__Morgana__

Clue No. 1

Ever since Geek Pride Day came and went, I have been feeling guilty for not doing it justice. I just couldn’t get it together to do anything prior to or on the actual day. I was too busy being on vacation. But Rabs and Ewa inspired me, and so I’m going to take the position that every day ought to be Geek Pride Day and therefore, this little homage isn’t late at all.

It’s a little mystery game. Here’s how it will work.

This is the first tasting note in a series of four. The names of the teas tasted, taken together, provide clues that are intended to lead to the answer. The correct answer is something likely to be known to geeks of a particular stripe and of a particular era, i.e., it’s a little dated, but then so am I.

There is no prize. It’s just for fun and bragging rights if you guess correctly. If no one guesses the answer after the fourth note, I’ll either try to come up with additional tea names for clues, or will at that point provide further hints. Feel free to guess at any time — you don’t need to wait for subsequent notes. To start you off, in addition to the name of this tea, I will tell you that the fact that this is structured as a mystery game is no accident.

Now, for the first tea (in case you’re actually here to find out what German Breakfast is like).

In the sample packet, it smells delicious — very aromatic black teas in this. It’s roasty and earthy and has a hint of sweetness. The leaves are small and I can see some tips in there.

The aroma of the tea is sweet and malty. It smells smooth. Very inviting. It’s a medium/dark black tea colored liquor. Reddish more than orange.

Yum. It’s billed as T&H’s strongest breakfast blend, but at 3 minutes of steeping it’s very tasty without any additives. I don’t feel I’m being slapped around. More like forcefully coaxed into wakefulness. It has an interesting mouthfeel similar to what I found in the Yunan from LeafSpa. It’s thick in a similar way, but not quite as thick as the Yunan.

There’s a bright, almost bubbly note to it from the darjeeling that gives it the illusion of being less full bodied than I think it is. I’m starting to think of the word “perky” when I taste darjeeling. But the taste is mellower and without the distinctive darjeeling flavor that can tend toward the sharp. This is rounder and softer. I wouldn’t call it sweet, but it tends that way, and tends even more that way in the aftertaste. A malty, grainy sweetness.

This will get into at least a semi-final breakfast blend round. I could see it going all the way.

The unintended consequence of opening sample no. 3 from the Upton British Blend sampler today is that I now have Gerry Rafferty doing the backstroke through my brain repeatedly. At least the saxophone is awesome.

Tippy leaves ranging from dark, almost black to light, almost tan, though mostly in the chocolate brown range. Dry, it smells smoky. I’m getting salted, charbroiled meat. Nice.

The aroma of the steeped tea is not very smoky at all. It’s fruity. Kind of a stonefruit mixed with grape smell. Very nice. The liquor is dark, close to a brandy color, but redder.

If you like smoky, this is really delicious. And if you only sort of like smoky, you should give this a try because it’s a pretty mild, smooth intro to smoky tasting teas. To be clear, I like smoky, I like piney. I like drinking campfires. The part I can live without is feeling like there’s smoke coating my nose hairs so that I continue to breathe it in long after the tea is gone, but I’m willing to do that to enjoy smoky tea.

Baker Street isn’t harsh or tarry, and it doesn’t make me feel like I’m going to be smelling smoke for three days after drinking it. The darjeeling contributes a brightness that keeps the blend from tasting like tree resin, and there’s a fair amount of the signature darjeeling flavor in the finish. There’s a hint of pine, but it’s mild. The smoke itself isn’t even the most obvious taste. The most obvious taste to me is a fruity woodiness.

I’m liking this one a lot. It’s got ooomph, but it doesn’t hit like a ton of bricks. Despite its name, I think it would make a really good start to the morning.

Once upon a time, I thought it would be a good idea to try some plain rooibos samples from well-respected tea companies on the assumption that said well-respected tea companies would also, more likely than not, have finer quality exemplars of plain rooibos than I might find in my local grocery store. This was back when I was scratching my head over what rooibos truly tasted like since I’d only had it in flavored tisanes and felt it necessary for my own education to understand what rooibos tasted like on its own.

Since then several things have happened. One, my tastes have evolved. Two, I have learned what plain rooibos tastes like. Three, I have concluded that rooibos is not my favorite thing, though it has its place and I can enjoy it if it is in a blend and playing the role of the backdrop, quietly. And all of this managed to happen before I got around to trying my non-grocery store samples.

