Awkward Soul

How the heck did I not drink any tea until 5:21pm today!

Well, I was at the Oxnard strawberry festival here in California. I ate lots, but not enough to try everything I wanted to try. I wanted to try the strawberry nachos, strawberry pizza, and deepfried strawberries but I just couldn’t pack it all in, plus all that walking and sun involved.

Anyways, they had a killer “Build your own shortcake” tent which I went crazy on http://awkwardsoul.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/img_4238.jpg which was totally worth getting full on.

Any tea? One foodstall was selling sun tea, and one shop vendor had loose leaf tea blends, but I was a little scared off as the teas where just in big bowls on a table with no cover, right in the open for people to smell.

Anyways, I get home, with a flat of perfectly ripe strawberries, realized I am sun burnt (I’m still very used to living in rainy Vancouver, thinking sun is in limited supply, thus cannot burn me) and haven’t had any tea yet today! Of course, lets go for a strawberry tea, because I’m not strawberried out yet!

I’m very sad this tea is discontinued, it’s decent and different enough. Yeah, DT has another strawberry rhubarb, but they don’t have a crumble. Maybe bring it back with blueberry instead.

(see previous tasting notes for blog post / review)

Seems like I keep drinking this tea! I still have quite a bit left too, 2oz of white tea from Steep City is quite a bit of tea!

I was feeling kinda icky – sore from jiujitsu (arm pit muscles hurt!), funny stomach pains and tired out. Hoping the ginger in this will soothe everything – so far so good. Getting lots of orangey flavor in this run, must of been that big chunk of orange I found in the tea!

Now resuming to waiting for the mail guy. He has my tea order.

Very lovely bao zhong oolong! Great buttery, sweet, vegetal bean and floral notes.

I had a tealog awhile back when I had this as a sample, and it was on the astringent side – I think I was overleafing as I had no issues with astringency now.

I gotta say, bao zhong is impressive cold steeped! This will be my go to over night cold steeping tea!

Full Review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/bao-zhong-from-the-persimmon-tree-tea-review/

Sometimes I eat like a pregnant lady, though I’m not actually preggers. Last incident a few months ago involved kimchi followed up with some peanut butter. Today is another crazy case.

Soymilk + Almond butter + peanut butter + kale + honey + cheesecake matcha + protein powder. Together, not bad. Though thinking about a kale nut butter cheesecake sounds kinda gross.

I was planning to do a blog review of this tea, but decided against it.

First off, my tea was very twiggy. The tea starts off delicate, sweet and smooth. Mid sip is floral and a really flat wine taste, ending with a bit of grape flavor and quite of bit of dryness. Also, I thought this tea would be much sweeter like icewine. I added sweetener which perked up the icewineness and reduced the flatness.

Ehh, maybe my sample was old? I dunno. Alas, rest of the sample goes to the swap box.

Droool, Blushing Geisha always makes a solid iced tea – fruity, sweet and floral! YUM! Sad thing is I can see the bottom of the bag now, I might need to order more when I get around to another Steep City order. I’m fearing that order – it will be huge.

TY to Misty Peak Teas for the sample!

Whoa, 2013? That’s pretty new! Lots of interesting complexities with this sheng – smooth, creamy, earthy, pear, apricot, persimmon, floral, savory, copper mineral, clean and woodsy.

I wasn’t a fan of the astringency that got stronger in later infusions, but I figure with some aging time it’ll even out. With that said, the astringency was very different, a textured dry sensation.

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/2013-yiwu-spring-sheng-puer-from-misty-peak-teas-tea-review/

I cold steeped this overnight and forgot about it. Now, having kotobuki for dinner with Manhattan clam chowder I made tonight. Ehhh, cold steeps have less caffeine.. maybe?

The long cold steep turned out very well with this tea – the base is grassy and creamy, with lots of floral. There is an aftertaste of sweet, slightly plummy.

