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This is a queued tasting note.

Had this one cold shaken in milk for lunch last week alongside and unexpected veggie burger. Let me explain…

So at work we have a ‘found money’ policy where, if a staff member finds money in any of the donations, they can turn it in and the company will give them 30% of whatever they found. A few weeks before I started, someone found $2000 in a suit. An amount that large has to be turned over to the police, but thankfully the suit that was donated had a dry cleaning slip in it which helped the police track the owner down and return the money to the owner. How someone forgets $2000 in a suit baffles me, but long story short the company still honored the 30% finders fee for the person who found it and that person, in turn, paid for a staff BBQ!

What’s really cool is that, for the first time out of any place I’ve ever worked, they made sure there were vegetarian options at the BBQ (so I actually got to participate) as well as Halal options since a large portion of our production staff is Muslim. It just really humbled me to see a company be so inclusive with all of their employees. It’s a really refreshing change of pace. Not that Sobeys wasn’t a great place to work; but staff events certainly didn’t have the same amount of inclusiveness.

Cold Brew.

This is the last tea I had before I got really sick. At this point I certainly wasn’t ready to admit just how sick I was feeling, but drinking this kind of slapped me in the face and made me go “No, you’ve been sick all week. You need to stop pushing yourself and rest”. And what about it made me realize that? Well, I went to drink the cold brew and all I could taste was water, and maybe lemon? I may have made that lavour up though: I was so desperate to not be sick I could have possibly been projecting past experiences with yellow tea on this one.

So, I resolved to not waste anymore good tea, especially something like a yellow tea which I really want to be able to taste and document to further learn from, until I’m back to ‘tip top shape’. I’m still working on that…

Tea 108 Cuppings: Week Two

Man, I’m so behind on tasting notes…

This week was a little different than other weeks I’ve done in various modules: I did two comparisons, essentially. The first was a side by side comparison of four different bagged Orange Pekoe teas from different companies (which were unnamed) to see what taste differences there were between them all. It was interesting because it really forced me to look closely at the flavour profiles of generic bagged OP and I found that across the board I found all had a rather strong nutty profile which I’d been fairly blind to previously.

My favourites was the 1st – I wish I knew the company, but alas that’ll remain a mystery I suppose. The 1st had a distinct sweetness (like maple walnuts) and smoothness that set it apart from the rest of the set. The 2nd and 4th both tastes horribly bitter and astringent to me. The third was interesting; I’d wager it was from Tetley given the distinct shape of the teabag that differed from all of the others. That’s only a guess, though. This one started off smooth enough, but evolved into a very sour/acidic tasting tea; an unpleasantness that lingered way too long.

The second comparison was of two loose leaf Earl Grey blends. Visually, the dry leaf was very contrasted – the first was finely fragmented flat pieces of brown/rust coloured leaf and the second was longer, wiry off black leaves with cornflower petals throughout. Visually, the second appealed to me more. Not because of the bright splashes of blue, but because of the leaf shape. The first EG was definitely stronger; it had notes of bergamot/citrus (obviously) but was also quite floral. However, a stronger flavour isn’t always a good thing and it did wind up tasting a little rough with some astringency. And, while the bergamot packed quite a punch it was also fleeting. The second had less floral notes as well as a bergamot flavour that was more gentle. On the flip side, while the overall taste was milder it was also cleaner/smoother and more long lasting. Personally, I preferred the second EG though there’s strong pros/cons of both.

Sipdown (118)!

It’s been two days since I had a drop of tea. I’m still painfully sick. So much so I called in sick yesterday, and today I’ve spent all day in bed. Instead of sipping down the beverage that I love I’ve been drinking Neo Citron. Lots and lots of Neo Citron. So, all of these tasting notes are backlogged: I wanted to work on them yesterday but honestly I was just too tired.

This one comes from TeaNTees and I’m assuming it’s from the old 52Teas company given what the packaging looks like. I’ve yet to order from the new 52Teas so I don’t know what the packaging looks like but I imagine it’s different from how Frank packaged things. That means this tea is fairly(ish) old, and since it has coconut in it that does raise a bit of a red flag – I’m wondering if that coconut has turned? However the dry smell seemed safe so I went ahead and cold brewed this.

I think I managed to drink this right on the cusp of it turning as there was a slightly soapy note that crept into some sips but mostly this was a very smooth, creamy, and sweet. The black tea flavour overall was quite light, with emphasis on the added vanilla, cream, and coconut flavours. I think this tea very well conveyed what it was attempting to!

Thank you TeaNTees for passing it along!

This is a queued tasting note.

Bought some plain Milk2Go so I’ve been bringing a bottle with in my lunch for work all week along with some matcha. This wasn’t all that extraordinary: just sweetened milk? Maybe a little floral? But it was nice to have something cold on break after an exhausting morning carrying in dressers, wardrobes, and other large pieces of furniture.

Tea Pop!

The sugars in the tea syrup definitely reacted in a weird way to the club soda with this one, and I wound up with a tea pop that visually was the colour of beer with the frothy, foamy top to go along with that.

So to take advantage of the uncanny resemblance I poured this into a Stein and served it to my little sister who LOVES watermelon. I once watched her eat an ENTIRE watermelon by herself over the course of an afternoon. We then waited for my mom to get home from work, and watch her drinking this ‘beer’. She did; and then freaked out on my sister for going through the beer in the fridge which she knows she isn’t to touch. It was a fun prank.

