takgoti

Feeling inspired by JacquelineM’s post the other day, I decided to give this a try with sugar and milk. I almost always do my tea straight because milk and I don’t always get along so well in the morning and it’s carried through into my tea habits throughout the day. However, I am slowly learning that sometimes adding a dash of something can help bring out and bolster flavors in ways I could never imagine a tea capable of achieving so thoroughly.

This is a tea that I can firmly say that, for me, benefitted from additives.

Strawberries and I don’t always see eye to eye, because quite often they can be too tart for my liking. But, dress them up with some freshly whipped, lightly-sweetened cream and a warmed, spongey shortcake and I will nom that shizz regardless.

With a short tilt of cream and a shake of sugar, this tea boarded the train in Berryville and got off in the Hamlet of Strawberry Shortcake. The heavy richness from the cream swirled around the lightness of the strawberry and the sugar lifted the tartness just a smidge, but not enough to make it taste fake. And somehow, somewhere in there I was definitely getting that distinct flavor of those little bowl-shaped store-bought sponge cakes that are sweet with a bit of roughness and breadiness to them.

I never liked that Nestle Quik Strawberry Milk stuff, or even strawberry milkshakes, but this is like what I think would happen if Strawberry Quik grew up. Get outta here, cartoon rabbit.

I’m very happy to know now that I can get two distinctly strawberry tasting, though different, versions of this tea – one for lighter fare and one when I’m seeking out the richer fulfillment of strawberry shortcake. It’s especially lovely now, as I am a bit past indulging in winter and ready for the sunnier landscape of spring. Jumping into summer for a spell doesn’t feel unwanted.

I got this from Micah in a tea swap, and I’m not really sure what to say about it.

It was very bland.

I had enough to try a couple of cups, and I did one at the recommended 195F and one at a lower temperature of 165F. I tried resteeping for longer times to no effect. Both of them tasted like pallid reflections of what the I think the tea is supposed to taste like. Barely-there floral, washed out sweetness.

Ultimately, it felt like someone had Scrooged the flavoring in the tea. It felt like I was drinking hot water.

I’m sorry, I can type Scrooge without thinking about Scrooge McDuck. And then I think of Duck Tales. Life is like a hurricaaaaane, here in Duckberg.

And before I go off on a very distracting youtube search for my favorite cartoon theme songs, I will say that I can’t recommend this tea.

OOOH, CHIP N’ DALE RESCUE RANGERS!

GM Sampler | Tea 6 of 31

Darjeeling | http://bit.ly/cHh5kY
Toutes les Choses | http://bit.ly/cHWS3X

This tasted like darjeeling, which means that it was bitter for me. Whenever I get a black tea that has this high, sharp, bitter taste to it with a fruity fwip of flavor afterwards, my brain goes to darjeeling now. A former round with a sample of SerendipiTea’s Darjeeling Autumnal from Auggy taught me that if I hit the right parameters [although it could have partially been the tea itself] darjeeling doesn’t have to equal BITTER, but this one had it. It wasn’t as loud as I tend to get with Darjeelings, but it was there.

As it cools, as I’ve come to expect, the bitterness falls back and the sweetness comes forward. Then that grape taste that I’ve come to identify as the muscatel is much more apparent in the tea; not just on my breath or in the aftertaste. I probably would have been tempted to wait and drink the whole thing cooled, but IT IS COLD HERE, Y’ALL.

So the moral of the story is that this was decent, but I won’t be ordering it. I probably should have steeped it shorter to compensate for my apparent sensitivity to bitterness in tea, but I used the packet up and reading the other reviews doesn’t make me think I missed out on anything phenomenal. There’s really not much else to say, as it was relatively straightforward.

[Sorry, I couldn’t resist doing it one time. Here’s the actual Darjeeling picture: http://bit.ly/bIf03p .]

I got some of this from ever-awesome Lena in a swap and I decided to start my morning off with it. However, I’m going to have to leave a rating off of it because my morning also involved reading for a class and, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to pay very much attention to the tea.

I’m going to try it at a shorter steep time next go round because this was a little bitter for me. It had a slight smokiness to it and an even slighter sweetness at the finish. In some aspects, it nearly reminded me of coffee, but the flavor wasn’t as full and it didn’t have that roasted quality that I usually get from coffee. I also didn’t get any maltiness from it, which I was expecting to at least get a hint of.

