Terri HarpLady

Thank you again Ysaurella for this lovely tea.
Tony just fed me a raspberry. Now THAT’s an awesome boyfriend! He’s been really nice to me all day. Of course, he’s always nice, but I have a terrible kink in my neck, & am laying around with alternating ice packs & heat. I’ve been doing tennis ball therapy on myself, laid back on the yoga ball, done reiki, really gentle yoga, lets just saying I’m no fun today & the only saving graces are tea, Tony rubbing my neck & shoulders, & St. Louis cardinals baseball.
This is a tasty tea, with the flavors that remind me of mince pie: apples, cinnamon, raisin, & spice!
Another sipdown!

Sipdown!
Thank you Ysaurella! This has been a tasty tea, gently sweet, & perfect for a drizzly saturday afternoon.

This is a very drinkable & tasty Earl.

First Tea of the Day. YUM!
Enough said!

IMO this is awesome, plain & simple.

I decided to go ahead & steep this one western style also, pretty much using the same parameters that I used for the Shui Jin Gui. It also has that ‘after aroma’ thing in the sinuses, & is a very nice & flavorful roasty kind of oolong that I love.

I don’t have any gigs this weekend! It’s been weeks since I had a weekend off, & I think it’s suppose to rain all weekend too. Tony’s picking my up in about an hour, & we’re going to meet another couple at the japanese restaurant. Then I think we’re spending the weekend in our PJs, being couch potatoes, cooking & eating awesome food, & drinking tea. I have packed a ridiculous amount of tea for the weekend…lol…I always take more than I can ever drink, because I don’t really know what I’ll want to drink, so I have to have a variety, right?
Just for the record, Tony & I have been together 13 years. His house is 5 minutes away from mine.
BTW, I posted pics of my garden on my FB, for those who would like to see https://www.facebook.com/terri.langerak?ref=tn_tnmn

This is a group Sipdown!
Leif suggested we make a big pot of this to finish it off, so we’re all enjoying is blackberry-ness! The boys & I have a goal to polish off all our Adagios, so we can order some new ones (plus refill a few that we really love). This is definitely one of my favorite Adagio fandom blends, although I like Bilbo Brew even better.
A tasty bold treat!
Now it’s gone.

Emily M sampled this earlier today, western style, & I realized I’ve never tried it that way, so I did! And it’s awesome! I went with 2 tsp in my regular cup. I wasn’t really sure how much time to go for, so I monitored it by hovering over the cup & sipping our 1 tsp sips every minute. I ended up steeping for 3 minutes, & then sat sipping & breathing in the loveliness that is this oolong. It’s fruity, hazelnutty, yummy caramelized brown sugar…sigh…AND there’s that amazing ‘after aroma’ in the sinuses after each sip, kind of an incense sensation that I wouldn’t think I would like, but I do. It’s what I think of as the Big Red Robe sensation.

Thanks to Stacy for sending along a sample of this with a recent order!
This is a very nice, very tasty oolong. The flavor is of the more earthly kind, woodsy, roasty, chestnut, & with a lovely sweetness. I’d like to add peaches to this, somehow. I drank it western style, but I’m sure I’ll have to get more & try it out in my Gaiwan.
Sample Sipdown…that puts me at 234.

I got this tea a few weeks back from the bulk bin. I’m not a huge drinker of white teas, I tend to find them a little too subtle for my tastes (little terri wanted me to write “boring”, she may be young, but she has grown up tastes).
I’ll try anything once or twice, so I did.
It’s not bad. The tangerine flavor is very light, over a bed of slightly creamy oatiness. A gentle & pleasant cup, a good contrast to the Qimen, kind of like those light & fruity sorbets they serve a teeny tiny scoop of at super fancy restaurants to cleanse the palate. I never eat at those places, but I have played my harp at a lot of fancy events like that, where they make a big deal over every course. Its fun to watch!

This is one of the Reserve TOMC teas from April. I drank from these leaves a few weeks ago, along with the other teas in this collection, but didn’t really get around to writing anything.
I enjoy this variety of tea, & have several in my collection from various sources, from the smokey brown sugar variety to TeaVivre’s highly fragrant version that smells like roses to me.
To me, Keemun teas have a nice rich middle flavor, but not so much of a bass or top note, which is probably why they get blended with other teas, such as Assam (very bassy). Anyway, I enjoy them.
So…I’ve been trying to decide what makes this one so special that it deserves a place in the ‘reserve’ club. It is very nice, but I’m still not sure. I’m lousy at comparing teas, just like I’m not an expert in visual arts, but if I see a painting that I love, I know I love it. If I taste a tea I love, same thing.
This tea appears as small black strands with red tinges.
The dry aroma is rich, earthy, sweet, with a hint of chocolate
The moist smell (heated in hot empty Gaiwan) = brown sugar & light smoke
Wet it smells of all those things, plus caramel apples & cream.
My formula: 4G + 4oz (quick rinse) X 3 sec

I wish I could say that I’ve been taking notes on every steeping, but I didn’t. I also didn’t write those things down last time. I don’t always know how to describe things, but I can say it tastes like Keemun! The smokiness is very refined, not an in your face kind of smoke. It’s a nice, earthy, caramelized brown sugar & apple. There’s also a light floral quality, & a sweet incense quality. And there’s chocolate. Of course, these are all subtle, & I have just enough of this to try it one more time. I plan on making the last cup in an regular cup with a longer steep time. Basically, I’ll brew it the way I brew my other Keemuns, to see how it comes out!

