MegWesley

There is nothing quite like a big cup of Earl Grey to wash down a Krispy Kreme cream filled chocolate covered doughnut. It has been so long since I have had one! YUM! ♥

This is the very last of my green jasmine pearls. I am probably going to drink this for the rest of tonight because I want to make sure that my pearls unfurl all the way. Especially since it is the very last of my packet that Teavivre sent to me. I have to admit, if they didn’t send it to me, I probably would have never tried a jasmine tea.

I put in more pearls than I usually do when drinking this. I have noticed that the recommended tea scoops normally fill up the bottom of my press, so I estimated the amount. I also steeped it shorter. The result is that the tea is lighter in color than I remembered, but so much sweeter! I learned how to steep by tea better over this last year.

It is just nearing 11 o’ clock and I am already frazzled this morning. It turns out that the laundry I took out right before I left for the weekend was wet when I came back, so I have to re-wash it and make sure the dryer actually dries it this time.

It also feels like the only people that do dishes in this house is either my mom or me. Dad just got a work-at-home job again. I know he is busy, but he could at least put his own dishes in the dish washer.

I’m just frustrated today. Don’t mind my rant. I do love my parents and I still have some Earl Grey to have as a reward for doing all the dishes this early in the day.

I couldn’t bring myself to dump the rest of the leaves out just yet. I read in a tasting note that somebody had left the leaves steep for too long, but this tea developed a rich, creamy taste. Since I steeped it for three minutes last time, I’m steeping it extra long at 6 minutes this time just to see what this tea will do.

So far, the liquid is this goregous dark mahogany color. Well, maybe a couple shades lighter, but it is this wonderful color. It smells like the earth you dig up when you are out planting flowers in the garden at the beginning of summer. It just screams summer to me.

I really should have let this steep longer. It is just hinting at a nice cream mouthfeel. I love the richer, bolder flavor this brought out. It was nice before, but it now has another deep note to it. sip I want to say almost a cocoa sip but not quite. There is something there that I can’t place but it is dark.

Woah! Aftertaste is hitting the sides of my tongue when I type up my notes. Smooth and pure butter sip no, cream, sip no, heavy cream almost bordering on butter but darker.

♥ I love this! The flavor I am getting out of this right now is just amazing! ♥

It is so mellow but rich and bold at the same time. The heavy cream that is almost butter but not quite lingering taste on the edges of the tongue. I feel like royalty.

Thank you Teavivre for letting me try this amazing pu-erh. I never really liked the pu-erh and always had to tone it down with milk, but this is truly amazing.

Edit: It has now been about three hours and that wonderful creamy taste is still lingering on my tongue. Too bad I have to go to bed soon or else I would have another cup…or five.

I just finished having a culinary temper tantrum. I got really tired of not having anything in the house to eat, so I found one serving of thick noodles and put together a pasta dish with a very light sauce made of tender cooked onions, parmesean cheese, a dab of butter (which it didn’t really need in hindsight), and two tablespoons of almond milk. So it was like an alfredo sauce, but not a traditional one. It was delicious and a cup of Earl Grey is just what I need to round out the meal.

I did end up having this again for breakfast. It is good, but there is nothing to keep me reaching back for it time and time again. It is mellow and slightly earthy, but that is about it. A good pu-erh.

I keep reading the other tasting notes and I’m wondering how I can modify what I am doing to bring more goodness out of this tea. I will have to experiment to see if I can get the tea to jump out at me and make me love it more.

So, I actually put in the correct amount of leaf this time: 3 teaspoons instead of 1.5/2 teaspoons. Right away, I can tell a difference. It brewed up a lot darker in two minutes than it did the last time. The smell is rich, damp earth. I had a big dinner today so I am hoping that this will help settle my stomach. It is close to bedtime so I think I will probably only steep this one time tonight. If it is as good as it was last time, I will probably save the leaves to have with breakfast.

It tastes…smooth. There isn’t anything overwhelmingly amazing about it so far. I mean, it doesn’t taste like dirt and fish so that is a good thing. It is smooth and you can tell it is earthy.

