Awkward Soul

What the heck? Sip down? I didn’t know I only had one serving left.
/sad owl

now I need to do a Della Terra order soon, as I only got a little Lemon Chiffon left after this.

Anyways, I got hit in the nose in jiujitsu. I’m okay, though my nose just feels weird, not in pain or bruised. I’m consoling myself with this tasty creamy tea, iced, with sweet lemons. The other good thing was I got the guy back, he didn’t expect some girl to shoulder lock him, muhhahahaha!

Odd. Not many tealogs for this tea? This one won an award!

A summary of this tea could be “An Earl Grey white/green tea blend” however there’s much more going on, as there’s a bit of floral and sweetness from the white. Grassy, vegetal, and crisp flavors from the green, with a slight hit of bergamont. A very nice tea for peeps who love a light, citrus green!

Full Review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/liquid-jade-from-art-of-tea-tea-review/

WHOOOOOPS! I put this tea in for coldsteeping Saturday night. It’s now Monday afternoon. I totally forgot about it, and my tea got shuffled to the back of the fridge behind the potato salad and milk.

This is pretty good cold steeped – the oolong base is really different and the herby bite is strong. I was expecting this tea to come out weak, as I only used one bag for 16oz of cold steep, though maybe steeping for extra long helped. I should really get some gaba oolong on its own.

Sample coming from Meeka, which I got yesterday at our Steepster meet!

Was just 3 of us this time, but it was fun! In theory – hey, stash busting! But result was coming home with more tea. Yep.

Anyways, Queen Catherine. I saw a suggested steeping time on HS’ site of 212F for 4 to 5. I tasted at around 3.5 and was like “wahh, this is more than enough!” It hit the bitter side, little stronger than what I’d like, and I didn’t feel like adding any milk. However, after the cup cooling while I was dealing with emails, it smoothed out. Queen C is malty, bold and the bitterness reminds me of really strong/pure dark chocolate

Back to dealing with emails. Since I had no internet Friday and was busy all weekend I’m super backed up.

Sample sip down!

I had to cut this with a little Good Morning Sunshine as my sample (from a trade) leaked leaves a bit on the bottom of my tin. Yum! Nice and orangey and grassy!

So tired, but this tea is perking me up! Slept all weird as my tummy was angry I ate so much!

wahhh! So full! I went to a surprise birthday party for a friend of my husbands. It was also a potluck, so I made a huge thing of bacon kimbap and there was lots of thai food, bbq chicken, double chocolate brownies and cake! Gahh, so much food!

I was so thirsty too, all they had was booze and overpowering lemonaide. Finally back home and having some iced tea to wash down all the food. I might need a few more rounds of other teas to make me feel less bloated. Mmm, candy pineapple strawberry bubblegumy tea!

Sip down! Yeah, finished all my adagio samples finally!

I cold steeped this one overnight, and accidentally grabbed my Tfree tumbler instead of my water bottle on my way to jiujitsu. Totally had some weird looks drinking tea – most people drink coconut water there, other than water, and I’m looking spiffy with my tea tumbler and nice yellow green splotch on my white gi! Yeah, I wouldn’t get this tea again – I’m not too happy with most of Adagio’s teas. Not as fresh as other companies.

I had no internet all yesterday (thanks verizon) and finally have it back! I can tealog again! I did brazilian jiu jitsu last night and then this morning. Why don’t I just sleep at the gym? I was gone for less than 10 hours.
Anyways, I have an event to go to tonight which will have lots of delicious goodies, so I went to jitz to prepare of the mass amounts of calories I will go crazy on. However, I was dead tired this morning and I needed something to wake me up so I don’t look silly yawning during class while someone is choking me.
The kaimatcha, man, this stuff is good. This got me squeaky perky after a big frothy mug of it, simulating me as a “energetic morning person” when I’m a “don’t talk to me until I’ve had 2 cups of tea and after 10am” person. So buttery, fresh and easy to mix!

Gah, everywhere I look, there’s samples that I need to sip down!

