JacquelineM

I am sipping, and having a conversation with myself:

“This is good!”

“No, this is strange!”
“No, it’s good-strange.”
“No. Honey Pear is good-strange, this is strange-strange!”
“Hmmm. I’m kinda getting you on the strange-strange, and now that I think of it, doesn’t it taste EXACTLY like Rose Milk body lotion from the 1970s!!?!?!?!”

http://www.amazon.com/Rose-Milk-Skin-Care-Lotion/dp/B000087L6T

“OMG it DOES!”

I then promptly stopped talking to myself, threw the tea down the sink, and am about to choose something COMPLETELY different for my evening tea!!!

I made 3 teaspoons of this tea with a cup of milk, a cup of water, a teaspoon of Scharffen Berger cocoa powder…

…simmer 7 minutes…

…put a teaspoon of Tupelo honey in each cup…and strain into 2 cups.

It didn’t come close to Golden Moon’s Kashmiri Chai! It was very good but not nearly as good as that Magic Elixir!!! Gotta lower the rating on this one. Husband agreed.

I always go to this one when I want TEA and Chocolate. Tea with a subtle, elegant chocolate note. I seem to always make a double portion when I’m craving this. We watched a film with our gigantic near-bowls of tea.

Mmmmmm! I really like this one! I love the creamydreamy vanilla they used and the taste is a great balance between the vanilla and the tea. I would definitely love a tin of this. On the site it says it’s great with buttered toast for breakfast, and I really wish I saved my sample to use for exactly that purpose. Now that I taste the tea, it sounds like an absolutely perfect pairing. Ah well, I will have to suffer until I get a tin!!!

Smoky!!! Peaty!!!! My husband said that it tastes like Laphroaig scotch, and I have to agree! I began thinking it a bit overwhelming, but by the end of my cup, it really grew on me. I am curious to try it mixed one teaspoon Jackee Muntz one teaspoon Thomas Sampson to make a killer English Breakfast type blend for 16 oz of water.

I did another steep(at 4:30) and it tastes like butterscotch! I prefer the second one, my husband says he loves both! Either way, I think this one is good for when you are in the mood for something heavy, or in the mood for multiple steeps with a black tea. I would also like to try a first steep at 3:45/190 degrees for bake-y :)

Oh and my husband says he gives this tea an 88. :)

I spent the day manning a table at the graduation fair at the University I work for. It was FREEZING and tea was available – and this was the most palatable offering. It somehow tasted like lemon powdered sugar (!!!) but it kept me warm.

I actually gasped when I first tasted this tea! It is so completely delicious to me! Thomas is sweet and strong, malty and earthy…and what a body! Some milk and sugar bring out his best qualities. What a fine example of a black tea from India!!

P.S. Excellent customer service from Andrews and Dunham Damn Fine Teas. I ordered series 2 in the middle of all the snow the East Coast was getting, and I got an email from Erik Dunham explaining about the insane amounts of snow and how it was hard to get to the post office. Seeing that my area was hit almost as hard and we missed 2 days of mail delivery ourselves I of course assured him that it was just fine, but how nice is that?!?!

P.P.S The labels are fantastic! The shipping boxes are even fantastic!

P.P.P.S I am about to go to bed and leave him and Jackee Muntz in my tea cupboard. I could have sworn I heard Jackee called Marco Polo “fruity” and I think Thomas tried to pinch Florence!!! Who knows what I will wake up to tomorrow!

P.P.P.P.S I am absolutely sick that series 4 sold out so fast – I think I would have loved that tea!

I couldn’t figure out what kind of tea I wanted today! Well, if truth be told, I would have wanted Sugar Carmel Oolong again if I had any more! But since I do not – I thought I’d give another Golden Moon sample a try.

1st steep – 3 min. Delicate and delicious!!! It seems I’ve found a white tea that I love! When they say it’s flavored with “sweet melon nectar” they are not kidding! I feel like I am drinking a rare nectar of the gods. This tea makes me feel as if I should be laying on a chaise lounge being fanned, and offered peeled grapes and such, not sitting at my desk in snowy Philadelphia!!!! The flavor is not cloying or overly sweet – it’s absolute perfection to my taste buds.

2nd steep: 4 min – Less melon, more white tea flavor. Still a great cup of tea. I’ll keep to 2 steeps though.

Golden Moon Getting a Tin Scorecard: White Persian Melon, Kashmiri Chai, Sugar Caramel Oolong

:)

Very nice for a Ceylon (but I have to say I did like Andrews and Dunham’s Ceylon better – it had more pizzaz despite it being a Ceylon. I keep wanting to type Cylon – but I won’t go there!!). This could be because I like milk and sugar in my black tea, and this tea just didn’t stand up to it in the way I like. I guess that’s why I am an Assam and Panyang Congu type of gal!

