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Oh, I didn’t tealog this one?

I need to work on NaNoWriMo – it’s day 15, the halfway mark of 25,000 words.

Arctic Raspberry has a good raspberry taste, very simple, with a ceylon finish with a mild berry tart. My tea got cold while I was chipping away at my writing, and it’s pretty good cold.

Next time, fully iced and sweetened!

I received this tea as a wedding gift. Interestingly, this company isn’t even on Steepster yet! Looks like a local tea company in my area.

So,I never buy these kinds of herbal teas – chamomile I drink only when I have a sick stomach, but otherwise I’m not into. But hey, it was a gift.

DRY: I smell licorice, I think. Oh man, I’m undecided about this.

STEEPED: Smells like mint, chamomile. Herbally!

TASTE: Chamomile mellow and light citrus bitterness and spice that also hits the throat with a zingy mint aftertastes that goes down the throat.

COMMENTS: Hmmmm. I like the minty throat zing – a great contrast to the slight bitterness. I’d drink this again, but not purchase as it’s not my kinda thing.

Annoyingly, I can’t find an ingredients list for this tea, never mind, it’s not on the page where you can purchase the tea, but on link before listing the teas.

Oh crap, this had white tea in it, I totally had it pegged for an herbal, I didn’t want any caffeine. Sigh.

edit, whoa they sell some weird mugs http://www.thelooseteas.com/servlet/the-STYLE-cln-Funky/Categories

I hate when this happens:

I’m steeping tea. 3 or 4 minutes left on the timer. All of the sudden, I need to go to the bathroom, now! (probably result from drinking so much tea).
The options are:
A. pull the leaves out early and have a light cup of tea.
B. run to the bathroom and risk oversteeping
C. dance around the tea pot like an idiot, holding it in until the tea is done.
D. Compromise and hold out as long as I can, pulling the tea out with a minute or 30 seconds left.

I did a combination of C and D.

Onto the Banana Oolong – I’ve enjoyed this tea and on the dredges of the bag. The leaves are kinda in tiny flake mode and ARRRGGGG the taste is off! Like I ate a mouthful of stevia. Unless all that stevia was on the bottom of the bag? BLEECCCK! Poor Banana Oolong. Unless this was the result of me dancing around the pot and pulling out the tea early.. ehhhhhhhhh.

I really need to stop buying soy/almond/coconut milk eggnog. I saw one on sale and bought it. Ewww, it was thicken cornstarch sludge, weird brown colour, weak on spices.

I had a great idea then to use that icky eggnog, mix in this matcha, and weaken the texture with soymilk. Yeah… didn’t work. Tastes right but the texture is like drinking chunky sauce instead.

Maybe I’ll keep my eye out for lactose free eggnog, or just stick to this matcha in regular soy milk.

TY to Tea from Taiwan for offering free samples!

All my teas came kinda vacuumed sealed, about 3tsp or so.

I follow these steeping instructions from their site http://www.teafromtaiwan.com/Brewing_Tea
doing short steepings x lots of steepings.

DRY: Hard to see, but the tea is in tight grassy balls.

STEEPED: light yellow tea – the more steepings, the tea unfurls. Interestingly it looks like the tea is still attached to stems.

TASTE:
First steeping – Very light, naturally sweet, slightly milky and buttery.
Second steeping – more milky, vegetal and buttery. Trying to pick out the vegetal flavor that is now coming out. Green bean?
Third steeping – best steeping, yum! Full flavor, buttery, mellowy sweet and lightly vegetal. Very fresh and refreshing taste here.
Fourth steeping – starting to get dryness here. The flavor is pretty similar, slightly buttery.
Fifth steeping – The leaves are huge now. The tea is taking sweeter, no milky or buttery taste this time. Moreso reminds me of green tea here as it’s more grassy vegetal now. Dry aftertaste.
Six steeping – more astringent / dry taste for the whole sip.

COMMENTS:
I’ve had a milky oolong before purchased off a farmers market in LA. This milky oolong is less astringent, more milky and quite fresh tasting. I like the butteryness and sweetness. The milkyness is light and present in the early steepings – overall pretty nice. Though, I’d love more floral, but that’s just personal taste. A good tea for someone who wants a light milky oolong.

