Daniel Scott

So for anybody who was not already aware: yes, I did get the job at Teavana. Handily, it would seem – the manager practically begged me to stay interested when she called me for an interview, and told me I did “amazing” at the end of said interview. The paperwork was a pain in the butt (they want you to do everything electronically! no, I can’t “upload” a voided cheque because I don’t have a SCANNER, wtf?), but it’s finally all in, and I should be in their system with an employee number and stuffs by next week. I had my after-hours training shift on Wednesday, and my first real shift on the selling floor last night.

(Most of this is about that, less about the tea. I seriously wish there was a non-tea blog option. Maybe I should just create a non-tea tea entry called “tea retailer/experience blog.”)

Anyway, I think this is the one I had in the store last night. It’s awfully hard to remember, because the assistant manager is the one who made it for me, and we got interrupted by customers before he could get it going. Afterward, we were trying to determine what the heck he had made me, and we were pretty sure that I’d decided on this one. I will not rate it for now though, just in case.

(As a note, I do plan to continue rating Teavana teas. My employment information is not connected anywhere online with my real name, and so far I think people can see I neither exclusively rag on, nor exclusively praise their teas. So I think I’m safe.)

It’s super juicy and fruity, which I like. I am, after all, someone who probably would have been the target audience for the juice-like teas in the sample carts if I hadn’t already been a tea drinker on my own when Teavana came to Canada. (As a side note, I had to refill one of the sample carts last night, so for anyone who is wondering…it’s 1/8th of a cup of rock sugar in 32oz in those samples. That is from the American “recipe” cards we were sent.)

Having been sitting in my Timolino in the fridge overnight, it’s a bit more sour than I remember it being yesterday (I’m thinking this blend has hibby…), but it’s still refreshing. You cannot taste the rooibos at all, so, taste-wise this may as well be an herbal…but again, that does not particularly bother me personally, and there is little price difference between the rooibos and the herbals. I recommended this one to a girl last night; I hope she likes it.

I spent a large chunk of last night pulling tins off the wall and giving them a good ’niff. A lot of the rooibos and green teas look decent, and I have a whole list to try. Then again, Pineapple Kona Pop still smells amazing, despite being middling at best, so I hope I am not getting my hopes up.

As for Teavana…it’s a little early to tell, but it’s going okay so far. My manager seems pretty laid-back/forgiving, so that helps. Hours so far look good. Pay is shockingly bad, and staying past my probation on THAT looks iffy; but that’s weeks from now, so we’ll see.

Training went well; we covered selling from the tea wall, sampling and pushing the cast iron on the unsuspecting. (Har.) I flinched at some of the up-selling tactics, but it’s mostly stuff I’m familiar with from previous work – I’m just more sensitive to it with a product I have so many personal opinions about. I thought for sure that I would have been hired with a bunch of other tea freaks, but on the contrary – most of the other new hires barely had an idea how to brew tea loose, so significant parts of my “training” involved explaining things to my new co-workers, or giving them tips. I deliberately angled to do the “front of the class” role-play second (after someone else stumbled through it, and before everyone else could try – the perfect position to show people up, basically), which I felt a bit guilty about. But my mother and the manager at my other job I discussed this with assured me that I’d done the right thing “to get noticed and get ahead.”

My closing shift last night went okay, despite some moments walking around feeling lost and useless. The scale hates me; I don’t seem to have gotten the order you do things in worked out. I discovered that most things do have a price tag after all, just not on the paper tags where you’d obviously think they were. I’m most awkward at the tea bar, and only got through drink orders based on my own experience making my own tea, but I’m sure I’ll get smoother. Most people said, “Really?!” when I told them it was my first day. Overall, it was probably one of the most relaxing days at work I’ve ever had, despite being my first shift, because most of the questions people had about tea were a breeze for me to answer, and I can fudge my way a bit with product-related questions for now – it’ll lose me sales until I know the product better, but I tend to learn product fast anyway.

The assistant manager told me, “I thought you’d need a lot more guidance, but you seem to have picked up on everything pretty fast. But then, I heard you killed it in training.” He then gave me “improvement advice,” which mostly consisted of telling me that I don’t over-pour enough(!). His exact advice was to start with an over-pour of 8 grams(!) because most people will say yes to it. Ugh. My only over-pours had actually been out of sheer awkwardness (being new to it), and/or the customer saying, “No, that’s fine,” before I could dump any back out.

Now. As painful as that is to me… I was amazed at how well the selling process honestly seems to work on people who aren’t already tea drinkers. It actually works the way they tell you it does in training, which I’ve never seen in retail before. I was trained on “transitions” to get people to follow you from the sample cart to the cast iron and through the store, and I was astonished to find people trotting after me in groups like children after the Pied Piper when I used them, obediently sipping every sample I gave them. This shit actually works? I had multiple people follow me throughout the store, exclaiming delightedly over everything I showed them before I took them to the wall to show them the teas in the samples, and then they bought them – both of them. I was astonished at how people were perfectly willing – even eager – to buy whatever I told them to buy to replicate the samples, to listen to all my instructions, and not question a thing I told them. No one even seemed to clue in to what a selling tactic it is to mix two teas (sometimes almost totally unrelated – hello, a white and a mate?) and then require you to buy both to get the same taste. I had to keep reminding myself that these people are not stupid, just clueless, and trusting us to tell them what to do. Which makes me a little sad. Because they will get a bit taken at some point by a retailer that is, naturally, also looking to make sales. My first purchases at DAVIDs, I got talked into multiple unnecessary tins, too…

(Oddly enough, people don’t seem quite as willing to listen to advice that they should. I mean, people bought nearly any tea I showed them, but only nodded politely at my firm advice that they upgrade to a better infuser than a tea ball. Argh.)

So some bad points, but not as bad as I’d truly feared. I hope I continue to like it.

Also, I need to find out what my staff discount applies to, because it’s a whopping 40%.

Last cup, and another one down!

I completely love this one though, and will eventually pick up more of this. It is way better a mate than the mate chai I had in my cupboard previously. I’m not always the biggest fan of the chocolate-and-raspberry combination, but these flavours just work together perfectly. I think it is the almond balancing everything out.

I like to match this one up with DT’s raspberry-flavoured agave. You need to be careful not to overdo it on the agave, though – I have discovered that the flavouring is quite strong, and if you go hard on the agave, you end up with tea that tastes like raspberry flavouring and, uhhh… Raspberry flavouring. So yeah. Not too much agave.

Other people have said that this one is better than DT’s Root Beer Float. And it is. Root Beer Float is damn good, in my opinion, but this one tops it just that little bit in basically every way.

The dry smell is amazing – like root beer, but with something else almost spicy underneath, and the wet smell has the same promise of deliciousness. The tea itself has a strong flavour which is predominantly root beer with something deeper and richer underneath…possibly that’s the chicory? I really wouldn’t know. It’s very smooth, and basically just has a richness and complexity that DT’s Root Beer Float lacks.

Which means I’d like to order more now that it’s available. Which brings me to the fact that I have a little problem.

Well, actually, it’s rather a large problem, which is this – I am a hoarder. Ever seen TLC’s mental illness porn, Buried Alive? (As opposed to, you know, their obesity porn like I Eat 33, 000 Calories A Day, or their child abuse porn like Toddlers & Tiaras, or… TLC is the king of exploitation programming, people.)

