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Twelve Days of Tea 2021 – Day Nine (Last one!)

My first cup was a nightstand tea that ended up serving as excellent breakfast tea – spiced red fruit almost in the vein of glühwein, but with a subtle jammy quality. The second was hot and still pretty good. My sipdown was more muted but still enjoyable.

I am familiar with the cookie filling flavour this tea is inspired by (sort of), although I wasn’t certain why this flavour profile tasted so familiar to me. Then someone dropped off Croatian baked goods on Christmas, which were followed by German cookies – many with different variations of spiced jam filling; somewhere in that cookie-eating daze there was a filling that tasted identical to this blend. I wish I’d eaten that cookie alongside this tea.

And this marks the last of my advent teas. Until next year, delicious teas!

Mastress Alita’s Sipdown Challenge January 2022: Favourite Pie Flavour

Sipdown! While the blend is not technically going for banana cream pie, I think this charmingly flavoured tieguanyin is close enough to invoke strong memories. The banana flavouring in this is extremely creamy and sweet, whilst the tea base hearkens to spring patio sessions – chilling with the violets and crocuses; it’s a lovely bouquet.

Also, full disclaimer: I love all pies and vaguely-pie flavoured teas: strawberry rhubarb, lemon meringue, bumbleberry, pumpkin, key lime, etc. (ok, apple is at the bottom in a long list of no.1’s). My Grandma used to make them all (I can only make key lime), but banana cream was a rare simple treat.

Steep Count: 3

Twelve Days of Tea 2021 – Day Six

Sorcery! This tea tastes exactly like its namesake. Freshly made hot banana bread with melting butter and a hint of nuttiness (and I can smell this buttery banana goodness too, Yay!!). In previous sessions I could taste the black tea base more, which reminded me it was still tea. Today’s sipdown is on another magical level though. How did this happen? Maybe the 10-15 min wait before drinking smoothed it out more.

Delicious stuff anyways.

Twelve Days of Tea 2021 – Day Five (better late than never)

This one is lovely! I’m almost not annoyed that there’s no green oolong this year (plus my French advents more than made up for that.. although the offerings were generally less impressive than the ones Anne tends to create). I also kind of regret not picking up more of this in the store because it’s so unique (completely sold out), but Darjeeling teas, of all oxidization levels and styles, are something I prefer in small, sparse amounts.

Tart cranberry notes and buttery chestnut give me the impression of a luxurious, festive variation on a PB&J. The choice of a Darjeeling Oolong as a base is so perfect and well-crafted here – offering complex but complimentary base notes. I can’t think of a better combo.

I’m sad to see this one go and hope it pops up again in future advents or as a featured wintertime reblend.

Steep Count: 3

My sister gifted this tea to me as a Christmas present – a bold move since turmeric is divisive and my sister doesn’t know my feelings towards it (luckily, I love turmeric lattes. Maybe she does know that. EDIT: my sister bought this solely under the assumption that I love ginger. That’s solid reasoning).

This is an interesting twist on the traditional ginger turmeric combo. It contains beetroot to give a reddish hue to this golden soup, and carrot which.. have you ever had carrot juice? It’s a little bit like that – surprisingly sweet and root-earthy (quintessential “vitamin A” taste). There’s also pineapple forextra acidic dimensions. It’s a nice treat when under the weather!

I steeped it in steamed milk and added two teaspoons of clover honey. Looking forward to returning to this one when I have some soy or oat milk at hand.

Twelve Days of Tea 2021 – Day Seven

Without complete use of my nose this tea, is interesting (I can smell just enough of the dry leaf to get berry custard – huge improvements!). The Blackberry is so buttery-sweet and candy-like to start (top tongue), and something else (blackberry flavour and/or green teas) counteracts that with a nice note of green plant bitterness and acidic sour taste for a convincing berry-tart dessert flavour. It’s well-rounded and I’m enjoying it more today than I did “pre-cold” (this isn’t my favourite from 52Teas but it’s still nice).

I can add this one to the short list of teas that are still enjoyable while stuffed up!

I don’t know why this tea is in the stash; I have no memories of ever acquiring Bigelow; is it one of those items that every household secretly has if you look hard enough? A mystery, but a good one, as it turns out this is the tea bag that goes well with lemon and honey (and dark, caramel-like Kraken Rum). I liked the result so much I made two cups (one without rum and one with). The final result admittedly may taste a little like flat vanilla coke (so strange, not questioning it).

The tea itself smells pleasantly of broken black tea (from what I can tell) and tastes like one would expect – straightforward, astringent, and malty-sweet. This is the perfect base to add the lemon slice (which bubbles as it steeps), honey, and (optional) a little rum (but not too much because the cough meds don’t play well). I may revisit this even when I’m not sick (the hot toddy-like drink finally won me over).

I found a bunch of neglected tea bags from various companies, and I’m hoping that one or more of them will satisfy my cravings for a strong, robust cup of tea. I decided to start with Numi because I’ve fond memories of this company from happy college cafeteria days (this is the brand UVic carried when I attended there; I always went for the Gunpowder or Mint though).

Even though my nose is super muted, I still can smell a touch of delicious, caffeine-filled black tea (bliss)! To taste, I still manged to get “sweet potato” and “malt” from this bright, bitter, slightly sweet tea – which is more than I hoped for (you can tell Numi includes Chinese black tea in this blend). It’s a lovely tea bag that’s as satisfying as turning rich, fine loam in the garden – but it’s possibly too lovely to add the planned honey and lemon.

Also, despite steeping the bag for 5 minutes in a tiny mug the astringency is more minimal than I was anticipating – something that only asserted itself after I finished my cup. But take that with a grain of salt; my head is currently cotton mush.

I’m finally on the uptick of a nasty sinus infection, and am more or less coherent again if not completely rid of the laryngitis (also got tested for safety, and it’s not covid, so hurrah!). Since yesterday though I’ve been too stuffed up to smell much of anything. But at this point I need. Crave. Caffeine. I apparently lack “builder’s tea,” which is what I truly want right now, so I fell back on old favourites, like Pancake Breakfast.

There’s enough sweet syrup and bitter tea leaf here to make this interesting. Add milk and there’s a bit more “something” (extra protein and sugars? An acid that adds “sour”?). I can still pick up that this is maple syrup despite not being able to smell my cup, so that makes me super happy. Some of the other (favourite) teas I tried were pretty limp and indistinguishable without my nose. I hope I get that back soon; otherwise, I have a decent amount of Pancake Breakfast!

2021 spring Harvest

I am not feeling super sharp and wanted something simple, familiar, but fine today. That description is this tea to a “T”. I’ve found this harvest a little more “earthy” than past ones so decided to see if I could draw out the complexities with grandpa style (I’ve somehow never done that before with this tea).

Gongfu Session Steep Count: rinse + 5

Aroma: Milk chocolate with honeycomb; sweet, dark malt.

The velvety earth profile of milk chocolate, rasins, and bready malt are supported by lovely secondary notes of caramel, sweet potato, and molasses. First steep is smooth milk chocolate, second is more in line with unsweetened cocao, third steep smooths out again with spice, etc. I’ll have to do another gongfu session when I’m feeling better and have an attention span; this tea deserves it.