For reference, my sister is eleven…

Cold Brew!

I forgot I was steeping this one in the fridge, so it got something like a 48 hour infusion? That wasn’t a bad thing though – it pushed all the flavours to deliver a strong flavour and that wound up really well conveying a true ‘gingerbread’ flavour.

More interesting than this tea, though, is that I got my Septum pierced this week! I’ve been wanting to get it done for well over a year, but I’ve always been working places where visual piercings were against the dress code. While, once healed, a Septum piercing can easily be flipped up and hidden that’s not really much of an option that first month, which was problematic. Thankfully, VV has such a liberal dress code that it’s not a problem at all!

This is, I guess, basically my first piercing? I have my ears pierced but I pierced them myself (I know; shame on little RS for being unsafe), and that was 15+ years ago. I’m loving the way it looks so far; unfortunately like four days after I got it done I caught a really bad cold so keeping it clean has been more of a drag/problem than it should have been. Ugh.

I’m starting to look just a wee bit ‘prison-esque’ as my little sister says, though. Apparently the combo of tattoos, piercings, and my normal dress style/make up gives me this weird mashed up appearance of a librarian/prisoner/hipster. I’m trying to embrace that, though…

Sipdown (119)!

Thank you for the sample TeaNTees!!!

So, this tea is incredibly aromatic – even with my sample in a Ziploc over top of the foil sample pouch I can see smell intense, fragrant notes of pear. It reminds me of this really sweet, kind of ‘dewy’ pear scented hair detangler I used to have before I shaved off all of my hair. I know that doesn’t sound appealing, but I think that hair detangler was the best smelling ‘beauty product’ I’ve EVER owned. I remember even spraying it as a ‘perfume’ too (I was twelve at the time; don’t judge). And then, when I was out of it I was never able to find it again. If the taste of this tea translates into the smell of that detangler as well as the dry aroma makes me think it will I know I’m gonna be all over this tea.

I cold brewed my sample; and I have to say this turned out to be absolutely incredible. Honestly, the black base is a little drowned out but it’s not surprising given how intense the flavourings are. I would have been more surprised if the base had been able to compete with pear notes that strong. The mouthfeel is also incredibly thick and full; if I didn’t know better I could probably be persuaded that I was drinking the sweetened pear juices from a can of halved pears. It’s also just a sliver floral tasting. It compliments the pear notes well though. And you know what? It does kind of taste like that detangler smelled.

One thing I will say is that the ‘honey’ seems a lot less obvious; sure there’s absolutely 100% a sweetness to this tea that isn’t representative of just the pear on its own, but nothing identifies it specifically as honey. Though comparing this again to a ‘beauty product’ (but in the best way), my personal favourite perfume is ‘white tea and honey’ scented and this does have the same effervescent, fresh sweetness that I enjoy when I wear that perfume. The common denominator between the two is the ‘honey’. So that’s something.

Overall, I’m really impressed with this tea! At this point, it takes A LOT for a pear tea to sweep me off my feet and this blend certainly did it. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a good pear tea or just a fruity tea in general with an over the top juiciness and freshness.

Had this at work, before my shift, a few days ago: I worked out that with the bus ride to work I can get there half an hour early or five minutes late – obviously I’m gonna go with early. That gives me plenty of time to have a cup of tea before work though! And honestly, even with 30 minutes to kill it still takes less time to get to VV than it did to bus to Sobeys.

Drinking this hot in plain water, it was actually the best way I’ve tried it so far which surprises me a lot because Sangria is not something you drink hot. That said, it doesn’t taste like Sangria at all – more like orange rinds, grass, and some sort of super muddled red fruit with an odd sort of starchyness to the flavour. So maybe that’s why it works alright: it’s not a true Sangria flavour in the first place.

Regardless, I’m happy to have found a way of drinking this that’s not awful.

Sipdown (120)!

What goes better with tea than a little blood, am I right?

Two days ago at work I was unloading a bin of cloth donations onto a skid in the back warehouse and I reached into the bin to grab a bag and toss it onto the pile only to have my coworker Bryan inform me a steady stream of blood was flowing from my hand onto a garbage bag. Apparently, someone had wrapped a vase in between some sheets in one of their bags, and somewhere between receiving the donation and loading it onto the skid the vase had shattered. I had the misfortune of grabbing the shattered vase which resulted in a pretty deep cut essentially from one end of my palm all the way to the other.I didn’t even feel the cut happen though; so who knows how long it had been bleeding. As my coworker Amy pointed out later in the day, the cut lines up almost perfectly with my ‘life line’. I’m not a superstitious person, but if I was I think I’d call that a bad omen…

Because it’s on my palm, and my dominant hand I ended up reopening the cut a few times throughout the day which resulted in some slightly bloody hand prints on things, such as my timolino when I was going to get a drink of tea. Poor timolino. I guess we’re bonded by blood now, though?

I don’t know… This was kind of meh?

The apricot was SO VERY INTENSE. Intense enough that anything other than caps lock seems like an insult to the flavour. And the mate was certainly earthy, fresh, and present as well but there’s something about the duo of mate and apricot that didn’t work and I’m still slightly upset the nutty notes don’t come through well. After all, that’s what this tea is named after! And something about the sweetness reminded me of Splenda, which is not a good taste. I don’t care what you say.

Ultimately, my first brew of this was much better and the inconsistency makes me more skeptical about whether I’d buy more.