But I feel for completeness’ sake that I must follow through on my original experiment, even though I already know going into this that I’m not going to be buying a boatload of this after I dispense with my sample.

In the sample packet, the smell is actually pretty unbelievable. In a good way. It’s a richer smell than I normally associate with rooibos, and a sweeter one. It’s pretty close to spiced apple. The “needles” look like your basic red rooibos, though they’re not as fine and splintery as some I’ve seen. They’re more of a medium grain.

It brews very red, not surprisingly. The aroma is appley, with a bit of wood mixed in.

The taste is pretty much like it smells, which is what I expected. A better tasting version of bagged rooibos. It has a soft feel and a hint of vanilla.

It’s not something I’m going to be drinking straight, but it makes me appropriately curious about what H&S rooibos blends are like. I may end up trying some in my search for the quiet non-rooibos rooibos.

Ricky’s relatively recent note on this made me remember I had a sample of it, and I thought that since I can’t risk any more caffeine tonight I might as well go for purple water.

The little purple buds looked like seeds to me. Tiny and oblong shaped. The smell of the dry flowers is terrific. It’s like any other lavender thing you’ve ever smelled. Yardley’s English Lavender comes to mind, but think soap, lotion, anything else — without the soapiness or lotioniness.

I steeped this and poured it into a glass cup. WHERE’S MY PURPLE WATER?!?!?!? In glass it was pretty much light grey, with a blue-violet tinge. I put the cup on white paper. Same. I poured the remaining tisane into a white cup. Same! Boo hoo. I am relegated to imagining my purple water. It’s like a cruel joke of some kind. I’m spinning in a time vortex back to junior high school where my school’s colors were purple and grey, and they gave me the grey pompom and forgot the purple. Purple fail!

But onward. The tisane smells floral, a lot less lavender-specific in its floralness… florality… whatever. It has a hint of that flowery polleny thing I didn’t like about the chrysanthemum tea. That makes me nervous.

Fortunately, the flavor is far from scary. It’s sweet. It tastes like lavender without being soapy. It has a minty sort of volatility that’s almost menthol-like, and a smooth, silky feel.

I love what lavender can do in teas when it’s part of a well-executed blend. It’s terrific in, for example, Earl Grey. On it’s own, it’s interesting, and it’s not unpleasant. But I have determined that plain lavender is not how I’ll choose to spend my tea, or even tisane, drinking time. I’m torn on how to rate this because it smelled great and didn’t taste bad to me at all. It’s just not my thing.

I was curious to see what the flowers looked like after steeping and whether they’d open up. They didn’t. But if anything they smelled even more intensely of lavender. It’s a beautiful smell.

So sometimes I do things that make me wonder about myself. Like buying decaf chai, and then realizing I have no plain black decaf to mix it with to do the Samovar stovetop method. Grumble. How hard would it have been to add some decaf black tea to the order? Grumble grumble. If I’d only thought about it then. Grumble, grumble, grumble. It’s not like they didn’t have one, it’s the Korakundah. Pout. I attribute it to stress and lack of sleep. And age. Specifically that thing that starts to happen to women when they hit my age. [sigh]

I mixed with the Darjeeling Goomtee since the chai had a darjeeling base. I am hoping I will be able to sleep tonight. I’m enchanted by the idea of a decaf chai I can make on the stovetop. I was getting some mileage out of the Tazo teabags, but it’s just not the same degree of comfort as I get from the stewy, milky stovetop version. Imagining that, late at night, and sleep afterwards, gets me all warm and fuzzy.

This is the first decaf chai not in a bag I’ve tried and it’s a good one. It’s hard to know what it would be like as a fully decaf version. I must try again and compare when I have some decaf black loose leaf in the house.

No single spice predominates. It’s not overly gingery, nor is it overly cinnamony. Just a very balanced flavor. The spice is fairly gentle, more along the lines of the Golden Moon spice than the Rishi Masala Chai. There are red peppercorns in the mix, but while they may add flavor they don’t add bite.

I’m thinking chai is a good choice for decaf in general. It seems less likely to have that washed out, something’s missing thing going on because of the distraction of the spices.

