ashmanra Send Message

We have had rain every day, usually torrential rain, not just drizzles. The dark clouds were feeling awfully cozy so I made this wonderful blend that I usually think of as a fall and winter tea.

If you like Cranberry Autumn, you should give this a try. This tea is like a favorite blanket, a cup of chicken soup, a great favorite book that you have read many times. It is comfort. It is elegant.

Where Cranberry Autumn is bright and social and sunny from the cranberry and orange, this one is cranberry and almond, which turns it into the warm fuzzy blanket of teas. Perfect for a rainy day or feeling snuggly.

I am so glad my order arrived yesterday, because I neeeeed this tea right now.

Yesterday we spent seven hours cleaning at my mother-in-law’s house. She died eighteen months ago but the house has been vacant much longer than that. Fifty year old carpets were pulled out. But the house is nearly empty now and it was time to remove all the staples and tacks strips and do some cleaning. If you have ever cleaned a house that has been vacant for four years but absolutely stuffed with things most of that time, you have an idea. My hands were numb this morning when I woke up, I suppose from pounding on a pry bar without the gloves my husband suggested that I eschewed.

So today my body needed turmeric but my soul needed this. This tea right here. And boy, does my soul feel better now.

You know who said it best? TerryHarpLady. She said it tastes like sweet potatoes sprinkled malt powder. BAM. Nail on the head.

Today as I sipped it, I was trying to decide what made a tea a really good tea for me, and I determined it was probably LAYERS. Low notes and mid-tones and high notes. Some things that I didn’t like when I first started drinking tea have become more palatable, like briskness, which I used to think was just astringency and always bad.

This tea is round and smooth and sweet and thick, full of body. The more I drink, the drier my tongue gets and I want more, and while I am drinking my senses are filled with sweet potato malt.

My soul has had a little vacation here at breakfast, and my sore body will recover soon.

I teach piano and voice lessons in my home, and my students find out about my tea obsession pretty quickly. There are two Bellocq tins sitting on the piano and the dog treats for them to bribe my Sam are in a Mariage Feres tin, so it would be pretty hard to miss.

Today, an adorable little boy who has been coming for lessons for about a year asked if he could have a cup of tea. He was getting an extra long lesson because his sibling is at camp. I told him he was welcome to have a cup from my tetsubin…it was this. A ripe pu.

His mother does not drink tea at all, and from what he tells me his father drinks herbals and green tea.

Would you believe he loved it? With no milk or sugar, too. He told me he likes really, really STRONG tea, sweetened please, but I gave him this plain (there was sugar on the table) but he drank it just as it was and exclaimed that it was delicious.

I am out now, so these nuggets are getting resteeped plenty today and tomorrow.

This is one of the sweeter and milder ripe puerh teas I have had. It has great body and is so easy to drink…a child could do it.

I am seriously eating my words about this tea. Well, changing my mind. I had ordered it because ONE PERSON described it as floral somewhere. The company doesn’t describe it that way, and the ingredients wouldn’t lead you to believe it is. But I love me some floral tea and wanted something I could drink late at night.

The first time I reviewed this I remarked that it is good tea but not what I had hoped. Now I really like it. It is sweet, it is good hot, and it is really super poured over ice even with no sugar added. I like tulsi and anise and cardamom and the rose really adds sweetness. Not rose flavor, just sweetness. Dang it, this stuff is expensive but I think I may have to keep it around.

I had a sample of this and made it gong fu style as the first tea for a tea flight. My daughter invited a friend from school over to say goodbye as he was leaving for a summer research opportunity right away and she will be leaving for university in ten weeks.

This tea was a huge surprise for me. I was expecting sweet potato and got creamy smoky greatness that is still making me a little weak in the knees. It is fabulous with ice cream. It went great with sandwiches. It was wonderful by itself. I am buying some more.

