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This was a fun tea tasting! Jim Marks suggested that I find out how traditional Moroccan Mint tea is made and served. I read a number of recipes and read how they pour from up high, filling a glass and pouring it back in to mix the sugar in well, and finally pouring from high up again to make a froth on the tea. I had the girls look on a map to see where Morocco is, look at the overall climate, and find movies that were shot in or set in Morocco. (Youngest is a huge Inception fan and was pretty excited about that one!) I described the tall, narrow tea glasses they use that are decorated in beautiful colors with gold filigree.

We poured our frothy tea and drank it. WOW! It has been a long time since I have had any tea with this much sugar in it, but it is DELICIOUS! I am amazed they drink this hot all year in Morocco, but it really is good and the mint is so cooling. They probably didn’t have refrigeration as a common option until recently! I think I like it even more hot than iced, too. (I had it iced at lunch with my banana sandwich.)

The article we read said that this is served to guests as a symbol of your hospitality and is served at least twice a day in most homes. A visitor in a gathering will be asked to judge who is the best tea maker among them. Now if that doesn’t sound like a bunch of Southern ladies gathered around serving their sweet tea to guests, I don’t know what does!

Thanks for the recommendation, Jim! This was fun, and I will definitely try serving it to guests this way in the future. I guess I have to go out and buy some of those gorgeous little glasses now! :)

I really love the spearmint and Egyptian mint in this, and I was disappointed to see that most companies use peppermint. I don’t know if I would like that as well, but I will certainly give it a try.

When I first started getting into loose leaf tea, there were two types of tea that frightened me. One was Lapsang and the other puerh. I am pleased to say that I conquered my fear, got past the smell, and like both very much now!

This was one of the samples in my latest box from them, and since my youngest daughter loves smokey tea I thought it would be nice to try it together on the patio with some Kerrygold Dubliner cheese.

One or two lapsangs have really turned me off because they smell like an ashtray. Having grown up with smoking parents and keeping a cough most of my young life, that is a bad association, plus cleaning the ashtrays was one of my chores. O.o

This Lapsang reminds me a bit of Upton’s Baker Street Afternoon Blend in the aroma. This is a sweet, bacon-y smoke, like maple bacon perhaps. It was an excellent match for the Dubliner cheese. But where I find Baker Street to be almost chewy because of its taste texture, this one is lightr bodied.

I don’t like biting, astringent tea, not even to get me going in the mornings. When I want a tea that asserts itself enough to get my attention even while foggy headed, or just because I want something more bold, I think Lapsang is an excellent choice. This one has the right kind of smoke for me, a sweet, food-y smoke. The tea base is sweet, mild, and tasty. No sugar or milk is needed to mask astringency or to add flavor and I can enjoy it plain. My youngest daughter takes all of her tea with milk and sugar, and she enjoyed it that way, so it can handle additions if you want them.

Thank you, Teavivre! This made a lovely start to our day! I am resteeping it now to sip on for the rest of the morning.

Wow! I am so excited about this one! I have been reading about Moroccan Mint on Steepster for so long and I finally got some today! I never remember to look for it, but as I was buying my Fig Formosa today I saw the big tin and bought 100 grams. I already have plans for getting more….soon.

I made the first steep and hubby and I drank a bit of it hot and plain. We both liked it. The gunpowder green is smooth and the mint is so well blended, it doesn’t overpower the green tea but it isn’t shy, either! This really is about the mint, but it is playing so nicely and sharing the spotlight!

I wanted to ice some of it, and since the young lady who sold it to me told me it is drunk heavily sweetened and hot all year in Morocco, I decided to taste it hot and sweetened, so I made a second steep, planning to then put it in the refrigerator to try as a sweet, iced tea tomorrow. We drank some of the hot, sweetened second steep. It was fantastic! I combined the remaining parts of steeps one and two in a pitcher and put it in the fridge.

I can see this being a summertime staple. I can see not letting myself run out of it this. I want more NOW! Good thing my son lives near Tin Roof Teas and can more for me very easily! I am really excited about how beautifully it resteeped. That really makes it affordable, and I plan to drink a lot of it. This is going to be so refreshing here in our hot, muggy summer.

The aroma of the dry leaf is….candy. Grape candy. Almost grape Dimetapp. This is one of the most beautiful teas I have ever seen. This is SO fluffy that my 100 grams went into a bag that would usually be used for seven or eight ounces of tea, and that bag is STUFFED! This is so full of flower petals that you can hardly find the actual tea! Thus the recommendation to use two teaspoons, heaping, so that you get one actual teaspoon tea.

