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Yum yum, we have it again!

I was trying, on Husband’s wish, to buy us some more of this about a month ago, but for some reason NBT suddenly wanted a rather extravagant shipping fee from the UK to Denmark (I wrote to them to ask if that could really be true, but never got a reply), so I put it on my English Christmas list instead. I am now one of those people who put tea orders on their Christmas list, apparently. Well, it was an old favourite (and a bunch of samples) and I thought a rather special occasion. One should be allowed to take advantage of family connections, don’tcha know!

So cheers, you lot, and happy holidays.

I’ve had this tea a number of times now but only just realised it now that I’d never posted about it. Lucky this is what we had today, then, because an actual tasting note wasn’t really what I thought I’d be writing here today… I wish I’d paid more attention to the tea, then.

Anyway, as mentioned I’ve had it a number of times, so I think I can muddle through. Basically we’ve got a citrus-flavoured breakfast blend. The base blend itself is strong and.. breakfast-blend-y. I can’t tell what all has gone into it, but I suspect it’s largely of Indian/Sri Lankan origin. The citrus-flavouring is not super tart, it’s more of a bitter-y flavour and a bit perfumed. I think we’re dealing with bergamot here and possibly some grapefruit. It’s not very strongly flavoured, so rather than tasting like a flavoured tea, it’s more like a standard breakfast blend with a twist.

I rather like it. I like that the emphasis is on the base blend, which makes it a familiar sort of thing to drink if one enjoys breakfast blends, but with a bit of freshness on the side.

Anyway, what I actually came to say was, merry Christmas, Steepsterites, as in this country we celebrate on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day.

One of these days I shall get around to summing up the AC Perch’s christmas calendar which continued to disappoint straight through to the 24th… Not buying that one again next year!

This was the tea for the 18th. We’ve got a bit of a backlog, but this is the sort of thing that will happen when you keep finding things that make you think, “meh.”

I don’t know anything about this one. It’s a white tea. I don’t think it should be flavoured, because it usually says aromatised on the packing if it is and it didn’t here. Was it grown in Iran, then? If so, we’ve got a lot of points on the Scale of Interestingness. Somehow, though, that strikes me as a little unlikely. That sort of thing doesn’t seem to be ACP’s style, although you never know.

When drinking it, I am further confused about whether or not it’s flavoured, because it tastes extraordinarily like peaches. Like a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot of peaches!

It didn’t actually have any of the things about it that normally puts me off in a white tea. None of that cucumber-y, courgette-y flavour. Not much in the way of floralness and no grass or straw or anything. Just peaches.

It was so strong at one point that I actually visualised biting a peach while tasting it. I could see the yellow flesh of the fruit and feel the downy skin of it. I could see the wrinkly stone and almost feel its roughness against my tongue. It was a really strong sensation of peach there. Far stronger than just your average ‘oh, this tastes like peach.’

So. I don’t much care for white tea in general and this elicited another sigh when opening it but it has turned out to be quite drinkable. THIS is the sort of experience I’d been hoping to get from the Christmas calendar, dammit!

Finally something sensible! December 16th’s tea. I decided to put yesterday’s satchets with the tin of it that I already had.

This! This is far more me than most of the things I’ve had in the calendar so far (apart of course from the wonderful Panyong.), and the stuff I hoped I’d find. Next year I might get the Christmas calendar from Simply Tea which costs the tip of a jet, but is all unflavoured things. We’ll see.

Anyway, I think I’m putting this under the correct heading. The satchets say breakfast tea, and it does indeed taste like Assam and Ceylon, so this is where I’m putting it. Apparently this is the oldest blend in their repertoire.

It’s strong and flavourful and with a great deal of raisin and honey notes to it. I’m enjoying this very much and it’s just the thing to have before making dinner (I’m famished) and after a round of Parcel Bingo with the Danish postal service, in which I came to pick up a parcel and went home with a totally different parcel (also for me, so no catastrophe there) which I didn’t even know had arrived yet. I shall have to go back and have another crack at getting the first parcel tomorrow. Ordering Christmas presents online is easier in the moment of shopping. Not so much when trying to keep track of which parcels have arrived and how many are still outstanding…

So December 14th was a green blend which we didn’t have yesterday because we had a lot of mulled wine and all round Christmas cheer instead with decorating the tree and whatnot. So there just wasn’t ‘space’ for a distinctly summer-y sounding blend.

