ashmanra Send Message

July Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a floral tea

I finally opened the pouch I got for Christmas! My cupboard is getting low enough to allow myself to open some more teas.

Originally given to me by Youngest, this pouch was a Christmas gift from Ashman, who drank a Tea Grotto tea with me, liked it as much as I did, said it might be a good Christmas gift for me, opened his phone and made note of the Fruity Puerh we were drinking at the time, and then forgot the note existed. Then he was googling for tea to buy AliasHali and myself for Christmas and ordered precisely the two teas I loved, thinking he had found a new tea company we had ‘t tried. Christmas Miracle Tea.

This is first and foremost FIG. Sooooo figgy. Figgy, figgy, figgy. Open the pouch and KAPOW goes the fig. I love it. It is absolutely delicious. I am using this for the floral tea prompt because the lavender is definitely there but I admit it is a lovely, quiet companion of the fig rather than running neck and neck and yelling “look at me!”

The black tea base is solid, not too strong but strong enough for breakfast for sure. Now I wondering how this would be iced and whether I would even want to sweeten it. I drink it plain hot and it comes across as fig jam sweet already. Stay tuned.

July Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a French tea

I love this tea in both the green and black tea versions. I tend to tend more black tea but somehow I am drawn to green tea on these insufferably hot and humid days we are having right now. Perhaps it just feels lighter, or perhaps the lower steeping temperature and therefore cooler drinking temperature appeal to me.

I think this is one of my favorite flavored green teas. I am trying not to hoard my Dammann Freres but it is so hard.

July Sipdown Prompt – your oldest green tea

I love this tea, so why did I let it get past the best by date? I have such a tendency to reach for black tea or flavored greens that I don’t get around to my unflavored greens.

Nowhere near a sipdown, but I will continue to drink this as a big glass of cold tea this summer so I will have an excuse to buy fresh…and drink it on time.

Sipdown

July Sipdown Challenge Prompt – an herbal tisane

This has added such lovely lemony flavor to plain decaf iced tea this summer. It was nice to have it jazzed up for a while! So nice that I have purchased some lemongrass to add to ginger and replicate it!

I have had this hot and plain, iced with sugar, and mixed with sweet black tea. It was tasty every way I had it.

Thanks again to Martin for sending it!

Sipdown

Luscious chocolate flavor, fruity strawberry, and a nice puerh base that it isn’t hidden by the added flavorings but also shouldn’t scare away puer newbies. Would repurchase. I think this was our fifth pouch.

Sipdown

July Sipdown Prompt – a decaffeinated tea

This was a Christmas gift from my son and daughter-in-law ChelseaR – many thanks!

I had a sample of Momo many years ago as well as Momo Vert. I like Lupicia’s white peach flavoring and I think Merci Milles Fois is right up there with my all-time favorite flavored teas.

For a decaf tea, which I really need past three in the afternoon if I want to sleep, this is pretty tasty. The flavor is at a similar level with Harney Midsummer Peach, but the peach flavor itself is a bit different, this one being white peach and the other being a good old Georgia peach. This resteeps well if you are combining the two steeps.

July 7 Sipdown Challenge Prompt – International Chocolate Day: drink a chocolate tea or have chocolate with tea

I thought I was going to have to have tea with some chocolates (and I probably still will because honestly chocolate happens every day in my house), but I remembered that I have one chocolate tea! What a wonderful chocolate tea it is, too!

Reminiscent of a dark chocolate covered strawberry, this one pretty much stays on shelf. My first sample came from Doulton, a friend tried it with me and ordered some for us both, and now we both have it on shelf pretty much at all times.

Not a sipdown – a newly opened pouch.

Sipdown

July Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a fruity tea

I guess I need to hit up the Lupicia site and see if they have another decaf strawberry tea because this one is a favorite but it will be five months before we can replace it. As with all the limited edition teas, there is a little something special added and in this one it is coconut. We have never had a problem with going bad.

July Sipdown Challenge Prompt July 3 – Air Conditioning Appreciation Day: drink an iced tea

Sipdown

I had this hot months ago and didn’t make a note here and have forgotten what it was like hot. I remember thinking the orange flavor was very mild. I also remember thinking I really wanted this iced because it sounded like it would be so good that way.

Today I used all the remaining leaf to make a half gallon of iced tea. It is very good, and has so much coconut in it that the coconut oils are floating around a bit in the ice cold tea. That’s not a problem, though! It tastes great. It is really smooth and creamy, and I think a mild vanilla flavor perhaps dominates and the coconut is close behind. Orange is a distant whisper to me. Though there is black tea in this, I don’t get black tea flavor, just the shou mei, which I really enjoy.

It is so smooth, I think I could down the whole pitcher this afternoon. As it is, I chugged twelve ounces at lunch, sitting in the house enjoying the a/c on this cooler day with a heat index of merely 93F. I will leave plenty for Ashman to enjoy when he gets home!

June Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a single estate tea

This is a shelf staple, much like Queen Catherine. It is a breakfast tea in name, but I often drink it for lunch or afternoon tea. It is not quite as fast to make as Speedy Breakfast, but still steeps up faster than most of my other teas and has the added benefit of giving out three good steeps handsomely. Not a sipdown, and this is my third or fourth pouch of this tea and hopefully not my last.