New Tasting Notes

I decided to have the Dragon Pearls with my tea biscuits this evening. Thanks to my recent purchase of digital thermometer I was able to fine tune the brewing of this fragrant tea. I noticed in the past that this tea has a tendency of turning bitter fast, therefore proper temperature and timing became crucial here.

I steeped it at 80C for 4 minutes with excellent results. The brew is pale in color, mild on the tongue with prominent floral notes which are not too overwhelming for my taste.

Still one of my favorites but I’ll be curious to try another company when it’s time to re-order just to see how this one holds up in comparison.

This is soooooo goooood. Added milk and sugar=perfection. Creamy, bergamot sits nicely in the background.

Afternoon working

I met a dear friend for lunch today and she was so sweet to bring me samples of several teas she just bought at TRT. This is one I had my eye on to try for a while but haven’t gotten around to it yet since there are probably ten on the list every time I go!

I am pretty sure this is a Teageschwender tea since they have a tea of the same name and identical description. This reminds me of the fine French teas which are perfumed with so many floral scents.

I would love this in my room, in my closet, in my chest of drawers scenting my clothes. I am not sure I would want to drink it often, though it is quite nice. It is just a bit too perfumed for me. Perhaps with food or cake and a friend to chat with it would be right over the top and I would adore it, but as of right now, I don’t desire to go buy this. I would recommend it to anyone who loves floral teas that make your pinky hoist itself into the air on its own.

It is possible that I also need to play with the parameters a bit, as black and green blends can be a little touchy. There is a little bite of astringency, like lemon, that I think is the main thing making me not fall in love with this one, though I do think it is a very good tea.

Smells strongly of chocolate after steeping. Doesn’t have a strong chocolate taste, though. I mainly get cinnamon and some cloves. It wasn’t bad but not as strong as I like my chais. Probably won’t reorder but it was fine for afternoon tea club at work, and the price was right. :)

Made in our usual way at work: half water, half 2% milk, sugar. Steeped in water, left infuser basket in after adding hot milk and sugar until tea was gone.

See my previous tasting note for a full review.

Today I decided to experiment with resteeping, which is something I’ve never done with bagged tea. The results were quite pleasant. I got three pretty good steeps out of it. The second steep was just as flavorful as the first, but the third was a little too weak and lacked the cherry blossom flavor.

Steeping times:
1st – 90s
2nd – 2min
3rd – 3min

Today I played for tea at a nursing home that I’ve played at monthly for years (I’m not sure how long, but it’s been at least 12 years). Every month I play there. Residents come & go. My current favorite is a gentlemen who loves my arrangement of ‘Misty’. I play it for him every time, & he knows it’s for him. We always give each other the nod. He told one of the employees there that him & I “know each other. We have a special understanding.”

I always bring tea with me, as the tea they offer is plain & bland. Today I was in the mood for this one. I don’t drink St. Valentine often, but when I do, I make it strong & sweet. It’s awesome! Very heady with it’s rose aroma, very potent. It’s almost Valentine’s day!

I like to play a lot of latin jazz, which the residents seem to really enjoy, and as I was playing ‘How Insensitive’ today, I thought of 2 gals that are no longer in my audience. They used to sit at the nearest table, and once when I was playing that song, they sat there with dreamy expressions on their faces, lips parted, eyes half closed. One gal turned to the other.
“This music makes me feel SO sexy,” she said.
“Ohhhhhh yeah” her friend agreed, her voice smokey & sultry.

I love my job! I can help two 90 year old ladies re-live the sexiness of their youth, just by playing a song. How awesome is that?

Wow. This stuff unfurls to crazy size!!

And wow, does it ever sweeten. I used 3 pieces and steeped along with some Sungma darjeeling from Harney. There is a slight aftertaste that I associate with non-sugar or honey sweeteners. Enough so that I wouldn’t use this again with a tea not as light as this darjeeling. However, I will definitely try using it with the afternoon chai at work tomorrow. This should be a good compromise with those who don’t want sugar every afternoon and those of us who like our chai sweeter. :)

Rating is based on how likely I am to use it again, not as a tea to drink on its own.

