3491 Tasting Notes
Today I want to revel in quiet gratitude. I wasn’t in the mood to look for a sipdown or fulfill a prompt. I just want to drink a tea that makes my heart feel happy.
This was a gift from Superanna. I usually have black tea at breakfast but I was organizing tea yesterday and putting some things in tins and noticed this one and just wanted a sniff and the aroma has been on my mind ever since. I decided it would be my breakfast tea today.
There is bergamot in this but it does not resemble an Earl Grey or an Earl Green in any way. This is floral and fruity for dry leaf aroma, and mostly fruity in the steeped cup. The first time I had it, I was not yet a fan of violet or lavender tea or violet candies. Now I adore those things. If you are put off by floral flavors in tea, you may still like this because the taste is mostly fruity. It has a lot of flavor but none of them are aggressive. It is simply delightful and perfect for watching winter rain fall with a warm shawl around your shoulders and your prettiest tea cup.
Sipdown
Somehow it wasn’t in my cupboard? I think I have had three packs of it so I must have removed it before they were all finished.
As soon as the water hits it, a sweet orange soda aroma fills the kitchen. So sweet, so good, so fresh and citrus-y. Perfect for summer, or for wishing summer were already here.
Sipdown
This is a pretty tea to look at. There are red safflower petals and when you pour the water over the leaves a layer of tiny red bits floats to the top of the infuser. I smell almond, not nearly as strong as their plain Almond Black, and vanilla. It does smell sweet and cookie-like.
It is very good and I think Ashman would prefer this one whereas Almond Black just slightly edges over this one for me. Both are great and if I didn’t have both on shelf right now I would think they were very similar, more similar than they actually are.
As a latte, I bet this one would be straight up dessert cookie.
Sharedown
My son has been cold steeping tea a lot lately so I offered to bring him a tea specifically created for that. There is only enough left for one carafe. Now I can move on and try broken Cloud Iced Tea. I have liked the first two I tried and I am pretty excited for that one!
February Sipdown Challenge Prompt – drink a latté or milk tea
Time for a pick me up! I have been making brownies and chocolate covered strawberries for Valentine’s tonight. I wanted a little something before starting to cook supper.
I thought I had used a bit too much matcha but I really would have liked even more. I put about four little scoops of matcha in a matcha bowl, added a tiny amount of cold water and made a smooth paste, added a small amount of sugar and whisked some more until it was perfectly smooth, and it was gorgeous. The color was a bright and intense green. I scraped the matcha bowl contents into a glass of milk (metal Boroux cup) and used an Aerolatte to mix it all together. It didn’t last very long at all. The froth was excellent.
The chocolate covered strawberries wouldn’t all fit into the container so I took one for the team and ate one. It was so perfect with my latte. I almost always have plain whisked matcha with a sweet little something like a truffle, so why not the latté as well?
February 14 Sipdown Challenge Prompt – International Book Giving Day
Not a sipdown but a brand new tea! My daughter gave this to me for Valentine’s Day. And because flowers don’t mean a lot to her and she has plenty of candles, I followed the prompt and gave her books for Valentine’s! (Or for International Book Giving Day, however you want to look at it!)
I cut open the pouch and sniffed the dry leaves and was transported to that place I loved to visit where I can no longer go – A Southern Season in Chapel Hill, NC. This is TEA.
Though it is labeled an English breakfast style tea, the directions call for 185F for 1-2 minutes. I decided to be bold and go for two minutes.
It is delicious! I taste the Assam first I think, and then the Malawi black tea gives it another layer of interest. What surprised me was that it has a moderate creaminess to the body, something totally unexpected.
I thought I might need milk since I am sometimes an Assam wimp and I did go the full steep, but I didn’t. Either it is smoother than many non-golden tip Assam teas, or I am better-faster-stronger than I used to be and can enjoy more teas from India. The lower steep temp and time also help make it smoother, no doubt. I need to remember that next time I run into an Assam I can’t handle. By the end of the pot of tea, the last sips in my cup were becoming a bit more assertive but were welcome, nevertheless.
Edit to add: I resteeped the leaves about an hour later. Just as good as the first steep, and I may even have liked it better.
February Sipdown Prompt – a tea you hoard
I wrote this prompt and yet I couldn’t decide what I really meant by hoard. Do I mean tea that I buy lots of and keep buying before it can run out, like a dragon adding coins and sparkly bits and bobs to his cave? Or do I mean a tea that I have and just don’t drink because I don’t want it to go away.
The beauty of it is that we are all free to interpret the prompts as we wish. I do hoard Lost Malawi, because I don’t want to run out. The tin doesn’t get very low. I drink it whenever I wish, though.
This tea I have purchased only once, after having a sample of it from lovely, wonderful beerandbeancurd. It always felt too nice and too rare to just open it and drink it, and Ashman doesn’t love bergamot so I knew I would be drinking it alone most likely and there it sat still sealed until today.
I was afraid I had left it too long and the flavor would be dulled, but the packaging must have really worked because it is fresh and lovely. The dry leaves are a thing of beauty – soft curls, impossibly light, gold and brown mixed but mostly gold. It looks like ashman has been using a handplane on an exotic soft wood.
For this first steep ever from this pouch, the bergamot is strong but not obnoxiously so. The base is one that tends to medium and low notes, which carries the bergamot nicely. I dislike bergamot on high grown Ceylon and other tea that has natural sharp or high notes.
For the previous samples we had, a few of us noticed that the bergamot fades quickly once the pouch is opened. I have transferred this to a double seal tin to see if that preserves the aromatics, but if it doesn’t I won’t be mad honestly, because the base is really good. It would probably also bring the bergamot to a level Ashman would enjoy.
Sipdown
This is a sad sipdown! I feel sure I will order it again sometime. This has powerful aroma, heavy on the fig when dry. When steeped it is a very even blend of fig and lavender in both aroma and taste. The base – hallelujah – is strong enough to let you know you are drinking black tea and not a cup of scented water. The base is not astringent or so brisk as to require milk or sugar.
It is a supremely well done flavored black tea and worth a try if you like these flavors.
