Chance Combinations

3. from TTB-A
   When I first saw this one I was immediately excited, as I enjoy a good rose black tea, & this one looks so beautiful with the pink of the rose petals against the dark chocolate color of the tea leaves. The rose scent is not particularly strong in the dry leaf or the brewed cup, & for the most part, it’s a fairly nice cup of tea. I’m not a huge fan of ceylon, I much prefer a Keemun as the base for my rose teas. Also, there is an odd after taste & sensation, kind of salty, but not really salty, if that makes sense. Kind of soapy, but not really soapy…
   Sorry for being vague…it’s hard to define.

TTB-A sample! I had no idea when I pulled this out that it is apparently a combination tea and not actually a true rose congou (black tea scented with roses and rose oil)? In my experience rose petals themselves rarely impart a rosey enough flavor to keep up with other teas in the blend.

This is rosier than I expected but still relatively light for a rose black tea. There is a weird note to this base tea that I dislike; it’s one I’ve smelled/tasted before, but it’s not one I’ve ever associated with a ceylon. It’s kind of oddly bitter and weird in a way I’ve never been able to properly describe. But its there, so this tea is instantly not really for me. I think this also cements that I prefer Chinese-base rose black teas (really, true rose congou), because anything besides a keemun or fujian base just doesn’t sit right with me.

I keep having issues with this tea LOL I made it yesterday to take to class and it smelled so soapy. But then eventually I couldn’t drink it because I guess I didn’t fully get the cinnamon out of the tumbler from when I made hot cinnamon spice. Meh.

So I gave up on it, but I really wanted to taste it, and tried again this morning. The rose is really strong in the aftertaste, it’s kind of interesting. It feels like otherwise you can’t taste it. The ceylon is alright, not the best one I’ve tasted. It’s pretty bitter for my parameters too.

I barely drank any tea yesterday because I had a paper to finish and wow hockey took at least three years off my life, what a game. I also had a growler full of ale I bought to make beer cheese soup. Beer cheese soup only needed 3 oz of beer. I bought 64 so I had to try some.

Now today is back to tea.

This tea has pretty rose-amber color in the cup. THe dry leaves are very attractive blend of black tea heavily sprinkled with beautiful pink rose petals. THis is a very attractive tea in the dry leaf. The dry leaves also smell VERY aromatic of rose.

A pleasant rosy cup of tea. No bitterness. The rose flavor is somewhat muted. However, when searching for the flavor in the sip it is clear this is a rose tea. In a lineup of teas it is clear that this one is rose.

Another from the Traveling Tea Box! I have quite a few rose blacks in my cupboard but I am always up for trying some more. This one smells lovely, very strong rose flavor! I cold brewed it because, well, I was really in the mood for an iced rose tea!

This is nice, the rose is very powerful but not in a prefumey way and it reminds me of many of the rose congus I’ve had in the past. The black base is nice but ceylons aren’t really my favorite (with the notable exception of GMT’s Sinhraja!). I kind of think of them as the “default” black tea since sooo many blends use it. I’m sure ceylons can be very nice but I never end up picking out individual notes, they just taste like strong tea! I think that speaks more of my own bias and tea history (since most bagged ones use CTC ceylon) rather than Ceylon as a region.

I had half a cup of my iced Blueberry Crumble from Della Terra left over, and on a whim I mixed it with this. It went from good to oh my god incredible! Cinnamon and rose, mmmm. The blueberry couldn’t really compete with the cinnamon crumble and rose notes, but holy cow is that a good mix. I think I need to try out something similar with Blueberry Crumble and Amandine Rose!

So I’ve had this Silk Roads tea for quite some time now. I don’t really care for whites on their own and this one is quite hay like. I’m a bit confused as to why the water looks a bit green, but it smells great. I combined these two because I felt that the Teavana blend was seriously lacking in the actual tea department.
Oh this is good! There is lots of sweetness, herbs, and more white notes this way. Together these go really well and in the future I’ll be mixing these together.

I decided to combine these two teas! I think they both helped each other out. Basically 3/4 a teaspoon of the catuaba and filled the rest of my dipper infuser with the berries. Not terrible! The flavor of the woodchip like catuaba combined really well with the tangy berries to even out the flavor. I can’t really say how it will affect my energy levels, since I already had two cups of caffeine teas today.

This is an amazing combination! This particular black tea is a perfect pairing with these gorgeous pink rose petals, that actually have a very full flavor present in the cup! I don’t think I’ve had another tea with roses that were so flavorful. The black tea is a medium flavor, a tiny bit brisk, that really showcases the roses. I didn’t think I liked ceylon as much as other black teas, so this was a surprise!

This is my first Chance Combination! I wanted to have a sip down of something… and I knew I had a tiny bit of the 52 Teas Sheri’s blend left… not even a teaspoon. Then I had been wanting another cup of that delicious 52 Teas Date Nut Muffin Rooibos I had only a couple weeks ago. Then I thought they would taste great together! They are both 52 Teas and they both have fruit after all! They are pretty darn good together. The date nut’s awesome flavor lends some to the Sheri’s that I thought didn’t have much flavor the last time I tried it. The blended teas feature: dates, apricots, walnuts, cinnamon, a bit of butter flavor and rooibos. It sounds as amazing as it tastes! I’m so glad that Momo sent me some of the Date Nut because I just read her tasting note and I definitely love it more than she does. It’s one of the teas that will be regularly haunting me, begging for me to steep some up. I have enough for a few more cups! This one will be treasured a bit more than some of my other teas…

We had tea party today even though it was Independence Day because our plans were all for the evening.

I decided to combine the wee bit of remaining Moroccan Mint from Market Spice and Serendipitea with a bit of Tin Roof Tea to make a full pot. It came out pretty well and my guest enjoyed it, especially the sweet spearmint.

I did sweeten it just a little with German rock sugar from Teavana, but only a very little. It was served hot, but I have had it MM iced and really liked it.