60
drank Nina's Japon by Nina's Paris
1353 tasting notes

From the queue, written April 5th 2014

Camp NaNoWriMo is having an unforseen good effect on the queue growth, in that it stops it from being too explosive. I’m only doing 15K, so it’s 500 word per day minimum. This has been going well for me so far and I’m nearly a full day ahead. However, that takes priority over writing tea posts, and after I’m done I just want to do something mindless like playing a Facebook game or on Neopets or something like that.

It’s not very good for getting through the yet-to-try box though. The goal is to reach the bottom of it. Try every last thing in it before being allowed to buy new stuff. This is going to take me a very long time, but I reckon I can do it before 2014 is out.

I’ve already done my words this morning, though, so there aren’t any trouble with trying new things today.

This one Courtney shared with me, and it’s another variation on the caramel and vanilla theme. In this version there is also genmaicha in it. I’m not very experienced with that, but I did have a rather nice one that Kitty blended recently, so this makes me quite interested in how it fares in a blend such as this.

The aroma is certainly genmaicha-y. The popped rice has a certain salty aroma and while at first this strikes me as an odd combination with the caramel and vanilla, after having sniffed it for a little while they begin to come together and the sweet ingredients take over. They are very strong at this point, both the caramel and the vanilla. I have to say I’m quite enjoying that hint of salt behind it. It makes the whole thing seem more… what shall we say? Robust, perhaps, is a good word. Sturdy.

At first when I sip, I’m mostly getting a flavour like a roasty-toasty genmaicha, not disimilar to the one that Kitty blended. After a while I’m getting a good strong caramel note, but not until the tea has cooled a bit. The genmaicha-y note of the popped rice is still there, though, and it makes me feel like I’m having grain with toffee sauce on it, which frankly I’m finding a rather peculiar experience.

I know you American lot frequently put all kinds of odd things on popcorn that have no business being there (butter? Seriously? Ew….) and perhaps this is what it’s trying to emulate. Where I come from you get popcorn with salt on them, however. And that’s it. That’s the only option. To be quite honest with you, it is also the only sort of popcorn that I am willing to eat.

Therefore my overall impression of this tea is that it’s mysterious. I like the caramel note in it. Not so much the genmaicha addition.

On an unrelated note, in the 2-3 minutes it took me to steep my current cup I managed to completely forget what I made… It’s flavoured, but seriously, that’s all I’ve got! I think it’s something with vanilla, but that doesn’t really narrow it down at all. This does not bode well from staying awake for the Eurovision finale tonight! O.O

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Introvert, crafter, black tea drinker, cat lover, wife, nerd, occasional curmudgeon.

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Bio last updated February 2020

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