Angrboda

This one came to me from Cteresa. I like lychee as a fruit. They’re nommy, but alas, I don’t get them very often as they are a rare guest around here, and they’re expensive when they are here. But sometimes you luck out and can get a few hundred grams for a reasonable amount of money.

Consequently, lychee flavoured tea is something that appeals to me.

This one is bagged and I suddenly realise what people mean when they can taste paper. There’s a distinct paper-y note to this, but it’s not so bad that I can’t ignore it. It’s also closely up against the lychee flavour, so maybe it’s just a lychee aspect? The fruits have never tasted like paper to me, but a fruit and a fruit flavouring are not always exactly the same.

I find this does taste very lychee-y. It even has that slight astringency to it that the lychee fruits have, and this is significant because the base is a Chinese black and Chinese blacks are only very seldomly astringent.

This one is flavoured with lychee blossoms rather than actual fruit and it does have a flowery sort of note, but it’s not overwhelming.

I keep saying I don’t care for flower scented teas and then I come across one which is nice… When it’s fruit flowers, I just seem to get along with them better.

I’m going to continue to explore lychee flavoureds, I believe, I in fact ordered one just yesterday. (Yeah. Oops. Twice.)

When I made my Verdant order some time ago, I knew from the start that I definitely wanted the Laoshan Black, I definitely wanted the aged woodfired TGY and I definitely wanted the honey orchid oolong. Then there was this one, which I had seen getting lots of positive comments, but on the other hand I tend to feel about green oolongs the way I feel about green and white tea in general. I need to be in the mood. I dithered about it for a while and eventually made an executive decision to save it for later.

“Myself,” I said, “save it for later.”
“Yes ma’am,” I answered myself.

This strategy paid off, because this was exactly the tea that was included as my free sample! How is that for lucky?

Then it sat around in the box for a while, because… in the mood, you know? Today, we had it, the boyfriend and I. Two steeps of it, to which I jotted down a few notes on the back of the empty pouch.

This actually reminds me of something. It occurred to me, as I was jotting down my keywords, that if you look closely, Steepsterites, you might actually be able to tell which posts I’ve written based on keywords and which posts I’ve written while actually drinking the tea in question. The former tend to be more to the point on the descriptions, where the latter often seem to want to be fairly long-winded. Or is that just my perception?

Anyway, for the first steep, I was struck by how extremely flowery it was, both in the aroma and the flavour. If I hadn’t known better, I would have assumed it was scented.

Something else in the flavour gave me a synesthesia poke too. I don’t know exactly what caused that experience. It definitely wasn’t the flowers, I don’t think, because flowers don’t usually come across that way. It was all bright, almost sparkly and very yellow in colour, all cheery and saturated, like a lemon. It’s been a long time since I’ve had that strong an experience. Usually it’s pretty mild, and I often I don’t even register it. I don’t have synesthesia with everything, it seems like it’s more a case of a number of random triggers. (Sometimes I wonder if it’s synesthesia at all, or if it’s just some other sort of random association)

At the very bottom of the flavour, there was something sweet. It was a bit sugar-y for me, and I suppose that’s what others have identified as Rock Candy.

For the second time around, the flowers had retreated a bit. They were still strong, but not as strong, and the flavour experience in general was a bit smoother. It was a little buttery at this point and something else which squints at notes I can’t decipher. Damn this lazy self-invented semi-shorthand note-taking! Oh yes! When I was pouring the cups, there was a note of something in it that reminded me an awful lot of cake. (That must be where the current muffin craving comes from).

The third steep is the one I’m making now, and it’s sort of under duress, because we had a curry for dinner today and the whole kitchen still smells of it. (An odd korma which, while tasty, was nothing at all like how either of us think of korma at all. Weird.) I believe this accounts for the weird aroma notes I experienced while pouring this steep. Vanilla and tobacco? Really, nose?

I. Don’t. Think. So.

Nostrils saturated with other strong smells, however nice, can do a number on you.

Now that I’m back at the desk, there’s not that much aroma left to speak of. I should point out, by the way, that as this was a large shared pot, these aren’t gong-fu steepings. I expect this is probably the last I can get out of these leaves before it turns boring on me. I have very little patience for when the flavours start to get thin, you see. I get bored with it very quickly at that point. So the aroma is all but gone here, but I can pick up some subdued flowers and something that strikes me as vaguely nutty. I’m not sure, however, if the latter is genuine, or if it’s the same sort of issue as the vanilla and tobacco from before. (It’s really very distracting!)

Nope, the nuts are there. The flavour has gone all nutty too. A bit sweet and a bit nutty, but almost all of the stronger vegetal oolongness is gone, so what I’m ending up with comes across largely as erm… nut water. Best way I can think of to describe it. There wasn’t really much cause to bother with this a third time around, or possibly I should have given it even longer than I did. Can’t be changed now, though.

Still, I think I might give the leaves a fourth go tomorrow, only I will transfer them to the small pot first so I can do it more gong-fu-ishly and use the small cups if he still wants to share.

Today was one of those mornings where I was really in the mood for a Yunnan black.(*) Only to discover that I hadn’t got any. At all. Not a one. Not even a sample! That’s just typical. When I really want one, I can’t have one. When I mostly associate them with a mouthful of hay, I’ve got lots.

I went for this one instead because it seemed to be the closest I could come. I expect I’ll probably be drinking this all day until the boyfriend comes home from Copenhagen tonight, at which point we will hopefully have something extra nommy to celebrate that particular wedding hurdle being over with (because he’s not a Danish citizen, there are some documents that he needs from the British embassy. It’s a formality, but a really silly one). Gong-fu-ish method get the leaves used up. :)

(*)ought this actually be ‘. . . one of those mornings when I was really . . .’

