382 Tasting Notes
Inspired by Angrboda’s re-affirmation of her love of smoky teas, I decided I was in the mood for some Lapsang Souchong. I basically HAVE to be in the mood for lapsang souchong or the smokiness just overwhelms me.
Honestly, there was once a time when I did not even like Lapsang Souchong, so sit down, pull up a chair and let Grandma Ewa (yeah, I’m 26, work with me here) and I will tell you the story of how I came to like it: One fine day, I received a black tea sampler and tea press as a present from my brother and I realized that Lapsang Souchong in leaf form is quite tasty if I’m ready for it. The End. Now get grandma some bourbon.
Preparation
Woke up EXTREMELY late today and didn’t even have time to do a irish/scottish breakfast blend quick and dirty ingenuitea steep. Just tossed some of this into a teabag and ran out the door.
Ugh.
This tea was not meant for teabags, or perhaps the brand that I’m using is particularly paper-tasty, because the taste was just not what I have come to expect from Nick II. In fact, it had barely any flavor at all, and that’s with leaving the tea bag in! So sad. Sigh, stupid ingenuitea spoiling me for teabags forever.
Preparation
Upton Tea Sample Buying Spree Tea #15 (Last One! sob)
So this is the first time I’ve tried a Green Tea Earl Grey. At some point, I read a review on here where the writer (think it was Jim) mentioned that they didn’t really get the point of green Earl Grey, and I think I’m going to have to agree. At least in this incarnation of the tea, the flavoring completely overpowers the green tea and makes it taste over-perfumed. As I get towards the end of the cup, the green tea starts to assert itself a bit more, though that might be because I’ve gotten used to the taste.
Oh, I feel so bad pushing the rating bar towards the “meh” face! But that is exactly the feeling this tea inspires in me!
Preparation
Well, my last Upton sample is green Earl Grey, which is simply Not Suited for being my morning tea, so I’m going to get started on a new project! The Great Finish Off My Adagio Samples That Have Been Taking Up Space In My Cupboard For Ages To Make Room For More Samples Project! (or TGFOMASTHBTUSIMCFATMRFMS Project for short)
Does anybody else do this thing where you end up not drinking your favorite samples all that often because you don’t want to finish them off and be left with the not so great samples? That is what has happened to Golden Monkey. I love this stuff, but the sample tin tends to sit in the back of the tea cupboard, neglected due to my miserliness. Poor Golden Monkey. This tea has a lot going on; I was thinking “smoky” when I was drinking it earlier, but reading the other notes, malty is definitely the right word.
I let this steep for a stupid long time this morning because I was distracted trying to find all the April Fool’s jokes I could before leaving for class, so the end result is extremely strong and extremely malty. Suitable for mornings, when nothing else gets through the post wake-up fog, but I was definitely wishing for more subtlety by the end of the mug.
Preparation
This is why I don’t buy samples.
I don’t know about samples, but with tea in general, I tend to keep drinking all my favorites over and over again when I have untasted tea in the cupboard. I guess it’s like meeting the same friends you’ve known a long time and have a shared history instead of making a giant effort to start/nurture a new friendship. But, it’s a new day tomorrow and I hope to make an effort …!
If I have as-yet-untasted tea, even my most prized favorite cannot tempt me away from satisfying my curiosity =)
Ewa, I have tried two Golden Monkey Teas first one from an Adagio sampler and then the S.S. Teas Etc award winning one and I prefer the Adagio one it’s much more malty. It is strange how subjective the palate is.
Lauren- I’m with you an old favorite tea is what I go for before a untried tea. I think it’s just loyalty or something :)
I am inspired by Ewa & Jim Marks – I am currently tea-less (gasp, shocking I know) so I am going to go & pick out something totally new to try, but the betting is good that I will revert to a ‘tried & true favorite’ ere long! LOL!
But but, guys! What if you drink all of your super tasty tea and then you try your samples and they are not very good! That would be the most terrible thing ever. Trying is a separate issue though, tea that I have not tasted yet just sitting in my cupboard is driving me insane with curiosity without even trying. It’s after I’ve tried it and formed preferences that the problems start…
The Adagio Golden Monkey is the only one I’ve ever tried, but if it’s the one with more character, I’ll just stick with that.