Summer-y or not, though, this was one of those that I want to find in a product such as this calendar. Something that wouldn’t have caught my eye otherwise but that I might find interesting when tasting it. In other words, not something that I know I won’t like much.

It smells like sweeties when steeped. It’s a very fruity blend with dried fruit bits in (tropical) and large rose petals. Smells like winegums. This of course made me interested!

Unfortunately it doesn’t taste like sweeties. It tastes like… like… like… I’m not sure. I can taste the tropical fruits, pineapple in particular but also something else that I don’t really think I like much. It’s a quite grassy sort of flavour, which leads me to think about the bamboo. I’ve had bamboo in blends before and actually rather enjoyed it, so I don’t think it’s the bamboo alone that does it here. I think it’s more a question of, for me, the bamboo simply doesn’t play well with some of the other ingredients. The rose petals is giving it a fairly floral finish as well, which I’m not keen on either.

Another miss for me, then, but I’m quite pleased that it wasn’t a known dislike before I even tasted it!

As for today’s tea, I’m having a bit of a think about it. I’ve decided that in order to prevent things lying around for ages untasted, I must drink these in order. Today’s box however contained two satchets of their green mandarin blend, which I’ve already got loads of in a tin. So, is it okay to put those two satchets with the tin, or must they still be used before I can have tomorrow’s tea? Answers on a postcard, please. (To be frank, my decision will probably hinge on what tomorrow’s tea actually is)

December 13th. I have no clue what’s in this (and I can’t be bothered to look it up) but I expect it involves mint in some way what with having ‘cool’ in the name. That’s usually a minty word.

It has a quite familiar smell to it which I think is grapefruit-y. Husband doesn’t agree with me on that at all, but couldn’t otherwise place the smell. I think there’s spearmint involved as well. It has that sharpness.

I guess it comes as no surprise, given the nature of this calendar, that I’m not terribly keen on spearmint because I find it tastes like toothpaste. Sometimes I wonder why I even keep trying with it. Tea after tea that I don’t like, who could blame me for giving up? I keep at it because surely at some point they must run out of things I don’t like, mustn’t they? Tell me yes, please!

Anyway, we are having this one as the cup of herbal before bedtime, so now I’m just hoping it doesn’t contain mate or guyuausysusyuyauyuayusuayu or whatever it’s called. With my luck, it probably does.

After steeping, the grapefruit smell has disappeared, so now I don’t think it involves grapefruit at all. Instead it smells rather strongly of licorice. (This should be good for Husband who’s been a bit ill recently with a persistent cold) There’s a minty smell to it as well and something else that I can’t quite place, but suspect might be some kind of spice.

It definitely has licorice in it. It’s right there in the aftertaste, being all thick and sweet. As for the rest?`I have no idea. It’s not as minty as expected, but I am getting a bit of a minty mouthfeel after drinking a few sips. The aftertaste is fairly dominated by the licorice though, so it’s a little difficult for me to focus on. Can’t tell if it’s spear or pepper.

There is something else in here giving it body and I can’t tell what it could be. Don’t think it guyyuayuayuayauayayussuaysya or mate, much to my relief. It could even just be the natural flavour of a whole lot of mint, since mint is more than just the aftertaste, although the aftertaste is what I primarily tend to think of as minty.

The licorice is a little over the top, but other than that, it’s okay. Not awesome, but not awful either. In the context of the calendar so far, that’s not a bad result at all.

And for December 12th we have… jasmine. Jasmine?! PERCH’S, YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS! December of 2014 will forever be known as the Month of Meh! If you want a detailed tour of my dislikes, then look no further than this Christmas calendar. All I need now is for hibiscus to show up. If it does, I might actually just refuse to drink it.

I get that there’s a certain risk involved when buying a tea calendar like this that not everything will be to your liking, but this is just ridiculous. We are halfway through and so far there has been one (ONE!) tea that I really liked, one that was at least interesting sounding, one that was acceptable and the rest have been at varying stages between meh and blegh.

