424 Tasting Notes
Wow, this is really doing it for me. We have been back from Chicago for what, two weeks? My husband keeps asking if I have tried the caramel tea that smelled so good. Today I dug it out and it is SO good!
The dry leaf smells a little like coffee, and I don’t like coffee, but brewed it’s just yummy creamy caramel. I even added a little cream and all I can think about is the next cup.
In other news, it bothers me a lot when someone says they are an English teacher and then has a mass of multiple punctuation all over their post. Sigh.
Why this tea, now?
I’m tired. We spent the day at college orientation for my daughter. Not a bad day by any means, but hours of listening to the same stuff we hear every time, and it was hot today. So I am wrung out. And, we left so early that I didn’t get any tea until now all day! First world problems.
So why this tea? Because I know it’s a great tea, and I needed a great tea to help me find my zen again. Gambling on an iffy tea might make me cranky. Now I am in my comfy chair, with my tea and immersed in season 4 of The West Wing.
So here is my full confession.
I haven’t had many oolongs, so I don’t really know if I know what’s a good one. My whole life I have been all about the strong, very oxidized teas, and I still love them. Recently when I was trying to put together a Rivertea order I went by the ratings on here and saw that this one was pretty highly rated.
I think I like it. I think the problem is ME. I expect tea to be brown (this isn’t), strong (this isn’t), very hot (not an oolong!) and heavily flavored. I think the issue is that I need to retrain my taste buds to appreciate delicate teas.
When I initially made this, I was waffling on whether to put the rest of it into the TTB or keep trying it to see if I can broaden my tearizons. I think I’ll do the latter.
As a bonus, it doesn’t taste green!
As for me…dude, work has been so busy this week. We got a new Burger King account, Carl’s Jr. starts next week, Volkswagen starts in two weeks, Hill’s pet food any day (who knows?) This is on top of all of our regular stuff. And, I think I need to bring on two more people.
Glad this tea left you willing to experiment with it! I prefer Oolong’s gongfu style or cold brewed.
Congrats on all your work contracts! I feel for you. My cousin owns an industrial Interior design company and work can get insanely busy at times, staffing is a delicate balance between having enough people to fulfill a contract, her desire to maintain creative control, and planning for famine periods. Glad things are going well for you.
I totally shouldn’t be complaining about having too much work, I’m a little ashamed.
Don’t be. There is a point where it can be too much. It becomes difficult to maintain standards and it takes a physical toll on us. In North America we often forget about things such as work life balance at times.
You could try to ease into oolongs with flavored oolongs perhaps?
I drank this before I read any reviews, and I was really taken aback because the flavors I got weren’t what were listed here at all. I had to go back to check the Rivertea site to see if they had reblended it. They haven’t.
I got vanilla, I got mango, and I got black tea. No cinnamon, chamomile, banana (which I hate and would have noticed), or cranberry.
It was a nice cup, nothing that made me make any funny sounds out loud to entertain my husband, but nothing bad either. I have to give Rivertea credit that their samples are generous, there was maybe 3 tsp in there, so that’s two big cups for me. Nice.
This is interesting and has a lot of flavor. It brewed up bright red from the beet root. There’s no hibiscus in it. Oh, and there were ginormous chunks of fruit in it. It looked like the pictures on websites – like 1 inch chunks of citrus. I bet it would be amazing iced.
If you like Earl Grey, you owe it to yourself to try this tea.
I received my first Rivertea order today. I ordered mainly because of the 50% coupon that went around a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t realize when I ordered that the tea was coming from Germany because the shipping was so reasonable.
The presentation made me feel like I was opening a present. I opened the outer box, and there was gift paper folded over (like you do tissue in a clothing gift), sealed with a “Happy Brewing” sticker. Inside that, the teas were nestled in festive, multicolor packing peanuts. Instead of just bags, the teas were in cardboard cylinder type “tins”, then inside sturdy zip loc bags inside that. I liked that, because I can pull the bag out, enjoy looking at how pretty the tea is, but it lives in something that blocks the light. There were three samples tucked into the box, in sturdy little green opaque zipper bags. They all appealed to me, so I felt that they were handpicked based on my order instead of randomly thrown in. I am looking forward to trying them. Also in the box was a glassine envelope hand tied with a piece of red curling ribbon. Inside that envelope was a green felt leaf. I have no idea what it’s for. It’s big enough to use as a coaster, except that there is a piece cut out of the middle that suggests it’s for something specific.
Anyway, on to this tea. It’s so pretty! Very colorful, like confetti. Smells amazing. And tastes good to boot. I had never had a mango variant of EG, but I really loved this. Every time I took a drink I was making audible “mmm” sounds. My husband thought it was funny. I drank it in record time too. Usually I linger over a cup of tea (and this is an 11 oz cup, not a small one) but this was gone within 10 minutes.
Sounds nice :)
I’m really curious to see what this felt leaf thingy looks like. Can you post a picture?
In my order, my little goodie was a bamboo spoon with a very shallow, wide bowl.
Yep. Pen for scale. http://imgur.com/VA0UmHN
Well it’s a cute little leaf thingie
They emailed me and said it is indeed, a coaster. But I can’t figure out the cut out middle part – doesn’t that defeat the purpose?
You would think so yeah
My grammar snob is showing. :/
I was horrified when my son’s 1st grade teacher used “youse” as the plural form of you.
I sort of wish that I could just let it go. But I grew up in the south and spent my life fighting stereotypes, so I have always made my daughters use good grammar and spelling to fight that. I know that being a pedant about it can be annoying, but I think if you throw “I am an English teacher” into your first post, you are sort of asking for it.
Everyone knows the plural of “you” is “all y’all”
MzPriss, that comment really cracked me up!