3240 Tasting Notes
Messed up my back again. I wake up feeling like Bruce Li beat me up while I was sleeping. It is time for the Queen!
We are having this with second breakfast – Rich Tea Biscuits with Nutella and carrot sticks.
We are being very good and NOT watching X Men First Class while middle daughter is still working on math. The “teacher” already threatened to take her iPod Touch if she watches it before her schoolwork is done, so I guess youngest and I will wait for her. We have to go photograph some bolete mushrooms after this, her newest interest since she found their special ability when gathering and chopping ’shrooms for our box turtles!
I am (SOB!) almost out of the Queen, and completely out of Emperor’s Red. Must…place…orders!
I wasn’t going to log the teas from tea party this week, because we have had them all before, but I just had to go ahead and review Emperor’s Red again because it was especially arresting this week. We had Baker Street by Upton first, and followed with this one. For some reason it tasted unbelievably chocolate-y. It is dark, rich, and smooth. No additions, perfect as is.
I wish I could say that I enjoyed a big pot of this today, but when my five ounce cup was empty and I reached for the pot to refill, youngest had already polished off the whole thing! LOL! DOULTON sent me a huge amount of this, and I am glad because it looks like I will be keeping it on the shelf for the “little one”, who is several inches taller than I am already by the way but that wasn’t hard to do.
Sweet and smokey, like grandda’s cherry pipe tobacco! Guess I will have to brew up another pot.
Does anyone have Gerry Rafferty flashbacks when this tea is mentioned???
Just sayin… :)
Aww, now I feel nostalgic!
Okay, thanks teawing! Just youTubed it and played it for the kids. Youngest heard the opening and asked if it was a 70’s version of Mr. Saxobeat. Um…no. She listened to the whole thing, fell in love with the sax, and is now downloading it for our iPods! Sniff, sniff, sigh!
LOL!!! So glad to have a positive (?) impact on the younger ones…
I started to comment the other day but got distracted, when you mentioned it again today, like a flash, my mind went straight to it AGAIN. Classic Sax riffs for sure!
I just got some of this in the mail! Thank you, ashmanra!
Gee thanks … there goes the soundtrack in my head, too!
Teawing: Youngest just asked me to say “thank you,” as she has Baker Street on repeat.
It came as a shock to my mother when she discovered I was taller than her. She saw our reflections in a window as we were standing next to each other. Then she realised that she was wearing indoor shoes and I was just in socks… :)
How old are your children? I’m beginning to suspect that they’re older than I had initially imagined.
Youngest is 13 but I am pretty short! :)
Oh, and hubby is 6’4" so naturally there was a good chance I would soon be the shortest person in the house. Oldest daughter obliged me by only getting one inch taller than I am. And it IS quite a shock to start to fuss at your kid for not doing their chores and suddenly realize you are looking UP at them!
I thought so. For some reason I imagine she would be around ten-ish. No idea where I got that from. I expect it’s the same sort of thing that makes me get ideas about what people I’ve never met must look like, (You, for example, must surely have dark hair) and then get surprised when I see a picture of them and they don’t look at all like I thought.
@ashmanra: Please tell your youngest that the pleasure is all mine, I am glad she had her musical horizons expanded by this. And, thanks are in order to you as well, the Chai sample arrived late yesterday, I have a quiet Chai front porch evening planned tonight! I will post about it later.
Lastly, now that we have your youngest appreciating some good 70’s music, it might be time to move into the 80’s, dare I say, some New Wave music of my formative days??? ((off to look for tea references)) :)
LOL! would you believe my son loves the forties station on satellite radio? And took dance classes in college to learn to dance to it? I used to sing opera (!!!) but grew up performing mostly in musicals. I had a brother and sister 12 and 17 years older than me so I knew and loved their music. I think the fifties are the main era that has been neglected by me! My college professor for Experimental Music Techniques of the 20th Century studied sonic holography and was a friend of Bob Moog, so I even got a dose of 60’s and early 70’s rock at a VERY classical music school! I love Ultravox, Simple Minds, Paul Young, but also things like Clannad. The kids have the opportunity to hear lots of kinds of music. Make some suggestions! Hubby and I courted to the tunes of Fransican monk John Michael Talbot! Eclectic taste for sure, but can’t stand country! It gives me hives!
I would believe it, my oldest son loves soundtrack composers and musicals. We are not a musical family, not sure where he gets it. I am a history professor, so I love to look at the musical context of different time periods. I loved Ultravox as well, Depeche Mode, Flock of Seagulls, Modern English, The Fixx and the Police. I could go on and on. I am just as comfortable with 18th and 19th century classical and popular music. As for the 50’s, I would suggest the soundtrack from American Graffiti, an early George Lucas film about the end of the 50’s era in California. It has some of the best 50’s and early 60’s American tunes, pre-British invasion. I am eclectic as well, listen to lots of different things.
And you are a former opera singer, that is incredible. :)
I couldn’t wait any longer for my friend to have time to come over to try these teas that JENN sent! I did manage to keep my hands off the piña coloda one, since we are both looking forward to those lovely tropical flavors!