I’ll enjoy having this one when I’m worried about being overly caffeinated but need a filling, coma-inducing, tasty warm milk snack.

This was an afterthought while I was preparing my TeaGschwendner order. Though I wouldn’t have known had I not been moved to read the ingredients, it seemed something I ought to try as part of the perfect lemon search.

The dry leaves have an interesting, savory spice smell. I’m reminded of my experience with the Harney & Sons French Verveine. It looks like dried savory spices as well, except for the fairly large dried flower buds.

The liquor is a dark golden yellow. It has a savory aroma as well. Not smelling a lot of lemon here. In fact, I’m hard pressed to smell any at all.

The taste is a little surprising. I expected it to be heavy and brothy, but it isn’t. It isn’t light bodied, either. It’s medium bodied and had a somewhat silky mouthfeel. The flavor is intriguing. There’s a suggestion of lemon in there, but it’s not strong. Oddly, the flavor mostly makes me think of chamomile, though there is no chamomile in it. There is also the definite and predominant taste of a savory spice of some sort. Sage? Thyme? It’s the same general suggestion that I found in the Verveine, but not strong enough to suggest herbed roasted lemon chicken.

In any case, it’s not at all bitter or pungent, and it’s neither tart nor sweet. I’m not sure it would be my first choice for anything other than medicinal purposes, but if it works as a soporific I’ll be all over it.

Enjoyed the last of this sample tonight, and it was just as tasty as it was the last time. I’m tasting more mango tonight. Maybe it’s the power of suggestion. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m dead tired and going to try to sleep despite the accumulated caffeine in my body as soon as I finish this, and then have a cup of the (hopefully appropriately named) Sleep Tight by TeaGschwendner.

The next chapter in the perfect lemon search.

As you can see from the photo, this tisane is very… geometric. Pretty much every ingredient in it is rectangular, of varying lengths, widths and colors. It doesn’t have a lot of fragrance on its own, and even if it did I wouldn’t be able to tell what it is as I put it in the same tin I’d used for The Tea Table’s Lemon Mango, and I neglected to do a de-scenting so that’s pretty much all I can smell now. (Nice smell though, I liked that one.)

It makes a dark yellow liquor, almost the color of apple juice. It smells promising: there is a sweet smell to it, and there’s definitely lemon.

Hmm. Hmmmmmm.

Wow. I had really expected to be disappointed by this one. Despite its attractive geometry, I expected it to taste a lot like the Luscious Lemon from Simpson & Vail. And failing that I just didn’t expect to like it. It has lemon myrtle in it after all.

But the lemon myrtle is playing nice here. It must be the influence of the vanilla. It’s neither tart nor bitter, so it doesn’t require doctoring. Except it might be better brewed a little stronger. I used 2.5g for a standard size mug.

It does have a green, grassy, herbally quality in addition to the lemon. It’s more reminiscent of a lemon plant than a lemon fruit, which is the one downside as lemon fruit appropriately de-soured is what I’d like to be reminded of.

It’s not as high on the rotation list as the Harney & Sons or the Teavana, but I think now that I’ve tried this I’m no longer motivated to try to get the Simpson & Vail to work. That had a stronger lemon flavor, but also a tart and bitter edge that needed working out to be rotation worthy.

This, on the other hand, needs some time testing and a little bit of thought.

Doulton provided this as a lagniappe when she sent me the Dammann Freres I’d ordered through her organized buying efforts. How nice to have something unexpected show up, and something I hadn’t yet tasted to boot!

It’s also something of a mystery as I can’t find a list of ingredients for it. Clearly there is black tea. There are also red and blue flowers and a slight rose scent to the dry tea. So I’m going with Alicia on this — rose and cornflower. Apart from that, mild spiciness, like a spicy perfume. Lovely fragrance.

I steeped this for a full 5 minutes, as suggested on Doulton’s label (with a giraffe on it, how cute!) I get a light floral note and some gentle spice as well as smooth tea in the aroma.

The flavor has this, too, plus a suggestion of citrus. I cheated and read the notes others had posted and it seems the consensus is this is bergamot and that this is in fact something of an Earl Grey variation. Hmm. I don’t think I would have got that at all had I not read it. If it is supposed to be an Earl Grey variation, it isn’t succeeding, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I liked the Earl Grey Special from Teafrog even though it didn’t seem much like an Earl Grey to me.

