JacquelineM

A big thank you to the quiet life for this sample!!

First sniff of leaves – cloves!! Ahhh! Reminds me of being 14 years old and going to all ages punk shows full of clove cigarette smoke. To this day, all I have to do is smell cloves and I’m instantly full of Anger and Too Much Eyeliner!!! I can’t keep up, I can’t keep up, I can’t keep up! Out of step! With the wooooooorld!!!! (ooops, it’s not 1983! step AWAY from the Minor Threat record (yes I still have it. yes I still listen to it. Shut up!!)

I steeped it at two minutes because I planned to have it with no milk and just a touch of sugar. That was a good call – it’s definitely a “without milk” tea. I’m getting cloves and caramel in a smooth tea base. I’m not tasting any citrus or any of the other flavors that are said to be blended in, which is ok by me :) I’m enjoying Clove Nostalgia Land. But! I think it can take 3 minutes, and I will try that next time.

I decided to do a resteep for the heck of it, at 5 minutes. Not bad! Less tea. Clove-y! Just added another small pinch of sugar.

Final thoughts: Great tea for work where I sometimes want a black tea but don’t want to worry about having milk around. I want to look into some more Kusmi teas for exactly this purpose! Very very very enjoyable!

No matter how much I try to frequent the small markets and specialty shops in my area, a once a month big supermarket trip is inevitable. Tonight was my night :/

One nice thing is that the store had tins of this tea on clearance! I decided to take a chance on it, and I’m glad that I did! It’s lemony, with a bit of licorice, and some peppery and gingery notes. Some honey sweetened it up a little. It was great for a late night cup, and I imagine it’s wonderful if you have a cold.

Feeling adventurous again today – thought I’d try my DRAGON BALL that Doulton sent me. Thank you once again Doulton.

Confession: I am in the very small minority (perhaps the only person here on Steepster!) who does not like to see leaves unfurl, or display teas! I think they look like deep sea creatures/aliens being born and they scare me. I think it all stems from when my mother let me watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers on television (this was the 1970s) at a tender age and I didn’t sleep right for over a year.

SO – the dragon ball will be doing its thing in my very opaque tea pot :)

I do find the dry Dragon Ball very pretty, and I did parade it around my office showing everyone what I was about to drink!

Steep 1: I don’t know what it looks like, but I can say it TASTES utterly delicious! Smooth and so SWEET!!! Kind of buttery and kind of …tea and Pastry keeps coming to mind. No bitterness at all. I can’t get over how naturally sweet :) I didn’t put the ball into a tea filter bag because I thought it would be too constraining, and I don’t have a strainer at work, but the little bit of leaves that are in my cup are not bothersome at all and have not affected the taste.

Steep 2 (3min): A bit darker of a brew, but again not at all bitter. I don’t know – I think I taste tea with a buttery sweet pastry with a little cinnamon in it. A little floral on the tail end. It’s amazing!!!! I’m not sure what kind of oolong this is compared to Oriental Beauty, but it reminds me of a slightly spicy darker version of the Oriental Beauty I had at Radiance. That sweetness!!!

Steep 3 (4 min): Still phenomenal! Pretty much the same as the 2nd steep.

I’m going to keep on steepin’ on, (the whole office is ordering Chinese today and this will go great with my Wonton Soup and Black Bean Chicken!) and will edit this post in the afternoon :)

This tea is EXCEPTIONAL!!! I WANT MORE DRAGON BALLS!!!

(did I just say that!?!?!)

EDIT: SIX amazing, delicious infusions. This tea is wonderful to sip, and wonderful with food. I HAVE to order some soon. Doulton, how many dragon balls do you get when you get 1/4 lb? I can’t picture and want to make sure I order enough.

The fortune in my fortune cookie: An optimist is the human personification of spring.

Simple and delicious tisane. Who would think that rooibos and mint would go together so spectacularly!? A little honey makes it even better :)

This tea courtesy of Doulton!

The dry leaves smell great; the brewing leaves smell INCREDIBLE! I smell melon, something like strawberry, green tea, and something almost creamy.

Steep 1: The fragrance is divine. The taste is so good. A great green tea flavor balanced with what I can only describe as strawberrytropicalfruitmelon and cream.

Steep 2 (4 min): I am almost enjoying the fragrance as much as the tea!!! Such pleasant sipping. More melon-y this go ’round.

Steep3 (5min): More goodness. Is that banana?

I am giving this a rating just a touch lower than the cherry because I enjoy cherry flavors more, but this is yet another super enjoyable French Green Tea. I just love how balanced the flavors are, and how nicely the green tea comes through. I’m hopelessly addicted!!

