161 Tasting Notes
Made a quick cup as I’m getting ready to leave the office. Apple-licious…and tastes even better considering I’m about to be off work for 4 days in a row. Sweet!
Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!
I’ll be back after the break to post and read about all of the teas we will be getting for Christmas. crosses fingers
I enjoyed a few cups of this throughout the day. My stomach was a little upset from last night’s Thai food binge. Oh man, I love Thai food! The family that owns the Thai joint that I go to uses a spicy scale of 1-5, five being “ethnic”. Of course I’m all about eating as authentic and ethnic as possible, so I went for the big 5. The server smiled.
My husband and I go to this restaurant once every 1-2 weeks, so they know us well. Well enough to send us a Christmas card in the mail, as a matter of fact. (We’re good customers.) It was totally worth the burn…and this tea did help soothe. At least I think it helped…maybe I’m developing a cast iron “ethnic” stomach.
Either that or chronic heartburn! ;D
Sawatdee ka! That’s about all the Thai I know. I used to know how to say “I am hungry,” but it’s been replaced in my head with an inappropriate Chinese phrase. Now you’ve got me craving Thai food. Funny how mint really helps calm your stomach down. It’s one of the only “herbal remedies” I’ve found to truly work on the regular.
I finally got the right mix on this one. I think it has a 5 minute max steep time. Anything over 5 minutes (at least on the 1st steep) will yield some crazy bitterness. Taken with milk and a teensy bit of sugar, this ended up being a really nice cup of tea. I wasn’t blown away like I thought I would be, considering this is a 2009 award winning tea. But, it’s good.
I’ll tell ya what DID make this tea better. Dunking in a tea cake cookie. Since my husband’s knee surgery, he has taken up baking to avoid extreme boredom while he is off work. I highly support his baking hobby…both because the holiday goodies are made AND given out…and as it turns out, he is a VERY good at it! Yay for hidden talents.
Off to make another cup…and grab another tea cake.
Preparation
Tea cookies make everything better :D Good for your husband for finding something productive to do while he’s stuck at home!
It’s always good to have a man-creature who knows what to do with food (other than eat it). ;)
Agreed, that this is a good cup, but nothing spectacular.
Ooooh, nice bonus with the baking!
:D Excellent idea, especially since trying Cofftea’s molassas chocolate crackle yesterday really made me want to make molasses cookies. Maybe I’ll do that today, when I have my second cup of this. I’m enjoying my first right now, and it’s as you say—-nice and unassuming, and very smooth, but nothing spectacular.
Drank one of these this morning from Starbucks. It’s way too cold for it to be iced, so I drank it hot. I expected to hate it, but it ended up being ok. Pretty sweet, but not bad considering it was from a concentrate. Since giving up coffee, I haven’t been to a Starbucks in probably 3 years or more. It’s nice to know I have something decent to drink (other than a tea bag) the next time I go with friends.
I just. don’t. know.
It’s STOUT! As dark as black coffee and a little bitter. My 1st cup was super bitter, but then again, I left it to steep for WAY too long. I’m drinking the 2nd steep now, and it has calmed down quite a bit. I’m still unsure about this one. I need to tinker around with it. I’d like to add some milk to it, but my milk at the office is all gross-ified and I refuse to use powder creamer. Ick!
In the wise words of Tim Gunn, I will “Make it work”.
Preparation
Ew powdered creamer. NO THANKS. It sounds interesting… in a very rawr-like way.
@ teaplz – it was VERY “rawr-like”.
Love the Tim Gunn reference. =)
Anyone who doesn’t heart the hell out of Tim Gunn is no friend of mine! He just seems like such a genuinely sweet person!
Needed a quick cup of something good. This didn’t disappoint.
I’m really liking Ceylon teas. Does anyone have a favorite vendor? I know this is a pretty basic black tea, but sometimes that’s exactly what I need.
Preparation
I’m a big fan of SpecialTeas’ Ceylon Dimbulla OP. It’s extremely smooth and has a very faint chocolate taste. I’ve also seen good reviews of Mighty Leaf’s Ceylon Kenilworth.
Lena, has your opinion of their black flavored teas changed since tasting this sans flavor?
@ Bethany – Thanks! I’ll be sure to check them out.
@ Cofftea – I’m not a huge fan of their flavored tea or blends (for black tea). Some I like, but most have disappointed. I really like this tea and I agree that it is a great base tea for their flavors…if you generally like flavored teas.
