Maddy Barone Send Message

This was my sampler tea for last night. I am not really a fan of yerba mate, but I thought this one had a ton of other ingredients so maybe it would be okay. It was okay. Not terrible. Lots of different flavors, and the spices stood out, but not as much as I expected. I would not re-order this one but I was able to drink it. If a friend brewed me a cup of this I would drink it, but I probably would not ask for a second cup.

Another sample from Adagio.

Not a fave at all. I am not a fan of hibiscus and that was about all I tasted in this one. Someone with a sense of smell might find this refreshingly tart. For me it was overbearingly sour. I drank about a third of the cup and poured the rest out :( It sure sounded good, but it was not for me.

Finally our last hot day of summer is done! Hopefully that is. We’ll see. WE could always have another day that is 20 degrees warmer than the average.

This was another of Adagio’s $0.75 samples. It didn’t impress. Nothing wrong with it exactly, but it didn’t taste like much. So I’m glad I got to try it but it will not be a re-order.

Adagio had a sample sale, so I picked up about 7 that sounded interesting. Foxtrot was one. I didn’t really enjoy it. I didn’t hate it. It was kind of blah for me. I’m not a huge fan of chamomile, but I didn’t really taste it here. So, I’m glad I got to try this one, but it will not be a re-order for me.

Summer is coming to a close. Soon it will be hot tea weather! I have been drinking a lot of iced tea with a splash of lemonade. I bought a generic-type Golden Monkey loose leaf tea on Amazon, not expecting much from it. 100 grams of loose leaf tea for $18.00? How good could it be? But it is very tasty. Miles better than Lipton or other grocery store teas.

We had a few coolish days so I finished this one off. I guess that is a sip down? I enjoyed it, but the tea was quite old. 7-ish years? Definitely pre-Pandemic. A friend in Winnipeg gifted me a small canister set of fruity summery teas the last time I was up there. It may have lost some of its flavor because it was very mild. But I enjoyed it.

A quick update for anyone wondering: The cancer has spread to both lungs now, in the upper and lower lobes of each. I just finished radiation last week. I am tired but that is normal, and other than that I feel pretty good. I go back in November for more scans to see how effective the radiation was. Best case scenario is that it killed the 6 spots and I will be cancer free until new spots show up. Then we will do more chemo.

Cooler weather is coming. Not winter (although it is) but fall. Fall is my favorite time of year.

David’s 24 Days of Tea Day 1:

This was the first tea of my tea advent calendar. I’ve had the David’s tea calendar several times in the past but it got pretty repetitive (that is, it featured the same teas year after year) so I stopped getting it. Well, this year I decided to go back. And I can see from the back of the box that several teas will be repeats, but there are quite a few that are new to me this year. Like this one. I enjoyed it. It was a light tea, not brisk or heavy with tannins. There was a bit of tartness but it wasn’t completely sour. I won’t order 50 grams of it but I will enjoy a second cup probably in January. I like that David’s give us enough tea to make more than one cup. Sometimes that second cup is even better than the first.

I’ve been mostly missing in action here on Steepster for a few months. I’ve had a bit of a challenging late summer and autumn. The chemo cocktail they had me on is called FolFox. On my third treatment (in August) I had a pretty severe reaction to the Oxylplatin (or however you spell it). They had to put a breathing device down my throat to keep my airway from closing completely. So since then I’ve been on just two different drugs. It has been a slog and my fatigue has been pretty bad. I have one more treatment this Wednesday. Then scans on the 18th and meet with the oncologist on the 24 (Yes. Christmas Eve!) to plan the next step of treatment. I should have all of January off from any treatment, so you can imagine I am really looking forward to January! Maybe my “Get Up and Go” will Get Up and Come Back!

I made a jug of this iced yesterday and started to drink it today. It is very nice with a dash of Yuzu citrus sugar from The Spice House. Being diabetic I don’t use a lot of sweetener in my tea, but a half teaspoon in a 12 ounce glass is just right. It’s very mild tasting and I don’t know if it is just the sugar, but it has a sweet flavor that is not overpowering. I remember having this hot a few days ago and not being too impressed. But as an iced tea this is great!

So. On Saturday my air conditioner died. I live on a third (top) floor of an apartment building and my windows face south and west. The air conditioner is the wall type. I submitted a service order immediately but of course the maintenance people don’t come out on a weekend unless it is a dire emergency. Saturday wasn’t too bad, but a heat wave started on Sunday. The maintenance men didn’t come until late Wednesday afternoon with a re-furbished unit from the 1980. You might think having my rent increase by 27% over 5 years would buy me better service. Hmph.

Anyway. The new-to-me air conditioner works great. After 4 days of temps between 80 and 86 in my apartment I woke up this morning cold! I drank two cups of coffee and then decided to have some hot tea. I have had this bag for a while now and decided it was time to try it.

I was a little underwhelmed. I don’t know why. I think Whispering Pines has some of the very best tea out there. Top quality. It was smooth enough, but no flavor. It could be the mouth sores from chemo. My sense of taste (what little I have) has been affected by chemo. I am not going to rate this one yet. I get a short break from chemo from 9/20 to 10/9 so I will try it again then and see what I think.

Ugh! Hibiscus heaven here. I saw this at a local discount store and it sounded so good. Did I not notice that the first two ingredients were hibiscus??? I made a cup last night and drank to swallows before I poured it down the drain.

If you love hibiscus you would love this tea. I did not taste orange . I did not taste ginger.

This was a sample included with my recent August Uncommon Tea order. I was glad to get this one as I’m especially fond of flavored rooibos teas. I bet it smells heavenly, but I don’t have a sense of smell. And due to my current ongoing chemo I have a lot of mouth sores, so anything hot is painful, but so is anything cold. I brewed this at boiling and waited until it was at a lukewarm temperature to drink and I think I got some black licorice flavor from the anise. No almond/amaretto unfortunately. I will try it again when I’m done with chemo and see if I get anything else from it. Life sucks right now but it will get better.