My nightmare would be running out of the teas I love and rely on, so I’m much more likely (out of curiosity) to try something new and untested, and then if I don’t love it, get it used up and out of the way. I know that if I go back to the favorites and use them up and all I have left is the stuff I don’t like, I’ll just order more of something else and eventually end up wasting this stuff as stale.
If I truly hate something I’ll give it away or put it in the compost pile. Otherwise, I just consume it and move on.
But I think I might be weird and borderline OCD so feel free to ignore me :-)
No no no, cannot ignore you, Jim Marks – you provide too much insight about teas (not just here but on my other posts)! But I am going to go pick out something I’ve never tasted before … I’m off on a new-tea adventure!
I totally get the “drink it to get it out of the way” thing. Right now my main problem is I have so many I haven’t tasted I am feeling overwhelmed. I guess I should have a cup of tea to relax. :-)
Oh man, choice paralysis is also something I am intimately familiar with. Just close your eyes and grab something! OR formulate a list based on arbitrary criteria! mmm, lists.
Also! you can switch off! New thing, known thing, new thing, known thing. If you get too caught up in the “must try all the samples before I go back to my known tea” it starts just feeling like work.
I agree, Ewa!
Upton Sample Buying Spree Tea #14:
Just the green Earl Grey left!
Before anything else, I have to say that I really liked the color of this tea – it was such a nice reddish brown. Or was it brownish red? I’m sure there’s an official name for that color. Possibly to do with wood. Mahogany? No I think that’s darker. Once again the leaves are pretty finely crumbled (or whatever they do to them) so it brews up fast.
On first trying this, the astringency kind of slapped me in the face, but that faded as I drank. Still, I can definitely see why they recommend drinking this with milk. Tough luck, Upton Tea! Milk is for cereal! and oatmeal, I guess. and for making into cheese. mmmm, cheese. Anyway, I stand by my tea without milk stance! It’s very difficult for the human body to digest you know! In fact, the majority of people are lactose intolerant to a certain extent! I read that in Newsweek! Or possibly Wikipedia!
Ahem. Now that that’s out of the way. Nice black tea, certainly pretty to look at, think I liked the Scottish and Irish blends better, though.
Preparation
Reddish brown or brownish red would be “amber” or “chestnut” perhaps? Mahogany is darker. You’re possibly thinking of cherry wood, chestnut or cedar.
A splash of lemon or lime does well against astringency without having to resort to dairy. Just a splash, or you end up with flavored tea.
The majority of people are lactose intolerant because such a huge percentage of the population of the planet is either Asian or African, both of which are gene pools that are almost universally lactose intolerant. Within the broadly “white” (a useless word) population, it used to be extremely uncommon and is slowly becoming more common, possibly because of the mingling of gene pools in our increasingly diverse and mobile society.
Chestnut! Chestnut is totally what I was going for there.
I am suspicious of my ability to carry out this “add lemon without adding enough to get lemon flavor” plan. (I am pretty clumsy, you know)
Regarding lactose: even if you’re not intolerant it still does take extra effort to digest (lactose isn’t alone in this, of course. see: red meat). Most of the time, for a healthy non-intolerant person, this extra effort is not an issue, but if one is having digestive issues or energy deficiency it tends to be one of the first things to go. (note: this information comes from a store of knowledge that I like to call “dumbed down explanations that my doctors give me when I come in feeling icky and they have no other explanation for what is wrong with me and probably secretly suspect I am a hypochondriac”)
You could use a straw or basting bulb to add the lemon a drop at a time?
And yes, I agree, lactose is not the best thing for people to eat. But a few splashes in your earl gray is not likely to be the thing giving you digestive cramps. ;-) Especially if you are the kind of person who gets glassy eyed when someone mentions “cheese”, which it sounds like you are (as am I).
