__Morgana__

I haven’t had this in a while, and as I’m trying to pare down the last remaining starter teabags in the collection I decided to revisit this one tonight. And I’m bumping it up slightly.

It’s a very gentle tasting tea that definitely tastes like tea and doesn’t taste like a decaf. The “lotus” aspect is gentle as well, a very unimposing floral that doesn’t even really seem like floral so much as just an interesting taste to a mild tea base. The tea is interesting in that it isn’t readily identifiable as a green tea to me. Some white teas I’ve had have a note in them that seems almost like black tea flavor, and that’s what I get in this one as well.

It’s an unassuming tea, and its vagueness makes it quite soothing as there are no sharp edges or wrong steps to stick out and grab attention.

Its ability to blend into the scenery makes it a good thing to sip while I plow through The Pillars of the Earth. I can drink it without it making me stop and lose my suspension of disbelief. This isn’t the sort of thing I normally read, as I’m pretty snobbish about what I spend my scarce reading time on, but I got sucked into the miniseries and want to find out how the story unfolds without having to wait six more weeks to find out. It’s also a nice little candy break from War and Peace which I’ve discovered really isn’t the sort of thing that can be read on a stationary bike.

Decupboarded, without plans to restock. I’m looking forward to trying the 52 Teas Lemon Drop Cooler and some others I’ve collected along the way in the search for the perfect lemon tisane. This, unfortunately, wasn’t it.

So here’s a switch up. I’m boosting the rating on this one. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had as much of it as the White Cucumber or the Vanilla Apricot White, but I find this one a welcome change from those. The more I drink it the less I find the berry flavors missing. This is most obvious when drinking it after another tea, such as the Vanilla Apricot White. It most definitely has a berry flavor, though it’s something of a shy one. But then it can’t really be much more on a white tea base without completely overpowering the tea.

I don’t get a lot of tea flavor from this or any of the Tazo whites. They seem to be pretty much a platform for the staging of the chosen flavor. But of the three, this one is currently ranking highest in my estimation, probably because as I said, I have had less of it and so it still has a novelty to it by comparison and I haven’t had a chance to dwell on its shortcomings. That may come later as I close in on the last of these bags, but for now it gets a rating bump.

I’ve been drinking more of this lately, as part of the protracted project to finish up my original bagged training teas.

The more I drink it, the more I have realized that vanilla is really the primary flavor here. The apricot is more of an afterthought and the tea is most noticeable when it’s a day old, which is to say, it starts to sour pretty much immediately (yeah, I admit it, same way I finish up the rest of day old Diet Cokes I do that with tea too).

Though it is heads and tails over the White Cucumber with its rather nasty pickle overtones, this is at most a passable bagged white flavored tea. I won’t have to hold my nose to finish my stash or anything, but it’s something I’ll wave goodbye to without much of a second thought when I get to the end.

Dropping the rating some.

I have about enough of this left for another cup or two (big cups… when I drink tisanes at night I go for the 16 oz size as all that heat is bound to make me sleepy), and it has grown on me some over the course of drinking way more of this than I probably should have ordered (S&V doesn’t have samples, so you sort of have to buy the smallest size they have and for this one that size was 4 oz.). I was pretty optimistic about this one from the description so I happily bought 4 oz of it.

I gave up on the experimentation described in my previous note and just focused on getting the proportion of mixture to water right, and it turned out that more was a lot better in this case. I’m putting in about double the amount I’d ordinarily expect per cup, and that gives it a good bit of flavor. It’s still missing a sweetness that I’d like to see in a lemon tisane and it still has an edge of bitterness that I could do without, but in between is a decent amount of lemon flavor.

Though it has grown on me, I don’t feel like it has grown enough to justify bumping up the rating. I likely won’t buy more when I decupboard, which I expect to be sometime this weekend.

Having tasted the black savant, flavors, green savant and most of the herbal sampler (just lemongrass to go and I’m not in the mood for that just now), I’m moving along to the next set of Adagio samples. This is the first of the flavored oolongs.

I really love oolongs, but I don’t drink them as much these days as other things, mostly because they’re something of a production to drink with the multiple steeps, and I just haven’t felt relaxed enough lately to sit with a tea through four or more steeps.

This one has very twiggy coarse dark leaves with flecks of grapefruit peel among them. It smells like a tree scented with grapefruit.