But anyway, this could all be for nought because I really wasn’t doing a good job of paying attention and, let’s be real, if acoustical wave forms are actually able to hold my attention in the morning I need to let that ride.

What I can say with certainty is that the caffeine didn’t take very long to kick in and I was feeling antsy before long, which began to disrupt my reading kick a bit so I didn’t finish the cup. Caffeine jitters and being snowed in do not mix very well – especially when you’ve been cooped up in the house for almost a week.

No, wait, it’s actually been a full week now. I have literally been stuck in the house for an entire week. Our street still hasn’t been plowed. The tea I was supposed to get in two days ago has been delayed yet again because of “adverse weather conditions” [this being the order that includes my greatly anticipated Caramelized Pear]. Steepsterites, I am going to lose my mind if these roads do not become drivable very soon.

So thanks for the tea, Lena! Sorry this entry bites pretty hard. I’ll try to get some better thoughts down next time. In the interim, have some snow pictures.
http://bit.ly/aHprnD

I got this tea from Jillian and decided to steep it in my Sorapot.

[It was very pretty – I’ll need to take pictures next time.]

First off, one of the things that I absolutely love is the short steep time, because it means that I don’t have to wait that long in between cups. I got a pretty good rhythm going, lengthening the steep time by maybe 15 seconds or so on each subsequent cup, stopping at four. I could have gone longer, I suspect, because the flavor wasn’t weakening for me – a very good sign.

This tea was buttery, with some sweetness that sashayed around and swished through the aftertaste. At times, it had a very pronounced vegetal quality to it, which is something that I’m somewhat indifferent on. For me, it didn’t stick around consistently, and I consider that to be a saving quality. It had a darkness that colored the flavor of the tea, which keeps me from wanting to compare this to a Formosan Oolong since it had some similar qualities.

Overall, I found it wholly enjoyable, so thanks for sending this to me, Jillian! I look forward to many steeps in my future.

I’ve been on a really big kukicha kick lately, so when I got some of this from Micah in a tea swap it was one of the ones I decided to try first.

First off, I want to say that I think that kukicha is really pretty. I think it’s something about all those linear strips of varied, yet tonally cohesive greens. It makes me want to pull the colors into a room with some warm medium wood tones and fresh cream fabrics. […Am I bleeding HGTV yet?]

This particular tea, while pretty, unfortunately couldn’t run with the refreshing aesthetic it inspires [at least in my head]. It wasn’t nearly as buttery as the kukicha I’ve been inhaling [Samovar’s] and while it had grassy and nutty tones to it, it was missing a lot of that sun-kissed sweetness that makes grassy teas enjoyable to me.

In a way, the taste almost reminded me of the pith of an orange, but without the citrus taste and residual tartness. It rested somewhere in limbo between bland and bitter, in a way that wasn’t completely off-putting, but also wasn’t enjoyable.

Fortunately, some sweetness eventually began to arrive on the aftertaste and grew in volume on my breath, but it wasn’t enough to make it good. I’m going to take the water temperature down into the 160’s on the next go round, maybe steep it a bit longer, and see if I can get this tea to bloom.

I got a bag of Honeybee in a swap I did with Carolyn because she suspected I’d like it [and she was right]. It brews into a beautiful, deep gold, honeyed hue, but the taste is extremely light.

For me, the majority of the taste for this resides at the back of the tongue, and a bit at the sides. At the front, I get some light floral notes that are much less obvious when the tea is hot, but at the back…mmm…

When the tea is VERY hot [like right when it becomes drinkable], it’s difficult for me to get much of a taste out of this tea at all, so on my second cup I let it cool down a bit more before I got started and I found it to be much more enjoyable that way. The honey taste is definitely evident for me in the aftertaste, and if I inhale through my nose while the tea is still in my mouth I can taste it near my throat.

Again, it’s a very light tea. While part of me likes that, I also find myself wanting just a liiiittle bit more from it. I need to work to get the flavor, and while that’s fine when I’m concentrating on the tea, I feel like this is going to be a tea that I can only enjoy when I’m concentrating on it. I’ll play around with a longer steep time to see if that makes it a little bit stronger, but in the meantime this is a good tea. Thanks, Carolyn!

