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I just got home from work with my DAVIDsTEA haul from earlier in the day, and the first thing to catch my eye upon walking into my home were the two other DAVIDsTEA bags sitting on the table (empty of course, but just not thrown out from when they came home). After a quick surveying of the apartment I counted seven DT bags (including the one I had come home with today) in the house. Some people would call this a problem (but I’m sticking with calling it an adventure)…

Anyway, I made myself some of this for work today but I didn’t end up drinking a whole lot of it because I was too busy with trying to gag down the Peppermint Amour that I had brought. It’s funny because I had actually made this thinking that I deserved to bring a favourite along with me just in case the Peppermint Amour tasted nasty (and it did). I didn’t want to be stuck drinking a nasty tea and then something maybe only mediocre.

For preparation, I used 1 1/2 tsp. steeped with boiling water for eight minutes. I made two cups this way (each time with new leaf) and then poured them into my water bottle. The little bit that I did have at work was room temp. but the bulk of it, which I’m having now, is pretty freaking cold from the walk home (super cold out today).

Not a ton to add: it’s sweet and yummy like always. Although, usually this has a pretty thick mouth feel and I’m not getting that so much today. And despite using plenty of leaf and steeping for plenty of time this is A LITTLE (not a lot) weak tasting – but still good. I kind of wish that I had hard candies flavoured like this: the perfect amount of mellow and creamy coconut with sweet and slightly tart pineapple would be splendid to suck away on. I wish the aftertaste lingered a little longer.

I dread what’ll happen when I run out of this. They better bring it back next summer…

Last time I had some of this is was probably one of the worst tea experiences I’ve ever had, and by far my worst experience with any sort of peppermint tea. Basically, I had attempted to infuse some of this into a mug of hot chocolate and the result was the most foul, rancid tasting drink I’ve EVER consumed.

I’ve been tip toeing around trying this out again since that awful experience, for fear that the same thing will happen again. Peppermint tea is my safety net – the tea most comforting to me whether I’m sick or just having a poor day: I can’t imagine how devestated I’d be if my whole giant tin and bag of this just suddenly had “gone bad” or what have you. I take good precautions to store my tea properly: air tight tins, minimal to no light exposure, kept in a dry environment…

So, steeped about a tbsp. (my usual amount) of this in my timolino for five minutes. When it comes to this blend, I’m used to just throwing DT’s brewing guide aside and making super strong cups and double or triple their recommended amounts of leaf/time.

I’m drinking it now, and I’ll be honest I gagged a bit on my first sip. The initial taste is this nasty, “rancid” kind of tasting grass crap. It’s not pleasant. However, in small sips I’m handling this now. Small sips are equaling a less grassy and more natural and normal tasting peppermint (and even in large gulps, this funky tasting brew is still better than that God awful hot chocolate mixture).

…I think maybe I’ve figured out how to explain it. Thye taste is some kind of love child of the taste you get when you get soap or shampoo or whatever in your mouth and what one imagines bug spray would taste like – with a little mint mixed into that.

I’m not giving up hope though, this tea is dear to me and I’m not tossing it without being absolutely sure there’s something “wrong” with it. Maybe I just need to dial back the leaf and steep time a ways. Next time I make this I’m gonna try doing it by the brewing guide, and then proceding from there…

Fingers crossed

I feel like I have lots to write about, although probably only half of what I want to say is relevant to tea… But, isn’t that always the case for my tasting notes?

Anyway, lets start at DAVIDsTEA earlier in the afternoon. I went in to restock two favourites that I’ve nearly run out of: Main Squeeze and Cranberry Pear (I’ve got about two cups of this one left). In addition to that, I picked up 50g of White Chocolate Frost and 100g of Gingerbread and a coloured tin for one of my Tea Desire blends that has been ‘bagging it’. Well, things didn’t got exactly according to plan…

I got everything I had hope to get except the Cranberry Pear. Sadly, they were all out and had no idea when they would be getting more in (and I have no idea when in the next two or three weeks I’ll actually be able to make another trip downtown). Damn! I was really looking forward to getting some more so I didn’t have to ration what I have left so crazily. However, the cute sales guy (he’s my favourite guy who works there: he’s the one who replaced my broken timolino for me and is just so easy on the eyes) didn’t charge me for my to go cup of tea since they had been all out of Cranberry Pear! Which was really nice of him. Side note, they were playing jazz music in store and he was dancing behind the counter and it was just too flipping cute.

