545 Tasting Notes
So apparently I have a problem with getting my teas logged in in an appropriate timely manner this holiday season – okay, for the past few months. But at least I had the forethought to make notes on an old envelope this time. It should be a New Year’s resolution for me to log my teas within a day or two. lol
So on to Thomas. One cannot ignore Thomas for too too long. Lovely honeyed again. I drank while making lists and eating a strawberry goat’s milk yogurt.
2nd steep: 5 min 30 sec.
Preparation
NOT backlogging — I drank this tea a few hours ago!
We got Indian takeout (cauliflower and potatoes, spinach and chicken, and lamb with onions and bell peppers) earlier this week and I really wanted a cup of Hot Cinnamon Spice after dinner. But, it was nighttime and I was all no-caffeine-this-late so I did not have one even though I knew I was going to be up late that night.
Tonight, I ate the leftover takeout while my husband was at work and then had a mug of Hot Cinnamon Spice cause I knew I was going to be up late and I really wanted one again. I steeped it up in a real big mug cause I knew it didn’t resteep and I thought I’d be wanting quite a bit of it and might get out of making two mugs this way. It was quite good, but I think I could have used more leaf.
So I’m bumping up the rating 5 points cause I really love this tea to an 88, which is on the high end of the great range (80-90) cause it’s nearly awesome (90+).
Which brings me to be bit of a brief ratings rant. This makes this tea my highest rated tea. (Yes, I am a hard grader.) But I have other teas that I like better than this one. But those teas are plain blacks and such, which I’ve rated in the mid-80s, cause I’m sure as my tea drinking career progresses, I will have better examples of these teas. I try to drink a tea and rate it as far as where it goes on my words scale (awesome, great, good, and so on down) then place it numerical on whether it’s towards the higher or lower end of each category. I do this instead of ranking teas compared to each other in general or with in a certain kind of tea. I trusted that it would work fairly well on lining teas up with how much I liked them and it has so far. But this tea definitely falls where I put it for me on my liking scale. It’s just odd for me that it’s higher than teas I like more. But I feel they should also stay where the are for what they are. This discrepancy bothers me a bit. But I don’t want to change it. I’m trying to tell myself it’s okay because it takes into account somewhat how much I like a tea for whether it’s a good example of a darjeeling, sencha, flavored black, or whatnot. Anyways, this did not end up being a brief rant. Sorry to write so much. =)
Preparation
I’m with you on the rating system. As I started racking up tasting notes over time, I’d think to myself “wait, but I really liked this other tea more, so I should move that score up. But then there’s this other one too…” I could sit and juggle scores all night.
Yeah, I’ve decided I’m not going to do that. Or I’d be moving my scores around pretty often. I might change a rating if I end up liking it more or less as I continue drinking it after the initial time or at the end of the supply of it if my view on it has changed.
Backlogging.
I always forget that I actually like this tea and it’s not just so-so. I inhaled the first two cups with immediate resteepings. The third steep was watery but drinkable.
So in other Franklin Tea Company news, my mom gave me samples of two of the other teas she brought there when I was at her house last. I haven’t had either of them yet, but I went to look them up in Steepster to see what people had said and neither had been logged yet. So I went to the Franklin Tea Co website and neither were listed. I did notice a Hot Cinnamon tea so I googled the names of the two teas and sure enough they were Harney teas too. I’m pretty sure this is one too, but I cannot figure out which one.
1st steep: 3 min.
2nd steep: 3 min 30 sec.
3rd steep: 5 min.
