1353 Tasting Notes

Chamovile.

Ugh.

sniffle

Soothing, though.

gmathis

My creative spelling would be a little different: L-icky-rice. Hope you are un-sniffled.

Angrboda

Took me a while to see through that one. I read it as ‘licky rice’ at first and couldn’t understand what you apparently liking rice a lot had to do with anything. :) I like licorice when it’s in the form of sweeties and when it is actually licorice. I had some supposedly licorice flavoured jelly beans once which had everything to do with anise and nothing at all to do with licorice. Lead me to the conclusions that the Jelly Bean manufacturers probably didn’t even know what licorce is, and that as a result a lot of ordinary American children probably don’t know either… Come to Scandinavia! Get proper licorice! :)

gmathis

Astute observation: I think American kids don’t know what a lot of things taste like!

Angrboda

I hope that’s not a problem here, although… it probably is. Most Danish children probably don’t know what, say, ocra is, and have never seen a corndog except in films. It’s just different foods we’re unfamiliar with. Hey, I didn’t know what ocra was until a just a few years ago. :)

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97
drank Vanilla by Fru P Kaffe & The
1353 tasting notes

Some of you may remember that this is my favourite vanilla black of all time. I’ll tell you a bit about my relationship with Fru P at this point and then I’ll leave it up to you lot to decide what that says about me.

When she just opened the shop, it was shortly after Husband and I got married, so I pretty much just bounded in there in an almost Tigger-esque way, “Are you Mrs P? I’m also Mrs P!” (Fru being Danish for Mrs) I got myself a little bit in trouble with her tea selection, but of course I needed to try the vanilla and it was awesome.

I still keep coming back to stock up on that one. It’s just right for me.

A few months ago when I was in getting a big supply of it to drink at work, I was being helped by one of her assistants, and I asked for “that good vanilla black.”

So the assistant went and got the tin, and Mrs P came rushing in from the side going, “wait, wait, that’s not the one she wants! I’ll get the one she wants,” and then she disappeared out back for a moment.

Turns out when they had last ordered it in, they had bought a vanilla flavoured Darjeeling instead of the regular vanilla black, and Mrs P knows I don’t much care for Darjeeling. Luckily she still had some of the old one out back.

Then, yesterday I was in there again, obviously looking for some of my favourite vanilla.

Now, what does it say about me that the exchange went much like this,

Me: slightly conspiratorial look “That vanilla, you know…”
Mrs P: smiles and goes out back "How much would you like?

She assured me that they weren’t going to replace it completely with the Darjeeling one, so now I’m sort of wondering if she’s hiding the other one out there for the benefit of only a few customers. Obviously, this means that the tea isn’t exactly super-fresh anymore, but you know, in a flavoured black tea that’s less of an issue that it would have been in, say, a green or even a regular black. I feel a bit sort of special and VIP-ish when I order ‘off the menu’ like that.

I love that shop, I really do. I took an intant liking to Mrs P first time I met her, and have never had reason to change my mind. Quite the contrary, actually. And I’m not even in there every other week either.

gmathis

That sounds like such a magical, friendly little shop!

Marzipan

I can’t wait until we visit there again so I can go.

Fjellrev

That is so awesome how she’s letting you in on the little vanilla secret in the back room. I hope she’ll never run out of it for your sake!

gmathis

Maybe it’s the Everlasting Gobstopper tin of vanilla :)

Angrboda

I asked her if she was switching to the Darj in the future, but she assured me that it had been an ordering mistake. I think she’s just hidden it because we who can tell a difference and who care are probably still rather a minority, and having two different vanilla blacks on display at the same time might cause too much confusion. She doesn’t really have room for both of them anyway. She’s already got four or five of those big tins stacked on the floor because there isn’t shelf space enough. That little shop of hers is packed to the brim. :)

Angrboda

Marzipan, you’ll like it, I think. She’s got loads of stuff besides tea. Wine, specialty beers, vinergars, oils, syrups, nice coffees, chocolates, licorice… Lots of interesting stuff.

