382 Tasting Notes
Teapot tea for the day. Ivan has a little stand that you can put a tea light in and it will keep your tea nice and warm for a couple of hours. This appeals to both my laziness and my utter wussiness when it comes to being cold.
On consideration, I find that this lacks the character that I recall from the GM coconut pouchong. That may be memory playing silly buggers with me though, I don’t know. One day I will get the GM stuff again and know for sure. In the meantime, this is still a perfectly acceptable substitute.
This was my teapot tea for the day because as we all know I do not learn from experience. Oh hay the green did not actually let me sleep last night? Clearly that was a FLUKE we should try it again and see if the experiment is repeatable except that we will use a completely different green because it is not like we are invoking scientific principles in order to justify our behavior. Also why are we using the royal we? I don’t know.
Good lord I am so glad that Liberteas is down in the other reviews section saying she also got bubble gum from this because that is the overwhelming scent that I get as well. Sadly, I do not like bubble gum – the taste is too sugary and artificial for me most of the time and I feel it encourages the habit of not chewing with your mouth closed which is just gross. Fortunately, the taste for me, is much more complicated than just bubble gum. There is an initial point of bubblegum, it’s true, but then it resolves itself into this fascinating mixture of flavors that I really enjoy trying to tease out. The jasmine here is very subtle but definitely there if you look for it and I actually quite enjoy trying to pinpoint it within each sip. The base tea is also quite subtle allowing the flavors to really interact with each other. And it is an interaction, not a mixture, I think, they almost seem to be in conversation with each other. It’s neat!
I really like this tea in my teapot because I don’t mind having several cups of it in a row, since the taste is so complex.
I have totally been rationing this because it is just soooo good. I can’t even give it a coherent review because I never really stop to analyze the taste. As soon as I start drinking, I finish it because SO YUM. The cream is probably the most prominent I’ve ever tasted and the strawberries just go with it so well!
So this was my pot of tea for the day (and night, obviously), in the hopes that when I would inevitably be too lazy to make myself different tea in the evening/at night, the fact that this is green would actually allow me to get some sleep. Yeah, not happening I can tell you that right now. I tend to overbrew all of my tea and this is no exception (I know it’s wrong, I can’t help it! I have the tastebuds of…something with not very discerning tastebuds!)
I freely admit, I know jack all about green teas so I have no idea what to expect from this tea, except that it smells DELICIOUS. (Oh lord I just tried to ctrl-s save this entry. TOO MANY PAPERS JESUS JUMPING ON A POGO STICK) A friend got it for me as a christmas present operating under the “this smells kind of nice” system of choosing tea. It is, in fact, very nice, one of those kind of sugary green teas, but without being too overwhelming about it. Does it taste as good as it smells? Well, no. But! Green tea philistine here, remember! And it does keep smelling great once brewed so I am satisfied.
Preparation
BEWARE I LIVE
So, this quarter? Not so fun. Not even really so much my courseload as the fact that I just randomly fell into a funk some time in September and never really got out of it. If it helps, I have been neglecting everything! Not just Steepster. That doesn’t help, does it? Well, it helps ME. I am trying to be better though! Or I will. As soon as I stop avoiding finishing my last paper. Which updating my tealog is helping me do. /innocent whistling.
Neglecting my tealog has not made me neglect buying tea though, so I at least have not been suffering on that front. I have been making a lot of pots of tea, but this morning I decided I needed some apple chai. This could have something to do with the fact that I finally finished the big tub o’thai chai I got yonks ago and was able to finally order a bunch of apple chai with a clear conscience and it got here yesterday. (What is up with that by the way? I ordered it on THURSDAY, that is a turnaround time of ONE DAY how does that even work? Has UPS just started employing robots for MAXIMUM EFFIECIENCY?)
So, you know how sometimes you have a thing and then you finish it off and then you do not have it for a long time, which makes you sad because you thought it was really good and want to have it again, and then you DO get to have it again but you have built it up so much in your mind that it can never measure up and you are totally disappointed and vow never to drink tea again? (Also, you know how sometimes you write really long runon sentences and get killed by English professors in the night? Well, I don’t but if I keep this sort of thing up, I WILL) Anyway, for once, that did not happen! Spiced apple chai is still as delicious as I remember it being, yay! I really think that the apple comes out a lot in this blend and that the balance of apple and spice is just right. AND, I only thought of this now, but this is really the perfect time to be drinking something called spiced apple chai, isn’t it? Very festive. Or it will be very festive when I FINISH THIS PAPER. (God I hate critical summaries)
Hopefully, this marks the start of regular tealog updating for me again. Especially since e-mails from Steepster have started coming in again (ILU STEEPSTER SELECT) and will thus remind me to update. I have also ordered the 52teas 12 teas of Christmas thingy and 1. am TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATELY EXCITED TO BEGIN* and 2. will thus have plenty of subject material to write about.
*Unfortunately I have to wait a bit longer than expected to start since I bought it to take to the family Christmas trip thing, which doesn’t start until…the 20th? So I’m going to be off by…like a week. (DON’T HURT ME FRANK I’M SORRY)
And now. Paper.
Preparation
Cloudy day. Giant pot of Russian Caravan.
You know you are jealous!
This is the first Russian Caravan that I’ve tried, although it is not my first time having it, I’ve just been busy. Ugh school. Ugh masters thesis. Ugh life. It’s very nice, not as smoky as I thought it would be, but since I don’t have a basis for comparison, I have no idea if what I thought is what a Russian caravan is supposed to taste like. If that makes any sense. Still! I like it. Great afternoon tea.
In other news, have managed to break my teapot’s lid. Yes, the same teapot for which I already had to go out and buy a replacement lid for. Which turned out to be the lid of a little Vaguely Asian™ tea cup. I am now using the saucer from the same cup as a replacement lid. When that inevitably breaks because I am clumsy liek woah, I will probably attempt to use the cup as a lid, because dammit I am getting my money’s worth!
OMG GUYS
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS TASTES LIKE?
LIKE THOSE ICE CREAM BARS.
(You know the strawberry shortcake ones? with the layers? and the like, delicious crackly bits on the outside?)
ANYWAY IT IS AMAZING.
So I was feeling tea ennui earlier this week and decided to go grab a bunch of 1 oz samples from the tea shop I have a gift certificate to. (I can’t help it! I just LOVE samples…) The chais they had that were actually labeled as such were somewhat disappointing, as they had NO CARDAMON and that is just unacceptable to me, but I saw this instead and decided to grab it, despite the fact that it smelled kind of like seaweed. That scent has since faded so I’m just going to chalk it up to the container they were storing it in…
This tea is cardamon city. I am serious, I swear a good half of the ounce I got is composed of little green cardamon pods. It is, in fact, verging on the excessive.
On the other hand, it tastes really nice – like a very mild chai. It’s definitely got cinnamon in it as well. And doubtless some other spices, but they are somehow all mellow so that this is good both with milk and without. Made myself a giant pot and have been drinking it all day.
