SerendipiTea

Perfect for this morning because I needed a little kick in the butt to get going! I oversteeped by mistake – it’s still good but very strong. Which I like.

Good on the re-steep!

The scent is great! You can pick up a little bit of this and a little bit of that but nothing is too overbearing to be totally identifiable! Almost like a pleasant mystery. The taste is certainly a bold black tea taste. I’m thinking about reserving this as my Morning Tea for at least the next week! Nice blend!

I’m finishing up my stash today and I am sorry to see it go. It’s tasting quite pastry-like today but that’s ok…It’s a yummy cuppa.

I’m getting a little low on my stash but I will enjoy it while I have it.

Had 2 cups this morning. Nice!

Very full flavor today! Still extreme aroma. Still enjoy the blend!

Smells a bit like coconut pastries today! I’m getting low on this and still enjoy it!

I got this in a tea swap…it was my First Serendipity Tea. I could smell the coconut thru the envelop! It was double bagged even! The Coconut Aroma was VERY intense! This made me a little afraid because I don’t usually like coconut flavored things altho I LOVE coconut! I know – weird…but…this tea is splendid! The color is that of a pale green tea on the verge of white tea coloring. The taste is tremendously smooth and thirst quenching! What a wonderful surprise!

I was feeling a little moody this morning when I selected this tea, so I thought I would have it with milk and sugar… which I don’t typically do with Darjeelings but I was feeling the need and I had given it to the husband that way once (when I was too sleepy to realize that I had grabbed Darjeeling and not his breakfast tea) and he enjoyed it so I figured it couldn’t be too bad.

It wasn’t. It was actually pretty good. Insanely nutty. Nuttier than I’ve ever noticed when having it straight. Perhaps because the half and half toned down the astringency, which I could feel poking out even with the not insubstantial amount of additives I put in. It wasn’t quite sweet enough to be a pecan nutty but it was a much stronger nutty taste than a walnut and after that I’ve pretty much exhausted my nut knowledge so I’m stuck with just ‘very nutty’. There was still some tartness to it – not really bitter but a tart, astringent, mouth-coating something – even with the milk and sugar, so I’m actually really happy with it.

I have enough tea for one, maybe two more mornings and I’m pretty sure I’ll be adding milk and sugar to it those remaining days.

I’m curious about the bitter taste takgoti gets from this and wanted to do a little e-tasting with her to see if I could pick it up and see how it reads to my tastebuds, especially since she likes it so and bitterness, to me, is usually bad. So I’m really really hoping I can match her experience.

The wet leaves smell like burnt muscatels. Or like lima beans. Fortunately the juice has none of that smell. No burning, no beans. Just grape. Or like a sweet white wine. Starting to sip… there’s a light fruity taste at the front that, after I swallow, dries out on my tongue and gets tart. Sadly, takgoti isn’t finding the bitterness anymore but I’m wondering if it’s that end taste I’m getting that was just all over the tea taste and not just at the back. Because as I breathe without taking another sip, the taste grows from the back of my tongue to the roof of my mouth and the tartness because… pretty strong. If that is the taste, hats off to takgoti for solidering through it.

As it cools a tiny bit, the tartness becomes softer at the back of my mouth, but then as it cools to lukewarm, it shows up again and layers itself on top of the whole tea taste and covers my mouth. Feels sort of citrusy (though doesn’t taste like orange or anything…. just the feel). But again, the tartness is still milder than when the tea is hot so it adds a not-unpleasant dryness and… sort of refreshing feel. I think I like it best cooled to this level instead of hot, which seems a little… aggressive.

So while I didn’t get to repeat takgoti’s previous taste experience, I had fun and probably examined this tea closer than I ever had before. Thanks takgoti!

This was the inaugural run of my new teapot today. It was wonderful! I think I am in love. And I’m already thinking that when I break this teapot, it’s not too expensive to just order another one. Though hopefully I will have a bit before that happens.

I rarely get to drink Darjeelings and Keemuns – they aren’t the best teas to take to work in my travel tumbler and the husband doesn’t like them as much so I rarely fix them on my stay-at-home days. But it’s been quite a while since I had this so I thought I’d bust it out. Hubby chose to partake so I made some for him, too.

