Roswell Strange Send Message

Early afternoon iced latte!

I hardly ever make iced lattes, but because I forgot about this one as it was steeping (it got a painfully extended 20 min. steep time) today I was able to make that happen – and it was really good! Because of the super long steep time the flavours were very strong, albeit pretty duo-tone: chocolate and cinnamon. Definitely tasted like really fancy chocolate milk but in a good way.

Refreshing with the caffeine buzz snuck in there (and finally kicking in a few hours later).

I was supposed to be going to the Saskatoon Forestry Farm/Zoo today with a coworker and her five year old niece, but plans changed last minute (oh well – there’s lots of summer left to do it later) so I get to go through some of the backlogged tasting notes from this week! That’s actually kind of nice ‘cause I was itching to write but didn’t think I’d have time to today.

This one was made in a timolino but had tragically gone lukewarm by the time I got to it on the walk home from work so I was drinking it at a weird and less than desirable temperature. It tasted strongly of vanilla custard, orchid and spinach and had a weird drying taste as well – possibly from timolino prep but possibly from the temperature too? It was something unpleasant that I haven’t noticed with prior times I’ve tried this one though.

Hopefully just a fluke.

I keep seeing cute postings about Killian/Emma from Once Upon A Time on my dash and I’m starting the ship the two of them even though I don’t watch the show. Is this something I should be getting into? I’ve already got Steven Universe, Big Brother, WLIIA, and Bones to keep up with weekly and I’m trying to get caught up on Continuum and Brooklyn Nine-Nine too, but if it’s worthwhile I could probably make room for a new show…

So last Saturday, Sobeys was hosting this weird “Food Fair” event where we basically sampled out a WHOLE BUNCH of the new summer food/stock – it was the perfect day to forget to pack a lunch. We were one of two stores in Western Canada picked to do it, or something like that? That’s kind of cool I guess.

Some of the things I got to try (there were a few other things, but they weren’t vegetarian) were:

- Rootbeer Flavored Zevia (A “healthy” kind of pop made with Stevia)
- Some kind of really fancy corn chip from the Gluten-free part of the store
- Brie cheese topped with sour cherry preserve
- Raspberry & Cream Italian soda
- Watermelon w. Balsamic dressing
- Pecan topped ice cream
- A savory grilling cheese
- Vegetarian spring rolls w. mango

And, tea related, a peach infused iced green tea that we’re going to be selling at our coffee bar all summer (along with the Italian sodas)!

Visually, this definitely looked like green tea – it was a surprisingly dark, spinachy green colour. However, it just tasted like artificial peach which was pretty disappointing. Like, the “flavour shot” was so sweet/strong it drained out any of the green tea’s flavour and it just wasn’t a good flavour to begin with.

Still, this was the most popular flavoured iced green tea we sampled out – and I guess I can see why. A lot of the people who actually ended up buying a full sized one were the sort of type that (and I know I’m totally stereotyping here) seem like they’re into green tea for the ‘health perks’ and not the tea itself. So this was something easily justifiable as “healthy green tea” despite sugary additives…

Sad Sipdown (114)!

This is a queued tasting note.

Cold brew to finish off this tasty, but “out of season” blend. The melon was very exaggerated with lots of sweet vanilla notes to soften it up, and a brisker, more bold black base than usual. I love this blend but having the extra tin space for incoming Dammann Freres blends is probably a good thing, and this is not a blend I’ll be drinking regularly during the summer.

More than likely I’m going to be going up to Regina again for Christmas though, so I’ll stop in to Cuppa’T like I usually do and take a look to see if they’ve brought it back for the Winter season – I’d definitely like to get to drink this one again.

Today’s word of the day is… Pittance.

Pittance is “a small portion or allowance, especially of money”. It’s funny; this last paycheck I kind of started doing that with my money without knowing there was a word for that. I just considered it a kind of budgeting. But basically I set aside the amount of money I normally do for rent/food and stuff, and then I divided the rest of the money by the amount of days left before next payday – the number is the amount of spending money/impulse money I have each day, and if I want to spend more than that I have to not spend money on a prior day. It’s working well so far!