@Lena, I love flavored teas, but am not big on blacks in general so I’m very selective. I only get flavored blacks when I can’t find a flavor match in another type of tea. Like their sesame- I think that’d be REALLY good as a green tea.
Metropolitan Tea Company sells a nice estate ceylon through www.jollygoodtea.com I’ve been ordering through this web vendor several times over the last 2 years and she’s on the ball and consistent. :)
Just returned from a hard day of Christmas shopping. It’s pouring rain. My shoes and socks were soaked through. I HATE having wet feet. It’s just one of those things with me. It will ruin my whole day. As this was steeping, I put on some warm socks and a pair of slippers…yes, very glamorous, I know. I go to the fridge…no milk. I really like this tea with a little milk and sugar, or honey. Looks like I’ll be making a trip to Publix…in the rain.
Crap.
Preparation
I hate those days! Maybe the miserable weather and the anticipation will make it a sweeter cup for all of the trouble…maybe. ;)
Totally hear ya on being out of milk when craving a nice cup of hot black tea. It will be so worth it though. Then once you get back you can rest easy. :)
i hate wet socks with a passion too!!
I just liked this for your wet socks problem. EW. One of my worst experiences was having to sit on a bus with air conditioning when it had rained. I had somehow waded into some serious puddles, and the water had crept from my ankles all the way to the knees of my jeans. And my socks were wet. :( And I was on the bus for an hour and a half. :( BOO RAIN!
I’m so with you on the socks thing. This summer I was going on a course in Copenhagen and it had been raining a lot so I wisely decided to bring a pair of dry socks in my bag. When it was time to go home it had started raining again and I was desperate for warm dry feet, so as soon as I got on the train home I stupidly changed my socks. It was AWESOME for about 30 seconds. Made the rest of the journey home with bare feet and two pairs of wet socks in my bag.
I’m not alone! Yay! After the trip to Publix, I totally crashed with my tea. It was worth it…I drank several cups last night. Mmmm!
I must join in the hating of the wet feet. Stick me in the woods with a tent and a lot of rain and people yelling at one another and everything being generally crappy, and I can manage. But add wet socks and shoes to the picture and get ready for me to crack some heads. Plus, shoes take effing for*ever* to dry.
I’ve been on a black tea kick as of late, so I thought I’ve give one of my past favorite oolongs a try. I still like it, but after getting caught up in office mumbo jumbo, my cup was cold and yucky. I still drank what was left, but it was consumed with a little snarl on my face. Tea shouldn’t make you snarl.
Received a free sample of this in my RoT catalog. I LOVE how this tea smells. It smells like my mom’s Christmas cider. Apple, clove and cinnamon always smell comforting to me, so I guess this tea lives up to at least half of its name.
Unfortunately, the tea’s taste did not match its wonderful smell. The spice is there, it’s just really weak and watered down tasting. I steeped the full amount of time…probably a smidge more, so I think it was at its boldest. Perhaps RoT needs to cram a little more tea into their “environmentally-friendly, round, unbleached tea bag – free of wasteful stings, staples and tags”. Just sayin’…
Preparation
Perhaps if you used two bags? I find that I often have to use two tea bags to get the tea flavor I like.
Perhaps…but this was just a sample, so I only received one bag. Now if I had it as loose leaf, I would use more than suggested. :)
RoT bags always seem really weak to me. I usually have to do 2 bags in a single cup – I’ve never tried to brew a whole pot because I thought it’d take waaaaaay too many bags.
The only ROT I’ve tried is their Get Relaxed! And steeped at 7 min I think it’s perfect. I can even get 3 infusions out of it.
I think its so funny that they boast how environmentally friendly the bag is, but what about the packaging? The packet is massive and oh-so-shiney and plastically feeling that I would think it negates the lack of a string and tag.
@ teafiend – so, so true. maybe cutting out the staple allowed them to spend so much on the packaging?
There is nothing about all of the reviews of this tea that make me want to get and/or try it.
I always do 2 bags per mug and sugar, I wait all year to buy this !!
@ teafiend, I thought the same thing. I understand wanting to protect the tea bag, but why not just wrap that in a small plastic bag and staple that to the catalog instead of wrapping the entire catalog?
@cofftea The Post Office discourages stapling things to catalogs or anything else going through the mail system. It apparently causes problems with their machinery. That’s probably why they wrap the catalog instead.
Merry Christmas, Lena. :)
Woot! Woot! Thumbs up to 4 days off!
Merry Christmas! I think there may be either some tea or a gift certificate with my name on it under the tree! o yay for everyone knowing I’m a junkie.
Merry Christmas!!!