Just don’t like the doctor tell you that you’re allergic to gluten without insisting they do a biopsy that tests positive for coeliac/celiac disease first. It is an increasingly common “spectrum” diagnosis for people who just tend not to feel well most of the time and nothing else is helping, but the actual disease is still quite rare in spite of an explosion of products on the market to aid people who have it.
I subscribe to the slippery slope theory of milk drinking. From adding it to your tea it’s just a SMALL STEP to…I don’t know, guzzling entire gallons at a time?
Funny you should mention the gluten thing, my brother is actually gluten intolerant (not celiac though) so I am not about to be swept up by that hype. I have to say despite the paranoia about it now, at least there’s awareness. It took two years for my brother to be diagnosed in the 80s.
When you realize how much milk it takes to make some kinds of cheese, the idea of drinking a half gallon suddenly isn’t quite so weird. ;-)
So, he’s not celiac, he has a spectrum diagnosis?
Wow, great conversation about tea, huh? ;-)
hee hee, tea is the gateway to all kinds of discussion! And it’s about to get even MORE exciting!
He’s got dermatitis herpetiformis, which is another form of gluten intolerance, wherein the lesions formed by the gluten allergy appear on the surface of the skin rather than internally. It’s rarer, but it gives you more leeway in how much gluten you can actually have (some if you can take some itching, rather than none due to internal bleeding) and you can take something to give you a bit of a resistance.
From what I can gather from Wikipedia (I have a question to the on-staff MD at my office pending without response yet, we were just talking about gluten last week), DH seems to cause coelia, rather than being separate from it, and has its own symptoms in addition to the coelia symptoms. A big problem in diagnosing people with either DH or CD is if the patient is already voluntarily on a gluten-free diet before any biopsies are done, the biopsies may come back negative. This is part of what has led so many doctors to tell patients that they have “a gluten allergy” even with negative test results.
To get back to tea, I thought of a third option besides lemon or milk. Honey! If you get a grade A “dark amber” honey, ideally from buckwheat, it will actually not be very sweet at all, compared to the more typical bright yellow clover or orange blossom stuff. It will be sweet enough to take the “edge” off an astringent tea without actually “sweetening” the tea, and is easier to add in small amounts until you find the right balance compared to lemon. :-)
I just want to preface this by saying that I am not TRYING to be difficult.
I don’t like honey either!
Regarding the DH thing, from what I gather it is hypothesized to be caused by a mild form of celiac in the small intestine or something like that. The fact remains that it is some weird form of celiac that doesn’t involve the internal lesions.
In my brother’s case, since he doesn’t abstain from gluten all the time (you can’t expect a Polish person to not drink beer! It’s unnatural!), we have plenty of empirical evidence regarding the appearance vs. lack thereof of the rash to accept that it’s related to gluten in some way. He was diagnosed when he was quite young (4 or so) and basically refused to eat for a while until he was put on the gluten-free diet.
I’m not a big fan of sweet things, in general. Which is why I like dark amber buckwheat honey. It really isn’t all that sweet. If you can find some to sample before buying, give it a chance. Otherwise, just suck it up and drink your astringent tea in peace! :-)
As to the other, the only clarification I was trying to bring is that it is the coeliac that causes the gluten intolerance, and that the intolerance is itself a symptom of it, regardless of other symptoms present or not either from coeliac or DH. The upshot is, coeliac is the only known cause of gluten intolerance. Someone with DH doesn’t need a gut biopsy, clearly. :-)
Fair enough!
And now it is entirely possible I know more about Celiac than tea. Thanks, Steepster!
Thanks for the recommendation. That is an extremely specific kind of honey, but I will try and check it out! I don’t really mind the astringency, honestly, so I’m not going to be super sad if I don’t like it.
Upton Sample Buying Spree Tea #13:
Oh noeeees, with this I’ll be on my last two teas! Get here soon, Golden Moon Sampler!
