Roswell Strange Send Message

While having a wide variety of teas stocked is sometimes really good because you have something for whatever mood you’re in, it can also be a curse when you happen to be in the mood for, say, eight or nine different teas: like I am now. Urgh. I did my best to compensate though: I steeped a cup of this up for myself to have right now (citrus and mint were recurring flavours in the teas I had picked out – so this one fit quite well considering it’s both), made a timolino full of Tea Desire’s Chai Apricot to have later tonight, and then started cold brewing a pitcher full of Tea Desire’s Buddha Bamboo to strain in the morning for breakfast (and also to have an extra cup good to go to try mixing with club soda). So, lots on the go, kinda…

I’m thinking maybe it would have been a good idea to make the Chai Apricot for immediate consumption and this blend in the timolino, just because of the caffeine. Oh well. Live and learn, right?

Taste wise, nothing really new to add. This is a predictably pleasant cup like usual (a staple herbal in my cupboard). I guess somewhat of note is that in the 2 tsp. of dry leaf I measure out there were two whole gooseberries (I love gooseberries so much!), so the notes from the gooseberries are a tad bit stronger than usual.

For anyone trying this tea first time, remember to shake the bag or tin first – the spearmint in the blend typically sinks all the way to the bottom and to taste this properly you really want to get some spearmint into your dryleaf.

Decided to try this again to see if I still feel like it’s something I’d want 50g of before the winter collection leaves. For preparation, I used a close to level (a little heaping) 1/2 tbsp. that I steeped straight into my timolino. Water was boiling, and it steeped about 5 1/2 minutes.

As soon as I poured the water in, I was hit with this huge wave of peppermint that, like last time, was so intense I teared up a little bit. The smell was also very creamy and still smelled like white chocolate. Very much like last time.

Taste wise, this was very good. Nice strong peppermint and creamy white chocolate taste that is fluid with the sip. I must have had more peppercorn in the dry leaf I used this time, though – because while I wasn’t totally sure if I was getting the peppercorn in my last cup I could DEFINITELY tell that there was peppercorn in this cup. It cut through pretty strongly both in the start and finish of the sip (but was not so present in the middle of the sip) – and honestly, I didn’t really like it. I found it distracting and though it detracted from the creamy white chocolate that I really like in this blend.

However, I still very much enjoyed the cup overall and the taste is still very different from other mint teas I own in a mostly good way. This is NOT a full tin purchase – I have now determined that for sure. I’d still like to get more than the, probably, 10g or so that I have left. As an occasional treat (and the smell the dry leaf) this would be a good fit in my cupboard.

During my break at work today, I decided the two thermoses or tea I had brought with me weren’t enough, so I stopped at Tea Desire for a To Go latte. I’ve always thought this’d be a good latte, but I don’t really have any of the proper equipment to make a good (and not ratchet as all hell) latte at home, so I’ve yet to try it that way.

Let me just say, I was NOT wrong. Christ – it was SO freaking good. The banana become extra, extra creamy and smooth, and the quite strong chocolate taste was pretty softened and instead of blending with the banana more served to compliment it as a “side” (does that make sense?). Plus, yummy banana milk foam/froth is so tasty. As soon as I’d finished I wanted another…

I know VariaTEA has sort of been on a latte kick, and I recently sent her a sample of this so: Variatea, if you see this note I would recommend that you try a cup of this as a latte (and the other hot). You should have enough for at least two cups in the sample I sent you, and I bet you’d really enjoy it this way.

(My rating for this is already 100, but if I could go higher I definitely would)

Today sucked! This was the only day I have off for maybe the next 10-12 days (yay being a manager with a crazy busy schedule…), and instead of sleeping in and enjoying the French Toast breakfast that my roommate Tre, who is studying to be a professional chef), had promised to make I was instead awoken by a phone call asking me to come in to work today to fill a shift for someone who had called in sick. I mean, I guess it was my choice to accept or not – but I felt like it would have looked sort of bad if I (soon to be manager at my own store) wasn’t able to be flexible/come in when people were sick. Part of this new promotion is putting in a lot of time outside of work hours and sacrificing what little social life I have. I wouldn’t have minded – except I really wanted to sleep in until like noon and then have an awesome French Toast breakfast…

But oh well, at least I have my tea!

