3235 Tasting Notes
I haven’t had tHis one in quite a while. I bought it because youngest loved the IB from Southern Season, but this one was too strong for her. Yesterday we had Malachi and it seemed a little weak so I decided to give this another try. I didn’t say what brand it was, just told her it was IB and she drank two cups! It is much better than I remembered! Milk and sugar!
We haven’t had this one in quite a while. The tin is getting low, but I don’t think I will be ordering this one again. It is, as it says, a decent cup of tea, but it doesn’t ring bells for me. Youngest likes it more than I do, but she is such a fan of Irish Breakfast teas. We had this one for second breakfast. I took the first cup plain and the second with milk and sugar. It didn’t thrill me either way, though it wasn’t bad. I would just rather drink something that makes my eyes light up!
I am having a lovely quiet Sunday morning as hubby and the girls have gone hiking and I stayed behind to cook for my son who is coming for a visit today! This is the perfect time for an “all day” tetsubin, something I really look forward to but don’t do often enough!
I wanted to try something new and came across this lovely sample from SimplyJenW.
As soon as the water hit the leaves, an exquisite jasmine frangance filled the air. I steeped for three minutes and tried a cup of full strength tea. The green is not bitter, it is a tiny tad astringent but in a good way and you really have to look for it, and the jasmine is very natural and delicate – not soapy at all.
Because the tetsubin is large, I like to resteep immediately and add it to the first steep to make a nice mix of the two for drinking most of the day. It sits on a warmer so it stays a good temp for drinking for a long time.
This is a delicious treat! I am glad I got to try another jasmine green since I didn’t like the first one I ever tried, and since then have mostly had black jasmine teas.
Thank you, Jen!
Woke up with my back still a wreck. Had breakfast and then started stretching since that is what works best. Went to get a drink only to discover that the 18 year old had served popcorn and bacon for breakfast. Stale popcorn. Decided not to mention it when I realized no one asked for breakfast and that it wasn’t that different from my bowl of grits.
After that, I really wanted a tea that would make me feel human again! This is the last of a sample from Quiltguppy. I used my tetsubin on a warmer and I resteeped the leaves, adding the resteep to the full strength brew already in the pot.
The kids have not gotten into green teas yet but youngest agreed to taste it. I was about to tell her how heavenly the aroma is on this one – it smells like cherries to me – when she exclaimed, “it smells like someone melted Lifesavers in a cup!”
The great thing is that even though the taste is much more subtle than the aroma, she liked it. Although she is still a black tea girl, she said she would definitely drink this whenever it is made.
Next up – Rat Lunch!
Popcorn and bacon … that’s how the kitchen smells when my kiddo’s been in it.
LOL! On the bright side, I drank this tea ALL DAY and it just got better and better instead of bitter! It stayed warm for a long time but tonight I finished it cold and it was still delicious.
I love love love this tea! Smooth and light black tea with honey flavor, dried stone fruit (which I think is black currant), and some light and lovely floral essence. This is our afternoon tea. And may I say it?
I AM A FLIPPIN’ GENIUS!
We had a bowl of almonds out to snack on, and I brought out the Nutella and Rich Tea biscuits. Then I thought of almonds lightly (ahem…most of the time) dipped in Nutella. Mmmmmm. This will be happening again.
Messed up my back again. I wake up feeling like Bruce Li beat me up while I was sleeping. It is time for the Queen!
We are having this with second breakfast – Rich Tea Biscuits with Nutella and carrot sticks.
We are being very good and NOT watching X Men First Class while middle daughter is still working on math. The “teacher” already threatened to take her iPod Touch if she watches it before her schoolwork is done, so I guess youngest and I will wait for her. We have to go photograph some bolete mushrooms after this, her newest interest since she found their special ability when gathering and chopping ’shrooms for our box turtles!
I am (SOB!) almost out of the Queen, and completely out of Emperor’s Red. Must…place…orders!
I hope you are feeling better, soon! Yes. Must. Order. :D
Yay box turtles! I hope your back feels better soon.
Thanks! We love our turtles. We have eastern and three toed western, mostly “rescues” and they live in a big wooden fenced area in our backyard. We have hatched quite a few turtle eggs in the house! They eat worms, bugs, fruit, and all natural deli turkey. LOL!
That’s great! We have a red-foot tortoise that wanders around our living room… recently she has taken quite a liking to biting toes, though! :D She’s still small, so we haven’t had that much problem… yet!
Aw, sweet! Is she an African red footed?
Actually I believe her species is from South America… she’s a forest tortoise
I think toes look like banana to them, which they love but it isn’t very good for them, more like giving them candy. Ours get really excited if we paint our toenails red. There is a lot of snapping at toes then! I guess they mistake us for strawberries and tomatoes.
Yeah the red toenails are especially bad! Definitely she thinks they are berries!
I wasn’t going to log the teas from tea party this week, because we have had them all before, but I just had to go ahead and review Emperor’s Red again because it was especially arresting this week. We had Baker Street by Upton first, and followed with this one. For some reason it tasted unbelievably chocolate-y. It is dark, rich, and smooth. No additions, perfect as is.
I wish I could say that I enjoyed a big pot of this today, but when my five ounce cup was empty and I reached for the pot to refill, youngest had already polished off the whole thing! LOL! DOULTON sent me a huge amount of this, and I am glad because it looks like I will be keeping it on the shelf for the “little one”, who is several inches taller than I am already by the way but that wasn’t hard to do.