And now to this blend, which was my to go tea that I drank while I waited for the bus so I could head off to work. I needed something to warm me up, didn’t want to drink what I had brewed for my shift and thought it would be a good oppertunity to tick something off my list of blends I want to try. I can’t remember whose tasting note it was, but someone here on steepster had compared it red kool aid and said it was really good, so that piqued my interest in trying it. I love sweet, fruity blends that double as juice.

As per cute sales guy’s direction, I steeped this for five minutes before tossing the leaves. It was a really, REALLY pretty red colour (the colour of red kool aid) and smelled pretty good. Like strawberry, goji, and something else. For a while it was a little too hot to sip but after a few minutes I got to start sipping away at it.

Taste wise, there was a sugary sweetness in the initial part of the sip: much like strawberry koolaid and sweet apple candy or the aspects of Goji Pop that I actually like (the taste cold brewed, for example) sans melon. That transitioned into a more tart kind of goji/hibiscus/other taste. I’m wondering if the thing I couldn’t identify is Sea Buckthorn: I’ve never had Sea Buckthorn before and don’t even know what it’s supposed to taste like. The tartness wasn’t too much, but I wish the sweetness had lasted longer before becoming tart. In the first few sips, there was that kind of “puckered dryness” left in my mouth just like when you drink straight lemon juice.

This got better as it cooled (is it worth noting I just spelled cooled as ‘kooled’ because of all the kool aid talk?) down – so I could see it having some real potential as a cold brew or somehow infused into a lemonade type of slushy.

I could see myself picking up a small sample size of this to play around with and try cold brewing or doing something lemonadey with: but I’m not in any real rush to do so. In fact, I could probably hold off on it until late spring or early summer.

After the bus had got me to the mall I work in, I went to the post office and sent off another swap. I think I’m really bad at ball parking shipping costs because I expected this to be MUCH higher than it was. I’ve now sent swaps to Quebec, New Hampshire (in the states, not Europe), and Alaska – and so far Alaska has been the cheapest when I thought it would be most exensive. Quebec cost the most to ship to, which baffled me since it’s in Canada just like I am. I guess after time I’ll get better at figuring out what to expect from shipping.

And now back to work for a while… A lady filed a complaint with head office about my Kiosk selling model magazines (Maxim, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, etc.) so now head office had charged me with the task of coming up with a solution so they’re not as visable, but still visable enough they’re attracting the ‘right’ audience and we’re still selling them. I don’t know how to improve my set up though: they’re already kept in one section isolated from anything that is remotely targeted towards children (they’re on the opposite site of the kiosk from all the childrens stuff, dammit) and on the highest shelves so that small children for which they’re not appropriate can’t reach them and hopefully can’t see them (not in their line of sight) – so what more can I do other than removing them from my shelves? That’s never going to happen: they sell too well so head office would never approve that. Blah.

Mmm! I just finished baking some Maple Pecan cupcakes from scratch and my whole house smells heavenly now: nice and sweet and mapley. I’m resisting the urge to eat half a dozen of them right now in one sitting – and so I thought I’d try this out to maybe curb those cravings a little bit.

So, my local Safeway carries basically any Stash tea you can name (which is awesome since Stash is my favourite bagged tea brand) – so earlier in the week I pulled up the Stash website and had my roommate look through and pick out a tea he wanted to try. For whatever reason he seems to like drinking teabags – the loose leaf I have seems to slightly overwhelm him. Also, in part I think maybe he feels less guilty drinking the bagged tea because he knows it’s less expensive and there’s less risk of him “ruining” or wasting leaves from something higher quality. I guess that’s thoughtful of him.

Anyway, this is the tea that he picked out, much to my frustration. It’s not so much the tea itself that frustrates but more how contradictory he is. He keeps telling me that he hates chai teas and he hates black tea – and yet those are basically the only teas he drinks. Urgh. He thought the vanilla would be nice and creamy in this though – so since the box was only three bucks I picked this up for the both of us to try: my treat (he’s basically broke – in fact his Dad is paying his half of rent this month, although he got a job a few days ago working in the restaurant of one of the chefs who teaches him at Siast, so in a week or two he should be on his feet again).