Auggy sent me some of this tea [because she’s awesome] and I was pretty excited to try it because I enjoy sesame.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to really get any sesame taste out of it. This is what my notes say:

Tastes bitter.
Sweet-ish aftertaste.
Bitter. Bitter. BITTER.
Didn’t get any sesame.
At all.
Boo.
Oh, wait, on the breath…? Yep. A bit. Not enough to be sating.
WTF?
…Am I broken?

I think that pretty much says it all.

I had enough for two cups. I tried the first one at 4:00 minute. The second time I tried this I moved the time down to 3:15.

Thanks for sending it, though, Auggy. Ah, well.

I had this a while ago, so I’m going off notes, but this was a really interesting tea that I’m looking forward to trying again.

The Yunnan tea really lends it a full-bodied flavor. I was getting a lot of malty flavor from it, which I enjoy, and when I swish it around I’m gently reminded that there’s lemon in this tea. It’s very faint, the lemon, until I swallow, and then it’s like…when you walk through the doors of a place that has a fan running right inside so as the doors open you’re greeted with this blast of [usually warm] air. Except instead of air, it’s a refreshing lemon taste.

I don’t remember getting a pepper taste like Auggy mentioned, but when I drank this tea I was in a hurry and I didn’t have enough time savor it like I usually do with my tea [especially on the first go round], so next time I’ll have to watch for it. In any case, what resulted was another well-balanced, interactive melding of flavors from Samovar. I think I’m going to start my day with it tomorrow.

Really, you could just read the description to this tea, because that is what it tastes like. It is light, it has the sweet and savory taste of hay, and the perfumed taste of jasmine is woven throughout.

The silver needle and the jasmine are both easy to find; one doesn’t drown out the other, which is surprising. In most jasmine teas that I’ve had, the jasmine has been very pronounced. Pronounced enough that, while it might not be belting a power ballad in your ear, it’s loud enough that you can’t ignore the fact that it’s there. While I appreciate that, it also means that if there’s anything else going on in the tea it can get drowned out a lot of the time. That isn’t a problem with this one, and I am completely enamored with now this ended up balancing out.

Some teas intertwine like vines on a trellis. Some swirl together like a chocolate and vanilla soft serve twisty cone. Others blend like fruit juices. This is like being outdoors during a summer afternoon, drunk on sunshine, with the scent of just baled hay and jasmine blossoms wafting to you on a light breeze.

I’ll be buying more when I’m done with this tin.

GM Sampler | Tea 5 of 31

Coconut Pouchong | http://bit.ly/9WQQq0
[Eventually to Become]The Full Spread | http://bit.ly/bDtnNn

This was the tea that finished off my GM day back in January, and this was the best one of the bunch. If you had told me that I would hate the pear tea and love the coconut tea in this sampler, I would have laughed at you for five minutes. Maybe more. Because coconut and I don’t see eye to eye all of the time and, as we have established, I love pear.

The tea in the packet smelled, unsurprisingly, like coconut. Macaroons, the formerly named Samoa cookies from the Girl Scouts, suntan oil…all these things popped into my head. Wet, the leaves smelled vegetal with a hint of coconut. It reminded me of beansprouts, which I thought was weird, but they ARE tea leaves, so whatever.

Sipping the tea, it had a hint of that vegetal flavor, but it was much lighter. Mainly, what I was getting out of it was a buttery quality. Oh, it was good. Buttery with whiffs of coconut flavor and a cookie-like finish. It reminded me, undeniably, of coconut macaroons. Really freaking good coconut macaroons.

There were some other things going on in the tea, but all I could think of was coconut macaroons. That is what has stuck, and that is why I will be ordering this tea.

I never would have called that one.

COCONUT MACAROONS!

GM Sampler | Tea 4 of 31

Sugar Caramel Oolong | http://bit.ly/ds1ZuN
One Big Happy Family | http://bit.ly/bDtnNn

After the experience that was Honey Pear, I couldn’t end things on a bad note, so I decided that I’d dive into the basket and try something else. I almost didn’t try this one, because I was thinking that if another set of flavors that I typically liked bombed horribly again that I’d begin to build some real resentment against the sampler. But, feeling brave, I decided I’d try it anyway.