This is my second honeybush ever, so today I decided to also look it up and find out a bit more about the plant and it’s benefits. Nice! I am not a fan of rooibos, so I really want to like honeybush tea!
I tried this one first because I am not a fan of Neapolitan ice cream, and I want to work my way up through the samples! See, I do have SOME self-control!
This is good. I took it plain and hot, and next I want to try it iced with a wee bit of raw sugar. I think I am definitely going to find some nice caffeine free options for evenings.
I mostly picked up the strawberry flavor, maybe got a little vanilla, and really didn’t pick up the chocolate. It could be that additions really enhance those flavors, so I expect it may change when I ice it and add sugar.
Thank you, Jenn! I am excited about trying all these new goodies! A “thank you” package is in the planning stages!
I bought one of these at TJ Maxx a couple of months ago and I really like it. I use it to cold brew tea. It is borosilicate glass so it is very strong while being very light weight. We handle it a lot, and no chips, cracks or breaks so far. The lid has a built in strainer. I don’t even remove my leaves and it hasn’t made the tea bitter. The lid can snap apart for more thorough cleaning.
The reason I am writing about it today is because I saw that Marshall’s had gotten a ton of them in. I figured it was only a matter of time before they went on sale. They did! Retail price is $40, TJ Maxx was $19.99, and they have been marked down to $15. If they go any lower, I will gladly buy another one!
Hubby is off and home for lunch today, so I let him pick the tea! This is one of his favorites. He took his with milk and sugar.
The first time I tried Marco Polo I didn’t care for it. (Gasp! I know, right?). Then I read to try it with milk and sugar to bring out the strawberries and cream notes. Delicious! But my tastes have changed a lot, so I wanted to see if I like it sans additions now. I did! It was extremely smooth. One thing that was strange to me…I hadn’t picked up floral notes before and today this was very, very rosy! I had several cups and enjoyed it very much just as it was.
I am trying hard to be good and wait for my friend to come over so we can try Jenn’s honeybush teas together, but I think I am going to cave and go ahead and start tasting them tonight. The names make your mouth water!
I have tried to be good and save some of these new tea samples for Wednesdays when I have tea guests, but today I couldn’t stand it any longer. I am ironing…again…..and that is not something I enjoy, so on went Pandora (if you are around my age try putting in “Send Me An Angel” radio when you need motivation to bebop and clean house) and in went the tea. I made a cup hot and unsweetened and one glass iced and lightly sweetened. This is AWESOME! I think I especially liked it iced,and then I have another sip of the hot and change my mind. Good stuff, and made a less than enjoyable task more bearable. Thank you, thank you, QUILTGUPPY!
I am drinking some more of the sample SimplyJenW sent to me. Tis is a very nice Earl Grey. I have had one or two that made me think I was drinking industrial cleaner or perfume, but I have not had that problem with any of Harney’s Earls. Imperial Earl Grey is one of their most strongly scented IMO, but it makes a very nice cup that doesn’t offend. This Viennese Earl Grey is a touch more refined than many, and it really running almost neck and neck with their Earl Grey Supreme.
Delicious!
Cheese toast and tea! Youngest is joining me, so I chose this one as it is one of her favorites. I think there are other teas that we like more, so I don’t think I will reorder this one. I can drink it with milk and sugar, but it just doesn’t appeal to me plain, and there are other milk and sugar teas that really WOW me. I had hoped that the Golden Monkey in it would make it a favorite, but it doesn’t come through as much as I would like. Perhaps I should try mixing the last bit of Golden Blend with another breakfast tea that I like better, or even add some extra Golden Monkey to it. Hmmm….might have to have another pot of tea!
This was new to my guest today, though I have had it once before. It was very well liked. Youngest added sugar as always but was surprised by how sweet the tea is naturally and had to add more tea to cut the sweetness a bit. Everyone else took it plain, and it was quite good. I really get a lot of chocolate flavor, and a smooth vanilla flavor, though the coconut is the top note in the aroma. The teas were paired with warm apple cobbler…lazy pie, actually, if you know what that is, and a wee scoop of Breyer’s vanilla ice cream.
I hope you are feeling better, soon! Yes. Must. Order. :D
Yay box turtles! I hope your back feels better soon.
Thanks! We love our turtles. We have eastern and three toed western, mostly “rescues” and they live in a big wooden fenced area in our backyard. We have hatched quite a few turtle eggs in the house! They eat worms, bugs, fruit, and all natural deli turkey. LOL!
That’s great! We have a red-foot tortoise that wanders around our living room… recently she has taken quite a liking to biting toes, though! :D She’s still small, so we haven’t had that much problem… yet!
Aw, sweet! Is she an African red footed?
Actually I believe her species is from South America… she’s a forest tortoise
I think toes look like banana to them, which they love but it isn’t very good for them, more like giving them candy. Ours get really excited if we paint our toenails red. There is a lot of snapping at toes then! I guess they mistake us for strawberries and tomatoes.
Yeah the red toenails are especially bad! Definitely she thinks they are berries!