The liquor is a light amber/yellow and it has a strong, toasty/fruity aroma though the fruity part isn’t necessarily grapefruit.

But in the flavor, there’s grapefruit and it’s… really nice? Surprising, in a way. I haven’t had a lot of success with most flavored oolongs I’ve tried. The oolong here is mostly the toasty/roasty background for a grapefruit flavor that sparkles along the top of the sip.

I’ll update and rate this after I’ve given it it’s due. I have to run off to dinner now. Trying a new Mexican place in the neighborhood.

And now for something completely different.

When I placed my The O Dor order a while back this one seemed too strange to pass up. And it is indeed very, very strange.

First off, the smell out of the tin is the smell of latex house paint. Seriously, I kid you not. Given the list of ingredients, I was expecting to see bits of vegetables in here. I’m not seeing that upon opening the tin, but there are some really large flower petals, much bigger than I’ve seen in other blends. One is so long that initially, I mistook it for a red pepper.

This steeps to a dark reddish brown color. It still has a bit of paint to the smell after steeping, but its now has something else which is sort of like lentils. I wonder if those are in here, maybe they’re the legumes. There’s a peppery note, too.

The flavor, thankfully, is not at all paint like. But it is very hard to describe. It has a savory spice note, a hint of rosemary maybe. It reminds me of the spice mixtures in Italian restaurants that give the olive oil you dip your bread in its flavor. That same type of mixture sometimes tops specialty breads. I’m not able to identify the currant, but I am able to get a mixed vegetable note that is sort of like a hint of ratatouille. There is a sweetness in the aftertaste that’s kind of surprising given the savory quality of the tea.

This is a really unique tea, and something I need to sit with for a while. I give it points for its ingenuity in bringing together flavors not usually used in black tea mixes. I’ve had similar flavors in teas before (the savory spices) but they were always in herbal blends. I’m not really sure how to rate it. On the one hand I’m kind of charmed by the whole idea of it. On the other, it’s not something I see myself drinking frequently, and I’m not sure how likely it is to be a reorder now that I’ve satisfied my curiosity.

After yesterday’s October Revelation mixture of seven citrus fruits, this seems a modest little tea. Only three citrus fruits here, and I’m expecting to taste orange and maybe a little lemon. Seems like this should really be called Troika times two, as there are two troikas here, the citrus fruits and the black teas. But that wouldn’t sound very Russian.

Bergamot is the main scent of the dry leaves. It opens up after steeping into an orange-laced, somewhat fruity, somewhat biscuity aroma. The tea has a medium amber color. I’m not getting pepper here, which I wondered about since I definitely get that in the Kusmi Earl Grey.

The taste is quite nice. I think I prefer it to the busier flavor of October Revelation. It’s sort of a citrus equivalent to the Kusmi 4 Red Fruits, except that the individual notes are harder to detect, but that may be because they’re all sort of similar flavors to begin with. Though the bergamot was strong in the fragrance of the dry leaf it is not strong here. The tea is smooth and easy on the stomach. The tea underneath the citrus is perky without being darjeelingy if that makes sense. It has a cleanness and a bit of briskness to it.

This is one for the cupboard, I think.

At last, I have reached what I hope will be the pinnacle of my coconut journey. I’m really excited to try this one given all the love it has here on Steepster.

Also excited because I can’t remember whether I’ve had Nilgiri before. It might have shown up in a blend somewhere along the line but I don’t recall ever having tasted it straight before.

The coconut in here, being toasted, looks different than the coconut in other blends I’ve tried recently. It’s in long thin strips that look a little like flower petals in tea. The Nilgiri leaves are big, dark and sort of coarse looking. The fragrance of the dry mix is intense. Very volatile, almost alcohol-smelling.

After steeping I can really smell the tea more than coconut, though there’s a coconut note there, for sure. The tea’s aroma has a really pretty floral note to it that I wasn’t expecting. The liquor is medium-light amber.

I should say that I steeped this according to Premium Steap’s directions and put it at boiling rather than at a lower temperature, which I’ve been doing with other flavored blacks, mostly because it seems sometimes to bring more flavor out. Other times it doesn’t or doesn’t make a difference. But I wanted to go according to the book the first time with this one.

