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766 Tasting Notes
I got a sample of this tea from the Traveling Tea Box. It was good… much sweeter than I expect from an Earl Grey, but I’m sure that’s due to the mandarin and orange. The leaves unfurled to a full size, for the most part, making for a pretty steeping.
The flavor was not as intense as I expect from Earl Greys. I assumed it was because I had used too much water, but in reading the other reviews, I see that it’s just a more subtle tea.
I’m back at work, and trying to be productive. I have a cup of this to start the day and try to get myself going earlier than I have for the past two (I think I slept in until 1030 both days!!)… hopefully I’ll get a lot of (decaf) tea in today as I try to get myself back in gear.
I am home sick today. I didn’t feel too hot yesterday afternoon, and this morning it went into full-fledged cold mode. However, unlike yesterday I did have an overwhelming need for a cup of tea. Looking through the cupboard I didn’t have a lot of options that struck me as ideal, then I came across Brattle Street. This is my comfort tea. It’s perfect if it’s been a rough day or I’m not feeling great. So, that’s what I’ve settled into bed with. Let’s hope this thing passes quickly!
Yum! I had a big mug, and didn’t really get a good cup of tea yesterday, so I decided to double up and have a large cup today. I was able to fish out one tea bag, but the other sank to the bottom and stayed there for a while. I couldn’t bring myself to drink the last half of the cup because it was so over steeped, so I really ended up with one extra strong cuppa instead. It was still good, just not quite what I had planned on. :)
This is way sweeter than it needs to be, but still pretty good. It’s definitely more of a juice than a tea, though some of these Pom Teas have been pretty good to me in the past.
Yes! Delicious! This one reminds me a bit of Aveda’s Comfort Tea, but is still very good in its own right. I really like licorice tea! (Anyone else love the Licorice Tea demos by Jump Little Children?) Yay for another Samovar winner!
I had my sample of this with breakfast today. It actually reminded me a lot of PG Tips… which means I’ll probably stick to PG Tips and Tealuxe’s Brattle Street Blend for my breakfast tea needs. It was really good; just especially when combined with shipping costs more than other options that are really good as well.
On another note, in my cleaning spree, I found an empty tea tin that was very exciting!! It was a Whittard of Chelsea Oxford Tea, brought (by my parents) to me from Oxford while I was in college. This was the very first loose leaf tea I had, and though I just prepared it using my microwave to heat water and whatever I could find to strain it, it was amazing. So amazing that it propelled me down this path that I’m still on a decade later. Now that I found the tin and know what type it was, I’m going to have to see if I can track some down to see if it holds up to my memory!!
Yesterday, with soymilk and agave. Fortunately for me, I got a lot of cleaning done that day. Unfortunately for me, that meant I didn’t remember to finish the tea!
I somehow didn’t have one drop of tea yesterday. Tragic! So, to make up for it, I brought my Four Seasons and pot to work, and will be trying that throughout the day. I’ll post a comment to this tasting note with each resteep and we’ll see how far we can make it go!
Last night I didn’t really fall asleep until around 12:30. This was as much because I was reading something interesting than anything else. And it really wouldn’t have been a big deal. But then, The Pregnancy woke me around 4:15, and it kept me up for the rest of the morning. I finally threw in the towel a little before six, and went to read until it was a reasonable time to get ready to go into work.
So, I felt totally justified in making a big cup of ryokucha to take into work this morning. That, and Spoon’s The Underdog, has made this morning less overwhelming.
So the tasting note? It’s really good tea. My favorite genmaicha at this point, is Den’s, and though this is really, Really good, I’m not sure it beats out Den’s. I think I prefer the extra roastiness of Den’s, though now I really want to make a small cup of each and try them side by side.
However, if I were in the mood for a genmaicha, but wanted something on more of the tea side of the spectrum than the toasty side, I’d definitely go with this. And I’m super pleased to have gotten a tin of this to keep coming back to it over the next few weeks/months. Good stuff!