Oh! and this is tasting note number 100 for me :) Neat!

The dry tea smells fantastic – earthy yet sweet.

1st steep – 3 min. First sip = love! To me, it tastes like a less over the top version of the Honey Pear, and gosh darn, I prefer it! It’s more of a dates rather than pears, and burnt sugar rather than honey, and much more subtle. I remarked in one of our discussions that I didn’t know if an oolong had a place in my cupboard – scratch that! This is definitely getting the full tin treatment!

2nd steep: 4 min. Less flavoring taste, and more tea taste. Soft sugar and date notes. Still gorgeous.

3rd steep: 5 min. Still a nice cup of tea, but I think it’s done after this one. Very soft dates and oolong, no sugar but the dates give it some sweetness.

So, for those keeping score – so far the Kashmiri Chai and Sugar Caramel Oolong are in my OMG MUST BUY WHOLE TIN category (Sugar Caramel Oolong ousting Honey Pear)! They are both so unique and delicious to me :)

I stuck my nose in my husband’s humidor this afternoon whilst he was adding water and it really did remind me of rooibos. Fine tobacco and wood. We had some tonight with honey.

I let this go to 5 minutes today (how I usually steep most black teas) to see what would happen – NOW I’m getting the flowers! When I want to weep with nostalgia, I’ll steep to 4 minutes, and when I want strawberries and roses, I’ll steep to 5 minutes. WOW.

Today I walked and walked amongst the snow drifts, in the slush, across the ice, walked and walked and walked so that I could get more of this tea! I put the last of my stash in the Traveling Tea Box, and facing the weekend without my Organic Black with Coconut was toooo sad! I had a great big delicious creamy coconutty cup this evening in celebration of getting a whopping 8 oz bag :)

Another Traveling Tea Box Tea!!!!

This is my first Mighty Leaf tea. Cute lil bag! The dry tea smells very nice and fruity. The leaves are cut up but not as small as dust and fannings.

…sip, sip, sip…

Steep One: It’s bitter even though I steeped it for 3 minutes (on the low side of suggested steeping time). The peachy taste is not overly artificial. The bitterness is getting to me to the point where I’m ignoring my tea!

Steep Two (4 min): Less bitter but still bitter. I don’t think I will finish it.

Part of the reason I wanted to try this is because I am still wondering about the whole price/taste/convenience equation. Here is what is rolling around in my brain:

Based on a price I found on amazon and drugstore.com (they were within .25 of each other) I get this tea as being .65 a bag and with 2 steeps that’s, say, .33 a cup. Now let’s say you get a good green or white tea for…oh – we’ll put it on the high side at $18 for 100g (Upton’s Pi Lo Chun is really naturally peachy and $18/100g…Rishi’s organic Snow Buds white tea is 15.75/100g) which makes approx 50 cups… which makes .36 a cup, and you can usually do at least 3 steeps which makes it .12 a cup. So, for .12 a cup I can get a spine tingling happy experience vs .33 a cup for bitter tea that I couldn’t finish.

So, you are getting a better tea for a third of the price :)

It reminds me of this from Terry Pratchett:

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This post brought to you by being snowbound in the house two days straight and cupcakes :)

I made this with milk instead of water – simmer tea in milk for 7 minutes then strain into cups that contain a teaspoon of honey. It was AMAZING! It wasn’t a knock you over the head chai, but a gently spiced cup of warmth and comfort. I absolutely loved it.

P.S. I simmered this but have no idea what the temperature was – so take my “water temp” with a grain of salt. I just kept the milk at a light simmer.

I liked it but I didn’t love it. The coconut taste was good, but prefer my beloved Organic Black with Coconut. I think the sort of floral green paired with the coconut didn’t do it for me. If I already didn’t have a coconut tea I was crazy for, maybe I’d like this better.

Another Traveling Tea Box tea!

I think it tastes like beer-tea! Sorta like some darjeelings taste like wine tea…this tastes like beer tea. Slighty lemony beer tea. It’s not exactly unpleasant, but let’s just say I’m glad it was just enough for tonight’s after dinner pot of tea.

Another Traveling Teabox Tea!!!

Yum, yum, yum. I love this tea! A gorgeous golden color, and I’m getting a luscious apricot flavor. It uses alot of tea – 2 tablespoons full! This was steep #1, 8 minutes.

Steep #2: another 8 minutes. Still very apricoty and delicious with more floral notes this time around. This is quite a sipper! I wish I was curled up with a novel instead of sitting at work!