Slicing open the foil packet, I was greeted with the smell of maple candy. Maple candy always makes me giggle, because it makes me think of the Friends episode where Ross eats all the maple candy and he gets all crazy. [Hair dryer, no no no! But shampoos and conditioners, yes yes yes! – http://bit.ly/snFLh should you want to watch.] So, already I was off to a better start.

The wet leaves were oily and almost looked like leather. They smelled like oatmeal and burnt sugar, which was interesting, but at least somewhat in line with what I was expecting. I smelled the liquid and it smelled more like oolong and caramel, which was very comforting.

The tea was arright. It had more of a burnt sugar taste than a caramel taste to it, which was cool, but I like caramel so much that I was hoping for more. Not soul-crushing, but not elating. I’d push it more towards the good than the bad, but I don’t think that I’ll be ordering this one either.

GM Sampler | Tea 3 of 31

Honey Pear | http://bit.ly/cy1HXR
Gotta Catch ’Em All | http://bit.ly/bDtnNn

This tea made me so angys!!!

Like, for real, pissed. I want to photoshop a big frowny face all over the Honey Pear picture.

I think I’ve professed my love for pear in enough gory detail already, but if you missed that log – I LOVE IT. Like, scary love. And I like honey well enough. So to say that I was excited to try this tea is a bit of an understatement.

The dry leaf smelled like bazooka joe. And medicine. This put me on edge right away, because it tripped my WTF alarm straight off. But I dumped the sample into the infuser and began the process of making the tea.

When I pulled out the infusing basket, I smelled the wet leaves.

Strawberry runts and banana boat suntan lotion. I’m really confused at this point, but I sip it anyway.

You might have read my post about how much I loved Art of Tea’s Caramelized Pear, which uses apple bits to achieve the pear taste to great effect. This tea is like what I imagine using the power of apple to pear for EVIL would be like, because the tea tasted like bad, mealy, apple. It was Bad, Bad, Mealy Brown apple. Once I had that mental image in my head, it was impossible to shake and there was no way to enjoy the tea after that.

Building upon the suck that is mealy apple, the tea had this bitterness to it that would get really high and sharp at some points. And to make matters worse, at the back of the throat the tea created this horrible sour taste.

I sat with it long enough to eventually get a hint of sweetness at the tip of my tongue, but unfortunately it was impossible to recover from all the bad. I had to dump the cup, but I consider it an accomplishment that I got halfway through it.

I honestly think that this was defective because it does not at ALL sound like what the majority of the other people got, and while I think that tastes diverge this was just…wrong.

GM Sampler | Tea 2 of 31

Madagascar Vanilla | http://bit.ly/aOFn6g
All of Them GM Pictures | http://bit.ly/bDtnNn

Eh.

That’s going to be the gist of this review, so if you want to skip it there you have it: eh.

It smelled like vanilla extract in that it had that kind of alcoholic tinge to it, with a darker notes that made me think of chocolate. It was promising, and I was excited, and then I sipped.

I’ll give it that it actually did taste of vanilla, but it was thin. It didn’t have enough oomph and it lacked that richness I’ve come to enjoy in some of the better vanilla teas I’ve had. I was hunkering down to expand upon this, but now I realize that there’s really not much else to say. It was one-note and a bit weaker than I’d like. Maybe some milk would help thicken it up, but I don’t have anymore and I don’t see myself buying this one.

All that being said, it was decent. Just…

Eh.

GM Sampler | Tea 1 of 31

Sampler Picture 1 | http://bit.ly/9xGx6q
Sampler Picture 2 | http://bit.ly/dBJHvN
Vanilla Jasmine | http://bit.ly/dtaOd0
L’Entire Set [Which Shall Be Updated Accordingly] | http://bit.ly/bDtnNn

AND SO IT BEGINNETH.

Or, rather, it beganneth about a long while ago. I’m going to be writing the first leg of this from notes since I was a bad logger. [This makes me think of lumberjacks. Which makes me think of Monty Python. Suspenders and a bra! I should mention that I’m cresting on a bit of a caffeine high at the moment.]

The tea smelled distinctly, unmistakably, of jasmine and vanilla. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how it was going to taste, but I didn’t buy this sampler so I could smell the tea and dump the cup.

So, I drank. And, it would have been more surprising if I hadn’t read the other tasting notes, the jasmine was hiding in the wings on the taste. I mainly got vanilla, which is not how I would have thought this all would have gone down, but it’s not to say it wasn’t pleasant.

