__Morgana__ Send Message

Sipdown no. 89 of 2018 (no. 445 total).

This also made a good cold tea. I know this because my 14 year old’s friend was here to join a school carpool a couple of days ago and wanted something to drink. I gave him some of this a cold brew. He tasted it rather tentatively at first, then upended the glass.

I realized, though, that my planning wasn’t great. This was a jar of 1.7 ounces. I had intended to try it as a plain black tea, but I’m pretty sure I forgot to do that. After a couple of hot stovetop cups, I made it into a cold version. And I’m pretty sure I then ran out of that, and went to fill up the pitcher to steep in the fridge, I dumped the last bit of this in the pitcher without remembering I’d wanted to try this hot as a regular black tea. Oh well.

Sipdown no. 88 of 2018 (no.444 total).

I tried this on the stovetop a couple of different ways, in iced form, and as a hot black tea steeped western style, some of which I’ve already written notes about. It was actually pretty good cold, too. Cold chocolate tea can be a little strange at first, but it grows on you (or at least it grows on me). Nothing else to add to previous notes.

Revisiting this one because I didn’t make it correctly last time. Like with the Simpson & Vail chocolate chai of yesterday, I didn’t make it concentrated enough.

This time: two tablespoons chai, one tablespoon black tea (Golden Moon French Breakfast).

It’s better this way, but it’s still quite mild. If you like mild, which I sometimes do, this is very nice. If you like spicy, which I also sometimes do, this is not that.

Also, there’s no black pepper, which I enjoy in chai. I’m still not really noticing the vanilla.

Bumping it a tad because I think I’ve now experienced it as it was meant to be.

First time trying this out of a sealed packet.

First, let me say, I’m not familiar with yuzu. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered it before. The interwebs describe it as a sour citrus fruit that is a cross between a grapefruit and a lime. And boy, is that exactly what I smell in the packet — very strongly, indeed.

After steeping all of that basically evaporates and I smell something that is disturbingly like the smell of clothing when it’s been left in the washer and gone sour. The tea is medium golden-yellow with that sencha haze that keeps it from being able to be described as clear.

Fortunately, the tea doesn’t taste like it smells. It does have a sour citrus tang that tastes like the lime/grapefruit combo description. The sour tends a little toward bitter, in the citrus zest embodiment of the term.

It’s the sort of thing I’ll have to try again, sit with, and mull over before I come to a conclusion about it. For now I’m putting it in the solid very good range because I don’t have a frame of reference for yuzu and I can’t determine whether my reaction is driven more by the unfamiliarity and newness of the flavor or the flavor itself.

One of the last couple of heretofore unopened Todd & Holland white tea samples.

In the packet, it has a strong fruity smell. More cherry than raspberry to my nose. I don’t smell champagne, but there’s something in there that suggests it. A sort of sharp high note that weirdly, gives the impression of effervescence.

The aroma after steeping is very similar to the aroma in the packet, only more diffuse. The tea is light yellow and clear.

I’m usually the first or only note-writer for Todd & Holland for whatever reason, but this tea already has a couple. My thoughts are somewhere in between the rave and the pan. Kitty tasted lipgloss — I don’t, but I get more berry blend than straight raspberry so to that extent I understand her mishmash comment. Also, I don’t taste champagne to the point of seeing this as a substitute for the real stuff like LefTea did. I do get a hint, and I agree that the taste is festive and pleasant.

I’ll enjoy the rest of this, and I wouldn’t turn it down in the future, but I don’t love it enough to make it a staple.

Sipdown no. 87 of 2018 (no. 443 total). A sample.

It was interesting the first couple of times. By the third and final, it was just odd.

As I’ve been drinking a lot of chai lately, it occurs to me that this may be trying, just a little, to be a white chai. It has the cinnamon and cloves, which are the main flavors.

Maybe not, though. Because raspberry. But I don’t taste the raspberry as an independent flavor — more a generic berriness.

In any case, it was fun to try but it’s not a favorite.

On another note, WorldCon is going on about half an hour away so I’m going to try to meet a friend there for part of the day today. If I succeed, I’ll have gone to my first. Since I write SFF, one would think I’d already gone through this rite of passage, but with work and family obligations it’s not that easy to plan. We typically get our vacations together a few weeks before we leave.

