Camiah

Sorry if this spoils anyone, but today’s DT offering was Buttered Rum. Finally! A black tea! I was so relieved. I’d really wanted a break from the greens.

DAMN. This is delicious. The dry tea smells amazing, the brewed tea smells amazing, and it tastes amazing. I really get the butteriness, which I really wasn’t expecting to taste. The buttered rum doesn’t overpower the tea base though. This is definitely going on the to-buy-again list.

Now I want a hot buttered rum.

Organic Japanese Sencha was today’s DT’s offering. I think I’m getting burned out on green. This one was okay, but I don’t think I’m that big a fan of Sencha. The smell of spinach was strong when I poured, and the resulting cup was very vegetal and grassy with a bit of astringency. As far as straight up greens go, I like the Emperor’s Clouds and Mist from Teavana better than the Japanese Sencha. There are processing differences, right? I don’t know. I had high hopes for this one, hoping to find a slightly cheaper straight up green that I liked as much as EC&M, but alas, this one was not to be.

Backlogging from the other day….

This one was really good! The mint didn’t overpower the green tea like I thought it would. It was a very relaxing cuppa for a quiet night at work.

Ack! I’m the first person to write a tasting note for this tea! Oh the humanity! Words cannot describe how I have no words to describe tea without prompting!

I quite enjoyed this tea. It seems to be a good afternoon tea. It isn’t full and dark-tasting like an assam. It tasted clean, if that makes sense. Pure tea. It wasn’t astringent, and had a smooth mouth-feel, but not heavy. I think I’ll enjoy another cup of it tomorrow afternoon, and pay closer attention (I was, truth be told, rather distracted today with a holiday party and work and such). It still tasted good even after it had completely cooled. I bet it would taste lovely iced.

I’m beginning to think that while I enjoy flavored teas, my heart really belongs to straight tea, maybe with some jasmine thrown in for good measure. I think I get more out of them simply because I’m not struggling so much to taste the flavor that I think I should taste. Food (or drink) for thought, I suppose.

Steeped for three minutes at boiling, as per instructions.

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Oh Elf Help, I wanted to like you. Your taste improved dramatically when I ate some raspberries. But before that? You didn’t taste like much at all. You smell lovely, very fruity, and wonderful. If you tasted as wonderful as you smell, I’d be head over heels. Oh well. You were also, truth be told, competing for my attention with some very compelling knitting. And it is hard for any tea to compete with that, no matter how much I like a tea. You really did have no chance. Sorry, but I think we should go our separate ways. No hard feelings, okay?

Say what you want about Teavana’s blended teas, with all the stuff in them, their straight teas are damn fine. I love this tea. After spending the afternoon fighting with my computer trying to make iTunes work correctly and failing to get it to even start, I was frazzled and in need of some comfort. Also, I’d eaten a lot of truffles, and wanted something unoffensive or strongly flavored (maybe I should have waited six hours to drink The Skinny from this morning!).

I freaking love this tea. I’ve said it many other times before, and I’ll continue to shout it from the virtual rooftops. This is wonderful, buttery, delicious, not too vegetal green tea. It could well be the only green tea I drink and I’d be happy. Given how much of this tea I have, it could well end up outlasting all my other greens. I find the plain, simple smoothness of this tea comforting in a way that few other teas so far match. It is my only tea that is really silky-feeling, and I quite like that.

Day 7 of the DT 24 days of Christmas revealed The Skinny. I’ve read reviews of it before, and spent some time reading reviews just now. I don’t tend to buy into detox/weight loss claims of anything and so I always am vaguely annoyed when I come across them. This does have ginger in it, so I do get that it could have nice stomach settling properties. But that is all I think I can concede. So anyway, off my high horse and into the tea.

I like this tea. It has a lovely warm flavor, what with the citrus and the ginger (citrus always says warm to me. Maybe because I live in Florida, so citrus is a warm weather food here.). The citrus isn’t so overwhelming, which makes me reconsider my citrus-tea antipathy after the Countess of Seville—maybe it was too much bergamot. Anyway, back to The Skinny. It has the earthy taste that screams Pu-erh, but it isn’t overwhelming. More of a back note. I’m not sure how much I taste the oolong, since I’m not overly familiar with straight up oolongs. The ginger and ginseng definitely are the dominant flavor notes for me, followed by the citrus.

