Angrboda

but with a twist!

I’m f-f-f-f-f-freezing! So I wanted a tea with a warming sort of flavour. You know chocolate with chili in it, right?

So I had this chocolate tea and I had this here chili powder and I thought, “hmmmmm…. Self, it’s worth a try.”

I made a small strong pot of chocolate tea and added half a teaspoon of chili, stirred and steeped.

The result was… this very red sort of tea, seriously it’s almost as red as a pu-ehr. It smells like a spicy spaghetti sauce and the flavour has gone really sweet in an unpleasant sort of way, with the hotness of the chili scratching my esophagus all the way down.

It’s not very pleasant and it’s not even warming. It’s not impossible that I used too much chili, but I don’t really feel inclined to experiment further with this.

I’m not going to drink the rest of the pot, but at least I’ve learned something. That in itself is a good thing, right?

This is what I’m drinking at work at the moment. Currently they’re messing with the ceiling and the ventilation system so it’s impossible to work. In the meantime I figured I could go and talk about this tea.

It’s the house blend of a small local tea shop near where I live. It consists of Panyong, Keemun and Yunnan black tea with mallow flowers and is supposedly without or low in tannins.

I’ve had a sample of this ages ago which I liked but never bought more of. I’m pretty certain it didn’t have the mallow flowers then, but I can’t really be certain. (actually I think I might have an ancient review of it somewhere, but I don’t have access to it at the moment)

It’s a pleasant blend with a nice floral but not too much so aroma. It’s a good work-tea and I imagine it would be quite nice with a bit of milk as well as without. I don’t really agree with the no tannins, though. I feel like I’m definitely picking up some tannins in this.

However, I learned a few weeks ago that it’s not a particularly good tea for brewing in the morning and bringing on the train in the travelling mug. For some reason there I didn’t like it much at all. I expect it was too much of it at one time since this is not necessarily a tea where you have to drink gallons.

One, maybe two cups is pleasant, but enough.

(I hope this is getting a green thumbs up sign. When I move the cursor away from the icon it turns into the red thumbs down… It’s supposed to be a green one for liking it!)

This seemed like an autumny sort of tea. It’s a clear, but cold day here in Denmark, I got out of work early and I currently have the coldest fingers south of the polar circle! I thought this was the closest thing I had to something that would fit the weather and season.

I’ve already reviewed this tea earlier and I’m having some now because it’s bloody cold around these parts tonight!

I just wanted to say: Comments! Comments on Steepster! YAY! tosses confetti

this would be the sort of tea I get at my parents’ house unless I bring my own. Teabags of comparatively okay quality. I haven’t in teh past been all that impressed with the green teas of this brand, but I can think of stuff that are significantly worse quality.

I’ve never had a green earl grey before and I’m not really sure what to expect. It’s steeping right now so I haven’t tasted it yet.

It doesn’t really smell at all like earl grey as I know it, but I can definitely pick up the citrus.

Tastewise it’s a bit of an O.o experience. I could have sworn I picked up a hint of chamomile! It’s drinkable, sure, but I don’t think it’s a flavour I’m feeling inclined to go seeking out. There is of course the possibility that it has become perfumed by other teas as it came from a variety sampler pack.

It’s just that I have a very fixed idea when I think ‘earl grey’. And this is not it. This isn’t even remotely anything I consider earl grey-ish.

I don’t really like rooibos. But my throat hurts and real tea tastes weird. I’m drinking this sweetened with a bit of honey which is good for the throat and also helps mask the flavour a bit.

I’m very fond of Genmaicha. It’s one of my favourite greens. This one is from A. C. Perch’s in Copenhagen and a completely unexpected addition to the cupboard. I bought a book from there, which I think I mentioned in my previous post. It’s partly about tea in general and partly about the history of the shop. Apparently, as I discovered when I got it, when ordering the book on the publishing day they added a tin of Genmaicha. Freebie tea! I’m a fan. :D

It smells lovely. A delicate fragrance that smells more of tea than it does of rice. It’s been a while since I’ve had any Genmaicha, so it might be that my memory is playing tricks on me, but it looks to me like there are more unpuffed rice in this one. I’m rather amused by the fact that the puffed rice are actually green too in this one. Never seen that before. It looks funny. :)

The steeped tea smells more or less like the dry leaves. Delicate and mild and more tea-like than rice-like. I like that. It rather pale in colour too.

The flavour seems very mild to me. It’s been a while since I’ve had any green, or white for that matter, so my tongue is probably temporarily ruined by black, oolong and pu-ehr. After a few sips, I stareted getting over that, though, and I started picking up a little more flavour. At first it’s mostly just the flavour of the tea, and then when swallowing the rice comes into play. It can’t under any circumstances be allowed to over-steep though, because it turns bitter really quickly.