I like this, but it isn’t my favorite Mariage Freres, and it wouldn’t rank among Earl Greys for me.

I think next time I’ll try it steeped for less time and see what that’s like. I rarely steep anything for 5 minutes anymore except herbals and very late oolong and pu erh steeps.

My tin was full to the brim as well, and the top of the tin is very tight — which is good for the tea, but not so good for my newly cleaned countertop. At least it was the countertop, not the floor, so I could salvage…

It’s very tippy, giving it that (brown) salt and pepper look that I find so appealing. The dry leaves have the soil-like smell of some Assams, but with something stronger, sweeter and vaguely bready (as opposed to yeasty) about it. Bready good. Yeasty (unless winey or beery or bready) bad.

It makes a medium-dark amber liquor with a bready aroma. I totally get what Stephanie mentioned in her note — warm, sweet bread. It leans toward, but doesn’t completely reach maltiness of the type I recall from the Numi Chinese Breakfast. It isn’t the sugary, yam-like orgy of complexity that was the Samovar Yunnan Golden Buds. But it is quite nice.

It has a thick, substantial mouthfeel which adds to the perception of breadiness. I would not have identified the pepper note without reading about it here, but now that I do, yes, that makes sense. It’s not a spicy pepper though. It’s like the flavor of pepper without the spiciness.

A nice, all-purpose, Yunnan black tea.

Made on the stovetop using the Samovar extra black tea method. Extra black tea today was LeafSpa Yunan Gold. I love those sorts of names for teas. Makes me think of action movies involving drug cartels.

The Yunan Gold has a very thick mouthfeel, which I thought would make it a particularly good candidate to add to chai to help along the chewiness.

Yum. I can definitely taste the chocolate in this. It’s like someone mixed brownie and gingerbread batter together and liquified it. Or put another way, it’s like the Mayan Chocolate Chai but more chocolatey and less spicy (the ingredients are the same except for the cayenne pepper). It’s still nicely spiced, though. Although I do miss my black pepper. I wonder what adding a bit of black pepper would have done to it?

Definitely yum for a sleepy Wednesday afternoon pick me up.

This is embarrassing, but I bought this by mistake. Am I the only one who has ever done that? I meant to buy the Mandarin Orange green tea from Teas Etc. But this is what showed up. I’m sure it was because of user error, i.e. mine, and it seemed like a hassle to send it back so I just kept it and decided to give it a shot.

There’s an intense, juicy orange smell upon opening the tin. The rooibos is noticeable, mostly as a sort of woody back-note, but not strong.

The aroma from the rooibos after steeping is — get this — very much like Fanta orange soda without the addition of the carbonated quality. There is also an appley smell underneath from the rooibos.

The taste is not bad. It’s not exactly sweet orange, but it’s not bitter either. I wish the orange flavor was stronger. It’s almost enough to make me unaware I’m drinking red rooibos, but not quite.

It started out a mistake, and it’s not something I’d order again, mostly because I just don’t think I’d ever really want to drink orange rooibos (unless I’d ordered it by mistake, in which case I’d happily drink it to have an additional option at night when I don’t want to take in too much caffeine). But it’s decent, by the standard I apply which is unobtrusiveness in the rooibos flavor.

In the sample packet, the smell is to die for. Chocolate. Nom. Chocolate. Nom nom. Chocolate. Nom nom nom. Not really much else, just sweet, creamy smelling chocolate.

You can’t really see it in the picture, but the red rooibos is interspersed with long yellow dried petals. They’re pretty. They look sort of like fragments of crepe paper.

I had very high hopes that this would be some sort of caffeine free chocolate dream concoction that I could drink at night while watching The Biggest Loser. Just the illusion of calories.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. In the cup, the aroma is rooibos first, chocolate illusion after. As is the flavor. The chocolate isn’t bad as far as it goes. The rooibos isn’t a bad rooibos. It’s the balance that’s the issue for me. As with some other recent rooibos trials, the problem here is that the rooibos won’t shut up.

