I feel like utter crap today. I couldn’t sleep at all last night. It had little to do with caffeine intake either. For one thing, I got my on-call schedule confused. I thought I was on-call this week, but I’m not. I spent the last week getting myself in the proper mindset for that and now my body and mind still want to remain alert when I’m free to get some extra rest. Secondly, I have started dreading going into the office so much that I now have difficulty relaxing when I’m at home. If I didn’t need the insurance and the extra income, I would go ahead and quit, but that won’t be a possibility until July or August at the very earliest. Anyway, I was milling around the house in the wee hours of the morning and ended up using the last of my sample of this tea to calm my nerves.
I prepared this tea Western style. I steeped approximately 3 grams of loose tea leaves in 8 ounces of 194 F water for 5 minutes. I did not attempt any additional infusions.
Prior to infusion, the dry tea leaves emitted pleasant fruity, grassy aromas with floral underpinnings. After infusion, I noted scents of grass, hay, malt, almond, citrus, herbs, and Muscatel underscored by hints of dried flowers. In the mouth, I picked up notes of almond, malt, nutmeg, straw, grass, lemon balm, tangerine, apricot, peach, mango, rose, and Muscatel. I also thought i caught hints of chrysanthemum and dandelion petals, but that may have just been me reaching. The finish was smooth, though slightly astringent, offering lingering traces of almond, straw, grass, malt, and Muscatel underscored by a ghostly, indistinct floral quality.
This was another nice first flush Darjeeling. To me, it was more flavorful than the Glenburn Classic I recently reviewed, but not quite as smooth and approachable. Of the two, I can safely say that I preferred this one. It had a little bit of bite, as well as a pronounced muskiness that I enjoyed. I would have no issue with recommending it to fans of first flush Darjeelings.
Flavors: Almond, Apricot, Citrus, Dandelion, Floral, Grass, Herbs, Malt, Mango, Muscatel, Nutmeg, Peach, Rose, Straw
Sorry you’re feeling miserable, but at least you weren’t disappointed with the tea!
I can relate to your situation, eastkyteaguy. I am on vacation (staycation) from my high stress job this week, but I still feel that I need to be doing this or that for work. Insurance benefits play a large part for me putting up with a broad spectrum of horrors at my job. Darjeeling tea, for whatever reason, relaxes me more than any tea bar none. I definitely need to check out Vahdam. This tea sounds like a must have – Love Glenburn! Hang in there, my friend, and keep on sipping Darjeeling!
That’s horrible, eastkyteaguy. I can only imagine how long it’ll take for you to get your sleeping schedule back on track and start to feel normal again.
I sympathize. Before my current teaching assignment, discipline issues created a lot of stress in my work life, causing many sleepless nights. Hope the tea helped.
Totally get it as my neighbours torment me with their screeching and cooing infant, television, ringing phones, exercise, social lives, and general lack of decency and respect and intrusion on my sleep and home tranquility. It has become stressful being or even thinking of being at home, so I wake up at the drop of a pin now, especially, of course, with their baby, their exercise, and their cellphones ringing or vibrating against our shared walls.
I am sorry that you are suffering. May these next few months pass quickly and easily.
Thanks for the kind words everybody. My biggest issue with my job is that it is not what I was led to believe it would be. It was supposed to be an autonomous, school-based position implementing a curriculum that could be personalized, but it’s actually an office-based position and the curriculum is set in stone. There’s even a script that I have to follow for each lesson. There’s not a lot of direct implementation either, so many days I just end up sitting in my office all day doing nothing. I’m basically on-call. I have to find ways to keep myself occupied, and then when I go home, I’m mentally exhausted and frustrated. I’m so sick of it. If I don’t have anything to do, why do I have to go to the office? Wasn’t this position supposed to allow for autonomy? WTF?
Oh, and Evol, I totally sympathize. When I was in college, my now ex-girlfriend and I used to have an absolutely horrible neighbor. She was this really bitter old woman who hated younger people, especially young men. The walls in our building were thin and her living room was on the other side of our bedroom wall. She used to turn the television way up and leave it on all night and all day. She also had this horrible little weiner dog that never stopped barking. Her middle-aged daughter used to live with her too, and was not only extremely loud herself, but kept weird hours. She worked nights or something and we would constantly hear her traipsing up and down the stairs at all hours of the night. She and her mom would have vicious arguments at random times, and sometimes we would even get the pleasure of listening to her scream at her boyfriend over the phone on our front stoop. We tried to be polite, we asked them to be considerate and keep the noise down, but we would be ignored, mocked, and would get ridiculous complaints brought to the building management about us harassing them. Let’s just say we found a way to get them back. They never bothered us again.
Oh dear. Having a script for each lesson alone sounds like hell. The cool thing about teaching is the improv, creativity, and personalization of it. Often it is the admin that stifles it. Being stuck in an office for little reason is a painful thing.
Thank you for sharing your neighbour horror story. Now I am curious about your retaliation tactic.
I think in my case, the people are not particularly evil, but rather self-and baby-obsessed and clueless. And likely feeling entitled. Maybe that counts as evil, but I am making an effort to see things in a different perspective than my own.