Well, it’s basically like that. Although not as bad. (This is an ugly thing to tell people, usually because they picture people who hoard jars of their own urine and sleep in piles of roach-infested baby blankets they won’t use because they don’t have an infant.) Possibly because I have the advantage of complete self-awareness that I have the disorder (at least for the past 5 years or so), I actually try to clean a bit at least weekly.

I was actually pleased when most of my hoarding tendencies got fixated on tea about a year ago. I may have trouble getting rid of stuff, but what can you really do with tea except get rid of it by drinking it? I was absolutely thrilled that I’d found something to hoard which was consumable and thus wouldn’t permanently take up space. Way better than years ago when I was hoarding newspapers and magazines, and they formed dangerous, chest-high teetering piles of solid, yellowing objects that just sat and grew.

But I know I’ve hit the point where I truly need to admit I have a lot of tea. I stood in my room today and just held my head looking – really looking – at the tea. I ran out of the shelf room that I had in front of some of my books, so now I just have bags lined up on the floor. Ack, stop! At least nearly all the newer stuff is 10g samples. I can drink that up in no time. (See? So good at the excuses.) I need to consider: I’m getting to the point where drinking my tea up will become a chore. I don’t want that, right? I want to enjoy it.

So I went downstairs and nixed most of the order I was composing from 52teas. Cherry Almond Gunpowder? What was I thinking? I hate gunpowder green. Gone. Anything from the permanent collection? Maybe another day, but not until I’ve drank a lot. Gone. Cotton Candy SBT? I have a half-pound of the bags of Cotton Candy, I don’t need another cotton candy tea. Gone.

I’m down to another bag of this one, Earl Grey Cheesecake (pass up cheesecake? inconceivable!) and a couple of SBT bags. Should I take this one off, too…?

WHAT TO DO, GUYS. Advice is welcome.

Trying to drink up as many teas in my cupboard as possible before my next Verdant order arrives and my family loses their shit…

This one is astonishingly good with milk. I mean, it’s not the best tea in the world, but I’m astonished at the fact that it’s good with milk. I like it so much better than I did with only sugar. Who knew? I’ve been slipping back into drinking tea with milk, which I feel like I shouldn’t do (considering how much tea I drink, I should really drink it in as healthy a way as possible), so I’ve been drinking more greens and fruity blacks. But this strategy almost backfires, because now I’m adding milk to tea I wouldn’t have before, just to see what happens.

Anyway. I can recall before this that this tasted like a sweet rooibos, but nothing special. Somehow, with the milk, the pineapples and strawberries are both distinguishable but don’t clash while the coconut takes a nice backseat and just adds this note of creaminess. Lovely. I almost want to buy more now. Almost.

(Also, I applied at Teavana, and the manager literally almost jumped up and down with excitement. So we’ll see how that goes. I don’t like the company, but I don’t like the company I currently work for either, and I like tea better than the stuff I’m selling now. Although I talked to one of my friends who works there, and he tipped me off that THEY DON’T HAVE A BATHROOM IN THE BACK. How the holy hell do you have a tea store with no bathroom? I almost regret applying now, I go like every 1.5-2 hours…where the hell is the closest bathroom? I must find out.)

F-ck, this is disgusting. (Can I even drop the f-bomb on this site? Is it against the rules?)

I asked for a to-go cup of this iced today, and still have some left that I stuck in the fridge when I got home. Never again. It’s icky. I can taste floral notes, I can taste fruit, but I can also taste something that makes me think of what licking the bottom of a pair of Crocs would be like. I don’t normally complain about artificial flavours, and maybe it’s actually just that this weird combo of fruity-floral-tart-sour tastes artificial to me. But something about this, when I put it in my mouth, triggers my brain to scream, “NOT. REAL. FOOD!”

Blech!

This one is waaay better than the sorta-pineapple thing from the other day.

I spent a while looking through the Teavana booklet, and while I’m really not happy about many of the things that have resulted from the takeover, I am pleased with their selection of straight blacks. I do think I will have to try them all, especially the first flush Darjeeling they have right now. I have wanted to try a FF Darjeeling forever; even if it’s not the best one in the world, it’s something I can walk in and buy rather than order online, and I think it’s almost a good thing to start with a baseline of “not as good” tea so that you really appreciate the good stuff when you drink it.

This one is very, very pleasant. It’s the first Keemun I’ve ever tried, so I have little to compare it to, but I like it. It’s not as dark as I was hoping; it’s maybe mid-way between a Ceylon and an Assam. It’s a wee bit floral and a wee bit smokey, but it takes to some sugar very well nevertheless. A decent breakfast tea if you don’t need too much of a kick in the pants, but the floral notes might be strange first thing in the morning. It might be a better cup in the evening.

Also, I talked to the SA who poured my Keemun about the pricing issue. He’s certain they are not using the American prices, and when I watched him pour exactly 50g (he did try to over-pour me six grams – on one of the more expensive teas? – but he did ask me, and I did refuse it), the price matched the price in the booklet and on the wall. The quantity on the receipt was strange though, 1.76, which he said is a result of their prices being adjusted from American prices. So it appears I was over-poured by 23g last time after all.

I will be watching those pours super-closely from now on.

Teavana: (Skip to “The Tea” if you’re familiar with Teavana, or just don’t care to read about my first time at the vendor.) So it didn’t really take me long to crack on the Teavana front. It’s just so convenient to work in a mall with a tea store, and I drop by multiple times a week – often just to look around and enjoy being in a place that’s all about tea. I couldn’t really give that up.

Our new Teavana opened on Thursday, but I wasn’t working until today. I got a peek at the finished renovation-and-stock Wednesday night through the metal gate, but that’s about it. So I had to stop by today to say hi and check it out. The manager grabbed me and asked if she could give me, “the tour,” and I obliged…because I like her and was genuinely curious about what was going on with the store. Apparently Calgary is the first to get finished Teavanas? Some quick observations:

-Staff have to wear stupid colorful aprons like my store does (although being a guy, I generally get let off the hook with anything but the more basic colors). These were truly garish yellow aprons with rainbow text on them that said something about iced tea. My condolences to the staff.
-There were two sample stations of two: one at the door, one at the counter. I was sweetly warned by the manager that they are sweetened, but I obviously don’t care! She also pointed out that all their samples are blends of two teas. The taste of them all? Like juice. Good, but pretty much exactly like fruit juice. I see no need whatsoever to try to replicate them by buying all the teas in the blends.
-Expensive gift sets and cast iron is indeed closer to the entrance than lower priced stuff. Also, there is no price tag on practically ANYTHING, including the cast iron. I’m not sure if that is just because they haven’t gotten to it yet, or what – there is a paper tag tied to everything, but except for some little cute saying, the tag was blank. Stupidly, I kept checking them anyway and getting annoyed when they were blank.
-A lot of the product really does look good. I’m horribly tempted by the pretty glass stove-top kettle. Unfortunately, my family just bought an electric kettle that will probably last us years and years, and we don’t have room for a stove-top. I’m now going to hope the kettle breaks…
-Commission is so obvious that all the employees have little green plastic cards that they put stickers on for each tea they sell. No joke. I have no idea what else that could be for except commission. It makes me sad because I think now that it will be harder to say hi to people when they are so focused on getting their own sales and won’t casually switch off with each other anymore.

