Pickwick

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I neeever saw a black tea with jasmine. Have you?
Should be packing now, we bought a new apartment, and we are moving tomorrow. (it’s actually 3 in the morning over here and I should also be sleeping) but oh well.

Back to the note.
I was not able to see the color of this tea, but I am guessing BROWN. I sniffed at the teabag (God, it’s a oldfasion teabag) and I can’t detect any jasmine at all. Took a sip or two and tried really hard to find the jasmine flavor but to no avail.

No jasmine.

Bummer. They get one star for trying. (Out of TEN!)
Black tea and jasmine… never saw that before…

This Tea have a strong taste of Lemon.

When I drink this Tea, I get a image in my head, of the Lemon Crescent cake (Citronhalvmåne), but with a stronger touch of Lemon.

I’m not sure, about I will drink this Tea again.
But it’s not a bad Tea.

This Pickwick bagged Tea, smells wonderful of Southern Fruits across the room!

This Tea is actually one of the best fruity Teas, I’ve tried.
No sweeteners added.

My mouth feels a little dry after this Tea, but it’s okay.
Second sip, it wasn’t dry anyway.
I think it was the combination of the Tea, and the bread I were eating.

I picked this up in Jungle Jim’s, a giant “foodie” indoor market. It’s a humble, plain tea, as billed by the bags’ description of “liquorice with Ooolong tea blend.” Ignoring the box’s instructions to brew it at an alarming 1000 C (computer translation typo?), it’s a relaxing, lightly woody brew and, at a low price, I can forgive the absence of heartiness I like in licorice.

Your standard black tea. Has a nice sharp taste to help wake you up in the morning, for the rest nothing too special. I usually like pickwick teas for their strong smells (doesn’t always transfer over to strong taste), but this one doesn’t really have that.

I bought some Pickwick tea back from the Netherlands and I love it :) it’s quite mellow, a bit oily and perfect for pretty much anytime of the day. I like it brewed for 2-3 mins and a little on the milky side. Yum.

I can barely smell the jasmine…and it tastes like pepper. blah!

I’ve had nothing but water and peppermint tisane to drink since mid-morning saturday. I am absolutely dying for a cup of proper tea now. I was already yesterday, but I was still feeling delicate enough that I didn’t dare have anything with caffeine in it. The only decaf I have was given to me in swaps and they deserve more attention that I would be able to give them while sick. Today I’m down to the monumental headache that always shows up post illness, so I’m having a tentative go at a small cup of tea.

Just in case, though, I’ve chosen a cheap and mediocre one. It wouldn’t feel as much of a waste.

Mediocre or not though, you lot have NO IDEA how good this is right now!!! This could have been the worst quality tea in the world and it would still have been lovely. If this had been the first time I logged this one I would have given it a 100. I don’t care about the semi-synthetic melon or the way that the tea is only barely present underneath. Just having a cup of tea is enough, and any tea will do.

Maybe I can even have some real food today too…

Grabbed 1 single bag from the TTB just because I have never had it before. It doesn’t have any scent to it. It brews a light brown. It tastes like warm water with a little lemon. Not too sure about this. It’s not gross, but it’s not good.

I’m drinking this now…grabbed a bag because I really don’t have access to much PICKWICK stuff believe it or not…

Yes, it’s bagged, but I am getting more and more lazy as the day progresses. This isn’t too bad, really. It smells like MELON scented chapstick I had when I was a kid. The aroma is the plus here…the taste is fairly average.

I’m bagging it this morning. Just to be provocative.

That is all.

This tea is delicious, especially for sore throats. Its like drinking honey cough drops, but its not over-the-top.

I’m bagging it this morning on purpose so that I can get my chores done instead of hanging around on Steepster all day, writing novel-length reviews.

In the season spirit I found this ancient bag of christmas tea which I figured I’d be able to drink without the urge to elaborate on to the usual extreme.

No clue what’s in it, but being a christmas tea I think we can all make some educated guesses. I find that it smells like cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and dentist. No, really. That smell when you walk into a dentist’s clinic. There’s something orange-y underneath also, I think.

It kind of tastes like dentist too. You know that stuff they use when they polish the teeth? Imagine that cinnamon-flavoured. I think, though, that if the bags hadn’t been as old as they are, the dentist-y flavour would have been different, hopefully not present at all. I’ll finish my cup because I need it, but I can’t rate it higher than this.

Pickwick used to be my grandmother’s tea of choice, so there is a sentimental element to my opinion.
Good with some milk, if you are into that sort of thing.

O HAI THAR SNOWSTORM!

The very day I decide that it’s no longer necessary to check the weather situation before leaving for work, we get a snowstorm that I, obviously, didn’t know about. Lovely. Left 1½ hours earlier from work and it took twice as long as ususally to get home. Luckily I have tomorrow off, but I’m not really sure how easy it’ll be to get to my parents’ house on thursday… We’ll see. No amount of snow can get between me and a roasted duck without having to put up a fight!

I’m pooped now, so I’ve been spending an hour debating with myself if I was too lazy to make a proper pot or not. Eventually I decided on a compromise. I’ll bag it first, and then make a proper pot afterwards when I’ve got some energy back. (I hope!)

I just added this ancient little forgotten thing to my cupboard. I must have forgotten it when I added everything else. And hey, look! I did have something with oranges!

It’s a bit oversteeped because I nearly forgot about it, but the smell doesn’t reveal any damage. The colour is a kind of murky yellow, and I can sort of smell both orange and peppermint. Sort of, because they’re both very synthetic smelling smells.

Wow. Even oversteeped and with one bag in a relatively small cup, it still tastes kind of watery and thin. It’s totally drinkable, but it’s not something that I would ever recommend.

