It did definitely taste of strawberries, but it was fairly synthetic in flavour. Had a LOT of equally synthetic aroma too.

Actually, it had so much aroma that (and I swear this is absolutely true) I accidentally dipped one sleeve of my cardigan in the cup and got a little stain there, and hours later the boyfriend sniffed at my other arm and stated, “you smell like strawberries today.” He didn’t know at the time that I’d had strawberry tea. I suppose it could be a coincidence, but what are the odds?

So, it was a pretty mediocre cup of tea, but I’m inclined to be generous on the rating. Even the most mediocre tea wins in flavour when you get to drink it from a proper cup instead of those cheap plastic cups that you just burn your fingers on.

Because this was such a success the other day, I’ve tried to reconstruct it today. I needs it. I need something that is so good that it can take away the sneaking girl-stomach issues and the general pouting that the fact that my presence has been requested at work on wednesday, which because I work part-time is normally my day off, has brought on. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I hate, abhor and just generally dislike meetings. Especially those I can’t get out of.

So something sweet and distracting, yes please.

When I tried this the other day, it was the second steep of the caramel, and this is the first steep all round, so it’s intersting to see if it’ll turn out the same success or if I’m in for a bit of a disappointment.

Nope. Still good. Still sweet. What girl-stomach? What meeting?

Backlogged from this morning’s travel mug. My, my. I do believe the Drama Llama visited Steepster last night. Complete with Martyrian Exit and everything. I will outright admit that I might not have handled it too well. Wank makes nobody look good, and I’m no exception. A better approach would probably have been to show them how to write a discussion prompt without being hurtful in the process, but I was too angry at the time to realise that. Again, my apologies to the admins for not having managed to contribute in a constructive way, but it doesn’t change the fact that I stand 100% by every single word I said. Or wrote, if you prefer.

One good thing did come of it, though. This morning I enjoyed my cheap-as-dirt and supposedly-white bagged tea IMMENSELY. Spite can make the mediocre occasionally exceptionally awesome.

Cheers, all!

I saw two raspberry tea posts in a row and I got inspired. So Raspberry Rampage, oh yes!

(I’m a widdle wabbit wot can’t type!)

Having this now as an after-after-dinner tea, and it’s nice and semi-sweet.

There’s lots of raspberry in the aroma and something fruity in the flavour although I still don’t really think it tastes very raspberry-ish.

I give up, I can’t think of anything else to say about it. Dreadfully short post from me, I’m so sorry. Forgive me.

A setting is being demanded of me, so here I am (I quote) with my delightful boyfriend (who’s really putting up nicely with all this abuse) on a sunday afternoon. I had some of this this morning and discovered that I liked it a lot cold too, so I made a pitcher of it and put it in the fridge for later. It is now later.

For experimental reasons I added just a pinch of peppermint to it, because I was reminded of that peppermint/liquorice root herbal stuff that two of my colleagues favour. That one is I think about two thirds peppermint and one third liquorice root, and I find it far too pepperminty for me, which is why I only added a pinch of it to this.

I think it turned out very nice. It’s like it’s sweet, but it’s not sugar-sweet. Another time though I think I’ll add a little more peppermint to the mix because I can’t really pick up what I added to this one. Obviously I haven’t found the golden middle road yet.