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November Sipdown Challenge Prompt – Cookie Monster’s Birthday

Last month when I did the Muppet prompts, my daughter informed me that it was nearly Cookie Monster’s birthday. Now I realize that she knew that because she has been digging up all sorts of holidays similar to our sipdown prompts to give me theme teas for the past month or so. I assumed it would end October 31st, the end of breast cancer awareness month, but it hasn’t! I had a new tea both yesterday and today.

In addition to the new tea, she also made a double batch of Tollhouse cookies and peanut butter cookie dough, although the PB cookies are reserved for baking tomorrow.

One of the teas she gave me a couple of weeks ago was Almond Black tea and I wondered if this would be very different, and it definitely is. The other is distinctly almond and the almond is pretty strong. This one has a little less almond and the addition of vanilla and a definite baked pastry/cookie flavor. I am having a hard time deciding which I prefer, or maybe there is a place for each on the shelf since they are so different. I think the Almond Black is a better foil for Pleine Lune, which I finished just as I was starting the Almond Black.

Today’s gift of tea from my daughter was this one – waiting at the breakfast table being held aloft on a little platform by three small silver skeletons! This one is themed to Halloween, of course!

When I looked at the steeping parameters I only glanced at the description and saw the word chocolate, so I was really surprised to smell berry and not very much chocolate when I opened it. A quick look at the tin confirmed that this is indeed a berry flavored tea, with chocolate. The berry flavor is the biggest player in it to me, for sure. I have to search for the chocolate.

And I love it! I had it with breakfast, and I found it to be an excellent tea for leisurely mid-morning sipping. (With pound cake. Shhhhh.)

Sharedown

Gifted to the new padawan! This is a great tea and the flavor is spot on to the name.

October Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a tea with beautiful color

Sipdown

Cheating like mad here because this tea is tea colored, but when you love tea that is a beautiful color. I could maybe have gone with Misty Green as my color tea, though, so I might do a second one, but this is an actual sipdown.

It was ever so slightly overleafed and I double steeped and combined. We love this tea and will be ordering more next month when the seasonal Christmas blends are announced.

I did detect a little bit of butyric acid in the aroma, which is powerful in some strawberry teas, even from Lupicia. I don’t taste it, though. This is one of our favorites and we will be getting both this and the decaf version.

October Sipdown Prompt – a brisk tea

I cold steeped this yesterday and I had some that had only been steeping for a couple of hours and some that had steeped over night plus a bit.

I think the briskness is what makes this tea interesting and flavorful as a cold steeped tea. I have been drinking sweet southern style iced tea all my life and a lot of black teas wouldn’t appeal to me as an unsweetened cold tea even though I drink my hot tea unsweetened.

This very fine cut leaf makes a lovely refreshing cuppa and the tin is getting closer to being an actual sipdown than I realized.

October Sipdown Prompt – a tea with maple syrup or flavor

A friend brought a couple of sachets of this tea for me to try and I had it for my afternoon snack yesterday. I made it latte style with about half water and half milk and sweetened it with maple syrup.

It was really delicious, but masala chai lovers will probably not consider it to be a real chai. This is very chocolately with mild spices and absolutely delicious as a latte and satisfying as a dessert alternative for me. I don’t love clove or black peppercorns in tea, so this is my kind of chai.

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October Sipdown Prompt – Art Day!

I have been hitting Simpson and Vail’s Almond Black hard, and this morning I remembered that I had just enough of this similar tea (almond heavy) left for one pot.

As for the art, I haven’t created it yet, BUT my daughter had a themed gift at the table for me again today and this time is was not tea but art supplies!

When I got my cancer diagnosis in August, I decided it was time to try watercoloring. I am not a good artist by any stretch of the imagination, but our local cancer center offered free art nights once a week to patients and their families back when I had my first diagnosis years ago. At the time I was much busier and much more worried about not being good at it so I didn’t participate.

They still offer it, but when I mentioned I might try it for stress relief my friend bought me the Emily Lex workbooks to get me started and I made enough headway to make a few greeting cards that were good enough to send.

Now thanks to my daughter I have some tube watercolors, a tiny travel palette and paper holder, and a whole stack of good paper, as well as a pot of good tea to sip while I wait for inspiration to hit. And who knows? This time around maybe Ashman (who is a VERY good artist) and I might participate in an art night or two.

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October Sipdown Prompt – a tea with an unusual name

This was sent to me a while back by Nicole – many thanks!