For me, if a rooibos is good, it’s a lot like a good waiter. You barely notice they’re there, you just notice that you’re not left wanting anything. They don’t barge in, they don’t totally ignore you. They’re just a very quiet presence that miraculously gets the job done.

This one isn’t quite there. Dang. Now what can I have while watching The Biggest Loser. Quick, before I head for the cookies!

Getting close to the end of my TeaFrog samples. I think I have three more. This is one of them.

The dry mix is very pretty, the lemongrass is very green against the backdrop of the Ceylon and there are little flecks of blue where the cornflowers show through. There’s a light neutral color as well that looks like the lemon peel. I’m not really seeing jasmine, though it could be that some of the flecks that look like lemon peel are actually jasmine petals. It doesn’t have a strong scent of bergamot (or otherwise) in the packet.

The tea has a lemony aroma with a bergamot undercurrent. It has a lemony taste as well. A bright taste. The bergamot is pretty subdued, secondary to the lemon. I am not getting much in the way of jasmine.

It’s hard to say whether it’s tastes like an Earl Grey so much as a lemon black tea with bergamot? It does seem to me the lemon is the stronger taste of the two. It’s actually very nice; it’s different. I don’t think I’d buy it to fill an Earl Grey need. If I order some, it will simply be because I like it.

Had the last little bit of this last night and decupboarding now.

It was enjoyable enough to put on a possible reorder list, though I’m not rushing out to buy more — particularly while I still have some Tazo Passion, which is similar.

This sample packet contained a really interesting mixture. Bit chunky pieces of roasted chicory that looked like tree bark or mulch, red peppercorns, and what looked like little chocolate chips among a tan colored substance that must be the ginger. The dry mix smells like spicy mocha. It makes a thick looking brown liquor.

The aroma of the tisane smells like chocolate, coffee and pepper. I’m not really picking up on much ginger here. The taste is similar to the aroma. Lightly chocolately, lightly coffee-like, with a zing of pepper that stands out most of all. The ginger hangs on to the chicory and mellows it into a sweet coffee-like flavor with a ginger overtone.

It’s a really interesting flavor, one I haven’t come across in a tisane before. I could see wanting it every now and then, especially during colder months. It’s a little too unusual and slyly intense for more than occasional drinking, at least for me.

Another TeaFrog sample from a prior Steepster Select. This was back before I started to shun rooibos. ;-) Actually, I don’t really shun it even now, I just have a lot more understanding of my own taste preferences with respect to it now than I used to.

This has the same basic flavor profile as The Necessiteas’ Peppermint Pattie, and yet, its rooibos is far more present. It’s more present in the nose of the dry mixture, in the aroma of the steeped tisane, and in the taste. It’s in the first position in all of those, followed by mint and then by chocolate.

The rooibos isn’t bad tasting as rooibos goes — it doesn’t have a lot of sawdust or pencil shaving qualities, but I can’t get away from the fact that it is the number one flavor. This is pretty much the exact opposite of what I am looking for in a rooibos blend, though I know I’m not typical.

So I prefer the Peppermint Pattie for this flavor combo in a rooibos. I didn’t think that one was perfect either, as the rooibos flavor played a little bit of hide and seek. But it was pretty good at the hiding part and gave the number one taste spot to the chocolate for the most part, followed by the mint.

This one isn’t really attempting to hide, which I’m sure is the preference of the true rooibos fan. It just isn’t mine.

I ended up with another sample of this.

This time I cold brewed it for more like 36 hours and it made quite a difference. Much more flavorful and round.

It’s also really nice with food. Better, I think, with food than as a stand alone drink. I had it with pasta and marinara sauce and it went very nicely.

Bumping up a few points as I enjoyed it more this time around.

The second in the British Blend Sampler. The web site’s description for the plain Russian Caravan says it has teas from India, China, and Formosa, so this must as well. There is some tippiness to the leaves. Also some twigginess. I wish my senses were sophisticated enough to be able to tell what’s what from the sight and smell of the leaves. I looked up Russian Caravan and Wikipedia says it is a blend of Oolong, Keemun and Lapsang Souchong.

Which is fascinating because after it steeps, it smells like Darjeeling to me. Doesn’t taste so much like it, though. There could well be oolong in this. The mouth feel is soft and silky, and there’s a nutty/stone fruit butteriness to the flavor. I don’t taste smoke except maybe barely in the finish, so if there is lapsang in this it’s a very small amount. I am thinking that what I smelled as Darjeeling is probably Keemun. It has a sort of grapey fruitiness.