My pick out of the Stash bagged teas I picked up was the Strawberry Pomegranate I had this morning. Even though it was odd this morning because I wasn’t expecting it to have rooibos, I think it would be really well suited for times I am actually craving a rooibos blend.

Back to this one, though! Dry, the bag smells primarily of cloves with some cinnamon and nutmeg. Not much else comes through, but I can’t blame it: damn that clove smell is INTENSE. Steeped in boiling water for 4 minutes, this one smells heavenly though. There are light notes of cinnamon, this kind of gentle nuttiness to the aroma, nutmeg, and a strong creamy vanilla smell that is almost as yummy as the smell of the baking in the house right now. I’m happy that, in the smell anyway, the cloves have slammed on the brakes.

I’m almost hesitant to take a sip of this one, because I’m going to be really disappointed if this yummy nutty, lightly spiced vanilla smell is drowned out by unnecessary amounts of cloves or ginger root in the taste. Oh well, better get it over with…

Hmmm… Mmmm… Well, there is clove. A pretty good deal of it, but there’s also a consistent vanilla creaminess to the blend with some gentle cinnamon notes and light nutmeg. The vanilla itself had a sort of buttery quality to it, and the mouthfeel of this is pretty thick and rich for a bagged tea. I’m pretty impressed. Combination of scent and taste is borderline heavenly. Next time I have this (and there has to be a next time) I’ll be adding in some milk and seeing if that does anything to tamper the clove and accentuate the creamy vanilla.

Even though I’m pretty sure his pick was uneducated and blind, I think Tre picked out a good one, and I’ll admit that it’s nice to have a black tea in stock that’s also decaffeinated.

They say you should never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, and that you should always stick to your list: but what about making your list when you’re hungry? Right now I’m making a grocery list for myself for after I get off work: but I’m STARVING so I keep adding things like “cinnamon buns” or “mozza sticks” and then thinking to myself, “no, self, you don’t NEED mozza sticks – you should cross that off the list”.

At the same time I’m drinking this tea. I realized I had a TON of it still, so I steeped some up in my timolino. I used a generous 2 tsp. for the timolino steeping in boiling water for seven minutes or so. It’s still nice and hot as I’m drinking it. I have to say though, I’m a little dissapointed. Maybe I’ve spoiled myself by drinking DAVIDsTEA’s Choconut Oolong too much recently – because the licorice (which is my favourite thing with this tea) seems much less tasty in comparrison to the licoricey notes in Choconut Oolong. Boo. And, the rest of the tastes in this tea have always just been mediocre and average for me (and truthfully, a little “broth like”). So, combine mediocre chamomille with a broth/stock like feel to it with a less than exceptional licorice taste and you get…

Meh.

At least this one is still realling good for late at night (no caffiene) and fighting off colds/illness. It’s still got that going for it. Dang: I hate when I spoil a tea I used to love with a new, and less available (or worse, like in this case, limited edition) one! Now I’m all pouty…

Unrelated:

The mall has been playing Christmas carols for the last few days – and I’ve been kind of happily singing along: but they’re finally starting to grate on my nerves and feel tedious and repetitive now. Like, how many times in one day can you listen to “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” before you want to stab yourself in the ears. I’ve heard it SIX TIMES so far today, and the day’s not done. I can’t imagine how much I’m going to resent carolers by the time Christmas actually hits. At least switch up the songs: it’s been the same 10 Christmas carols basically all day…

It felt like it had been a long time since I had had this blend, so I made myself a full 20 oz. water bottle full. Also, it helped that I was really craving peaches and cream oatmeal but we didn’t have any in the house: this is a pretty accurate replicate for the flavour (especially with a little milk).

For preperation, I steeped 1 1/2 tsp. in 10 oz. of boiling water for 6 minutes. I then took the same leaves and resteeped another cup the same way. They were then poured into the water bottle and left to cool.