Looking at the ingredient list, I decided this was one that would probably be too floral for Ashman, so I saved it to drink by myself. I am surprised there is black tea as well as oolong in here. They are definitely light.

I liked this tea much more than I thought I would, as I thought it would be chamomile heavy and while I WILL drink it for the benefits, it is not a favorite. This tea has tons of floral flavor so it is well named, but the chamomile is very nicely accompanied by the lavender and rose. Those are the florals I taste in order, although the chamomile may be leading more in smell than taste.

The oolong is stronger than the black here and gives the cup a nice base so that you don’t feel like you are drinking a plain herbal tisane.

October Sipdown Prompt – tea from a favorite fall cup or mug

Once again, I awoke to find a placard and a gift bag at my place at the table. This sign announced that it is October 21st is Apple Day and the gift bag from the daughter who lives with us contained this tea.

For my favorite fall cup or mug, I don’t really have any mugs that are specifically fall and I very rarely drink tea from a mug. However, I do switch to Old Country Roses for fall (especially Thanksgiving) through Easter, as I use Lady Carlyle for spring and summer tea times or parties. Everyday ware is anything blue and white by Spode, collected at bargain prices over many years, just as the china sets were absolutely stunning deals.

In Old Country Roses pattern, I have two of the breakfast cups that I purchased from eBay that are absolutely HUGE. I would love to get more as they are great for serving soups, but even on eBay they tend to run expensive and I felt fortunate to find these in good condition many years ago. So that will count as my fall cup or mug!

The tea is good, and while drinking it I felt that the apple was very subtle and the coffeecake aspect was dominant, but now that I have finished it the apple flavor is the lingering taste with cinnamon dancing over the top.

I have a bad, horribly itchy rash from a reaction to the antibiotic so my tastes are weird and off and I just don’t want my normal breakfasts right now. I had this with biscotti, then grabbed a pecan shortbread cookie and found that to be a perfect pairing for the tea, so now I have a great excuse to put shortbread cookies on the grocery list every week for a while. Fortunately, we love the cheap store brand at our grocery and the name brand are frequently BOGO.

I think this would make a good latte or be great with milk and/or sugar. It is a tad drying and brisk, which isn’t as noticeable with food.

October Sipdown Prompt – a tea that reminds you of falling leaves

My daughter who lives with us has been giving me support gifts and celebration gifts all throughout this recent breast cancer journey. Yesterday I was presented with the newest Alexander McCall Smith book and two teas from rare Tea Company for whom he wrote special short stories to be included in their tins of Lost Malawi tea, which he was given the privilege of naming. (She also gave me some of that tea – a favorite!)

I had noticed this one on their website and intended to try it someday and that day is here. My tastes have been off since my surgery, and I have to cast about in my mind to see if anything particular appeals to me, because a lot of things that I normally like seem a little unappetizing. It’s not that I am that poorly, just a weird thing that is probably quite temporary. Dry foods are mostly a big no. But I was really curious about this tea so I didn’t cast about to see what my body wanted, I just grabbed it.

It grabbed back.

I opened the pouch knowing that the description says it is smoked over guava leaves and was somehow taken by surprise that it smelled smokey. Eye opening. Enticing. Appetite stimulating.

I like smokey teas and I also like VERY smokey teas but I do want some quality tea flavor in there and not just a cup of char. The leaves were whole, long, twisted, deep brown and almost like an oolong in appearance. I steeped twice at 176F per instructions and went a full two minutes for the steep.

The result is a lovely cup of smoked tea that had me sniffing and thinking hard trying to decipher what notes I was getting that made it different from Lapsang Souchong. Brown sugar crossed my mind but that wasn’t it. Sweet. Yes, sweet. But…fruity. That’s it. Soft and subtle. Not sharp like the fruity muscatel edge of a darjeeling with drying grape must.

This tea is dried over burning guava leaves, a fortunate happenstance that came about when the guava leaves surrounding the tea fields were building up on the ground and attracting pests, so when they decided to rake and burn the guava leaves someone thought to try using them to dry and scent the tea.

I won’t say the fruity taste is like guava or is coming from the guava leaves. I think it is inherent in the tea leaf itself. This is a lovely smoked tea that is suitable for all times of day and is just different enough from Lapsang Souchong that if you like smoked teas you may want to give it a try.

I am unrolling the whole brown leaves and smoothing them out to paint in watercolor later. Somehow, seeing whole leaves makes me stop and think, “A half a world away, someone’s hands picked this tea and now it is here for me to enjoy. Bless them.” And that is what Rare Tea Company tries to do through Rare Charity. I can get behind that.