Angrboda

Fourth steep while watching Midsomer Murders. Only ten minutes left of the episode and I STILL think they ALL did it. Gah!

It’s hard to believe that this is the tea that initially disappointed me with lack of flavour. I must definitely have brewed it wrong the first time, because today I’m founding an astounding amount of flavour. It’s a bit weakened but not that much. Yes, I added a few fresh leaves to the third steep, but not remotely enough that they could carry two whole steeps all on their lonesome.

I’m beginning to change my stance about how much I think it lives up to the high price. Tastewise, not really, but… I can’t think of the right word. Like… the endurance of the leaves? How many times they can be used successfully? In that regard, it is definitely worth a purchase. I still think it’s very expensive, but it gained a little more worth in my eyes.

(OMG the vicar did it??? But but but but but he was the nicest person around! I did NOT see that one coming.)

I’m having a resteep of this with my dinner, so it’s the third steep. I added a pinch of fresh leaves to the pot to give it a little extra kick.

I know I said the aftertaste gets cancelled out when you’re eating something too, but there you are are. The leaves and the pot were already there and I was feeling lazy.

Inspired by the post about it earlier today though I also boiled some broccoli in salted water with butter, and I smelled the steam as it boiled. I was right. That was EXACTLY the note I found in the tea this morning. I feel all satisfied with myself for having noticed that.

It seems very similar to the first two steeps, but I think if I hadn’t added a few fresh leaves it tastes sort of like it might have been a bit faded. I probably ought to not have added it in order to get a ‘clean’ third steep, but I thought it might just get weak. I’d rather have an inaccurate third steep than a weak clean one.

I was so disappointed by this the first time I had it. It was really expensive, nearly 100 kr for 100 g, which is a price you normally see in white teas and flowering display teas. And then it had so little flavour. It was almost unbearable.

Today has continued to suck, involving the local tax authorities who are trying to trick me into paying the same bill twice. I wouldn’t be so irritated by this if it hadn’t been for the fact that paying this bill last month is a major contributing factor to november having to be stingy-month. growl

I needed something soothing and I haven’t had a pure oolong in ages, so I’m going to revisit this one. My expectations of it aren’t quite as high this time, so I’m going to be starting over. Hopefully I can shift the rating up a bit too, because ‘30’ is just… I feel really bad about having rated such an expensive tea so low. So let’s pretend that this is the first post I make about it.

The leaves are large and twirly. They’re a bit on the darker side, although not as dark as a black tea. Some of them have that golden in-between colour. Pretty in the in. They have plenty of aroma. Sweet and with a note of tobacco.

(so far so good)

Once they have been steeped, the leaves turn a nice light green again. I’ve never noticed that before. I’ve given it a good long steep to get as much flavour out of them as possible. A C Perch’s recommend eight minutes, so that’s what they got. Actually they got nearly 15 minutes because I forgot to pay attention. In the cup it has a nice golden-ish red colour, like autumn leaves just before they fall off the tree. I’m using a fairly tall mug and I can just exactly see the bottom of it. The aroma of the brew is sort of reminding me of broccoli that has been boiled in lightly salted water with a small lump of butter in it. I wouldn’t say it’s a broccoli note, but when I smell something vegetal with a weak butter note and a weak salt note, broccoli is the thing that first comes to mind.

The first sip of the first steep was primarily bitter. This, obviously, has to do with oversteeping. As mentioned I was aiming for 8 minutes and forgot to pay attention so it got nearly 15 instead. They don’t say anything about recommended temperature other than ‘freshly boiled water’. I can taste very little else than the beginning bitterness, so I think it’s safe to say that pretty much ruined this. How annoying. But on a day like today, hands up everybody who’s surprised. Anybody? No?

Dumping the first steep then, and going straight to the second. In my opinion any proper oolong should be able to handle at least one resteep, so I’m not too concerned about it shifting the review. The second steep involves a kitchen timer, so as not to make the same mistake again. It’s much much lighter this time around. A more orange-y golden, but the aroma is exactly the same.