Despite the health claims it makes, and despite the name (really, The Skinny?) I think this one will go in my shopping cart. It would be a good after-lunch tea what with the ginger and caffeine. I still prefer Le Digestif for dinner, mainly because it is herbal, and I have enough problems sleeping without caffeine at night.

I was rather off-put by the idea of another DT green tea from my Days of Tea this morning, so I shelved it for this afternoon. I’m glad I did, I wasn’t in a green mood this morning and am now. This one is much tastier than the Countess of Seville. I could do without the juniper berries, as anything that reminds me of gin is a nonstarter, but other than that, its a pretty good tea! It is, however, one I don’t see myself reaching for too often. I think I like Le Digestif better (shocking, I know). I’m glad I got to try it though. It is a nicely balanced blend of green tea and herbal; one flavor doesn’t overwhelm the other.

Ack. Oh dear. I thought I was going to like this one. I like earl grey, but the citrus was overwhelming. I really wasn’t interested in finishing the pot. I’m actually not sure if it was too citrus-y or too much bergamot. Either way, it was too much. I think I like my greens more subtle than this. Maybe a shorter steep would have helped this one. I did it for three minutes, like DT suggests for their greens. Maybe 2 minutes or 2 and a half would have been better. Oh well, I’ll never find out. I don’t foresee myself ordering this one again.

I drank this one this morning instead of my DT offering because I really wanted a black tea. A bit of astringency this time, with vague hints of cocoa as I poured the cup. It smelled lovely and tasted lovely to boot. I’m quite happy with this tea. I do now want to try more Assams.

Backlogging from yesterday.

I had high hopes for this one, but low expectations. I love chocolate, but my first experience with mate was a plain Celestial Seasonings that left me with that “never again” feeling. So it was with a bit of trepidation that I approached this one.

The tea smells wonderful. If it tasted half as good as it smelled, I’d be a happy camper. The verdict? I’m a satisfied camper. It wasn’t bad, but nothing special, I thought. It did sort of redeem mate (like, I might be willing to try more teas with mate) for me, but apart from the smell, it was just sort of meh.

Day #3 of the Advent Calendar is Creme de Menthe Pu-erh tea. This is my first pu-erh, and I’m still trying to decide if I like it or not (never a good sign). It isn’t bitter at all, and the mint is really strong, in fact, it seems to drown everything out. The pu-erh smell is present though, and it is kind of muddy. I took a sip of this and thought, “ah, this is what people mean when they say a tea tastes earthy.” It isn’t bad, that earthy minty combination works well. It leaves a very cool aftertaste from all the mint. I don’t really get the other flavors that people talk about—cinnamon, vanilla, licorice (probably best I don’t get the licorice). This isn’t a bad tea, I don’t think, but it isn’t necessarily one I’d order again. It reminded me of the Read My Lips, which I like better.

Backlogging from last night….

Green and fruity indeed! It is delicious. Perhaps getting this DT 24 Days of Tea was a bad idea (well, good for me, bad for my wallet). This is another delicious tea. The dry leaf smell reminded me of Juicy Fruit gum from my childhood. Ah, the power of smell. Anyway, this was my first green rooibos, and I think this is a category I might have to explore more. I only made one cup of this, so I have plenty of the sample left. I can’t wait to have more!

So I busted open my DT 24 Days of Tea today, and this is the first one. It. Smells. Delicious. If it tastes even half as good as it smells, this is going on my shopping list. Chocolate mint is such a lovely smell.

It is good. Not as strong on the chocolate, much heavier on the mint. But the mint doesn’t drown out the tea taste. So it’s all good. Its a pretty smooth cup, a bit of astringency, but nothing too significant. The mint smell just wafts off of the cup. If you don’t like minty teas, this is not one for you. It really is the dominant flavor note. I think I’m in love!

I got a cup of this at Teavana today while picking up a Christmas gift for a work friend. Yikes, a brewed cup was expensive—$5! But I wanted to try it, and it’s only money. I’m glad I did try it. It is delicious. Earthy, and a tad smoky, I want more. Badly. I might have to give in and buy a couple of ounces for myself. It never ceases to amaze me the differences in tea. How different varieties can be so different. I must get myself more of this tea!