Mmmmm! This is my favorite of all the Chocolate Rooibos tisanes I’ve tried! The different types of chocolate remove most of the woody flavors and just add depth – I tasted a nice subtle chocolate and white chocolate flavor (at first I thought it was vanilla, but then I realized it was the white chocolate!)! A very enjoyable cup to happily sip on as I worked on my latest batch of photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackiemania/sets/72157623899731832/

I was inspired to drink this today, even though The Amazing Takgoti sent me this sample months ago, because of the little Bon Appetit article about Pu-Erh in the May issue. I spent a very enjoyable SIX HOURS sipping multiple steeps of this tea!!!

When I did the rinse, I said “OH NO!!! This smells TERRIBLE!!! There is no way I am going to be able to drink this!!!!” It didn’t smell like fish tank, fish, or even earth. It smelled like something odd I never smelled before!!!

My first steep had that smell, but lighter. When I went to take my first sip…nothing like the smell!!!! So interesting! The blood orange and ginger made it familiar and delicious, but the pu-erh was earthy and complicated and like nothing I’ve ever had before! It wasn’t even like I was drinking tea!

My additional steeps cycled through a spicy Thai broth, then a mellow broth, and then there were some coffee like elements, and now the flavor is getting fainter and there is just a subtle lingering ginger note.

Is this mellow, calm, pleasant feeling what they call the pu-erh high?!

Despite having my mind completely made up that I was going to hate this and spit it out, I totally enjoyed it! It’s so odd that I couldn’t see myself having it every day, or even every week, but I certainly want to have it again!!

We just had a very bizarre power outage – I came home to no electricity! – but thankfully everything is now fixed thanks to some long hours from the power company – at 8 pm we shouted “Let there be light!!! (and internet!)”. The first thing I did when the power came on was make tea! I chose this one because I wanted something sweet to ease all my worry.

I was a nervous wreck making it – in a mad rush to try and reset all the clocks in the house, make sure everything was now working, etc and I was too heavy handed with the leaves and probably steeped it a bit too much. I tasted a strong, delicious strawberry flavor and my first taste of honeybush! Yum! Sweeter than rooibos and less cigar humidor-ish! I fear that my heavy steep and the addition of honey masked the vanilla and chocolate flavors. Nevertheless, it was very delicious! I love the honeybush and the strawberry was so natural and good. It does not need honey at all, and I think a 5 minute steep would be more suitable.

It’s Monday! Need Happy Tea!

I decided, since this does have a little green tea in it, to set my kettle to 200 degrees to see if it makes any difference in the flavor.

sip sip hmmm. It is smoother, a nice hint of vanilla, but somehow less jasminey? I’m kind of torn between liking the smoothness and missing the more jasmine character. But on the other hand, I can taste more TEA ness. The flavor of the black and green teas is very delicious. I also did not use any sugar (which I did at 212). I also wonder if it will mean I can get an extra infusion! I will keep it at 200 throughout this experiment.

steep 2 (5 min): Excellent! Again, finding more delicious tea flavors and little back up harmonies of vanilla and jasmine. The tea is still quite dark and flavorful.

steep 3 (6 min): A bit watery, but drinkable, especially on a Monday!!!

Results of Experiment: will now steep at 200! I am really enjoying the smooth tea taste, and the fact that I don’t need sugar. I will know that if I am in the mood for something super jasmine, to set my eyes to Jasmine Green, Three Part Poetry, etc. etc.

What a delicious herbal tisane! I think it tastes like blood orange and cranberry. It’s quite tart but I find it very refreshing! Perfect when you are in the mood for something fruity and don’t want caffeine.

It’s so nice that I would serve this to guests that want an herbal. It’s an absolutely gorgeous color! I do like popping an herbal tea bag in a mug, but this loose herbal is very much worth the extra trouble :) I also think it would be delicious iced, and delicious added to a black tea iced as well.

I made cold brewed iced tea with this, a little simple syrup, and a half of a lime juiced. So. Good. So refreshing! Perfect with our picnic after a long, muddy hike. I originally used the lime because I was out of lemon, but we wound up preferring it to lemon! My husband thought it was the best iced tea so far this year (I still like the Darjeeling Assam better, but this is a close second!)! Next I will try this one with some of a juiced orange.

The flavoring is too subtle for a rooibos in my opinion. I felt it almost tasted like a plain rooibos…which I enjoy…but not what I was going after this evening. You know I love vanilla, but it was a barely detectable flavor. When it comes to rooibos, I do prefer the knock you over the head ones rather than the subtle ones. I feel that you could save your dollars and get a nice, plain organic rooibos and have it taste very similar. Still, a nice warm late night cup.

Thanks so much to Doulton for this sample!

