Cantaloupe and Cream

Ooh, I’m glad you have (at least?) two cups’ worth now to try a cold and a hot brew! I haven’t tried cold-brewing it yet. But isn’t it amazing???

It’s SO GOOD. The cold brew was fantastic, so refreshing which is what you want when it’s this brutally hot out. I bet it’d be great with a sprig of mind!

So glad you love it! I definitely need to try cold brewing it. The nice thing about brewing the Cantaloupe & Cream hot is that it can be steeped several times. On a side note, someone just mentioned to me that Cantaloupe & Cream had made it to #1 for the “Best Teas” on here!

I wonder if my rating had a hand in that XD I think the Bailin Gongfu Black was #1 yesterday, so it was recent (but of course well-deserved!).

Cantaloupe & Cream was #2 yesterday so I think your rating did move it to #1. :)

Yup congratulations Stacy!! :)

Smørrebrød? I’d love to hear more about that!

Smørrebrød is a Danish open face sandwich! They are my favourite, well there are all sorts of different ones actually, but in general they are a staple in my house. They also have them in Sweden, but I believe they are called smörgås there. :)

Was it on proper rye bread too, then?

It was on German rye bread. I have planned on making some proper Danish rye over the Christmas break when I have more time :) It’s difficult to find here!

Cool. :) Do you have connections to Denmark?

My grandfather is Danish! So I’m always trying to learn more about Denmark and Danish culture. Any suggestions on the rye bread? I have a recipe, but I’ve yet to try it.

I tend to like it with lots of whole grain in it. My mother used to bake it for Christmas. The rest of the year we’d just have store-bought. For me, the two are wildly different beasts in taste and texture, and I’m used to store-bought. It also makes a difference if you use sourdough or not. If you do, it can have a more sour sort of taste. My favourite sort has sunflower seeds in it. I have been baking rather a lot in the last year, but I haven’t attempted to tackle rye bread. I’d have to eat it all myself after all, as Husband (he’s English) doesn’t much like it. I also haven’t had much luck with bread in general. I’ve baked a lot of door-stoppers…

Yes the one I have that I purchased from the German store here, which also carries Dutch, and a few Nordic items has sunflower seeds. It’s quite tasty. I had planned on making the sourdough so I’ll have to let you know how everything goes. And haha for the door-stoppers! :P I made a few loaves of regular bread two months back and they turned out fine, albeit a bit fluffy, so I’m really hoping for the best with the rye. Do you have smørrebrød frequently? Do you enjoy herring? I’ve not been brave enough to try…

Actually, we have it fairly rarely. When a Danish person says smørrebrød they usually think of something like this http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Sm%C3%B8rrebr%C3%B8d_at_Kastrup_IMG_8275_C.JPG/800px-Sm%C3%B8rrebr%C3%B8d_at_Kastrup_IMG_8275_C.JPG with LOTS of toppings. Very elaborate, and not really an every day sort of food. It’s the sort of thing you might get if you eat lunch out or something or for special occasions where you would serve a lunch for guests, but not warm food.
What we actually have on a day to day business has only about a third of the topping and usually only one topping + one condiment. Much simpler and much more boring looking, but it has the advantage that you can eat it without using knife and fork. :) Like this http://irisogbirk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/dansk-frokost.png Liver pate with pickled beets. Very trad! If you came to an informal every-day lunch in a Danish home you would very likely just be presented with the sliced bread and a selection of toppings and expected to make your own. :)

As for the pickled herring, most people enjoy it, but I don’t much care for it myself. I can eat a bit of it, maybe half a slice with herring, but that’s it. Truthfully, I don’t care for herring as a fish in general, pickled or not. I love fish, but somehow herring is just a little too fishy in flavour. :) I’ll take mackerel in tomato sauce any day.

Very neat! I feel the ones I’ve had recently fall somewhere in between. I have been having ham with a topping of steamed carrots and asparagus mixed with mayo, sour cream, and mustard. Sometimes I will add a slice of tomato. I will also take what I have in my fridge to make creations too. I hope I’m not making any horrible errors in that haha. :P

I asked my Swedish friend the same about the herring, and her answer was about the same as yours. I’m not really a seafood lover, and I wanted to get some input before attempting pickled herring haha. It may be a while before I work up the courage to try it out.

Thanks for all the info! I love learning more about these things :) I have so many more questions haha. I will have to inbox you with an update of my rye bread in a few weeks, and maybe a few more questions… (but let me know if this isn’t okay!) :)

I wouldn’t know anything about specific rules for topping really. Using your imagination is fine so long as it tastes good. Bit like flavouring tea. Sometimes someone comes up with a flavour combination nobody else has considered before and it turns out it really works.

I have to say that I also know people who like a bit of herring now and then but otherwise don’t really care for fish. I don’t know if for them it’s some sort of traditional thing that that’s just something you eat because it’s tradition or whether they actually enjoy it. My mum used to make her own around Christmas. She would buy the fish fresh and salt them first. It’s a pretty long process. She used to make as many of the toppings as she could as well. It was for my father’s birthday on the 26th, and this has turned into the traditional Christmas family lunch really. She’s made it more buffet-y in recent years though. There are still a few things that HAVE to be there like the herring and the liver pate, but other than that it’s easier to do it in a buffet style when one family member is vegetarian and another is allergic to eggs and a third is just a plain picky eater. :)

I came up for the idea of this blend because I love slicing fresh cantaloupe and using the thick creamy part of coconut milk that is at the top of the can. I even add a little sugar in the raw. Its amazing! I chose not to add coconut to this tea since coconut is one of those love it or hate it ingredients.

Sounds delicious-especially for summer.