Time to work on this one! Ah, I didn’t realize this one was a sheng. I read http://www.teavivre.com/info/pu-erh-tea-weight-loss/ that you drink a pu’er after a meal it helps with weightloss. I need all the help I can get, along with all this crazy freaking exercise I do. Hopefully I burn my energy at brazilian jiu jitsu tonight – I never go thursdays. Something about “MMA/boxing gloves punching while jiujitsu neutralizing attacks” seems too scary for me. But I have to go, or I’ll never get a belt promotion. My plan? Hyper Pu’er energy + rolling up into a ball + spazzing out into leg attacking. Yeah, MMA isn’t my future career…

Screw the large bags plus I bet it’s plastic like other “silk” bags. So far so good. I wish there was more interest to this pu’er – it seems like this one very tea noob friendly, so no fishy or thick taste. Just earthy. No creamy, floral, nuttyness going on.

Mmmm, my second gyokuro! This one was even better! My first gykuro was from Den’s Tea, but this one from Yunomi.us / Kurihara Tea was more balanced and buttery.

I followed these steeping instructions http://yunomi.us/4832/gyokuro-steeping-technique/ which was kind of annoying getting my water to 120F / 50C as my kettle only goes as low at 160F. However, the result was really good! My gyokuro was syrupy, buttery, creamy and spinachy! I got a handful of resteepings out of my tea too! The astringency was actually good too!

Uggg, I think I need to acquire more gyokuro (maybe one of the higher quality ones off Yunomi) but I know my cash flow will be pissed off!

Full Review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/gyokuro-standard-kurihara-tea-via-yunomi-us-tea-review/

Sip down! Hot Latte mode!

Mmm delicious banana milk again! Hmm what’s my cupboard count? Gahh 200 on the nose! A few more than that as I need to add a few teas to the database and have been too lazy to do so (or not lazy and just don’t want to see my count go up!)
I could be convinced to have this Monkey Fart tea again. I dislike the name though, as I don’t like monkeys – though I do like the humor of the tea name! Actually today in Brazilian Jiujitsu my sparring partner, who is more experienced than me, was being tricky and I was having difficulty sparring her has she glues herself to me. She said “I’m sorry, I’m like a little monkey” and I’m like “no, you are more like a koala bear, they are much cuter than monkeys!”

NOMNOMNOMMM!

I got this huge sugar chocolate crazy craving. Even more dangerous, a tub of Red Velvet Cake ic ecream in the freezer! That ice cream and Trader Joe’s cookie butter are EVIL! I took a spoon of ice cream and was like yum, but no more! But I was still crawling for sweets – Time to switch to tea!

Of course, I pull out some really desserty teas – this one won! I made it as a latte. I’m at the end of my bag (just 1 serving left!) so the tea is the smushed side, so it seems I got more graham flavor with a little chocolate.

Must hold out till dinner! Then brazilian jiujitsu and after that I’ll be safe from evil ice cream in the freezer!

Peach picnic! This green rooibos blend is really sweet – lots of sweet orange cutie flavor, with some peach and a hint of strawberry. Be weary of adding additional sugar as this tea is already sweet.

Peach Picnic shines when iced – the sweetness is just perfect, great fruity and citrus taste, along with being really refreshing. The green rooibos does well here adding a little grassy note, working well with the fruityness, but not too grassy in reminding you of grassy picnics.

Anyways, I’m going to use the rest of this tea iced!

Full review at Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/peach-picnic-from-the-persimmon-tree-tea-review/

Siiiiipdown yeah!

I’m trying to get through my adagio samples, phew! 2 more to go. I’ve been finding cold steeping overnight helps reduce the stash of older teas, plus great in the morning because sometimes I’m too tired to make tea. I then use this tea to wake up to make tea! Cold steeping for morning tea is gonna be great once summer hits!

Anyways, this is pretty good iced. It has this earthy sweetness that comes out, reminding me of like apricot mixed with some floral. The bonus here is no bitterness or astringency! Hot, there was some astringency.

Sip down!

This is an old sample. I can smell even from the dry leaf that this tea is gonna be flat. Actually, I recalled this tea was kinda flat to begin with. So I cold steeped it with a lemon slice, yah! Not too bad, the lemon did save it. I’m moreso happy that this tea is finished. I’m back over 200 teas after Monday’s flood of tea order that came in. Must sip down stuff!

Whoa, I didn’t think I’d get this review up today!

