Various Artists

Not quite a tea, but: I got my pu’erh knife in the mail last week! Bought it from eBay a few weeks ago, and it’s gorgeous.

Full review and photos at http://booksandtea.ca/2015/07/teaware-review-puerh-knife-from-ebay/

So, um, this isn’t a tea note so much as an announcement:

I’ve started up a new tea review blog! And I’m doing book reviews too!

Check it out at http://www.booksandtea.ca

#Excited

Backlog from this morning.

Another sample from the GCTTB3

I tried the Panda Pearls from Metropolitan Tea Company, but I don’t feel like adding yet another tea to the database, especially since I’m writing from a moving train.

When will I learn when it comes to white teas? They’re just not my bag, and the unflavoured ones in particular just don’t do it for me. This was pretty much more of the same. I tried doing some steeps in a gaiwan this morning, but the liquor was so pale and light-tasting that I didn’t get much out of it beyond a vaguely musty, citrusy flavour. It smelled nice, at least…

GCTTB3

There are just so many teas to try in the travelling box that I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. However, I decided to make an iced tea mix recommended by jewelledthumb when she added her teas to the box. So I mixed the following 3 teas together in my iced tea pitcher:

- Wild Strawberry by Adagio
- Citron Green by Adagio
- Lemongrass by Adagio

I let them steep and cool down with 1L of hot water, and am adding ice as necessary when I pour it out.

The liquid is a beautiful shade of pink, and I have to admit that the dried Wild Strawberry mix smelled so scrumptious that I had to seriously restrain myself from taking it all and thus preventing the rest of the people in the round try some. But I prevailed against my id!

This tea is a tad bitter (I probably steeped too long), but I can definitely taste the lemon and the green tea, and the general fruitiness imparted by the strawberry. My husband said he liked it, so that’s definitely a win in my book.

Final tea of the day.

I got a lot of work done today, including finishing up one or two projects that I had been procrastinating on for a while. I really focused today, which was good. At the end of the day though, my brain was fried. I’ve been feeling listless for the last hour or so, kind of restless.

So what the hell, I figured now would be a perfect time to face one of my personal tea demons in the name of benefiting from its reputed therapeutic effects: chamomile.

Jude sent me some really good whole flower chamomile about a month and a half back in a swap – it smells sweet, but not nearly as metallic and cloying as chamomile from a teabag. I ended up mixing 1.5 tsp of chamomile flowers with 1.5 tsp of lemon myrtle to see if I could still get the relaxing benefits of chamomile without the taste. (By the way, it appears that lemon myrtle might be my go-to tea to mix with others. Lemon myrtle and spearmint? Yup)

It’s not bad, as it turns out! I added a glob of honey, which always makes things better. It’s still lemony with a very thick mouthfeel, but I don’t mind.

After all of the talking over the weekend, my throat has not been feeling well. Funny enough it felt WORSE when I woke up this morning compared to last night.

But dear lord, if there is one thing tea is meant for, it is soothing sore throats. I’m on my THIRD full teapot of the day, people.

I sipped down my Moroccan Mint from Tealux (all the better to make room for my incoming order of Crazy Mint from RiverTea), and now I’m doing a custom blend of lemon myrtle and spearmint, both from David’s Tea.

About 3 tsp of lemon myrtle, 1.25 tsp of spearmint, steeped with 24 oz of boiling water for 1 minute, with a dollop of honey added to sweeten it and make it super throat-coaty. I think it’s doing the trick.

The thing is, I’m still tasting a lot of lemon, and almost no mint. My guess is that the mint is softening the lemon somehow and making it more palatable in general, since this brew lacks the Pledge Lemon Cleaner flavour I’ve noticed in the past.

Dear throat: please get better. I’m sorry I abused you this past weekend, but what were you thinking, getting irritated right before a major networking event?

Backlog from last night:

Last night was so fun! I saw Neko Case in concert (amazing, as expected) and before that, I took a friend out to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant on Yonge just south of Dundas. (The food was awesome, as always).

On the menu, I noticed they had mint tea. I figured it would just be some moroccan mint blend, so I asked for a cup.

What they gave me was a mug full of black Tetley tea, bag still in. But. BUT! The mug full of black Tetley tea had fresh mint leaves floating in it.

The tea itself was kind of blah, as you’d expect from bagged. But the fresh mint leaves….wow. That added a whole new dimension of flavour to things. I seriously have to try making this on my own now.