No bitterness this time. I’m thinking I must have made it up too weak that first disappointing time. It has a nutty note, some astringency if you really search for it, and a clear leafy primary flavour. Well, I say ‘primary’, but the thing is it only really comes through if you get a large enough sip. If you just take tiny little nips, all you get is the nuttiness. It’s especially brought out if you slurp a bit and get it nicely mixed with air while tasting. A very very VERY small barely there flowery note too. I can’t even find it in every sip.

To begin with this doesn’t have much in the way of after taste, but as you take a few sips, it starts to build up. If you’re eating anything with the tea though, you’ll ruin it. Every time you take a bite, you have to start over.

All in all, I’m feeling much more happy about this tea now than I was before, and I’ve shifted the rating up considerably. Is it worth the high price though? No, not really. You can get lots of similar or better oolongs at half the price this one cost.

Okay, I’ve got some tea in me now and some other cool stuff has happened and I’ve listened to a cool song, so I’m feeling a bit more optimistic about the rest of the day now.

Still, I do have domestic chores to ignore, and what better way to do it than having another cup of tea.

This is a Sudden Inspiration blend. Kind of brave actually because it consists of my Caramel tea from Luka with half a teaspoon of Vanilla from Adagio in it. The brave thing about it is that the Caramel is a resteep of the cup I had a couple of hours ago, and I haven’t got the foggiest clue as to how well that tea handles resteeps… I may have just made myself something that will be rather weak and taste slighly of vanilla.

The aroma is quite nice. There are definite vanilla and caramel notes in it. A bit fleeting which I imagine must have something to do with most of it being a resteep.

Oh my GOD! This is… I can’t even… I just…!!! The caramel SO didn’t get hurt in the resteep and the vanilla is really bringing out the sweetness in it. Like a bit of sugar can bring out the sweetness more, but this is just without that side-flavour of sugar. I will totally have to try this again except without the caramel being a resteep. The whole thing is rounded off by the astringency of the tea, so it doesn’t get cloying.

I had expected it would be nice, but I’m surprised that it was THIS nice. It reminds me a bit of the Elephant Vanilla Chai that I had yesterday. Only sad thing is that I’m running very low on the vanilla sample from Adagio. I should be able to get a vanilla black from my local shop, though, so I just hope that it’s as good as Adagio’s.

Good morning, Steeperites. Or… just… morning.

It’s one of THOSE mornings, shaping up to be one of THOSE days due to it already having been one of THOSE nights. Woke up no less than three times and couldn’t remember what day it was, so I had to get up and check. My eyes have been runny all night and now feel full of grit. I don’t know why that happens, it doesn’t appear to have any particular trigger, it just happens every now and then. So I get up this morning and troll about the internet for a bit. Twice, I’ve closed the browser instead of closing a tab. Clearly tea is, at this point badly needed, so I go and put some water on to boil and fill the pot with hot tap water. The hot water here gets ridiculously hot after having run for a bit, making washing up a chore reminiscent of punishment, so I don’t even have to boil twice. I then forgot I had filled the pot with that water and added two spoonfuls of tea leaves to it. I even had a few seconds of trying to remember how come they weren’t falling to the bottom of the pot.

And it’s only 9 o’clock… cue ominous music

I thought black and sweet would be the way to go here, so I made me a pot of this caramelly stuff. I have resisted the temptation (nearly) to eat (too many of) the little caramel squares in the tea, so it shouldn’t be (too badly) out of balance.

Ah, not to sweet and ever so slightly astringent. Possibly dreadfully oversteeped, but it doesn’t seem to be completely ruined. I can feel the day improving already.

It was after the sweetness on the train ride home, I think. I just needed something now that went KAPOW! at me. (Oh look, punny! I honestly honestly hadn’t even realised until after I wrote it. Honest!) This is the first that came to mind and ARGH! at new Cupboard feature that caused me to put all tins back in the Real Life cupboard instead and organising them so they all fit in the small cupboard. This is not something that involves considerations as to which tins are used more often. It’s a bit of a jigsaw puzzle project. Consequently I just spend some five minutes searching for this particular tin in a rather small cupboard.