I’ve had this one before when it was sent to me as a free sample. Didn’t like it then, don’t like it now. I don’t like jasmine because it’s so very very very floral. I find it’s like drinking perfume. Some people find it sweet and I can sort of see that, but it’s not a kind of sweetness that I enjoy.

Just Say No.

No.

Good morning Steepsterites.

I don’t usually have tea in the morning because I rarely feel like I really have the time, but I’ve come one behind on the Christmas calendar and since the 11th was a day of known like (!!!) I thought I’d catch up a bit.

Look, it’s my favourite ever type! Hurray! At last something nice! At last something interesting! At last something I might actually go and buy! This ought to have been the 24th box, really. They’re going to have a hard time topping this.

Anyway, it’s not the smoothest I’ve ever had, a bit rough around the edges and with a touch pseudo-smokyness. Lots of grain and malty notes though, and a bit of cocoa as well.

I haven’t seen them have this type before at all. There was a Panyong with Paklum blended in, which is some sort of white tea, apparently, that I’ve never heard of anywhere else. Why they would do such a thing is beyond me, but this one as far as I can tell from the satchet wrappers is just the black tea.

Well. We knew it had to come, didn’t we? Yes, another flipping Christmas blend. I’m going to be heartily sick of Christmas blends before this calendar is used up! This time on a black base, the very most traditional kind of Christmas blends. Why is this not in the 24th box??? Seems the logical place to put it. Now I have no clue what that one is going to be.

Anyway, we are having this one tonight, although it was the tea of the 10th, because we didn’t have one yesterday and I have decided that in order to stop me from letting unfavoured samples languish forever, these must be had in the order they were opened. And so, if I want to move on to the infinitely more interesting tea of the 11th, which I do, then I must drink this first.

Really, we’re talking about variations on a theme with this one. Spices and orange. We’ve had that on a white base and on a green base so far already and now also a black one. I’m fully expecting a rooibos based Christmas blend to appear as well. Perhaps even an oolong one.

I can’t really detect the orange much in this but I could see the pieces in the blend. I’m mostly getting a load of generic spice and with a side-note of something borderline soapy. The soapy note is also to do with the spice and I know I should know what causes it, but I can’t think of what it could be right now. It’s one of those things, right on the tip of my tongue.

I know the spice blends and whatnots in all three of these Christmas blends so far have been different, but they just haven’t been different enough. They all seem the same-ish to me, but on different bases. So not impressed with this one either.

I still have a couple of posts in my notebook which will be typed up… eventually. So those will appear out of order, but posting in the right order, I’ve decided, is less important than drinking in the right order.

Day 9 in my Christmas calendar and another miss for me.

We’ve had Husband’s parents over for the weekend, so I haven’t had access to my computer. Therefore, expect some backlogging. I thought about queueing again, but decided not to. Not with the Christmas calendar, anyway.

So far I’ve been less than keen on the offerings of this calendar and I can only hope that things will improve somewhat. Today’s (well, yesterday’s) Darjeeling did therefore not really come as a surprise so much as a ‘well, that’s overwith, then.’

It came in satchets and I’ve had one before which I manage to utterly ruin, so this one was new-ish to me. I don’t much care for Darjeeling and this one was another in the long line of why. Too grassy, too spicy, too… too high-grown, really. I made it at 80°C, because a lower temperature lessens the things about it that I find a bit unpleasant. Sadly it doesn’t remove them.

I wasn’t paying too much attention while drinking it, but I did drink all of it and I didn’t screw up my face at any point and wonder why I was bothering, so I think we can conclude that it was relatively drinkable. It’s also funny how knowing that this is the only cup there is of it factors in. If I knew I had another load of cups to get through, I’d have been a lot less accepting of it, but as it was I found it tolerable. Still not keen, though.

I shall be writing up the missed days and posting them as I finish. Might take me a couple of days though. Oooh! I can throw in, though, that December 7th wasn’t actually a tea, but a small packet with two ginger biscuits. As I don’t care for ginger (another miss) I gave them both to Husband, who informed me that they were quite nice and went well with the cup of tea we were having at the time. Can’t remember which tea that was, though. It’s also entirely possible that I was the only one having tea at that point and the others were having coffee.