MegWesley

I have my driver’s test tomorrow and I was starting to feel nervous even though I just did wonderfully driving in heavy traffic. This tea to the rescue! I swear I taste something like grape in here. The juicy green grape type of grape and not the big black ones. Just wonderful and the jasmine calms me down instantly.

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!

My fiancee, friends, and I all went out to see the Rocky Horror Show yesterday. It was my first time seeing it live and it was amazing! The crew was fantastic and the opening band was very creepy cool. My favorite moment was when we all threw the toilet paper. That was something I always wanted to do, but would have gotten in trouble to actually do it.

Before the show I got a large latte to round out my meal so I wouldn’t be snacking when we got out of the show around 2 AM. It was so yummy. It filled me up for the rest of the night which makes me think that matcha would be the perfect tea for a person trying to diet. Between the regular and flavored matchas, it would satisfy every craving you might have. You would just have to be careful that you didn’t overdo it with the matcha lattes and have most of them without milk.

So, I tried doing a short rinse (10-15 seconds) on the leaves tonight before making the first steep. That made the first steep much more flavorful. If I don’t have all three steeps of this tonight, I might have the last in the morning. It is better than the one cup of hot chocolate I have been having before bed though. I discovered that hot chocolate keeps me up if I have it too late.

Remember when my tea notes used to have every other one being this yerba mate or another flavored yerba mate? I do and I am not used to drinking it anymore.

I made this with a four minute steep, a good splash of honey, and some microwaved steamed vanilla almond milk. I left out the honey additionally, but I found it a little bitter. Once it is cooled down enough to actually drink, it is good. I wish I could have left out the honey, but I was feeling like a sweetened latte. I couldn’t get a good foam with my almond milk this time, but I don’t have a tool to actually froth or foam my milk with.

It still stands that I would like a goard and bombilla set to try this with. I think it would taste better. And I could use the bombilla with my mug steeped oolongs as well so I don’t feel strange trying not to drink a tea leaf.

Time for my green tea after dinner tea plan! Since my white Silver Needle Jasmine tasted better with more leaf, I decided to put in about a teaspoon more leaf than I normally do.

Whoah! It smells green and buttery right from the get-go this time. I don’t even need to get close to my mug to get the yummy buttery smell. I steeped this for two minutes. I am finally getting the butter note that I have missed from my first dragonwell. Then the green tea flavor comes charging in and enveloping my mouth with its wonderful taste. The liquor is still very pale even with the extra leaf. This tea isn’t as astringent as my green jasmine pearls which makes for a lovely bedtime tea.

I think I have been under-leafing my french press recently. I will have to pay attention with my other teas to make sure I am getting the leaf-to-water ratio right and get a new teaspoon for measuring.

This is just what I needed as a hot cocoa intervention. I decided to spoil myself and put in more leaf than I normally would. This adds up to about three or four teaspoons. Oh my! It is so good this way! I was only going to do one steep, but I am going to have another steep later before getting my green tea out for after dinner.

Going off the tea topic for a second, wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a Steepster-like site for hot chocolate, drinking chocolate, and brewable cocoa beans? Ok, Steepster for chocolate lovers and choco-holics. I think it would be amazing.

Today is a milk oolong type of day.

Last backlog, with long steeps this is just lovely.

I only had one steep of this, but I used more leaf than usual. I don’t think I’m letting myself letting my water get hot enough because with a little more leaf the steep was creamier.

I have a couple layers of backlog to go through today. Nothing big. Just something nice and simple and hot and sweet to get me through the cooler evening.

I got a green tea latte from Starbucks today. This is the straightest I have probably ever had matcha and I should probably be eating something with it because I’m getting a little caffeine headache. It tastes really good though and I’m taking it easy. I’m just not used to it.

The interview is over and I think it went well, so I am celebrating by having my last bag of Aged Earl. I am so glad I saved my big mug for this tea so I can get a lot out of my last bag.

I am going to savor this because I don’t know when I will be able to get any more Earl for a while.

I’m not sure why I didn’t get the flavor I normally get out of this on this steeping. Oh well. The hints were still there and it made me happy to drink it. The second steep will be fabulous.

Had this before my interview to calm and focus me.

Have I mentioned how much I love this tea? This is my third (and probably final) steeping of this tea and it is lovely. I am still experimenting on how best to brew this so that I can get that similar flavor out of each steeping. I think I need to give the leaves a quick rinse first. Like 10-15 seconds. Then do my 5 minute steep then the 7 minute steep and then end with either a 13-15 minute steep.

This steep was an 11 minute steep and the flavor is still mellow and slightly creamy and dark, but not as rich as the second steep. So 13-15 minutes on the last steep should make it sing! ♥ I feel like I am an oddball with the long steep times on this one, but if that is how I like it then I am not complaining at all. It also makes me think that when I finally am able to get a gaiwan, I should try brewing this tea in it. I know that this will be coming back in my tea cabinet when I get the funds.

On a non-tea related note, I have an interview tomorrow afternoon. It is for a seasonal position, but just having a job right now would really help. So, send me luck!