Zesta

The version of this tea that I have is actually hotel-branded, so it took me a few minutes of sleuthing to figure out the actual company that provided the tea! I am, however, rather confident that this is the accurate brand. I really like this, especially for a sachet! The chamomile in the sachet is whole flowers. Its flavor notes are apple, slightly floral, and a bit of hay/savoriness at the back of the sip. I happily drank it as a cold-brew at bedtime almost every night during our trip. I also made it hot with honey water when I wasn’t feeling well (we couldn’t get honey in the middle of the night but the 24-hour Family Mart convenience store had bottled honey water). It was nice and soothing for my throat before we knew what was wrong.

Sipdown… kinda (2378)!

So, my friend Helen’s partner John has been obsessed with trying to find this tea here in Montreal from the past two-ish years. Basically, ever since I brought it over for game name. He has had no luck, so I decided that I’d put him out of his misery and just give him the rest of what I have.

So, I steeped up a mug of this and added a little splash of creamy and it… good. Full bodied and very malty, with a hint of red fruit sweetness to the undertones. I enjoyed it, but I just know that there’s no way I’m enjoying this even half as much as he did. So, I’m very happy to rehome this tea to somewhere where it’ll be loved and drank.

As I wrote about in a previous tasting note, last weekend I was at a friend’s for a board game night. We ordered bubble tea during the bubble tea themed game we played, but that wasn’t the only tea related game of the night! We also played a new game to us called Ceylon that’s all about the Sri Lankan tea industry. It was very complex but incredibly fun and strategic.

I thought it was only fitting to drink some Sri Lankan tea while playing, so I brought this tea with and we made a giant teapot of it with some milk and sugar. Kandy is a region known for being somewhat sweeter compared to other Sri Lankan regions (it was also one of four regions prominently featured in the game) and you could kind of get that sense. On top of having the robust full body one would expect of Sri Lankan tea it also had a slightly red fruit and citrus undertone to compliment deep malted flavours.

The tea would have been nice solo and the game would have also been nice without the tea, but having the two together just felt really special!

I’ve been feeling green teas all day, so I pulled out an envelope of this tea from a recent swap with ashmanra, thanks!

This is a Chinese green tea packaged by a Sri Lankan tea company. The instructions on the envelope said boiling water, I said no way. The green tea was earthy with both fresh and dry grass. Highly mineral, I though maybe salty? The jasmine was light, quite nice. A mellow start to the day.

A robust tea flavoured with coconut and pineapple. It’s the kind of fruit flavour that you expect in candies, but fortunately the flavour is very light so it won’t appear too artificial. Worth drinking!