But. I really don’t have much of an excuse this time, so despite being incredibly intimidated by the prospect (being an introvert and all) I am currently working toward that plan. We shall see.

Trying this again today because I am pretty sure that I didn’t make it concentrated enough last time. I was doing the stovetop steep method from memory and I was short a tablespoon of tea.

This time I used two tablespoons of the chai plus one tablespoon of black tea to one cup of water and one tablespoon of splenda. Boiled for 3 minutes, then added one cup low fat milk. Brought back to boiling, then removed from heat and steeped for 5+ minutes.

That’s the method as stated on the Samovar chai tin, except of course they recommend sugar rather than splenda and whole milk rather than low fat.

It’s better like this. Spicier. For sure more clove, a little more cardomom. Maybe a tiny bit more chocolatey. And it doesn’t affect the anise, which I still can’t discern (and which is cause for relief).

Getting toward the end of my Todd & Holland white tea sample packets. I have one scheduled for sipdown tomorrow, and after this one, I only have a couple of others left (unless one is hiding from me somewhere in the annals of my stash).

The smell in the packet is very strongly pineapple. The coconut is secondary. That’s an interesting start, because usually coconut seems to obliterate anything else it’s combined with and force itself to the fore.

The pineapple smell doesn’t seem overly artificial to me. Pineapple is usually pretty good in that department, at least to my tastebuds. Orange and cherry can taste like baby aspirin or cough drops if not done well, but pineapple starts out ahead in that regard. At least for me.

After steeping, the coconut comes out of hibernation and shoulders aside the pineapple in the aroma, though not completely. It’s actually a nice mix that is very reminiscent, in its fragrance, to the taste of the actual pina colada cocktail — minus the rum. The tea is pale yellow (more gold than lemon) and clear.

The flavor is pretty much the same as the aroma. I don’t taste much of the tea base. Actually, don’t think I taste it at all.

It’s a nice, rather light and delicate, coconut/pineapple flavor. More delicate than a purely herbal blend might be. Perhaps what the tea adds here is counterbalance and a delivery vehicle for the other flavors.

The package directions suggest 170-185 for 2 minutes. I did 185 for 2.

I don’t want to speak too soon, but I may be starting to understand white tea. I have had enough silver needles at this point to start to see similarities. If I’m able to get past the hot-water-tastes-like-nothing with a particular tea, which seems to be a water temperature thing (and is why I pick the high end of the temperature spectrum now), I am starting to recognize a distinct flavor.

I mentioned this in one of my more recent previous notes; I understand why people sometimes compare white tea to black tea. There’s a quality that is very tea-like, moreso than the vegetal or grassy flavors of green teas. But it’s not like a lighter version of black tea. It’s its own distinct flavor. I am at a loss to describe it. Maybe some of the following get close, but none really nail it: bark, trees, wood, leaves, plants.

To that, for this one, I would add: sweet. While not strong, there’s a sweetness to the finish that is more nectar than sugar, more melon than nectar. This is also present in the steeped tea’s aroma, which is quite subtle, as is the color — pale, clear yellow. The leaves smell arboreal in the packet, rather a concentrated version of the quality I tried to describe in the flavor with a pungency to them.

Maybe it’s the quality of the tea, but this one doesn’t make me go some variety of “huh?” or “WTF?” For that, it gets serious points.

The dry leaves of this smell a bit like candy, sweet and fruity.

The sweet and the fruity are both smoothed out and far less candy-like in the aroma of the steeped tea. But there’s something very cherry about the aroma that is still very appealing.

The liquor is a strong, clear, golden yellow.

The floral aspects come in to the sip. Lavender and rose are what are promised, and they are there, lavender more than rose, but neither to the point of being hit over the head. So many florals tend toward the soapy or lotiony, but this is where the French blends excel. They are able to get that hint into the flavor without the fear of suds in the mouth. And there’s still that cherry-ishness underneath it all, which fills out and morphs into something less cherry one note and more berry blend.

I quite like this one.