Fujian Baroque

A tiny bit of this was hiding in the back of my cupboard – it’s a couple years old, but with some extra leaf and care in prep (preheating my mug, which I rarely bother with) it still quite good! Has all the chocolatey rich spice notes I like. After having Rishi’s China Breakfast for so long, it kind of tastes like a wannabe…

And another tea is gone (though I’ll do multiple steeps so it’s still around for a little bit longer). Earthy but sweet and fruity, this is lighter than a lot of the Chinese blacks I tend to favor but the smooth sweetness and lighter body make it a nice, relaxing tea.

Used the Tea Randomizer (http://www.jaydeee.net/pickatea.php) to choose my tea this afternoon and this was the winner.

Fujian Baroque was the winner. Perfect selection for this afternoon. I like the light malty flavor. It has strong hints of berry fruityness.

I’m very new to drinking unflavored teas, but wanted to pick up a few to try when I visited the Adagio store. I like that the leaves were available to sniff at the store, which is why I chose this tea. It has a nice aroma of fruit and a bakey ness to the dry leaves.

I won’t rate this one until I try a few more cups. But I do like it!

Sipdown.

Warning: emotional unpacking ahead. Oh, I’m gonna regret this in the morning.

I’m all over the place tonight and I don’t even know why. I realized that I seem to have three default emotions, depending on the situation and the time of day: carefree and happy, stressed (anywhere from mild to getting-into-my-dreams), and seething with anger (rarely over any real-world problem, usually over any part of a tangled knot of insecurities I’ve been dwelling on for years.) Tonight, I cycled through all three of them in really rapid succession. I’ve been trying to be positive lately, but my success with that seems to do more with my mood than anything. When I’m in a good mood, it’s very easy; when I’m not, I literally do not want to get rid of my negativity… somehow it makes me feel like I’m less weak, gullible, malleable, spineless, etc. if I’m human enough to be angry about something, and like I can be taken seriously (or something) if I have some amount of cynicism/rage/bitterness to carry around with me. Messed up, I know. But I’m afraid of conflict, and I never have the courage to confront the people who may be responsible for my being angry… and then the cycle continues. Also, I don’t feel like these feelings are really valid, since I haven’t had anything happen in my life to warrant this much angst – especially so far after middle school, when I’m supposed to be all grown up and adjusted and full-time job and apartment and engagement ring (and I’m living with my parents with no social life whatsoever.) I want to talk to somebody about it, but the only person who really qualifies for the job (my mom) has heard me blather about my stupid me-problems so many times she’s probably about sick of it.

The one thing I will say, though. Somehow the combination of bass practice and tea seems to help a LOT. Tonight, after one of my moody spells, I sat down and took a sip of this tea – and something about warm liquid with a flavor I don’t taste very often put my head in the right place. It wasn’t a matter of liking or disliking the tea (it’s still a little on the bitter side for my taste), it was a comfort thing and an experience thing.

Can I just stay up and drink tea for a while?

This tea was interesting. Another swap from TastyBrew. Thanks, TastyBrew!! It steeped up with a scent of cocoa. I thought, cool! Like laoshan black! Except, it tasted much more subtle. I got both notes of cocoa and some sort of fruitiness. I couldn’t discern what type of fruit, but I don’t have that educated of a palate yet. I didn’t add milk because one of the reviews said that milk killed it, and they were probably right because of how subtle the flavor is. Anyway, I liked the complexity of this tea!

My tea goal for this summer was to get through all of my loose-leaf teas to rate them and get them organized in my tea drawer. I did a quick count this morning, and if I drink just 2 teas a day I will finish them just in time before I go back to school. That way I can purchase new teas and not feel so guilty. The hard part is that some of the teas that I have left I just have no desire to try, but I am going to keep an open mind.

This is a tea that I’ve had for awhile. It is a nice tea, especially for breakfast, but nothing really stands out about it to me. I like for my plain, unflavored black teas to be super strong, and this one is just plain and mellow. I did enjoy some shortbread cookies with it this morning, and that made this cup so much better! Cookies always make things better, though. :)

-Dry blend has large black and brown tea leaves and twigs.
-Dry leaves smell malty with a hint of sweet cocoa. Tea liquor aroma has malty and fruity notes.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium reddish brown color.
-Mellow malty flavor and finish. Velvety aftertaste with sweet fruity notes.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Fair tea. A mellow and plain flavored cup with subtle hints of malty cocoa and sweet fruits. Nothing really outstanding about this tea.

I’m surprised I hadn’t rated this by now, but I’m sort of glad that I didn’t, as I don’t think I’d tried several Golden Monkey cups of tea before I bought this. I would’ve missed the similarities, or at least not have been able to spot the differences. I’ve had it for quite a while, and just been off on other tea adventures since then.

It has that very same bake-y, flour-on-the-bottom-of-a-loaf-of-rural-bread flavor as Golden Monkey does, but the flavor isn’t quite as ‘clear’, prominent (either in the nose or on the palate) or as dry. There’s more fruit in the mix, too, but dark fruit…the flavor is, overall, a bit shadowy, but not too heavy.

I suppose I can interpret what I’m tasting as the cup cools as either cocoa or spice. I tend to lean toward cocoa, though, especially now that the tea isn’t as hot anymore.

Overall, not a bad cup of tea for this morning. I wanted something different and bracing, but with less caffeine than the Dawn I’ve had over the last several mornings (which seems to pack a pretty strong punch for me, for whatever reason).

Well, I can’t speak for what the dry leaves smelled like because I was in full on “stagger mode” to get tea made this morning. Last night I lay awake until 7am thinking about different scenarios for location scouting for my film. Which was a waste of time either way because “bleary baffled middle of night insomniac” me didn’t convince any of my imaginary conversation partners to let us shoot on their imaginary locations.

SO!
I have no clue what the leaves smell like.
The liquor though smells awesome! It’s like an egg pastry… some kind of bavarian creme egg pastry. A-ma-zing.
I started out drinking this neat without milk.
The flavor is nice and nutty with a full mouth feel. Even better, it’s astringent in a good way! Instead of just making my mouth feel like I sucked on a desiccant packet, the dryness adds to the nutty flavour.
This does not need any milk at all.
So, like an idiot, I said “I’ll add milk! And see what I think.”
Well, let me tell you. Milk totally kills it. All the subtlety is gone.
So I did a second brewing of the same leaves.
The second brew smelled nuttier and slightly more bitter. The liquor is still thick and it’s still creamy, but in more of a roasted nut kind of way. It kind of reminds me of the first cup of coffee I ever had (it was also the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had). We were camping and it was kona coffee brewed in a percolator, drank under tall pines in Maine. It was pretty perfect. This tea has the same nutty aftertaste.
Overall – I love it! Next time I won’t ruin the first steeping with milk…

I switched back to tea this morning in the hopes that it will help me tackle the enormous sewing pile in my room. I picked the Fujian Baroque because it has long been a favorite of mine. Today I noted a smokiness accompanying the cocoa flavor I’m used to. Maybe I’ve set it too close to my Lapsang?

I have discovered that I like smooth and velvety qualities in my tea and this is indeed smooth and velvety and I’m having it with a pink frosted cupcake!
People who don’t like cupcakes must be evil :)
Just discovered this vendor: http://www.postcardteas.com/
I love the concept – well done!