The work stock has been replenished and this is one that we are trying there, but I haven’t got at home. The majority of the other work teas are things I keep at home as well, but this was one of the new ones this time. I share a handful of tins with my boss, and when they require re-filling we sit down together and pick out what we want. Some of them we’ve bought again and again, but we usually have something new as well. So we had this one this morning, first tea of the new stock. I took a few short notes while drinking it, and I want you all to remember that at the time of doing so I couldn’t remember what the blend actually was supposed to consist of, so any identification was merely qualified guesswork.

I’m really very surprised by this one. I’m actually not 100% convinced that we actually got the right blend. They have a regular morning blend as well which is supposed to be strong where this is supposed to be medium strong.

The thing is, the cup I had this morning tasted very Assam heavy and it struck me as a rather strong blend. The first few mouthfuls had Assam written all over them, complete with a raisin-y malty note and a fair amount of astringency on the back end of the sip and the aftertaste. For me, those are the embodiment of Assams.

As it cooled a little, the flavour smoothed out a bit, but it never lost that strong Assam-y quality. I just began to be able to tell that there was something else in there as well, something non-descript and default tea-ish. Dark and quiet, yet forceful in presence. My immediate guess here was Ceylon.

At the very very edges I got a small small tiny amount of something vaguely grainy and a whiff of something very mildy floral. It gave me a small suspicion of Keemun, but nothing to really substantiate a proper guess.

So my conclusion was a blend of Assam and Ceylon in the end.

Now that I’m home and have looked it up, I can tell you that this is the Assam-est thing that doesn’t contain any Assam that I’ve ever had. It tasted so Assam heavy that I’m having a really hard time coming to terms with Assam not being involved at all.

The regular Morning Blend is actually an Assam and Ceylon blend, and, although I’ve never had that one, that is why I have suspicions about whether they actually sent us the right stuff.

Also because if this blend is classified as ‘medium strong’ and they recommend a steeping time of 6-8 minutes (!!!), I’m not sure I even want to try a strong blend. At 6-8 minutes I reckon this would be undrinkable. I never go above five at the most if I can help it. ACP generally have a lot of wonderful stuff, but their steeping recommendations are completely wacky!

Infusin_Susan sent this one to me in our recent swap. These days I tend to be drawn to almost anything flavoured or partially flavoured with vanilla. I blame JacquelineM for this. She was the one who started singing the praises of the Vanilla Comoro from Harney & Sons and others quickly followed. I had tried one or two vanilla blacks before that and hadn’t been super impressed by it, so what, I wondered, was I missing?

This led me to explore the flavour. There was a relatively good one from Whittard of Chelsea, which took a little time for me to really get into and an awesome one from Chi of Tea, sadly now having been out of stock for rather a long time. The Chi of Tea one was the last straw for me. It pushed me completely over the edge because it was flavoured just right!

Since then, I’ve been drawn to all things vanilla black. If I see one while I’m making a purchase I’m likely to try it out at least once. The AC Perch’s was acceptable. The vanilla assam from 52 teas that I discovered in the Christmas box? I’ve bought two pouches and I’m hoarding them. The add-a-vanilla-pod-in-pieces-to-a-random-tin-and-leave-for-three-weeks method that JacquelineM uses? Yeah, I’m giving that a go with my otherwise fairly boring Kenya at the moment. (The pod was pretty old, though, so it might not work too well)

So when Infusin_Susan put this one up as one she would like to trade for something else, I acted. Obviously.

When one wants to find one’s perfect whatever it is, one generally has to put some thought into exactly what it is one seeks in that particular tea, and with vanilla, I keep thinking I have this worked out, but in truth I’m jumping back and forth like a frog on a warm rock. If I’m having something disappointing which has a subtle flavour, I will say that I want the flavour to be stronger. If I’m having something disappointing with a strong flavour, the opposite will apply. If I’m having something great but not quite there which has a subtle flavour, I’ll say I prefer the flavour to be subtle. And of course vice versa. I keep thinking I know what I want, but in reality I appear to be lying through my teeth. I think, though, that I’m mostly in favour of relatively strongly flavoured, but primarily showing up on the swallow and in the aftertaste. I want to still be able to tell that it’s tea and I don’t want something super-sweet.

As this is not supposed to be a post about vanilla tea in general, does this particular one live up to this wish?

No.

The aroma is strong, yet controlled, just like I want it to be, but the flavour is rather lacking. It shows up in all the right places, but there just isn’t enough of it. It doesn’t give me that rich and creamy flavour at all, it doesn’t make the whole inside of my mouth taste like vanilla and the only aftertaste that really lingers is that of the base tea.

What is the base tea of this stuff? Ceylon, it would seem. Well, that explains the aftertaste. Ceylons have, for me, generally a very long aftertaste and as I really wanted that to be primarily the added flavour here, it just doesn’t work out for me as a vanilla base. Something with a shorter flavour, primarily on the first part of the sip so that the vanilla can run the show from the middle-ish and onwards. Ceylon just doesn’t swing that way for me.

As it is with caramel, it’s difficult to find the perfectly flavoured vanilla black, but even the really boring, disappointing ones are likely to be finished off fairly quickly in this house. With caramel, luckily, I’ve found it, but with vanilla I’m still searching. I’ve come close, but limited supply keeps getting in my way. However, I am enjoying the search.

This is one of the oolongs I bought from TeaSpring the last time I shopped there. The mission was to put out some feelers for a replacement for Shang Teas Clear Jade Orchid, and in the process I let it get a little away from me. I don’t think I really considered this one a candidate but the whole shopping process was going so well… You know?