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drank Midsummer Mango by Tea Palace
1353 tasting notes

My long Steepster break has really changed my tea habits into something far more relaxed than before. I’m going to try my damndest to keep it at this level. It feels… healthier, if you know what I mean. And I didn’t even think I was all that obsessive before. I feel like I’m carrying less weight around having realised that I don’t need a tea of every flavour and six different breakfast black and a dozen afternoon teas. Two or three of each is all I require. Maybe one or two extra as a luxury, but still. Keep it small. It means I shop tea far less frequently (and again, it wasn’t even super frequent before) and I do it differently. I shop when I want something in particular and then go straight for those items. After that, I’ll allow myself one or two other samples.

That’s how I got this one. I wanted a couple of things that we have previously enjoyed from TP and this was the sample that I allowed myself. The thing about TP’s samples is that they’re quite large. :) I’m not sure why I went for this one, actually. It’s not a flavour I would normally be interested by. I think I must have been having mango-y thoughts recently when I saw it. Perhaps a recipe with mango in it or something.

It’s an alright tea, really. It just doens’t really taste like mango. It’s more like generic tropical fruit and quite Ceylon-y. I suspect a mid- to high-grown one too. I can see how the spicy grassy flavour of a high-grown Ceylon might match well with tropical fruits, but on the other hand… It rather makes me wonder how it would have presented itself if the base hadn’t been a Chinese/Ceylon blend. What if it had been Chinese only? Or even just a lower grown Ceylon without those spicy-grassy notes? I wonder if that would have made the mango present more as actual mango or if it’s not connected at all.

I don’t know. It’s an alright tea, really. But that’s all it is.

gmathis

Good to see you! Very wise decision…I’m trying to work my way into “simple pantry” myself.

Terri HarpLady

First, nice review :)
Secondly, I’m kind of in a similar place. My temporary return to the publics schools system started a change in my tea drinking & even more so in my reviewing, and although I quit that job & went back to being fully self employed again (& much happier), the frenzy to Drink all the Teas has been replaced by a desire to narrow down my cupboard to teas I love, letting go of the need to write about every single cup, no need to review teas that I’ve already reviewed half a dozen times.

ashmanra

Great to see you back! We have missed your reviews. And I agree! I review much less than I once did and my cupboard overwhelms me sometimes. Fortunately, I have lots of tea drinkers over who can help get it under control but then I also tend to keep guest favorites on shelf as well so that adds to the cupboard things that I normally wouldn’t keep on hand! Still, simplifying is my goal in a lot of areas and I think I am making headway!

Angrboda

After a while of not having been here, I just had a good hard clear-out. Having taken a step back from Steepster first made it much easier to look at each tea in a more objective way and decide if it was something I was likely to drink and if I’d enjoy it if I did drink it. Anything where I couldn’t honestly say ‘yes’ to both questions went in the bin. Now, some people would just faint at the very thought of it, but I can honestly say that doing this felt so good. Like shedding excess weight in one go. Just for that, I don’t want to go back up to having loads of stuff that is never used up. I could easily do another round of that, actually. I went from four drawers to two, and one of the remaining, I hardly ever look in because it’s where the non-black tea lives. And… I’m just not really into those types.

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84

Found the rest of this in the drawer and thought why not? Apparently I previously thought it had a pear-y aftertaste. I feel quite keen on a bit of pear flavour this morning, so let’s hope I still think it’s there.

Funnily enough, first time I had it I also wrote I should update my Steepster cupboard as it was horribly out of date. Today I’m thinking I should just empty it out what with not really having used it at all for eight months. Not sure I will again this time around. I’m trying to make my site usage a lot more casual than what it was, so it’s very much back to basics. You may also have noticed that I’ve discarded the numerical ratings in favour of the recommendation buttons instead. I’m pretty much aiming for ‘Steepster Light’ here. I will let the ratings made previously stand though.

