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WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS TO MYSELF? It’s like a train-wreck!

I seem to have sworn to find out what’s wrong with this tea and FIX IT. I bumped the temperature down to 180, even though it’s a very black tea, and was very vigilante about my two-minute steep time.

I kept sniffing the teabags and thinking, “does this smell bitter? I think it smells bitter” and then calming myself and telling myself that “it’s just the bergamot”. I got the actual tea, set it on my little teatray, and carried it downstairs.

Tasting it, it’s got a faint tea astringency, and a touch of bergamot. And I think I can SENSE the rose in there somewhere. At least it’s not outright bitter anymore. I’m getting a very slight sort of bitter aftertaste, but I don’t know if that’s just me being paranoid or what. It’s fairly watery (for a black), but it’s drinkable now. Hrm. Maybe next time I’ll try boiling water, but add honey. I haven’t sweetened anything in a while.

Hrm. It gets a little more bitter as it cools. Still drinkable, though. At the moment.

And then it go REALLY bitter towards the end. THIS TEA REFUSES TO BE LIKED.

I couldn’t stop myself, and decided to try this one again. The tea smells of rose. And bergamot and tea, but the rose is what I noticed first this time around.

Lighter cup, because I shortened the steep time to somewhere around two minutes (I didn’t have a timer on me to use, so I stared at my computer clock).

Still got bitterness at first, although not as bad, and it seems to have lessened with cooling. I wonder if it’s the rose. I don’t know. It’s mostly on the tip of my tongue. It’s different. Not getting that artificial numbing taste this time, though. But still very bitter. I had to pour the last cup out. Two minutes! Aaaugh this tea. Why?

Is it the rose? It reminds me a bit of Twining’s Earl Grey.

So this tea confuses me. I looked up the site (this is another tea found in Winners, by the way), and on it, I found that ‘Darjeeling Earl Grey’ was not one of their blends, and ‘Singbulli’ was not an estate they had listed (which may not mean that they don’t necessarily USE it, but…).

I thought it was interesting that the company is so dedicated to the estates. Each tea is not a blend. All the tea comes from a single estate, and the estate is listed on the cat, along with the grade, etc., a bit about the estate, and the name of the actual planter.

Also, it’s earl grey. Earl grey with ROSE.

The dry pyramid bag smelt strongly of the bergamot, and more faintly of rose. Brewed, it smells mostly of tea and rose, and only very faintly of bergamot.

I think the five minutes recommended on the package is a bit of an oversteep (especially since it’s darjeeling), but I tend to do with that first then start experimenting. So it’s somewhat bitter.

I’ve never had anything with rose in it before, but I definitely smell it, and I taste SOMETHING. I’ll have to make this properly next time. I’m also getting a very weird artificial sort of bitter taste that I’m unsure about. It might just be the tea-bitterness, but I don’t know (it’s almost numbing, it’s weird). I really wish I’d prepared this one more properly so I could tell.

I’ll give it a rating next time. I’m sure I’ll end up making it in the morning.

Usually I don’t like going out and buying teas without first checking Steepster to see what’s been said about them (although I always get a little excited when I find teas that haven’t even been added to the database yet), but I decided to just go for it and got this one. I wanted a herbal, but I also wanted a vanilla. And they had vanilla rooibos’, and vanilla white teas, and other chamomiles, and then a lady came by and slapped a half-off price on this one. I figured it was a sign.

The flavour’s very light, and mostly chamomile, but there’s a sweetness of slightly-artificial-tasting honey in there. The vanilla is more in the smell, although I didn’t really drink it with a Steepster Review in mind, so I suppose I wasn’t really paying attention or searching for it in the taste. I remember smelling it though, and picking up a good vanilla and strong honey, and thinking “I bet this would be wonderful iced”.

After drinking it, the flavour’s probably too light for that, and if you made it double-strength, the chamomile would just overwhelm the honey (and supposed vanilla).

