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This tea was a gift from Nicole – many thanks!

This tea is no longer listed on the Verdant website, and the more recent Full Roast Wulong Revival says that the maker used a new process, so it would not be accurate to just use the description from the new one.

Dry leaf aroma is chocolate and the thing I can’t remember the name of..I think MadHatter knows. It is the smell of the art class in acrylic painting that I took as a child. I think sometimes people describe it as latex that makes it sound like a bad thing.

I was expecting this to be much darker and toastier, maybe even smoky, with full roast in the name. It is rich tasting even after all these years, so maybe this is a wulong that ages well.

I made three steeps by their parameters, using 5 grams of leaf per 200 ml boiling water. First steep was 10 seconds, second was 12 seconds, third was 14 seconds or so. The steeps were combined into a single pot and enjoyed with and after breakfast.

This is not at all smoky and full roast is a good description. It is a little reminiscent of the Tung Ting we buy from Tin Roof Teas. We will probably finish this one this weekend as it is one of Ashman’s favorite profiles.

July Sipdown Prompt – tea from your prettiest tin

This is nearly a sipdown, and I may come back in later to edit this and label it as such because one afternoon latte might do it.

Also, this tea does not come in an especially pretty tin. In fact, mine was in a bag. I MOVED it to a pretty tin when I finished off Fortnum and Mason’s Rose Pouchong. I think the F&M carousel tins are very pretty, indeed. There are so many pretty tins to choose from but I wanted a black tea for breakfast so here we are.

This tea is very rose-y and the base has nice heft. I drink it plain but it makes good lattes and also would take milk and sugar quite easily. Ashman doesn’t care for rose teas so it is up to me to drink them by myself, and I often have as many as five or six different ones ln shelf.

My favorite tins so far are Bellocq, Whittard’s collections, Fortnum’s Carousel type, and Harney’s Royal Palace line as well as some of their regular black tins with gold labels that have extra design.

What are your favorites?

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This is definitely a repurchase but I may wait a little while. I was nearly down to 80 teas, zoomed back over a hundred, and am slowly making my way back down…but two of my kids are in Marseilles and I happen to know that a Dammann Freres was visited today and all of our cupboards are about to get bigger. If you are ever in the area, Superanna says they were possibly even friendlier than the Canadians, and that is saying something. Why have we always heard that the French hate Americans? I am hearing only good things.

Back to Vanilla Comoro – this is the loose leaf version which always tastes so much better than the sachet version to me. Since it was the last of the tin, this is just full of vanilla flakes. When you reach the end of the pot, it looks like dregs that could potentially be bitter, but have no fear. It is just lovely vanilla.

They don’t make a fuss about it being decaffeinated in the name, but it is indeed and is a really handy evening tea that goes so well with so much. I don’t know that I can be trusted to wait very long to replace it.

I see we have a link to buy it (and other teas from Harney) and it says it will support Steepster. Has anyone ever tried that?

This is a sample sipdown and was part of the huge box of Adagio and other teas that Nicole sent. Many thanks!

I thought Scottish breakfast teas were stronger than English, so I thought this might have a real punch to it. I was also hoping it would be very similar to Brigadoon.

This is milder than I expected, but good. The aroma says Assam first. The flavor is a real mix of exactly the teas they say are in it. The raspy, malty feel of Assam coats the tongue lightly and the Chinese black teas make a silky swirl that tones down the Assam.

I am a wimp when it comes to black tea from India and have to make it just so or my stomach hurts. This one sits well.

I did steep it for four minutes, pour that tea in a pot, then steep again and combine the two. I am sure mine is a little weaker because of the mixing but it is plenty strong enough for me as I don’t add milk or sugar.

Drinking more after breakfast, the Assam is more prominent. The body is creamy, which is nice.

It isn’t Brigadoon, but it isn’t bad. It is a serviceable breakfast tea, and a good afternoon tea for those who want a KAPOW cuppa in the mornings.

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Since I have botched the prep in the past, I was very careful the last two times I made this. Yesterday I had it at breakfast event though I said I would probably just use it for afternoons. It was so good, and even though the color of this one is pale and you think it has been a mistake to do only a ten second steep, it is so full of flavor.

With food, it was so silky and creamy that it was rather arresting. I stopped to appreciate the tea instead of just “washing down” breakfast. When the food is finished and you are just drinking the last of the tea, it comes off a little stronger and has a light briskness that is unnoticeable with food, but is precisely why it paired nicely.

A sad sipdown, and a someday re-purchase. Thank you, Nicole, for introducing me to this tea!

July Sipdown Prompt – Chess day: drink a black tea and a white tea

My black tea was served at breakfast – Decaf Paris, and then I had an unexpected black tea (sweet tea at Wendy’s) while traveling. I was really worried about how I was going to manage this prompt today since I would be gone pretty much all day and I donkt handle caffeine in the evening well.

In spite of heat and humidity, which have actually let up just a little bit today, I decided I would make a travel mug of this tea and take it with me and sip it in the afternoon. I really didn’t think I would enjoy it since we were to be outside the whole time and hot tea doesn’t mix well with July weather in the South. It was actually quite good. This tea has a lot of body. I sipped it slowly with lunch and as we sat around chatting while watching the children play.

