Samovar

The hours that I have been putting into school have meant that the original quantity of time that I put into previous activities has dwindled. Important things, like playing video games and watching TV and making fun of strangers in public situations [because, apparently, I’m an adolescent male] have been flung to the wayside like monkeys fling poo.

Okay, so I don’t really make fun of strangers.

OKAY, so I only do it on alternate Thursdays.

Among the other things that I don’t have time for anymore is normal social interaction on a regular basis. I’ve discovered, perhaps unsettlingly, that I have begun to compensate for this by talking to myself. [This might not be something that I should readily admit publicly, but I feel like if you all aren’t already judging me somewhat then you haven’t been paying attention and this might not faze you.]

So, I’m sitting here, reading my Calculus book like a good girl and I’m comprehending what’s going on. [This is a big deal.] Everything’s great, I’m jamming out to the dulcet tones of Yo-Yo Ma [because I can’t listen to music with words when I have to read something that requires real concentration], and then I turn the page and WHAT IN THE NAME OF SATAN’S UNDERWEAR IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE? That isn’t math, that’s forgotten language of the people of Atlantis. The book is telling me that, “Now, we’re going to blah blah blah,” and I whine at it.

Out loud.

I whine to my book out loud. The words, “But I don’t WANNA,” may have actually been uttered, which is disturbing in and of itself because it was said in seriousness. This was compounded, however, by the fact that I said it to no one except the inanimate object sitting in front of me [that I have affectionately nicknamed Stalin Baby]. Half a second later I’m like, “Whoa,” and push my chair back.

There are only two things that I can do at this point. One is to go take a nap, but as I can’t be certain I’d actually wake up in time to get what I need to get done today I can’t do that. The other is to make me some Jasmine Pearl and subject you all to a long story about how my sanity is slipping away while I try to replace all of the oxygen in my body with the scent of this tea.

I guess this wasn’t so much about the tea as it was about me unloading on you all, but the tea is really good. Easily the best Jasmine I’ve had, ever. If I reach for it when I’m in this kind of state, that should be saying something.

All right. Woo-sah. I’m off to tackle Stalin Baby. Wish me luck.

Damn it, Samovar. You’re becoming an expensive habit. We’re not even going to talk about how much I just spent to continue feeding my addiction to your lovely, soothing, aromatic, exquisitely selected teas.

Their Jasmine Pearl was not an exception. I’ve tried other jasmine [pearl, even] teas, and while they certainly weren’t bad, they didn’t come close to touching this one. It has this lingering sweetness to it that the others didn’t, and the smell! My god people, the smell! I could smell this all day. I would just walk around with my nose stuffed in a cup of it if it wasn’t creepy and potentially unsafe. And not to sound like a zen-follower-wannabe, but I find it really relaxing to watch the pearls unfold in my glass pitcher.

Sorry, that might be the caffeine kicking in. In the meantime, I’m going in for another cup.

I love to smell this tea.

If this tea were household products, I would be in an elementary school PSA about huffing aerosol cans. [How 1990’s am I?]

Drinking it is certainly nice, too, but I need to play around with the steep times a bit because I think I tend to brew it weak.

Hey, Trish McEvoy! Want to make me a lychee candle? Kthx.

I’ll admit that when I got this tea I was a little apprehensive at the prospect of it being one of those your-palate-needs-to-be-more-refined-before-you-can-taste-what-we-tell-you-this-tastes-like deals.

That was silly, because the lychee scent hits you from the can before you even brew it, and it continues to give off the aroma as you drink it. As I love lychee, I also love this tea. You can taste it, but subtly. It hits you right at the back of the tongue. I have yet to try it chilled, but seeing as how the hot, humid summer is about to smack us on the east coast, I don’t think it will take long. It also gives me a nice little caffeine buzz.

I went for a couple of weeks without this holding court on my tea shelf and those two weeks have taught me that I’m not going to be able to let that happen again. I’ve been waking up with black tea in the hiatus, and while I enjoy a good black tea, it just doesn’t cut the mustard for me in the morning. [Where the hell did that saying come from, anyway? I could probably look it up…]

To be honest, it’s probably not entirely fair. Ryokucha is going to hold a special place in my heart for numerous reasons. A big one is because I credit it for being one of the first teas that really woke up my palate. A second one is the fact that it just spikes my energy in such a good way.

When this is combined with the fact that I can’t get enough of its vegetal sweetness with the toasted grainy taste of breakfast cereal and just a splash of creaminess rounding everything together into a little bubble of wake up and smile!

Happy sigh.

Ryokucha for me is the feeling of waking up in bed feeling refreshed after a good night’s sleep. It’s stretching out under the coolness of the sheets and the heavy fluffiness of the comforter and being ready to tackle the day.