This was very nearly a sipdown for me. I think I have enough for, say, two more cups? That’s good because this is one I definitely wanted to ‘upgrade’ to a tin instead of just a little sample bag – but bad because there’s still lots of tea in the tin I was hoping to use for it.

For preparation, I used a heaping 1/2 tbsp. which I steeped in boiling water for 5 minutes (10 oz. mug), and then poured into my water bottle. At the time of drinking this, it was cold. Very smooth and creamy with a strong but balanced taste of both pear and cranberry. I love this blend and can’t wait to have a tin of it so I can drink it more frequently without worrying about using up the last of the sample.

I really like this hot too (even though I haven’t had it hot in a while) – it makes a great switch up from my other fruity teas which are typically either herbal, citrus, or lighter white teas.

I didn’t get to bring any tea with me to work today! I was supposed to get up at six so that I could watch an episode of Supernatural, shower, and make my tea without being rushed – but instead I woke up at 8:20 with my alarming going off. I literally slept through my alarm! So, I scrambled to get dressed and do my make up, grab all my work shit and get out the door so I wasn’t late (and I wasn’t) – but that meant I showed up at work all gross and smelly with no tea! Boo…

It DID ensure, however, that I went to Tea Desire on break and picked up a Tea To Go. No way was I going a 9 hour shift without any tea. I decided to get a latte, and to my surprise I met a fourth staff member (I’m there A LOT and up until today I’d only met three staff members). She was very nice, but I’ll admit it was kind of disappointing not being immediately recognized and greeted by name. I’ve sort of grown used to that…

I doubt I’d purchase any of this tea for at home – I already have some good Cream Earl Greys and Tea Desire has a lot more interesting blends that I’d rather keep stocked. However, there are some really nice things about this blend specifically that really make me enjoy it. It has rose petals in it, and I find that the notes they contribute really stand out (they were lovely as a latte today – the rose was so creamy and smooth without being light and indiscernible) compared to a few different Cream Earl Greys I’ve tried, and there are bourbon vanilla bits in the tea too, although as a latte today I got much more vanilla than bourbon.

Anyway, long story short I was a happy camper sipping away at this. I got lots of lovely London Fog(y) foam, and the rest was the perfect temp. and steep time. Yum! It definitely made not bringing tea with me much less of a blow.

So, I guess part of drinking down the teas I’m unsure about restocking means maybe using some of the tea bags I’ve never tried before. This came to me in a box of assorted tea bags from my Grandma when I told her I was moving out (a housewarming present, if you will). Since then I’ve tried and hated most of them (sorry Grandma). I’ve kinda put off trying this one though – primarily because I have no idea what it is.

On the outside of the package, there are no ingredients listed or steeping guidelines – and to me the title of this tea didn’t really clarify much about it (maybe I’m naive/stupid for not knowing, but honestly until I searched this tea on Steepster a few minutes ago I wasn’t even sure which was the company name and which was the name of the tea). I’ve opened up the bags before, but honestly I smell absolutely NOTHING when I sniff at the tea bag (I think that’s probably because this is SUPER old – years at least, and I have no clue how many).

I guessed at Steeping, but in the end I went with boiling water steeped for for minutes roughly. It’s a tea bag, so there was no portioning in that regard (just one tea bag for the oz. mug). Steeped, this smells like a pretty regular Earl Grey – so that’s not too bad. I just looked it up here on Steepster as I started writing this tasting note, and there’s actually a bit of an ingredients description (no steeping guide though): basically it’s an Earl Grey with cardamom (not that I can smell the cardamom in the tea). Here I was thinking it was going to be something really weird and spicey, or some kind of chai blend.