The vanilla taste was rich and a bit creamy. It reminded me of these lollipops my family gets sometimes when we’re near a See’s [which used to be a mainly west coast deal but I think has spread across the country with some success] that are vanilla flavored. [For the record, vanilla and butterscotch lollipops = good. Chocolate = meh.] I like those lollipops, so it probably goes without saying that I enjoyed the vanilla aspect of this tea, but I’m going to say it anyway. I liked the vanilla.

The jasmine came gliding out right as the tea was exiting my mouth to whisper its presence, leaving a very light, floral aftertaste to the vanilla. The entire thing was kind of strange, but there was something about the way that the vanilla and the jasmine played off one another that made it work.

A small note: while it was still hot, I didn’t find this tea very good. It stifled the jasmine and drowned out the sweetness in the vanilla, so I’ll gently advise to wait until it tips towards lukewarm.

Overall, I’d call this a win, but I think I’ll wait to see whether I want to order more until I’m done with the sampler.

Everything about this tea should have pointed toward me enjoying it. Vanilla, yes. Mint, yes. Pu-erh, yes. Favorable-ish reviews on Steepster, yes.

I should say at this point that something in this tea made me feel a bit ill, which is puzzling because mint typically does just the opposite for me and this tea was quite heavy on the mint. This no doubt is going to affect my rating, but I’m hoping that the next time I try this I won’t end up with a stomach ache and a scowl.

I actually wasn’t getting a lot of pu-erh taste on this at first, though I could definitely smell it. It was giving rise to a kind of chocolate-y taste, which was nice, since I like chocolate and mint. And oh, there was mint.

Mint, mint, mint, mint, mint.

The mint was loud. It was doing its best Tarzan impression and I was trying to smother it unsuccessfully to try and get other tastes out of the tea. The pu-erh, and I’m not really sure how to explain this, was giving it this earthy undertone without really being singular. It was giving the mint a little dimension, is another way of putting it, and I guess I found that enjoyable, but here’s where the good ended and things began to sour.

One, I couldn’t taste the vanilla. It just wasn’t there. I convinced myself that, at one point, I could taste it on the tip of my tongue because I was getting just a hint of sweetness, but the mint was doing a really good job of drop-kicking anything else that tried to compete with it in the arena that is my tongue, so there wasn’t enough for me to be happy with it.

Two, about half-way through the cup my stomach started to become very angry. I don’t know what caused it; perhaps it was mutinying illogically against the excessive mint, but it started to ache unpleasantly. I suspect that it might have been the pu-erh, but pu-erh has never upset me before and I don’t have any way of confirming this.

Because I’m a masochist, I continued to sip the tea, thinking that maybe it was something I had eaten, until I realized that I’d had, like, oatmeal and toast that morning and there’s no way that was what was upsetting my stomach. At this point I had to acknowledge that it was the tea, so I dumped it and brewed up some Moorish Mint, which was both tastier and quelled the stomach leprechauns.

I’m going to give this another try, but on a day when I’m feeling brave and know that the possibility of stomach issues won’t disrupt my day. For now, the rating shall suffer my wrath.

ETA: Picture | http://bit.ly/bqQoti

I stumbled across this in my grocery store wanderings and bought it because I liked the tin and I like lichee. Lychee? I think either spelling is acceptable, but I trend with the “y”. Moving on.

This tea is a bit sweet, and the lychee is definitely there. I’m not sure what black tea they used as a base, but at gunpoint I’d guess Ceylon. The shortness of this log is going to reflect what I thought about this tea, because I found it good, but there’s not a lot to say about it. It tastes a bit like lychee, it’s pretty smooth, and it wasn’t bitter. I wasn’t getting a ton of depth from it.

I’ll agree with oOTeaOo, in that I’m glad I tried it but I doubt I’ll get more. If memory serves, it wasn’t cheap, and Samovar offers a much more economical [and in my opinion, tastier] option. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy playing around with steep times to see if I can get more flavor out of this one.

Yesterday evening, it started snowing. I am no stranger to snow, but it’s been noticeably absent from these parts for the past number of years. We’ll get one, maybe two inches – barely enough to cover the ground. When I was in high school, we’d hope against hope that the school board would take pity on us and cancel school for the day [and since we usually don’t get much they typically would, even though it was definitely drivable].

