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March Sipdown Prompt – your tea with the shortest name

Not a Sipdown but how can it be that I am opening the last pouch of many already? This is one of our favorite strawberry black teas. When it is gone, I may try Harney’s new strawberry black if it is back in stock.

When I ordered Brigadoon Breakfast, Adagio sent me a one week sample box from their Communi-tea subscription. You also get a one week membership in their Communitea group that drinks the same tea each day. Subscription boxes have thirty teas each. I was pretty excited to get this one week sample!

I was less excited with the first tea because of the type. I just don’t like red rooibos but I decided to give it a go anyway.

My sample had a couple of pieces of dried apple in it. The peach aroma was pretty subdued by the rooibos aroma. I have more success with flavored rooibos as a sweet iced tea so that is how I prepared this.

It resteeped well for a combination of the two steeps giving me a quart jar to which I added sugar and put in the fridge to chill.

Aroma and taste of the tea is heavy on the rooibos but the peach flavor is nice. Anyone who likes red rooibos would probably love this tea. I can get past the rooibos enough this way to drink it over the next couple of days.

March Sipdown Prompt – International Women’s Day

I chose a tea named for a woman for the prompt since I am all out of tea that I know for sure to be from a woman-owned company.

Many years ago when I first started drinking this, I looked up Catherine to learn about her, and I think she must have been a strong woman indeed with all she went through. I am thankful she brought tea with her when she sailed to England to marry.

This is a blend of black teas from China, and has lots of smoky Keemun notes. Love it. Enjoyed with lunch on the patio – a sandwich of homemade honey-nut chicken salad with Craisins for me, and half a peanut butter sandwich with a heartworm pill hidden in it for Sam the King of Dogs. No tea for Sam. Good pairing.

March Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a breakfast tea

I have been eagerly awaiting this tea. I broke my buying ban because I fell for the gimmick of releasing this tea only on Leap Day AND for the really good reviews I have seen, beginning with Nicole’s review on Sororitea Sisters blog.

It is everything the most favorable reviews said. It is Assam, Keemun, silver tips, and blue cornflower, but the main aroma of dry leaf and steeped tea is Assam. Since Assam can give me a stomach ache if it is too harsh, I gave this a three minute steep. It has all the strength of Assam but none of the stomach irritation. Think of it as a top notch Scottish or Irish Breakfast blend.

Since I had to wait for the post to bring it to try it, I was having it in the afternoon with Fortnum and Mason Florentine cookies and they were very nice together, but tomorrow morning it will definitely be my breakfast tea!

I am really glad I bought two bags, and almost wish I had bought three. And they sent an amazing sampler box of six or seven different loose leaf teas with it!

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I really enjoyed all these hojicha blends from 3 Leaf Tea. This is the final packet and I actually had it twice today – once with an afternoon snack between lessons and again with supper.

I still have a large bag of hojicha powder from Den’s Tea and when that is gone I definitely want to keep a hojicha powder on hand, especially during cooler weather. These are awesome as a hot chocolate substitute.

This one has nice honey and light lemon flavor when made with water but the flavors are so light that they are hard to notice for me when made with milk. Some of the other flavors were a little stronger in the flavoring department. I would happily restock this or any of the flavors I bought from them, as well as the one from Den’s.

February Sipdown Prompt – your most unusual tea

When you first become a serious tea drinker, lots of things seem unusual. After over a decade of exploring tea, not a lot seems unusual. I mean, even if we haven’t tried bug poop tea we have heard of it, so this is tame by comparison.

I consider this to be an unusual tea because I had only had rice scented puerh before this, and several different brands of it. I didn’t even stop to think they might make other teas with the herb that lends the starchy, rice water aroma.

I have made note of this one before, but I want to add that the leaves are absolutely gigantic after steeping. I want to save a few for demonstration next time I am recruiting someone into loose leaf tea drinking from bags, “Here we have dust and fannings from the grocery and HERE – pulls out a virtual paleolithic specimen – we have a fine oolong!”

Lunch tea, enjoyed al fresco with miso soup. Followed up soup with a little Lindt chocolate for dessert.

Superanna bought this in Japan last month and gave it to me along with several other teas and I didn’t realize that this one had not been opened yet! I thought I had tried all of them but here we are today having this one for the first time.

Water was about 155F and I made two steeps at one minute each.

Even though I used my finest strainer, the tea is just full of the finest little brilliant green particles. It looks brothier than the soup I am having with it! The tea is a nice spring green and the particles are a deeper (but fresh and bright) green. It tastes fresh and grassy.

Since I made a large pot and it is rather warm out today, I poured the rest over ice. This is super brothy looking with lots of suspended particles. It is fresh, grassy, and a little brisk. Good with chocolates!

Sample Sipdown

Ashman and I had this as Michelle sent a generous sample that permitted me to make a pot and not a cup.

I drank only a tiny bit of it because I am not used to a lot of caffeine and I read that mate has as much caffeine as coffee. I will say that I didn’t get any jitters nor do I feel overstimulated by this, but it was a really small cup.

Ashman, however, had a mugful! He really dislikes most chocolate in tea as he says it smells like mildew to him, but he had liked the cacao nib tea from Oliver Pluff that gmathis sent recently so I thought he might like this one, too. It really does have true cacao flavor to me and not the artificial smelly chocolate. He did like this one, too!

Somehow the texture of the tea combined with the chocolate and vanilla gave off a little coconut vibe to me, but it was probably mostly creamy coconut texture rather than flavor. If you dislike coconut, you will not be put off by this tea, in my opinion. It was just a vibe.

Thank you, Michelle! We enjoyed it, and maybe Ashman will want to explore other mate blends for his workday breakfasts as a pick me up!

February Sipdown Prompt – International Quiet Day

This is a sipdown of a tea that was not in my cupboard, so I don’t get to see my numbers drop but I do get a little room and order in the tea box. I believe I had two sample pouches and this is probably the oldest tea in my stash. I believe it was acquired in 2017.

I went all out for this prompt because the rest of the day is probably going to be pretty active. I lit the sanctuary candle from Bellocq Tea and turned off most of the lights. I was able to sit in relative silence and I kept my back to the window so that I could focus on the candle and not be distracted by cars going by and such.

This is one of the better jasmine pearl teas I have tried. Teavivre is still the champion in my opinion and their Premium Jasmine Dragon Pearl is my favorite. This one is quite good even though it is an older tea and I enjoyed it very much. I would go so far as to say that this no-longer-available jasmine pearl green comes in second to Teavivre’s for me. It is smooth and sweet, doesn’t taste soapy, and doesn’t have the harsh edge that I have found in some.

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Rich molasses scent, awesome for lattes, great plain with breakfast or whenever. Would buy again, but I am getting out of winter mode and craving green teas and fruity summer teas already. I might buy it again this fall, though!