Back to the Moroccan Mint today. Brewed it a shorter time (1 minute flat) which is shorter then I normally do blends (2 minutes). I think I like it more this way. The mint is still present but it’s much more in the background. I’m also thinking this would make an awesome iced tea (something I’ve yet to attempt with any tea). Anyway, yum yum yum!

Good heavens, it’s been far too long. I mentioned in my last tealog that I might have to post a little less frequently in the next little while, but it ended up being for reasons entirely different than I originally anticipated. I thought I was going to be busy with school, but unfortunately I ended up getting sick. I thing it was the stomach flu, or some kind of stomach bug – it took me out for a few days. My stomach is feeling quite a bit better although I still find myself feeling tired very quickly. This past week I’ve been living primarily on soda crackers and club soda with a splash of honeybush tea mixed in. Choosing from my variety of 52teas honeybushes was the highlight of these past few days.

I’m finally able to drink plain tea again. But my club soda and honeybush teas have been such a blessing these past few days, that I thought I should write at least one tealog for one of them.

This pina colada honeybush is refreshing and sweet. The pineapple taste hits first and the coconut lingers in the aftertaste, but not in an overbearing fashion. I’m picky with coconut in teas, but this one is a winner for my taste buds. I find with a lot of these honeybush teas, that many of their flavors ring through more clearly as a cold tea. I’m not sure if that’s just something to do with my taste, but if anyone is finding that they are not getting the flavors that they were hoping for, give it a try as a cold tea and let me know if it works for you. I also find that 52teas honeybushes tend to taste better as I get further into the pack. I’m not sure if that’s because
1. the flavor cures as time passes?
2. when I scoop deeper in the pack I get a better blend of ingredients than my initial scoops?
3. I’m just plain coo-coo and I’m imagining it?

Whatever the reason, I find myself enjoying my 52teas honeybushes increasingly as time passes.

While I was sick I pretty much stayed in bed. I got my husband to send out a few emails on my behalf, but I must say that I’m happy to be back on Steepster. It was one of the first sites I checked in on when I started feeling better, well, other than placing another order with 52teas :D

(raises a mug) Cheers to good health!

I enjoyed a couple cups of Prairie Berry this afternoon while finishing up my articles for the week. It’s lightly sweet and lightly fruity, which I really like because overwhelmingly fruity teas are certainly not my thing. It was an excellent choice to get me through the last few hours before my weekly deadline. Thanks, Prairie Berry.

Oh my god, this is absolute perfection. Once brewed, it tastes even better than the dry leaf smelled, which I didn’t think would be possible! It really tastes like white chocolate, real good quality white chocolate, and it isn’t too sweet at all. The white chocolate notes are almost flirty, very uplifting, and the finish almost makes me think of mint. It’s very fresh, and ridiculously delicious.

Another insanely busy (but good!) day. Today is my son’s birthday, and between his class party and our own little family party I am tuckered out. He had a great day and is now happily playing with his new loot. That means I have time for a cup of tea. I didn’t even consider making anything else. The black tea, the bergamot, the vanilla… it’s perfect. And if I happen to have a piece of birthday cake with it, well that’s even better.

Cups: 11

I have been sleepy all day, I think i’m burning out from school. Thankfully I have this tea for a spice and caffeine burst. Hopefully I can get studying for my midterm tomo! And I’ve decided my next verdant order will be black teas and black tea blends. This is on the list, I love this tea! See previous notes :)

Mmmmm! To be honest I was a little nervous about purchasing a watermelon flavored tea. It’s one of those things where you like the actual fruit/flavor of so much you are afraid to find out you don’t like it as a tea.

However, even with my fear I decided to go and try some of Kally Tea’s Wild Watermelon since it was at such a good price. I’ve never purchased anything from Kally Tea, but I can tell you from this one experience I will be making some future purchases.

Getting to the point, yes I would buy this tea again. It has a very nice “watermelony” flavor. I added a little bit of honey and it made it that much better.