This year, we got dumped with 14-16 inches during the big east coast snowfall. In between then and now, we received a few more inches. Yesterday evening, the weather graced us with another 4-6. This has prompted a number of silly hash tags on twitter, like #snOMG, #snowpocalypse, and #precipageddon [that last one may be my favorite].

Last night’s snow was packing snow. For those who might not be familiar, that means it was coming down in big, airy flakes that are optimal for creating those spherical orbs of crystallized H20 that people sometimes like to chuck at each other or stack into vaguely humanoid forms. This was the kind of snow that used to get me crazy excited as a child, because I knew I’d be decking a few kids in my neighborhood before someone got hurt and we all got yelled at. [Ah, childhood.] Even now, it’s the snow that I find the prettiest. There’s something romantic about it, and it demands a tea with a hazy warmth about it.

Deciding to chance it on something new, I brewed up a cup of Vanilla Dian Hong while I watched the flakes float silently down outside in between physics problems. [I should add at this point that this is one of my favorite contemplative “it’s snowing outside” songs ever – http://bit.ly/c5811d – should you need/want one.] So I sat there, working through problems, watching the snow, and smelling the tea while I waited for it to cool.

It smelled like vanilla, unsurprisingly, but with an edge. It almost smelled…malty. Maybe earthy? It reminded me a bit of pu-erh, actually, and I did find that surprising. Once I thought it had cooled enough to sip without fear of scalding, I went ahead and slurped in a bit.

I’m not sure how to describe what transpired, but it resulted in one of the more interesting mouthfeels I’ve had in a while. It was as though the outside borders of the liquid was watery; tiptoeing on but not quite breaking ground into bitter. It was a little metallic, in a way, almost…coppery? The center of tea, however, was rich and flavorful. This was all in one mouthful, and all when it was held in place without swallowing, and unfortunately that’s the best I can do to explain it.

The center of the tea didn’t have a lot of vanilla taste to me, which was maybe a little disappointing, but it did taste like something good. Part of it was malt. That was unmistakable to me, but it took me a long time to place what the other thing was. Once I did, it was one of those things that made me “D’oh” out loud. It tasted like graham cracker. I haven’t had graham crackers in a long time. Realizing that this is what I was tasting almost instantly transported me back to when I was little and my brother would fight at the end of lunch over who got to split the cracker down its perforated seam. I used to like to dunk my sections of cracker in my apple juice. [Don’t make that face at me; it’s good! Seven-year-old me promises. Cross her heart!]

As the tea cooled down to lukewarm, the vanilla came out of hiding and was much more present in the tea, which made me smile. Sometimes, when the sweetness would fade away at the tip of my tongue, I could taste a spicy puff of black pepper. When I exhaled, I could taste the vanilla on my breath, and the scent rising out of my cup began to remind me of pipe tobacco.

This tea was best to me at a bit below hot to lukewarm. It’s something that I’m looking forward to trying again, because I found it to be pretty complex. It lent itself very well to homework and snow, and since we’re supposed to be getting more snow in soon [and I doubt my load of homework’s going to lighten before the semester’s over], I may find myself in another opportune setting this weekend.

Steepsterites, I started going through my dashboard, realized that I have way too much to catch up on, then realized that I have a lot of tea to log, and then realized that I have email from a week ago that I still needed to respond to, and then realized that it was already 1:30 AM.

When did that happen? It was 11:00 PM two minutes ago! I demand to know where all that time slipped away to. Probably somewhere on the island with Jack and Sawyer and Kate and Desmond. Mm…Desmond. But I digress. [Again.]

Anyhow, you’ll have to bear with me as I slowly, slowly, [or maybe not so much, because 14-odd days of logs is really daunting] try and catch up with what’s been going on in the Steepster-verse. I feel like I’ve finally nailed a decent rhythm so far as school goes, but I’ve got a bit of crazy week coming up and so I’m just letting you know I might be fading in and out a bit [not unlike AT&T’s wireless signal – I’m sorry but I couldn’t help it; their commercials have been driving me crazy]. Okay, on to the tea.

