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Another smoothie tonight with 2 tablespoons of this. I added half a package of raspberries and a bunch of frozen blueberries to my handful of ice cubes, matcha and 16 or so ounces of milk (didn’t measure this time). It was so think that I couldn’t get it to pour, had to convince it out of the blender with a spoon. Sucking through a straw was a bit difficult too, the first cup especially. I need to buy one of those venti cups from starbucks that people refill or from somewhere else because those would be perfect to stick in my car for my drive to work and then just rinse out when I get there. Something to remember the next time I’m in Starbucks (frequently, I hate coffee but I love their hot chocolate).

So I had this tea last night in the JusTea headquarters made by the JusTea media guy. I put milk and a bit of sugar in them because that’s how I can get around my hatred of the bitterness of black tea and it was quite good. They’re a little low-tech in their office, kettles and thermometers and pouring through a steeping filter into various mugs. Was cool.

This is actually my first time having their earl grey and it’s pretty nice. The flavour of the bergamot is pretty strong and I finally finally tasted the actual citrusiness of the bergamot in the aftertaste. It was quite nice. This is one of their machine processed teas since last year they were still teaching the tea farmers how to process their own and in order to have money to do this they contracted with one of the companies to do this and their other 2 current teas (Kenyan Black and African Chai). This year, later than now obviously, they will start offering their hand-crafted teas by the tea farmers and I had some of those at the tea cupping event last night and there were a couple of oolongs and they were REALLY good. And I don’t even love oolongs all that much normally. Search starfevre on Instagram for some pictures of the whole thing.

My own tea so not rating. Still have quite a bit of it so I made some for my first day back at work.

Unfortunately I got so occupied by emails it’s cold by the time I got around to drinking it, but that’s okay, it’s still good.

Like Tea Sipper said, there aren’t many candy cane parts that I can see, unless they dissolved with age or something. This tea, like most of my original teas, is almost a year old. It hasn’t seemed to have lost it’s tastiness though, it’s just a bit milder than it was.

Another batch of cold caramel matchaccino latte. This time I added half a package of frozen raspberries and wow, there’s no bitterness at all. Caramel is still the dominant flavour but now there’s no bitterness whatsoever (I’m also drinking a lot of tea again), and I’m getting some fruit in as well. Made a double batch because it’s easier that way. Yum yum.

Wow, I have no idea how old this tea is, but I just used most of it to make a pot. 6 teaspoons uses a lot when it’s being kept in one of my little papered tins. Only one or two servings left, I think. I probably overleafed it, but I’m sure that this tea is at least a year old. I’m trying to get through some of my opened packages before I open some new packages. I have 4 huge tubs full of tea (2 unopened, 1 opened, 1 trade tub). Going to sort the unopened tubs so they’re more equal in number in each and by company, I think. We’ll see. I need to go through and make sure all my tea is logged in Steepster so I can get a more accurate accounting of how much tea I have.

Added milk and sugar to this. Had a bit of trouble getting it back to the couch. I pulled an all-nighter last night and I’m at the point of awakeness that my hands are shaking. :p That’s REALLY going to impress my therapist that I see in 2 hours.

This tastes like what I think a egc should. Not my favourite flavour though, I’ve grown tired of bergamot in general.

I am surprised that I hadn’t logged this yet. I’ve had it for quite a while.

I decided since it’s the crack of not even dawn yet and I have some time before my doctor appointment, I was going to make a pot of tea in my one and only yixing teapot. I’ve dedicated it to yunnan black tea and I’ve decided this counts. This is the first one I’ve made in this pot since I seasoned it last week or so. I haven’t quite gotten cup size yet, and I haven’t found a tea brush to brush the tea onto the pot, but I’ve repurposed an old blush makeup brush to do the job for now. Seems to work. Either the tea dries really quickly on the pot or it really is getting absorbed! Right now it’s cooling down so I don’t burn my tongue.

Definitely brewed this a little weak, but it has that yunnan black taste to it regardless. A little bit tobacco, a little bit leather. Mostly good, although not nearly as good as some of my others. Perhaps I’ll do the second steep a couple of minutes longer.

Well, I think it tastes like pomegranate. This tea is over a year old, though stored in what I assume is an airtight container. At 2 tsp per cup (3 cup pot) this is quite strong actually. It is rather tart, even with milk and sugar, as I usually take my black teas.

I’m not really sure if I like this much at all. I prefer my berry teas to be sweet and while I like actual pomegranates, I tend to mix pomegranate juice with other fruit juices like cherry to ‘water’ it down.

Had to add this, which was surprising. My tea of this is probably more than a year old because I hadn’t progressed out of stash as my go-to tea source online and that was a while ago. The decaf version of this was on Steepster already but not the caffeinated kind. Also there are 3 companies that are Stash and I don’t know how to contact Jason to merge them.

This is not awful. Fairly tasteless unless sugar is added, but that’s to be expected for a tea that’s this damn old. Especially a looseleaf kept in a Stash tea container (the only indication of where I got it from). It’s obviously flavoured by hazelnut oil more than anything else from the sheen and also from the taste. I’m not a fan of nut oils but this is tolerable. I made this cup to evaluate whether or not I should throw this out and repurpose the tin but it looks like I might keep it. It’s not awful.

And I am disappointed that I haven’t heard back from anyone about the Vancouver teacupping class from anyone in that area or the Seattle area which is where I am driving from. Looks like I’ll have to go by myself.

After reading all the reviews on this tea, I have to say that I’m rather excited to drink it. I really like mint chocolate. Can’t say my palate is clean though, still tastes like the organic from-a-box mac and cheese. Why is it that the crappy for you Kraft stuff always tastes better than the “good” stuff? Because it wasn’t very good.

And this is very very pleasant. The chocolate is clear for once (I don’t taste chocolate very well in tea for some reason) and the mint is present and the sip and really present in the aftertaste. The tea is there but subdued and not really upfront, leaving that for the mint and chocolate. This is really a very good mint chocolate tea.

I have one more cup after this that I’m going to try to drink hotter than this one, which is lukewarm because I was eating. Can’t say I will definitely do it though because I’m at Chapter 5 of the second Dresden Files novel and it might suck me back in again.

I’ve finally become active on Goodreads again, so if anyone is interested in being Friends on there, comment and I’ll follow you (if I’m not already).

Once again, I do not taste chocolate at all in this, although I’m finding that a lot with just cacao nibs in a great many ‘chocolate’ teas.

On the other hand laoshan black genmaicha (without any chocolate) just hits the spot. I love the toasty rice and I love laoshan black and it’s just good. It just is. I added way more tea than normal because I couldn’t remember if this was 1 tsp per ‘cup’ or 2. 6 tsp to about 850ml water. Really strong and roasty toasty. Lovely. Now to scarf it down before I have to run out the door.

Kitten wants some love, he’s trying to type for me.