Not really a review of a tea, but I hope that others here don’t mind:

I read “Tea” by the Camellia Sinensis Tea House a few weeks ago, and published a review of it on my blog today. I figured that others here might be interested in reading it:

http://christinavasilevski.com/2014/04/book-review-tea-history-terroirs-varieties/

Thanks!

I’ve been sick since Thursday. A gross, stuffy, foggy head cold. The “blow your nose 3 times per hour” sort of cold.

My tastes just started coming back on Sunday evening. And now they’re mostly back.

But since I couldn’t taste or smell anything for 4 days, I wasn’t wasting good tea. I have Davidstea’s Cold 911 or whatever it’s called, which i LOATHE, but always drink when I’m sick. So I had a few mugs of that.

Also, I thought that since I still craved hot, comforting tea even though I couldn’t taste it, I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to drink up the ones I don’t love but had lots of.

So I alternated between 3 teas, mostly. (Besides the Cold 911 one)

- The Tea Spot’s Bolder Breakfast which has a chocolate flavour I’m not super keen on

- A&D Damn Fine Tea Mount Grey, which I find to be an overly strong (overwhelmingly so) EG

- H&S Queen Catherine which everyone else seems to love but I find a bit too smokey. It’s actually really good when you can hardly taste it. HAH.

So, I am almost done the QC and the BB, I brought the remnants to work to polish off. I think I will go make some now.

The Mount Grey, however… I suspect that one going to be around to haunt me forever

Happy New Year everyone!

I decided to smooth a bunch of random thoughts and notes in one review, because I’ve been drinking a lot of tea lately and haven’t reviewed much at all. So this is overdue,

I think this will actually be a big Butiki review! seeing as how that’s mostly what I’ve been drinking these days.

Since Stacy announced the impending end date of Butiki Teas, I’ve found myself ordering more tea from her than ever before.

I blame that on three factors:

1) Butiki teas are GREAT
2) A bunch of new blends were concocted that tempted me
3) knowing Butiki has an unfortunate scheduled demise makes me want it even more…. Since I always want what I can’t have.

Soooooo, this is just a brief review off the top of my head of some of the teas I’ve been enjoying lately:

Crimson Horizon – still very much enjoying this in the morning, I love how dark and bold it is, and the awesome resteep value. I get two totally equal delicious cups per serving, at least. Malty and raisiny and potent.

Taiwanese Wild Mountain Black – easily in my top five of all time teas. I will hoard this forever. I have decided my next mission is to try to find something from another company that comes even slightly close to being this delicious.

Irish Cream Butter Crisps – at first taste I was underwhelmed by this, because I found it very weak. And the name made it sound SO delicious. I think if it had been a black tea base instead it would be my very favourite. However I’ve subsequently had it two more times at least and have learned to appreciate it as as soft, lightly flavoured cup and have since purchased another bit!

Decaf Chocolate Raspberry Waffle – I bought a larger quantity of this than I normally would before tasting it, because of the decaf aspect. I wanted another option for my nighttime tea drinking. It’s not one of my absolutely faves but it’s not disappointed me, I enjoy how the raspberry and waffle notes take the edge of the chocolate so it’s not quite as rich or sweet as it might seem otherwise. A night late night treat!

Cinnamon Vanilla Squash – another soft tea that I had maybe hoped would have a bit more of a flavour burst, but ultimately also another soft tea that I have come to enjoy every now and again!

Plum Brandy Cheesecake – bought on a total whim. Tried it for the first time the other night and was pleasantly surprised at the genuine fruitiness! Very plummy and tasty. Will have to retry to see if I can separate the cheesecake flavour.

More later :)

I don’t know if I’m using this random steepings entry correctly, but i had a random sample of tea from a tea shop that has since closed, and I have no idea what it was.

Sipdown!

She wrote this on the bag: “tie kwan yin – lilac”
Kinda tasted just the verdant tieguanyin I just had, but maybe this was a wee bit more floral. I think I could taste some lilac in there…tasted the way lilacs smell, anyway.

Which is about all I need to do with lilacs… Smell them :)

It was good, just a bit light for my tastes, I prefer a creamier milky oolong to a flowery one. Or a roastier one!
It’s gone, now!

Today my spring allergies have kicked in to high gear, even the antihistamine I took yesterday isn’t doing anything. So I dug out my giant bag of loose dried nettle leaf from the local health food store (it’s been in my desk drawer for about a year haha) and I made a cup of that to see if it helps. So far my nose seems a bit clearer, although still itchy and feeling like it will sneeze. Ugh. At least warm liquids will help keep the sinuses flowing. I hope it helps a bit, going to be a long few months here with the early spring we are getting.

