Various Artists

I survived the wedding! As a reward, when I got home I brewed a cup each of Aquarius & Harvest Moon, both by Adagio. Sadly, I could barely tell the difference between them, with the exception of the chocolate & buttery carmel mouth-feel of the Harvest Moon. Oh well, I had to try!

It’s actually a beautiful day, & it was an outdoor wedding under a pavilion, over looking the Mississippi river. The views, in all directions, were stunning, as the leaves are changing & there was still a lot of green, with highlights of burnt red & orange everywhere. Absolutely beautiful!

The highlight for me (other than playing my harp, of course) was after the wedding when I was packing up my gear. A couple came up & started talking with me. He is the son of a lovely lady by the name of Doris, who I dearly love & haven’t seen for some time. I first met Doris about 20 or so years ago. I played a brunch at a local hotel for about 15 years, & Doris used to come to brunch with her other son & his wife. I would see them there every sunday (along with several other regulars) & after a awhile I started spending one of my breaks with them. Doris was probably about 65 then, always dressed colorfully, always wore a flower pinned on somewhere. She was a delight! Over the years they came to my other gigs as well, Tony & I had dinner with the 3 of them, they even came to my daughter’s wedding reception. I played at her 80th birthday party, & attended her 85th a few years ago.

What has always impressed me is the way her family cares for her. Her son & his wife live across the street from her, & have always invited her to go with them pretty much everywhere. In recent years, she no longer gets out, & the son I saw today said she sleeps about 18 hours a day. She still lives in the home her children were raised in, they take turns staying with her (grandchildren included), & she will most likely pass quietly from our world in her sleep, which is the way she intends to go. Her family has cherished her all of their lives, & I love that. That is how it is suppose to be.

Crawling out of my cave because I have a gig today. I have to leave the house in a little over 3 hours, & being a musician means you show up, no matter what. I started the day with 2 cups of tea: Elder Berry, & a re-steeping of Sichuan Caravan (saved the leaves from a couple days ago). Just to illustrate the state of my tastebuds, I thought I was drinking the caravan first, which tasted like nothing, basically. Then I went to drink the elderberry, & only knew it was actually the caravan because of the ginger! I can’t really taste it, but I can feel it on my tongue!

My Adagio order arrived yesterday, which was really exciting until I tried to smell some of the teas: nothing. I guess I shouldn’t complain, this is the first time I’ve been sick in a year (other than some allergies). This too shall pass!

So apparently the virus that’s been spreading around Steepster finally made it to my house. I started feeling yucko last night & have cancelled students for today. I’m sitting in my sun room, surrounded by a variety of plants, including a meyer lemon tree with 7 almost ripe lemons, a key lime tree loaded with limes of all sizes & blossoming, & a kumquat tree with lots of baby kumquats on it. I’m soaking up the sun, & dosing myself fairly heavily with the following teas, which I’ve already reviewed & which all have healing medicinal qualities:
Cheryl’s Tea (Cheryls Herbs)
8 treasures winter yabao (verdant)
sichuan caravan (verdant)
& a brew I make from Astragulus root, lemon, ginger, lemon balm, & honey

I plan to spend the day out here, rotating through various steepings of those, plus homemade chicken stock that’s loaded with garlic & herbs.
Look out virus, I’ve got you in my sights, & it ain’t pretty!

I’ve had a couple of crazy days! One of my daughters came friday, we spent the day eating, gardening, & sipping tea! We started with Laochan Black (her comment, "Wow! This is a great coffee substitute). We had some of Verdant’s Hand Picked Summer Tieguanyin (which I already reviewed) with it’s wonderful orchid-like essence, S’mores from Della Terra (thank you Azzrian), & Butiki’s Coconut Cream Pie (which was my daughter’s favorite tea of the day). All of this was spread out over the day.

I spent the weekend running around playing gigs, so all of my tea drinking was deep & strong: Wild Picked Yunnan Jin Jun Mei, Laoshan black, Bergamot Rose Laoshan black, & Imperial Breakfast Summer Blend. After each one was steeped 2 X, I dried the leaves & this morning I combined them all into one big brew, which was then strained off into a quart jar & refrigerated. An interesting combo, & tasty cold. Also, I only had one tsp of the WP jin jun mei, so I added a tsp of Laoshan black this morning for a nice hot cup!

What will I sip on next?

Other half of the last 鐵觀音 packet.

Also had a rose oolong bubble tea with grass jelly last night. Awesome!

Another foil 鐵觀音 packet! Should’ve taken a picture before tearing. Ah well.

Finishing the other half of my foil 鐵觀音 packet. Characters today because I feel fancy.

Random Tie Guan Yin from co-worker, in one of those funny foil-wrapped pouches. Having this instead of my usual Orange Pekoe! I feel rebellious.

drinking a mix of david’s teas mother’s little helper with sweet dreams with some rooibos in there for good measure.

almost what i need it to be. SO CLOSE. i think it’s missing licorice root.