This is an unusual and fun tea. The fruityness is tasty (woot for freeze dried pineapple and strawberry!) and the marshmallow adds a fun level to this tea. It is slightly sweet on its own. The honeybush base was good, though a little watery, similar to other honeybush blends. To me, this really tasted like bubblegum, ambrosia salad (minus the coconut) and pink marshmallows.

Iced, this tea got even more interesting. The fun mix of “pineberry” and marshmallow reminded me of those crazy sausage tube popsicles. I guess a close tea to this would be DavidsTea’s Swampwater.. sort of.

Full review at my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/pineberry-honeybush-from-52-teas-tea-review/

I’m having some gaiwan runs with this tea while I can tomatoes.
Seems a little early to can them, but my grocery store had some really nice romas for 4 lbs for $1 so I bought a lot of them to make 3 quart jars worth – I should of got more, but I only have 3 jars! Everything went really smoothly and easier than I remember canning to be. Though, I enjoy using my gaiwan when I’m doing work in the kitchen, maybe the tea made it more relaxing?

This tea is much better running through a gaiwan! It came out sweeter! However, 4th steeping suddenly got too astringent!

Earth day! Customary to Earth Day for me, here is some metal music about Earth Day http://youtu.be/Uh8XAsS0vvU

I’ve been dragging around all day, just really tired. The weather has been hot, my allergies have been kicking in and making today kinda yuck.

YUM! This tea is super yummy! Laoshan black chocolate genmaicha is soooo dark chocolatey with some nutty, malty and roasty. It’s comfort food and luxury in a tea cup!

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/laoshan-black-chocolate-genmaicha-from-verdant-tea-tea-review/ The green owl brought reinforcements this time

working on this sample, woot!

And it is way too hot to have hot tea today – I’m having this as an iced latte with honey! Pretty good, tastes like banana milk to me! I didn’t add much sweetener as I have dinner coming up, but this came out pretty sweet like candy. I see others say it tastes like “banana runts” however I think it tastes a little better, as I dislike banana runts! When I was a kid, I used them to throw at people, or fed them to my dad LOL!

EDIT: tea hating husband took a sip – he said it tastes “okay” ! Woooot progress!

Sip down! Yeah, on a roll! I got a number of mates samples kicking around, however this is the only one that is fruit, the rest are coffee like.

Annoyingly, its HOT again today! 78F/ 26c! WAHHH! So iced teas today! At least this tea is really good iced! I still like this one and may get more, but they don’t take paypal and I’m not keen into stepping into their store with pushy sales. Though maybe my roommate will wanna go and we’ll tag team those sales people!

The coolest tea travel mug around! Just make sure you screw the caps on tightly! I love using this tea tumbler for cold steeps and iced tea, but it also does well with hot green and white teas.

I got this travel tumbler from http://zentealife.com/

The bad? It advises not to use boiling water in the instructions. You wouldn’t want to use anything more than 200F anyways as the body also gets pretty hot. The filter is also on the small side and is a tight fit if you use whole leaf teas intended to make a full 16oz tumbler of tea.

I still love this tumbler though – no leaks and it looks really cool!

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/t-free-hourglass-travel-tea-tumbler-tea-ware-review/

Sip down! In latte mode!

Gah, I only had a teaspoon left, my dad drank it all when he was visiting me! With my teaspoon of Chai Amazonia I only could make a small latte. Pretty good flavor for a chai, though i made it a little too sweet (maybe from the stevia in this blend?). I made snickerdoodles last night (with white chocolate chips!) and they go amazing with chai! YUM!

Yesss! I’m down to 199 teas! Nooo early next week it’ll probably go past 200 again when I get some teas in the mail.

I’ve been drinking a gyokuro for most of the afternoon for my blog. I made a huge mess! Water and leaves all over the place! It reminds me how back in art school I was always the one who’d get paint, pencil shavings and graphite all over myself. Things never change!

So, I was craving a good white after all that green tea, and I got time to squeeze another cup in before I cut off caffeine for the day, so how about one of my fav teas? Iced of course – it’s 30c here in Long Beach! WTFFFFFF! I know some of you Steepsters still haven’t seen spring yet!

Super yummy! Love the watermelon flavor, so fantastic! Back to working on blog stuff!

Yeah, sample sipdown!

This time, as a latte! Hmmm.. I really think this tea would be better as a black instead of the mix of black and green. The latte came out a little weak, despite using double the leaves.