Anyway, very sweet, very nutty. That definitely hasn’t changed, even though the leaf is getting a bit on the old side. There’s a strong flavour of nuts to it. I had a phase shortly before I stopped coming here where I was deeply into nut-flavoured teas. Shame I didn’t remember this one then. I couldn’t really tell you which kind of nut I think it’s more like. One sip I think walnut, the next sip I think hazelnut. Possibly we’re dealing with a nut flavour sort of in between the two.

Pear-y aftertaste, though? No, not really. Looks like if I want pear flavour this morning I should go and eat a pear.

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I have (nearly) always been a Chinese black kinda girl. I do occasionally enjoy others as well, like I’m partial to a good Assam and I wouldn’t say no to a low-grown Ceylon or a particularly good Kenya, but deep down the Chinese blacks is where I ‘live’ preference-wise.

Taiwanese blacks are sort of the same family (political controversies not even taken into account) and they have lots of the same qualities. Like for example one of the things I like about the Chinese blacks is how they are nearly impossible to ruin. If you have a good leaf, you can steep it to kingdom come and it will still come out perfectly drinkable. Perhaps a little less nice than if you’d done it properly, granted, but it won’t be totally ruined. In comparison, if you did the same thing with an Assam or a Ceylon, it would be a highly unpleasant experience indeed.

I don’t have much experience with Taiwan, though. It’s one of those things, you see. You tell yourself you should explore this or that type or this or that area but just never really seem to get around to it. So when I got a newsletter from Yunnan Sourcing, announcing the opening of Taiwan Sourcing, I jumped at the chance immediately and got a small amount of each of the three blacks they offered. The first one was the one I posted about last time I posted. This is one of the other two.

This is actually saying a lot, as I have entered a phase where I’m less focused on having an enormous amount of tea choice at all time and wanting to try all the teas and all the shops and all the flavours and find the perfect this and the perfect that. This is what happens when you stop using a site for 8 months. In recent times I’ve rather thrown myself at embroidery and am more likely to be spending money on stitching supplies. (So many designs! So little time!)

Anyway, this tea is very minty when you smell it. So minty, you’d think there was mint in it, but there isn’t. There’s a great deal of camphor-y notes to it as well.

It’s slightly astringent when drinking it, especially as it cools down a bit, but not nearly so much as to bother those who don’t care for astringency, I don’t think. I mean, we’re not on an Indian teas level of astringency here. But a touch of it, yes. There’s a cinnamon-like aftertaste as mentioned in the description of it, but for me it’s primarily quite malty and dark tasting. It’s very nice.

ms.aineecbeland

Nice to read that you are still reviewing teas. Good for you.

Angrboda

Oh hello, seule! It’s been quite fun seeing all these old familiar names again. How are you? :)

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Hello Steepsterites!

Long time, no see.

I haven’t been around here for… 8 months or so, judging by the date stamp of my last post. So why the absence? Well, to be entirely frank with you, forum wank. At the time when I stopped coming here there had been a number of petty little arguments and other rounds of controversy on the board, one following the other. I got fed up and lost interest. This period of time was significant because anything going further than a heated discussion has been very rare on this site indeed.

So time for a break and a break I’ve had. I’ve enjoyed it, but it seems my tea-interest has changed in the meantime. I’m not sure I’d say it has waned, but definitely changed. I still prefer a decent quality leaf and I still brew it loose in the pot, but I’m buying much less, keeping less in the house, and have also come to appreciate the simple convenience of the bag now and then. GASP SHOCK HORROR!!! I know, Steepsterites. But really, once you no longer feel the need to analyse and consider every sip, but would rather just have something warm and satisfying to drink, you tend to start leaning more towards convenience. Don’t worry, I haven’t sunk so low as reverting to Lipton’s Yellow Label or anything of that ilk. I primarily have herbal teas in bags, with the very occasional exception if it’s a decent brand and an interesting sounding flavour. Such as that Nutcracker Sweet from Celestial Seasonings that I remember many people around here being very fond off around Christmas. I’ve even started drinking way more coffee than before, due to this fantastic espresso pot for the hob that we bought in January and Husband buying a coffee grinder, so we can have coffee with ultra-freshly ground coffee. It’s fab!

