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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.