All the flavours are really coming together well in this cup: and I’m finding now that I’ve tried more oolong teas I’m appreciating the oolong base a lot more.

In other news, I’ve made friends with the manager at the yogurt bar (self serve yogurt, basically) right next to my kiosk! So, yay for having someone to talk to. It’s awesome because she seems pretty cool and now there’s something else to help make the time seem to go by quicker.

So, I though I’d switch up my “at work” breakfast today a little bit (typically, I get hashbrowns and chocolate work from A&W) – mostly because the walk to work was especially cold and I just wanted something to heat me up. So, I opted for tea instead of chocolate milk. It couldn’t hurt, right? All the tea my local A&W serves is Stash brand – and as far as bagged tea goes that’s typically a favourite brand of mine. So, strawberry pomegranate it is!

Dry, the tea bag smelled very much like strawberry kool aid drink mix: sweet and fruity, is a bit artificial (but in the best way – who doens’t love strawberry kool aid?). The was also a nice sort of tang to it, a sharpness if you will. I steeped the bag for five minutes in whatever temp. water it was that A&W had given me. The liquor is a very red brown colour and smells like sharp, tangy strawberries and… oh, what is that?

I’m smelling that signature rooibos smell right now. Hmm… I thought this was a herbal. Time to read the ingredients listed on the teabag now. So, the teabag says “herbal” on the front, but in the back ingredients there IS rooibos listed. I mean, it’s not like I dislike rooibos tea – it’s just not what I had expected for breakfast this morning.

The taste is initially very tart and tangy strawberry – like stawberry kool aid tastes before you dump in that crap load of sugar it needs to get sweet. Then, it gives way pretty quickly to a VERY woody rooibos taste. Considering I’m a fan of rooibos tea in general, I’m not minding the rooibos here but if you’re NOT a rooibos fan you probably really want to stay clear of this one. Finally, the aftertaste is a short lived mellow strawberry. I’m not totally sure where the pomegranate is fitting into this: it’s not really standing out at all.

Overall, this is pretty nice for a bagged tea, but I’m not really loving the “false advertising”. I like rooibos, but this morning I was in the mood for some straight up herbal deliciousness.

This was my second indulgent tea that I brought with for work today. Because this is so heavy and pretty costly, it becomes and expensive blend to restock so I don’t often have it – which is a shame because it’s one of my favourite white teas.

Although, being honest I’ve still never warmed up to the smell of the dry leaf which smells like strongly fermented fruit/alcohol to me. Ick (thankfully the tea itself tastes so so much better).

For preparation, I steeped 1 1/2 tsp. (heaping spoon) in boiling water in my timolino for about seven minutes (the high end of the steep time recommendations). It can take a longer steep time though – and tastes more rich when you steep for, say, 10 minutes. However I was rushing to get to work so I just went with seven. The liquor is a nice pale gold gold colour, hence the name of this blend.

I don’t know what it is about this combo of dry ingredients but drinking this it’s like drinking liquid Werther’s candy. Sweet, creamy, and coconutty. SO GOOD. I constantly catch Tre picking out the mulberries from the dry leaf – he just doesn’t seem to get that we cannot afford for this blend to turn into trail mix: it’s too expensive to replace!

I indulged a little this morning and made two of my favourite teas for work. My excuse was that with my paycheck coming in I could easily afford to do so! I’ve tried to do the math, and with what’s already in my account taken into consideration I can set enough aside for December and January’s rent and my grocieries and still have approx. $200 left to spend on tea! Woot!

To buy what I want from DAVIDsTEA It’ll be about $40-50 dollars, and then I’m going to FINALLY put in my Butiki order which comes out to roughly $100 dollars (just a touch more) – which leaves around $50 for other orders. Hmm… So much to take into consideration. Do I put in my Della Terra order which is only $30ish or do I go for a Harney & Sons order and just get a whole bunch of sample sizes. One thing is for sure, I’m gonna be getting a lot more tea coming up soon (I could also wait until Black Friday sales – although I have another paycheck coming in on Dec. 3rd right after Black Friday).

Anyway, for this tea I steeped one teabag in 10 oz. of water for three minutes. This is probably my favourite bagged tea, by far – but it’s really touchy and gets bitter quite quickly so it’s easy to screw up. Thankfully, I didn’t and this is super smooth and yummy.

