The Fifth of November

Honey, I’m home!!
The Ladies (5 of my adult harp students) & I just got back from our excursion to the London Tea Room. We had so much fun! In addition to lunch, we each ordered a pot of tea & passed them around, so that everyone got to sample everything. Here’s a list of the teas we tried, & a few of the comments (which I asked everyone to jot down in a small 3 X 5 spiral I carry around with me):
White Peony: “Smooth Flavor” “Pale with a hint of apricot” “I found it calming”
Bergamot Sage: “oooh…that’s different! Kind of minty & not overpowering on the bergamot” “The warmth of sage, the brightness of citrus – a good way to center oneself” “The best full flavor! Love the Sage!” “Love the herb smell as I am drinking it. Has a smooth feel”
Silver Needle: “Mild – good” “Nice & Mild – good for colds”
Blueberry Rooibos: Although I’m not a fan of blueberry, this has an authentic taste & with sweetener, YUM!" “Tart!” “Surprisingly appealing, subtle but lingering, great with a bit of sweetener” “liked the blueberry tartness. Tasted better after sugar was added”
Chocolate Mate Chai: “a hint of pepper, would like to try with milk” “Yum num num, like a chocolate malt” “Great, surprisingly good” “loved the chocolate flavor”
Blood Orange Pu’erh: “Deep Reddish brown. Smells of minerals, orange, & the ocean. Tastes of chocolate, orange, berry. Sweetened, Wow!” “Burst of flavor, yet still delicate” “My favorite! Strong citrus flavor”

Lunch was awesome, the service excellent, between the 6 of us we probably spent enough $$$ to support the place for a week (I spent $75 on food & tea & a cute little glass teapot with basket that I just had to have…).

Sorry I got so off-track! While I was writing this, I’ve been drinking the Fifth of November, which I’ve wanted to try for awhile. It’s like going camping in the woods! Smokey & rich from the gunpowder & Lapsang Souchong base, there is an undefined berry flavor (“Winter Berries” what does that mean? Cranberries? Probably not…), & just enough vanilla. It’s really quite good, & I’m reminded of a sweet fruity pipe tobacco. Robust plain, a little sweetening really brings out the vanilla & fruit. A tasty blend!

Hmmm, my tea definitely doesn’t look like the picture here – there were bits in it! I didn’t look too closely, bits of fruit, perhaps?

Last tea of the evening. Have been half asleep for a while now. Thinking the caffeine in this one will do diddly-squat because I’m just so exhausted.

The aroma is sweet, smoky, and fruity. Mmmmm. Loving these lapsang souchong blends.

Flavourwise I’m definitely getting all three as well. It’s a touch on the weak side though – I was worried about the 5 minute infusion instructions so went with four, perhaps a mistake. Too tired to review further.

I kinda like this :) Definitely want to keep trying more LS blends. Thanks Azzrian!

No vendor directions on brewing, but since this has green in it, I went with that. The leaf smells berry-ier than I anticipated. Berries over a campfire maybe? Which would probably smell a bit more like burning so maybe just eating berries next to a campfire. Sometimes the berry seems to dominate, sometimes the campfire. But even when the campfire dominates, it’s a sweet campfire because of the berry under-note. I can’t really pick out the vanilla but that’s probably because it is blending with the berry, giving it kind of a creamy berry smell instead of a tart berry smell.

Once brewed though, the tea seems to decide to let the lapsang souchong smell have center stage, but the berry scent is still a big supporting character. Though it does seem to also show of the… fake-ness of the berry. It also smells a little cough syrup-y. Almost. I think the vanilla creamy saves it from that.

Sipping is… odd. The flavor seems to rapidly seesaw between sweet smoky and sweet berry (thankfully no cough syrup memories are being evoked – in fact it tastes more natural than the tea smells). The flavors seem to work nicely together though. It’s weird but it works. There is distinct berry and distinct smoke but both are sweet and that sweetness ties them together.