Anyway, this one also goes by the name of White Cockscomb and it’s one of those that has a legend attached to it. Somehow those legend teas have a special appeal to me. I think they speak to the mythological and creative bits of my soul. This may have been part of the reason I decided to try it. It’s also not impossible that I was seduced by the fact that it’s a Fujian tea. In fact, this is very likely.

I don’t think I’ve ever tried this particular oolong before. I think I would have remembered if I had. I mean, I can’t make any statements regarding Dan Cong or Da Hong Pao because I don’t have any experience to speak of with them, but I know I have definitely had both and had them more than once. So I think I would remember if I’ve had this one before, at least if I’d had it more than once. Why am I justifying this anyway? As if I’m not supposed to be having something for a second time ever. Let’s just leave this whole train of thought.

The aroma of the dry leaves didn’t hide their Fujian origin. There was that fainly wood-y note of general oolong-ness and a fairly strong sweet note of something very cocoa-like. Not quite cocoa, but close enough to put that association into my head. After steeping the aroma is more or less the same. Very cocoa-y and sweet and not super-honeyed, but there is definitely some honey there.

So I was expecting a mouthful of something sweet, sort of cocoa-y and what I actually got was kind of wooden and vegetal and completely unexpected. Of course it has cooled a bit now because I was roped into a weird discussion before I could really get started on this. There is a certain grainy-ness coming out if I sort of slurp it a bit. It’s there all the time, but slurping makes it stand out a bit more. I suspect this is the same thing as when you slurp wine a bit and get more air mixed into it, the flavours will develop more and grow. With this grainy-ness I also get some of that cocoa-y note back and I’m quite pleased with this. We’re getting back to that Fujian-ness that I know so well and away from the strange initial vegetal, oddly yellow, flavour of the first sip.

It’s definitely not a candidate for the Clear Jade Orchid replacement at all, but as mentioned I don’t think I ever thought it would be either. In its own right, I’m finding it quite enjoyable. Shame it’s so expensive though.

Sample number four out of ten this week! Hey I’m doing quite well!

This is one I can’t remember where came from. I’m a little concerned about what sort of impression it’s going to leave me with because it came in a ziplock pouch which had originally contained a TGY sample from Norbu. How does one clean those bags for re-use? How does one avoid TGY traces in the new sample? Oh well, at least it wasn’t a super-strongly aromatic one that was in there before, so I don’t imagine it to be much of a problem, really. But the idea of it puzzled me.

This one looks like a dark oolong and the leaves smelled like a dark oolong, with some cocoa-y notes to it, but after steeping, it suddenly smells greener. Kind of butter-y and vegetal. It still has the cocoa notes and the dark oolong oak-y notes too, though, so you can probably imagine that it’s a bit odd. (Again, I think of that TGY…)

The flavour is also a funny mix of two types, and it’s not just that it tastes like one of those oolongs that seem to be exactly half-fermented. It more like a blend of two. (TGY ghost? None of the others have described this, but on the other hand none of the other posts are very detailed.)

What I’ve actually got here is a very complex flavour profile, and it seems to change like a chameleon several times in just one sip. At the very front of the flavour I’m hit by something floral. Then immidiately after that follows something vaguely like cinnamon and after that we get something fruity, almost peach-y, but not as juicy. Finally the aftertaste is very green tea-ish and slightly minty. Of the cocoa notes in the aroma, I can find nothing.

I’m not going to award points for this because I don’t feel certain that the sample isn’t contaminated by what was previously in the pouch. While what I’ve got here is very enjoyable indeed, there something about it that strikes me as sort of… off. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be that way. If there is no contamination, however, it’s a very lovely tea indeed.

Sample three out of ten this week.

This is one that Auggy sent to me. Auggy is special because it has previously been determined that she and I have nearly identical taste buds. It’s uncanny how much we agree on the subject of tea sometimes. Consequently she has never managed to send me something I didn’t like. She has sent me things I didn’t love, but never things I didn’t enjoy immensely. And I feel pretty safe in that regard anyway, because we also dislike many of the same things so it would be unlikely that she would own them in the first place.

I have to say, though, this one is a bit peculiar. I have been wary of it for a long time now, I think Auggy sent me this package in summer. It definitely wasn’t too long after we moved in here. I’m not very keen on flower scented ones, and I have slowly started to figure out which flowers I can tolerate best and which flowers mean there’s a risk of disaster. Magnolia so far has been in the former category (if anybody’s curious, jasmine is in the latter), but still. Flowers. Wibble

This is the week for it, though! It’s like Brave Week. So I took this one, and I made me a semi-gong fu-y cup.

At the first sip, I had already forgotten about the magnolia aspect and thought I was just going to get an ordinary sip of ordinary Dan Cong. After I had recuperated from that little nasty shock, I found that there wasn’t really anything to be afraid of here. When you don’t expect magnolia, it tastes extremely odd, by the way.

I’m getting the oolong through the scenting loud and clear, but it’s sufficiently masked that I can’t get much of an impression of it. It could be almost any dark oolong, to be honest. I’m not sure about this honey note that TeaCuppa is talking about. Maybe it’s there but it’s so elusive for me that I can’t seem to pin it down.

The scenting is not too powerful at first, but this is not something that’s suitable for my mug size. It really needs to be drunk before it cools off too much, because the scenting gets stronger as it cools. So while it was pretty mild and pleasant while it was piping hot, it’s taking a nose dive into Perfumeville now that it’s cooled off considerably. That’s a shame. I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve somehow wrecked it by not drinking it fast enough.

Sample two out of ten this week!

