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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.

Four sisters come for music lessons on Thursday afternoons, and last week they invited me to their home after lessons to celebrate my birthday with a tea time! One of the girls had purchased this tea at Home Goods and served it, and I couldn’t wait to try it because she has been telling me about it for a few weeks now. I love my students!

It is so rosy! Not icky bubble bath rosy. Just delicious and girly and foofy and sweet. I was really surprised that when it was resteeped, it was still significantly flavorful. It was in no way a letdown after the first delicious pot.

Lovely tea, lovely tin, great value because of how well it resteeps. We didn’t go for a third steep, but I would love to know if it holds up for that. And I drank it in such lovely company, so how could I not have good memories of this tea?

Cold steeped it and it is still a nope for me. Sending it off to a new home! I just don’t like the base on this one.

Follow up to yesterday’s review – I tried this iced and sweetened today. It is still a big old nope for me. Oh well. Teavivre’s jasmine teas just can’t be beat and fortunately I have some on hand. This one will have to depart.