I can’t really promise that I’ll come back to regularly visiting the site. Maybe I’ll have a peek in now and then. Interestingly, I seem to have gained a lot of new followers while I’ve been dormant. Not sure how that works, but then again, I’m here now so, hi! waves

So why am I back now? Well, Steepsterites, Husband and I have spent a lovely week in a rented summer house in the South of Denmark. Understand that this area of the country is culturally very much coffee country. This was reflected in the summer house which had not one but two coffee makers and a sufficient amount of coffee cups to serve twenty people. At least!

For tea drinkers? Bit of a waste-land, and the forced creativity that followed was what made me think of you lot.

The house had no kettle. Not an electric one, not one for the hob. No kettle whatsoever. Okay, we had a sauce pan.

The house had no teapot. None. Hm. There’s a ceramic bowl with a handle and a small spout.

The house had no mugs. Loads of coffee cups, though…. The lack of mugs was for me the most dire. Coffee cups are fine for coffee, but for tea they’re rather small. Local charity shop to the rescue, where we bought two mugs and donated them to the summer house when we went home.

http://tinypic.com/m/j17m2d/4

So, Steepsterites. Go to your kitchen. Cuddle your kettle! Pet your pots! Hug your mug! These things are pure luxury!

Now, this tea I’m drinking. My long break from this site has caused me to lose some of the tasting routine that I had built up before. I can probably still taste more nuances than someone who has never tried analysing a tea flavour, but some things are no longer as clearly different from each other as they once were.

As a consequence, when I drink this tea, the first thing that comes to mind is simply ‘this is very nice’. And then I try and think about some details and I feel a bit lost. There’s a familiar note here, how did I usually describe that? Another note there, is it more grainy or malty? I think I’d describe this as a fairly malty and somewhat grainy tea. It has a good body and a long aftertaste, and now I just sound like I’m trying to write a wine label. I’m so not used to this.

In the end, though, it’s a highly satisfying Taiwanese tea, and with a name like this, how can you not love it?

So, what’s new with you lot?

Sil

welcome back! I feel you on not needing/wanting to analyse everything. I think i can finally get to a place where i have my favourites and occasionally i’ll branch out. :) no tea bags for me though…unless i’m travelling haha. Hope your summer has been awesome!

Angrboda

Thanks! Yes, I think that’s where I am as well. I’ll make an order when we’ve actually run out of breakfast-type teas or flavoured ones in general or that sort of thing. Not ‘ooh I’ve got nothing nut-flavoured, must order seven different ones stat!’ I’m down to a breakfast type/Asssam, two or three flavoureds, an EG and some Keemun plus a few odds and ends. And I’m fine with that. :)

boychik

Welcome back ;)

Angrboda

Thanks. :)

KiwiDelight

Sometimes bagged black teas really do the comforting trick. I like drinking Red Rose Earl Grey during the colder months. /whistles not sheepishly

Angrboda

Yes, it’s just so uncomplicated. And these days, to be honest, if you pay attention you can actually get a decent quality teabag. It’ll never be as high quality as loose, obviously, but it doesn’t have to be floor sweepings either. I look mostly for flavoured in bagged form. There was a place in town where they had a good selection of Clipper, but alas they don’t seem to have as many as they used to. Sadly they’re no longer carrying the assam with vanilla that I’ve got a box or two of at my parents’ house.

Marzipan

Pickwick in Denmark was one of my first tea loves.

Angrboda

Eh, Pickwick is sort of on par with Lipton in my opinion. I’d rather go for Twinings, really. Or Clipper, if I can get it. Unfortunately the selection of either is limited.

Marzipan

Yes, but everyone starts somewhere.

Angrboda

This is true. I have actually always preferred Pickwick to Lipton, even way before getting into tea at all. Couldn’t tell you why.

Roughage

Welcome home. You have been missed. I don’t get on here nearly as often as I should either. Circumstances preclude large (or any) tea purchases and I rarely write more than once about the same tea. Anyway, good to see you here again and I hope you pop in more often now.