The liquor is purple. Yes, I mean really purple. And it still smells like grape Dimetapp. It is a good thing grape Dimetapp is a medicine or I would drink it by the gallon and be really huge.

I wasn’t sure I wanted my tea to taste like grape candy, though, and I am glad to say it doesn’t. The aroma is still quite strong but the flavor of the tea is much milder than you would expect from the color and the smell. This is a really smooth Formosa oolong base and I am not picking up any roast-y notes. The grape and fig flavor comes on the end of the sip, riding that aroma up into your sinuses. Then the flavor lingers on your tongue.

This will be fun to serve next Tuesday for tea party day. I think I want to try this iced as well. I think it would be delicious!

Classical music playing, Panera muffin, and Bigelow tea…I am back at Duke Medical to get my stitches out! I almost reached for the same tea I had last time, English Tea Time by Bigelow, but I decided to be a little more adventurous. Yesterday’s review warned me away from I Love Lemon, so I went with Darjeeling.

This is pretty good! It is nice and earthy like the last Darjeeling I had, but not quite as earthy. It is smooth, not bitter, not astringent. I think if I ever need to provide tea to masses and have it be something very forgiving of temperature, conditions, and steep times, Bigelow would be the way to go.

This was the final tea of tea party today, and the final time I will be drinking Thomas Sampson, I expect. Not because we finished the tin, but because I have already boxed him up and am sending him to live out a more purposeful life with someone who loves and appreciates him more than I do.

Don’t get me wrong. My guest and I both loved Thomas, and today’s tea party was the first ever three way tie we can remember. This is one of the best Assams I have ever tried. Delicious.

But Jacqueline and her hubby actually shed a tear or two when their tin came to an end recently, and that kind of love should not be overlooked.

It isn’t fancy, there isn’t a card in the box, or pretty packaging, or other teas, but Jacqueline, know that I am sending him your way with lots of love, and the satisfaction of knowing that you and your hubby will give him a sense of having fulfilled his purpose in existing. Enjoy in good health and happiness!

Andrews and Dunham, is there any tea you sell that isn’t amazing? Or the best to be found of its kind? Bravo!

My new samples from Teavivre arrived today! Hooray! Since my tea party guest loves black tea, I thought this would be a great one to include today. Youngest made all the tea, and I had instructed her to use nine pearls for the pot and go the maximum listed 2 minutes.

The liquor was of a medium amber/orange color. The aroma has a sweet high note that reminds me of honey as well as a hint of sweet potato aroma with a wee bit of maltiness. The overall taste is really elegant. I would consider this to be an afternoon tea, and would have no problem serving it by itself or with really nice daintiest to eat. My guest was really taken with this one, but all three of today’s teas were declared winners! I expect this will go on my next Teavivre order.

I haven’t tried resteeping it yet, but we saved the pearls and I will make another pot soon, I also want to try a longer steep and see if it results in a heartier breakfast style tea.

Excellent! Thank you, Teavivre, for sending this one for me to try!

Tea party began today with this tea. I had purchased it for my daughter who wanted to try some white teas and she really didn’t like it. My guest today, who usually strongly favors black tea, really liked it a great deal. Of the three teas we had today, none was a clear winner over the others. This is the first time we haven’t each expressed clear preferences, though our preferences are often different.

The vanilla flavor is strongest, though don’t take that to mean that it is strong. It is a delicately flavored tea but not one where you have to silence the radio, squint one eye, and concentrate to find the flavor. Behind the vanilla comes the light lemon note, very softly. This was really lovely today.

I have had a bunch of different teas from the Charleston Tea Plantation sitting in a drawer, and with the exception of Plantation Peach – which was YUMMY! especially iced – I have failed to taste them! Gmathis inspired me this morning. When I saw her review of this tea, I thought, “Hey, I have that!”

I used two sachets in an 18 ounce Stump pot and steeped for three minutes. The liquor was orange/ amber. There is a light sweet potato scent that intensifies when your kid adds a bucket of sugar to her cup! As is my habit, I took it plain first because it was my first time drinking it, and it was a smooth enough cup of tea to be taken without milk. There is a slight hint of breakfast tea bite that would probably be stronger if you want it just by adding more tea or increasing your steep time. Not bad, and it comes from an island just a few hours drive from me that I still haven’t managed to visit!

I tried it next with a bit of sugar, and I thought it odd that sugar increased the sense of bite. If you like an Assam to kick your butt into gear, you would like that! Next I added a splash of milk to smooth that bite. It was a decent cup of tea that way as well.

Overall, I think I liked it best absolutely plain. My daughters were not wild about it, but they add LOTS of sugar and milk to most of their teas so they tend to like things with more Assam in them.