Ah yes. This is more like it. The sweet note and the smoky note in perfect balance. When I’m done with the tin I’ve got at work, I’m getting me some more of this to drink there. (I wonder how shocked colleagues will be at the smell of this? Hey, I wonder if I can get any of them to taste it! That could be loads of fun. I think only one of them will like it.)

Kapow indeed. :9

Had another one of these on the train home today. This time I actually heard what the two other choices were, but I was feeling whimpy and didn’t dare try any of them. One was cinnamon which just reminded me of the over-cinnamoned chai-cino from Baresso and the other was ‘spicy’ which…. Yeah. Whimpy.

Today I noticed, though, that they sell small tins of their chais too, I guess about 100 g or 150 g or something like that. I don’t have one of those milk steaming things at home so I’m not sure if I could make it properly at home if I tried. Not like they do anyway. And they were kinda pricey. 139 kr for a tin. It’d be a shame to spend that if I can’t get it right. Remind me to ask my boss. Maybe she’ll be interested in splitting a tin.

Anyway, it was still good. I think actually I liked it better today where I knew what to expect than I did yesterday where I didn’t know. You know? Something that tastes more like dessert than beverage becomes less of a ‘mis-placed’ sort of flavour when you know what you’re getting.

I’ll get around to trying the spicy one some day when I’m feeling brave. But I’ll just get a small one then…

Huh. I’m drinking this one now because I couldn’t figure out how to add it so I could put it in my cupboard. So I thought, HA! I’ll just drink it, I will. Only had the one bag, see! Genious, I am.

Except too late I realised that I couldn’t log it without adding it. headdesk You would think that would be logical, but nooooooo!

Anyway, this is a tea that was given to me by a friend who had been on holiday in Japan. I haven’t the slightest clue of what it says on the bag, it’s all in Japanese. It only says ‘Green Tea’ and the name of the hotel in letters that I can read. There were these teabags in the hotel rooms for the guests. (There was also a super-foul …concoction that they claimed, apparently, was plum tea. It was a powder that you stirred into hot water, it looked like washing machine soap and it tasted like sweat. It was disGUSting!)

I’m pretty sure it’s Sencha. It’s light, like Sencha, and it would seem the obvious choice to give to the guests in Japan. It’s got a sweet, mild and nutty flavour, but it’s not really particularly interesting. No clue about the quality of this stuff, obviously.

OMG I should NOT have checked Steepster this morning. Stupid idea. For two reasons. 1) It made me miss the train (again) and 2) I’ve spent the whole entire day in a ’don’t wanna work, wanna play!’ frame of mind. Needless to say, the day went by reaaaaaally slowly.

On the way home from work I came over kind of peckish so I stopped in at this new little bagel place at the train station to get me something to eat on the way home. They also had your basic coffee drinks, cafe latte, cappucino, that sort of thing. And they had chai. Remembering my recent experience with the Chai-cino from Baresso, I thought I’d try what the chai here was like. As it turned out, when I had ordered, they had several different kinds to choose from. It didn’t say so anywhere on their menus or signs or anything, and I couldn’t really hear the girl who made it very well, so I picked this last one because it was the only one where I could hear what she said. I had already asked her to repeat herself on two other things, and I was getting tired of it. Too much noise around. They had some awesome looking tins, though. Unfortunately I couldn’t seem to spot a brand name. I have, however, found a website that tells me they get their chais from David Rio, and then they listed their five variants. Some further poking about the internet landed me on David Rio’s site which was rather more forthcoming with the details.

Based on the description on DRs site and the fact that I’m pretty sure I picked one in a blue tin, I THINK this was the one I had.

This one was a better experience all in all. It was definitely vanilla-ish and it blended well with the milk. It wasn’t as drowned in cinnamon as the Chai-cino was, but I could still find a touch of cinnamon in it. There was also something else that I couldn’t identify at the time. It was a warm sort of flavour. Not hot like chili or something like that at all, but a warming sort of flavour. It wasn’t even really a flavour as much as it was a sort of sensation of some sort of warming spice being around. Does this even make sense? In my head it seems very likely to have been the cloves and cardamom in combination.
I thought it even had an overall caramel note underneath all the vanilla.