Actually this one is sort of cheating a bit, because the whole point of these sample challenges is to get some of the older ones that I’ve had around for a while used up, and this one I just got today. I did a swap with Infusin_Susan and this one was included as one of a couple of bonus samples.

It’s even more cheating for sample week, because this isn’t one that I think would end up lying around untried for very long anyway. It sounds so interesting! I’m totally intrigued by the idea of honey flavoured tea. I’m not sure honey and pear would be something I would come up with on my own, but why not?

The aroma was definitely strongly honeyed, both dry leaf and after steeping. I didn’t get much pear on the aroma, mostly just the honey. I find this odd, because it seems the majority of people have found it to be strongly pear with a little honey around it and my impression is exactly opposite. Maybe they’re right? Now I’m sniffing at this and am suddenly unsure of what I think it smells like. But I do still think it has more honey than others seem to think.

The flavour is strongly pear, definitely. It makes me think of the big light green ones that turn yellow as they ripen and they have little brown dots on them. I can’t remember what the sort is called. Lukas?

I’m getting honey almost exclusively on the swallow and the aftertaste, but not in the flavour proper. But is this a bad thing? No, because that’s what honey taste like. It has a stronger flavour just when you swallow and it leaves a good strong aftertaste, and this is exactly what this tea mimics. It’s not enough to make something taste like something else. One also has to pay some attention to how that something else is actually experienced in its proper form. I think I’ve just realised when a flavoured tea is the Perfect One and when it’s just good.

That said, I wouldn’t call this the perfect pear tea or the perfect honey tea. I don’t know, I find the combination a bit odd, I suppose. I’m sure it’s great as a dessert, but I’m not sure I think it works super-well as a tea flavouring.

I’m not getting any real impression of the base black, other than I seem to be picking up a small amount of astringency, but not very much. It could be anything really.

I’m glad I got to try this one. I’m quite enjoying it.

The first sample finished of hopefully ten this week, is one of the three freebies I got with my Jeeves & Jericho order. The other two I was fairly certain I wouldn’t like (and one contains hibiscus, so that’s a confirmed dislike), so I’ve given one of them away and will have to sort out what to do with the last one. I’ll probably unhand that one as well.

Anyway, this one was the only one that I thought I would find drinkable and even then, I’m not super-keen on EGs at all.

I found this one to be quite strong in both flavour and aroma. Actually, as the flavour and the aroma were so close, I shan’t bother to write about them separately.

It’s quite strong and very bergamot-y, rather too bergamot-y for me, but it’s also slightly creamy and quite smooth.

In spite of the strong bergamot, which I don’t really care for, I found it surprisingly enjoyable, although to bergamot-y to be really good. For someone who is fond of EGs, this might be a pretty good choice.

Sample seven! I made my goal, I did! I think maybe I could get rid of a LOT more samples if I set myself a more ambitious goal. I frequently put down ‘finish X samples and Y tins before buying new tea’ goals and those work well for motivation, but I wonder if maybe I should aim for a higher amount of samples next week. Ten perhaps? Yes. Ten samples done and decupboarded next week.

Anyway, I was in a caramel mood today, largely because I have placed myself on Snack Control. Have even been out and got excersise! Ew, yuck. Several hours later I’m still coughing a bit. I feel ooooooooooold! So yeah, that’s why I was really feeling the lust for this one now.

Cteresa sent it to me and she recommended that I had it with a little milk and sugar in to get the most out of the flavouring. I never add anything to anything save the rooibos the other day, so I wasn’t really very keen on just doing it now without at least trying it neat first. There was just the right amount of leaf for my small pot which empties into a large mug, so there was enough that I could easily try it both ways.

I brewed it like I normally do, completely forgetting that I was recommended to also make sure to stir it thoroughly both during and after steeping. Oh well, nobody’s perfect.

First I tried it neat and the flavour was all daaaaark and slightly astringent. There were three equal parts to the flavour for me. One part nutty, one part caramel-y and one part cocoa-y. I wouldn’t say that any of these were stronger than the others, it seemed a fairly even and seamless mix to me. I suspect the astringency I mentioned earlier is a result of these flavours rather than the base tea, because the base is a Keemun and that has no business being astringent.

Next I tried to add the milk and sugar as recommended, and it definitely made the tea sweeter. I suppose that’s to be expected really. What with having added sugar. Flavouring-wise, I’m afraid I didn’t really feel it made much of a difference, possibly because I’m so unused to having any additions in tea at all. I find it a bit distracting when it’s there now.

That said, yes, the milk definitely brought out the caramel a lot more and made it amore sweetie sort of flavouring as opposed to the very dark profile from before. I’m just not sure I didn’t actually prefer it without additions. I think this blend might have benefited from having a little vanilla in it as well, to create that sort of creamy sweetness without having to add things.

I have already decided to make a Yumchaa order the next time I shop, so I will probably buy some more of this. Then I’ll have to conduct a number of experiments with it and additions and vanilla. At any rate, a caramel flavoured tea will definitely get used up fairly quickly around here.

Sample six! Only one more to go and I’ll have made my goal. Sort of. It was supposed to be one daily, but that didn’t work out much.

I have enjoyed this one, and shall enjoy the rest of it in bed with some classic british comedy on dvd, and possibly a little WordFeuding on the side.

Having the last half of this this morning for sample finishing week, sample number five.

Language lesson!

Let me guess. Chá is Portuguese for tea?

So para fazer um bom chá might be something like loose leaf of black tea?

Am I close? Wildly off the mark?

(Shame it doesn’t come with a pronounciation guide. I should have liked to have seen my Brazilian’s face when I came to work and spouted Portuguese at her. :p These days when I do, she tends to roll her eyes at me, but it’s her own fault for having taught me to swear! :p )

Ricky sent me this one back in August. I remember it was August, because he had taken pity on me for the Steepster club not being available internationally and sponsored the first box for me, and he also included a number of other things. So for once I remember.