It’s kind of strange because when I take a sip, I either get the two (still synthetic) flavouring agents, OR I get a substandard green tea flavour. But never both at once. It’s a guessing game in a cup. I got peppermint on this sip. What will I get on the next sip. Hands up those who think substandard green tea!

I’ve napped, so I don’t know if it’s still snowing or snowing again either way, it sure is adding up out there. Good thing about naps though is that you get warm! Finally.

This is just another one for the sake of variation, and I’m still lazy so I’m still bagging it. On top of that it’s pretty oversteeped because I forgot about it. Apart from it going somewhat lukewarm, it hasn’t been damaged though. The cardboard flavour is fully intact

Still snowing. Still bagging it.

I can’t get warm. Brrrrrrrr! Just trying for a bit of variety here. Seeing as I log everything in my OCDness, you can probably expect a load of quick bag-logs like this while I’m trying to make my body temperature normal again. I’m already cuddling up under my duvet in the sofa.

This one always surprises me a bit when I taste it. How melon-like it is. How dry a sort of flavour it is. How clear a picture I get in my head of melons when I taste it. Hopefully it can also warm me up.

Backlogged from this morning’s travel mug. My, my. I do believe the Drama Llama visited Steepster last night. Complete with Martyrian Exit and everything. I will outright admit that I might not have handled it too well. Wank makes nobody look good, and I’m no exception. A better approach would probably have been to show them how to write a discussion prompt without being hurtful in the process, but I was too angry at the time to realise that. Again, my apologies to the admins for not having managed to contribute in a constructive way, but it doesn’t change the fact that I stand 100% by every single word I said. Or wrote, if you prefer.

One good thing did come of it, though. This morning I enjoyed my cheap-as-dirt and supposedly-white bagged tea IMMENSELY. Spite can make the mediocre occasionally exceptionally awesome.

Cheers, all!

Backlogging, yesterday morning.
I had this in my travel mug yesterday morning and right now I’m working off some scribbled notes in my notebook. it’s the last variety from that sampler box I bought and this one is just (supposedly) white tea. I’ve taken all the bags out of the box and put them in my pretty little wooden teabag box, so they’re all a little further away from each other. It should keep the contamination of flavours down at least a little bit. Of course that’s probably too late, but there you are.

Anyway. The aroma was nutty, but the taste was rather boring. That said, at least it actually tasted white and it didn’t seem to have been contaminated by the other flavoured and more smelly varieties in the box.

It’s not by any means an outstanding white tea, but out of the four in the box, it was by far the best and it would be excellent for use in the travel cup.

Backlogging. Had this in my travel mug this morning. Wasn’t something I was really drinking quickly and I found the melon flavour very pronounced.

It was relatively okay for a morning tea, I suppose. Mostly I’m kind of indifferent to it.

The bag was okay for the morning though where I didn’t really care all that much about anything else than caffeine content.

Another one from that sampler box. Apple and lemon. Slightly odd combination if you ask me, but on the other hand I was also surprised at how well vanilla and mint went together so you never know.

The bag didn’t smell of anything at all, really, but when I poured the water on, I get a strong scent of lemon and underneath it apple. So that bit checks out. (Can you tell I’m biased?) It’s just that it’s so perfumed. It smells more like something you might dab behind your ears rather than something you would drink.

I’ve tried their green lemon tea before and found it wildly synthetic in flavour so I’m not getting my hopes up about this one. I was right. It is indeed the same perfumed lemon that they’ve used for this one. I can barely find the apple underneath.

I’ve been through three out of five varieties in this box now, and I’m reaching the conclusion that I kinda already new. This sort of thing is NOT the way to introduce yourself to the world of white teas.

I’m saving the pai mu tan I got the other day for a special occasion (and I’ve got one in mind) and this sampler box is seriously making me look forward to it.

This is another one of the bags I got today, although it’s not from the white sampler box. (There was a special offer on two boxes and I couldn’t not get two! Shh!) This is just ordinary black with fruit.

The smell of the dry bag is overwhelmingly melony. You are not in doubt for a moment what sort of additive we are talking about here. It’s the same thing while it’s steeping although it does turn a little more synthetic in nature.

The brew is dark and it immediately gets that oily layer on the surface. Any good quality loose leaf tea gets it too after it’s been standing around for a good while but in this one it’s instant. I assume it must have something to do with leaf size.

The melon is very pronounced in flavour, but it’s not sweet. It tastes rather more like the skin of a melon rather than the actual flesh. Or a melon that isn’t quite ripe yet. Not sure what the drawing on the box is supposed to be, but I’m assuming when we say ‘melon’ here we’re talking about cantaloupes.

The tea at the base is completely uninteresting, and really it’s not actually meant to be interesting at all because all you’re ment to get is the melon. And that really is all you get.

All that aside though, I’ll inflate my opinion of it a bit in rating, mostly because I do find it an interesting flavour in tea, and one I wouldn’t mind trying on for size in a better quality loose leaf.

I shall try my hardest not to prattle on pretentiously about everything else but the tea I’m drinking with this one. Promise.

When I tried the Soft Fruitea, I mentioned that it had been contaminated rather a lot by the jasmine of this one what with the bags not being air tightly individually packed. I also mentioned that I expected this one to be better, so let’s see if it is.

It smells pretty floral and mostly of jasmine, and that really seriously comes out when pouring the water on it. Like with the Soft Fruitea, it does get extremely dark for a white. Really it’s like a light black tea.

I can taste blossoms of both kinds, especially and not surprisingly especially jasmine, and very little tea. It’s not as cloying as the other one was and while it’s not by any measure great, I was definitely right that this one was better.