And now, bonus. I hope that someday we’ll be able to review teaware and such things so that I don’t have to keep hiding these little things in my reviews and hoping that you Steepsterites stumble upon it, but in a recent order I picked up Samovar’s new travel tumbler. http://bit.ly/9SRrJt

I love it. I love it more than I was expecting to. It’s double-walled, so that the outside doesn’t burn your hand, the lid screws down to prevent leakage and keep things hot. And let me tell you guys – I drank some Ryokucha this morning as I was getting ready for class and set aside a second steep in this tumbler so I could take some to class. And then I realized that I left it on my desk when I got to the building. [It was one of those mornings.] Well, I got home and forgot that I had it at my desk, fell asleep because I was exhausted, woke up, had some other tea, did some work, and then had to get ready for physics. As I was getting ready to leave, I then remembered the tumbler. After half a second of debating whether I should bring it, I nipped downstairs and grabbed it, figuring I just wouldn’t drink anything caffeinated when I got home.

It was still hot. Not room temperature warm, definitely not cooled, but that nice drinkable temperature that’s levitating between hot and lukewarm. And did I mention that this was eight hours later? Eight hours later.

Tonight, I’m going to do an experiment. I’m going to make some Ryokucha before I go to bed and leave it in the tumbler and have it on my nightstand for the morning and see how it goes, because if this means that non-functional-me can have hot tea in the morning without having to do crap… FEAR ME, MORNINGTIME.

[All right, I looked up “cut the mustard,” and it appears that no one knows for sure. First literary reference was back in 1902. The more popular theories are that it either alludes to an old cowboy saying or the fact that mustard seed is very difficult to cut.]

My mom has made the same tea nearly every day for as long as I can remember – Good Earth’s Original Decaffeinated tea. I rarely see her deviate from it, and I’ve taken the I’m-not-gonna-force-you-guys-to-drink-something-else approach when it comes to my parents and their tea drinking.

Over the holidays, though, my brother came back and I made him a fair amount of tea and my mom got curious. It made me laugh, because it was like…when you offer a kid something and they’re not familiar with it so they say, “No thanks,” but then when they see everyone enjoying it they kind of sidle up and stand there, watching. You ask them again of they want something and they look sideways at you and say, “Yeah…maybe. I guess.” So when my mom told me, “You know…the next time you’re making tea could you make me a cup?” I tried to remain calm and just said, “Yeah, sure.”

After much deliberation, I decided on Ryokucha. I wanted to choose something that was different and full of flavor, and so I decided that this would do nicely, but I gave it to her with a caveat of, “This is going to be a little different, so…take your time with it.”

And “Hey Mikey, he likes it!” – when she was done, she came over and said, “It’s good! Kind of…earthy?” So my mom likes Ryokucha! I’d call that a hell of an endorsement. My opinion of it has not changed. Also, I hadn’t really ever noticed it until Auggy mentioned it in her reviews, but it IS really creamy, and I’ve really been enjoying that aspect of it lately. Actually, you know what? I think I’m going to give it a little ratings bump. I’ve had this…probably 5 out of 7 days for the past couple of months, so it’s earned it. She works hard for the money.

WHAT THE WHAT?

Clearly, I chose to revisit Steepster at both the wrong and the right time.

On the one hand, I’m so absolutely STOKED about the new update. On the other hand, between the discussion board and the live feed and the tea cupboard and the fact that I really need to rescale all of my ratings, I. Can’t. Seem. To. Log. Off.

To the review, Ryokucha is back in my life and I feel complete again.

I got my Samovar package in the mail the other day and I nearly wept for joy. I have come to rely quite heavily on this stuff in the morning. It’s got a sense of SUSTENANCE, you know? Combine it with oatmeal and I can chug along for hours. Especially because the amount of caffeine in this is balanced absolutely perfectly for those mornings when I know I need to get some serious crap churned out.

The taste is roasty and full. Occasionally there are hints of brine in the taste, which are balanced by moments of sweetness in the aftertaste. The matcha is what I think is mainly responsible for the brilliant green this steeps into, and aside from being responsible for the nice caffeine boost it gives it adds a nice sense of texture. I think it adds to the substantialness the tea has. [You get most of the matcha at the end of the drink, of course.] I’ve also somewhat recently become more accommodated to sencha and I must say that I think the sencha they use in this is damn good.

And the smell? I actually started off almost being turned off by the smell. Which eased into being apathetic to it. And now, I love it. Mornings when I don’t get a little Ryokucha feel empty, which probably means I’m addicted. You heard it here first.

I just want to add two things to this.

1. Samovar’s running some sales on their website right now for selected black and white teas. Also, the code cozytea will get you 20% off through December 1st.

2. Jillian and Angrboda [and any other non-US Steepsterites], I sent Samovar an email that included an inquiry about their international shipping prices and let them know that the shipping fees are deterring you folks from trying them. I have no clue if anything will come of it, but one can hope!