Steep #3: another 8 minutes. Still amazing!! This may be my favorite steep so far! The apricot and floral are in a great balance in this cup. Mmmmmmmm.

I’m going to do more steeps this afternoon – I just got word that my class was canceled due to all the snow we have, so I’ll have time to do more sipping as I work :) I’ll edit this post when I do.

I have to say that this is so far the loveliest green tea that I’ve had the pleasure to experience! Much love to the Traveling Tea Box!!

EDIT: did two more tasty steeps at 9 min and 10 min. This tea is a superstar! I am definitely going to purchase some :) If you have another favorite from Rishi, I’m all ears! I suspect the organic rooibos I like from the loose tea tin area at Wegmans is actually a Rishi tea too.

Gotta lower this rating a little. It’s a solid Assam, but it pales in comparison to many of the Assams I’ve tasted in the last two months from Upton and Harney and Sons. Noticeable astringency…not particularly malty or full bodied in comparison. Once I finish this bag, I won’t repurchase. I used to think I would always have this one around!

With 1 teaspoon of sugar and a splash of half and half, this tea tastes exactly like the incredible strawberry shortcake baked at Isgro Pasticceria in the Italian Market area of Philadelphia. Juicy perfectly ripe strawberries, moist barely sweet cake redolent of good vanilla, and fresh whipped cream. I had this cake every year for my birthday my entire childhood. This tea is moving me to tears.

The flavor is incredibly delicate and not artificial in the least. It’s an absolute work of art as far as I’m concerned. I never want to be without it, and it was worth every penny.

EDIT: decided to resteep – very pleasant strawberry taste but the cake and whipped cream and tea are gone. Tastes too sweet. The next time I make this tea, I might resteep then drink the resteep without cream and sugar.

Last night I lost all track of time! I sat down for my nightly tea at 10:30pm! I didn’t want to be up all night so I chose this. Luckily I genuinely like rooibos – maybe because I also love coffee and my husband’s cigars (I think it has a faint tobacco like quality) and because of the story I’m about to tell…

I’m reminded of another night that I wanted my nightly tea very late at night – we were in California in June, staying at Deetjens in Big Sur. We came back to our cabin tired from a day of adventure, but in the mood for something sweet and our nightly tea, but it was also past 10pm, and the restaurant part of the inn was winding down for the evening.

Here is a picture to help you imagine:

http://www.deetjens.com/restaurant.htm

(third picture down, the bar room, first table – that is exactly where we were sitting!)

The hostess remembered us from another night we were there for dinner – my husband’s stomach was upset and they fixed him soup and we didn’t have dessert because of it – so she told us she was glad we were now ready for dessert and brought us pot de creme and a nice sized teapot of rooibos. How could you not like rooibos after that? :) Every time I have it the taste brings me back to that night. I keep on saying that I am going to seek out flavored rooibos and try a variety of additions, but I never do. I now realize this is why :)

Another Traveling Teabox Tea!!!!

I can most assuredly say that Andrews and Dunham make no false claims. This is truly a Damn Fine Tea! Smooth and delicious! A classic ceylon taste only a million times better.

My first tea from The Traveling Teabox!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tried this one first because you could smell it the minute you opened the box :) Cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon!!! When you open the tea package, you can see great big pieces of cinnamon bark, and wee pumpkins made of sugar!

It brewed up into a nice medium bodied tea. The first sip was great! Really flavorful and spicy and strongly flavored of pumpkin spice. By the second sip I started to think of the flavored coffees that were popular in the early 1990s. By the third sip I started thinking of the super heavily scented candles!! I was then convinced I was drinking a candle and found the tea overwhelmingly artificially flavored. It was just Too Much.

But! If you like flavored coffee, you just might like this one! It is nestled back in the Traveling Teabox ready for more tastings from Steepsterites!

1st steep: 3 min, 180 – I tasted a whole lot of nuthin. I used one teaspoon, so that might have been the problem. Maybe my water was too cold? The directions say just under boiling.

2nd steep: 3 min, 190 – I added the rest of the packet for this second steep. The tea is much darker. I’m tasting a nice, lovely gentle white tea flavor and the barest hint of ginger. Not even a tingle. Nary a burn! If I was a catty lady, I’d call this tea “Milquetoast!”

I like it, but it’s much more subtle than my tastes run. I rather have a gingery peppery herbal if I was going in the ginger direction, and more of a green tea taste if I was going the tea way.

Those that have the Golden Moon sampler – did you use the whole packet per 8 oz water for each steep with white teas? Am I missing anything else (like is my water temp way off?). I just want to make sure I treat the rest of the white teas in my sampler right :) Thanks!