812 Tasting Notes
oh this chai isn’t mega chai!
as far as straight chai’s go, it’s probably the most drinkable chai i’ve ever had.
granted i did steep it on the light side, but still. also after half a cup i added some agave and a creamer from the office break room. (hah i feel so clever)
i’m sure a large part of the fun i’m having with this cup is because my expectations were so low. but this moment has persuaded me to try more chais. which i think is a good lesson for the day. :)
thanks TastyBrew!! thank you thank you!
so, do we have any Steely Dan fans in the audience tonight?
Steely Dan – Only A Fool Would Say That
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTt-URVOYos
dude, your just clearing through all the samples! How can you brew so much tea in such a short time? lol
i’m a girl on a mission!! haha
also i have a desk job and a kettle in my office.
now come-on! these samples aren’t gonna drink themselves! :)
(i’m gonna get to yours next!)
well, just don’t forget to take some time to actually taste each one ;)
(don’t tattle on me, but i’m definitely more at risk of forgetting to do my work than i am of not tasting the tea o_O) i need a steepster intervention! refresh refresh refresh
i’m with you on tat one shmiracles! i love productive tea days. I just don’t have many 1 cup samples… most are a few
this tea is a bummer.
it has pieces of chocolate in it and everything. i dug one out of the bag and brushed the rooibos off before i ate it. and it was yummy. but the tea steeped? idk. it’s just kinda maybe flavored rooibos. and not interesting.
sad. i really like the theme and intention behind these teas. fair trade and not jittery inducing. but alas, it just didn’t work out.
thanks again and again and again TastyBrew!
i like trying new things, and wouldn’t it be boring if everything was top notch? dodge and weave, dodge and weave.
If everything was top notch, some of us would really be in trouble! :D
Also, you have to have some less than ‘meh’ teas to help you define what ‘awesome’ is, in the same way that you have to experience ‘sorrow’ to really understand ‘joy’.
well said terri!
It’s the oolong I’m drinking, speaking through me…LOL :D
I think I was channeling some old wise Master, for a minute ;)
TastyBrew to the rescue!
it’s an Assamalanche!
capital A.
big and bright and i can even taste the caramel notes. malty on the nose for sure.
big personality. a strutter.
this is a fairly simple cup of tea. kinda flat in nuance i guess. but nothing problematic or offensive. it’s kinda gentle in a way. hobbity. it has some nice damp earthiness to it. i’m sure my man-friend will drink it all up if i don’t watch him closely.
thanks very much TastyBrew! i’ll have several more cups of this i’m certain.
Jeremy Scahill/Glenn Greewald fan fic. horrible idea, or BEST IDEA EVER!?!?!!!!!
i’m gonna order a tea from Adagio, and i wanted to ask my friendly and thoughtful followers if you have a favorite Adagio tea they recommend. it’s hard to tell from the company steepster page what is actually the best because it’s opinions from the whole steepster community who i don’t know at all and may not even be active anymore. but i know the people i follow tastes quite a bit more, so i’d probably fair better with some of your personal picks. Thanks!! xo
I don’t seem to have great luck with Adagio (especially their straight blacks) but the teas I do like from there are their Gunpowder Green (very mild), Thai Chai, and Caramel. And those are pretty much the only ones I’d ever reorder!
thanks for the feed back Lindsay! i was considering the Caramel :)
my 300th tasted tea! i’ve reached a milestone.
i ordered this tea a long while ago and kept saving it sealed for the right time.
i woke up early so i would have time to sit with it. i used my special very British porcelain tea cup and saucer. and i read fanfic by one of my favorite authors.
it was my peaceful & quiet special tea party.
Happy 300!
An excellent tea to celebrate a milestone with! Happy 300!
YAY!! Happy 300!!
Congrats on 300! Sounds like a nice way to celebrate too!
Happy 300! Your tea party of one sounds great :)
I was trying to figure it out by your tasting note… but do you know if this is from the old batch or the new that you included in TeaboxB?
hey tea sipper. this probably isn’t the sample from the ttb. i’m pretty sure it’s a sample i had bought a while back.
Hmm… I wanted to try it if it was the older Laoshan that everyone says tastes better, but it is the same sample I have, I wanted to save it for others to try. thanks!
my boyfriend really likes maté. so basically in my mind i designate all maté as his. if i open a new bag and put it in a canister, i point out “your maté is here” so i can feel sure he will enjoy it.
the result is that all of my maté is tasted from his cup. haha (can i have a sip?) (can i have another sip?) (could i have one more sip?)
but it also means he uses and enjoys all my tea accessories, which i think would be lost on him otherwise.
this is a nice maté! i’ve never had a plain one before. so i feel extra glad that TastyBrew sent me some. honestly i like it much more than i thought i would. it’s a unique flavor. definitely the toasted-ness makes it extra warming.
and not that he’s a tough sell, but the boy seems to like it too!
thanks to TastyBrewwww for the moar teaaaa!