I haven’t yet restocked Thin Mint from the Tea Spot, so I made my own. I had a little bit of Hojicha left from Dens Tea and a bag of Peppermint from Arbor teas. It came out pretty good. The peppermint is a bit brighter than in the Thin Mint blend since I obviously don’t know the exact proportions, but it doesn’t matter. Mint+Hojicha = yum no matter what.

I had just a little bit of Caramel Apple – Flowery Assam by Steap Teas left (from my swap with TastyBrew) and it was mostly apple and assorted non-tea chunks with hardly any leaf (I dunno, maybe the tea is just supposed to be that way) but I wanted some more tea with my tea so I added Some of Butiki’s Premium Taiwanese Assam. I think I might have overdid it just a touch with the Assam, but it came out pretty good nonetheless.

caramel puerh from VariaTEA from my teabox.ca i’m good with this one. I’ve had it a couple times now and it’s a middle of the road caramel puerh. :) enjoying having this one around.

sample from variaTEA – god awful.

1) it’s an earl grey
2) it’s marketed as “high octane tea” and has extra?? caffeine in it. I took a few sips and was like hells no

- Zest Tea; Earl Grey

I totally forgot to post about my last tea adventure from Nicole

Strawberry Lemongrass Herbal – Single Origin Teas

this one isn’t bad, even though i’m slightly off of lemon grass. the strawberry flavour is subdued and this lemongrass has a really nice quality to it – not as harsh or something.

thanks for the lovely adventures nicole! it was a lot of fun :)

Day 3! in my advent calendar from nicole I like having a surprise to look forward to every day. This one is her blend i suspect…. “Chocolate Golden Yunnan Black” prooobably it’s closest or IS Tricera-Tips Yunnan. but omg.i love the crap out of this one. like 88 or something like that today. deep, rich, malty, delicious goodness. even the last of the cup that got cold was so yummy. thanks nicole!!

playing the sample game and can’t put some of these in until i know what the teas are haha

11th day – genmaicha….smells like alcohol, tastes more mapley
8th day – i think i’ve had this before…
9th day – smells like caramel..kinda reminds me of caramel cheesecake…
12th day – “holiday” tea…nuttier as it cools…
10th day – bananaaaaaa!

another tea for the Toronto Tea festival. I’m lazy and don’t want to add it to the database. It’s here: https://www.tearoma.com/collections/black-tea/products/red-ruby

“Red Ruby” from Tearoma.

This is actually a fairly nice tea. The leaves are rolled and when brewed, to me this is almost a malty honeyed brew versus being just a honeyed tea. It’s got a deeper flavour and bolder brew than the TTC tea i had this morning, which makes it more up my alley. I don’t need more of this, but i may check out some of the other offerings this company has based on the strength of this one.

Buckwheat matcha latte

this is an interesting sample from VariaTEA. What i liked – the level of sweetness and the balance between the matcha taste and the buckwheat. I wasn’t a fan of the little balls of buckwheat floating in the drink. still though, i’d probably drink this again but i wouldn’t actively seek it out

Next up – 2016 Spring Reserve LB – Verdant vs Imperial grade LB from YS

-similar aroma dry and brewed
-verdant version is more cocoa-ey while YS has a bit more sweet and bread?yam? like flavour going on. i think these two are pretty close in terms of how i feel about them. Not sure i’d pick one over the other..they’re both slightly different but still have that delicious LB from a few years back going on. At 15$ vs 9.50 for 50g, the better deal is Yunnan sourcing, though if you factor in shipping, they may be compareable since with verdant you can hit free shipping and with YS you never do unless i’ve missed something somewhere heh.

First up.

Autumn harvest 2015 Laoshan Black Verdant VS Classic Laoshan Black 2016 – Yunnan sourcing

I brewed these western style since that’s generally my go to, especially when things are busy as they have been for…uh ever. 200 degrees, 3.5 mins.
LB from verdant has a less intense aroma…you can still smell the bready, cocoa-ey notes…but then you git YS’s version and there’s no contest…YS version is so much more intense and present.
drinking it? today. verdant’s version is tasty…but lacking the richness of YS’s version which occasionally tastes like i’ve just had chocolate in my mouth and there’s a distinct after taste of that chocolate. the brew with YS also has a thicker mouth feel. Now i know i’m comparing 2 different years and different seasons, but both are still available online, so worth a comparison imo. Between these two…Yunnan Sourcing is the clear winner.

(still have 1st picking and reserve from verdant to compare against AND i’ve got the imperial version from YS as well…)

pulled out tea this morning from dexter Not in my cupboard as it’s from her “tea guy” :) this was 2013 zsxz that i’ve been hoarding since i wasn’t all that impressed with the harvests last year. Hoping for a better year this year. looking forward to the fall harvests heh.

GCTTB

Blueberry Pancakes – Cha Island Tea Co. this one isn’t in the database and I couldn’t find a website to pull information from. On the whole, this one isn’t bad but i don’t love it. I’ve had better blueberry teas…and the base doesn’t incent me to love it. Not a bad tea but nothing i need to keep.