I’ve been scared of it ever since. That creepy face on the label doesn’t help either.

I’m feeling brave and encouraged to embrace a whole new world these days though, due to the rooibos that Cteresa (enabler!) shared with me that I really liked. I asked the boyfriend if he was interested and at first he decided to pass, but when he discovered I was only making a small pot, so he would only be getting half the amount of our normal mugs, he too decided to give it a go.

I was surprised at how dark it brewed up. Some of it is because the holes in the strainer is larger than these leaves, but that doesn’t account for all of it. It’s almost as dark as your average black tea, only this has a sort of funny greenish tint to it.

The aroma was the second surprise. It smells very much like a relatively mild pu-erh. I hadn’t expected that. For some reason I was expecting minty. I think because in my brain I want to compare it to mate, which I think has a minty sort of smell. Why do I want to compare it to mate? Because the leaves look the same and because they both come from South America. That’s how much imagination I’ve got.

Flavour-wise, here comes the third surprise. Based on other posts and the information from 52teas, I was expecting a much stronger flavour, but it’s come out surprisingly mild, considering. I brewed at a cautious temperature, though, so that might have something to do with it. I was just expecting more pang, really.

I find it a bit coffee like on the end of the flavour and there’s a funny tingling aftertaste, a bit like I get from mate as well as finally that minty touch. Mostly though it’s just sort of earthy and a bit like a somewhat pale shadow of pu-erh.

Honestly, I’d rather have real pu-erh.

Sample number four dealt with. I can’t remember where this one came from, but I’ve had it for ages because… generic green tea in an ordinary bag. There’s something not super-tempting about that. But I suppose that’s exactly what this sort of week is for, isn’t it?

I hadn’t even bothered to look it up on Steepster and put it in my cupboard, it seems. Only reason I’m even posting about it, is because I found it when I looked it up to see if it would require removing from cupboard or not, and since it was here, it seemed silly not leave a little note on it.

If you have never had green tea before in your life and decide to try it for the first time, DON’T pick this one as your first attempt. This tastes nothing like real green tea. It’s slightly bitter and with a sort of generic flavour that isn’t really anything other than NOT black, if you get my meaning there. It tastes a bit minty which I suspect is aroma contamination and rather like paper which can only be bag contamination.

It’s not unbearably bad, it’s completely drinkable. It’s just not something that will be very recognisable as green tea if you don’t know that’s what you’re supposedly having.

Seven samples finished in seven days? Yeah, I’m behind because this is number three! O.o

I have already covered how Cteresa sent me Brave Tea and Interesting Tea. She also sent me Coveted Tea. I’ve had this on my shopping list for just about forever, but never really got around to making an MF order. It’s the New Shop Syndrome. It’s really difficult to shop in a new place for the first time. I tend to have to decide to do so well in advance of actual shopping, otherwise I just end up stocking up of old favourites instead. So MF is one of those places that I never got around to. I don’t think I’ve ever even tried anything from them before, which doesn’t make it easier to shop there for the first time.

So Cteresa is hitting two birds with one stone for me here. If this one comes out well for me, MF is going on the list of the next shopping spree along with Yumchaa. (That just leaves one space open. I’m still undecided about that one, but I do have a few potentials to check out. Three orders at a time seems to be what I’m comfortable with. I probably ought to make it one order per month instead, really.)

Anyway, so let’s see about this much coveted tea. Strangely enough, I’m not actually concerned about disappointment should I turn out to not like it.

The aroma is very sweet and pleasant. It’s quite chocolate-y and also kind of cake-y and vanilla-y. There’s a vague hint of something fruity if you really look for it and knows about it beforehand, but it’s not noticable and it’s not directly recognisable as strawberry. I really enjoy this aroma. It’s like liquid sweets, only not as cloying as one might have feared. It’s very pleasant indeed.

The flavour, however, is strongly strawberry. I’m really surprised at how strawberry-y this is! I can’t remember ever having met such a very strawberry-y strawberry flavoured tea before. It’s amazing! I’m getting a little chocolate underneath, but mostly it’s just the berries. There’s something creamy about it too, and it reminds me of fresh strawberries served with cream or a fat milk and sprinkled with sugar, a very classic summer dessert in Denmark.

Yeah, MF is definitely in the next order group. No doubt about that. I knew there was a reason I’ve been wanting to try this one for so long!

This is one of a few that we’ve got that I haven’t added to my cupboard.

1. They belong to the boyfriend.
2. He brought them with him when we moved in together.
3. He is the only one who drinks them.
4. I don’t like rooibos anyway.

However, after the success of the flavoured rooibos that Cteresa sent me the other day, he suggested that maybe I should also try the three or four that he’s got. Well, three out of the four. He enjoys this one, he thinks I might like two of the others as well and he very much doubts I’ll like the fourth one. I know I won’t like it, because I bought it once, before I realised that me and rooibos don’t mesh, because some female creature kept prattling on about how wonnnnnnnnnnderful it was iced. Let’s just say it wasn’t wonderful hot and it wasn’t wonderful iced. Much less wonnnnnnnnnnnnnnderful. So I’m steering well clear of that one until such time as I come over all masochistic.

Anyway, this one was suggested to start with. Not surprisingly considering the man’s affinity to lemons. I made a whole mug for him and a little more than half a mug for me. It makes it seem a little less scary the fact that there’s less of it.