I’ve had some pretty bad Earl Grey in the span of my tea drinking experience. For me, most Earl Greys tend to fall in the middling to bleh range. Andrews and Dunham’s definitely doesn’t land with the majority.

Is this the best Earl Grey I’ve had? No. But it’s solid. The bergamot is visible, but not overwhelming, and I found the finish to be sweet. Overall, it was a very smooth tea, though I did notice it getting a little bitter as it cooled.

I don’t think that this is going to be an Earl Grey that knocks people over with wow factor [especially those drinkers that are more discerning in their Earl Grey tastes than I], but I also don’t think it would be disappointing. It’s one of those teas that I’ll enjoy drinking until it’s gone, but doesn’t scream for a re-order.

O hai, Steepsterites.

I have been buried in school, but I wanted to stop by and say hello and catch up.

So…how’ve y’all been?

Right. Apparently I’ve forgotten how to write in my time away so you’ll have to excuse the abrupt awkwardness of this log.

Also, I can’t stop drinking this damn tea.

No, seriously, it’s buttery and grassy and sweet and I love it and I can’t stop drinking it and we’re gonna get married. The past three days of tea for me have consisted of kukicha, ryokucha, and sobacha and not much else. Cha cha cha. Hahaha.

Oh god. I…I don’t know.

This wasn’t the best time to come back here and post something. My brain is still reeling from the incomprehensible explosion of WHAT that was the Dollhouse series finale tonight. I just said it to my friend, but nobody, ain’t nobody can do bittersweet like Joss Whedon.

At least I have another addiction that I can turn to now that the book of Dollhouse has closed. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go drown my sorrows in another cup.

I was at a loss. I wanted to try this tea really badly, but I also had to go to class. And then I remembered that I had that travel tumbler from Teas Etc. that Steepster Select ran a while ago.

Crisis aborted.

Class actually wasn’t bad, but I was going in sleepy and I credit this tea to keeping me fully awake for three hours of lecture. This is going to have to become a regular practice of mine.

So, the tea.

The tea kapowed me in the face with scent when I opened the tin. I almost half-expected to see a little cartoon splat with WAP! in it. It was almost stronger than Samovar or Harney & Son’s Jasmine Pearl teas smell, which is kind of impressive if slightly overwhelming. I was a little bit afraid that the tea would judo chop my taste buds, but I steeped it, dumped it into my travel tumbler, and headed out into the cold.

And so I sat in class, listening about the physics of acoustics, and I unscrewed the lid on my tumbler.

Smells good. Strong, but good. It didn’t have that artificial tinge that some jasmines can have, which was a very good sign. Good good good good good.

Took a sip, tentatively. It was in that lovely temperature between hot and lukewarm that tips just a little bit closer to hot. The taste of jasmine filled my senses and, after it had been downed, that lovely perfumed sweetness tickled my breath when I exhaled. I had to suppress a little giggle and concentrate on standing waves for a bit, before returning to the tea.

I managed to time finishing the tumbler with our break in lecture [for which my bladder thanked me] and found myself wishing I had more to sip on during the rest of the lecture. It probably ended up working out well, though, because the caffeine kept me awake and I would have been wired if I’d had enough to last me through the end of class.

Jasmine Green wasn’t pretty strictly jasmine tasting, and it was not a quiet, lullaby-like taste. It was more Whitney Houston power ballad – you know, old school Whitney. I Will Always Love You Whitney. This doesn’t have some of the other notes I’ve gotten out of jasmine tea – like the cocoa notes I sometimes get in Samovar’s; it’s really a solo act. But like Kevin Gillespie in Top Chef has proven – keeping things simple and doing them well can be pretty damn effective. And this tea plays that hand with skill.

Series three has hit the ground running.

This is going to sound awfully staged, because Auggy and I just had a small conversation about how she was wishing that Andrews & Dunham’s Ceylon had a bit of a fruity note in it. She had specifically mentioned raspberry.

I’d suspect that this could be a potential victim of the power of suggestion, if it weren’t for the fact that this tea had an undeniable note of raspberry in it. I have yet to have had a Ceylon that has had this much depth to it. Other ones I’ve tried had been rather one note. [I think teaplz likes to use the term “default black” and that is what I think of when I think Ceylon. Or was. It’s changing now.]