And yes, there’s a difference in flavor between toasted and nontoasted versions of coconut black tea, though not as much as I had expected, and though I’m not sure how much the Nilgiri contributes to the mix since I’m rather a Nilgiri neophyte. I have to say the American Tea Room version was pretty impressive notwithstanding its nontoastedness. That said, I’m really enjoying the macaroon flashes I’m getting from this, especially as the tea cools and especially in the minutes after sipping.

To me, the most impressive part about this is the blend. It’s not a black tea with coconut sitting on top so much as it is a tea that seems to be imbued with coconut flavor. Like they can’t really be separated from each other. I’m always pretty impressed by teas that manage to do this as it seems much more difficult to accomplish than just flavoring tea (though I have no idea whether this is true, it just seems that way because it’s rarer than an obvious flavoring).

The true test of this one will be tasting it in isolation without earlier coconuts still in my tastebuds’ memories, but so far it’s in front, with the ATR close behind. I could see this and the ATR coexisting in my cupboard much in the same way I can see The du Loup and Florence coexisting as though they’re similar, they’re different enough to be… well… different.

Finishing up the last of this sample, and I tried an experiment in the Breville at the same time. It isn’t really set up to make fewer than two cups, but I only had a cup’s worth of tea left, so I filled it halfway to the first line.

It came out fine, though I am a little worried about trying this on a regular basis. Makes me wary of burning out the element or some such disaster. Also, because the measurement was imprecise, I’m not getting as strong of a cocoa note from it this time around.

I must say that the coconut in this one, though not toasted, is delicious. It’s… juicy. The flavor in the finish and afterwards is sweet and fresh tasting. Makes me wonder whether this is a characteristic of this blend or whether the Adagio sample was just a bit older when I got around to trying it. The tea base here does seem richer and to have more character than that of the Adagio, even without as much of a cocoa note as I tasted yesterday.

Finishing up this sample today as part of a larger plan for coconut tastings. I’m also planning to finish up the last of the ATR and then on to the Premium Steap, which seems to have a good many fans here. I am really eager to try that one as it has toasted coconut rather than untoasted, and that could make a lot of difference in how I receive it as macaroons would be one of the ten foods I’d take with me if I were stranded on a desert island.

I continue to find this one enjoyable, but having now had the ATR I think that if I were going to buy a “fresh” coconut blend I’d pick the ATR instead. There’s something about the base of the ATR that just has more depth. Thanks to the experience of the ATR, though, I’m now looking for, and finding, a bit of a chocolate note to this one.

I wonder whether it’s more than coincidence that it’s called a coconut. I googled why is a coconut called a coconut and got a reference to coco meaning monkey face. But there’s an interesting similarity between chocolate and coconut, which is probably what makes them so appealing together. They mesh somewhere on a flavor continuum which is not dissimilar from the cocoa/vanilla continuum.

Finishing up this sample. Second time around with this, it was tarter than the first and the raspberry remained discernible but not particularly strong.

A little sweeter and with stronger raspberry and this would be something I’d have to reorder. The BF’s favorite food (not just fruit, food) is raspberry. He tried some of this and remarked “I like the raspberry, but not the tart.”

I drank some more of the Adagio Coconut sample earlier and had intended to try this back to back but got hung up on a phone call and wasn’t able to do it. So I’m comparing by memory rather than by direct back to back tastings.

The coconut pieces in this sample are huge compared to those in the Adagio. The samples smell different too. It’s funny, today I’m getting a sort of chocolatey note from both of them, and the Adagio is sort of the milk chocolate version of Mounds while the ATR is more a dark chocolate version. The coconut in the ATR is a little more green smelling than in the Adagio and since I thought the Adagio was a bit on the green side when I prefer that toasty macaroon coconut flavor, I’m wondering whether this will hold true after steeping.

The aroma has a dark character with respect to the tea and a green character with respect to the coconut. The liquor is almost a mahogany color. I’m guessing this is at least in part a Ceylon base.

Even though the flavor isn’t exactly toasty, there’s something about it I’m quite enjoying. I think it’s the fact that even though this isn’t a chocolate flavored tea, there’s a definite cocoa note, which makes this taste more like chocolate/coconut than plain coconut. There’s a slight sweetness, especially in the finish, and a pleasant aftertaste.