Lovely afternoon tea. Cinnamon orange cream carmel tea? I’m finding it hard to pin anything down except mmmmmm delicious!! Thank you Doulton!!

I was craving this one last night. I still had my chocolate covered graham crackers (so easy to make! Take 4 graham crackers and put them on parchment paper. Melt 1/2 c chocolate, chocolate chips, chocolate squares – whatever you have on hand – and smear/drizzle onto your grahams. If you wish you could add chopped nuts whilst the chocolate is still wet (but I did not – but I’m thinkin’ pecans!) let them cool a bit, then put them in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes to set.)

So, yes, the Chai! I made it stovetop (1c milk, 1c water, 4 tsp Kashmiri chai, simmer 9 min, let sit 1, strain into two cups with as much honey as you enjoy sitting in them) and got out my serving tray and put two cups of this delicious elixir on it with a chocolate covered graham cracker each on a pretty china plate. It was soooooo good together. A childhood treat made adult and delicious for mere pennies! The creamy gently spiced Chai went so well with the Chocolate graham – just one each! They are very rich. Heaven after a long busy workweek.

One of the things I adore about this chai is that it is so gently spiced that it doesn’t seem just Wintery – it is something I can enjoy all year around. Not only are the spices light (no pepper!) but the mix of green and black teas lighten it further. One of my Big Tea Loves, one of my Keepers, one of my Order the BIG Bag teas :)

After my week of work tea divine decadence (jasmine! violet! cherry! chestnut!) I decided to have a plain green today. I got a very nice sized bag of this free with my Dawn order. Thanks Simple Leaf!

This tea smells SMOKY!!

It tastes earthy and smoky, the slightest bit asparagus-y, but I like it! It’s not my usual “profile” at all, but it’s really nice after days of sweetness and refinement. This tea would be excellent with a meal. As it cools, it is a little less smoky, a little more asparagus-y and slightly sweeter.

2nd steep: (3:30) Nice! It’s more subdued and very delicious. I don’t know if I prefer the first or second steep! The first one is so interesting, but the second one is very harmonious. I am wishing I had a bowl of rice with salmon and bok choy (yeah – I know! specific!) to go with this tea!!

3rd steep: (4:00) Sweeter! even less smoke. I am so full, but I think this tea could go on to yet another steep (but I won’t save my leaves because I have dark chocolate covered graham crackers for my afternoon snack, and that would be an awful pairing!!). I wanted to mention it though, because if you are having guests for a meal, you can keep on refilling your teapot at least 4 times imo with this tea.

Look at me – evolving!! ;)

I don’t know…I can’t find much to complain about with these bagged herbal tisanes! I think they taste very pleasant and after a day of doing, doing, doing I like to throw the teabag in and some honey and forget about it! This blueberry one tastes very natural – almost like the blueberries in a muffin or pancake. I am not finding it tart at all. Just a little sweet treat before I get into bed to read Julia Child’s My Life in France (so hysterically funny!! So beautiful. A philosophy on not only how to cook but how to live).

My grandfather was never big on holidays, especially Christmas. The only two things he did every Christmas was buy Baccalà (salted cod) and chestnuts, so that he could have two things he enjoyed in Italy during the holidays here in America. I haaaaaaaated when the Baccalà came into the house – I thought it stunk to high heaven, especially since my grandmother had to soak it repeatedly before she could cook it, but I loved when we put the chestnuts into the oven. The shells became partially black and smelled so good. When you took away the shell (watch! still hot!) the chestnut was so tender and meaty and like nothing we ever had the rest of the year. I loved when we made the chestnuts.

This tea is so close to the warm roasted chestnuts. The woody oolong goes so naturally with a chestnut tea. I had only had one other chestnut tea which was a black tea, and it was all wrong. Too harsh, too cloying, too artificial, and trying to fix it by adding milk and sugar made it nothing like real chestnuts. This tea replicates that barely sweet nutty flavor so convincingly.

Steep 2: Mmmmmmm. Just as good. I almost want to bite down because there has to be chestnut meat there!

(do these French teas not quit or what!?!?! I am again going to save the leaves for some afternoon steeping)

I’m going to take the remaining sample of this tea home, put it safe ’n sound in a tin and mark it for Christmas Eve. Thank you Doulton for this trip to the past.

EDIT: 4 lovely steeps! and I found these articles about chestnuts & Italy fascinating:
http://italianfood.about.com/library/rec/blr0282.htm
http://italophiles.com/castagne.htm

This one courtesy of Doulton!

YUM!