I cannot believe that I am now out of this amazing tea. Not all lapsang souchong is smoky. This one is decidedly not. It is, however, sweet and delicious. I can not imagine desecrating this beautiful tea with any sweetener, but to each his own. It is so sweet, rich, and creamy. It has bass notes and midtones and makes a lovely dance of flavor.

I chose to review this tea because I love it, and I wanted a tea I love to announce some great news. If you have read many reviews from me, you know that I frequently drink tea with my youngest daughter, and that she is really the one that got us started drinking hot tea here in the land of iced SWEEEEEEEET tea. She and I gave up sugar in our tea together. And she baked scrumptious things for so very many tea times with friends. She has been my tea and book buddy for many years.

We homeschooled all of our children all the way through school, kindergarten to graduation. She has been going to community college the past two years with plans to transfer to a four year university to major in biochemistry. This was the more economical route. She has had a fantastic experience at her school and acquired not one, but TWO associates degrees, and developed great friendships with a number of her professors. She will graduate with a 4.0 tomorrow.

Last week, we learned that she has been chosen to be a Goodnight Scholar at NCSU. This program is not just a scholarship, but an opportunity for community service, travel, meetings and dinners with leaders in your field, TED Talks, and much more. We are so happy for her, and there are few people in this world who will wring every ounce of good out of the opportunity like she will.

Because of the magnitude of this program, her college has had two interview sessions and three photoshoots, and then the local paper had an interview yesterday and a photoshoot today. All on top of final exams and speech writing, but she is really excited and has enjoyed meeting everyone.

Even though she is leaving home, she will not be too far away and she will be very near her big sis, Superanna, which makes this mom’s heart happy.

So tonight, the butterflies in my stomach are giving the butterflies in her stomach a run for their money. We look forward to crashing tomorrow afternoon and having nothing to do for a few days at least!

I have a problem, THE problem, that most people on here have. I buy tea. I see more tea. I want more tea. I buy more than I can drink in a reasonable period of time. Then I get overwhelmed with tea and vow not to buy any more tea until my tea is under control.

Dong Ding oolong was the first tea that captivated me so completely that I finished 50 grams in less than two weeks. What is it about this tea that makes it so special?

First of all, hubby swears his only tea reviews would be, “this is hot and has tea-like qualities”, but could not stop saying, “This is good. This is so thirst quenching. This has to be really expensive. Is it expensive? This is so good.”

And it is. We resteeped it several times, and is reasonably priced to begin with, so there you go. Each steep was sweet, nondrying, and flavorful thanks to the light roasting. This is an excellent tea, and needs to be on the permanent shelf list.

I wasn’t going to drink any tea this morning, but my daughter called to me that she had made a pot of this as she went out the door. I was just going to SNIFF it, that’s all, but it made me go all weak in the knees when that smokey rich aroma got in my head.

It has been quite a week, such a mixture of great things and hard things all happening at once. Thank heaven for tea.

Long ago, I found out that my neighbor was using his 30 minute lunch break to come home and let his dog out. Since he lives more than ten minutes from work, well, you get where I am going. I told him that I would be happy to let his dog out to play with my dog so neighbor can have an actual lunch break with actual lunch since I work from home and have more flexibility. For this service that I perform, my neighbor blesses me now and then with something from the store where he works. (I also make home made yogurt for his dog to take her supplements in.)

This week he gave me matcha and a portable essential oil diffuser! What fun!

I wouldn’t have had high hopes for matcha like this, but I saw that the only review was a good one.

Pouring it into my matcha bowl, the powder is deep army green, not as bright and vibrant as my favorites have been. The aroma is quite good, though! When I whisked it up, it did froth, but not as much as Harney’s or DoMatcha. But that isnt surprising since it is really designed to mix without frothing.

Now it is deep green liquor. And the taste is good! Again, it isn’t at the level of Harney’s best but it is easy to drink and I enjoyed it. I imagine that prepared as a cold, shaken matcha it can hold its own with any out there. I will easily finish this over the next couple of weeks.