This has a rich, golden hay aroma and a woody sweetness.

My heart fell a teeny tiny bit when I came on here to review this and saw that I didn’t have it listed in my cupboard, which means my numbers went up instead of down. My last order of it was so big that it took tins to hold it, but it is also a large leaf tea and very light so it doesn’t take a lot of weight to full two tins. I am down to about 1/2 or 3/4 of the final tin, so maybe I accidentally removed it when I finished the first tin a while back,

This is one of Ashman’s favorites because he loves white tea.

July Sipdown Prompt – Chess Day: drink a black tea and a white tea

I chose this for my black tea today because we are going to be on the road for over two hours and drinking decaf usually helps prevent potty breaks. It didn’t work this time and we stopped at a Wendy’s for the potty break where I bought….a sweet tea. So I had two black teas today. Wow, was the Wendy’s tea sweet! It is pretty good, though!

Decaf Paris was hot and served with breakfast and had no additions. The rich caramel and vanilla scents intertwined and made a fine foundation for the blackcurrant. Delish! It is full bodied and has plenty of flavor in spite of being decaf. I think it compares to the regular full caffeine version favourably.

Additional tea today – Ashram Afternoon by Bellocq for the road for calming and Bai Mu Dan from Teavivre for the white tea part of this prompt. None of these were a sipdown, and reading someone’s else’s black and white review makes me want to order from Harney. Sigh. This is why I never get my cupboard under control. I will resist.

This tea came as a sample sent by Nicole in a vast set of Adagio Communi-tea packets. Many thanks, Nicole!

When I made this tea I was not aware that the name translates to “Almond Joy”, but I must say the flavor is pretty spot on. I saw the ingredient list of coconut, chocolate, and almond, and knowing that Ashman doesn’t care for chocolate flavoring (he does like chocolate and cacao nibs in tea, though) decided it would be a good sample sipdown for my solitary breakfast today.

It went well with my meal. I steeped it twice and combined the two steeps to get a good-sized little pot of tea out of it that had plenty of flavor, so it is an economical steeper. It went well with food, and now that it is cooling and I am drinking the last of it sans food, the Almond Joy flavor becomes really apparent.

If you like the candy bar, you would probably enjoy this tea very much! Cassidy Macomber did a good job on the blend, and 5% of the sales goes to the Animal Welfare Institute, according to info page on this tea.

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This is another tea from the box from Nicole – many thanks!

This has been a favorite! I really don’t drink much chai and when I do it is the cinnamon and cardamom type rather than the black pepper and turmeric type. This is of the first sort and has no caffeine as it is herbal! This made it a perfect candidate for making syrup to use for tea sodas.

Now and then I crave a Coke in summer, but I have found that a good tea soda will satisfy that craving perfectly and is far healthier. It doesn’t have to lean toward cola flavors. Ashman and I split a twelve ounce bottle of Perrier, although with the new PFAS information I will probably be switching to San Pellegrino or just getting a home carbonation appliance. Then I add a couple of ounces of syrup and stir well, because it will sink to the bottom of the glass like lead even though I add I last.

This has been so refreshing and is definitely a candidate for a repurchase someday just for this application, although I also like to make a syrup of Harney’s Vanilla Comoro (so I can drink it any time of day) and spices like cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, and maybe a bit of orange zest. I usually do equal parts sugar to water ratio, sometimes a bit less sugar.

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This was a gift from Nicole – many thanks!

We went to a Mexican restaurant for my brother-in-law’s birthday Friday night. The food is awesome but every time I go, the high salt and fat content in the food makes my hands swell up and leaves me with a bloated feeling and reflux. I decided not to indulge too much in the chips and salsa. I gave away my quesadilla that came with my meal. I felt great.

Ashman also tried to restrain himself on the chips and salsa but he had worked late, was famished, and the food took a long time coming since we had a crowd. Also, he doesn’t eat beef and changed his mind at the last second on what he was ordering and accidentally ended up with a beef burrito, which he ate but probably lacks the enzymes to digest well since he never eats beef.

This meant that on the way home he was groaning. I had him drink a glass of cold puerh from the fridge before bed but he still felt that bloat Saturday morning so I made a light breakfast of English muffins with jam and a huge pot of this puerh.

By lunchtime he pronounced himself cured but we have continued to make pots of this tea and drink it throughout the weekend, especially since we returned to heavier breakfast fare today of breakfast burritos made with my friend’s chickens fresh eggs, our homegrown cherry tomatoes, sautéed onions, and cheddar cheese.

They call for a four minute steep and I never let it go that long, although I do like really strong shu. This one is more earthy and definitely smooth and forgiving of absentminded steeping. It was darker in the cup than black tea but so easy to drink. It lacks the strong farm poo odors of many shu puerh teas. There is a sweet minerality to it, as well. I also keep the second and third steeps shorter than the first, going by color instead of time.

Overall, this is a super easy to drink pu, easy to steep like most shu, and lacks some of the stronger notes that put some people off, notes that I generally don’t mind. This would probably be a good intro to puerh tea for the apprehensive.