Tropic of Capricorn

From earlier this week.

I have a mug warmer from VariaTEA that I love, but it lives in the kitchen right now for my tea to sit on when I’m doing dishes or cooking – I love having it there, but I also really want to try and find a place for it in my room because quite often I make a mug of tea to drink during a TV show and then I get engrossed in the show and forget about the tea.

Such is the case here, where I made a mug and then got a little too into my Fruits Basket binge. When I finally came back to the mug, it was lukewarm and not as good as it could have been. The flavour is already a little strange in the blend in the first place; it’s quite herbal mint/eucalyptus tasting while still having the cooling menthol element. The dragonfruit is present, but not juicy or necessarily sweet. Recently I was doing some tea and flavour pairing exercises for work and I looked at doing Cold 911 and Watermelon, and what I realized happens is that the sweetness of the watermelon gets sucked out of the fruit, and instead the cooling and herbaceous elements of the mint/eucalyptus combo are drastically amplified. I bet that’s what’s happening here…

I’m not the target for this tea. I don’t even know why I bought this when I don’t enjoy the combination of fruit flavoring and menthol (in this case eucalyptus).

This smells like a fruity Hall’s cough drop. The taste is bland with no depth. The eucalyptus menthol that is so strong in the aroma is much less prominent in the mouth. I can taste a generic melon flavoring (watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew), grass, eucalyptus. I can’t taste the lemongrass, rosehips or dragonfruit, which is I think easily overshadowed by the euc leaf and melon flavor. There is a quality that skirts mineral into metallic. It is a cooling tea, I’ll give it that.

Boring. Last serving of the sample pouch is cold brewing. Will it find redemption?

Wait, I do taste the lemongrass when it cools a bit on the second steep.

The main flavor here is eucalyptus. It’s light, cooling, and not at all bitter. I enjoyed it without sugar, and once I put the sugar in I kind of regretted it. Definitely a unique flavor! At first, I wished I could have tasted more of the melon, but the flavor was pleasant and interesting enough that I’m glad it just has its own thing going on. This is a good one! Best lukewarm.

Home – 5:30 PM

For some reason, I have had a headache all day. It’s very unusual for me, and quite unpleasant.

Anyway, I added this tea to my sample order from August Uncommon because it sounded so unusual and intriguing. Plus most of the order was black teas, so it was nice to add a green in there.

This is not at all what I expected. It tastes mostly of melon, which is not one of the two flavors mentioned in the short description. It tastes juicy and ripe, and perhaps with a bit of cucumber mixed in. There’s also a creamy grass flavor and slight hint of umami that remind me of matcha. I’m not sure what dragonfruit tastes like, but this does have a touch of tropical edge. The eucalyptus is light, thankfully, and somewhat piney.

Overall, I dig it. I bet this would be amazing as an iced tea.

Muted fruity tones that would be served better cold than warm. The tea is made to feel like “winter holiday in brazil” and I would say it is just that.

Sipdown! Finished this off as a cold brew which really brought out some melon notes (honeydew at first, which merged into a juicy cantaloupe). Hints of another fruit (still can only assume it’s the dragon-fruit in the background with the eucalyptus giving it a unique undertone. Again, probably wouldn’t repurchase as I’m not totally sold on the eucalyptus, but it’s nice and refreshing.

My August Uncommon order arrived last night. I ordered the Winter/Fall 2015 starter for BF along with a bunch of samples of the other teas. I had been looking to order a new infuser for traveling so when the starter sets went on sale I thought it was a good opportunity to get to try some tea and get a new infuser.

This is good. I like the combo of flavors. sweet, fruity and eucalyptus, but it is very bold. I guess I was expecting a calmer tea. I don’t know if that description makes any sense. I like to drink some of my flavored green and white teas before bed as a calming cup and this tea is bold enough in flavor that I wouldn’t consider it a pre-bed tea.