Milan Red

It was a chaotic week at work, so I didn’t get much time to work on the sip down pile as much as I would’ve liked (here’s looking at you, coffee). Unfortunately, the W2T club – sometime last August – only had 15g of this red. As I’m both grateful to have had the opportunity to try this, I’m a touch sad that there was only so little. That’s life – never enough, but enough to be happy. Lol

Aroma: Black pepper, toast (not burnt but almost), & cocoa powder.

Tasting Notes: Citrus, grapefruit, zest

Day 1 of the Tea Thoughts Winter Countdown box. I’ve gotten every countdown box Nazanin has made in the past three years. Because they are usually a delightful mix of tea, stationery, teaware, and other items, it generally doesn’t occur to me to post advent-style tasting notes. Since this year’s box is mostly tea, though, I guess I’ll do it this time! I did pick up the stationery advent too. I already opened all of it as a countdown to tea advent season and absolutely loved it – lots of variety, not limited to just wintry vibes, but enough wintry stuff to incorporate into all my mail and gift wrap for the season. I think she still has some left for anyone who needs more tea-themed stickers and washi in their lives.

I made this gong fu. Somehow I just didn’t get a lot of sweetness out of it. Mostly slightly dry, rocky, and mineral-y, with a hint of cassia. Mayyyyybe stone fruit, but more stone than fruit. Pleasant on a cold wintry day, just not sure it’s what the tea is supposed to taste like.

Adventageddon Day 1 – Tea 1/4

Gongfu!

Happy advent season y’all! This might just be my favourite time of year on Steepster. Seeing the flood of advent posts every day really does bring me such joy.

This tea was day one for the Tea Thoughts 12 Days of Tea Countdown. I also bought the countdown box from 52Teas which is also two days, but it hasn’t arrived yet so it looks like I’ll be doing Tea Thoughts all in one go and then switching to 52Teas afterwards.

Though it’s not a new tea for me, I was still very excited to see this tea. It’s probably one of the best loose leaf black teas that W2T has released in recent memory – especially if you love fruitier notes in your tea. In addition to tea, I’m doing Bonne Maman’s jam advent – the jam today was White Nectarine, Peach & Lemon Verbena and I had prebought some fancy cheese and a baguette to pair it with. Because I know this is such a fruity black tea I thought it would also be a really complimentary tea to enjoy with my little jam and cheese afternoon snack – and I was right!

Very aromatic, smooth, and medium bodied with deep notes of waxy, ripe red fruits with a floral sort of undertone. The jam had just a bit of a citrusy tart sourness to it, but otherwise was just a really nice stonefruit profile and it worked so well with the jammy berry-like flavours of the tea. Like a little mini explosion of fruits!

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0U5HFmO091/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCjS99bZgJk