I sniffed a bunch of tins, and they indeed all smelled delicious. I was specifically looking for a blueberry white (always looking for one), and a peach white I’d heard they have. I left with both of those and a pineapple herbal because it smelled a bit like DAVIDs’ Tropicalia. The total was a little pricier than I’d expected, but I dismissed that thought because two of them were whites and I figured my mental estimate (without knowing the prices) had just been too low.

Which leads me to my beef. (And if you’ve read rants about Teavana before, I’m sure you know what’s coming…) When I got home and checked my receipt, I found it really hard to read (what the hell is a quantity of 1.91? 1.91 what?), so I got out a calculator and the little Teavana booklet, compared prices and did the math. And it would appear that ALL THREE TEAS were over-poured. ALL THREE, Y’ALL.

-My Precious White Peach was over-poured by 5 grams.
-My Imperial Acai Blueberry was over-poured by 8 grams(!).
-My Pineapple Kona Pop was over-poured by 10 freaking grams! I asked for 50 and got 60. At least that’s the cheapest one, but…

The total price difference works out to $4.31 before taxes, basically the cost of another tea!

THIS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME AT TEAOPIA. Never. There were over-pours, yes, especially towards the end when they were getting rid of stock, but I was NEVER not warned about it.

I’m…not pleased.

The Tea: So after that, is the tea any good?

…Eh. Drinkable. It’s nowhere near as good as Tropicalia, I’m afraid, although the smell is divinely pineapple with something almost spicy underneath.

The taste is just disappointing. I brewed it hot and flash-chilled it, and was very far from blown away at the first hopeful sip. It certainly tastes like pineapple, but the taste is not strong. It actually reminds me a bit of DAVIDs’ Bamboozled (which I have yet to review), so if Teavana is closer to you than a DT this might make a reasonable desperate substitute for Bamboozled. Otherwise, I’d go with Bamboozled itself, as it is by far the superior of the two.

I just wouldn’t get, you know, fifty SIXTY grams of this again. The supposedly dominant flavour is not really strong. If it turns out to be much better cold-brewed, I will raise the rating. Otherwise, I’d say skip this one.

Big 50th tasting note! And it has been a LONG time coming… Guess what happened in my city this week? My internet provider’s building caught on fire. (Actually, it caught on fire twice, according to my grandmother. I don’t follow the news as closely.) Luckily, it doesn’t sound as though anyone was hurt, but it has caused absolute chaos in the city, as that building was a big communications hub.

Home internet services have mostly been down, of course, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Radio stations were taken out, cable TV went down, city hall’s phones weren’t working, multiple online bank services were down, Alberta Health Services’ network went down… Think that’s getting bad? Oh no: 911 SERVICES also went down in the core of the city. Emergency services were frantically trying to get the message out to people that calling 911 on a landline would reach no one, and to use a cell phone if possible. THAT BAD.

Thankfully, I understand that things are mostly back to normal now, and the whole incident has generated serious discussion about our city’s electronic infrastructure. As for me, I’ve been able to get on Steepster little bits for the past few days, but my dash would not load well until now. So this review is backlogged from, like, last Thursday. (Yes, embarrassing late, circumstance of “free” considered.) Don’t worry though, I have a few pages of notes on the tea tasting in my tea notebook to draw from, so it should be fairly accurate.

And kind of an exciting 50th note, eh? Apologies in advance for the length. Hope you have a scroll wheel on your mouse, but I have a lot to say this time. (Steepster really needs a “Read More” function.)

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So I went to pick up that package from the post office, and it was indeed my package from Peony Tea S. (Yes, that’s Peony Tea-space-capital-S. My brain keeps trying to read it as “Peony Teassss” with a long, drawn-out S.) Initially I was slightly miffed about it not just getting dropped at the door, but I suppose it’s nice to have the extra security measure of signing for it rather than potentially have it disappear and wonder forever where the tea went. And the post office it was left at is a pleasant stroll away.

When I emailed my mailing address for this promo, I added a note that I’m less fond of pu-erh and green tea thus far. (I completely spaced on the asthma issue, but thankfully didn’t end up getting sent a lapsang souchong. Would have served me right if I had!)

So I got sent these three:
-https://www.peonyts.com/shop/index.php/product-categories/jade-oolong.html
-https://www.peonyts.com/shop/index.php/product-categories/phoenix-dancong-heavenly-fragrance.html
-And this one, https://www.peonyts.com/shop/index.php/product-categories/yunnan-black.html

Also, it came with a measuring “spatula” which is free with all first-time orders: https://www.peonyts.com/packaging-measurement/

Which, if I’m honest about it, I was almost more excited for (in advance of their arrival) than the tea itself. The website may say, “It may not be the most gorgeous or exquisite instrument around,” but I say that it’s a far cry from the metal teaspoons I’ve been using, and I think it’s pretty. Not sure what it’s made of, though. I’ve actually been finding it extremely useful for large-leaved teas that I already own and previously found hard to scoop even with a pot-bellied spoon. DAVIDs Nepal Black, for instance.

So now that it’s here, review! Including a review of the overall package I got. I decided to start with the Yunnan Black, as that’s basically a safe starting point for me based on past experience.

Delivery Time: Peony Tea S. wants to know how long it takes to deliver to Canada, and I think Calgary, Alberta is a pretty good test because my area is notorious for slow and misplaced mail and packages. I received an email saying that my package had been sent out on July 1st. The post tried to deliver the package first on the 9th. That is, in my experience, exceptional delivery time under any circumstances. I’m even more impressed given how far it had to go. At the risk of sounding like a complete boob, I had literally no idea Peony Tea S. was based in Singapore – not having heard of them yet, I vaguely presumed they are based in America, and didn’t realize otherwise until I picked up my package stamped “SINGAPORE” in four places. Well, this tea arrived faster than any from America, so…nice, and whatever postal service they’re using at their end they should keep using.

(I should also note here that I was provided with a tracking number for the package. I originally intended to check up on it; but as I have never used a tracking number, I completely forgot. I looked up the number after the delivery guy came Monday though, and all it said was that the package was dispatched to Canada. Presumably it now says that the package has arrived, although I can’t get it to load. Kiiinda already knew that, so I’m not convinced the tracking number is worthwhile.)

Packaging: The teas and spatula arrived in a flattish cardboard box and wrapped in bubble wrap. Not that I don’t bash my own tea around an embarrassing amount of the time, but it’s nice to see the tea protected before it gets to me.

The teas are in opaque, white bags similar to the bags you get at DAVIDsTEA for those familiar with the latter company. They are a comfortable size for the tea, which is not squished. On one side is a pretty blue-and-white logo/label with artwork featuring peonies; on the other side of the bag is a label with tea info and brewing instructions. On the Yunnan Black, the label looks like this:

Origin: Fengqing, Yunnan, China
Harvest Season: (left blank)
Shelf Life: (left blank)
Best Before: (left blank)
Quantity: (left blank)
Recommended Brewing Instructions:
1. Water Temperature: 95 C/203 F
2. Quantity: 3g/1 spatula per 100mL
3. Infusion Time: 1.5 mins.
4. No of Steeps: 3 times

…After scratching my head over the blank spaces for a bit, I came to the conclusion that what is already on the label must be pre-printed and the rest (which would naturally change more often) are printed later. But for the purposes of this promo, Peony Tea S. didn’t bother(?). I would obviously have to actually order more tea to find out. I think it’s cool to have a label with space for all that information, as I have had to repeatedly ask some vendors even to get information like the origin.

