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Recipe for a tasty working-late tea

Start with: one mug
Add: a bit of Tea Farm Oolong Rose (http://steepster.com/teas/the-tea-farm/12471-oolong-rose-tea)
Add: a bit more of Art of Tea Velvet Tea (http://steepster.com/teas/art-of-tea/2887-velvet-tea)
Toss in: three flowers of JK Tea Shop Wild Purple Chrysanthemum (http://steepster.com/teas/jk-tea-shop/11241-wild-purple-chrysanthemum-flower-tea)
Fill with: boiling water
Steep: until the water cools enough to drink and most of the tea is at the bottom of the mug

Sip, occasionally straining rooibos from your teeth, until the chocolate/rose/chrysanthemum/rooibos savory combination puts you at your ease despite the spreadsheets still open.

Hmm. I’m getting the same lingering sourness from this that I did from the Pu-Erh Rose, so I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t the rose itself. That would be a shame! Roses aren’t supposed to be sour!

I don’t dislike this, but I’m not wild about it. A longer steep seems to bring out some nice bitter yet still light summer flower flavor from the tea to go with the rose, and I feel like in general the tea and the rose are better integrated in this one.

I might try mixing it with something sweet and see what that does….

(After all, I have plenty left to play with! http://www.flickr.com/photos/cait_tea/4624968493/in/set-72157623718023831/ )

Oh, very nice! This makes a fantastic iced tea with a whole lot of lime going on. (And it’s a gorgeous gold color, too.)

I just got the rose tea “sampler” from Tea Farm, and seriously, this is a lot of tea! I have no idea how I’m going to store it; right now it’s still in bags in the shipping box. They’re the clear-sided bags which show off how absolutely lovely the tea is (do take a closer look at the official tea photo here!), but they are rather inconvenient for someone like me who has open tea shelves instead of a tea cupboard.

Anyway, the tea! I tried it in cooler water first, but I think I like it better with water that’s just down a bit from boiling to bring out a little more bitterness. This is a very smooth tea, hardly bitter at all, but I’m not convinced that the pu-erh and the rose are mingling as well as they could: both flavors are lovely, but they seem to be happening simultaneously instead of together, if you follow me. Also, the aftertaste lingers as slightly sour, which I don’t much like. I think I need to play around with the steeping parameters on this some more.

This is also a very nice hot tea. It has the same toasted flavor to it without being quite as earthy, and intriguingly adding a small bit of honey makes it taste almost milky with the sudden sweetness.

I’m also amused that this tea is so much darker when brewed hot:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cait_tea/4616069126/in/set-72157623664718933/

Tried this with a tiny bit of honey. It tastes like candy. (One of the chewy sorts, kind of like taffy or those sugar-water-filled wax straws.) My teeth are aching in sympathy.