Today was the day. I got my Samovar package in the mail. I’d already had my caffeine dose for the day, but it was a rough one, and I couldn’t resist breaking out the adorably tiny teapot (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lauren_pressley/4438902539/ ). When I opened it, I said “this is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.” My husband questioned if that was really true. It’s probably not, but it’s definitely the cutest thing I’ve seen in the past few days.
Four Seasons has been fantastic, too. I’m on steep five, and it has been getting better with each one. The first was quite vegetal, and the second was as well. Things started getting really interesting around the third: more floral and at one point I almost got a mint like quality.
I’m certain I’m not steeping this as well as I could, but it’s working for me at this point. I put 1.5 teaspoons of tea in the tiny teapot, rinsed with boiling water for about 20-30 seconds, then took the set up to the living room so we could watch the pilot episode of The Pacific. So, the first steep wasn’t quite boiling, but it was really close to it, for 3 minutes. I let that cup cool enough to drink, then steeped from the same pot of water for 4. This last steep was 7 minutes, but the water wasn’t really all that hot either.
I am looking forward to lots of experimentation with this one…. but I’m also looking forward to the rest of the Samovar teas… and I still have the Golden Moon sampler to go through… so many teas, so little time!
And I found the way to enjoy this!! Now that it’s starting to feel a bit like spring, I figured I’d give this tea another go. And it’s really good!! I think that the fruit qualities stand on their own in this tea, yet the drink still maintains the tea-quality we all love. This is good when sitting in my office, just knowing it’s spring outside, and I imagine it’ll be really nice when sitting on the porch this summer.
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After having this yesterday, I made a pitcher of it iced and sweetened (I’m from the south, afterall). However, it’s too sweet! I think next time I’ll make a pitcher of it plain and see how that does…
So, I made a cup of this earlier today, and based on the recommendation of AmyB I added milk and sweetener (of the soy and agave variety). It was better than plain, and struck me as a tea that might be good for a younger person curious about tea. Yum!
After the weirdness with the French Breakfast tea this morning, I wanted to give a full cup of something a try. So, I made a cup of this.
I bought this maybe six months ago on an Ikea outing. My husband loves rhubarb, so I thought it might convert him to tea. Since we hadn’t opened it until this morning, my plan obviously didn’t work. :) It’s a nice cup. The vanilla stands out more than the rhubarb. I added a bit of agave nectar, which really rounded out the flavors.
It has a “best by” date of a few weeks from now, so I doubt I’ll be able to finish it all. But I’ll certainly be trying to get a few more cups in before then. I might even try this to make a pitcher of sweet tea now that we’re entering warmer weather….
Another weekend, another Golden Moon Tea! See pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lauren_pressley/tags/frenchbreakfast/show/
This was a good black tea! It’s lighter than English Breakfast (in taste and color), has a hint of something floral to it, and kindof reminds me of yesterday’s Darjeeling.
Unfortunately there was a little speck of turquoise something in it, which I pulled out prior to steeping, but it kept me from fully enjoying the tea. Maybe I’ll give it another go in the future. Despite that, the part that I tasted was quite good.
I’d not paid attention to if I’d had a darjeeling tea before, so I figured I’d get a cup of this with lunch to see if I could note anything of interest. Luckily, the place that I had lunch at is skilled in the ways of tea making, and actually uses a timer to make sure things steep correctly before serving it!
The tea was good. Lighter than other black teas, floral notes, mild, with very little astringency. I know Adagio offers several darjeelings, so I’d like to try samples of the different ones at some point to learn what the commonalities are between darjeelings. That, and I want to try samples of other black teas to learn more about regions, etc, and to know more about a black tea by taste. All that is to come in the future, though….
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This tea is growing on me. The coconut is the thing that puts it over the edge, I think. I made a large cup (I think the mug really holds two cups), and used 2.5 teaspoons of tea. Delicious tea for an afternoon meeting!
Had a teabag of this left over from a trip we took to New Mexico. It was exactly what I expected it to be.
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