Hmmm, odd. Yeah, there’s lemon here, but mostly I’m getting something… minty? It tastes a bit like chewing gum, really. The sort that adults eat, not children. I’m not sure I would call it super awesome, but it’s actually drinkable. Again the flavouring seems to cancel out the worst pencil-shaving-y-ness of the rooibos base.

I’m not at all surprised that he’s fond of it, but I’m not sure it’s what I’m looking for. I suspect I require some sweetness here.

Therefore, I conducted an experiment and if the following is some huge rooibos faux pas, I suggest you either avert your eyes now if you don’t want to risk it, or consider yourselves dutifully warned.

I added some sugar.

And this is an entirely different picture. Yeah it’s a little on the sweet side due to the dosage of sugar (I have funky thingie with sugar in which doses it for you and you just empty a ‘room’ over the cup) and the size of the cup, but what remained of unpleasant rooibos-y woodyness has been well and truly subdued.

I think, if it’s not a naturally sweet flavour, I might require a bit of sugar in a flavoured rooibos.

Interesting.

No, I’m not feeling particularly discouraged about this. Probably not something I’ll be drinking very often though.

I received this bag as a free sample when I ordered from AC Perch’s recently. The last two times I’ve ordered from them I’ve received free bags. That must be a new practice and although I haven’t had anything that I actually expect to like (This, bleh. A green ginger-y one, bleh. And a jasmine one, bleh), I definitely approve. :)

Anyway, I thought this would work as the sample finished for the day, so I made a cup. Unfortunately then I got side-tracked and forgot about it.

After some hour and a half, the boyfriend came home and commented on the neglected mug in the kitchen. As an Indian, I knew it was probably ruined, but I test-tasted the lukewarm result anyway.

Bleeeeeeeech!

No clue what it would have been like as properly made, and I swear I didn’t sabotage it on purpose.

We have already covered how Cteresa sent me Brave Tea. This one is in the category of Interesting Tea, and this is actually the reason she sent me an envelope in the first place. It’s all a way to encourage my little African kick. Mozambique! Another country I had no idea even drank tea! Now I need to make sure to include that Rwanda black next time I order from Nothing But Tea (providing of course that I actually manage to order. I’ll make damn sure next time that I do it properly!)

As this one was suggested that I try following a less than satisfactory go at a Kenya, and as I was informed to not expect miracles as this was also a CTC tea, I have to take a moment here to compare leaf size between the two. Yes, the Mozambique is a CTC as well, but compared to the Kenya, the leaf size of the Moz is still twice as large. I find this bodes well.

This is not presently part of my sample finishing project. Cteresa included enough that I can get two small pots out of it, and as my better half is at work, he obviously can’t share a larger pot with me.

It brews up a dark and strongly aromatic cup. In a previous post Cteresa finds that it’s similar to a generic Ceylon, and I agree with that. It has that malty, bold sort of smell with a note of something kind of wooden. Not rooibos wood-y, just general woodyness. Kind of spicy as well, but not very.

At this point I’m actually a little uncertain if I made it too strong after all. Surely such a powerful aroma has to come from somewhere. As it turns out, however, this does not seem to be the case. This is actually a pretty smooth cup. It’s not super-smooth in the way that a really good Chinese can be, but it’s definitely getting there. Again, I agree with the Ceylon comparison, only a little smoother. This doesn’t taste like a very finicky tea, and I tend to prefer those. A tea that it’s near impossible to wreck, that’s always a good point in my book. I’m in it for the taste, not the challenge. :)

Of course it might turn out that I could have just as easily ruined it by too much leaf or not paying attention to the steeping time, but I didn’t so we’ll go with that.

The very first note I get from a sip is something that invokes a complete absence of colour. Not a non-synesthesia reaction, but actual complete blackness as in total absence of… well everything. I’ve never had that one before, and I’m not sure I like it. It feels slightly malevolent. Ironically, the actual flavour of that note is rather nice in a morning tea. It’s all strong and powerful and ever so slightly very nearly something that could be thought a wee bit smoky. This is just at first, and then when I pay attention to it, it turns more in the direction of slightly floral in a Darjeeling-esque way, but without the grassy spicyness of the Darj. (This transition also rids me of that funny absence of colour experience in my brain. Most of the time synesthesia is kind of fun, but sometimes it’s just plain weird and makes me wonder if I should just try to stop paying attention to it at all, because it might make stuff like this a lot simpler)

As the cup cools, that Darj-y note develops a lot and the whole cup seems to turn into some sort of in between Darj and Ceylon thing, with the Darjeeling’s spicy greenishness and the Ceylon’s strength and malty base note. Had this been a blend I would not have found it strange at all, but as it’s a single region tea, I’m a bit puzzled by it. It makes it difficult for me to work out what I actually think of it. I mean I’m not very fond of Darjeeling, they just don’t appeal to me that much, and I have little experience with Ceylon and most of that was kind of forgettable, so…

I think it’s mostly in the Ceylon end of the spectrum, though. That base note of malty strength is really coming through a lot all the time and that note is pretty good. Very sweet for something completely unsweetened, and it leaves an aftertaste which is long and thick and a little bit sticky.

This works well as a morning tea indeed, and if one was the sort to take tea with a bit of milk, I expect this would handle the addition wonderfully.

I feel a bit like this whole post is a list of teas that the Moz is kind of like, only not…

I have decided that this week is sample finishing week. Seven days, seven samples. (At least)

I haven’t the foggiest where this one came from, and I’ve had it for a while. One of those that at first are standing around because I haven’t got to that one yet, or I wasn’t in the mood for something new or whatever other reason, and after a while it’s standing there untried but becoming more and more invisible, because I’ve simply stopped looking it it. The tin is familiar, it no longer stands out as something new and untested.