I like this Genmaicha a lot, and I’m very likely to come back for more. And I’m not just saying that because it was free and came in a nice tin. Win!

Also, it feels absolutely wonderful for my mysteriously sore throat. Double win!

Turns out Nepal has a tea production. Who knew? I didn’t. Apparently Nepal produces quite a lot of tea, mainly black and green, and the tea from the easternmost regions are very similar to Darjeeling (and has in fact been sold as such due to the Darjeeling name being so valuable).

Quite by coincidence when looking for something else, I came across a Nepal Top Oolong at A C Perch’s in Copenhagen which was definitely something I wanted to try. Fairly expensive with nearly 100 kr per 100 grams. This translates to about €13.4 or $19.2 for 100 grams, which was the smallest quantity they would allow me to buy through their webshop.

The leaves are relatively dark and look nicely twirled. There isn’t really a lot of scent to them though.

The steeped tea is very light and yellowish in colour for an oolong and it smells sweet and somewhat nutty. The scent of it promises so much more than it actually delivers. It’s a very mild flavour and almost no aftertaste at all, which makes it a nice tea, but it gets boring pretty quickly.

As it develops there is a little more aftertaste, but still not very much. It wasn’t until the last few stewed dregs that I really got anything of the sort, and by that time it was turning slightly bitter.

It’s definitely not a good morning tea, it’s much too delicate in flavour for that. I’d take it for a tea break later in the day and probably not while eating something, since that would overpower what flavour it has.

It’s a nice enough tea, but it’s just not interesting enough for me to get more of. Especially not at this price.

I just received this in the post yesterday (along with a GORGEOUS book on tea and the history of the 175 years old teashop in Copenhagen with lots of lovely pictures in it). I couldn’t resist ordering some of this. I’m a sucker for a berry tea, and I haven’t come across very many flavoured oolongs before.

The dry leaves smelled divine. I couldn’t stop smelling the bag last night. The steeped tea smells very fruity, but I still feel like I can pick up the scent of the tea underneath.

It doesn’t taste very fruity. Mostly it’s tea and with a note of something not-tea that must be the berries. The danish description on their site says it’s also good on ice and I’m very inclined to believe it. I’ll have to try that some time.

All in all, I’m happy with this.

The smell isn’t overly fruity, but you can tell there’s definitely fruit in it. It’s discreet and unless you’re looking for it, you might miss it, but it’s there.

The taste is very fruity, but not unpleasantly so. Passionfruit has a rather special flavour I think, and it’s coming through nicely in the tea. Not too fond of passionfruit as a fruit, but the flavour suits the tea and vice versa. I like this tea a lot better than I like the fruit.

While I wasn’t completely convinced of this when I first reviewed it, I have an addendum to make.
It is absolutely splendid iced!

No notes yet.

I was given this tea as a freebie when I made my first order with Adagio. They asked me for my birthday and gave me a sample of the corrosponding tea.
I like peaches as a fruit, but so far I haven’t been all that fond of it in tea, so I’ve put of trying it for a while. If I had checked beforehand instead of afterwards, I might have told them a fake birthday in order to get a different tin.
The leaves are large and you can clearly see both the white and the oolong. It smells very much like peach though, so I’m a bit sceptic and I’ve only made a small pot.
After steeping it smells more like oolong than it does of peach. It’s still peachy but it’s just an underlying note rather than the overwhelmingness of the dry leaves, and I’m pleased to find that although it does taste of peaches and it’s not a tea I’ll ever be especially fond of, I think, it’s not nearly as bad as I had feared. The oolong and white peony definitely makes up for the peach.
I’ll probably not buy more of this, but I am likely to eventually try some of the other zodiac blends, if for nothing else than collecting the tins.) It’s a great idea for a gift for someone, definitely.

Forgot about it and seriously oversteeped it. It doesn’t seem to have had a negative impact on the tea though, since it’s neither bitter nor overly strong. It’s got a very smooth and very nice flavour of chocolate without being dominated by sweetness, and I can recommend drinking it plain or add a little milk to the cup and give it a sort of chocolate milk quality. (pretty thin chocolate milk, but hey, you can’t have everything)
Also, try brewing it with a pinch of mint, for an After Eight sort of variation.