It has been a long time since I have written a tasting note, but that is mostly because I was on vacation in Scotland! What a beautiful place it is, the rugged highlands, epic oceans, sandy beaches, cliffs, hills, munroes..everything was great! And the weather was gorgeous to boot! I can’t wait to go back someday, it was a good 10 days there but I will definitely return to see the eastern parts (Aberdeen, Edinburgh, we saved the whole eastern coast with its castles for another trip) and I would love to go back to the Isle of Skye and the Outer Hebrides again, they were stunning! Great time, wish I was still there!

Anyways, so while on holiday I did drink a fair amount of tea, every morning in fact, although it was mostly basic bagged black teas by Twinings or Tetley, but I took those with milk and sugar so they were quite good with the delicious Scottish breakfasts. A few places had peppermint, and I had that one or two mornings to help with digesting the heavy food near the end of the trip. I also had loose tea once, in Glasgow, at a little cafe near the University I got an EG to go and it looked like it was loose tossed in a tea bag, it was also pretty good. So overall a lot of tea drinking, also, every B&B and hotel we stayed at provided a kettle, tea, sugar and milk in the room! I wish they did that here in Canada!!

Overall, a tasty week of teas and a great holiday. Now I am back to my stash, and will hopefully log some notes as the weather here is turning cooler so I should be drinking more chai, puerh and spicy pumpkin and apple things haha.

So this is kind of a tea note.. I am currently drinking a Japanese Green Tea IPA beer by the breweries Baird/Stone/Ishii! And let me tell you..you can actually taste the tea in it!

The tea used apparently is whole leaf sencha, and upon pouring the aroma is definitely green tea, with the hops adding a bitter, herbaceous note. The flavor is a perfect blending of green tea with bitter, citrusy hops. I am pleased the green tea is so present!

I thought I’d log this for any other tea/Beer lovers to check out. It is unique and delicious, if that’s your thing. Nevertheless, an exciting tea beverage I wanted to share :)

I don’t feel like writing separate reviews for the three teas I’ve had already today, so I’ll just summarize here: I’m basically drinking all the spring teas I have lol. A temp near 10 degrees melting away all of yesterday’s snow demands spring teas. Today I’ve had:

Jasmine bouquet – Verdant – an excellent tea, possibly my favorite white tea blend yet
Jingshan Earl Green – Verdant – refreshing and bright to match the sunshine
Sundried jingshan green – keeping with the jingshan theme, I’m having a gaiwan session with this fresh green tea right now

Its sunny and I feel motivated. I had a wonderful visit with a great friend yesterday and this morning, I don’t see her nearly enough since she moved cities, and it was wonderful to catch up. Then I vacuumed up the living room and most of the main floor and am now waiting for mom to come by before we head out to my parents place for easter. I should get packing soon lol. Anyways, wonderful tea on this lovely long weekend!

Rant:Ugh, I can not wait for this freaken week and semester to end. I spent the night in the art build finishing my final 2d art project. Started around 10 pm and finally went to sleep around 4:40 on a bench in the building; my class starts at 8:30. At least it seems like people liked it.

That being said, I have com to the conclusion that when you are running on 2.5 hours of sleep food tastes 30% than normal; though McDonald’s would still suck. I am not even going to go into the laborious details on how crappy my time at [REDACTED] has been here, but I am so glad I am never coming back and will be able to get a better education at my old school; it is now offering my degree.

Tea

I have been getting a lot of my lunches at this pita place on campus. They let you get a combo with small side salads and a choice of drink; obliviously went for the tea. I don’t know what temp their hot water contain maintains at, but I have never gotten a bad cup of tea for any of the bags I have tried; and I tried a lot of brands. Today I mixed Twinings Darjeeling and a bag of Twinings pomegranate-raspberry I think is what it was called. The clean floral taste of the Darjeeling blends well with the fruity flavors, the latter of which is the dominate flavor.

mmhhhh, food.

If you have a chance to try that combo, go for it.

Thank goodness my Verdant order got here because I just finished off the last of my previous batch of Laoshan Black. I actually only had enough for about half a cup, so I made up for the rest of it with Wuyi Mountain Big Red Robe. I’m no expert at blending teas or anything, but I thought it sounded like a good enough combination.

