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My mom and I went shopping this morning since her work is still out of power. I got a new pair of sneakers that fit perfectly and make my feet happy. Now I don’t have to worry about wearing a hole right through my old sneakers.

The only thing I don’t like about this cup is that mom snuck splenda in the sugar bowl first thing this morning. It is still good, but not quite the right type of sweet it needs to be to really bring out the gooey butter cakey taste.

I am amazed that this has lemon in it. I normally hate lemon in my tea but I really like the taste of it in here.

I decided to see if I was right about this tea making a good morning tea. I think I need to steep it a couple more minutes before I add the milk to make it a great morning tea.

I took some time to actually smell it and it does smell like a chocolate cookie and associating chocolate cookies with breakfast makes me happy.

This is the last pack of Aged Earl that I stole (well, he let me have) from my fiance’s tea stash. I don’t know what is with me overbrewing this tea lately, but I accidentally made it strong! Wow. I feel like a spoon could stand up in my tea. It is still a very dark brown even after I add milk in it. Good thing this is a very hard tea to screw up because it still tastes excellent!

My girl friend didn’t have power last night so she asked if she could come over and borrow our shower since she had to work today. I said sure and she surprised me by also bringing over my fiancee. She likes tea and enjoys having my tea so I let her pick one out to have before she went home.

She picked this one so I brewed it all up and we had tea together.

I couldn’t help myself from diving into this tea today. It was cold and it has been drizzling off and on all day today. Thankfully the wind has died down. Only a couple of tree limbs have fallen to the ground with no damage.

I brewed this for four minutes and poured it into my Tardis mug with no additions to try out. It smells good. I don’t remember it smelling overwhelmingly like chocolate but it made me smile. I tried the tea and with no additions, it doesn’t really taste like much. I mostly could taste the tea and it was a middle of the road tea.

Unsatisfied, I decided that since traditional chai is made with milk then I needed to try this with milk before deciding if I liked it or not. I am so glad I did! When the milk was added both the chocolate and a pepper note jumped out at me. The chocolate was bordering a darker chocolate and the pepper note was closer to a red chili pepper than anything else. It was good and satisfying. I think this would make a very good early morning tea.

Thank you Veronica for sending me this tea to try!

So, I get up this morning to find that our cable is out. Last night when it was windy from the hurricane I asked mom that if our cable went out, would our phone go out? She didn’t know.

The answer? Yes, if the cable is out the phone is out too and so is our internet.

On a tea related note, my mother (who hated Earl Grey) now drinks Bigelow Earl Grey with milk every morning to help her wake up. I converted her to the Earl Grey side!

So, I know I just posted about this tea but I decided to see if this tea could be re-steeped. I got more water and steeped it for four minutes. I put two and a half teaspoons of sugar in my mug. Stirred it all up.

Oh my! The flavor is richer with the added sugar. Much more gooey cake. The tartness of the lemon is mingling with the sugar and giving me that sweet-tart flavor that I wanted the first time.

I’m probably going to see exactly how many times I can re-steep this before the flavor gives out. I didn’t think the flavor would still be this bold with the second steep.

Edit: The answer to that question is that you can steep this about three times.

My swap package from Veronica came to me today and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. It is cold and rainy here because of the threatening hurricane. I live farther inland on the east coast, but it is not that far from the coast so our entire area has been prepped for a big storm. So far, nothing has been too huge here even though the schools have been canceled for today.

The dry leaf smells wonderful! It smells like sweet candied lemons. Once the tea is brewed, the smell tones down a little bit on the candy front and you can clearly tell it is a tea blend. Now it smells more like warm lemon sugar. The liquor is a lovely dark amber and the leaves were fun to watch steep in my press because they danced in the hot water.

Now comes the moment of truth: the taste test. Now, I have never had gooey butter cake so I don’t know what exactly that is supposed to taste like. The first thing that really hits me is the tea base. It tastes like a lighter black tea. I can really taste the lemon and lemon in my tea is something I don’t particularly enjoy if it isn’t offset by anything else. But I can tell there is something else in here that is mixing with the lemon.

I added a teaspoon of sugar to my cup and tried again. I am getting a more dessert-like flavor now and I am getting the gooey-cakey feeling that is more like a lemon bar than anything. If anything, I want more lemon in there to be more like a sweet-tart lemon bar and this is coming from the person who doesn’t care for lemon tea! How ironic.

I poured out a sample of the tea into a cup and mixed that with just a drop of milk. Regular milk because I didn’t want my almond milk to change the flavor profile too much. With milk I now get “CAKE!” but I think I like it without the milk better.

The rest of my mug is still hot and slightly sweet. I could probably have put two teaspoons of sugar in it while it was still full and have been satisfied, but I wanted to explore this cup. This is an interesting tea and I am very glad I got the chance to try it. I have a feeling that this might make an awesome sweet iced tea and because of the very generous sample size that Veronica sent to me, I will get to try it iced too!

The one flavor I think this is missing from the cup that would have rounded it out more is a little bit of vanilla. But that is probably me being picky.

I had three steeps of this tea yesterday, but I have been wondering if I could pull out a fourth steep out of this tea. So, I decided to try it with my tea leaves from last night.

I steeped these leaves for an hour until the liquid is a nice amber color like I just brewed a lighter tea. The smell is still wonderful. A light dusty smell that is combined with the scent of fresh rainfall. The tea is still warm even though it has been steeping for the past hour. My french press keeps the tea nice and warm.

The flavor is slightly different from the other steeps. It is still silky smooth and I am getting a creamy mouthfeel that is just divine. It isn’t as dark as the other steeps and is slightly more astringent.

I am glad that I managed to wrangle a fourth steep out of this tea. I’m not sure if I would brew it up often, but I am happy I have the option.

The tea of choice for today is this pu-erh that always makes me feel like royalty. So good!