(this is tea tasted number 297. i’m keeping track cuz for the 300th tea i’m opening Laoshan Black and trying it for the first time.)(and it looks like that will be tomorrow morning!)
i’m afraid all this tasting is turning me into a tea snob. like in the bad way. it’s that i catch myself having some weird expectations of what i think a tea should taste like by the scent or ingredients, and then when it doesn’t match my presupposed expectations i get overly judgmental. this is not the tea drinker i want to be!!
naw no
i wanna be open to each sip. and judge it in the moment. and see what i can discern and what speaks to me (i have scarred sinuses and a poor sense of smell but i want to do my very best.)
so when i first tasted this i was all ‘meh’. but why? i really had no reason.
it’s a nice tea. i guess i should just put things in the buy or not buy categories? pass/fail?
this tea is gentle. and pretty tasty. slightly vanilla. but i wouldn’t buy more. just cuz there are other vanilla teas i’ve like more. oh that perpetual vanilla hunt.
OH CRAP. NOW i know what it’s like to have too many teas to try!
swaps from TastyBrew, Shadowfall, Dinosara, Shelley_Lorraine have done me in.
with whatshesaid, Sil, Scheherazade, and CHAroma swaps still to come!
what have i done!?!?! hahahaha
it’s craziness. it’s chaos. teasanity! and VERY FUN!
but - i NEED a SYSTEM. i feel like i should apologize to Scheherazade and CHAroma for being such a disorganized swap partner this time around. i’ve lost complete track of what teas i have and what teas i am craving and what tea is still en route or in process.
i’m really new to the swapping and i kinda dove in headfirst with a flourish. as i usually do with everything.
i’m not a half measure type of person.
How do you guys do it?!
How do you make sure you don’t get swaps of things you already have?
Or have already tasted?
and how the hell do you decide from a mountain of tea what to drink next?!?!? haha
these are the funnest problems to have.
yesterday as i had a mountain of little tea swap samples spread out in front of me in the kitchen my boyfriend was like, “do you have a whole world of online friends that i don’t even know about?”, like it had just occurred to him that the tea comes from people (giving and thoughtful and passionate people), and i was like “duh ya”.
this tea. it’s nice. i like it. but it’s not super exciting.
i followed the steeping directions pretty closely. it is vanilla but not really enough. and the tea base isn’t thrilling either. it’s a middle tea. but this is the 296th unique tea i’ve tasted! all thanks to swapping. and this one specifically thanks to TastyBrew.
i STRONGLY suggest that if you’re doing a lot of swaps at once, the minute you get them, put the name of the person on to the package. I started adding mine when i realised that if i were going to get a few more teas in, i’d have lost who gave it to me. That way, even if it takes a while, i still know who gave it to me to thank them when i get around to it.
I also try to get to my swaps right away so that i can add them to my cupboard and then take them out sooner rather than later. If i do other swaps, i just warn the person i might not have a lot to share of some things. :)
i also have now needed to sort my swaps into “flavoured” and non flavoured so that i can just pull a random sample from the box depending on my mood for either.
Sil that was possibly some of the best advice you gave me, way back :) (well not that far back, haha)
it gets REAL easy to lose track REAL fast, haha.
oh flavored and non-flavored, that’s a good idea! very good. plus i was thinking i’ll start a “plain” tea cycle of tasting soon. i have so much to learn and teach my mouth, hopefully i will gain some tea XP.
i guess i use my email as an organization tool? when i send a swap i email myself a list of the teas i’ve sent and the address and swapper info. then when i receive it i also email myself a list of what was in the box. that way i can search my email for the tea and find out where the hell it came from. (basically a nerdier and more cumbersome way of doing what you recommended so efficiently) haha!
Sil, you are definitely an experienced tea wrangler. your masterful navigation of the tea stash is legendary!! and your tips have probably helped more than just me i’m sure. THANKS very much!
I have a spreadsheet that includes putting in who sent me the tea and where I’ve stored it. That way I know what I have and then when I swap it, I know where to find it. It just requires maintaining because even the last time I swapped I had no idea where I put one tea.
I was going to say…i have a spreadsheet as well, though i’m been a bit silly with it. I put in what i get from people but then when it comes to what i sent, because i add in random things here and there. My spreadsheet is steepster name, what i asked for (not what i received); what they asked for, they’re real name and address and then future columns have repeats of what they asked for and what i gave them if there are repeat swaps with the same person.
I also colour code the spreadsheet – red means i’ve received something from them but they have not yet received my package. Yellow is, they’ve got it but i’m still waiting on theirs and then it’s green once we’re both in a happy place. Red = i’m a bad bad tea swapper…yellow because it’s typically “caution” and at least in that case it’s only ME out the tea, which i prefer to them not having received mypackage.
It’a a good way to track bugging people as to whether they’ve received MY swap so that i’m not inadvertantly not delivering on my end of things because they may have forgotten to tell me. Also RL comes up, so sometimes people just totally forget to say HEY! i got your package! ;)
You guys are hardcore! :)
whatshesaid…i prefer to just think of myself as anal retentive…or really organised lol. I dunno about hardcore…i just derive pleasure out of organising things…same reason i sort and organise my tea for fun every few weeks lol
man-handling my tea is my number one hobby.
Hardcore…tea organizers ;)