Say whhhhaaat? White + green tea, blended with corn, pineapple, papaya and jasmine? That sounds pretty crazy!

The result? Ehhhhh. Lots of white tea taste, savory cream corn, pineapple, peachy jasmine floral and mystery fruit flavors.

Wonders of Kashmir a very unique and weird blend – an adventure! However, this blend tastes a little too weird for me, I think it’s either the jasmine or the corn that makes this blend become too freaky. Overall, if you want something really different, do a try me sampling, or pass and try Della Terra’s A Rabbit’s Garden instead.

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/wonders-of-kashmir-from-della-terra-teas-tea-review/

I decided to steep this at 175F due to the kettle being done faster, lol! It also bothered me how the steeping instructions are with boiling water with Momoko being a green. I left the bag in while I ate a pancake, so I’m not sure how long of a steeping I did. Overall, not that great. No peachy, just a touch of creamy and loads of grassy green with a little dryness.

Well, back to steeping this with boiling water.

Tragic evening. I skipped brazilian jiujitsu because I was feeling icky.. and Ronda Rousey was in class today. WHYYYYY!??!!! cry

/sips cold steeped Rabbits Garden to feel better

100! UH OH!

This tea is amazing! Steeped in a glass gaiwan, it was beautiful to watch the cake chunk turn from dark leaf into fall colours.

Great, complex notes that change every infusion: smokey, hickory, creamy, apricot, persimmon, apple, and grassy sweet hay. I love the persimmon notes, but the smokeyness was very enjoyable too!
No bitterness or crazy pu’er funk! I got a slight astringency in later infusions, but that was cool. Very tempted to try this tea iced, but I treasure this cake.. maybe when I buy another one!

Wild Monk was a memorable experience for me, more inspiring of a tea session than crazy pu’er party time, which I get from ripe pu’er. I’m more of a green/white tea drinker so this raw cake just danced perfectly with me!

Full review and pictures of me butchering my first pu’er cake at my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/mandala-wild-monk-raw-puer-2012-tea-review-and-experience/

Tea lesson: Buy a pu’er knife or things get really messy.

Uggg, it was sooo hot here last night! I barely slept! It looks like it is going to be another really hot day today too!

You know what is really weird? I’ve lived in Long Beach for just over a year. Before moving here, I visited a couple times a year. During all this time, I have not been to a beach here. Blows my family/friends’ minds! I’m more of a museum and farmers market person. Feels like a good beach day today though!

So, I was hoping this tea would be refreshingly cool and ease some tummy funkyness. I steeped up some of this Ginger Zinger, to hopefully help out. Mmmm, very refreshing peachy orange with ginger for pep! Nice and cooling too, as I finished my lukewarm cup. Yum!

So, I went downstairs to make this tea, iced, as it’s freaking hot here, and my roommate intercepted asking for some tea.
Problem: He asks for the tea “You know, that really good one you have a lot of.” When you have just under 200 teas, that only really narrows out the samples/almost sipdowns.

Anyways, I did find it, but I didn’t have some with him as I need noncaffeine for this late of evening. Mmmm, peachy orange! I steeped this a little extra because I was lazy, so I really taste the green rooibos base. I prefer this tea at 4 minutes.

Sipdown?

Argggg! This went fast! Me and fruity herbals that I use for iced tea just don’t last long. I drink them faster than I can review the new ones!

I made this one really strong – it was that or 2 weak cups – with german rock sugar and honey. Soo strawberry, little tart and creamy. I might have to get this one again if I do another DavidsTea order. However, I could see myself passing and trying DT’s 2013 new summer herbals lineup instead.

I had some good tilapia for dinner – cooked it with butter, fresh lemon, garlic and tarragon. I felt having this tea afterward would match!

Ehhh, the peach flavor in this delicious tea doesn’t compliment my dinner, but still good tea!

