Another TeaFrog sample.
Between the time I ordered it and now I’ve pretty much decided not to order mixed black and green teas any more, absent a really compelling reason to do so. It’s just too hard to know how to steep these for maximum benefit, and I am certain I get it somewhere between wildly wrong and not quite right pretty much every time. If I got it very right, I doubt I’d even know. I’d probably figure it could still be better. And then of course, even if I got it very right and knew it, it’s impossible to know whether it would be achievable the next time. Just thinking about it makes my brain hurt.
One thing I don’t need while trying to relax with a cup of tea is a lot of uncertainty. I have enough of that in other aspects of my life. Some things should just be reliably certain, dammit.
Getting off soapbox now.
So I’m going to go with 3 minutes at 200 and see what happens. I find that with these mixes, very hot temperatures obliterate the taste of the green tea, and green tea temperatures make the black tea a shadow of what it could be. Also, steeping too long is dangerous because the green tea can get bitter.
The dry mix smells fruity to me, which is bizarre because there is nothing identified as fruit in it. For whatever reason I’m getting that grape Tootsie-Pop smell Rabs identified in one of her notes. (Lots of things are smelling fruity to me today that shouldn’t. Wonder if one of the kids stuffed a roll-up up my nose while I was sleeping?) What it seems I should have smelled, from the jasmine and rose ingredients, is flowers, and this I didn’t smell. The rose petals in this one must be a white rose or at least not red, as all petals appear to be varying shades of white, tending toward the creamy or yellow end.
In the tea’s aroma, the grapey, candy smell opens up into something more like jasmine. There’s a hint of vegetal greenness in the aroma, but mostly what I’m smelling is fruity black tea.
Surprisingly, I can taste the green tea here. It adds a vegetal taste to a jasminy, fruity, black tea.
It isn’t at all bad. It just isn’t enough to compel me to order a green/black blend.
Oh, and I went and read the other notes on this just now and I am so relieved to see I’m not the only one who got fruit here. You have no idea how relieved I am. ;-)