The aftertaste in particular reminds me of something I can’t peg but that something makes me think that this would be a good iced tea. So perhaps it reminds me of some flavored bottled tea I’ve had? But without the artificial sweetners added because this yea is pretty sweet by itself. It actually tastes likes I’ve put a bit of sugar in it already.

Now here’s the one thing that keeps me from loving this tea. I’m just not a huge berry-flavoring fan. I love strawberries and blackberries, but after that I’m kind of eh. And this is more of a raspberry taste. However, the husband loves raspberries so I had him try some of this. He was able to pick out the berry and the lapsang souchong almost instantly. After a few more sips he said that he could see himself enjoying a big ole hot mug of this though he had a slight concern that the smoky would build and he doesn’t really like lapsang souchong (from my cup I didn’t notice any build up so I don’t think that would be a problem).

Anyway, he gave it a 4/5 stars to my 3/5 stars. But my rating drops that one star just because of the type of berry. As far as the slider rating goes, this one is tough. I like how the flavors work together and I really do think the balance is quite nice so it rates rather high on that. But personally, I’m not in love with the tea because of the type of berry and that’s all on me. But this is my rating scale so I’m going to rate it on the subjective, personal side of things instead of the objective side of things. Because that’s how I roll.

sipdown!

this tea confuses me. It’s smokey but is also full of berry? There’s something in the blend as well that is making me sneeze but i couldn’t tell you what. Overall this is a pretty tasty blend though i think i prefer my smoke without the berry flavour. I do like the texture of this smoke however. I also don’t really grasp the vanilla that is hiding in here somewhere. However, this was an excellent large sil mug full of fun! Thanks terri!

This tea just makes me happy. Reminds me of the Renaissance – woodsy smoky flavors with a light berry undertone which is perfect. Add a little sugar in the raw or not – its great both ways. Wonderful LS base. The berry notes are not over the top.

I’ve had this tea for forever and this is my first time trying it. It was one of those teas that I was so sure of in the store that I just had to purchase it, but after getting home I would smell it and be like why did I buy this again? I used some of this in the 12 days of tea gift that I made for my Mom for Christmas and this was her most favorite out of all the teas, she absolutely loved it. The dry leaves smell overwhelmingly smokey, and I’m not quite sure if I’ll like that as a flavor or not. There is a nice hint of vanilla and berries in the smell also that makes it nice. The flavor is overwhelmingly woodsy with a very strong smokey finish. The berry and vanilla flavors come out more as the cup cools, and there is a nice tartness to the berry flavor. I just can’t get past that lingering smokiness that is left in my mouth! Although I probably will be giving the rest of this bag to my Mom, I wouldn’t mind having a mug of this tea to enjoy outside at night around the fire pit. Unfortunately we don’t use our fire pit very often, so I won’t be purchasing more any time soon!

-Dry leaves are small and black with a few dried fruit pieces.
-Dry blend smells very smokey with an undertone of berries and vanilla. Tea liquor aroma is strongly smokey.
-Tea liquor is a clear dark brown color.
-Strong, woodsy flavor with a hint of berry tartness. Lingering smokey finish.
-Best with sweetener.
-Good tea. Intense smokey flavor. Vanilla flavor becomes more pronounced as the cup cools. Sweetener enhances the nice berry flavor.

it really does smell like campfire! well, campfire with a hint of berry :D

but it doesn’t taste like campfire, and i suppose that’s a good thing… to be honest, maybe I put too much splenda in- but it tastes like a normal (though very nice cup of black tea) with a hint of berry… and the lovely campfire smell.

i still really like it. The description makes it sound like it’s a wonderful fall tea and it does remind me of burning leaves a bit- but moreso I love sniffing and imagining i’m in a chateau ski-lodge in Colorado.

update uhmm, it’s highly possible i oversteeped this tea… perhaps 5 minutes is too much. because it’s starting to taste bitter.

i added creamer and that’s softened it. much better!