I prefer this to the Adagio, though I’m still not sure how I feel about coconut on it’s own as a flavoring agent. I tend to like my coconut with something else, be it chocolate, pineapple, coffee flavor, etc. I’d probably buy a chocolate/coconut blend over this, but if that wasn’t available, this would be a rather good substitute.

How many citrus fruits can you name? This tea is flavored with damn near every one I can come up with. Which is both fascinating and somewhat intimidating. It seems like it could be really delicious or a total fail. I’m going into this not knowing what to expect.

Right off the bat it gets points for cornflowers, with their adorable blueness among the dark leaves. There is also some citrus peel visible. The fragrance is strongly citrus, pretty heavy on the grapefruit to my nose. Though I’m also getting some of the orangey, tangeriney aspect. There’s a bitterness to it, which I suppose is from the peel.

From the color of the liquor and the aroma, I’m guessing the base here is Ceylon. It has a pretty russet color, and a mild fragrance. There is some definite citrus in the aroma; again I’m getting mostly grapefruit and some orange input. I’m a little worried going into the tasting that the citrus is going to be bitter, as it has that same bitter twinge to it that the dry leaves have.

But fortunately, there’s no bitterness to the taste. It turns out that the citrus is much mellower in taste than in smell. It’s actually almost too mellow for my taste. It doesn’t really make its presence known much at all until the finish, where I get some lemon, and maybe a little of the grapefruit and orange. The rest of the citrus blends together into a sort of single citrusy mish-mash. It’s tasty though. I don’t get a lot of bergamot, so if you’re not a bergamot fan you don’t need to be scared by this one.

I like French teas in general quite a bit, and I haven’t had anything from The O Dor so far that was an outright failure. This one is pleasant, but it doesn’t make me talk to myself under my breath as I’m drinking it. I’m not saying “wow” or “that’s good,” or “mmmm” or such things. By that standard I think it’s something I’ll enjoy drinking but isn’t going to be high on my list to replace when it is gone.

I was sick for a couple of weeks starting about three weeks ago, and guess what. The 4 year old now has what I had. He’s getting better; today’s the first time in four days he hasn’t had fever. But as a result of his being home sick, and me just now being well after a pretty nasty bug, I’m pretty emotionally spent. I’ve been trying to work from home while attending to him, but I haven’t been exercising or paying attention to what I eat and I feel bloated and my energy level is like, nowhere, man. I haven’t even felt like making tea. Though if someone made some for me I’d drink it.

I thought this might be a good choice to break me back in since Kusmi tends to be fairly mild. I have a little sample tin of this, and they fill these to the brim. When I stick the spoon into these little tins I always feel somehow like I’m loading a pipe with tobacco. I have to use the fingers of the non-spoon hand to keep the tea in the spoon while I’m trying to get it out of the tin without boosting tea over the edge and onto the counter.

In the tin, the leaves have that spidery, Ceylon look to them. They smell slightly smoky, and mysteriously, slightly sharp like an oolong or a darjeeling. There’s no maltiness that I can detect.

The tea’s aroma, though, does have some maltiness. I’m guessing there’s some Assam in here. It also has a fruity smell, slightly berry-ish. But also some stone fruit notes? It doesn’t quite steep to the Ceylon red/orange color that’s so gorgeous, but it just needs a drop or too more red to get there.

The flavor is fairly mild, fairly smooth, and fairly evenly distributed between a sweet-ish malty note, a smoky note and a sharp fruity note. I wonder if there is oolong in this? This isn’t called “Russian Caravan” but the Russian nomenclature makes me wonder if that is where the sharp fruity note is coming from. The smokiness isn’t enough to seem like it comes from lapsang. It might be from Keemun instead.

The tea is medium-light bodied with a clean feel to it. I’m liking this just fine as a late breakfast blend. I really don’t know what to do about the breakfast blend problem, though. I like so many of them, I really no longer have any excuse to keep adding to the list. I have to come up with some way to differentiate between them and zero in on a few true favorites. Sigh.

Decupboarding, with no plans to restock. I was glad for the experience, but I’m even gladder that the tin is finally kaput. I think I’m pretty close to settling on some staple Earl Greys. I’m not quite finished playing the field, but I have a feeling the end, for the most part is near, with the occasional new thing to try now and then. In any case, this won’t be a staple.

