1222 Tasting Notes
I recently finished off (and quite enjoyed) the black tea version of this tea. Now I’m working through the green tea version, and honestly, the flavoring itself is pretty spot-on to the black version: a light and subtle cherry flavor lacking of syrupy or medicinal qualities, with this really fresh pine note from the rosemary. The green tea base can be a bit biting unless I go pretty light on the leaf, but in the right amount it has a very lovely vegetal and buttery flavor, definitely my preference in a sencha over more seaweedy/oceanic sencha. The fresh green flavor of the base goes really well with the soft fruitiness and clean pine notes. I enjoyed it warm, but have really been enjoying it coldbrewed, 5g to a liter of water left in the fridge to steep overnight.
Flavors: Butter, Cherry, Grass, Pine, Vegetal
Preparation
My friend received the Solstice Tea Traders “ultimate tea sampler” but isn’t a tea person so he re-gifted it to me. This is the second mini tin from the set I’ve pulled out to work through. It’s… black tea. Not really any surprises here…. malty, bready, leafy, cardboardy, without any real defining notes. A bit astringent even with a three minute steep. Meant to be taken with milk and sugar, though that is one of the few ways I haven’t prepared it. It has made a nice coldbrew with my leftover peach syrup, and this morning I’ve added some lemon juice and honey which have provided a little more flavor. A bit underwhelming on its own but an acceptable “base.”
Flavors: Astringent, Autumn Leaf Pile, Bread, Cardboard, Malt
Preparation
I pulled this out a week ago when my friend Todd was visiting for the weekend; I have chronic migraine and kept waking up with my head being uncooperative, so I was hitting it with all the things first thing in the morning, including a stronger-than-usual hit of caffeine. I think this was the only “coffee tea” in my current cupboard that wasn’t an herbal substitute to coffee and would actually have the caffeine I needed.
It’s pretty good! I have been brewing it a bit stronger than I would typically brew blacks or mates, so that combined with the coffee beans does make it a little bitter, but that bitterness also just sells the coffee flavor, which is pretty prominent. I can taste a bit of vanilla on the backend, but mostly I taste the really sharp notes of coffee bean and the roastiness of the roasted yerba mate. Very nice for a kick-in-the-pants morning, or a drizzly rainy afternoon at work.
Flavors: Bitter, Coffee, Dark Bittersweet, Nutty, Roasted, Vanilla
Preparation
A friend recently told us that he heard from a coworker that if you run as soon as you feel a migraine starting, it will go away. he tried jumping on his treadmill, and it worked for him. The last time Ashman had a visual aura and felt one coming on, I reminded him and he immediately took the dogs for a walk/run. It worked for him, no headache although his scalp felt tender as if he had recently had one. It may only work for certain tyoes. Ihope it will continue to work for him as he has complex mograines with aura, loss of speech, tingling of hands, etc.
Interesting, physical activity aggrevates migraines for a lot of people (mine included). Caffeine, too, can help some and make things way worse for others (thankfully for me it either helps a little bit or has no affect, but doesn’t make them worse). I’ve had chronic migraine (15+ attacks a month) since I was in my teens, and they used to be unlivable. A new class of medications that came out in 2019 (CGRP inhibitors) has actually given me some quality of life back, and now I have a more manageable number of attacks and the attacks don’t last as long and not at the same intensity. The bad part is the medication is extremely expensive and hard to get, I have a battle between insurance and Patient Assistance Programs every year to stay on it. I hope the best for his migraine journey, it is crazy how many different symptoms they have on the body (once I woke up with my hearing lost in one ear completely for 24 hours!)
Caffeine seems to help him, also.
as a fellow migraine-haver, I feel you!
I’ve been waiting for a year to have an appointment with a neurologist, so at the moment I can’t really prevent them, and instead deal with them with a strong NSAID whenever they appear, as was ordered by my family doctor
if I get them earlier in the day, coffee also tends to help me! It’s cute how these little tricks are so universal among us :)
when the migraines are milder, eating really greasy and salty foods also helps — I’ve found that McDonald’s fries have the best grease and salt ratio for me
I hope you don’t have to fight with your insurance and PAP too much; it sucks that you even have to do that :( sometimes, I wish there was a simulator to make them feel the pain we feel so they’d understand how vital treatment is
by now, your migraine is (hopefully) gone, and if it isn’t, please go rest! I usually just lie on the couch watching Arrested Development with a very low volume and most lights turned off, you could do the same with the original Alita! :D
My neurologist suggested some supplements that haven’t helped and wanted to put me on 900mg of gabapentin daily, the current cure all medication. I was on 100mg daily already and hated it, so I opted not to go up to 900 and had to wean myself off the 100mg. I hope you get better results with your neurologist. I’ll have to try running to greasy salty foods the next time I feel one coming on! I’m willing to try almost anything (besides all the gabapentin).
My friend received the Solstice Tea Traders “ultimate tea sampler” but isn’t a tea person so he re-gifted it to me. This was the only tea in the set I don’t like, so I decided to finish it off first, by making my own Moroccan Mint cold brew with it… just 5g of the gunpowder and a single teabag of Twinings peppermint left in a liter of water overnight. Which was fine and didn’t have the tobacco notes I find so unappealing in gunpowder green. Not sure how this would’ve tasted straight up, but as a Moroccan Mint base, it was fine.
Flavors: Grass, Vegetal
Preparation
The dry aroma of this tea really does come off as a mango ice cream… not a fruit sorbet, but a creamy vanilla ice cream with fresh mango. Steeped up, the mango flavor is pretty forthright initially and tastes a bit green, but as the tea cools the vanilla notes come out more and the mango sweetens up a lot. The black tea base is mildly malty and a little woody. The total composition is very tasty; I could probably do with even more mango flavor, but the more gentle and sweet-leaning flavor is nice too. I definitely see the ice cream inspiration.