It still tasted quite fat, though, and it was obviously rather sweet. It tasted really nice, but it was more kind of a dessert rather than a beverage.

I think I’m getting better at this chai malarky!

And now to tackle the Dashboard. Deep breath of courage
Beware, I shall start playing with my cupboard very very soon!

ARGH! All these posts about the funky Adagio flavours that no sane person could have thought up are so jealousy-inducing. I went back and checked when I made my one and only Adagio order and that was in June. And it’s only the Tie Kuan Yin that I don’t have any more of. (That stuff never lasts long around these parts) I want so desperately to try those new flavours. If I shop really really really seldomly, like twice a year tops, I can defend placing the odd Adagio order, right?

And yes, I know they have a European store too, but they have a very small selection, so that’s a good place for stocking up on well-known favourites. But not really much else.

Second steep of this now. And I’m going with literature on this one, and giving it a four minutes steep. I’m a bit worried that I’ve ruined the leaves with the long steep this morning, but there’s only one way to find out.

Nice and golden colour this time around, but the aroma seems a bit sour. A bit stewed, you know? The flavour doesn’t seem to have taken any damage, though. Bit weak but I suppose that’s only to be expected considering the way I’ve treated these leaves.

Supplier suggests a steeping time of 8-10 minutes on this. Up to TEN MINUTES on a green tea? One that literature tells me will get crazy bitter if oversteeped? And one that same literature suggests 3-4 minutes on? Now what am I supposed to think here?

In the interest of proving the shop wrong once and for all, I gave it nine minutes. It’s a dark yellowy brown in a highly suspicious sort of way, but there’s nothing wrong with the aroma. Lots of kick in that.

Still, I’m a bit scared to try this out.

Okay, it’s not undrinkable, but it’s clear that it’s so not been brewed optimally either. I’m picking up a note of salt here and a lot of nuttyness. There’s a touch of bitterness at the back of the tongue in swallowing which tells me that just 30 seconds more would have turned this undrinkable.

I would definitely trust the literature on this one and steep for no more than four minutes for an optimal brew.

It will be interesting to see if I can resteep this successfully or if I’ve just managed to ruin the leaves.

Backlogging, yesterday during work.
Or, work and work, I was at a course all day and this is what I assume they gave us. It was definitely citrus-y and when you serve a citrus-y tea to a large group of people without bothering to tell them what sort of tea it is, this is usually it.

It was watery weak and synthetically citrus-y. Drinkable, but only for the lack of better. On the next course day, if we’re not having it somewhere where I can pop into my own lab and make me a quick cup, I think maybe I’ll just drink coffee instead.

Backlogging, yesterday morning.
I had this in my travel mug yesterday morning and right now I’m working off some scribbled notes in my notebook. it’s the last variety from that sampler box I bought and this one is just (supposedly) white tea. I’ve taken all the bags out of the box and put them in my pretty little wooden teabag box, so they’re all a little further away from each other. It should keep the contamination of flavours down at least a little bit. Of course that’s probably too late, but there you are.

Anyway. The aroma was nutty, but the taste was rather boring. That said, at least it actually tasted white and it didn’t seem to have been contaminated by the other flavoured and more smelly varieties in the box.

It’s not by any means an outstanding white tea, but out of the four in the box, it was by far the best and it would be excellent for use in the travel cup.

Oh gosh, what a day! I hate the first day back at work after having been on holiday. Especially when first day back at work after a holiday coincides with the first day of moving lab craziness. I’m in bad need of some good tea. And a nap. And some ice cream. (And a little pity would be nice too)
/whining

I think this would be the sixth steep or something like that. Since the fifth was getting a bit on the thin side, I’ve added just a pinch of fresh leaves.

It’s still as clear as water while pouring and it still gets that funky greenish colour in the cup. Lots of nutty aroma though, and the pinch of fresh leaves gave it a little more kick.