It seems especially nutty as it cools with a tart sweetness like white grapes. The tail puts a bit of astringency at the back of my throat, almost like orange juice can. Brisk and fairly bright in taste, I enjoy it a bit more as it goes from hot to pretty warm.

Going to go make a second steep. In my new teapot! WOO!

ETA: The second steep is lovely. Much softer and sweeter than the original steep. Totally different in character. The majority of the aftertaste hits the middle of my tongue instead of the back of my throat like steep one. The nutty flavor is lighter and the tart sweet of grape has moved into something faintly more floral. No dryness or bitterness is evident and there is a mere hint of the previous tartness.

I have a confession: I will eat icing straight out of the tub. In fact, I’ve bought icing just for that purpose. I prefer the chocolate fudge icing, but DH likes vanilla best so we’ll alternate.

This tea with a little sugar and milk tastes a lot like the vanilla (or maybe the cream cheese) icing we get. Rich, really sweet (I didn’t use much sugar but obviously I should use less), totally dessert-like. I feel like I’ll go into sugar shock from drinking my whole travel mug full.

But I kind of like that feeling so I’m a fan.

I always get this one and SerendipiTea’s Colonille mixed up because in my pantry I have them labeled as “Vanilla Orchid” (this one) and “Vietnamese Vanilla” (Colonille) and then I have to remember which one is which by reading the descriptions on here. I really should make this easier on myself and label the teas in my pantry correctly. But yeah, I probably won’t.

Ultimately, though, it’s not a bad thing getting these two teas confused because they are both really good. This one has the addition of orchid scenting which softens it just a little, reminding me of Cadbury Creme Egg. Not so much the insane sweet taste of the eggs, but more like that creamy “ah” you get right after you swallow it and right before the super sweet aftertaste of sugar kicks in.

Of course, maybe I am remembering incorrectly since it has been forever since I’ve had one of those eggs because it has corn syrup and I’m allergic to corn products. But to me this tea is my Cadbury Creme Egg.

When I am running late, sometimes things get messed up. This tea, for instance. I’m not sure exactly what I did wrong – too much leaf? no sugar? too much milk? – but something happened that made this tea not as happy today. Oh, don’t get me wrong. It was still good. Reminded me of Golden Moon’s Vanilla Jasmine actually. But normally this tea is better than GM’s Vanilla Jasmine. And when a little milk and sugar is added, it makes me think of chocolate and vanilla, swirled together. But today, it was just a little flat and a little more cream soda vanilla than chocolate vanilla.

Ah well. Maybe I need to get up earlier so I have more time to properly make my tea.

This morning things are just a bit off. I feel a little out sync with the rest of the world. Sadly, this tea falls into the category of ‘rest of the world’ today and we didn’t mesh all that well. Some of it had to do with my distraction during brewing – not 100% sure I got the right amount of leaf since I was so distracted – and part of it has to do with the fact that I think I just wasn’t in the mood for mango this morning. Also, I tend to put a slight splash of milk in this as it really makes the mango flavor pop but I forgot this morning so the tea isn’t as fruity as it normally is.

Not that it was evil to me today or anything. And once it cooled a bit the mango flavor still poked out. But things were still just off in general.

On the plus side of things, this is the first time I’ve had this tea since I’ve tasted Monk’s Blend (also with calendula petals) and I was able to taste a little similarity between the two teas which I attribute to the calendula. So I have an idea now of exactly what calendula tastes like. Which is good because up until today, it made me think of a calendula cream I have which neither smells nor tastes all that great.

Anyway, hopefully things will sync up between me and the world later today but I really wish it would have happened before I made any tea.

DH loves mango. Like, a lot. Like, he gets it in bulk from Costco. So I’ve met a lot of mangoes. Fortunately, I like them too (not the buy-in-bulk level but still well enough). Anyway, this tea does taste like mango. Not quite like the super-ripe, making-a-little-puddle-of-sticky-syrup-in-the-fridge mango. More like the mostly-ripe-but-a-lighter-yellow-color-and-a-little-fibrous-towards-the-center mango. These types of mangoes are still good mangoes, they just have a slightly different flavor. And that flavor is pretty much exactly how this tea tastes.