Silencio

I get it.

Boozy chocolate, cigar/pipe tobacco, smooth sweet pineapple and light peppery spice.

But if ever there was a tea to vehemently reinforce my preference for unflavored teas, this is it. A spectacular and sultry, rich naturally flavored black tea for a certain crowd; for me, notsomuch.

Cha-cha ;)

Ok, I got up at the crack of dawn again today. How much of it is baby next door and how much of it is my body rebelling against daylight savings time, I don’t know. I did, however, feel a sense of urgency to get to the library to return my things before 9 am when fines started kicking in.

Where I am going with this is that it was dark and dim when I was choosing my morning tea. In addition, there seems to be a problem with the lighting too and even if there weren’t, I didn’t have my glasses handy. I didn’t want my usual morning standbys nor did I want desserty types of blacks nor did I crave Chinese blacks.

Right then, so I couldn’t see and I refused to go with tried and true choices. Bad combination of events.

I reached for this one, which I think was Silencio, which I thought was a flavoured green. When I opened it, of course, I discovered that it wasn’t green, or it didn’t look like green. So I decided this was black.

Steeped it up as for a black and delicious. I took it back to bed, where there was light, and read for an hour.

As the tea cooled enough to enjoy, it was all about cocoa nibs and so, I decided it was a rooibos with cocoa nibs. Without black tea.

Short story is that I will be going back to the box and rebrewing and reading and finding out what it was that I started the day with.

LET IT BE KNOWN that I’m just here to post a note and then I’ll likely disappear again. Hello! Goodbye!

This tea. I’m blaming Dexter for this. But it was a free sample, so I suppose that’s ok.

It smells like cacao shells and pineapple when I sniff it dry. Really chocolatey and fruity. So nice. The most interesting notes are tobacco. So, for example, when you have a really nice pipe tobacco and it smells earthy and rich and fruity. Like that. Not like smoke. Tobacco as a perfume fragrance is never smoke. This is what it evokes. Vanilla and warm woods. Sweet fruits. Cacao shell (similar to chocolate, but not the same).

So good.

Steeped, and sipping it, the pepper comes out. It’s a really nice flavour. Still the vanilla and warm woods and juicy fruit, some cacao shells (but not enough for me right now… I find cacao shells smell more than they tend to taste), delicious black tea.

I’m having it with some milk, which might take down the pepper somewhat.

I really like this tea. I might be considering an order. Which is weird. Because I think I’ve spent $30 on tea in the last 8 months.

Cold Brew…

Copy & Paste is my friend right now ’cause I am HELLA sleepy.

- Strong tropical pineapple notes: almost candy like?
- Rich, smooth cocoa notes
- The pairing is nicer this time around since I’m expecting it
- Black pepper is light but present; tail of the sip

005/365

I wasn’t sure what I wanted this morning, as I went through my tea drawer. I knew it wouldn’t be a herbal, because I feel so terrible in the mornings at the moment that caffeine is absolutely essential. I finally settled on this one, although the idea the description presented to me and the reality of this blend are two quite different things.

The description promises spice, tobacco, and pineapple, so I was thinking savoury/fruity. After a quick sniff, it became evident that chocolate would be the main deal, and it is. It’s a whole lot sweeter than I expected, with milk chocolate front and centre. There’s also a hint of pineapple, sweet and juicy, which pairs better with the chocolate than I was expecting. I mean, in my head, pineapple and chocolate isn’t the most natural combination. So, straight up, it’s really chocolatey and fruity.

Tobacco conjured up the idea of smoke, but there are no smoke notes here. It’s not like a lapsang, of anything of that ilk. What there is is a heady sweetness, more like a cigar or pipe tobacco, which in hindsight makes a lot more sense. It’s almost perfumey, but it doesn’t quite cross that line. Just sweet, and fragrant, with a touch of vanilla.

There’s a hint of black pepper right at the end of the sip, and that’s the only spicy note I get from this one. It works, in an off-beat gourmand sort of way.

It took a few sips for me to realise, but I actually really like this one. It’s quite desserty, which was unexpected, and I don’t feel like the description prepared me for that. The chocolate notes are top-notch, though, and the other flavours are complementary and well balanced. The black base (assam, plus a South Indian black) is smooth and malty, perfectly suited.

I’m late to the August Uncommon party, but glad to be here at last!

This was my black tea in my order from August (I would have ordered Leatherbound if they’d had it in stock, but I had to settle for this one). Man, am I glad! This tea smells quite rough and pungent (my husband said they pretty much nailed the tobacco smell), and there’s a slight burnt aroma, like someone grilled the pineapple, which sounds awesome. It’s also got one of the best pineapple smells I’ve ever gotten from a tea (Lupicia’s was slightly better, but this one is a very close second). I had very high hopes, and I was not disappointed. We sweetened this one, because it seemed like the right thing to do, between wanting to bring out the pineapple flavoring and tone down the overall edginess. It was all at once punchy and smooth, sweet and spicy, with a flavor that reminded me of almond extract that oddly helped to marry the tobacco and the pineapple. This was absolutely delicious, and unique. I may have to reorder this one.

I’m currently sipping my second steep of this blend. The first steep had a bit too much spice for me. There’s just enough black pepper to tickle the back of your throat and make you question the list of ingredients. There aren’t many ingredients, but the blend manages to taste quite complex without thirty ingredients and additives (I’m looking at you DT). I’ll admit that I couldn’t really get through the first cuppa hot. Pineapple and spice are really iffy ingredients for me, but the combination sounded so intriguing. I ended up adding a few ice cubes to the rest of my first cuppa and that was much more pleasant. The black pepper was still present but was more tolerable and the sweetness of the dried pineapple seemed a bit more apparent.

I don’t think I like it enough to go for a third steep.

Again, lovely black tea base that’s very smooth and easy to drink.

I think I’ll cold-steep the rest of my sample packet.