Sipdown (115)!

Thank you TheLastDodo!

I’ve only tried a few different Rou Gui oolongs before, most of them from Nannuoshan, but so far I haven’t found one I dislike – the wide range of flavours experienced with the different infusions very much appeal to me so this Rou Gui oolong from Tao Tea Leaf is just going to further my exploration of the class. To stay consistent with the other Rui Gui I’ve tried I had a Gong Fu session with this one using my gaiwan.

The leaves for this are very dark, almost charcoal or black, and decently large. The smell of the dry leaf is very roasty with some fruity sweetness layered underneath. It’s perhaps a touch peachy? I did a ten second wash with this one; as the water hit the leaves my kitchen was instantly filled with a very robust, borderline earthy and roasty smell.

Infusion One: 10 Seconds – This is surprisingly sweet right off the bat despite quite strong toasted barley notes. It’s a little nutty and definitely has some stonefruit notes as well; like dried peach drizzled with honey. There’s maybe some cinnamon too, but not much. These notes comprise the start of the sip and the body. The finish tastes of corn chips and flax to me with a very intense presence of raisins in the finish. I’m usually quite anti-raisin but I actually like the way it tastes here. The taste of the raisin lingers in your mouth for a very long time after swallowing; minutes. For the most part it’s very smooth though it did leave my front two teeth feeling very dry. Leaves are barely opened up at all and smell quite roasty with cinnamon notes and something maybe vaguely like coffee grounds?

Infusion Two: 15 Seconds – Still tastes strongly of roasted barley but it a bit more nutty and has woody notes at the start as well as much more defined cinnamon notes. The body is comprised mostly of rich peach and raisin notes. The honey notes have also gotten stronger, and are tightly tying in with the raisin. Some floral notes have begun creeping in as well. I’m almost reminded of a roasted trail mix with dried fruit/raisins mixed in. This subtle transition of flavours is keeping true to what I’ve observed with other Rou Gui. The leaves smell subtly fruitier.

Infusion Three: 30 Seconds – Ooh! This was not a good pour; I spilled tea everywhere. The flavour is really starting to turn. I’m observing a dramatic decrease in roasted flavour. Definitely strong peach/raisin notes; the strongest so far. The peach is less so a dried peach flavour now, and closer to something fresh. Significantly more floral with more defined floral notes like orchid. Almost seems buttery. Leaves are almost completely opened up and smell sweet like honey and quite floral. There’s absolutely no dry feeling on my teeth from this infusion.

Infusion Four: 40 Seconds – There’s essentially no barley, nut or roasted flavour left. The liquor tastes quite floral with strong raisin and honey notes. The peach has faded quite a lot which is actually kind of disappointing; now that the focus is more on the taste of the raisin I’m losing interest. Also, it’s definitely very buttery. This is the lightest and most watery infusion yet. I’m sure I could probably get a decent fifth infusion but for my own personal tastes the leaves may very well be spent. They are, however, fully opened and smell sweet like honey and flowers.

This is definitely similar to the other Rou Gui/Cassia Teas I’ve tried but unique in its own right too – I definitely experience some more unique notes with the first steep like corn chips and flax, and I don’t remember really tasting raisin with the others I’ve tried. It’s definitely something I’d serve to other people and I would totally drink it again myself.

This, along with the Mango Sticky Rice blend that I’ve yet to try, was the one I was most excited about getting a sample of in the Ette Tea group order.

I absolutely adore lychee in just about anything, but especially in tea and cranberry is also one of my favourite fruit flavours in tea so the pairing of the two got me really, really excited. It’s also a pairing that I haven’t seen done before which was really cool too.