I had a cup of this last night, post dinner. I’ll admit, the stevia in it was a bit of a concern when I bought it, but I decided to try it anyway. And even though it is sweet, I did enjoy the cup. The anise was really prominent as well. Normally that licorice flavor is not my favorite (I have other digestif-type teas that I drink in spite of the licorice flavor). But the anise isn’t so bad as licorice is, so I enjoyed it more. It is probably one I’ll buy again. I might try a few others to compare, but I like it better than the similar Yogi tea that I’d been drinking for digestion.

This is going to be my go to breakfast tea for a while, I can already tell. It is yummy. I finally get what people mean when they talk about malty. Its mild and smooth, not astringent at all.

I got my David’s Tea order and I was really excited—one of the things I got was the Golden Pu-erh. I was really excited to try it since I’d never had a pu-erh before, so it was going to be a totally new tea experience. I opened up the bag of tea and the smell of citrus hit me immediately. “Yummy. This must be why they call it ‘Golden’ Pu-erh.” The cup was delicious, though not what I was expecting. Not earthy. More green. Citrusy, not musty, like the packaging mentioned. It was a head-scratcher of a tea drinking experience.

So I started to look at the little catalog that came with the DT order. I flipped back to the Pu-erhs to see what else they had. I liked this one, so I bet I’d like other ones as well. I glanced at the Golden Pu-erh entry. Not a single citrus peel in sight. And the leaves looked curled, like whole leaves. Not like the cut leaves in the cup I brewed.

Further investigation (looking at the page on green teas) tells me that apparently what I got was the Countess of Seville instead. It looks pretty similar to the picture, and now that I’m paying attention on my second steep, the flavor does remind me of an Earl Grey.

Luckily, I like this tea. I’d be really annoyed if it were some awful tea that I hated. I can’t wait to try it properly steeped!

ETA: Doh! Further investigation, plus the discovery of a berry of some sort reveals that this is not Countess of Seville, rather, I believe it is Some Velvet Morning.

This is the last of the Hot Buttered Banana Bread. I’m trying to bust stash to make room for the new things I have coming (yay David’s Tea)! I’m getting banana and walnut on this pot, with no bitterness. There is a tiny bit of astringency at the end of the sip, but not a lot. I had to pay attention on a drink to notice it. Still don’t appreciate the base tea, but that’s okay. I’ve accepted that 52teas black teas really aren’t for me.

I definitely like white. I’m brewing my second cup of this as I write this. I was much more in the mood for the delicacy of a white tea this afternoon, and I enjoyed it much more than yesterday. It hit today’s spot perfectly.

When it comes to describing the taste, I’m rather at a loss. I just don’t have the taste/descriptor sense to describe it without prior prompting. The scent is vaguely cherryish, I can smell it when inhaling deeply. The tea itself doesn’t taste of cherries. It isn’t quite vegetal. Really focusing, there seems to be a bit of sweetness. Its good, and smooth. I like it, I just can’t descibe what I’m tasting. Very frustrating.

ETA: Toasted! Weighty! Yes—I looked up another bai mu dan (Le Palais des Thes, I think) and it mentioned these as part of the profile. I can see that. I think I might get woody, which the review also mentioned, but toasty and a weighty mouth-feel I definitely feel like were present. I think woody might have been that not-really vegetal but somehow vegetal sense I noticed that I couldn’t really describe.

So I’m getting zero cherry on this mug of tea, despite a four minute steep. Instead I’m tasting all white. It doesn’t taste like much at all. Not like watery tea, not green, like I somehow thought it would. It is very delicate. Unassuming. I’m not sure I like it. I’ll definitely have to try more straight up whites. Based on this cup, I’m sort of underwhelmed. I think it is more of a mood thing than a white tea thing. I think I wanted a more powerful flavor punch, be it cherry flavored or tea flavored, so a white tea really wasn’t going to satisfy my yen.

These two cups were the last of the Strawberry Zabaglione. Now that I figured out the parameters to get a good cup, I’m kind of sad to see it go. But not enough to buy more of it. So there you go. Anyway, the smell was delicious, as always, and I got a pretty subtle (but still present) taste of strawberry.

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