I mean, I like it. It is mellow. The first steep is very mellow and smooth. I can feel my stomach settling down from our overly-sweet dinner (all we had was homemade apple crisp and homemade ice cream; it was delicious and rich).

I’ll end up drinking the rest of my cup tonight and I will probably steep more tomorrow to see if it develops. Then I can see if I really like the tea or not.

Edit: I think it is growing on me. The more I drink my mug, the more of it I want. Good sign!

I think I am on an Earl Grey kick at the moment.

I think this is a sign I might want to look into getting a sweet decaf tea to drink in the evenings. Hot with sugar. I think I might be developing a taste for Lipton’s with sugar when I’m not sick.

Nothing beats a nice hot cup of Earl Grey. Except maybe an awesome cup of hot cocoa, but I’m trying not have hot cocoa every day. Tea is better for you. Or at least that is what I am sticking to.

I had a bad first experience with Lapsang Souchong. It smelled like bacon and tasted like watered down burned bacon grease. That being said, I am a little nervous over this tea because the smell of the dried leaf came back to me very quickly. I brewed this for two minutes and it smells smokey. More like grillhouse smoker type of smoke and less campfire this time.

It isn’t bad. It isn’t what I was expecting either. Yes, it does taste like smoke but it also has a mild and barely detectable sweetness. But I mostly taste smoke and I’m not the biggest fan of that taste. It makes me feel better about Lapsang Souchong now and I know that the tea itself isn’t bad.

If you like lapsang souchong, I believe that you would really love this one. I’m not rating this one because it isn’t a bad tea. I’m just not overly fond of it.

It is a cold and rainy day today, so I decided to break out my flavored milk oolong that Teavivre generously sent me to try. Now, I do have to confess that I have had it at least one time before and I just forgot to log it. I also figured that it would be good to review this after I drank the regular milk oolong.

I tossed about 4 teaspoons into my french press this time. I normally brew about 3 teaspoons at a time, but I had a little extra fall when I was shaking out the packet. So I will actually try to steep this tea to death this time because of the slight extra I used. I don’t want to waste any.

So far, the first steep at 2 minutes is very smooth. It has a slight milky scent and is creamy on the tongue. Because it is flavored, the milky quality is upped to the point where I can almost smell warm milk. There is no mineral taste at all yet. It is all satin on the tongue.

Second Steep at about 2 and a half minutes. I noticed that the liquor was a bright golden and it smelled ready, so I stopped it there instead of going onto three minutes. The smell is divine! It smells even better than the first steep. The leaves were opening up more and I can see that the leaves are going to be huge. They still aren’t fully open yet. The taste is still creamy smooth. There is a hint of floral riding with the taste now and a slight caramel hint. It is present enough to make my tastebuds register it as a sweet taste. Not overly sweet, but sweet enough. So second steep, nice and sweet.

Third Steep is even more golden in color than the second steep! Wow. And it has only been for brewing for three minutes now. It is starting to smell wonderfully buttery and I am restraining burying my nose deep into my cup. It now tastes sweet. The sweetness was creeping up in the second steep, but this steep is starting to taste like I put a little agave syrup in it. Not sugar sweet, but agave sweet. It is two distinct sweet tastes. The milky taste is starting to turn and starting to taste creamy instead of milky. There is still no mineral taste like there is in the regular milk oolong. There is a slight taste of green in there because of the oolong base, but no minerals.

It is time for the Fourth Steep! I swear, this tea is like honey dripping out of my french press. Warm and creamy scent to the nose still. I steeped it about 3.5 minutes. The silky smooth taste has drifted from milky to creamy. It is not as sweet as the third steep, but you can tell that it is much sweeter than the first and second steeps. I feel almost like I am drinking a dessert tea. The flavor is not waning at all yet. I am starting to get a hint of butter on the right tip of my tongue. Just a hint. Other than that it is all golden smooth cream. I am still not tired of the flavor yet.