Dry; this has some really robust smelling lychee. It’s also fairly floral which should be expected given that there’s jasmine from the green tea and also the addition of lily, but lychee is a very floral tasting fruit too so it comes from that as well. I don’t see as many cranberries in the leaf as I want their to be, though I did make sure that what I measured out for my mug had at least one included.

Wow this smelled heavenly when it was also steeped up! It’s a very strong lychee aroma; definitely the most powerful aspect of the tea, but there’s also a really soft, soothing jasmine smell backed up by other floral elements like lily and maybe also orchid. It’s actually hard to pick out specific notes from either the black or the green tea used though. I can also smell the cranberry, but only slightly.

Thankfully the cranberry is a bit more noticeable in the taste; it cuts through pretty clearly in the start of the sip with some sweetness but also some tartness that reminds me of cranberry jelly like you’d have around Thanksgiving. However, the very lush taste of the lychee and jasmine over takes it early on leaving me feeling just slightly cheated. I want more cranberry because while it’s so different to me to see it paired with lychee the two flavours go together really well!

The lychee is juicy and rich and reminds me a lot of actual lychee or ‘cocktail’ lychee that’s been canned in its own sweetened juices. It’s mouthwatering and strong as a flavour. I can see where, paired with the sweetness of the cranberry, this could get a little too sweet but thankfully there’s the soothing presence of jasmine that brings this back down to a reasonable level and keeps it distinctly flavoured but smooth and relaxing too.

Also, now that it’s steeped I think the base teas come through just slightly more; the first half of the mug seemed to have a really light vegetal taste to it that was brought more into focus when you concentrated on the jasmine but the slightly malty black base was more present in the aftertaste along with the lingering flavour of lychee, and especially present with the last few tiny sips from the mug when everything had cooled down.

There’s definitely room for improvement, but overall this was a really impressive and well executed tea and like beelicious I’m absolutely kicking myself for just getting 10g! I’ve now tried 3/5 samples and this is definitely my favourite so far.

For someone who isn’t all that crazy about Earl Grey I’ve certainly been drinking a lot of it this week…

It’s about time I tried this one; my Mom was nice enough to hunt for it for me when she went to Disney last year and it took months to make it from her house back to me; and then months again for me to actually try it.

At least it not only was in a sealed tin (an absolutely gorgeous one by the way) but in a vacuum sealed foil back as well. Also, I don’t know why I thought this was Earl Grey and rose, because it’s not – maybe since the tin is covered in pink script with tons of decals of roses on it? But it doesn’t actually say rose anywhere so I should’ve known better than to assume.

Dry this smells very, very citrus heavy with more of a fresh peeled orange scent than a distinctly bergamot one. And, it actually does come off a tiny bit floral too. I prepped this as a cold brew because I thought since the orange seemed to be quite strong that it would brew up fairly sweet.

It actually does taste a little more like plain orange than bergamot, though the bergamot is significantly stronger in taste than it was in the smell. It’s kind of weird though; it doesn’t taste like the bergamot oil has turned or spoiled but it is clashing a little bit with the orange, which is more of a candy orange than a natural one and with the faint taste of floral notes, which are natural tasting, things aren’t fitting together seamlessly here.

What it ends up equating to is a fairly average Earl Grey that I think you’d find yourself drinking more for the Disney/Alice in Wonderland aspect than for the taste of the tea itself. And that’s perfectly ok because if we’re being honest here I think that’s who it’s ultimately marketed for anyway.

I’m quite happy I finally tried it though!

Sipdown (116)!

SO MY EDUCATION FUND TRANSFER OFFICIALLY WENT THROUGH! AS OF YESTERDAY I AM REGISTERED FOR TEA SOMMELIER CLASSES STARTING EARLY JUNE!!! IF YOU CAN’T TELL I AM QUITE EXCITED!

Thank you TheLastDodo for the sample!

This is a fairly new company, and one I actually wanted to order from since they’ve got a pretty diverse selection of flavoured matcha and I was interested in seeing how it differed from what Red Leaf Tea offers. Unfortunately they don’t yet ship to Canada, so it was great that TheLastDodo was able to send some for me to try!