Now, I must note the brewing instructions. One-and-a-half minutes seems a bit short for a black, doesn’t it? Only 100mL of water seems a little low, doesn’t it? A whole spatula/3g (since everyone who orders with them presumably gets sent a spatula the first time, there is a standardization there to work with) seems like a lot of leaf for that amount of water, yes?

I puzzled over this for a minute until it clicked that these have to be gong fu brewing instructions; that’s the working presumption here. So I went to go find my gaiwan. (Which is luckily exactly 100mL.) But if you typically brew Western, these brewing instructions are going to seem a little crazy. Have no fear, you can brew this one Western as well if you really want, using common steeping parameters for blacks.

A Note: Before I get to the actual tasting, I would like to point something out. In the past, before tasting a tea – and certainly before writing a review of one – I am horribly, horribly guilty of always reading other reviews first to see what others thought of it. Sometimes this is useful, but I have an ugly feeling that it is not always a good thing. Maybe even usually not a good thing. What it means is that you have certain taste expectations before you even put the tea in your mouth, which I’d argue can alter how you perceive the tea to actually taste.

In this case, I was not able to get online to check reviews for this tea before I drank it. So I was making hard-copy notes and I essentially wrote this review completely “blind.” Which had…interesting consequences that I will get to later.

Also, while perusing Chapters a few weeks ago, I found this cool-looking book on tea. I could sadly not afford to buy it, but I did flip through it, and read some bits about tea tasting. When tasting tea, the book recommended that you:

1. First, exhale completely.
2. Take a sip of tea.
3. Hold the tea in your mouth across your entire tongue and inhale deeply through your nose.
4. Swallow.

It really seems to make a difference in the taste, and I tried to do that as much as possible through this review.

The Tea: Dry Smell: Not at all subtle. When I opened the bag, this tea’s smell was a real smack to the face. And it smacked of chocolate. Rich, dark chocolate. Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, whoa chocolate. And something unidentifiably fruity underneath.

(“Unidentifiably fruity” is an ongoing problem for me. I should note here that not only am I still a real novice to tea drinking, I am also not a foodie of any description. My diet largely consists of mac ‘n’ cheese and tacos. Learning to identify various notes in tea is an ongoing process, and often something like, “fruit, but I don’t know what kind,” is the best I can manage.)

Wet Smell: More fruity than before. Also, there is a distinctly “tea,” smell about it, but I note that it is a different “tea” smell from the Assam I often have for breakfast. Lighter, of course, but different in other ways I cannot currently articulate. Maybe this is a distinctly Yunnan “tea” smell? I will need to compare more straight blacks in the future.

1st Infusion: (I assumed that the time on the label was for the first infusion, so this is 1.5 minutes.) Dark, midnight dark, with deep dark chocolate notes. I’m actually blown away at how chocolate it is without actually being flavoured. This is tough to explain – it is not like a chocolate-flavoured tea in the sense that you put it in your mouth and immediate identify “chocolate!” Rather, it is more like a really strong impression of chocolate which is completely natural to the tea. I think the thing which is most making me think of chocolate is the almost-bitterness to it which good quality dark chocolate has without shading into actual, unpleasant bitterness. There’s something sweeter and lighter riding on top of the cup as it cools that makes me think of caramel. And even though I tasted no berries in this infusion, I noticed that the bottom of the cup seriously smelled like – or reminded me of – the raspberry-flavoured dark chocolate a now-ex gave me once.

2nd Infusion: (2 min.) Not nearly as chocolate, but even deeper and darker than the first. Seriously. I described the first infusion as “midnight dark” in my notes, and it was lighter than this. That doesn’t mean that this is a “strong” tea like a Kenyan black. Just dark! There’s a slight astringency that I picked up, but nothing to the point that I would mentally knock a tea down from “good” to merely “interesting” to drink. (Not a fan of astringency, me.) I didn’t notice at all if the first infusion had any astringency to it, so I guess it must not be terribly noticeable if it is. There’s something fruity riding on top which, again, comes out as it cools – this is one of those teas that will always get more complex as the cup’s temperature drops. I can still taste the caramel-like note I found before, but it’s faded well into the background.

3rd infusion: (2.5 min.) The brief astringency is gone – this is a very smooth cup – and here’s the fruit at last! The chocolate is virtually gone, coming out occasionally and unexpectedly at the back of a few sips. The impression of something dark and juicy – like maybe a dark berry, not sure – is strong. If the previous infusions were dark, this is like sunlight shining through the top of the forest. This is not an “earthy” tea, this is a “leafy” tea. Which may seem like a stupid thing to say about a beverage which is made by putting leaves in hot water… But the taste associations are bringing me back to hiking up mountains in Banff with my dad as a kid. This tea tastes like those times when you were about two-thirds of the way through the forest, and you could sense the approach of the moment when you would break through the tree line into blazing sun and chilly air. There’s a natural sweetness here that comes out more – say it with me now – as the cup cools.

4th infusion: (3 min.) Yes, I know the label said three infusions, but I’m a rebel!

…Except that no, no, you really shouldn’t infuse this more than three times. I can faintly taste chocolate again, but I swear I can also taste my kettle. (Is that what my kettle tastes like? Ew.) It’s still drinkable, but there’s nothing interesting going on. This tea goes hard, and stops suddenly.

Western style: Okay, by the time I got to this I was terribly reviewed-out, but I never consider a tea completely reviewed until I’ve had it Western style. This is maybe hypocritical, as I don’t consider tea un-reviewed if I haven’t had it gong fu style, but Western is what I’m used to. So after brewing it the way I was suggested to by the vendor, I still need to test it in the way I find most comfortable to drink. I don’t necessarily hold it against a tea for not having the flexibility to be drunk Western style, but it will add additional points to my rating. In this case, 1 spatula of tea per 250mL brewed for 4 minutes turned out a charming blend of the gong fu infusions, with strong fruity notes that blended well with sweetener.

So, the rating: my first feeling was that this was somewhere in the 80s, but I bumped it up a few points for being entirely pleasant to drink clear (I’m the sugarhound, after all) and a few more for the pleasant Western cup. So that put me at 90. And I hope I have convinced you that this tea is worth a 90 on its own merits and not because I got it for free. (Also, the packaging and delivery time, while I mentioned them, did not factor into the rating. Had they been bad, I still would only be rating the tea itself.)

So. One last thing. I mentioned earlier that I wrote this review blind. Well, once I got internet access back enough to look up this tea on the website…here is the description:

“Yunnan Black or Dian Hong is one of the most beloved of China’s black teas. It’s rich aroma, full flavor and natural citrusy taste makes it an excellent choice of lovers of black tea.

[…]

Taste:

Sweet, citrusy with hints of red dates."

Citrus?! Citrus. Citrus? The hell. Where did I get chocolate from, then?

I could, of course, go back, try another cup and then declare, “Well, I’ll be! It does taste like citrus! Now I look like less of a boob. I can taste it after all; must have been sick that first time.”

Thing is, I spent a good hour or so concentrating on the taste of this tea, and didn’t come up with “citrus” even once…so that wouldn’t be honest, would it?

Oh well. This is a really good tea, and I am happy (based on my experience thus far) to recommend Peony Tea S. I’m sure that any lover of blacks will enjoy this one.

Even if it doesn’t taste a thing like chocolate to you.