However, even if it wasn’t for fact that for hygenic reasons, the leaves are being discarded today (and probably hygeine-wise should have been yesterday. If I get ill, I get ill. I doubt it’ll kill me), there probably wouldn’t be enough kick left in them for a seventh steep.

(Mind you, I may have used slightly too cold water, because I almost nearly forgot about it. I can tell because the fresh pinch leaves got into the cup and are refusing to sink to the bottom… pokes them. Poke poke poke)

Backlogging. Had this in my travel mug this morning. Wasn’t something I was really drinking quickly and I found the melon flavour very pronounced.

It was relatively okay for a morning tea, I suppose. Mostly I’m kind of indifferent to it.

The bag was okay for the morning though where I didn’t really care all that much about anything else than caffeine content.

I’ve been to my littlest cousin’s 7th birthday today. I have been fed a lot of food as well as some hot cocoa, which was nice, and some coffee, which was terribly awfully acidic. Don’t know what brand that was, but definitely not one to my taste. Tea wasn’t offered, and I don’t like making a nuisance of myself about when I am actually fully capable of drinking coffee and there are other beverages available. On the way home I had to switch trains and had a fifteen minute wait for the next train, so I went into the kiosk and got me a bottle of this stuff.

Let’s start with the beginning, the description of the… the… tea, for lack of better word. “A touch of apricot.” A touch? A touch?!!! You’re joking, right? If this is a touch of apricot, then they’ve touched this stuff to a mighty large apricot. I like apricots a lot, though, so I can deal with that.

It also contains not tea, but tea extract, which if you ask my snobby self, although they are both made of tea is no more the same as tea, as raisins are the same as wine in spite of both being made of grapes. (Gosh, what an awkward sentence! You know what I mean, right?)

Let’s not mention the synthetic smell and go straight to the flavour. I can find some tea in it, mostly in the dry astringency, but very little actual tea flavour. Mostly it’s just like a sort of apricotty cordial, though. Sweet, but not too much so, and refreshing too. And definitely not as boring as the wide selection of carbonated soft drinks. Sometimes you just don’t want bubbles, you know?

I’m debating with myself how to rate this, and I have decided that I should rate it primarily on how much I like it on its own terms, because I do think it’s an excellent alternative to fizzy drinks.
If I had rated it on how much I like it in terms of how much I think it had to do with tea, it would have been about a 25.

ARGH! I accidentally did something weird and the post got eaten. I think it must have been a stray back button click. Oh well.

We’re gearing up for steep five of this. I was advised last night to put the leaves in the fridge over night, and then while I was sleeping I was adviced to not do that under any circumstances ever. Hm. Well, I stuck them in the fridge because that was what I had to go with at the time of going to bed and to be honest I felt best about doing that from a hygeinic standpoint.

I took the pot out some 45 minutes ago to let the leaves acclimatise themselves a bit, but primarily because the idea of pouring 80C hot water into an ice-cold favourite teapot with farm animals on it sounded a bit risky to me. I’ve seen what happens when you pour newly boiled water into a glass that wasn’t technically made for it. It… exploded… So yeah, I’m cautious. And especially with this one. (Farm animals!)

Again, it’s got that funny green shade in the cup and it’s as clear as water while pouring. Still got some aroma to it though, and while it has lost colour in the cup, there still plenty colour left.

Tastewise, it’s faded a bit. It’s definitely beginning to taste weak now. I think if it got a little help from just a pinch of fresh leaves, there would still be plenty of kick in it. It just needs a… crutch, so to speak.

Cheers to the next 100 posts. I’m still drinking this. I’m on my fourth infusion now.

Steeps two and three still had loads and loads of flavour in them. That sourness in the aftertaste that I mentioned is almost non-existant at this point and the natural sweetness of the tea is more pronounced.

Steep four is turning slightly greenish in colour. It’s almost completely clear when pouring, but after it has been allowed to stand and develop a little more in the cup after pouring it turns into that same golden colour again. It’s the same with the flavour. Beginning to show a little weakness at first, but once it has had a few minutes to develop in cup there’s still lots of flavour in it.