So the first steep (Western style) was very much like Laoshan Black. It started off with a punch of chocolate flavor and ended with a nice, sweet maltiness. I was confused that I didn’t taste too much of the oolong, but I figured that LB has a pretty strong flavor, so it was probably just overpowering. Surprisingly, the second steep was totally different. I think the LB took a little step back because I was getting a pretty strong roasty oolong flavor out of it. There was still some malty flavors from the LB, but it played nicely with the oolong flavor instead of dominating.

On my third and final steep, I was getting that kind of generic nutty water taste that I get with both LB and Wuyi when the flavors start getting weak. Even though it is weak, I do like the taste of the nutty water, so I don’t mind too much.

Even though I mixed these two teas together because of convenience, I actually quite enjoyed it. It reminded me a lot of the LB Genmaicha, which I’m pretty sure has an oolong in there with the LB. I may try this again in the future to mix it up a little :)

Sipdown (100)! Of course, I’m not sipping down on random steepings, but rather on Teavivre’s Golden Monkey. I’m posting it under this catch-all tea, though, because I didn’t have quite enough of the Golden Monkey to make anything but a very tiny hot cuppa. So instead, I mixed it with a bunch of other black teas that I had random amounts of and cold brewed the whole concoction overnight. The Golden Monkey gives it sweetness, the English Breakfast I added makes it bolder, and a CTC (can’t remember which) added some boldness and a hint of smokiness. I probably wouldn’t do this again unless I had random amounts of leftover tea, but it was a nice refreshing source of caffeine for today!

I had a tough day today, so I had to console myself with tea. First step, I went to Teavana to spend a Starbucks reward I have to get Golden Monkey black tea. I know I’m on a tea buying hiatus, but this was free and only one ounce, so it’s okay, right? Right? Unfortunately, I’m back up to 104, so I’m working in the opposite direction my under 100 sipdown goal for the end of the month. Eeps.

Next up, I happened to be close to one of the only decent bubble tea places in Boston. So of course I had to go in and get myself some oolong milk tea with boba. I actually did make the most of that short trip, though, because I had my laptop on me, so I pulled it out and did some stuff on it. I have to say, these two little tea trips did make me feel better, so it was totally all worth it :)

Backlog. It’s difficult for me to concentrate on anything productive because my migraine is back, sigh. So I thought I’d write up a tasting note on the blackberry mojito tea lemonade I had earlier today at Starbucks. It was surprisingly better than I expected it to be. Over the past half year or so, I’ve definitely lowered my standards for tea from Starbucks as I got more and more obsessed with Steepster and became a bit tea snobbish. But anyway, the blackberry mojito tea lemonade was just a nice sweet drink, kind of like a juice with the black tea base peeking through at certain moments. I think the minty taste also had something that reminded me of lemongrass. Odd. But when I treat it like a juice, I like it enough to want to get it again sometime in the future.

So I haven’t been posting as many tasting notes lately just because I’ve been drinking the same reliable teas over and over again, so they would get pretty repetitive and boring. Anyway, here’s a snippet of what I’ve been steeping and resteeping lately:

Hot:
- Yu Lu Yan Cha; Never disappoints! I’m a huge Verdant black tea fan
- Da Hong Pao; I especially love Teavivre’s version. Sooo creamy

Cold brewed:
- barley tea; My one and only pitcher is dedicated to this tea. I think I drink about a liter (or more) of this a day. It’s basically my water.
- genmaicha; I’m using the sample I got from Argo Tea to make this delicious cold brew. I’ve found that I really love roasty cold brews.
- Momo Oolong Super Grade; My favorite fruity cold brew! I love the way the candy-peach flavor tastes as a refreshing cold brew.

I’m also experimenting with cold brewing a bunch of teas that I wouldn’t have thought to cold brew before just because it’s getting humid, and I’m more of a dry heat kind of girl. I don’t know how to handle the humidity other than drowning myself in refreshing cold brews and constantly splashing water on my face!

P.S. I love how people have been adding flavors to the random steepings page. A tea with “Flowers, Stonefruits, Honey, Lemon Zest, Plants, Asparagus, Mineral, Potato, Orange Zest”? Sounds… complex, haha.

I went to the coolest place for dinner today. Chefs from awesome restaurants in the area all contribute a sandwich recipe, and they are all offered at this cafe. Anyway, seeing as it is a weeknight, I decided to order the mint peach iced tea over an alcoholic beverage. It was a bit too minty for my taste, but it was a nice sweet tea. Plus, it was refreshing on this very warm evening. Just thought I’d share :)

Check out the blog today for a review of the awesome You Are Zen double walled tea tumbler AND details on how you can win one!
https://tealover.net/2015/12/you-are-zen-tea-tumbler/