Oh yes, this is very definitely cinnamon. The leaves absolutely reek of cinnamon far overpowering any particular scent of tea. After steeping it more or less the same story. I can pick up a hint of tea in the scent but mostly it’s just cinnamon. For some reason I’m also getting a strong note of honey.
It doesn’t taste as overly cinnamon-y as it smells, thankfully. There actually seems to be very little cinnamon in the flavour or perhaps it’s because the strong aroma has made me expect more.
I’m undecided about whether or not I like it. I dislike the scent, but it’s drinkable. It would have been more suitable around christmas time though. Buying more of this is unlikely.

I love apricots. But while this tea definitely smells and tastes like apricots, idk… It just reminds me of your average southern fruits sort of tea. Maybe the ones I’ve had have just been overwhelmingly apricot-y but no matter what, nothing about this tea really surprised me.

It’s a great tea, very delicious, just not one that really stands out to me. I’m not sure if it’s one I’ll purchase again or not. Maybe if the mood strikes me.

The leaves smell very sweet and when steeped the scent of vanilla is still strong and full.

It’s easy to find the vanilla in the flavour too, but if you’re looking for the sweet sort of vanilla sugar flavour that you get in ice creams or desserts you’re going to get disappointed. This isn’t so overwhelmingly sweet as that, but it’s definitely there and it’s definitely vanilla.

I saw another reviewer here suggest mixing it with fruity teas. I’ll have to try that.

Leaves smell very sweet and fruity. Very nice.
The colour strikes me a kind of boring light golden brown. It doesn’t look bad, it just looks very average.
It doesn’t taste very fruity. I can find the raspberry, but it’s rather subtle and not enormously sweet. I like that, and I think it might benefit from a little sugar. I’ll have to experiment wtih that.

The leaves smell sort of like I would imagine Nutella concentrate would smell like if it existed. Already before actually tasting it, I’m finding myself considering an experiment involving chocolate milk.
The colour’s nicely golden-red and you can really smell the nuts in the scent.
It’s not at all as sweet as I had expected. It’s very nutty and very delicious actually. I’m definitely going to conduct some experiments with sugar, milk and chocolate milk, and I might buy this tea again.

I had never heard of this before, but apparently it’s some sort of tropical fruit that we others can’t get because the fruit doesn’t transport very well.
The dry leaves smell weird. Sort of fruity and bitter at the same time. Like a very old orange. At this point I’m sceptic. Very sceptic.
Colour is nice and golden and the scent is something familiar that I can’t quite place. It’s not mouldy oranges anymore anyway.
The taste is…. strange. Fruity. Adagio suggests something akin to candied strawberry and pineapple. I can’t really ‘find’ those notes but at the same time I don’t really disagree either. I can’t tell when I don’t know how the fruit is supposed to taste.

I like it. I don’t think I’ll stock up on it once I’ve got through the sample, but I like it.

Both the strawberry and the lemon tea used were from Whittard of Chelsea. Their strawberry tea is like my ideal strawberry tea. It’s JUST right. I’ve been toying with the idea of this combination for a while. The sweet of the strawberry and the tart of the lemon.
I used 1 part strawberry tea and 1 part lemon tea, and unfortunately the result wasn’t nearly as yummy as I had expected. Oh it was definitely still good and still drinkable, but it was like the two kinds of fruit equalled each other out instead of complementing each other. I haven’t given up though. I believe it’s a question of working out the right ratio. Next time I’ll try 2 parts strawberry to 1 part lemon and see how that works.

I consider Pickwick a sort of average quality when it comes to bagged tea. You can get better but you can definitely also get worse. Much worse. This is a pretty old one, because I tend to forget that I have it, but if you consider the level of quality it’s pretty good. It’s not an outstanding tea by any definition of the word, but it’s definitely drinkable, refreshing and the elderblossom flavour is there without being synthetic.
Let’s not talk about the appearance though because it’s very unclear and murky to look at, although this might have something to do with the bags being several years old and probably past their prime.
I think this would work nicely for an iced tea. Perhaps with a dash of something sweet and fruity.

This was given to me as a gift once in a clear plastic bag with no details as to origins of any kind. I wasn’t expecting grandness and it is indeed pretty mainstream. It could have been a whole lot worse. Just had a sort of craving for green tea last night and it’s lasted into this morning.

This is normally one of those things that I only drink if I’m ill and real tea tastes weird, or to experimentally blend wtih other teas. Here is a different sort of tip for you. You know that cocoa powder for making hot cocoa? Just a spoonful in a cup, add boiling water, stir and you’ve got hot cocoa. Make a pot of peppermint herbal and use that to make your hot cocoa instead of regular boiling water. It’s very delicious, like drinking melted After Eight, except without the icky cream