I just finished eating a plate of waffles drenched in syrup, so everything tastes a little syrupy to me right now. However, it tastes like a plain old Earl Grey – I’m literally getting nothing that says “cardamom” spice and that seems to be the selling point for this specific tea. That’s kind of really sad, and maybe a little pathetic. It’s not really too smooth tasting, but there’s no overwhelming bitterness or astringency either. I’d say the strongest flavour is the bergamot.

As an Earl Grey, it’s adequate to average. I’ve had much better bagged Earl Greys and stock some better and obviously higher quality loose leaf Earl Greys already. Plus, it’s majorly failing at what I assume is meant to be the selling point (maybe that’s because it’s old though). I’ll finish the cup, but there’s no way I’d restock this. That probably works out well, though – I haven’t the faintest clue where I’d even look if I wanted to restock this one.

I made this in the morning using the leaves from the cup I had last night with Robyn. Exact same steeping method as last night. The idea was to drink it at work along with the Raspberry Oolong I had also made, but I actually completely forgot that this was in my backpack all day, so I didn’t end up drinking it until after I had gone down to DAVIDsTEA downtown and realized I had it with me.

Actually, I have an awesome story to share from there today (again). Seriously, I think I’ve been down there twice in the last seven days now – and both times I had AMAZING and above and beyond customer service experiences. Last time, they completely replaced my broken timolino when I was just going to buy a replacement part, and this time I got about $20 of free tea…

So, what happened was I had gone in today to pick up three tea tins for teas I’ve decided will be restocked regularly (Minty Cow from Della Terra, Genmaicha from McQuarries, and Buddha Bamboo from Tea Desire), and also 100g of Choconut Oolong because I’m REALLY loving it and I want to have a good reserve of it. Really, that’s all I could afford to pick up until my next paycheck on the 16th (and then after that I’ll be making much more money because of the increase in hours and pay due to my being a manager now). However, when I came to the mall there was a homeless gentleman outside collecting change wearing nothing but jeans and a t-shirt. Today was FREEZING cold, and it’s snowing to. I’m cold and I’m in a GIANT insulated jacket – so I figure he’s probably freezing. I said hi to him and asked him if he was cold, and he said that yes he was cold but he would manage, and then wished me a blessed evening.

So, as I was getting my purchases rung in at the David’s store, I remembered this guy outside who had been very kind to me and who I could see was really cold. Even though I couldn’t really afford too much extra expenditures (I had budgeted money for this tea into my last paycheck, but didn’t really have any other money set aside for things other than bus fare, rent, and groceries) I decided that I’d get this gentleman a tea (plus, it wouldn’t hurt having the good karma on my side what with the fact I’m about to take on a huge amount of responsibility, and I’m training tomorrow).

I asked the salesman what he would recommend for a Tea to Go with the requirements being that the tea had to be able to withstand a very long steep time and have a very low risk for allergens. He looked a little confused at the requirements (like they were very unconventional things to request), so I explained that the tea wasn’t for me but the homeless gentleman outside who was probably freezing cold. He smiled, recommended Currant Affair (which I went with), and then told me that my tea was on the house. I assumed he just meant the Tea to Go (which was awesome because I really couldn’t afford it to begin with), but as he finished ringing everything in he not only gave me the Tea toG on the house, but also my 100g tin of Choconut Oolong! So, all I paid for was the tea tins (an $8 total, approx.) – and I got about $20 worth of free tea! I feel so blessed, and I’m again just BLOWN AWAY with how amazing David’s is.

Anyway, that was a very long story… So, back to the Choconut Oolong that I actually drank. This resteep is pretty good. The licorice root is faintly there, which is keeping this nice and sweet, and the chocolate and hazelnut flavours are also really lightly present. The interesting thing, however, is that this second steep seems to have brought out a flavour not present in the first steep at all, and that’s the flavour of graham crackers.

Actually, it’s a REALLY STRONG flavour of graham crackers. It’s good, but totally different. I wonder what changed that brought this specific flavour out? I tossed the leaves I used this morning, but I’d really love to try a third steeping and see how much this tea changes again. Thankfully, I have lots now to use up and (thanks to the amazing staff at David’s) even a little extra money in my budget!

