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My 100th tasting note! /blows horn and throws confetti

It’s a work day. Brought out the Bodum cup with infuser basket, and went with the sample of Almond black tea.

Brews up very dark. Smells nice, but there’s a bit of an alcohol taste to the tea, I’m guessing they use an almond extract for the flavoring, which generally contains alcohol. I don’t like that taste, unfortunately, so I can’t see ordering this tea in the future.

Which makes me think I should give the one last serving in the packet to my coworker who likes tea. Why am I drinking it if it is something I wouldn’t order? I always get stuck in this “gotta use it up” mentality. “Using” also can include gifting. Duh! :D

Thud. Rip. Tap, tap, tap. Crinkle. Plorp. Tink, tink, tink.

That’s the sounds of me throwing the last teabag into the trashcan, followed by opening the Splenda packet and pouring it into the cup (I tap the edge of the packet with my finger), opening and pouring the little tub of creamer, and stirring with a stirrer straw.

That’s one more tea to take out of the cupboard. I’ll use the tin for storing something on my desk. I don’t know what, but I’ll find a use rather than throwing it away.

Backlogging.

I got this a few years ago, in the tea of the month thing hubs got for me one Christmas. I liked it the first couple times I made it, but then I kind of forgot it in the cupboard. By the time I rediscovered it, I think it was too old – I didn’t like it after that. I always drank it iced.

So this last weekend, I dumped it all in a pan and simmered it on the stove for awhile to scent the house. It smelled awesome :D

Backlog from last night.

My tummy had been slightly threatening all day yesterday, and I have read that Pu-Erh is supposed to be good for digestion, so I thought I’d give this another try.

This tea just isn’t my thing. It has a scent to it that I can only describe as fishy. Do not want! At least not in my tea. I tried it with cream and sugar to see if it would mask that scent, but it didn’t.

On the plus side, it did seem to calm the tummy rumblings, so I would like to try a different Pu-Erh, and see if I can find one without the piscean scent.

Ok, I have found this tea’s niche. If you have some, try it with oreos. Even brewing with crappy breakroom creamer, it’s so much better with crappy breakroom chocolate sandwich cookies!

Just one more teabag to go and this will be out of my cupboard!

Of all the weird things… this weekend, I grabbed a spare 4 oz canister that I had ordered from Adagio, and filled it with Jasmine #9. I was tired of refilling the little sample canister so often to take to work.

Got to work this morning, and made my tea. Tasted it and… PEPPER? Why am I tasting pepper? Do not like!

I don’t know where it’s coming from – the canister, or if something happened to my tea bottle when hubs put it in the cupboard. Perhaps he set it down near the pepper grinder in the kitchen?

I have no idea why it’s happening, I guess I will just have to make more to see if it still tastes like pepper with another serving.

Blech.

As soon as Word finishes its 110 mb update, I’m going to be outlining a story I’ve been working on since last year. The working title is The Goat Princess, so I pulled out another Princess for a nice cuppa while I work. A spoonful of sugar and some half & half and I have a delicate ladylike drink – probably a complete opposite of my protagonist.

It used to be that I would just start writing, and make it up as I go along. But that doesn’t seem to work any longer, and never worked incredibly well in terms of actually finishing a story. So if what I am doing doesn’t work, I might as well try something new.

Well, the silly installer thinks Firefox has to be closed to update completely separate software. So I guess that’s it for this tasting note! :)

Harumph. I made a pot of this tea in my little iron kyusu this morning, sat down to wait for it to steep, and promptly got distracted. After I got up to put the clothes in the dryer, I only then remembered. Whooops.

I don’t think I put enough into the steeping basket to make a decent pot of tea though – it tastes like smokey water. I might just dump this and make a pot of something else. :(

I have a couple of tea bottles I alternate between at work. There’s the Lock & Lock and the generic one (it’s like this one: http://amzn.com/B001KW03I6 ). I realized that this tea really doesn’t like the generic bottle. There’s just not enough room in the basket for the leaves to expand. So the tea ends up kind of astringent, unlike in the Lock & Lock where they float around freely like some strange species of green seahorse.

So if you’ve tried this and found it too heavy or astringent, give it some room to swim around. It’s much better that way.

Only 3 more bags to go. I just don’t enjoy this tea. The coffee-room creamer might have something to do with that though.