Update on the decision for the teas in Mum’s store. I had to make some last-second, spur-of-the-moment choices, but I settled on:

-David’s Breakfast
-Assam Banaspaty
-Read My Lips
-Silk Dragon Jasmine (they did not have Daydreamer, I didn’t want anything too crazy, I’m not impressed with many of the greens this season…I hope this one doesn’t suck)
-a small tin of Kanpe
-Forever Nuts

…All of which, with one bottle of agave, came to 91 dollars. I hope Mum really does understand the price difference between this stuff and bagged tea when I go to give her the receipt to pay me back.

(Although if she didn’t previously, I’m nervous about her full realization of what my tea collection must cost…)

But. Anyway. I’ve never tried Forever Nuts! (Or the jasmine green, for that matter; but I’m not the best judge of greens, as I’ve mentioned. I did really like the jasmine in their Jasmine Silver Needles though, so that was the deciding factor in that one.)

So I decided to steep up a cup for myself. I mean, I have to test it, don’t I? The SA did tell me this is their hands-down most popular herbal tea, but you never know.

I flash-chilled this one again – partially to prove to myself that I’ve really got the process down, and partially because it’s incredibly bloody hot right now. This smells like a tea I would generally prefer hot, and I normally make teas hot first, so this deviates from my usual M.O. I also basically steeped the cr@p out of it, as I wasn’t planning on a re-steep.

The dry smell is just amazing. Hard to put into words, other than that it smells like when your mother was making cookies in the fall. Steeped, it’s apple-y, with a strong bottom layer of “almond cinnamon cookie.” I definitely think this would be a better “hot” tea, but it’s surprisingly refreshing cold as well, like cold apple cider or something.

A definite purchase at some point in the future when I’ve pared down my collection some. But it’s not overwhelmingly awesome enough at this point that I’m going to go back for my own stash just yet.

So I was one of the ones who managed to get onto the list for Peony Tea S.‘s “free samples for Canadians if you tell us how long it took to deliver,” list. I’m 99% sure that Canada Post just tried to deliver it, but I was the only one home, slobbily dressed and was also…indisposed at the moment they rang the bell. But I heard something drop into the mailbox, and ran happily to the door as soon as I was able, anticipating the package.

…Er, what? Failed delivery notice? I have 15 days to pick it up, starting after 1 pm tomorrow? They couldn’t just put the package in the mailbox like with my 52teas and Verdant orders? Surely 3 teas and a small spatula don’t make so large a package that they can’t fit in the box?

How annoying. Thankfully, I think the postal outlet it’s getting dropped off at is the one that’s a 20 minute walk up the road, so I guess I’ll go Wednesday. (I’m working tomorrow.)

IN THE MEANTIME…

I believe I have mastered my own version of the flash-chill method!

1) Steep the tea double-strong in a Teaopia Tea Master filled a bit less than half-way with hot water. (“A bit less than half-way” because of the shape of the Tea Master. The best words to describe it escape me, but it gets wider towards the top.)

2) Fill a glass cup almost to the brim with ice to measure it, and then pour the ice into a stainless steel Thermos while waiting for the tea to steep.

3) Dispense steeped tea from the Tea Master into the Thermos, seal the Thermos up and shake, shake, shake for about a minute. (Dunno what the shaking accomplishes exactly, but the SAs at Teaopia always seem to shake the iced tea and cubes together before pouring them into the cup, and I wouldn’t want to skip an essential step.)

5) Open the lid of the Thermos enough for “pouring liquid” and pour into the aforementioned glass cup. (I have a model that allows you to pour liquid without completely removing the lid.) This strains any extraneous ice cubes.

6) Ice cold tea!

I am still trying to determine exactly how much milk or cream to use in Root Beer Float to get that perfect enhancement of floatiness without shouting down the tea. Nevertheless, this cup was much, much better than my failed pitcher from earlier!

The problem with the whole concept of a “cold” tea, is how can you rate it if you can’t taste much? This is…kind of minty, kind of lemon-y, kind of ginger-y, kind of sweet. I don’t know. It’s pleasant enough. Does it help? Heck if I know! I just know that I’m bummed I can’t try the 52teas Butterbeer that just arrived; but I don’t want to waste it!

In the meantime, I need to decide on tins of tea to buy for Mum’s store. It’s going to have to be DAVIDs, because that’s closest. She said 4-5 teas, so I told her I was thinking:

- a lighter black
- a dark black
- a flavoured black (she wants flavoured ones)
- a flavoured green (since DT’s straight greens aren’t that good in the first place, no point in getting one) Edit: Actually, I’m saying that because I don’t like green tea that much, and none of DT’s have won me over. Maybe I should consider a straight green after all…
- something with no caffeine, maybe a rooibos

So then I’m thinking:

- not sure, not Nepal Black because it’s so hard to scoop and I don’t want people putting their fingers in the tins
Edit: David’s Breakfast, maybe?
- Assam Banaspaty
- Read My Lips
- ?? Daydreamer maybe, if it’s still in stores?
- ?? Rooibos de Provence?

I need to decide soon! If you guys have recs for these categories that you think have broad appeal, let me know!

Edit: Oooh, maybe I could also talk Mum into including a sixth and make it Kanpe?

One step forward, six steps back…

By which I mean I’m drinking up the last of this, but just added 6 more to my cupboard. So much for “down to 100 or less by the 7th.” Oh well. At least I’ve learned my lesson by now about buying more than sample sizes of anything first-try. (With the exception of Teaopia’s Love Spell, since I’ve never had it before, and it won’t be available soon – may as well just go for the 50g, I know it’s good.) So most of those additions to my cupboard won’t be around for long.

[ Edit: Just discovered that Love Spell is apparently one of Teaopia’s “top 20,” so they are keeping it after all.]

This one is SO good, and a definite re-purchase at some point, even though it is stupidly expensive despite having barely any tea in it. (It is pretty hard to dent my high opinion of DAVIDsTEA, but these days even I have to wince when I open my bag or tin at home and discover, say, the half a slice of dried orange I found in my tin of Mango Madness. Seriously, I paid for the weight of that? What the hell am I even going to DO with that, use it as a cocktail garnish?!)

This is so creamy – especially sweetened with honey, which always adds to or brings out creaminess in teas – and like I said, I love creaminess! Creamy coconut is really the strongest impression I get from this one. Other people have said “caramel” and I get where that’s coming from, but I don’t know if it’s the first description I would have used if I hadn’t seen other people describe this tea that way. Perhaps if you could imagine a fruity version of caramel; that’s what this tastes like. There’s a sweet fruitiness to it under the cream and coconut.

So I guess that’s the mulberries. Although, to be honest, I’ve never had a mulberry. So I’m not sure exactly what they are adding to this tea other than that fruity note.

I decided to try for two steeps of my last leaf of this, so I steeped the first cup for 5 minutes and the second cup for 9, both around 90 degrees. I honestly expected the first cup to be weak, but it really wasn’t…and in the second, if I concentrate, I actually faintly taste the Bai Mu Dan-which-barely-was.

In other news, Tea Annoyances, it really sucks when “your” bathroom in the house is also the main bathroom because you drew the short straw for bedrooms and are the only member of the household without your own bathroom…so everyone uses your bathroom to shower, have baths, shave their legs for two hours, etc. AND YOU DRINK A LOT OF TEA.