Before I even began steeping this tea I had to take a nice sniff in the bag…lol (that sounds odd I know). And having a cold I was still able to smell the sweetness. I’m pretty sure it is because of my cold, but it took me a little bit to really smell the watermelon in there. At first it smelled like a cool aid powder, very sweet and fruity, but soon I was able to smell the watermelon coming through.

I like this tea a lot because I feel it tastes like it is supposed to. It’s not overly sweet, and it actually tastes like a good watermelon.

Today I jumped into the world of Pu’erh. And what a magnificent world it is. I was not expected the whoof of strong, earthy smells to come out of the bag when I unzipped it. It’s a great aroma, and I’m so glad it stuck around after the steeping. I only steeped it very shortly as I was scared to make it too strong. Even with about 10 seconds of steeping the tea turned out with a good, wooden taste that lasted throughout. It went down smoothly and was a pleasure to drink. For my second steeping I’ll be trying longer times to make the tea even stronger.

I went with a mission to try Roobios. Turns out, not my cup of tea (har har). I didn’t mind the smell so much, and hoped that it would taste better when boiled, but there’s just a really strong bad smell leftover before and after the brewing that stuck in my head throughout. I also found the taste to be too soft and more spicy than anything.

Sample. Can definitely taste/smell the ginger. Is okay. I actually like ginger a lot in baked goods, but I think I’d prefer to keep my ginger out of tea. Unless it’s Chai!

Tea of the afternoon here; this is a pretty decent little tou cha – see previous notes for more info.

Thanks to Azzrian for this tea:)

I have a mild like for peppermint, one of my favorite teas from Bigelow was Mint Medley. This tastes alot like it. It isn’t a ‘Wowzer’ of a tea, but it’s one that I won’t mind keeping in my cabinet. Luckily for me, there is a Spice and Tea Exchange nearby, like 15-20 minutes away. So I think I might soon go pick some up. Unfortunately though, this summer I’ll be moving and going to this one will be kind of difficult and it doesn’t look like they have any other locations here in Michigan. Ahh well.

This is my go to Assam for studying as it packs a caffeine punch. The smell is smooth and the taste is creamy with a silky feel in the mouth. I don’t like to add anything to my teas but this is the one tea I can drink with milk and german rock sugar if the mood takes me.

First impressions were pleasant and fresh. The dry tea smelled like freshly cut grass with a hint of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It took me to a time and a place that resided somewhere in my subconscious memories. The dry leaves were fine and playful, just begging to be steeped for my taste buds to enjoy. I even enjoyed the fine texture as I played my fingers through it, noting its teasing promise of the bliss soon to come.

After steeping, the aroma still had that fresh and pleasant whimsy that tickled my sense of smell. There were promises of being whisked away to a land of fantastical fiction. It was difficult to refrain from my first sip. I was sure to enjoy it. The liquid was a fresh and clear green, and that shade of green is my favourite colour. It reminded me of a fresh meadow and the hydrated leaves looked like they’d just been picked that morning.

Oh, what promises…

Then I savoured the moment as I brought that warm cup of magic closer to its destination. It was sure to impress my taste buds like no other. I relished the scent as the porcelain touched my lips, and, “OH MY GOD!”

This was the worst tea I’ve ever tasted. The bitterness lingered on my tongue for hours afterwards like a coating of unwanted sludge, and my stomach turned and churned as the day continued with dreadful regret.

This is the first tea I’ve tried from David’s Tea that never made it to the bottom of my cup. I’ll admit that I’m not a big ‘green tea’ fan, but I will drink them without complaining. I was even excited to try this cute little sample that accompanied my order. The price suggested it was of high quality. It had to be good!

It wasn’t.

The only guilt I feel for not liking this tea is that I convinced a co-worker to try it with a shorter steeping time to see if it was me. My taste buds could have been off, and I never told her I didn’t like it. All I said was, “Try this… Tell me what you think of it.”

Well, she’s mad at me now. She dumped hers halfway through and thinks I got her to drink it just so I could get rid of it. The nerve!

Anyways, it’s possible I had a bad sample. If not, this is obviously not everyone’s cup of tea.