gmathis

I am fascinated by the texture of really good oolongs—so heavy and silky that you feel like you’ve used lip balm after a few good sips.

This is one of those. The flavor reminds me of butterscotch when I roll it around in my mouth.

Perfect light supper substitute…we ate from the Hobbit menu at Denny’s for lunch and OD’d on pumpkin pancakes, Shire sausage, and seedcake french toast. It’s a wonder Hobbits could even waddle, with seven meals like that a day :)

P.S. Thanks to K S for the sample!

This smells heavenly—like blueberry pastry or blueberries and marshmallow. Which may be a clever trick or a sign of my own olfactory incompetence. Not a blueberry in it. Strawberries and lulo. I wouldn’t know a lulo if I stomped on it :)

But at any rate, this is a wonderfully sweet tea—berries drizzled with powdered sugar glaze. Belongs to the Tower of London/Marco Polo family of fruity goodness. My thanks to Azzrian!

Weather forecast missed it by a mile: “party sunny” turned out to be bone-chilling fog giving way to cold spritz. Was rummaging around this evening in the decaf basket, trying to find something heavy and strong enough to chase off the blugggh and found a few remaining packets of this stuff.

No, it won’t fool a coffee drinker. But the roasted chicory is sweet and savory at the same time; it’s pleasant and filling with milk. I think I’ve mentioned before that if you like(d) Celestial Seasonings Roastaroma (is that still around?) or Morning Thunder, this is a similar but slightly beefier brew.

Sometimes you just need tea. Nothing special—just a nice, cozy unassuming mug to keep you upright and moving forward. This is exactly that. Good, stout, takes milk well. Thanks to michelle for a good cuppa on a drizzly day.

There hasn’t been much love for this one in previous reviews. Perhaps mine tasted a little better because I was being carolled by a bunch of really talented fifth-graders who came to our offices. I defy you to improve upon the buzz you get when you listen to children sing at Christmas.

The tea. Mostly cinnamon, maybe a little plumminess that has kind of faded away now that it’s cool. But nothing to pitch down the sink.

This came in an unmarked baggie from a work buddy. Black tea with birthday sprinkles sounded like a nice antidote to a dreary gray Friday morning.

It’s very similar to H&S Vanilla Comoro; the sprinkles don’t do much but add a little levity to it. Milk would probably boost the buttercream illusion; I just didn’t get that far. Tasty and fun.

Some shaved coconut added a little body, if not strong coconut flavor, to a second steep. Still mighty tasty.

Ku Cha Keemun Monkey + CS Sweet Harvest Pumpkin = Punky Monkey?

My little jar of this Keemun is getting a little old. Its personality has faded, but I think it will be just fine reincarnated into a blender-inner. In this case, I needed something to tone down the wicked sweet stevia in the CS Pumpkin. It did and it goes nicely with homemade gingerbread (yes, friends, I baked from SCRATCH, not a box) for breakfast.

I’m really digging this little blend. Was just the right topper-offer for take-out lo mein tonight. Not changing previous descriptors a bit…lovely candied-fruit sweetness that reminds me of good Christmas fruitcake.

Hubby took a sniff and wondered what it would be like with a little shaved coconut thrown in. Still enough left to give that a try soon.

Back under my own roof enjoying a real cuppa in my own mug with my own water. Love, love, love this cocoa-y, bittersweet brew. Too good to mess up with milk or sugar.

Thanks for the prayers. The good news is that tests went fine, Mom is home, and nothing requiring immediate action. 80-something bodies just begin to wear out. (Actually 40-something bodies do too, but let’s not go there.)

Hospital tea. I generally like this, pleasant and strong with no bitter bite; but there’s just something about Styrofoam that messes with the leaf, no matter what.

Ahhh….civilization! After 24 hours of radio silence, the hospital where my mom’s having tests has wifi. Funny what small comforts we get dependent on.

This nice little pyramid-bagged sencha is one of those small comforts. It’s not one of those greens that has a temperature sweet spot of less than a quarter degree. Makes a nice, very lightly vegetal cup even with microwave water that isn’t from home.

My spine feels like a corkscrew of fusilli pasta. Partly a little stress (tagged to spend parts of the next three days away from home on LPN duty before and after my mom’s colonoscopy). Partly from an afternoon hunched over mother-in-law’s “Family Pets” scrapbook (tornado salvage) re-mounting pictures for a Christmas surprise. Photos from the 1970’s when you had to take film to be developed, and thus learned to live with badly framed out-of-focus snapshots.

So, needing to relax and not needing to fuss, this was a good call. Chamomile is chamomile; I’ve never noticed any significant variance in flavor. But Celestial Seasonings picked a really nice apple scent and taste to pair it with.

Ooh. Need to pack some.

I’m having to use the carrot-and-stick writing method today. This was my reward for 300 words.

And it really was a reward, not just a reason to get up from the writing chair. First steeped sniff was so floral I expected eau de lilac flavor. Not at all. This is sweet and thick and a little flowery, but not cloying.