I’m going to pause for a moment before the fifth steep and think about how I have taken one thing of tea from breakfast until dinner and probably one more drink after dinner if the flavor is still strong enough on this steep. Brewed this one for a whole four minutes. It is still as golden as it ever was. It is beautiful. It smells like butter to me now. No more milk, no more cream. Just butter. Wow, just wow. It tastes like cream. Thick and sweet cream. Five steeps in and it still tastes like this. I’m blown away.

I took a shower and decided that I at least needed to go onto the sixth steep. So now I smell like lavender and the tea still smells like butter. This one sat for four and a half minutes. It is starting to develop a very light mineral smell. I think the green oolong might finally be showing its head through the flavor. The flavor is definitely a little lighter on this steep. There is a lot less of a creamy mouthfeel in this steep than was present in the last steep. The flavor is still present but has developed into butter that you can taste best on the back and sides of your tongue. It is still sweet though.

I am stopping at the sixth steep even though I think the flavor could carry you through at least one more steep. The flavor profile is weakening and I think the next steeps will be weaker and weaker. That being said, every steep I made was like steeping enough for two cups so I got at least 12 cups of tea out of this. That is a lot of tea!

I now know why people really like milk oolongs. They are light and sweet. I think I may have found a new favorite type of tea besides Earl Grey. I am delighted that Teavivre let me try and enjoy this tea.

Thanks for being patient with my tea review for today. Next time I do a big one like this, I’m putting it in a notebook first. I didn’t expect to go through six steepings of this wonderful tea!

This is like an instant-calm potion. I take a sip and I can just feel myself relax. It is tea like this that makes me wish I either had a fantastic thermos bottle to bring hot water down with me or an electric kettle that I can keep in my room.

I will be surprised if I drink another tea today. I might bring this one through lots of steepings from now until bedtime.

I brewed a second steep last night with my fiancee and a friend. It was after we had a big dinner, so I figured it was a good tea to have to help us digest. I had it brewed for three minutes this time and it had a stronger flavor. It was still very mild and my friend that tried it said that it didn’t have that strong of a flavor. This makes me hopeful that it will still be nice and mild while still retaining that earthy flavor that I do love from the pu-erh teas.

I sat down to watch some Star Trek TNG yesterday, so I decided that a cup of Earl Grey was in order. The last time I drank it I think I overbrewed it, but it was perfect this time. Absolutely delicious.

I forgot to log my tea notes yesterday. I finally broke into the pu-erh that Teavivre sent to me. I forgot to check how much leaf to put into my french press, so I only put about 2 teaspoons worth.

The first steep was a very light color. So light that my dad noticed and asked if it was too weak. I just told him it was a different sort of tea and I only brewed it for two minutes, so I didn’t question the light color. The flavor was slightly earthy, but not as strong as some of the other pu-erhs I have tried. It was very pleasant and mellow. I think I would have to try a little bit more leaf to make up my mind about it though.

I feel like I am re-discovering my tea basket over in this little corner of the internet. Smooth and light with a hint of butter. I’m in heaven right now. I forgot how much I adored this dragon well.

Went to bed last night before I had a chance to log this because my computer was acting up:

I finally decided that this tea is just too good not to drink. It’s just my last packet so I think I was trying to make it “last” by not drinking it, but by not drinking it I didn’t get to enjoy it.

I did notice that it is slightly sweeter if you have it with a dessert. I normally wouldn’t have placed it as a tea I would have with dessert, but that slight extra sweetness made it extra yummy.

The only trouble with oolongs is that they last all day. I need to get another french press so I can brew two types of tea during the day.

I haven’t been feeling that great today. So more plain tea with sugar! My ear hurts and I have a lump on the left side of my throat like my sinuses are swelled up in that spot. Why do I keep getting sick? I wasn’t sick for my last two years in college unless you count my gallbladder removal surgery that fixed all my problems. Now it feels like I can’t keep away from the doctor for two months. At least I like her. (And yes, I’m going tomorrow so all you Steepster mommies don’t have to worry)

Good news: I finally got my driver’s test scheduled and it is the day before my birthday. I need to practice parallel parking some more, but I am certain that if I just don’t panic, I will pass it with flying colors.