Pretty sure this is the last fruit mix in my herbal sampler. I think the only sample left after this is lemongrass. It’s pretty much indistinguishable from the other mixes in what it looks like dry, but it does have a rather distinctive sweet, berry smell to the dry mix.

It steeps to the dark magenta I associate with hibiscus. It’s aroma is not strong, and not very distinctive. Apple may be the main component, with some hibiscus earthiness.

It’s tart, but not too tart and it has a countervailing sweetness that must be from the apples and berries. My main complaint with it is that I expected a stronger raspberry flavor given the name.

There is a little raspberry, most noticeable in the aftertaste, but it isn’t nearly as strong as I’d want in a mix that has raspberry in the name. Though this has a pleasant taste, it’s not very distinctive, and I wouldn’t say it’s better than the first two fruit mixes in the sampler. It also doesn’t surpass the Blood Orange, which I found disappointing for essentially the same reason — not enough orange. This has an even bigger not enough raspberry problem, so I can’t rate it as high as the Blood Orange.

This is the first violet tea I’ve had. I don’t ordinarily think of violet as something edible, and I don’t think I’ve tasted it before though I’ve seen those violet candies in the little tin. I like the fragrance of violet in soap, but I tend to associate it with bath products rather than food. I haven’t tasted the violet candies precisely because I expect them to taste soapy, and that’s my primary concern going in to tasting this tea.

I also have to confess that I get confused between violet and lavender because they’re both purple and both flowers. I know this doesn’t make much more sense than getting confused between a peach and a plum, but there you have it. The way I get confused is that when I sit and try to conjure the smell of lavender, I’m pretty sure I can do it, but I conjure the same thing for violet. But of course, when I actually smell something scented violet, it clearly is different from lavender.

In the tin, the primary scent is floral. I don’t smell tea, I smell violet. Fortunately, it’s not soapy in the least. It’s like a little bouquet.

The tea’s aroma is violet around the edges, also not soapy, with a warm, slightly sweet tea in the middle.

The flavor is much more floral all around than the aroma. It’s like biting the heads off the flowers that made up the little bouquet. ;-) But it’s surprisingly nice. It’s a little frou frou but, I think, less than rose can be. Violets in general are less intense smelling than roses to me, and this is less intense as well without any of the oily quality that rose flavors can have sometimes. As it cools, the floral aspect becomes deeper and richer, and though I don’t think it crosses the line, I could see it becoming soapy if it were allowed to become room temperature. I’d advise drinking before allowing it to cool too much.

I’m torn on this one. I like it, but I have lavender teas and rose teas and jasmine teas and osmanthus teas and lychee teas and I wonder whether I really need another floral tea. But since when has reason prevailed in the decision to acquire tea?

I’m more than three quarters through this tin now and I’m lowering the rating because it hasn’t grown on me during that time. Not only has it not grown on me, it’s actually something I don’t particularly look forward to drinking. It’s not a drastic thing, it’s just a sort of internal monologue that goes something like: oh, ok, guess I’ll have that and finish it up… when’s it going to be gone again? A couple more pots maybe? What can I have afterwards that’s better?

Seriously, I think it may be that I’m just not getting into the darjeeling aspect. I may be too much of a purist to appreciate an Earl Grey that is made of anything other than a fully oxidized black tea base. I suspect that were that the base, the amount of bergamot I’m tasting would seem significantly less and that would put it right about where I want it.

On the heels of the Mariage Freres Earl Grey Imperial, which I’m pretty close now to drinking my way through, the Kusmi seemed at first a welcome respite. In the sample tin, the fragrance is of bergamot, but also of a strong spicey smell I can’t identify. Pepper maybe. Yeah, I think that’s it. The spicy smell is more prominent than the bergamot in the smell of the dry leaves.

Steeping brings out the aroma of the tea more than the spice or the bergamot. The pepperiness would suggest Yunnan, but apart from that it smells quite like the aroma I associate with Keemuns (no smoke, but there’s a baked goods quality to it). Liquor is a dark amber, sort of a brandy color. I had high hopes that this would be a nice, mildly bergamot flavored, Earl Grey.

But alas. The flavor is pretty interesting. But it’s not what I’d expect from an Earl Grey, even one that is relatively easy on the bergamot. To my tastebuds it has a stronger flavor of pepper than of bergamot. I do get a shadow of citrus, but it’s not readily identifiable as bergamot.

