Saturday Sample Sipdown! Who's in?

that’s what I am doing each weekend is sampling the neglected stuff

yay! with you there my friend. so many teas, so little time

yes, and when I prefer spending a couple of days with newer teas (and only that one tea) most of the time things naturally slow (which is, admittedly, both good, and bad…with so many teas out there!)

I like doing that too, which is why my samples keep piling up. Weekend is the only time i really have to dedicate time to paying attention to a new tea.

how??just in case someone else runs into the same problem

Like 175 degree water instead of boiling, and 1:30 minutes instead of 3 !!!

I have so many Adagio teas, I’ll keep this in mind if I run into any issues!

ditto, I’ve steered away from Adagio because of the bitterness, I’m going to try this tonight!

woot! that’s great news!

which ones?

yes please! even though I will likely need to backlog them. IndigoBloom; Kittenna and Raritea are descending upon my place for a mini swap meet and board game, tea drinking, food eating festivities!

nice. I have some tea drinking friends, and but only one really discusses her findings with me. my partner and I really wish we had some friends to do board games with!

I’ll be doing it again next weekend and probably every subsequent weekend! It does force me to keep drinking teas! In fact, when I got an email notification of this very post, I said "*Gasp My tea mug is empty!* And ran to brew another sample pot! :D

Fun, Sil! I have one tea drinking friend, but she prefers her tea, “not taste like tea”….. I really wish I had some friends in general, haha. I live in one city, work in another, am from a third, and have some left over friends from college in a fourth. I have friends in three of those four cities… (And not the one I live in!)

One of my tea drinking friends drinks almost exclusively cheap bagged tea, since she is convinced that is all she can afford.

another is a chain smoker, smokes throughout his visits here,(and while drinking the tea) and adds massive amounts of sugar to most, without even trying them first, but will tell me that _____(fill in the blank tea) “was really good!”(without much further discussion)- he does seem to have the most flexible palate of all my tea drinking friends though.(though I’m not sure I want to share my more nuanced expensive teas with him anymore)

the one who gives me feedback is in my hometown, a timezone away.

my partner is getting back into tea drinking, and is on steepster, but so far seems to have opposing tastebuds to me! (not too surprised though, we have seen this pattern off and on already)

Hey anytime anyone wants to swing by Toronto i’m happy to have tea dates :)

I think I’m a bit far south :P but sounds great otherwise!

The majority of smokers I’ve known have little taste buds, they end up having to over salt or sugar their stuff. Even though I didn’t smoke much, and it’s been 15 years since I quit…that is what I end up doing.

It is kind of funny with someone quitting smoking though….when they find their taste buds have not only come back, but exploded. Heh.

what you say about tastebuds reflects what my partner is going through…he is now interested in more then Irish Breakfast tea, and tasting the nuances in teas.

My boyfriend has never mastered the “Blow on your food/drink to cool it down before you take a huge bite/sip” so he always burns himself trying to drink tea then goes and pouts about it rather than just waiting for it to cool down to taste it! So I always have to REALLY wait for it to cool before he will try it. Even then, though, he’ll say 1) eh, 2) ew, 3) that’s good (but then there’s never any follow up!) Ohhhhhh brother.

The beau will drink anything but peppermint and luckily he tends to like the ones I don’t but sadly he doesn’t really like to play board games with just two people. We do have rules for 2 players Catan that he will play, but that’s about it. I’m always trying to convince people to come round to play board games! :)

Uniquity – sounds like you need a few 2 player games that are specifically for 2 players. We’ve expanded our library a little in the past year to have some games that we just play together. Especially ince when travelling, since they’re usually smaller and more portable as well.

I love Catan. I have the same problem as you in finding enough players for is sadly. I’m dragging it (and half my tea stash)with me to Arizona this weekend to play with some friends.

Uniquity – My boyfriend and I are amassing a collection of two-player-friendly games! Our twice weekly dates nearly always consist of playing one or more board games (3 rounds each, to determine an overall winner, haha). We have RA, Dominion, Ingenious, Lost Cities, Hive… I don’t think that’s exhaustive….. hahaha.

I’ll have to look into some 2 player specific ones! Most of ours are 2 – 4 type games but he says it’s not as much fun with just two. Thanks for the ideas everyone!

If you’ve ever aged Agricola – they have a two player lighter version called all things big and small with animeeples! My other half loves it heh

Congratulations! I think I have about 7 or 8 left that I’m hoping to get to in the next couple days.

well I just got 2 more in the mail from a trade, so I’m back up to 5. still you and I are not doing too badly!

There’s light at the end of the tunnel! ;) Which means it’s probably time to order more, haha!

Oh god.. No I can’t order more..not yet lol picked up my swap from the amazing hesper June today and there is more tea from Kally teas coming to us to fix an error…and this weekend is girls tea weekend so those pieces are coming to my house too lol. Ill be lucky if I can manage not to cross the 200 mark by the end of the weekend :)

Lol, well at least you won’t be starved for choice Sil ;)

That is impressive…. I’m sure my cupboard (with samples) is at a terrifying 500+.

Kittenna – I can’t even imagine. At nearly 200 I’m good. I know everything in my cupboard without looking it up and where to find it. Much more than that and I wouldn’t know where to find teas :)

nearly everything i tried today was new…but i still feel like i made no progress heh

I feel that way when most of the new teas in a day did not appeal…