I didn’t even notice that this mate blend had green tea in it. If I knew that, I might have stopped the kettle just a little bit sooner. I didn’t let it boil, but it was probably just as hot as I use for my oolongs.

I have been meaning to brew this up for weeks now, but I have kept putting it off. When steeped, this smells overpoweringly like lemon but it is mixed with some earth to temper the tart smell. It smelled wonderful. You could taste the mate in the mix when it was brewed, but I could barely taste the lemon and another note that I now know was the green tea. I normally don’t like lemon in my tea, but I was sad that I didn’t taste more of the lemon.

I think this would make a very nice iced tea if brewed hot and then chilled and added just enough sugar to make it sweet. Not cloying sweet though or else you might bury the faint lemon.

This makes me miss my mate that I used to have daily. I’ve just been too lazy to brew it lately. I need to bring my bag out and brew it more.

I had some of the best sushi tonight. My fiancee and a group of friends took me out for sushi to a fancier sushi and hibachi grill. I had a Pink Pearl which was really sweet and my fiancee had the Katana Sushi which was tempura sushi and really yummy as well. On top of that we also got an amazing broth soup that I ate all of (and I hate broth soup), a half a plate of fried rice, and fried veggies.

After all that, I just need something simple. Some black tea with a little bit of sugar to relax my belly. I really need to get myself a simple loose leaf black tea so I don’t have to raid my mom’s tea stash when I want something simple and not something I want to steep and re-steep a few times. I am realizing that this type of tea is a staple in anybody’s tea cabinet.

Just a cup of sweet hot tea to get myself balanced back after helping to throw a party for my fiancee’s best friend. It was his 21st and the only time he wanted to try drinking so we had fun. I know I won’t be drinking much for a while. Nothing much except for my lovely teas.

I am working on drinking the tea bags that I took from my fiancee’s house. This smells like toasted rice. It has a thick body and is nice and toasty. It is starting to make me wish I had toast for breakfast instead of cereal.

It is a little astringent, but not too much. Just enough that it makes me feel like my tongue is dry even though I just had a sip. Overall, pretty good.

The kitchen has been uncovered from the plastic it was encased in! Yay, I can use the stove and the kettle now!

I have always been curious about honeybush, so when I saw that my fiancee had this in his assortment, I snapped it up because he didn’t really want to try it for himself.

It brewed up as dark as any black tea would have brewed up. Maybe even a little darker. It looks almost like coffee in my cup right now. It smells a little twiggy, but not earthy. Just twiggy.

The bag said to brew it for 5-6 minutes, so I hit five and decided that was long enough. Hmmm. I’m not quite sure what to say for this one. It tastes very smooth and non-twiggy which was a nice surprise. The few times I had roobios it tasted very twiggy and woody. Since honeybush is supposed to be similar to roobios, I expected it to taste similar to it.

My first taste on the tip of my tongue hit a bubblegum note, but I think that must have been a fluke. I taste no hint of bubblegum the more I sip on it. I think I am getting a faint sweetness on the back of my tongue, but I’m not positive.

It doesn’t taste like tea, but it tastes good. The packet said it was good with milk and I am wondering if I should pour a little in just to try it that way since I’m not getting that much flavor out of it. Just smooth and slight sweetness. I’m taking a few bigger gulps and I am getting a sweet aftertaste now.

Hmm…I think I like it how it is, but I want to add a splash of milk since I do want to try it both ways and I only have one tea bag. The milk adds the creamy mouthfeel and while the sweet doesn’t pop out, it does make it feel like a dessert tea. I feel like I just indulged on something more along the line of a bit of caramel or some toffy. I know I didn’t, but it feels like I did. The aftertaste I get now screams caramel.

This makes me want to try some flavored honeybush teas because if a bit of tea can turn the base into caramel, imagine what a little bit of added flavor could do.

If I ran across this in the store, I would get a box so I could double brew it and try it iced!