Angrboda

Thank you. :) Oh, did you know, by the way, that little tea cafe in Århus where we met up has closed? They only have their (unreasonably expensive) webshop now.

Roughage

Noooooooooooooo!!!!! Won’t somebody think of the children??!!!!!

That’s a real shame. I liked it there. The world needs more quality tea shops.

Angrboda

When they wrote about it in their newsletter it sounded like they were planning to reopen on a different address, but didn’t have one yet. That’s a good while ago now, though. I suspect the location by the river was just far too expensive for them.

Roughage

I can imagine their market is not large enough to cover the cost of such a location, even with their tea parties. It’s a shame that they have not opened somewhere else though.

Angrboda

I still get their newsletter, so I’m sure I’d have heard if they had.

Roughage

I’ll have to check next time I go to Aarhus, although that is not likely to be for a while now: I need to start saving for the big Viking conference in Reykjavik in 2018. It will take me three years to save up enough! :)

Plunkybug

Welcome back! I have been bad about coming here and recording my notes, too…though I try to avoid the discussion unless it is a thread that someone mentions to me, such as Butiki Teas Custom contest, or something. Other than that, I can skip the petty drama there and just focus on what I like here…drinking tea, and sharing my thoughts with those who are interested in what’s in my mug at the moment. :)

Angrboda

Thanks. :) I know, staying out of there is what I probably should do, but I have hard time doing that. I get curious, you see, so sometimes it’s better to just completely remove the temptation rather than go and look at something which I know will most likely irritate me.
I think if I do end up using the site regularly again, it’ll be in a far more relaxed and occasional sort of way than it was before. I’m not really interested in going back to the sort of obsessiveness where I couldn’t bring myself to try a new tea if I wasn’t in the mood to write about it. I still, 8 months later, have to sometimes remind myself that I’m actually allowed to drink my own tea and don’t owe anything to anybody in relation to it.

Peggie Bennett

I’ve been off here for much longer, but it caught my eye today, so I came and saw your post. I feel like I can’t read comments anywhere on the internet any more, soooo much hate and useless comments, which is sad because I used to learn a lot from the comments, they were relevant and informative! I didn’t know about the fighting here, it’s a shame really. We just love tea and want to share our love with other like-minded people. “It’s a tea thing, you wouldn’t understand.” No need for anger or hateful comments creating all sorts of drama. By the way, I have always loved your tea reviews! :-)

Peggie Bennett

Also, although I may be a little bit of a tea/food snob, I feel like if there is a bagged tea that has a great taste that puts a smile on your face or the scent is relaxing, then go for it! Just like every once in a while, I love a double cheeseburger from McDonalds. Sometimes you just want it down and dirty! haha

Angrboda

Yes, it’s a bit like that. I sometimes catch myself looking at comments on news-articles and it’s generally pretty headdesk-worthy. There are some really peculiar people out there! I know I shouldn’t scroll down that far when reading the news, but sometimes I just can’t stop myself. What happened on the boards, though, I think were all pretty much isolated instances that just happened to happen almost at the same time. It seems to be all back to normal now.

As for the snob thing, I think it’s sort of a learning development. In the beginning, I knew nothing and just wanted to try as many different things as possible. Then I learned a little and became ultra-picky about a lot of things. Now I’ve learned a good deal more and am more comfortable in my choices, more familiar with my preferences and have relaxed a lot on a lot of things. It’s all a journey towards zen. :p

Peggie Bennett

Exactly! :-)

CHAroma

Welcome back! I completely relate to your post. I still sometimes feel paralyzed to try a new tea if I don’t have time to write about it. But then I remember that’s why I have so much stale tea in my cupboard because I don’t often have time to devote to this site the way I used to. I’m slowly trying to change my ways and just enjoy drinking tea. Life is too short.