Therefore, it seemed a good place to start today. The only thing I know about it is that one of you lot must have sent it to me.

The leaves are funny! They’re twisted into these long spear-like shapes, almost two centimeters long! I dithered a bit on how to brew it and how many of those spears would constitute my normal teaspoon-measured amount. Eventually I just gave up and used ALL the leaf, less water and a start steep of 30 seconds. That takes care of that problem. I also couldn’t work out if it was a green or a green type oolong. On Steepster it’s listed as a green tea, but on the tin whoever it was of you wrote green/oolong. So what temperature to use? Again, I compromised and chose the temperature in the middle of the two. Ha, you can’t fool me, Blink Bonnie!

The result is an amber coloured cup of tea that smells remarkably sweet. It has that honey-y, sugar-y sort of aroma that I’ve found really enjoyable in other teas. It’s not quite the same as those, but it’s definitely leaning in that direction. There is also an additional note to the aroma here which strikes me as peculiarly bready. So honey, sugar and bread. Is this a cup of tea or is it a liquid cake?

Since I’ve had this for so long and never tried it, I had some thoughts as to how much the leaves had faded. Especially when doing these short steeping things, how much of the flavour would have been lost? I honestly wasn’t expecting to find all that much when tasting this one. Unfortunately I think it has faded some, because I’m getting most of the flavour just on the swallow and in the aftertaste.

What I’m getting there is surprisingly milky. It reminds me a little of milk oolongs, only not as creamy as them. It’s quite sweet and completely contrary to the aroma, the main flavour note here is something kind of vegetal as well as a sort of dark nutty note that makes me decide that I think this is more oolong than green.

It’s hard for me to really get any closer than this. It’s a shame that I didn’t try this one sooner, becuase I rather suspect I may have missed out a bit. On the other hand, although my primary suspicion for the very subtle flavour here is the fading of the leaves with age, I can’t be entirely certain that this is not actually supposed to be this way. A bit vague and fleeting rather than full and flavoursome. Some teas are meant to be that way, and they tend not impress me much, if at all.

This means that the full flavour experience here could have been really high or really mediocre (according to my preferences) and I haven’t the first clue which end of the scale it’s actually supposed to be at. Therefore we are placing it squarely in the middle with a good 70-ish points.

I’m having BRAVE TEA!!! courtesy of Cteresa who sent me an envelope of goodies. Well, actually it’s a rooibos rather than a tea-tea, and that’s why it’s brave. Me and rooibos, we have a troubled past, to be honest. On the other hand raspberry and vanilla? How can that not be lovely?

So, as this was the only sample in the envelope that had me a bit doubtful and as I was in an adventurous brave frame of mind, I decided to start with this one right off the bat, because otherwise the fear of rooibos would make me postpone it for ages and ages and ages. I must admit, I have been sent a few samples in my time that I’m still too afraid to try.

So we’re having this one now. The boyfriend was actually very excited that I was making a rooibos, as he really likes them. (And still rarely asks for one when I ask him about preference, for some reason. I think he deliberately goes for things that we can both have, and that’s not always the purpose of my question) Anyway, he was excited and wanted a cup too. Luckily for him, I had already decided that it would be a sharing one.

Now comes the challenge of keeping a neutral mind and not let my misgivings colour the experience too much.

The aroma is incredibly sweet and fruity and extremely raspberry-y! I’m surprised at how very fruity and juicy this actually smells. I’m not even getting a whole lot of rooibos-y aroma from it unless I put my nose so close to the surface that I’m dipping the tip in it. It’s just all raspberry and only just a hint of that rooibos-y woodenness that is the larger part of my rooibos problem. As for the vanilla, at first I thought I couldn’t find it, but the more I sniff at this, the more I realise that it is there, and it’s every bit as strong as the raspberry, but because the raspberry is a naturally sharper aroma, the vanilla ends up rather camuflaged. Once you know it’s there, there’s no trouble in picking it out.

This smells like a raspberry flavoured sweet. Or an ice cream, one of the more luxurious brands.

Gosh.

Oh my gosh.

Steepsterites, gosh!

Am I really drinking rooibos, or am I in fact biting a berry?

All this time, I’ve completely written off rooibos because I don’t like it plain, but now it turns out that flavoured it might be totally acceptable. Probably just has to be a fairly strong flavouring. Rooibos plain, I find I might as well be chewing a pencil dipped in hot water.

Anyway, yes, this is surprisingly good!

It’s very intensely flavoured and taking the first sip of this was one hundred percent raspberry. Not raspberry flavour, mind you. No, it was actually like eating a real raspberry! I can’t recall every having come across anything fruit flavoured, not just teas and the like, anything fruit flavoured and have it taste so unbelievably close to the real thing.

Again, I’m getting very little actual rooibos flavour here. There is a hint of something sort of wooden in the background, but it’s very faint and under control and therefore not unpleasant at all. I suspect it’s probably the vanilla aspect here that might be doing that. I don’t really get a lot of vanilla in the flavour, but I could definitely imagine a good thick vanilla flavour as being one that could counter the wooden flavour of plain rooibos.

Wow, this is amazing. I went into this one expecting it to be tolerable at best and probably somewhere in the range of the yellow face on the scale, and now look where we ended up instead! I suspect that Cteresa actually knows me better than I think she does. Perhaps even better than I know myself!

Here we have a flavoured oolong that Dinosara shared with me. I quite like fruity oolongs in general, possibly as a result of that raspberry oolong from ACP. That one has made the idea of flavoured oolong appeal to me (although it certainly depends on what they’re flavoured with )

This one is rose and tropical fruits. Mango and passion fruit and also aconia berries. I have no clue what aconia berries taste like.