After work today I realized that since I was going to DAVIDsTEA in the mall downtown by bus but had forgotten my bus pass (I was rushed and forgot my keys too, luckily I was also so rushed I forgot to lock the door as well) I was going to have to break one of the twenties in my wallet since I had no other change. I had forgotten about the second thermos of tea in my backpack (the first I had drank was Raspberry Oolong from Tea Desire, the second was a 2nd steep of David’s Choconut Oolong), so I decided to break it by buying a Tea to Go at Tea Desire.

Since last time I bought a tea to go there I wound up finding another one to add to my stash (Buddha Bamboo – which I purchased 50g of yesterday), I decided to play it safe this time (on my wallet) and get something I was familiar with… So, this one (a favourite of mine)!

It was really nice sipping away at something hot while I waited in the cold for the bus, and it was good (this one hardly ever disappoints) – but I found that it was actually really weak and that was a little disappointing. Although (while I love everyone who works at Tea Desire), it was made by the young lady who works there who seems to be the newest employee (and also my least favourite, but not because she’s new) so maybe she underleafed it.

I also had another realization today… Since I’m moving malls because of my promotion I’m going to be in a mall that doesn’t have ANY tea store. That’s really disappointing since 3/4 of the major malls in the city have loose leaf tea shops (two have a DAVIDsTEA, and the one I’m currently in has Tea Desire). So, no daily Tea to Go during my shift at a discounted price anymore… That’s really sad. Although, I’ll still be over there enough because my bank is in this mall too.

As part of my initiative to, primarily, spend the week drinking down teas I either have excess of but don’t plan to restock or teas I’m not sure if I’m going to restock, I made this in the morning to take to work with me (it was my training shift as a manager today – eeps!).

Preparation:

- 1 1/2 tsp. used for approx. 8 oz. of water
- Steeped at roughly 80 degrees celcius (I didn’t actually use the thermometer to check the temperature – I was running late) for 2 1/2 min.

The first cup I had of this was odd: there was a nasty kind of after taste to it and it tasted very artificial. The second was better – still semi artificial and funny tasting, but more creamyness and raspberry confectionary goodness. This third time trying it? OH MY GOD. It was so freaking good. I have no idea what the variable was that made this come out better, but there was no funky aftertaste or artificial taste, it was smooth and creamy and very intensely flavoured like a raspberry shortcake or raspberries with cool cream or something of that nature. Yummy, confectionary raspberry deliciousness.

After starting to drink this one, I don’t think it lasted even 5 minutes? I basically chugged it. It was SO good.

Maybe it has something to do with my drinking it at room temperature as opposed to hot? Someone wrote a review about this one saying they left it in their fridge for two weeks and it came out tasting delicious and uber creamy and natural tasting. So maybe the temperature of this is a big factor that quite significantly plays around with the flavour?

Anyway, point is that if I can recreate how tasty this was today it’ll move out of my “maybe restock” list to my “restock list”, for sure.

Getting closer to a sipdown for this one. Two, maybe three cups left? Although, even though I’d like it out of my cupboard, I’m not especially in a rush to drink it all up.

Today, I really butchered the the steeping for this one. Firsty, I definitely overleafed (in a small attempt to use up more leaf). For my 8 oz. cup, I used about 2 1/2 tsp. of leaf. And then, I set the teaball with the leaf in it on the counter next to the mug while I waited for the water to cool down enough, but then I got distracted by an email and I let it cool a bit too much. At this point, I just thought “fuck it” and plunked the teaball in the water. I have no clue how long it actually ended up steeping…

Taste wise, this is weird. It’s very, very vegetal and leaves an especially dry and astringent feeling in my mouth after the sip – but it’s NOT really bitter tasting at all. I’m really disliking it, but what else can I expect from preparing this in the stupidest way possible? It’s a combination of not loving green tea and doing a horrible job preparing it – not any criticism against the tea itself.