The aftertaste is sweet and slightly buttery. I’m in yumsville, liking this one quite a bit.

This is the first in the Upton British Blend sampler, and I was having a feeling of deja vu when I read what’s in it. River Shannon Breakfast Blend, also an Upton tea, though not part of the British Blend sampler, is also a mix of Ceylon and Assam. I was wondering how they’d be different. Proportions? Estates? Both? Neither?

When I looked at the Bond Street, I discovered one difference. It must be CTC, as the leaves look like coffee grounds. Or very tiny pebbles. River Shannon is Orthodox, so one part of the mystery solved. I can smell the Assam in the Bond Street’s dry leaves, but it doesn’t have that bakey smell I don’t like, fortunately.

It’s has a fairly dark orange-brown liquor with some red in there as well. It smells and tastes like a brisk black breakfast blend tea. Like a pretty standard brisk black breakfast blend tea, though with more depth of flavor and a fuller body than a restaurant grade tea, and certainly better than any teabag black tea I’ve tried.

I must remember to do a side by side tasting of this with River Shannon and see how they compare.

I tried this straight tonight and I’m going to try it mixed with spearmint and tarragon in a few minutes.

Straight, it was exactly what I’d hoped — a really fresh tasting, aromatic, naturally sweet peppermint. No dirt or earth taste, which was what marred the Upton peppermint for me and led me to drink it mostly mixed with other things.

This stands on its own well, and provides a comforting, tummy settling drink for bedtime.

It has been a while since the Dammann Freres teas arrived and I’ve got so much tea to taste it’s taken me a while to get to writing about them, and partially because of that (or maybe because I didn’t realize it at the time I was picking things to sign up for before Doulton so graciously placed the order), I was not aware that three of the Dammann Freres teas I have include fig as an ingredient! This is, believe it or not, fig 3!

The leaves of this tea are so light in color and so green, I had to look it up to remind myself what kind of tea it was. I thought it might be a flavored green tea. But no, it’s a flavored black! It smells interesting, sort of like a perfume but not in a bad way. Citrus, flowers and — yeah, I can smell the fig! This time it is more of the pastry fig than the fresh, but still sweet and mouth watering.

The aroma has a fresh quality to it which is surprising when you consider the smell of the dry mixture. The tea is light bodied and fresh tasting, too. It has a quality in the taste that reminds me of the way Premier Figuier, the eau de toilette by L’Artisan, smells, with some citrus added in.

I need to try this again when I have a quiet moment. It’s a bit of a zoo here as it is almost bedtime for the younger set. But so far, I like.

I got froth!

I understand what I was supposed to do now, went out and watched a video. I wasn’t whisking fast enough. Also understand why I thought the color would be lighter. With the froth, it’s more of a sea green than a pool table felt green.

Really yum and healthy feeling/tasting. It’s like drinking shots of wheatgrass only tastes a whole lot better and is a far more pleasing aesthetic experience.

And the chasen reminds me of my dad’s shaving brush in a kind of sideways way, which is kind of a sweet memory as well. :-)

I had matcha!

I think.

Now I have anxiety. ;-)

I finally have all my implements (except the sifter), so I decided to give it a try. But since I’ve never had it before, and have never even seen it before in real life, I have no idea whether I did it right. I tried to follow instructions but I have to confess I sort of winged it. I just added water until it was about half way up the chawan.

I was amazed at what it looked like. It was the color of the felt on a pool table or maybe a little darker; I thought it would be lighter colored? I didn’t get froth. Was I supposed to get froth? Like meringue froth, the kind that peaks and stands up? (Sort of doubt it, I didn’t get that kind anyway. More like a few bubbles around the edges. But I wouldn’t really call it froth so maybe I did it wrong?)

It was really delicious. Very sweet and green and tasty, but I wish I knew whether I’d done it justice.

How long am I supposed to whisk for? It was very smooth, not at all clumpy. I barely knew I’d whisked when I drank it, it tasted much like drinking steeped tea. (I have a feeling I made the thin kind.)

That does it, I have to go try again now.