It’s not bad, it’s just not what I am looking for in an Earl Grey. If I stand back and judge it without the Earl Grey label, it’s still not something I could see myself picking to drink over other blends. In the end, I’m having to rate it lower than the Mariage Freres because at least the Mariage Freres, as much as it is not a favorite, is definitely an Earl Grey.

Finishing up this sample tonight. I am not sorry to see it go.

I never got over the sort of “essence of rodent cage” aspect, which was unfortunate. Tangerine is a really great flavor and it would be excellent to have a really good tangerine flavored tea. It’s just that this wasn’t that.

It’s more than slightly smoky. But that’s a good thing.

The leaves have a lapsangy smell to them, but the aroma is milder. It isn’t tarry or resiny. It’s smoky but on the gentler side of smoky.

It’s a surprisingly chewy feeling tea. Pretty thick on the mouthfeel. A nice smokiness in the flavor, but also has a shining tea note coming through. Like a light at the bottom of a dark well. And some degree of sweetness, though not as much as some other smokies.

I’m liking the aftertaste. I was a little worried after reading Angrboda’s note that I’d taste ashtray, but fortunately I’m not experiencing ashtray here. The thickness of the mouthfeel translates into a coated feeling in the mouth, but not in a clingy way. It’s kind of interesting and not unpleasant. The aftertaste is surprising. I wouldn’t expect anything fresh about it, but somehow that’s what I get. Like the taste of cool air on an autumn night when fires are going in neighborhood fireplaces. And a little sweet burst at the end.

Smoky teas, like black teas in general, are another area I’m having a hard time narrowing down to a stable of staples. I haven’t yet met one I detested, which makes it hard. I think in general I tend to prefer the softer smokies rather than the straight lapsangs, though there are times when I can go for the resiny, tarry, pineyness as well.

I can’t rightly remember how this compares to other Russians, though I know it isn’t up there with the A&D Caravan. It’s probably about on a par with the H&S. I must try that again to see.

The fragrance out of the sample tin (another Adagio Herbal Sampler sample) is of sweet orange. Borderline baby asperiny, but not really quite crossing the line, which is nice. I like, v. much. Big pieces of orange peel in the chunky fruit mix.

Garnet colored liquor. Hibiscusy aroma with an orange overtone.

Flavor is tarter than anticipated (and I brewed at double strength). There’s a very big rose hip constituency here. Second flavor is probably the orange, but for a tisane with this name I’d want it in first position. Third, a hibiscus/apple tie.

Jaded me, not overly excited by fruit blends these days, is willing to give it another try but as much as I hoped it would surpass the Berry Blast, it’s lack of orange pow is holding it back.

The last time I had this, I liked it. But in the days after I had it I wondered whether I thought I liked it more than I actually did. It was so very different from most other things I’ve tried in tea land that when I stood back from the experience I wondered whether it was infatuation rather than true love.

Furthermore, it was abundantly clear from my last foray that I had overdone the amount of chai given the spiciness quotient of this tea. I like spicy, but as I said in a previous note, this isn’t just spicy. It is way way way way spicy. In retrospect, the degree of spiciness was probably more than I could reasonably stand on an ongoing basis. I liked the first experience but on second thought I had no real desire to repeat it.

This time around I’ve gotten closer to an optimum mix. In fact, this would probably serve if i can’t optimize it any further. Two cups of water, 2 tablespoons of sweetener, one tablespoon chai, three tablespoons Kusmi Chocolate (not the spicy, the regular). Boil until water mostly gone, then add two cups milk. Bring to boil, immediately turn off heat, let steep for 10 minutes or more. Strain and serve.

This is still at least one “way’s” worth of spicy, but it isn’t burning my mucous membranes and making my eyes water as I recall it doing last time. It’s really much more enjoyable to me this way. The chocolate in the Kusmi seems to enhance the chocolate in the chai, too. It smelled incredibly chocolatey while it was bubbling on the stove, and it’s a really delicious, creamy consistency with a lot more chocolate flavor than I recall it having last time. Which, seeing as that was what I found the major drawback of this tea at the time, is a particularly awesome discovery.

Excuse me, I must go now and enjoy my very chocolatey version of Mayan Chocolate Chai.