I spent yesterday in a hazy, yawn-y, groggy, unproductive fog. It was one of those days when you know you’ve got shit to do but you feel like you’re moving through molasses, and then you realize you’re in the middle of things you shouldn’t be doing…two hours later. One of those days when it feels like it should be rainy and depressing outside, but isn’t, so it frustrates you further.

I woke up this morning, was thinking of starting off the day with a white tea, and then thought, “NO! NOT AGAIN!” and decided today needed something a bit more hardcore. Ryokucha, I love you. And you look gorgeous in my new mug, if I do say so myself.

It is occurring to me how funny word “drank” looks. Maybe it’s because I find it difficult to disassociate it with any number of rap/hip-hop/R&B songs about getting your drank on. But I digress.

As I sit here, sipping on my Ryokucha, a couple of thoughts [other than Akon warbling something about dranking in a distant corner of my brain] are crossing my mind.

One, is that this tea is completely different from anything else that I drink. I love that about it, but given that there are already a number of mixed reviews on here, I think it’s safe to say that it’s not for everyone.

Two, is that I had some coffee the other day I am beginning to realize just how imbalanced [which is really just me trying to undermine the word crazy] it makes me. I talk like I’m on speed, and I can’t focus on what I’m doing. Granted, it makes for some…interesting…blog entries from time to time. I also imagine that I’m either incredibly entertaining or hugely obnoxious to those around me, but for general everyday waking up, tea is so much less taxing.

The matcha in this Ryokucha always gives me a nice little boost, which helps especially when it’s grey and rainy out, like it is now, and I need to get some work done, also like I do now. [The deterrence of steepster in terms of getting work done, I won’t comment on.]

It IS slightly vegetal, and the rice makes it smell a little bit like breakfast cereal, but it does have a bit of a sweet aftertaste. This is a tea that I like more the more I drink it. What I can recommend to you, is that you concentrate more on what it does to you mentally for the first few cups while you let yourself get used to it, and then take it from there.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get my drank on and try to crank out some of this work that’s sitting in front of me.

Woke up with a little bit of this earlier today. Feeling downright peppy.

This was one of the first exploratory [in that it went outside of what I’d been drinking thus far] teas that I tried. I started drinking it in the morning to get me moving because the matcha really does add a nice kick [without the heavy-handedness of coffee]. Definitely a different tea experience. Matches up exactly with the flavor profile description. I fear I might be addicted. I blame Kevin Rose.

Still getting used to the veggie taste of “real” green tea. This one has the interesting puffed rice addition.

I realized that I haven’t logged this in a while, though I drink it pretty often, so here we are.

This has remained one of my favorite teas to go to sleep with for months. I find the combination of spices to be soothing and calming, so it does a pretty good job of helping my brain wind down when it’s time to go to bed. [And trust me, that’s really not an easy job.]

The rooibos flavor is definitely prevalent, so all you rooibos haters out might not be fans of this. The one thing that I can say for it is that this is one of the few rooibos teas I’ve had where the accompanying flavors actually work with the rooibos instead of just…being there [or in some cases working against it], so I don’t know. I don’t want to speak for other people’s tastes.

I’m nearly out of it, so it’s a good thing I stuck it in this last order at the last second. It’s also warming my insides a bit, which is a good thing because it is mother effing cold here right now. I mean, easily below freezing and I don’t even want to know what it’s like with the wind chill factored in. Rooibos is supposed to be good for that warming quality, and it’s working for me, so I’m just going to finish this cup off and then, you know, freeze to death. Farewell cruel world.

I’m being dramatique [and a wee bit pathetique], but it really is helping. All right. Night, Steepsterites.

Inhale…

Good, good.

Exhale…

Inhale…

Meditate on the tea.

The tea is light.

The tea is love.

The tea is love, and you are going to buy more.

The tea is light, and you are getting your purse.

The tea is light, and the tea is love.

…

Ohmmmmm.

Stressed out and looking to relax. Enter: Ocean of Wisdom. I haven’t had this for a while. I forgot how awesome it is. Mmmmm.

I drank this yesterday after some friends and I stuffed ourselves to the brim with food and topped it off with some crazy good chocolate cake. You wouldn’t think that I had room for tea after all that decadence, but you’d be wrong.

I’m drinking it again now, in an effort to wind down from the day and study for my final tomorrow. It’s doing the trick quite nicely. Going for cup number two as I type.

I just got more of this in today. It could not have come at a better time.

I’ve developed a habit of drinking this before I go to bed. Slightly bitter at first, but with a sweet aftertaste. Also one of my favorite teas to drink while studying or reading.

This tea has a very distinct smell and color. It’s a great pick-me-up for the morning but the smell isn’t the greatest. But the overall taste of it is good, it may take me a few more cups to get used to it because it’s semi-grassy with a “different” after-taste, but a good tea.