Sweet and smokey, like grandda’s cherry pipe tobacco! Guess I will have to brew up another pot.
Does anyone have Gerry Rafferty flashbacks when this tea is mentioned???
Just sayin… :)
Aww, now I feel nostalgic!
Okay, thanks teawing! Just youTubed it and played it for the kids. Youngest heard the opening and asked if it was a 70’s version of Mr. Saxobeat. Um…no. She listened to the whole thing, fell in love with the sax, and is now downloading it for our iPods! Sniff, sniff, sigh!
LOL!!! So glad to have a positive (?) impact on the younger ones…
I started to comment the other day but got distracted, when you mentioned it again today, like a flash, my mind went straight to it AGAIN. Classic Sax riffs for sure!
I just got some of this in the mail! Thank you, ashmanra!
Gee thanks … there goes the soundtrack in my head, too!
Teawing: Youngest just asked me to say “thank you,” as she has Baker Street on repeat.
It came as a shock to my mother when she discovered I was taller than her. She saw our reflections in a window as we were standing next to each other. Then she realised that she was wearing indoor shoes and I was just in socks… :)
How old are your children? I’m beginning to suspect that they’re older than I had initially imagined.
Youngest is 13 but I am pretty short! :)
Oh, and hubby is 6’4" so naturally there was a good chance I would soon be the shortest person in the house. Oldest daughter obliged me by only getting one inch taller than I am. And it IS quite a shock to start to fuss at your kid for not doing their chores and suddenly realize you are looking UP at them!
I thought so. For some reason I imagine she would be around ten-ish. No idea where I got that from. I expect it’s the same sort of thing that makes me get ideas about what people I’ve never met must look like, (You, for example, must surely have dark hair) and then get surprised when I see a picture of them and they don’t look at all like I thought.
@ashmanra: Please tell your youngest that the pleasure is all mine, I am glad she had her musical horizons expanded by this. And, thanks are in order to you as well, the Chai sample arrived late yesterday, I have a quiet Chai front porch evening planned tonight! I will post about it later.
Lastly, now that we have your youngest appreciating some good 70’s music, it might be time to move into the 80’s, dare I say, some New Wave music of my formative days??? ((off to look for tea references)) :)
LOL! would you believe my son loves the forties station on satellite radio? And took dance classes in college to learn to dance to it? I used to sing opera (!!!) but grew up performing mostly in musicals. I had a brother and sister 12 and 17 years older than me so I knew and loved their music. I think the fifties are the main era that has been neglected by me! My college professor for Experimental Music Techniques of the 20th Century studied sonic holography and was a friend of Bob Moog, so I even got a dose of 60’s and early 70’s rock at a VERY classical music school! I love Ultravox, Simple Minds, Paul Young, but also things like Clannad. The kids have the opportunity to hear lots of kinds of music. Make some suggestions! Hubby and I courted to the tunes of Fransican monk John Michael Talbot! Eclectic taste for sure, but can’t stand country! It gives me hives!
I would believe it, my oldest son loves soundtrack composers and musicals. We are not a musical family, not sure where he gets it. I am a history professor, so I love to look at the musical context of different time periods. I loved Ultravox as well, Depeche Mode, Flock of Seagulls, Modern English, The Fixx and the Police. I could go on and on. I am just as comfortable with 18th and 19th century classical and popular music. As for the 50’s, I would suggest the soundtrack from American Graffiti, an early George Lucas film about the end of the 50’s era in California. It has some of the best 50’s and early 60’s American tunes, pre-British invasion. I am eclectic as well, listen to lots of different things.
And you are a former opera singer, that is incredible. :)
I couldn’t wait any longer for my friend to have time to come over to try these teas that JENN sent! I did manage to keep my hands off the piña coloda one, since we are both looking forward to those lovely tropical flavors!
This is my second honeybush ever, so today I decided to also look it up and find out a bit more about the plant and it’s benefits. Nice! I am not a fan of rooibos, so I really want to like honeybush tea!
I tried this one first because I am not a fan of Neapolitan ice cream, and I want to work my way up through the samples! See, I do have SOME self-control!
This is good. I took it plain and hot, and next I want to try it iced with a wee bit of raw sugar. I think I am definitely going to find some nice caffeine free options for evenings.
I mostly picked up the strawberry flavor, maybe got a little vanilla, and really didn’t pick up the chocolate. It could be that additions really enhance those flavors, so I expect it may change when I ice it and add sugar.
Thank you, Jenn! I am excited about trying all these new goodies! A “thank you” package is in the planning stages!
I bought one of these at TJ Maxx a couple of months ago and I really like it. I use it to cold brew tea. It is borosilicate glass so it is very strong while being very light weight. We handle it a lot, and no chips, cracks or breaks so far. The lid has a built in strainer. I don’t even remove my leaves and it hasn’t made the tea bitter. The lid can snap apart for more thorough cleaning.
The reason I am writing about it today is because I saw that Marshall’s had gotten a ton of them in. I figured it was only a matter of time before they went on sale. They did! Retail price is $40, TJ Maxx was $19.99, and they have been marked down to $15. If they go any lower, I will gladly buy another one!