Angrboda

Yes, I’m trying very hard not to fall back into that particular trap. It was only a few weeks after I’d stopped coming here that I noticed my tea drinking habits were changing, falling back to a much more relaxed level, although I still had a few problems making myself drink the stuff I hadn’t tried before. A little while after that I had rather a substantial clear out of old teas. A couple of months of Steepster-break made it much easier to look at each objectively and decide if I was ever going to drink it, if I was going to enjoy it if I did drink it or if I should just toss it now. Afterwards, I could move things together from four drawers into two. It felt amazing! And to be honest, I only ever really look in one of them.

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75
drank Toffee Popcorn by Nothing But Tea
1353 tasting notes

“Ewwwww, that sounds disgusting… I must try it!”

That was pretty much my reaction when I first saw this and subsequently added it to my wishlist. Some of you may wonder why I find the idea of toffee popcorn so icky. It’s because in this country popcorn comes with salt on them. That’s it. Salt. Only salt and nothing but salt. Not butter, not food colourings, not sugar, not jam, not chocolate, not taco sauce, not mayonnaise, not chili, not beans, not nothing. And certainly no caramel or toffee of any sort. Salt. That’s it. Just. Salt. With salt on is coincidentally also the only way in which I am and will ever be prepared to eat popcorn. Anything else… I can’t imagine anything more icky.

So. I really don’t know what possessed me to get this. Probably the word ‘toffee’ overruled the rest of the name.

Anyway, it smells sweet and caramel-y while also smelling fairly salty. Can’t really smell popcorn apart from the salt, so I’m telling myself it’s salted caramel flavoured instead. That sounds far more appealing to me and in this context it smells rather nice indeed.

Flavourwise, I can detect a whiff of something that could possibly be popcorn, but it isn’t convincingly so. I can’t really find much in the way of toffee at all. It’s actually more like a nutty tea than anything else and it does also contain both almond and macademia nuts. This is also because the base is a blend of black tea and oolong, and oolong can be quite nutty in flavour sometimes all on its own.

It’s actually a pretty okay tea, although it seems I’m enjoying it mostly because it doesn’t taste like what it’s called at all. Peculiar thing, that.

In other news, happy new year Steepsterites. I hope you were all careful with your fireworks if you had any, minded your fingers and wore your safety glasses. We had a fair bit of it here as the neighbours put on a good show. We don’t usually buy it ourselves. Of course nothing can beat the view of fireworks we had from the balcony of the flat where I lived before we moved in together. That was in the middle of a large town and from the balcony we had views of nearby hills, so ideal watching conditions. The cats took proceedings relatively well. There was some cowering under the bed around midnight when the fireworks were at peak intensity but other than that they made a minimum of fuss.

Anlina

We’re moving soon, and one of the things I will miss about this place is the view. We are on the top floor of a high rise, and if you stand out on the balcony there are four different sites that send off fireworks that can be seen. Only saw part of one display last night, but the view is spectacular no matter what.

Angrboda

Turns out our view here wasn’t actually that good. I heard a lot of noise through the evening, but when looking out of the window I didn’t see a single rocket. Not one! I think it must have been houses further away. At midnight closer neighbours started firing, and then we got to see something. We also didn’t have a good viewing spot. As our nearest neighbours were firing we got a little chicken and sought refuse under the carport roof, so that limited our view as well. I think instead we should have gone into the garden to watch. I think that would have been better.

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86

More Christmas present tea. I have to say that I put this one on the list pretty much only for the benefit of Husband, who is a whisky enthusiast. A few days later (when it was too late to do anything about it) he mentioned that while he liked whisky, he wasn’t generally very interested in whisky-flavoured things. Oh. Well, plock.

Anyway, here it is. I have to say that I wasn’t expecting much from it myself. I don’t like whisky. I don’t like most kinds of alcohol really. I don’t like the way spirits feel in the throat and I can’t even smell a beer without making a face. I can drink wine, but usually only a glass or so. Seldomly two, and very very seldomly more than that. So a whisky flavoured tea? Naaaaaaaah.

I have, though, recently become keen on smelling his whisky when he has some. I can pick up some of the same sorts of nuances as in tea, although it requires a fair bit of concentration to sort of smell ‘through’ the alcohol. Over Christmas he and my father had one that smelled distinctly orange to me (as in the colour orange, rather than the fruit.) and another one which I thought smelled a bit like almonds.

