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June 22 Sipdown Challenge Prompt – World Rainforest Day: drink a green tea

I bought this to do cold infusions, and have done so once. It was last summer around mid-July so I don’t remember it. I decided to try it as a hot tea tonight but will be trying cold infusion again soon.

As a hot tea, this has a thick mouthfeel. The body is really nice, almost creamy. The company describes it as syrupy but I don’t find it sweet.

The flavor is a nice solid grain like oats and it is also a bit nutty, I would go with mild walnut flavor.

June Sipdown Prompt – a tea you can buy in your town or city

I was going to use Harney’s Vanilla Comoro, but I have that in loose leaf and you can only buy sachets in town. I decided to go with this one that has no reviews.

Honestly, it tastes like decaf black tea with no bells and whistles really. We drink it sweetened and I like it best when we add something to it. I have been adding a ginger and lemongrass tea to dress it up and that is tasty. Tonight as an experiment, I added a spoonful of Bonne Maman Four Fruits Preserves. The Russians add cherry jam to their hot tea, so why not try it?

It wasn’t as good as I had hoped. I think it should probably have been stirred in while the tea was hot.

This tea is cheap and good for slugging down by huge glassfuls when it is 100F day after day like it will be this week. But I have been finding it a boring lately and decided to splurge and pay triple for Luzianne and see if I enjoy that a little more. I have had it before but usually buy this one just for the savings since it is for sweet tea to go with meals.

June Sipdown Prompt – a tea that makes you feel calm

GMathis told me about the benefits of Tulsi for unknotting tension years ago, and so far this is my favorite way to partake of it. The star anise, cinnamon, and cardamom make it rich and exotic. I do think it takes the edge off!

I want to try it iced, and will update here when I do.

Sipdown

I am not the world’s biggest fan of Earl Grey type teas and I prefer them to have a base other than Ceylon, especially high grown. I find the natural lemon notes of Ceylon become a bit much for me with bergamot so I gravitate toward a Keemun or even African base.

For some reason, I have been drawn to this one every day at breakfast. It does have a nice base and is one of F&M’s better teas to me.

I had a tin of the same tea before under the name Mother’s Day. The “holiday” teas at F&M often get a redesign and new name even though the blend remains the same, as they did with their Valentine’s Day tea as well.

This tea is one of the stronger Earls I have tried and liked. The rose is nearly as big a player here as the bergamot. The base is nice and strong with good low notes and carries the bergamot well.

I drank this one as a single steep most of the time, though I have done the double steep and combine method as well and it still makes a very fine pot of tea. Ashman doesn’t love bergamot or rose, though he tolerates both in blends where they are not the main players, so I generally drink this one alone and there is no need to economize with it. He did drink this one once or twice and didn’t object to it.

June 10 Sipdown Challenge Prompt – Iced Tea Day!

This tea was a gift from Martin – many thanks!

Almost every day all year around is iced tea day around here, but especially in hot weather.
I wanted to give our pitcher of decaf black sweet tea some pizzazz so I added some of this tea to it.

Martin is right. This tea is very lemongrass forward. It has such good flavor and the ginger is just right. Rare Tea Company had recommended using lemongrass instead of lemonade to make an Arnold Palmer since you would need far less sugar as there is no tartness to counteract. That’s what inspired me to mix this with our decaf black tea. I look forward to having this on its own, as well, and I will definitely be making more lemongrass black tea blends this summer.

June Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a flavored green tea

My breakfast tea choices yesterday and today were based on the fact that we are eating outside and it is hot and often muggy, so I want lighter choices. This morning turned out to be rather pleasant and breezy since we ate early, which was a nice surprise.

Ashman used to dislike lemon in tea, and probably still would not want a squeeze of lemon. He doesn’t mind lemongrass in tea, though.

He drank this happily enough today. Happy is a good name for this tea, as the lemongrass just adds a sunny note to the tea. Oddly, I didn’t pick up the cucumber aroma this time but I was busy cooking and didn’t really take time to smell the leaves. This is a summertime tea for me because it is light and bright and sunny when the heat is oppressive and the humidity is suffocating. I expect we will be drinking a lot of it over the next few weeks.