I fixed this one with a little half and half and sugar, and a mere pinch of salt like LiberTEAS! Delicious, buttery, nutty treat! I’m a cashew fanatic, and my husband is a cashew AND white chocolate fanatic, and we are both really enjoying this. The tea flavor is a little weak, but I think it is actually working in the blend’s favor, as this could get sickening if too strong. Good job! I need to pick some of this up because my husband is drinking this down like there is no tomorrow!

EDIT: Woe! It looks like it is sold out! I better jump on the other 52 teas I’ve been coveting!

A delightful green tea. The base reminds me of my beloved violet tea: smooth, a little vegetal, very enjoyable. The cherry flavor is beautiful. Like a faint whisper of a cordial made with real cherries. Very subdued and elegant. You could say “the anti-Teavana” ;) I could easily drink green tea each and every day with these wonderfully blended Dammann Freres teas!! They “get” just what I like in a tea – that a little art and artifice does wonders. I am certainly developing an addiction!

Steep two: 4 min Sooooo good. Again, the second steep of this tea really shines for me. The flavors marry, the tea is darker and more flavorful, ahhh! I am so in love!

I am going to save my leaves for an after lunch steep just like I did yesterday.

The only reason I’m rating it lower than the violet tea, really, is because I think the violet is harder to do with a soft touch, and they made something that could quickly be too perfumed and cloying into something exquisite. I think cherry is a little easier to do and a little more common – but make no mistake – this is a world class tea and I’d jump at the chance to snap up some more!!!

EDIT: did 2 more steeps for a total of 4. I enjoyed every sip!! :)

Quite yummy, but somehow Once Upon a Tea (basically this one with the addition of mint) tasted more chocolaty. Hmmm! I never thought I’d say this, but I prefer it with the touch of mint!

The teas that Doulton so graciously ordered from France have arrived in my mailbox!! I am so excited! The minute I opened the package this one started to call to me. Violets! I ate a nice big breakfast that reminded me of a lunch so I could make pretend I was having this in the afternoon :)

Ooooooh so delicate! I’m drinking green tea Choward’s Violet candies!!! I am swooning. Where is my fainting couch?!?! I am IN LOVE! I am finding subtle supportive other sweet floral flavors, but this one is nothing like an Earl Grey and the other flowers do not stand out. This one is a lovely slightly vegetal green tea with violet, violet, violet. I erred on the side of caution and steeped it for 3 minutes, but the next time I make it I’m going to go for a 3:30 first steep. I think it can take it.

Steep 2: 4 min – Could it be that this steep is even more delicious?!!? Why I think it is!!! It’s a little more rounded but equally as violet and wonderful. I wish you could see me – I’m freaking out. You have no idea how much I love violet and I was so afraid this tea would be the equivalent of a toiletry – and it IS NOT!!!!

I’m completely intoxicated and am seeing violet elephants, but I think this could even go another steep. I’m going to save my leaves and see if I may want some this afternoon!

I am so happy right now! I love Doulton, I love the French, and I love Steepster!!!!!!!

EDIT: I just did a third steep (4 min) and it’s great!!!

Also – this sounds a little strange but I totally want to take a bath with this tea!! Green tea bathing is supposed to be good for health:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1141970/the_health_benefits_of_a_green_tea.html?cat=68

and this fragrance – ahh!! It would be the most amazing soak ever.

My plan was to have something warm and tasty to drink whilst editing photos. Something unfussy so that I could just throw some boiling water in over a teabag, leave the bag in, and immediately get to work.

I remember liking this one a long time ago. I still do :) With the teaspoon of honey I added, it tasted like canned peaches in syrup. When I was done, I just threw some more boiling water over the bag and got back to editing. The second infusion still had a lot of flavor! Perfect tea for when you want something to sip that doesn’t take your full attention. I think I’d also like to tuck a bag into a black cold brewed iced tea for a little added fruity flavor.

Two cups later, and my photos are ready :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackiemania/sets/72157623842760142/

So tired this morning – I definitely need some happy mood power today. Must have something jasmine :) I thought this one would be good because it also contains green and black tea (caffeine!!) and vanilla (one of my favorite flavors). I put a scant half teaspoon of sugar in my cup, too, for a little extra something.

Delicious! Rich floral vanilla. Unique. Sweet. As it cools, the jasmine moves a little more to the front. Very nice to ease into the week with :) Flavorful and delightful second steep which I don’t feel needs sugar. I’m going to give this a bump to 100 because it’s a tea that I adore and always want to have around. It fits my ideal flavor profile to a T(ea! sorry! blame the happymaking jasmine for my cornball humor)!

Love this one for winding down late at night. A teaspoon of honey makes it even more comforting. I am very close to finishing my tin, and plan to repurchase. I like it that much. Vanilla, apples, warmth. Sleeeeeeep!