Flavors: Cream, Fruity, Malty, Mango, Stonefruit, Sweet, Vanilla, Woody
Preparation
The name on this one is very apt… all gentle spices and warm, rich maple. This is the last maple-flavored tea in my current stash, so I’m sad to see it go, but it is delicious. It is the most prominent flavor note, with the spices playing a softer role. Of the spices, the cinnamon is the most dominant and paired with the maple really gives indulgent breakfast feels. Using up the very bottom of the package, the nutmeg is really popping, too. Package recommends 3.5g, but I prefer 5g. Cozy indeed!
Flavors: Cinnamon, Maple, Nutmeg, Spices, Sweet
Preparation
I’d sort of forgotten I’d bought a big bag of this Greek Mountain Tea and it’s gotten a bit old now, so I’ve been working my way through it. I started with some hot evening cuppas but quickly switched to cold brew as I’m finding the flavor especially refreshing. It has flavors of apple, mint, basil, and citrus, in a very herbaceous way, and it’s really easy to drink ice cold. I did find the flowers were a bit messy and hard to strain when I left them free-floating in my mason jar, so now I fill two fillable teabags to contain the fluffy stuff while it steeps. It’s a little annoying that it floats on top of the water even when really soaking it, but the flavor the next morning is still very nice.
Flavors: Apple, Basil, Hay, Herbaceous, Lemongrass, Mint
Preparation
Made a warm cuppa of this yesterday night using 4g of leaf to a 350ml cup but the flavor wasn’t as strong as I was hoping for, so tonight I used 6g for a 500ml teapot with a long “leave the bag in” steep. The deep cinnamon and citrus aroma is very pleasant. The steeped tea is a very pretty red color on the pour, but the flavor still doesn’t feel as strong as I’d like… I think the problem is that the color and aroma remind me of hibiscus spice Christmas blends (which I really love and drank a lot of over a two week course of sinus infection) but this is a honeybush base which is just a more thin mouthfeel. The flavor is a bit similar, with a strong sweet cinnamon taste (with woody undertones, not like candy), but the citrus note is much stronger. The lemongrass really pops, very citrusy with a slight hay-like note. The woody and peppery notes of the honeybush blend very well with the cinnamon and lemongrass, so that pepper flavor doesn’t feel quite so out of place here as I get with other honeybush blends. I don’t taste plum, but that’s one of those tea flavors like cranberry that I never seem able to taste. I also have never even heard of a pryanik prior to seeing this tea’s name. (Idaho is not exactly a place of very diverse food offerings… We do have fry sauce, though!)
Flavors: Cinnamon, Citrus, Hay, Lemon, Pepper, Woody
Preparation
Fry sauce? One particular recipe or a cornucopia of various formulas?
I had to look up pryanik. And is that fry sauce like Canes sauce? Boom boom sauce?
Sorry for the thinner mouthfeel, I know hibiscus would have added that – but I no longer use hibiscus in any of my blends as there is too great a chance of peanut cross contamination.
For those who are unfamiliar with pryanik – it’s a Russian/Ukrainian holiday treat – like a spiced honey cookie often with a fruit filling.
“Fry sauce” is an Idaho/Utah thing… typically it’s just 50/50 ketchup/mayo though some places have their own varieties (I quite like ones using BBQ). You ask for “fry sauce” here, you get it, pre-mixed. Any other state I visit they go, “You mean ketchup?” and then I have to ask for a side of mayo and mix it myself at the table. :-P
For Ashman, every Friday is Fry Day and I mix mayo, ketchup, Heinz sweet chili sauce, a tiny bit of sriracha, garlic powder, onion powder, and black pepper.
For our version of yum yum sauce, I mix mayo, Sweet Baby Ray’s bbq sauce, garlic powder, a few drops of rice vinegar, and a pinch of sugar. So that might be more like your fry sauce.
I wanted a green tea this morning considering the day (Happy St. Paddy’s! It’s my turn in the March Steepster Birthday Madness today. Happy birthday to all the rest of you tea-drinking March babies!)
The dry leaf smelled fruity and spicy and hit that certain mix of fruit and spice that read to my nose as bubblegum (which is not a bad thing for me, I love pink bubblegum aroma and flavor). The aroma from the brewed tea doesn’t quite it that, though… the apple comes out more and it smells like baked sweet cinnamon apples.
I get the apple cider reference… the flavor is appley with a hint of tartness (I could do with even more bite, but my favorite apples are tart green varieties) and I can pick out the cinnamon and allspice (oddly enough, not the clove) adding a very mild and gentle spice. Some sips I get that bubblegum effect, but it is fleeting and doesn’t happen every sip. There is a nice grassy green undertone that works well with the flavors. Very enjoyable cuppa!
Flavors: Allspice, Apple, Bubblegum, Cinnamon, Fruity, Spices, Sweet, Warm Grass
Preparation
I’ve prepared this tea hot and plain a few times and enjoyed every cup; the strawberry flavor is rich and a little candy sweet, with more subtle sweet vanilla undertones. The honeybush does have that peppery note, but otherwise is very smooth and doesn’t give off any medicinal flavors, which I sometimes have issues with when berry flavors are paired with rooibos.
I debated stretching a few more cups out of the available leaf packet or doubling up for an indulgent latte, and this morning the latte won out. I used sweet vanilla almond milk and that has really brought out a “strawberry ice cream” vibe. The strawberry is still there but the vanilla notes are amplified and the drink is really creamy. Indulgent, indeed!
Flavors: Candy, Cream, Fruity, Pepper, Strawberry, Sweet, Vanilla