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It has been hot and humid lately but this morning is nice enough for breakfast outside. I still wanted something that wasn’t too heavy.

This tea occurred to me as a great candidate. It resteeps really well. It goes well with food and on its own you can detect a very slight nuttiness with a floral overlay and light briskness on the tongue. Ashman said he found it very refreshing and it made him want to drink cup after cup.

June Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a tea swap and sample tea

I have had this sample pack for a very long time. I may have ordered it, but it is possible someone sent it to me, and I am sorry if I have forgotten. It got overlooked because of being an unknown, and usually a night time tea with no caffeine is sought for pairing with a food and I had no idea how I would like this.

I love tea and ice cream and yesterday I had a tiny amount of leftover vanilla ice cream as well as some chocolate chip and pecan cookies I made a few days ago. I decided to make ice cream cookies and wrap them up in the freezer as a surprise dessert for Ashman, aka the Cookie Monster. I decided it was time to try this tea!

Wow! It knocked my socks off! The reviews already here are great descriptions already. This is nutty and dark, so so smooth, and roasty with no bitterness or smoke at all. No one has said hojicha, but I get a super smooth and silky hojicha vibe from this, but ultra soft and silky while still full of flavor. Almost milky.

Since two of us were drinking and Ashman like refills, I took their word for it that it resteeps well. I made it as they suggest – very short steeps at low temps increasing by ten seconds each. The instructions call for the whole 5 gram sample to be made in about 6 ounces water but I used seven ounces water. I made four steeps in a row and combined them in a big pot to share.

Edited to add: just discovered that there was a little tea left in the pot. It smelled like chocolate so strongly that I thought Ashman had emptied the pot and made a chocolate tea until I saw the golden color and realized what it was.

I would 100% order more to serve as our evening tea with Asian food or ice cream. Absolutely.

This was in the Basilur assortment sent to me by Martin – many thanks!

When someone speaks of Indian Summer here in the South, they mean the hot weather that follows the first cool weather of fall. Sometimes the first cool weather is called false fall. I assumed this is a widespread expression and also that this is what Basilur was referring to in the name of this tea.

Sipping it hot for the first time without having read the ingredients, I was very surprised by the exotic flavor that the rose brings to this blend. It hit me that Basilur is probably referring to summer in India.

This is one of the few hibiscus blends I have really enjoyed hot and unsweetened. I also tried it cold, cold and sweetened, and as a switchel. I think I may have liked it best hot, with iced and sweetened coming in as a close second.

June Sipdown Challenge Prompt – drink a flash chilled tea

I have been saving recipes for special beverages on Pinterest for a while now, and one of the most recent is something they are calling Good Girl Moonshine, or GGMS for short. Supposedly the ginger and vinegar are giving you “cleansing benefits” and the beverage is recommended for people who are trying to give up sodas.

The truth is that the recipes are simply variations of switchel, such as Ma made in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book, The Long Winter.

Switchel was cold well water with ginger, sweetener, and vinegar. It was refreshing, and because of the ginger a hot farm worker could glug as much as they wanted without getting a stomachache. I expect it could also be made as a hot beverage in cold weather for a tummy soother or for sore throats.

The new recipes are mostly for concentrated tea, sweetener, apple cider vinegar at a rate of one tablespoon per glass, and ginger. I have seen some with grated ginger boiled in simple syrup and some that call for ground ginger. Most of the new recipes start with a fruit based infusion or a plain hibiscus. You can add cold water to dilute the syrup or sparkling water.

My method today was – the last three teabags of this tea – which were so full of ground ginger that it poofed out of the bags when I put it in the infuser, so no additional ginger needed this time – steeped in seven ounces water. This infusion was poured over ice in a shaker and shaken until cold. Then I poured it into a carafe and added two tablespoons of vinegar. By the recipe it should have been more like three but this is a first try. I poured this over ice, added simple syrup, and diluted with sparkling water.

If you make it ahead of time instead instead of at the last minute as I did, you can skip the shaker step and just refrigerate it until ready to serve.

I liked it very much, and Ashman did, too.

Thank you, again, Martin!