I don’t have time to do any more steeps of this tonight, but I would rather like to see how much flavour it’s possible to wring out of this very nice tea. My resteeping experience only goes so far as to immediate resteeps. Is there a good way to somehow preserve the leaves over night? Like, should I rinse the pot out and put the leaves in the fridge overnight or should I dry them or some such?

Advice? Ideas?

This is my post number 100! Happy Steepsterversary to me, yay!

This is one of the teas I bought earlier this week when I first feel off the stingy-wagon. I haven’t tasted it yet as I have saved it for this very occasion and this particular post.

Pai Mu Tan has always been for me one of THE white teas. This one and Yin Zhen. They are the very essence of white teas and nothing can surpass them in greatness. They don’t need to have fantastic outstanding flavours, they are carried by their names alone.

Today has been a day in the name of glazed teapot maintenance. I very rarely clean out my pots on the inside other than a thorough rinsing with clean water, because a teapot that you can see is in use is a teapot with character! And it also greatly reduces the threat of accidentally making up a pot of tea that tastes of soap residue. However, I felt that this tea for this post deserved as clean a pot as I could muster. So that was eight teapots total, half a tub of baking soda, god only knows how many liters of water boiled and even more water for rinsing. (The planet probably hates me now.)

I am very carefully brewing this as well as I can without actually owning a thermometer. I’m a bit surprised that the shop recommends a steeping time of 6-8 minutes which I think is eons for a white, so I had to consult my literature. To my enormous surprise, the literature agrees! O.o Have I been brewing whites all wrong all this time? Very well, I shall give it 6-8 minutes, although it’s really difficult to convince my head that this is a good idea. My literature also informs me that green teas are best steeped without the pot lid on so as to prevent it from stewing in the steam and a gentler preparation. I’m assuming that this also goes for white tea.

It’s steeping now, there are five minutes to go. I’m really nervous that I’m going to ruin this. What sort of Steepsterversary post would that make! O.o

Anyway, the dry leaves are large and green and they have a fresh, grassy sort of smell. You can dream yourself halfway to China on this smell, it’s very nice. Because I’m impatient and can’t wait until I’ve poured a cup, I’ve been sniffing the pot too as it steeps. The grassy smell is more prominent here when mixed with the steam, but it’s hard to really pick up on the notes this way.

I have made sure to choose a big white porcelain mug that allows me to drain the pot in go. Of course, I have to say yay for surface tension here and I’m not going to attempt lifting it! :p It’s a darkish golden colour, very unlike the murky brownish stuff in the cheap teabags, and after pouring, it darkens a little further quickly.

It has a very clear sort of vegetal and leafy smell that you don’t have to sit and search for. It flows right up and out of the cup and fills up your nose on every sniff.

Mmmm, no, the long steeping time definitely didn’t ruin it. Once again it would seem that the literature is smarter than me. It has a natural sweetness to it. It’s not as delicate as I had expected. I’ve had white teas before, obviously, but I think this might be my debut with this particular variety. It leaves a sort of fresh feeling in the mouth on the sides of the tongue, the same way that mint does, only without actually tasting of mint at all.

However, it does also leave behind that somewhat sour aftertaste that lasts forever. I like a tea that has flavour that doesn’t go away immediately, but I’m not really a very big fan of this particular sourness. I find, though, that it decreases considerably if I don’t keep the tea in my mouth for too long before swallowing.

I am not in the slightest disappointed by this. (And will have to take my white tea brewing methods up to some serious revision, it would seem…)

Good morning Steepster.

Someone has, while I’ve been sleeping, logged a white tea with blueberry. You’ll forgive me for not have paid attention to who you were, sorry. At any rate, it inspired me this morning. And you would think that this inspiration would mean to make something with a white tea. Or something with blueberries. Er… well it’s got berries in it. And it smells heavenly. All sweet and fruity and it’s full of dried berries. It’s the sort of tea that you almost don’t even have to drink. Just sit around and sniff the tin. Yum.