ARG, my tea package had incorrect steeping instructions! Kind of suck when I only have a 2-3 cup sample size, so there wasn’t much room to experiment to help out fellow tea peeps who are interested in this tea.

The tea was so bitter and undrinkable at 185F for 5 minutes, I dumped the steeping instructions completely. I steeped another round at 175F for 2 minutes and I found this tea too bitter for my tastes. The green tea was quite savory and bitter like dandelion greens. The jasmine? Pretty good. The blueberry aftertaste? Very tasty! Oh poo, what a dilemma!

Full Review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/jasmine-blueberry-from-art-of-tea-tea-review/
geeze, my first pour out on my blog.

To sum up this tea: If gorgeous was a taste, this tea would be it!

Full Review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/yunnan-white-jasmine-from-verdant-tea-tea-review/

LOL, okay okay, I’ll write more. This tea is good and the silkyness is just wow! I love floral teas and Yunnan White Jasmine was just pure art. If I had more, I wouldn’t drink my other white jasmines! Wahh!

As someone who sells stuff on etsy, holidays drive me crazy. Mother’s Day being the current one. I get hit with last minute emails of orders for me to crochet stuff and have it shipped to arrive on time. Majority of the time the people are SOL as I have to make the item. Then there’s the small percentage of buyers that bail at the last minute on a last minute order. Ick! Which caught me last night.

I decided with Butterbeer for a treat of a tea I haven’t had in awhile, something with a nerd reference to make me smile, plus black tea wake up after late night crocheting. I really got a good rootbeer flavor here with a hint of spice, yum!

(see previous tasting notes for review)

This tea is turning into my “too tired to understand steeping loose leaf” standby. It’s fruity strawberry candy like tea that peps me up!

I should really get this in loose form though. I oversteeped this tea this morning by leaving the bag in – the black base got a little dry, but still decent!

Sip down! (by my roommate)

Successfully converted roommate to teas – mostly jasmine greens, roasted mate, pu’er and blacks. Another win for Team Tea!

Go Team Tea!

EDIT: Oh boy, I think he got tea drunk. At first it was “Wow, there’s something happening to my head” to “Woooo I love tea!’
Now picture it being said by a 6’4” 220lb guy waving around a small mug dancing around.

600th tasting note. Also, 90 Oolong Owl blog entries! Crazy!

After some detective work, I was able to figure out what type of tuocha is this is as there is no english on the packaging. That and I was searching ebay for sheng tuochas and came across the brand! I got this tuocha from Meeka at our Steepster meet!

First few infusions are a mix of a sweet on the teeth chrysanthemum (why do I always need to google to spell that?) with the ripe pu’er earth.
Later infusions the floral gets sweeter over the pu’er. Pretty nice!

Last weekend I posted a blog entry of me trying my first tuocha, before I figured out what type it was! http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/oolong-owls-first-tuocha/

Sexy sexy chai! The combination of the romantic, soothing floral and spice in this is totally fab!

What impressed me the most in this blend was the lavender. Steep City just added enough to give you a nice smooth talking calming effect without making the blend tasting like soap (or lotion, whatever one would associate lavender with).

Full review on my blog, the Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/sexy-chai-from-steep-city-teas-tea-review/

WAHHGGAAH wake up! I’ve been up for 3 hours and have done nothing super constructive. Moreso zoning out on the computer. I had some mystery oolong this morning, but time to switch to something with more punch!

Apricot Guayusa! Steeped with a cinnamon stick! Arg, I have so many cinnamon sticks! Since my husband and I like to cook, people gave us lots of “Spice Sets” (mostly from Penzeys Spices, good stuff!) for wedding and christmas gifts. Not sure why, but each set came with a huge pile of cinnamon sticks. I have limited spice rack room, so I need to use these!

Very tasty! The apricot has lots of body, the guayusa is grassy creamy sweet, and the cinnamon stick adds a bit of spice. Yum! Waking up finally – now I can get some crocheting, blogging and cleaning done!