Every now and then, I get a little hint of bitterness that almost hinges on a kind of metallic taste [that I think is the coppery tang they reference in the description]. But otherwise, it is very smooth, with that default black taste and fruitiness.

I’ll have to watch out for the honeydew and burnt sugar next time steep this, because I was somewhat distracted when I was drinking this and didn’t make it to a second steep before having to run out and finish some errands. I know this, because my “notes” [if you can call them that] read as such:

200F | 4 minutes
pay attention next time
and steep it again
smooth
omg raspberry.

You know what? That sums it up rather nicely, so I’m just going to stop.

Oh, except to say that Samovar has samples available on some [not all] of their teas now. Holla.

Part of me was a little frightened that I would actually like this tea enough to cause me to actually put an order through with Adagio. I’m not sure whether I’m relieved or disappointed that it wasn’t.

Chai for me has become very much a drink that reads of warmth and comfort and that is what the base of this chai said to me. However, the lemongrass was just a little too dissonant for me. Lemongrass speaks to me of spring and summer and is a refreshing, clean taste. Chai does not. I was having trouble connecting the two in my mind. Part of me feels like it shouldn’t have difficult, because chocolate and mint are kind of in the same family of combination, but maybe it’s because chocolate and mint are so ubiquitous and I’ve gotten used to them.

Anyhow, it just wasn’t gelling. And then I got some coconut shooting through the taste and that was the clincher that made me decide I wouldn’t be ordering this again. I’m learning to like coconut [I am now in love with the macaroon], but coconut milk is still something I can’t quite cope with and that’s what I was reminded of when I tasted it in the chai. I have some hanging out in the fridge, so maybe it will make more sense to me chilled.

This is all splitting hairs and everything, because really it isn’t bad. The fnal verdict is that this is a good chai, but it’s not going to knock out any of the other ones I enjoy. I can see why people like it so much.

What would a log of mine be without a wayward analogy? [Don’t answer that.] I’m just going to lay it out here at the start.

This tea reminds me of Sudafed. Not because they taste similar, but stay with me. When I was younger my mom used to give them to me and my brother when we were congested and I liked the way they tasted. One time I was feeling particularly petulant [possibly upset because I had to stay home and miss something fun at school – that’s not something that really happens any more] and she gave me a Sudafed and a little cup of water. I told her I wasn’t going to take it and she told me that if I didn’t I was going to be really uncomfortable that day. So I grabbed at it and put it in my mouth and stood there, pouting. Then she said, “You’d better swallow that or it’s going to taste bad.”

I did not [and still do not on occasion] deal well with people telling me to do things.

I stood there, glaring at her, arms crossed, and didn’t swallow it.

A few seconds later, I was spitting it out on the floor and rubbing my tongue with my finger. My mom laughed at me and said she’d make me some jello, and I smiled sheepishly and took another Sudafed.

If you’re wondering what this story has to do with this tea, it’s because it starts out nicely but I found that it has a kind of nasty finish. It’s a shame, too. It smells amazing – somewhere between caramel and kettle corn and I was pretty excited to drink it.

In sipping it, it starts out tasting as advertised – that delicious sweet and salty combination you get from caramel, with maybe a little bit of a roasty note swimming beneath that is reminiscent of popcorn. And then I gulped it down.

it was bitter. Sour, almost. And actually, lightly reminiscent of what Sudafed tastes like if you melt far enough through that red sugary shell. It wasn’t happy, and I found myself taking sips of the tea to try to combat it only to be greeted by the far less appetizing aftertaste on the finish. It was an unpleasant little vicious cycle it pulled me through, right to the end of the cup. I would have stopped altogether, if I hadn’t been holding out hope that it would fill out as it cooled. No such luck, I’m afraid.

All in all, the aftertaste wasn’t HORRIBLE, but it did qualify this tea as being something I’m not going to order. I have a little bit left, so I’ll try it with sugar, or maybe some honey. But I’ve got a couple of other caramel-tasting teas that treat me better, so I’ll be sticking with those unless adding some form of sweetener kicks this up to mind-blowing.

I’ve gotta thank teaplz for sending me this, because it is for sure something I would have ordered without thinking [I mean, it’s called Cream Caramel – which is the equivalent of a talking puppy jumping in front of my face yelping “CHOOSE ME!”] and would have ended in annoyance. Here’s hoping the remainder of my sample ends up sparkling.