Due to the nature of the cup I’m using this morning I can’t really tell you about the colour, but it looks like a light golden one while pouring. The brew smell primarily of oolong with a heavy berry note on top. I get associations to desserts and cakes and bakeries. A nice raspberry muffin, oh yes.

This development continues in taste. Where the dry leaves smelled heavily of berries and the brew was sort of half and half leaning towards the oolong, the taste is very primarily oolong and then a nice fruity sweetness, as if has been sweetened with fruit instead of sugar. Note, I haven’t actually added sugar or anything else. It’s extremely rare that I add anything to my tea, and if I do, I promise you’ll hear about it. But IF I had sweetened it, it tastes like I’ve used fruit instead of sugar, and… Okay this is turning strange. I’m even beginning to confuse myself. I’ll just stop.

Weird, that I’ve never logged this! I really thought the entire supply had been logged at least once. This has caused the boyfriend to call me a slacker, so in return I’ll inform you that he’s conducted his first experiment with rooibos in non-bagged form. I got rid of all my rooibos’ by inflicting them on him. Apparently it’s something that will require some further experimentation.

Anyway, back to the tea at hand. The dry leaves smell sweet and flowery, and I’m not for a moment in doubt that it’s a tea with additives. It’s a darkish brew and it smells like Earl Grey with a floral note on top. No surprises there.

Supposedly this is like a normal Earl Grey but with a creamy aftertaste, and on that count I’ll have to say Earl Grey yes. Aftertaste no. Not really. Not very much anyway. I’ve never been very good with Earl Greys. I’ve never really been able to truly pick up the citrus, unless it’s really bad and synthetic like some I could mention. Therefore I can’t really say how well this blend is in Earl Grey standards, but after some careful tasting, I can find a small note of citrus.

On the basis that I can form an opinion of it, I’ll say a nice, solid black with a floral tone to it and a discreet citrus-y note, and on THAT form, it’s a nice tea. Compared with other Earl Greys I don’t know if it would live up to the rating.

Oh, for crying out loud…! cleans up Lake Tea from the coffee table and living room floor
FYI, if a leaf has settled itself in the spout of the pot and is disrupting the flow of tea through same, don’t just tip the pot a little more in an attempt to compensate. It doesn’t work. And teapot lids are not a tight fit.

This is a resteep of the previous pot, and it’s definitely different. The lapsang souchong is much less pronounced and that elusive sweetness that you find in english breakfast comes out. I’ve always thought that english breakfast had a note of honey, and I’m getting it loud and clear here the second time around. Very insteresting.

I haven’t usually had much success with resteeping of black teas, so I’m thinking that maybe the lapsang souchong carried the blend in the first steep and the green tea in it is taking over here.

I feel so sorry for you that you don’t have my little local shop and especially that you can’t have this particular blend.

After all these experiments with questionable tea bags (I said three out of five, earlier but it’s really just four) I still have one left, the supposedly plain white (Ha!) but I’m going to save that for later. I’m in bad need of some proper tea. One that I can drink more than a cup of.

So I turn to this new discovery of mine. Yes. It’s still awesome.

Another one from that sampler box. Apple and lemon. Slightly odd combination if you ask me, but on the other hand I was also surprised at how well vanilla and mint went together so you never know.

The bag didn’t smell of anything at all, really, but when I poured the water on, I get a strong scent of lemon and underneath it apple. So that bit checks out. (Can you tell I’m biased?) It’s just that it’s so perfumed. It smells more like something you might dab behind your ears rather than something you would drink.

I’ve tried their green lemon tea before and found it wildly synthetic in flavour so I’m not getting my hopes up about this one. I was right. It is indeed the same perfumed lemon that they’ve used for this one. I can barely find the apple underneath.

I’ve been through three out of five varieties in this box now, and I’m reaching the conclusion that I kinda already new. This sort of thing is NOT the way to introduce yourself to the world of white teas.

I’m saving the pai mu tan I got the other day for a special occasion (and I’ve got one in mind) and this sampler box is seriously making me look forward to it.