De-cupboarding this tonight. I just wanted to note that I had it with a splash of milk for the first time, and it’s really fabulous that way. (For the longest time I had cut milk completely out of my tea on the basis of it negating so many health benefits to tea. Not that health benefits are the reason I drink tea, but if I’m going to drink so much of it, it would be best to maximize its benefits. Unfortunately, easy tea lattes from Teaopia near work got me re-hooked on tea with milk, so now I am always stuck bargaining with myself – 10 cups without, 1 cup with…)

Unfortunately, this is not an easy re-purchase, because the store it’s from is in Banff. I could order it through their website, and I might eventually do just that – but I’ll hold off for now. (I also asked about a chocolate Earl Grey on the DAVIDs Facebook page, as I’d be curious to see how DT did this idea.)

In the meantime, this one has really grown on me and I will miss it!

For god’s sakes, this wasn’t in my cupboard, either! Still at 111 teas, dangnabit. My goal is to be down to 100 or less by July 7th!

I almost feel like there’s no point in rating this, as Teaopia is not keeping this one, and it’s really only a passable chai or mate anyhow. I originally bought it because I discovered that mate helps me come down from my ADHD meds without a horrible crash. (Amphetamines = good, horrible zombie-like crash at the end of the day = bad.) But I have since stopped taking my meds because they are not currently covered by insurance, and I’m not in school anyway. (The terrific irony of my meds is that I cannot get through school without them, but I cannot make enough money to afford them while in school! So now I am simply trying to learn to cope without them again, period…and if that doesn’t work, maybe I will have enough savings for them when I go back to school.)

In the meantime, if I need a mate, I have discovered Chocolate Rocket from David’s, and that’s a more than acceptable substitute!

It’s definitely got a roasted flavour to it, and something to it which is almost dusty…or gritty…hard to explain.

But with milk and DAVIDsTEA’s vanilla agave, it’s more than saved, and quite tasty! Two cups of this one this afternoon before I need to go to work, and another successful de-cupboard (in real life, if not on Steepster).

You can actually see the bottom of the tea shelf now; there’s enough space freed up that you could put something like a tin of peanut butter or something in there.

So I had this conversation with my mother an hour ago:

Me: So, um, Mom…just to warn you…I entered something for some free tea…and I’m in…so there should be various teas arriving over the next few weeks. BUT IT’S FREE.

[Emphasis on “various teas,” because I fully plan to claim that any and all teas I order for the next few weeks are part of the free thing. MUAH HA HA, a cunning plan.]

Mom: Okay, well…at least I know what we can do with those teas when they get here!

Me: (deeply startled) …What?!

Mom: We’ll take them to the store!

[My family just bought a wool/knitting store. Evidently there is complimentary tea, and my mother wants me to be in charge of that.]

Me: That’s…not how it works, Mom. I’m supposed to review them!

---

…Yeah. I’m thinking I need to focus on drinking up the teas that are downstairs a lot faster so my family will less resent the arrival of more. Also, so that it looks like my “tea boner” (as my sister calls it) is getting softer and not harder and leaking liquor everywhere.

Oh man, sorry for that last mental image. :P

With that in mind, I’m drinking up the last of this. I’m actually using up all the last I have of this, maybe about 2tsp, so quite generous leaf for me – something I will need to keep in mind in the future when I try it again. This is one that I botched in the pitcher. Such a shame, because it’s really good! I will have to put it off as a re-purchase, though.

I’m drinking it hot, and while it really seemed like one you should ice, it’s excellent hot. It’s got a fantastic creaminess to it – I absolutely love any kind of creamy flavour or texture in a tea. The lime is perfectly balanced, not at all too sour.

I can also taste the apples, but unlike in Tropicalia, they are not too far forward in the taste, more like a supporting player of the lime.

Looking forward to getting this again and trying it cold (and made properly this time). I was going to try and chill half of this cup, but honestly, I now just feel like finishing it. Some other day!

I went to de-cupboard this today and discovered it’s not in my cupboard in the first place. ANOTHER ONE, HEAVENS!

I recall being quite disappointed by this one after Read My Lips. Of the two, Read My Lips is by far David’s superior chocolate tea. I was not exactly in love with this one at first. Har har.

I also recall that I started off steeping this one at my “cautious” black steeping time of 3 minutes, which I gradually learned is a mistake with DT’s blacks, which generally need a good 4 or 5 minutes to get the best flavour. (Actually, I’ve learned that it’s a mistake with many blacks, unless I plan to try for extra steeps – which I admittedly don’t do often because I’m too fickle most days to drink the same tea twice in a row. The number of blacks which need a shorter steep are vastly outnumbered by those that can stand up to a longer one.) At three minutes, this had next-to-no strawberry flavour – the strawberries were overwhelmed by the chocolate, which nevertheless had a flimsiness to it, a lack of richness.

At four or five minutes, this one is way better, with the strawberries coming out to balance the chocolate. It’s a very enjoyable mix of chocolate and berry sweetness.

I know that, and yet, the last two cups in this bag just haven’t been as good as I know this one can be. Maybe it has just gotten too old, who knows. I will have to re-visit this one at some point, but for now, I have too many to drink up to re-purchase it.

Man, I really don’t like being unable to click to take this out of my cupboard. I miss having the closure here.

(Apologies in advance because it is 2 am and I know I will ramble.)

This one just came out yesterday with Cherry Cola; and while I’m generally too lazy to bother getting anything done before my work day starts, I hauled ass out of my house early yesterday just to get to DAVIDs for this one so I didn’t have to wait even a day to try it.

Getting the impression I like root beer? Oh yes. I’m such a kid. Depending on the day, I can never decide between orange, cream soda or root beer as my favourite pop. I’ve mentioned before that I essentially gave up pop for tea, yes? So I imagined this being the best of both worlds.

My local DAVIDs is busier and busier these days, to the point that I walked in last week and did a double-take in shock when the store was empty. That never used to surprise me! And when I got there yesterday, there was a line-up of about four people while all the SAs were serving people (including one little old lady who looked to be buying probably about two hundred dollars worth of gift sets and then being picky about how they were packed). The woman behind me – holding her $1 iced tea mug – was clearly agitated by this, saying, “There’s a line-up for the damn tea?!” I kind of wanted to ask her if she didn’t want the tea store she frequents to be financially successful.

(Unexpectedly though, she turned out to be quite sweet. As I didn’t want her making dagger eyes at my back, I offered to let her go first when an SA freed up. “Oh no, dear, you were first! You go ahead!” Some people, I can’t figure them out.)

ANYWAY. The tea.

I got 160g of this packed into a shiny silver tin and the tea in my $1 mug as well because they were, unexpectedly, serving this one at my store as the TOTD instead of Cherry Cola as scheduled. Not sure why. But I kinda squeed to myself when I tasted the dollar TOTD, because it really, seriously tasted like root beer! I know I’ve groused on here before (in my DT’s Tropicalia review) about people saying that teas taste “just like” something else, but this is as uncannily close to “just like” as I think a tea can get.

So I rushed home to make my own pitcher of this one. In order to do this, I was planning to throw out the last fifth or so of my pitcher of DT’s Lime Gelato.

Now, I would not normally do that. I’m not really the child my taste buds think I am. I would normally wait and drink the last of the last pitcher. Unfortunately, that particular pitcher really, really didn’t turn out so great. I cold-brewed the Lime Gelato for about 4 and a quarter hours, and then yanked the leaves out because I was concerned about it eventually getting bitter the way Kiwi’s Big Adventure did. And it was unbelievably tasteless. Faintly lime, faintly green tea, and…that’s it. I talked to an SA in the store, and she told me that she doesn’t think Lime Gelato cold-brews well. Oops. So I’d just been using it up in boozy mixed drinks. And I planned to throw the rest of that failed pitcher out, because it just wasn’t that pleasant to drink even then.