The aroma is rather tart, and I’m easily picking up on the passion fruit. The tartness of the aroma smells sort of juicy and bright orange-y red. I wonder if that’s the berries. I can’t find much in the way of mango at all here.

The flavour is unexpected. The first thought at the first sip was something along the lines of, “nutty, what?”. It’s a sort of mix between walnuts and hazelnuts, but it’s unmistakably nutty and wee bit woody, and it’s especially evident on the swallow and in the initial phase of the aftertaste. This stuff may smell like the colour of flame, but it tastes decidedly brown.

Second sip brings me some fruit, and again it’s primarily passion fruit. Slightly weird tasting passion fruit, which must be the influence of those berries. If I knew what they were supposed to taste like, it would have been a lot easier. I’m not getting all that very much out of it than just the passion fruit, so this tea isn’t making me all that much wiser, apart from a suspicion that they’re probably somewhat tart in flavour. On the other hand, aren’t must berries kind of tart in flavour?

I’m getting nothing in the way of mango, but the more I sip, the more I’m getting a floral top layer of rose. I’m not super keen on floral teas as most of them are either too perfumed or dusty tasting. I’ve met a few that were surprisingly nice, but in general it’s not something I have actively sought out on my own. This one has a rather strong floral note there, but it seems somehow detached from the rest of the flavour. Like a roof rather than a top layer, really. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about that. Generally I would prefer to have the flavour experience a fully integrated one, but in this case I kinda like having the floralness sort of off to one side. It’s easier to deal with there.

I have come to the conclusion that the nutty notes that I’m getting out of this must be coming straight from the base. It’s funny I’ve never really noticed oolongs being so nutty before.

All in all, I’m not sure this is a tea that I would necessarily need to come back to or miss once the sample is gone, but now that I’ve got a cup, it’s quite enjoyable. Just not one I think will stick around in my mind much. As usual, interesting to try though.

This is a backlog from… uh… a time in the past!

I bought this as part of my recent attempt to BUY ALL THE FRUITY BLACKS!!! and I bought it for the boyfriend primarily because he generally tends to enjoy things with lemon. We tasted this not long after we had ACP’s orange flavoured black and the decision to make this that day was actually inspired by just having had that orange. How’s that for a complicated sentence?

It seemed to me to be a rather basic citrus-y experience in both the aroma and the flavour. Nothing really told me, ‘hey, hello, I’m a lemon tea’. It could be anything really. It reminded me of low-grade Earl Greys where you can’t really identify the bergamot as such. I find those often taste more like lemon to me, so I suppose that’s why the comparison entered my mind.

I found it fairly uninspiring, but drinkable indeed. Just another one of those that you can drink without necessarily having to think too much about what it is your drinking.

I have no intel on whether or not the boyfriend found it adhered to his lemon-y standards.

(I should probably point out here that I have in the past had at least one of ACP’s many EG-y varieties, and that the earlier comparison to a low-grade EG doesn’t apply there. ACP’s EGs are definitely properly bergamot-y in my experience and not the slightest bit lemon-y. In a direct comparison between an EG variety and the lemon within this particular brand, this would definitely be far more easily distinguished as actual lemon.)

Greetings Steepsterites.

I’ve come over all meh and tired and stuff. Started quite suddenly last night with low-level headache, chills and sleepyness. I wonder if I’m nipping something in the bud. Clearly the best course of action under these circumstances is to have another cup of tea (and attempt to NOT play Bejeweled for six hours straight), and since I paid ransom to Tax and Customs on my 52teas order yesterday, it seemed a good place to start.

We’ve bought the cranberry black from AC Perch’s recently and I’m really pleased with that one, so making a comparison with this one seems impossible to avoid. I was sniffing the dry leaves of each side by side and the 52teas one definitely smells like it’s much more strongly flavoured. I thought the ACP had a pretty pleasant level of flavouring so on the dry aroma alone, I prefer that one, I think. This one is a bit too forceful and there’s a funny screaming pink and dusty teal side note that reminds me of bubblegum.

After steeping it still smells pretty strongly flavoured and bubblegum-ish. I could probably identify it as cranberry in a blind test, but it smells like there’s more to it than that. It’s that dusty teal note again. I’m not sure what it is, but it reminds me weirdly of Earl Grey (that can’t be right!) or some such. I’m pretty certain these leaves have never even seen bergamot, though… At this point I can no longer compare it with ACP other than from memory, but I can’t recall if this funny note also showed up in that one. If it did, then it must be some sort of quality of the cranberry itself, but mostly I’m inclined to believe that it has to do with the differences in the strength of flavouring and the differences in the base. I can’t remember what the base is on either one, but I seem to recall Frank having mentioned once that his black base is often Nilgiri (although I can’t remember where I saw that and may in fact have made it up) and I’m pretty certain that ACP is either something Chinese or Ceylon or a blend of both.

As mentioned, I thought ACP had a level of flavouring that was just right for me. Not too little and not too much. Clearly fruity but also with a detectable tea flavour underneath it. This one is definitely far more fruity, and there it is again, that teal note! Where is that coming from??? Anyway, strongly fruit flavoured and yes, definitely cranberry-ish with a sort of tangy sweetness. I still think there’s something citrus-y going on here as well, and I’m having a sudden overwhelming urge to try and do up some sort of orange and cranberry combination, now that’s I’ve got an abundance of both available to me.

This is definitely a pleasant tea and as usual I once again find myself preferring the fruity blends over the more outlandish ones that 52teas sell, but all in all, I do prefer the fruity blends to be either green or white, I think. Those really seem to be my favourites of all. For a cranberry flavoured black in particular, I think I prefer ACP over this one, although this is definitely also a good one.