+1 for vegans!

Indeed!

Well, I am vegan so every single tea and even our sugar is vegan. I also try for gluten free and allergen free too except for teas that have nuts in them.

I HIGHLY recommend this for summer but even colder weather the creaminess is so comforting!

I seriously got like 4 or 5 infusions out of this one. I’m ordering a bunch shortly; it is divine.

And Stacy/Butiki Teas, cantaloupe with coconut milk sounds amazing. I think I’ll have to try that as soon as good cantaloupes are available here.

@ Butiki-Wow, that’s great to know!

Krystaleyn-Definitely give it a try when you have a chance, the coconut milk and cantaloupe mixture is so amazing! I love adding a little sugar in the raw to sweeten it a little and add a little crunch factor. Scott B-I’d like to clearly mark that on our website when I get a chance but feel free to ask any questions about ingredients. We are trying to make the ingredients transparent. All but one tea has only natural flavorings and are organic when possible and the dried fruits added are preservative free.

Great idea! did you just put four tsp into normal (unheated) water, and then stick what I’m assuming was the jar into the fridge?

I also drank some spring and summer today—I totally get it!!

Yup, into the mason jar with cold water and then it just sat in the fridge for a few hours before I strained it yesterday, but I waited to have it this morning for “breakfast”.

I think I was (at least) one of them. The creamy and steaming fruit essence of the hot tea didn’t go over well with me. I’m not the biggest fan of iced teas, but I’m still keeping it a possibility to try. Thanks for being the first and leaving your notes :)

It was you! Thanks for the idea! :)

It is a very tasty tea :D

It is, indeed.

I’m so glad you like this one! Butiki and Stacy are amazing; it’s probably my favourite tea company right now. :)

I definitely want to put an order in.

^^ Do a shared order, you guys!! :) So worth it. The four of us in Toronto are putting in a huge one imminently :D

I’m totally game for that.

Ooh. I’d also be game for a Butiki order… I have a huge list of wants from them, but would be willing to pare the list down a lot for an initial try.

OMG no paring down! shared order = you can do 1oz order and still only be picking up a small quantity to try when there’s overlap between you guys.

Uh…i highly recommend using google docs if you get into it LOL

Yeah, my list is basically everything without mint. :) So anyone could order anything to share and I’d be happy.

I can live without mint.

Google documents is super nifty for planning.

Ok, so should we start a different message thread of teas from Butiki and Red Leaf Teas that we are all interested, and then whoever is google docs talented can put it all together?

Good plan! :)

Also, I went through my whole list and found a few other local-ish people that didn’t do the swap with us, but I could include them. I could also just message them separately to see if there’s any interest from them on a co-op type order.

Following Liberteas’ experiment with 52Teas, I want there to be enough time for the flavoring to fully set but I’m not sure how long ago this batch was flavored. Perhaps someone on Steepster has such privileged knowledge?

It was flavored on Oct 3rd.

I’m curious, what was Liberteas experiment with 52Teas? What was the result?
Also, I’m totally imagining a lizard with a little tea bowl. awww.

@Butiki Teas: it has been my experience, not just with 52Teas but when I was flavoring teas myself, that the flavors need time to develop. Three weeks gives an adequate amount of time for the flavors to do their thing, I’ve found. A lesson I learned very early on was a tea that is flavored today will not taste the same three weeks from today.

It was more or less part of my trial and error thing when I was teaching myself the art of flavoring tea, but, something that I didn’t really think about until a year or so ago (I don’t really remember when I had the a-ha! moment), but I found it to be true with 52Teas’ blends, some of the teas I’d try as soon as I received them, and they were alright… but then I’d go back and try them a few weeks later and it was like WOW! I don’t remember it tasting this good… then I realized why … the flavors needed their time.

LiberTEAS-Interesting, very interesting. I had read that it took a week or two to settle, but that’s interesting that it may even be longer than that for the flavorings. I noticed that with spices quite a bit. At first I would overload the spicing then later on it would be way too much.

@Butiki Teas: This is why I would always wait three weeks before I would offer my flavored teas for sale. I wanted to test them before selling them, and I didn’t want to test them until I was sure of the flavoring. I was a bit of a perfectionist, I guess. LOL Which is yet another reason why I had no business selling tea. I am much better at just being an artist. Things don’t get done very often (perfectionism thing) but at least I’m not making things that people are clamoring to buy.

LiberTEAS-I know exactly what you mean. I have been working on this Pistachio Ice Cream green tea for maybe 2 months now trying to get the flavor just right. Then it gets to the point I’m not sure anymore if its good or not and I’m not sure if I just want to scrap the whole thing but I’ve already invested so much time.

Oh goodness… tell me about it. It took me over a year to develop my chai. Nearly as long to develop my caramel. My chocolate was a work in progress… and while my first couple of versions tasted wonderful and I sold them as I continued to work on the recipe… it took about five years before I developed the perfect chocolate. sigh

PS: I do look forward to trying Pistachio Ice Cream… YUM!

Wow, 5 years! That is quite a work of art. Thanks, I hope the Pistachio Ice Cream finished soon-ish.

cute teaware set!

Thanks! Someone brought it for me as a gift all the way from India a year ago when I was not even into tea. It was a pretty gift and I used it mostly for decoration on one of my kitchen shelves, I sure am putting it to good use now!

What a nice gift!

That is a beautiful set! And all the pics of food!!

Looks like a lovely way to start the day

Love the pic :)

Wow! Such a lovely set… as if your friend somehow knew that someday, you were going to fall in love…with tea :-)

Get well soon!

Thanks – the road to recovery starts with more tea. :)

This is good without sweetening!

Feel better!