As it turns out though, my loose-leaf hating sister actually drank it! Although she apparently told my mother, “Weird, it smells much stronger than it tastes.” (gigglesnort) And then she and my mom puzzledly went through all my teas in the cupboard trying to figure out which one it was! …Of course, they didn’t because they don’t know that half my stash (including that one) is actually in my room so that no one in my family but me knows how many teas I actually have. Shhh…

So. This isn’t a review of Lime Gelato, but I had to mention that because it’s made me nervous now about cold-brewing. This was the first time ever that the cold-brewing method has failed me, and I couldn’t help but think, “What if it doesn’t work for Root Beer Float?!” But I figured, nah, none of the listed ingredients are things I haven’t cold-brewed before – I think? – and it should work, no problemo.

But. Twelve-plus hours of cold-brewing later (yes, I lost track), guess what?

Root Beer Float cannot be cold-brewed either!

Now, I might not have realized that if I hadn’t had a to-go cup from the store, because it does still have a root beer taste to it and is drinkable. But nothing like what I had from the store! Sheesh! So just a heads-up for anyone thinking of slow-brewing this one cold…nope. Don’t waste your leaves.

So I just made some hot. This review is for that instead. If I can cool this enough before I go to bed, I will maybe try half the cup cold.

First, the smell is amazing. It does smell like root beer, both dry and wet – even hot. It’s another one of those “huff over the cup” teas.

Hot: The first sip was disturbingly tasteless, but it seems to be one of those that gets more flavour as it cools rather than less, so I gave it a few minutes and…yeah, there we go. Root beer and vanilla! I taste the base more hot, and I think it is rather middle-ing…there’s a faint bitterness to it. But I’m okay with it as the flavour is pretty well done. I can’t really separately taste white chocolate in this, and for that I’m grateful as I despise white chocolate.

I really just wish it was sweeter. I know that people have been bitching endlessly about stevia in DT teas lately – although I’m not sure why, it’s even considered safe for diabetes according to what I’ve read – and this tea does not have it. I wish it did. I have not had much of an opinion on the stevia thing until now, but now – I think they should have added it to this one in particular, and I do not understand how so many recent teas have that ingredient which probably don’t need it and this one doesn’t! I do not want to be adding too much of my own sugar to the tea because I don’t want to change the flavour, but this is supposed to be root beer. It should not be about subtle flavours. I don’t want to swirl this one on my tongue trying to pick out notes. I expect tea, but I also expect it to taste a little more like it will rot my teeth.

Cold: Okay, I should probably save this as I’m falling on my face. But this is definitely better cold (as I’m sure you’d already assumed); I keep seeing people on the FB page saying it needs fizz, but floats go flat! It has that nummy flat float taste.

I’ve also been experimenting with adding milk or cream and a swirl of DT’s vanilla agave to bring out the float-y aspects more, and that’s AWESOME. This is another get-me-through-the-work-day tea.

And with that, I’m up too late and talking too long and I’m out!

This is nearing a de-cupboard, and I always hatehatehate removing teas from my cupboard without reviewing them (for my own records, if not for other people – I’m sure most people who were curious about this one have already tried it), but I have almost nothing to say about this one. Hence there being no review of it until, uh, June. I was excited for this because I love wacky teas, but eh. It’s just kinda meh on first, second and third impressions. And yes, I did get jelly beans in my sample, but I never honestly noticed them making a significant difference to the taste. I probably would have been better off eating them.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike it. Actually, I think I steeped this cup longer than previous cups and it’s pretty good. It’s mostly got a strawberry flavour with something else fruity and sweet underneath that and an underlying creaminess to the whole sip. Not bad at all.

And yet, there’s a fullness to the sip that’s just missing. Even for a rooibos (which never has the fullness of flavour that I associate with tea-tea). I don’t know – it has the same problem that much of the spring collection did in that there are Swiss cheese holes in the flavour. It’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder if that whole collection was rushed for some reason.

And actually, it gets more hole-y as the cup cools. Some teas have more flavour when they cool – this is absolutely not one of them, as it tastes more and more like sweetened water as its temperature drops. Ick.

It’s all right, but I don’t mind the fact that it’s gone from stores/online only now at all. It was a cute idea for Easter, anyway.

So the other day I was sitting down to play some Fallout 3 (an evil run, heheh) and eat a small dinner on the side. On a TV dinner table nearby, I had a Jamaican beef patty and a cup of Teaopia’s Soleil de Provence (which I just discovered that I’ve never added to my Steepster cupboard, making me even more concerned about how disorganized it is – I’m sure I need to remove stuff, and apparently stuff is missing from it! oh no!). I finished the patty very quickly while my tea was still cooling, and then stupidly left both the full mug of tea and the plate of crumbs on the table while I paused my game and left the room very briefly for a reason I can no longer remember.

…Did I mention I have four cats?

Yes, two males and two females. The females are both hell on wheels, and the males – while sweet – are both dumb as sacks of broken hammers. One of them, Kaleb, is a bit smarter than his brother Mustang, but makes up for it by being incredibly anxious and skittish.

So while I was out of the room, Kaleb jumped up onto the table to get the beef patty crumbs. When I came back into the room, he panicked and bolted.

The table – sturdy enough to leave drinks on with no fear, but not sturdy enough to withstand a 12-pound cat launching himself off of it – tipped so fast that Malcolm Gladwell would be shocked. The plate and mug both hit the stone hearth of the fireplace (which is beside the TV, and no, we don’t ever use it) and shattered…although the tea thankfully just sank into the stone and didn’t appear to get near the ton of cables associated with the TV, the PS3, the DVD/VCR player, the PS2, etc.

Not actually that big a deal in the end, except for a broken plate, and, oh yeah, MY FAVOURITE MUG!

tear

It was my Taco Time mug, which I think my boss got us one Christmas when I worked at Taco Time. Yeah, it was not a pretty mug (I mean, it had a fast food logo on it!); but it was a substantial-sized mug that was great for lattes, it was white and reflected the color of the tea, plus it was something I’d gotten at my first-ever “real” job (where I worked for six years!) and just basically had sentimental value.

I know it’s my fault, but I’m seriously bummed about the mug.

But.

This gave me the perfect excuse, didn’t it?

I have wanted a glass tea mug for, oh, just about forever. But I could not justify the purchase when we have so many mugs. Well, I had to make myself feel better, didn’t I? And I needed a bigger mug for lattes. I already have a Perfect Mug that my mother gave me a few Christmases ago – it’s sort of a charcoal color, and I don’t know if they even sell that color anymore. I like it a lot, but because it’s so dark it’s hard to see the color of a tea’s liquor.

So now I have this one! I’m very excited, I love it. The glass feels amazing on my tongue and teeth (I hope I’m not the only one who considers the texture of the cup before purchasing) and I just love that I can gaze at the color of the tea as it steeps and while I drink it. The infuser is less clunky than the old design – hard to explain, but it has less of a “lip” near the top where tea leaves tend to get stuck in my old one.

My only issue with it is that it clearly looses heat faster, and is dangerous to pick up by anything but the handle when it’s freshly steeped. But that’s to be expected – after all, it’s glass.