Brewed this up this morning for my “on the way to morning Chinese class” pick-me-up. Another very fine tea which, as expected (and as it says on the box) brews up extremely fast. I learned my lesson with yesterday’s Scottish Blend and was a little more careful with my spooning and diligently paid attention to the time. I have to say, the care was well rewarded; this came out as a great strong tea for the morning and didn’t taste oversteeped at all, although now that I come to think about it, I kind of miss the slap to the face I AM TEA HEAR ME ROAR that the oversteeped Scottish Blend gave me. As usual, I fail to show signs of either discernment or sophistication; although, honestly, people expecting that sort of thing in the morning are just insane.
Preparation
Yeah, that sounds like the Scots. I had a 6’4", 300 pound Scot for a roommate in college, and that’s exactly how he was, first thing in the morning. The only way I could ever retaliate was insisting on the top bunk and subjecting him to the “naked Gypsy dance” first thing.
And now, herbal break! Since I tend to be prone to bouts of insomnia, I try not to encourage it by switching to either weaker or just decaf teas after around 5 or so. I haven’t been as good about that as usual lately because I have had so much black tea to try, but now that I am off my drowsiness inducing cough medicine, it is probably time to pick up the habit again.
Foxtrot! What can I say that hasn’t been said already? I met Foxtrot while visiting my brother on vacation, and we hit it off immediately! I knew then that I was going to have to invite Foxtrot over to my place some day. From hearing other people’s descriptions, I had convinced myself that Foxtrot just had too much going on, there was no way that combination could possibly produce anything like a balance. But in fact, Foxtrot is perfectly balanced, everything just fits together to create a whole greater than the some of its parts. Basically, Foxtrot is a great companion for an evening’s drink. Although sometimes the chamomile is a bit strong for my taste. (The writing exercise kind of fell apart there at the end, oh well!)
Preparation
Upton Sampler Buying Spree Tea #12:
Time for a break from the Earl Grey/Earl Grey-like teas!
This stuff is really fine, it almost seems ground – is it pretending to be coffee? It brewed up quite dark and very strong. I think I may have used a little too much – too used to the more leafy teas. On the other hand, this would be perfect if it’s morning and you’re running late and you forgot to leave enough time to boil water and steep your morning tea and you are in danger of going to Chinese class tea-less and WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO.
As far as taste goes, as expected it’s a strong black tea flavor. Not subtle at all, this stuff. It’s got a sort of undertone that I’ve never really been able to describe well, but appears especially in oversteeped teas – like, super-saturated tea-ness, I don’t know. Anyway, this is definitely a good morning tea, especially if you have trouble waking up. (like me!)
Preparation
If I’m remembering correctly, Scottish breakfast teas are all made from those smaller, broken bits rather than being at all tippy. I suspect this is a bit of ethnic humor by the English, implying that the Scots can’t afford proper tea leaves.
Given that structure, you’re going to end up with a denser scoop than with a more tippy tea, which could account for both your strong result and your astringent over-steeped sense, which all Assam seem to be susceptible when brewed too strong.
Ooooooh…man you know stuff about tea! Now that I think about it, yeah, I seem to get that over-steeped taste most with Assam. The more you know! (rainbow)
Upton Sampler Buying Spree Tea #11:
Slowly reaching the end of the Upton samplers, although I’m sure I’ll do multiple tasting notes for some of them at least. Good thing that 31 tea sampler from Golden Moon Teas was on sale today, or I might run the risk of having to drink the same tea twice! Sigh. Will…so…weak.
This is super tasty. On my sample packet it says that it is a “scented darjeeling” rather than a flavored one, or a straight Earl Grey, which is an apt description. The scent of the additional flavors is much stronger than their taste, although the taste is still noticeable. The vanilla is definitely more noticeable than the bergamot, but I think they blend together well. And there’s that little kick from the darjeeling underneath it all, acting as an offset. Very effective balancing act.
Preparation
Upton Sample Buying Spree Tea #10:
This was the bonus sample Upton sent along with the buying spree, and let me tell you, this tea? It is wasted on me. Anything with that many letters telling you its identity in minute detail is. I just do not have the patience or inclination to be that discerning about tea flavored tea. Other people do! But I do not.
Disclaimer out of the way, it brews up very light, but that doesn’t affect its flavor at all. Tastes quite tea flavored, although I am getting a kind of nutty undertone. Interesting.