Right now I’m drinkinhg it cold – and there’s a very “pie like” quality to it. It’s like eating a fresh slice of my Grandma’s homemade Saskatoon Berry pie with the crust and everything: it’s just missing that dallop of vanilla icecream (which could be replicated with milk or cream, but oh well). The black tea base still comes through – but only seems to enhance the sweet syrupy Saskatoon berry taste for me. Yum! I get nice mellow notes of raspberries too, and very subtle notes of blackberries jam keep flickering in and out of the sip.

This is better hot though, honestly.

Also – I’m SO incredibly sick of crying children and parents who just don’t seem to know how to handle them. Maybe it’s naive of me to say this, not having kids of my own or anything like that, but don’t come to the mall if you’re going to bring your misbehaving little three year old son or daughter who doesn’t know to keep their hands off the stores’ merchandise (and not throw it across the store) or if you’re that stupid kind of parent that just lets their child have a tempertantrum in the middle of the mall and stands their and does nothing (or worse responds by freaking out back at them). Please, discipline your children or else they’re only going to get more self entitled and bratty.

Urgh. My head is killing me from dealing with all these absent parent’s and their screaming children. I know it’s not the kids’ fault – but I’m seriously starting to resent children.

I was looking for something to sip down tonight since my paycheck is tomorrow and I’m anticipating that, though I haven’t decided where yet, I’m going to be placing at least one medium to large sized order with someone. I’m torn right now between 52teas, Butiki (but we’re talking $100 order for this one), Della Terra, CeasersTea, Harney & Sons, and TeaCupany. So many places to try out…

Also, I’m gonna stop at my local DAVIDsTEA and replenish my Cranberry Pear and pick up more Gingerbread and White Chocolate Frost…

Anyway, I completely forgot I even had this tea bag – probably because for whatever reason it never got logged into my cupboard. I remember exactly where I got it from, though! Last time or second last time or whichever it was when I visited Robyn at the University I stole one of these teabags from their cafeteria (shhh). I remember that was right around when I got my Teavivre samples from Lala and I was on a “try all the jasmin!” type of kick that weekend.

So, sipdown! I steeped following directions on the teabag: 100 degrees celsius steeped for 1 1/2 min. To be honest, the teabag dry smelled disgusting: like some God awful combination of moss, lawn trimmings, medicinal orange flavoured stuff, and cheap jasmine perfume. Yuck! Steeped, however, this smells much more pleasant. The orange smells juicier, like when you’ve just finished cutting a large bowl of orange slices and there’s that very slight orange juice mist kind of hanging in the air. The passionfruit mingles nicely with this.

I’m not a huge green tea fan (though I am learning to tolerate flavoured greens), and there’s still a fairly cheap and unpleasant vegetal smell coming off the tea, but I’m tolerating it because it’s not as nasty as the dry teabag smelled. The jasmine smells ok and marries nicely with the orange and passionfruit – but it’s just a touch perfumey smelling.

I keep smelling pine and mint too, and that might be throwing me off. However, I know that’s not part of the tea – it’s from the vapor rub/muscle relaxant I just finished applying to all my aching limbs. Mostly I feel like jello right now – which is VERY nice. I have a feeling I’ll sleep well tonight but I don’t want to jinx it.

Ok – taking little baby sips now: the tea is still very hot and I don’t want to burn my mouth. It’s actually pretty good. The jasmine doesn’t come off as too artificial in the taste, although while the orange and passionfruit still taste juicy they have reverted a little bit back to the “medicinal” quality. It’s not unbearable, though. Not at all. The green tea isn’t too strong for me, and I appreciate that. Basically, everything marries together really well. Only real downside is that the aftertaste reminds me of those really grainy and chalky orange flavoured chewable vitamins. Not so fond of that…

However, considering this is Lipton and it’s really cheap, I could MAYBE see this as something I’d buy (or steal) more of just so I could have a cheap bagged jasmine tea with some other additional flavours for when I’m so lazy I just can’t put in the effort for a good cup of loose leaf, or to take with as a travel tea. However, operative word there is cheap.