Limited edition? WHY.

When I run out of this tea, I seriously think my life will end.**

:(

A real review when I’m not about to be kicked off the computer.

**No, not really.

I keep being disappointed by flavoured herbals. I keep seeing people say things like, “It tastes just like [thingummy]!” and it never, ever does. Not to me, anyway. Being flavoured like something doesn’t usually mean that it tastes just like that thing. It just means that the flavour is reminiscent of that thing. Am I being too picky? Probably. I mean, if something tasted just like [thingummy], it probably would be [thingummy].

Anyway. This tea. It’s supposed to taste “just like” a pina colada. It does not. It just tastes very similar to a pina colada. But really, once you get over the disappointment, it’s actually an impressively close imitation.

The dry smell is amazing. Bang-on pina coladas, basically. Nothing less!

The taste is a bit weak. I discovered that this tea is chunky enough that the 26g I bought basically make one pitcher at best, so it could be that I really needed more of it. But I cold-steeped it for 14 hours, and my first impression was that it tasted very, very much like a pina colada at the back, but was a bit weak at the front. I also felt that I really needed to put too much sugar in it to bring forward the tastes that I wanted – there’s something a wee bit tart (the apple?) at the forefront of the taste that I did not care for. I originally added what I felt was (accidentally) too much honey to the pitcher before I placed it in the fridge to steep, and still added white sugar when I went to drink it by the cup. Still, it’s a re-purchase, even a tin or two’s worth.

I also discovered that it’s really amazing with the addition of (what else?) rum and some half-and-half. I certainly can’t add the rum to my work Timolino tomorrow, but I’m seriously debating the cream.

So I once posted that this one makes for a decent liquid orange creamsicle if you cold-steep it for hours, then add plenty of white sugar and milk.

Well, I take it back.

I cold-steeped this last night with some sugar and went to add milk this morning. Then I spotted the half-and-half beside the milk and thought…well… CREAMsicle. And (crazily?) used half-and-half instead.

Oooh! I’ll be doing that from now on.

This tea. I don’t know if it’s all that exciting all by itself. I haven’t had it as anything other than a “liquid orange creamsicle” for a while now for that reason. But late last night, I was steeping up a mixture of David’s Chocolate Cake and David’s Glitter & Gold when I suddenly thought (too late), “What about a cinnamon chocolate cake with orange peel frosting?!”

Yeah. I think I actually will stock up on this at some point in the future, as it hadn’t occurred to me to mix with other teas before. But now I’m curious!

Yuck.

First impression, anyway.

What to say about this one? I ordered it some weeks back from Verdant, along with an oolong, and received a sample of Yunnan Golden buds with my order and a nice note from David. Of the three, the only one I have tried (but sadly not reviewed yet) is the Yunnan, which blew me away with sheer awesomeness. After that, I had high, high hopes for this one, as I’m new to pu-erh and I wanted this to be the great introduction to pu-erh it supposedly is. Plus, I absolutely love corn on the cob – it is just about my favourite food in the entire world.

Even though this is one I would have normally brewed in a gaiwan, I chose to steep it Western style in my Perfect Mug; mainly because my family is taking up the kitchen and I couldn’t be in and out heating small amounts of water at a time. I also put a small amount of sugar in it, because I’m a chicken. I suspect both were tragic mistakes.

First off, the wet smell is incredibly intense. People say this smells like buttered popcorn. I guess I can see how most would say that, but to me the only association I was initially making was baking bread. It’s strong and earthy. That was completely okay with me, a very, very pleasant smell.

Then I got close to the cup and sniffed again. And very suddenly, a very different, totally unexpected and completely unwelcome scent association took over.

You see…when I was little, I wanted to work at the zoo. There were a few people working at our local zoo who sort of recognized me as a bright, curious kid with some learning issues (rather obviously ADD), and they tried to encourage me as much as they could. At some risk to their jobs, they snuck me into back areas only staff and researchers were supposed to see, they let me feed all sorts of animals (including hippos and alligators), and they eventually let me take over some snake demos in the Reptile House.

The Reptile House was my favourite, and I wanted to work there when I grew up. I was obsessed with it, and my father spent the summer I was nine obligingly taking me to the zoo every week where I spent hours in the Reptile House alone. I spent much of my time there running around, butting in on families before my father could catch me and excitedly lecturing the other visitors about the reptiles, as well as impulsively pre-empting the actual staff trying to give demonstrations… Until they finally just wrapped a snake around my body and let me temporarily take over the live snake lectures/demos in the house. (“Yes, you can touch him. Don’t worry, he’s not a dangerous variety. No, he’s not slimy! Feel, he’s dry and leathery. See? Look, if you stroke his underbelly, he’s very soft and ticklish.”) I don’t think they even are allowed to do that anymore, to protect the creatures.

But yes, the zoo. The smell of the zoo! I loved it. The straw, the dung, and especially the smell of the Reptile House – hot and muggy and musty.

At the time. At the time, I loved it.

But I don’t want to smell straw, dung and reptile swampwater in tea, and suddenly I did. Still can. It flips my stomach every time I bring the cup to my mouth, and I only wish I had just kept smelling bread.

The taste. Well, I don’t know. It’s quite light. I didn’t taste corn at all at first. As the cup cooled, I finally started to taste something quite similar to corn. Although it certainly isn’t overwhelmingly corn-y. I don’t eat grocery store corn, mind you, I wait all year for the juicy stuff brought straight from the fields that day. So I’m sure my expectations for a corn taste were way, way too high. Beneath that is an earthy taste I’m sure is the tea itself. I’m not sure what sort of tastes I might have killed by fearfully adding sugar; although I will also point out that since I only eat corn rolled in butter, pepper and seasoning salt, I added a pinch of both salt and pepper to the latter half of this cup and that certainly made for an interesting profile which is maybe even closer to corn on the cob in my mind.

I don’t know. I’m not at all sure how I feel about this. I think I need to try it a few more times, as well as in a gaiwan and clear before I will feel comfortable giving it a tentative rating.

So I had a huge meal of perogies, onion and mushrooms tonight, and – comfort food or not – my stomach was protesting mightily. One of those situations where you accidentally made more food than you can comfortably eat, but it’s not going to keep well so you eat it anyway. I remembered that I have this one in my cupboard, so I ran for it.

I recall looking up the reviews for this ages back when I was considering getting it, and saw Tina S.’s review which described this tea as “watered down samosa.” And that’s a pretty good description of it – particularly when you don’t steep it long enough. Luckily, I love samosas! So I gave it a shot.

The first time I tried this, I had no idea what sort of parameters you’d need for kitchen spices(!), so I stuck to the minimum on the bag, which is 4 minutes. Yeah. Forget that, unless you like the taste of water that cuddled up to a microwaveable package of Indian curry. This one needs to steep long time. At least the 7 minute “maximum” suggested on the package.

I double the amount of sugar I normally use for this cup. Might sound strange, but I find that the sugar blends well with the natural sweetness to this tea, which I assume is mostly brought about by the fennel at the forefront…followed by the coriander, with cumin coming in at the back.

Most importantly though (because while it’s not unpleasant at all, this is hardly a tea I’d reach for under normal circumstances), it actually works. Really. Does exactly what it says on the tin – I started sipping it, and my stomach started to settle and stop aching almost immediately! Okay taste, but five stars for “benefits.”