Instead of my usual matcha in milk I prepped this cold shaken in a timolino with plain old water. Since this is a new company to me and I’m not familiar with their base matcha I wanted as much of a “plain” taste as I could get.

I liked this; I thought the raspberry was very sweet and natural tasting with just a tease of natural tang to it. It also didn’t seem to eclipse the flavour of the matcha itself which tasted subtly grassy and very, very floral. It had me thinking loosely of both orchids and peonies. The flavour and base together worked very well – the floral components absolutely complimented the natural tasting raspberry.

It definitely makes me wish I could try more flavors from this company – in particular I’m curious about the pineapple matcha and the apple matcha. I love the pairing of pineapple and floral flavours like orchid so I can see that working really, really well. Basically, I’m saying people should give this company a little bit more love because hopefully then they’ll be able to expand their shipping into Canada!

So I received the Butiki sponsored herbal box this week, and it was such a dramatic influx of tea – most of it I just added to my cupboard under the header “Butiki Sponsored Herbal Blending Box” or something like that, anyway. Some of the things in the box were really clearly labelled from specific companies though, so I’ve added those things into my cupboard separately – such as this tea.

This is one of a few ingredients in the box that I’ve either never had or never had plain; the latter in this case. Before mixing it with anything else, I wanted to try it on its own to know what I’m working with flavour wise. I brewed up about sixteen ounces of this and had half of it hot, and the second half iced. Steeped up this has a very dark, swampy olive green colour. It’s both pretty and kind of intimidating.

Of the hot and iced versions of this, I disliked the hot more than the iced. I found that while it tasted very, very grassy with a bit of sweetness and also a bit of bitterness that the hot version had an almost unpleasant medicinal tint to the flavour.

And on the note of ‘medicinal’ stuff – apparently there are a whole lot of health claims for drinking nettle leaf tea. I want to be really clear that I’m no expert on the health claims here nor do I necessarily believe all of them; and that’s definitely not why I’m drinking this tea. My personal belief is that any ‘health benefits’ I get from tea is a great added bonus, but I completely drink tea for the taste – and I review it for the sense of community, and to learn from other people’s experiences.

The iced version of this was very similar; incredibly grassy with sweet and pleasant bitter notes – however I didn’t taste anything especially medicinal. It was just the taste of very obviously herbal tea. I’d definitely drink this plain again were it iced; I’m not so sure I’d be as willing to try it hot again unless it was sweetened, and I don’t normally sweeten my tea so that’s probably just a safe no on that front.

At least it gave me some good ideas of what to blend this with for my next herbal mix!

Holy matcha buzz!

I made cupcakes today, and since mixing matcha worked so well last time I repeated the experiment – so today’s cupcakes are vanilla zucchini with pear matcha mixed both into the batter and the icing. They’re so green and pretty! And, I feel like they’ll be easier to share with people ’cause, you know, pear is supposed to be green and it makes the zucchini blend in better. When I tried sharing the last batch (cherry zucchini with strawberry matcha icing) people looked at them funny ’cause of the weird ass colour.

I used a lot of matcha; and after having to test out the batter, licking the bowl clean, testing out the matcha and then having three of the finished cupcakes too I’m WIDE AWAKE and super, super ALERT. Good thing it’s 5PM and I’ve still got lots of time for this buzz to wear off.

They’re really good though – super moist, light and fluffy with a subtle pear flavour in the cake itself and a more full flavour in the icing. When Tre gets home from work (any time now) I’ll definitely be feeding him one to get his opinion.

So many tea/matcha and cupcake options! I’ve got way too many ideas in my head: Banana Matcha with either white cake or chocolate, Chai icing on Carrot, Pecan or Chocolate cake, Pineapple matcha in vanilla cake with coconut matcha icing, EG icing on either a vanilla or chocolate cake…

What should I do next guys?