Bleck, just feeling under the weather here. All of a sudden it is “cold” in southern california. I know its 10 to 12c colder right now back where I’m from in Canada, but relative to the weather last week, 10-14c here is COLD! Surprisingly, I’m fighting cold toes and ears – the californian’s weakness to “cold” has gotten this canadian.

So, how about some hot banana bread tea? I make banana bread often, breakfast favorite here, since we always buy bananas and crappy at eating them. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/banana-banana-bread/detail.aspx is the recipe I use, but doctored up with spices, vanilla extract, nuts, chocolate chips, cocoa battered swirl, nutella, peanut butter – whatever I feel like doing.

DRY: Smells weird, like that soury weird smell of banana skins or artificial. Very heavy tea, so seems like I didn’t get much for my 20g.

STEEPED: Oooh smells like Banana bread! Smells sweet, banana and my mind makes me think of butter dripping off the hot banana bread, ooh yeah! Smells more nutty the longer I steep. At the end, this herbal is a gooey mash on the bottom of the tea strainer, so glad I didn’t use my Steeper!

TASTE: At the 6 minute mark, this tea tastes like hot sweet water with a nutty finish. BOOOO, I made this in a pot, so I’m gonna follow others and keep this herbal in for another 4 mins. Totally not going to add any sweeteners, this is pretty sweet already.

10 minutes, the colour is a darker yellow. Tastes lightly like banana extract or banana chips to me and very sweet nutty finish end of sip. Though, some sips tastes pretty natural banana, like that taste of those stringy bits on bananas when you peel them, but accidentally eat them.

I decided to just leave the tea in my tea pot – 15 minute mark, the banana goes to a sour/tart end with a deeper nutty finish. Not sure if it’s the currants or what doing it. Lots of dredgy bits at the bottom of my cup.

COMMENTS: I thought this more taste more bananay – like their Banana Oolong. I’m thinking freeze dried bananas are the way to go in tea, compared to whatever was used here.
That, and I think I rather have walnuts instead of almonds in this tea. So overall, meh and could be better.

Gawd, I sound picky!

I made a huge pot of this tea to sip while I do my NaNoWriMo writing. Most of my writing energies has been put towards this as I started late, thus needed to catch up on my word count.
Finally, I hit par today, 20,000 words and plenty of time today to get ahead. Phew!

Artichoke green – I enjoy how sweet this tea is, in a vegetal way. I don’t mind this tea sitting in a tea pot or travel mug for hours, it seems to keep decently. Gah, I have so much of it! I should really trade out some.

I snagged the Den’s Tea Sampler pack – which is a very good deal. 5 tea bags and 3 packs of loose leaf samples for $3, which also came with a coupon for the next order! This is the first tea for me to try out of the sampler.
I was going to order awhile back and forgot. Then I was in a Japanese grocery store and saw Den’s tea on their shelves and realized they are really close to me! So I put an order for the sampler.

DRY: Smells buttery matcha like. Lots of dust in the bottom of the package, which I tossed into my tea.

STEEPED: Cloudy gold green, light smelling.

TASTE: Light, yet full flavored. Bit of a slightly sweet floral note and earth grassy.
Second steep, I followed the online instructions on their site (though, the package came with lots of paperwork I forgot to read) for 15 seconds. The second steep is more grassy and brighter of a taste.

COMMENTS: One of the better bagged green teas I’ve had. Too many taste like paper, but this one is overall nice and clean tasting. I can’t wait to try their other teas!

Finished the rest of my sample – making a large pot of this while I work on my NaNoWriMo story.
I’m trying to catch up since I started late, plus I didn’t write much during my birthday. Getting there!

I simply left the leaves in my large tea pot, since it lacks a strainer. This tea, oversteeped, develops a smokey touch to it and loses it’s energizing zing to it. Still pretty good and kept me going with my writing.

MMMMM! I was craving a white tea this morning after all that crazy jiu jitsu last night which was my first time in the blue belt class.

For this batch, I threw in a vanilla bean pod that I scraped a few days ago for a dessert. Steeped for 2.5 mins. Doh, forgot I wanted to do a shorter steep!
Very strong white chocolate taste, most white chocolate I’ve tasted in a tea, super creamy, naturally sweet, silky and slightly malty. The vanilla added some extra smoothness to the tea! Yum!

This tea hit the spot this morning, but I’m still tired! Need to switch to something more perky after this.