And at six purported steeps, I should get 1800 words out of it! (Please let them be spelled and punctuated correctly.) Thanks to K S for the diversion!

Steep 2 report: a little more floral, not less. Hmm.

Had a second steep rerun, and was pleased that the taste and texture held up well. Still very light and cereally; slightly thinner, but still smooth and luxuriously sippable.

I regret to report that this is sweepings and dust … at least the half tin I spilled on the floor. Too many precariously stacked tins and packages.

However, the portion that I did have is quite good. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that Ceylon often gets a bad rap because that’s the name that gets slapped on mediocre and less-than-mediocre grocery store teas. This one is the slightly more elegant cousin of a meaty builders’ tea like PG Tips.

Even looks like PG Tips in the tin, but steeped up a rich, deep burgundy this morning. Lighter and a tetch fruitier (I used coppery in a previous review) than a PG type. Good on its own, but milk accentuates it nicely.

Azzrian, this makes me smile simply because of the name. My Uncle Charlie, long gone, called me Sprout. He was almost as wide as he was tall, had these nifty teeny little cups that were just right for my four-year-old hands and had a Japanese lady’s face in the bottom when you held them up to the light. He told me the little tiny cups were for a drink called sake, and when I asked what it was my mom said, “That’s enough.” She also said “that’s enough” when we drove with Uncle Charlie and he swore at the other drivers. So he switched from English to German. I didn’t get it either way, but whatever he said was much cooler sounding in German!

On to this lovely yellow tea: I peeked at previous reviews to get proper time/temp hints and saw lovely, soft, luxurious words: Silky. Buttery. Creamy. Absolutely on all three counts. Sweet wheat cereal flavor, but the best thing about this one is its satiny texture. Talk about a tea that kisses you plumb on the lips—this is it!

Paired with a 3 1/2" tall Rushmore-sized slab of lemon cream pie from Big R’s barbecue, the cranberry-orange flavor really pops. Proof that pie makes everything better.

I never drank a purple tea,
I never even sipped one.
But thanks to K S now I have
And it defies description!

Yeah, I know…groan, but that’s been toodling around my brain all afternoon.

But after two steeps, I’m stumped. It’s lightish, but not exactly greenish, but isn’t purplish, and not exactly darjeeling-y. I saw “cranberry” in one tasting note; I can understand where that vibe comes from.

Fortunately, at only 1/2 teaspoon a cup, I’ve got enough to do some more taste testing.

My taste buds needed a break from the morning norm. This looked like fun, and made me smile because I remember my son pronouncing it “pimento-grates” when he was learning to read.

This is a sweet fruit tea, heavy on the vanilla. Not a bit of tartness or bitterness, and I was sloppy measuring and timing this first cup. Nicole, I couldn’t taste the lemur either :) It is a very close match for the Culinary Teas Monk’s Blend I have bought by the pound in the past. Highly recommended for those of us that want our fruit tea sweet and gentle, not sour and acidic.

Pimento-grateful to try this one!

Used to be I’d have to drive clear across the state (or at least a good way out of town) to find this fun and frolicky holiday-season-only tea. Couple of places have it locally now and I’m tickled to death.

There are other vanilla/cinnamon teas that may come kinda-sorta close to this one (thinking about Trader Joe’s with the little lemur on the box) but this is my absolute favorite when it comes to accurately catching the egg-sence of eggnog.

Straight up at my desk, but infinitely better with a dollop of evaporated milk.

I know, I know, it’s way past its prime now, but I hoarded my last 1/3 packet of this for cold weather sipping; even when it’s elderly, it’s heavy and luscious and cocoa-y.

When (ha!) I get time to be scientific about it, I’d love to put this side-by-side with my new favorite Fujian Congou from Nature’s Tea Leaf. I think in previous notes I whinged a little about not having an equivalent once my Dawn was Done, but I’m thinking that there may be some strong similarities. (Which would explain why I am so crazy about the FC.)

Not sure if it’s the season or the turn in the weather (wicked windy chill, clouds like anvils)—but whatever caused it, I am craving sugar and pastry in copious quantities. I’m even burning vanilla and warm sugar candles hoping to imbibe some through the lungs.

So, in a somewhat disciplined effort (well, at least until tomorrow) to avoid noshing myself into a carb coma, I chose this for dessert. Talk about creamy sugar cookie goodness—a little half and half, and this is nothing but perfection.

Big ol’ nuggety leaves. Lovely antique gold angel-hair color, steeped. (Stereotypical angels, that is; I firmly believe angels are really huge muscle-bound Navy Seal types; scary looking dudes. Check the Christmas story—first phrases out of the angel’s mouth is, “Don’t be afraid!”)

Enough preaching. Truth is, this was a sweet and pleasant oolong, but it didn’t wow me like the other Nature’s Tea Leaf samples I’ve tried. (Their Fujian Congou is superlative.) I didn’t get “audacious” as put forth in the tea description. I’ll have to play around with it a bit in the event I was too chintzy with the leaf. (When I don’t get a good result the first time around, that’s generally my problem.)