Good morning!
I hadn’t drank any Laoshan black for awhile. I’ve been reading other people’s reviews of it & wanting a cup. Today is that day! I started off with 1T X 3min. Ahhh, it’s SO wonderful, so rich, so tasty!
2nd steep I added a minute. 3rd steep I moved the leaf to a smaller cup & went 5 minutes. I do that alot when I resteep teas. The combo of extra time & less water seems to help keep the tea from being to watery & boring. Yup, I still love this tea!

Sil, this is the best flavored tea I’ve ever had! It’s really out of character for me to be drinking things like this, as I’ve been a straight out ‘tea’ person for the most part for quite some time.
Right now I don’t even care if it’s artificial flavorings, it’s really THAT good! I have no doubt that I will be placing a Della Terra order sometimes in the near future, because this is AWESOME! Sadly, this is also a sipdown :() “I want MOAR!!!”
Thank you Sil!

I got this awhile back from the bulk aisle. As far as Assams go, it is robust & malty with a bit of a bite. Not anything like my beloved Tiger or #49, but definitely helped to revive me after an afternoon in the garden.

Speaking of which, it’s starting to look more like the garden I know & love & less like the wildlife grasslands (actually weedlands) that it was turning into. Today my son Drew & I did some terracing, which I’ve been planning on doing for years since my yard is a bit of a slope. We made the first terraced bed, which I promptly planted with lots & lots of carrots & a few other things. In the last couple of days I’ve planted turnips, radishes, lettuces, brussels, more peas, parnips, beets, leeks, more onions, etc. We’re eating asparagus daily, & today I picked some carrots, beets, & collards that over-wintered. I love my life!

Holy Red Zinger! This is some tart stuff!!
So I know most everybody on steepster dislikes Hibiscus. It’s been a long time since I drank anything with hibiscus in it, & they had it in the bulk section, so I figured, what the heck? I brewed up some, sweetened it with stevia, iced it down, & it is Tart! It’s like cranberry juice, which I actually like unsweetened (real cranberry, not the cocktail kind). Anyway, it’s not something I’ll drink often, but I’m gardening today (& yesterday & the day before, things are starting to take shape out there!), & I thought it might be refreshing. It is, but I think I need to dilute it more & add more ice. It’s pretty intense stuff!

Another Sipdown!
This is my final sample of tea from my trade with threewhales, so thank you!
This is a mild earl grey that is actually kind of nice, now that I’m starting to enjoy ‘some’ earl greys. It’s not ‘in your face’ with the bergamot, & they actually use real oil, instead of artificial flavor, & I think that is the big thing that makes the difference for me with EGs.

Sipdown!!
Thanks to threewhales, who I actually haven’t seen on here for awhile. This was part of our trade awhile back with the steepster book club. It’s an interesting blend of bold, tart, & a little floral in the there too. Not something I’ll buy, but not bad for a change of pace.

My only questions (not to anybody in particular) is why is this considered a seasonal blend, other than the name? I usually think of seasonal blends as having holiday-like spice flavorings, but this is just a straight mix of black, green & oolong.

It’s been awhile since I had a cup of this, & it is probably gonna be a sipdown next time I drink it, but not just yet…
Anyway, it was my bubble bath cup of the day, and although perhaps not remarkable, it was bold & a little more flavorful than I remember it being!

Good morning Steepster!
I’ve drank this tea before, but not as my first tea of the day. So I think maybe I was missing some of the nuances that this tea has to offer. It has an interesting taste that I can’t quite put my finger on:
There’s a floral, an earthiness, & definitely a fruitiness. It’s a little on the astringent side, but also has a little of that honey & coriander, as if bitten by leaf biters. I didn’t find it to be particularly malty, but it’s an interesting cup!

OK, I didn’t really drink this today, LOL, but I gave one of the (many) free samples I have to a student, along with another sample of a tea I don’t really care about (& that one counts as a sipdown, because I only had a sample of it). So I started the day with 243 teas, & I’m ending it with 240. My goal is to get down to 200.

Another awesome tea from Sil!!
I filled my 16 oz thermal cup with this & brought it along on my gig, so that I’d have something to drink on the way back home. That cup stays hot for SO long that the tea was STILL hot after I played!

This reminds me of Constant Comment, only way way better! It’s really a tasty blend! Thanks Sil!

Hey Sil, remember when I first got this tea & dropped the cannister & some of it spilled out onto the floor? Remember that I scooped it up & put it into a recycled Ahmad tea cannister (because I didn’t want to put it back into the real cannister, which I was going to send you a sample from)… Well, today I finally finished the spilled tea from the Ahmad can, of course, I can’t really count it as a sipdown, since I still have plenty left in the original can. But I knew that you’d like to know! Hahaha!

I like this tea. I like the Tiger Assam better, but this is damn fine tea (sorry, I love saying that) too. Its a nice full tasting brew, with a hint of smoke. Very satisfying! I made a 16 oz in my stainless & ceramic sippy cup to drink en route to a concert I played today over in Illinois. It was perfect.

Mmmm, I’m really digging into the box of teas I got from Sil, & this one is very tasty! Thanks Sil!

Another Sipdown from Sil’s Super Sampler of Teas!!

I used all of this making a 16 teapotful, to share with one of my students. It was a sweet a tasty treat, reminding me somewhat of the oatmeal raisin cookie tea I tried last week, only I like this one better. The only negative was as it cooled it got a little of chalky mouthfeel & an artificial edge to it. But otherwise, it was a tasty treat! Thank Sil!