This one smells really very nice, actually. It has cocoa kernels in it and carob, so there’s a strong cocoa-y note to it, but I’m also picking up a scent of whisky from it. Primarily because I know it’s supposed to be there, but it very clearly resembles some of the whisky that Husband prefers. Also vanilla, a bit, so the whisky this flavour is supposed to imitate was obviously stored in bourbon casks. THE THINGS YOU DISCOVER YOU KNOW SOMETIMES!!!!

From the flavour I’m getting a fair bit of cocoa again and a fairly oaky sort of note as well. Those are the two strongest notes for me. Underneath that a bit of vanilla and permeating everything is something which I imagine must come together as something whisky-ish.

However, Husband just came into my room and said that he didn’t think it smelled or tasted like whisky at all… The theory I’m working under now is that I can imagine whisky a lot easier in this because I’ve only got the smell of it to work with. I can’t believe he didn’t find it whisky-y, though! I really think it is!

Rather better than I was expecting, though. I find I quite like this. Probably wouldn’t buy it again, though, since Husband was a little luke-warm on it.

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81

Here is some Christmas present tea. I put this on the list because, pear. Because, marzipan. Because, tartlet. Need I say more?

It smells jolly nice, although not particularly pear-y, marzipan-y or tartlet-y. At least not right at first. But jolly nice. If I concentrate and breathe the scent for a while, I can smell it all coming together in marzipan-y tartlet-y niceness and with some fruit that I can easily imagine could be pear. The more I’m breathing the scent, the closer I feel it comes to the target. Gosh, I want to bake a pear tart now! Those are so good with a bit of creme fraiche…

In the flavour, though… Not really. No amount of concentration really manages to bring it together for me. It’s jolly nice, it just doesn’t taste like I thought. Perhaps this is due to the mysterious addition of mango. The ingredients says it’s got mango in it. Why??? The only thing thing of the title that I feel I can taste with certainty is the marzipan of the title, although it feels more generically nutty than marzipan. Luckily I’m very keen on nut teas lately. Jolly nice.

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95

This post is likely to be a bit… Part of my Christmas present from Husband was a box of handmade chocolates and they’re terribly distracting! I shall try to focus on the tea as well as possible. (The nifty thing about them is that he could tell the person in the shop which I don’t like and have a box completely without minty chocolate and without liqour-y ones.) I’ve nearly eaten all of them anyway, om nom nom nom! I bet I’m going to get mocked for how quickly they went, but seriously! You can’t just have one chocolate. It’s unpossible!

Anyway, tea! Husband, when prompted, suggested an oolong. I thought that sounded like a good idea, so I thought I’d have this one. One more thing to tidy out of the cupboard. Today I’ve had the Great Steepster Cupboard Tidy of 2014. My cupboard housekeeping has rather slipped lately. I tend to gather a few things for removal before doing anything about it, but this time it had just never got done so the pile of things to be removed only got larger. Plus all the things that I didn’t actually have anymore because I’d forgotten to remove them when I used them up. Or never added in the first place. And of course the pile of stuff that went in the compost because it was unlikely to get used up ever. Some of it was from last year’s tea calendar! Brought my cupboard down to pretty much half the amount of teas. But it’s tidy now, and everything in it is stuff we would conceivably drink.

Not doing well with this tea. It’s very good. It’s oolong-y and roasty and very supreme indeed. Not sure it’s particularly more supreme than their normal one (which was sold out at the time which is why I bought this one), but it’s pretty supreme to me.

Smells like bark and tastes toasty and a bit bread crust-y and I wonder what’s inside this chocate with a nut on it? Ooh nougat! Om nom nom nom nom!

Cameron B.

Yum, I love filled chocolates! :D

Angrboda

Me too! I think it’s my favourite kind of luxury-sweets.

Fjellrev

Handmade chocolates totally ruin the mass-produced stuff.

Angrboda

They do, especially because the mass-produced stuff will always have a kind in it that nobody likes.

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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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