It didn’t make me sleepy, but that may just be because I’ve already felt tired most of the day. Didn’t get much sleep last night. I downed two cups of Murchie’s Assam Pure, then passed out on the couch no more than three minutes later; I woke up about four hours later, finished my statistics homework, and stumbled off to college. Came home, bought this—I like it, but not enough that I think I’ll get it again when it’s done (honey and vanilla are a good IDEA, but they’re sort of muddled in this, and I don’t like it much with the chamomile; maybe I’ll try CS’s Honey Vanilla White Tea next, that looked promising!). I’m still on the lookout for my perfect vanilla caffeine free drink for bedtime (although caffeine doesn’t do all too good a job of keeping me up anyways, but). I actually went to IGA with the intention of picking up a vanilla rooibos, but came home with this instead. Hm.

Sweet, light, oddly fruity, honey taste, but vanilla’s only in the smell. Ended up leaving the teabag in there the whole time. I took it out after five minutes, but decided that the flavour was so light that I’d just leave it in.

I decided that I have been drinking the other two of the set way too much compared to this one. Green tea is okay! I don’t hate it! I need to drink this more. So I decided to make a cup. At midnight.

Also thought it was a good idea to revisit it, since it’s been a while.

Strong jasmine smell still, although I think I smell an earthyness of the green in there somewhere.

I’m not getting the grassy taste as strongly, and I don’t know if it’s just because it’s been a while, and I’ve had some experience, but I’m finding it more enjoyable. Enough so that I might try to drink it more often.

I’ve still no idea if I should be tasting jasmine or not (or what it would taste like if I should be), but there is a pleasant ALMOST floralness somewhere in there that might be it. Otherwise, just light green. I think I made this weaker than I did my last cup. One teaspoon for a cup (eight ounces); I THINK I may have done it one teaspoon to six ounces. Which may have been my problem, because I’ve since realized that lighter teas (oolongs, greens, darjeelings) are best 1/8 instead of the 1/6 I’m used to.

It’s starting to cool, and I think I’m tasting the jasmine more. Hrm. Don’t know if it’s good or bad. Although I’m also getting a very faint bitterness.

It’s gone cold now, and it tastes better (going along nicely with the claim that this would probably be very nice iced), although yeah, jasmine (I don’t drink green teas often—I’m inexperienced!).

I still meant to try it iced. I think it would be nice iced. But I’ve got a LOT of teas I mean to try iced. Some day!

Drank this on-campus, away from computers, but I carry a little notebook exactly for this reason.

The teabag had a sort of dusty, maybe… fishy? Smell, with that greenoolongblack smell. Wet, it smelt… spinagy green. As did the tea, a bit. In an ‘oversteeped green’ way, maybe. Steeped to a dark greybrown with a green layer over top. Smells fairly vegetably, green, though darker.

I almost didn’t want to drink it because it DID smell a bit… off on top of the very strong green smell. Took a sip when it was still quite hot and got a very green taste. I returned to work, and after a minute or so got this HORRIBLE gas after taste. What.

Let it cool, and tasted it again—this weird vegetable taste. Just sort of off. But also oolong in that it reminds me a bit of the oolong I got from Murchie’s. Just stronger. Gas aftertaste again. Disgusting. I don’t know if it’s the water I used (free water on-campus put in a mug then microwaved until it started boiling). Around this point I didn’t want to finish it.

Continued to sip it though, and the gas aftertaste lessened, and it reminded me more of the magnolia oolong. Just stronger, and the tea was darker. I steeped at the recommended three minutes on the package, but I think this would need a shorter steep time than that.

The strength and the weird aftertaste was enough to make me toss the cup (or rather, go outside and dump), and I did use more water from the campus (boiled in the microwave) to make other teas, and there was no gas aftertaste, so maybe it WAS the tea. It was cheap though (1.20). But I’ll try different steep times in the future or something. Yick until then, though.

Brewed, with the mug just sitting to one side, I can SMELL the peach without even putting my nose in it. But leaning in, I also smell something… vaguely reminiscent of that Ginger Twist. I had a look of HORROR on my face there for a moment. I’m sure I scrubbed my mug well! Nooo.

Can’t really smell the tea. I think I do. Hmm.

Woah. The taste reminds me of peach wine. I’m serious. The peach isn’t that ‘fruity peach’ taste, but that ‘fermented wine’ taste. All it really needs is that alcoholic taste. Huh. Maybe I should steep it for a bit longer. I only did three minutes of the “three to five”.

The best thing about understeeping, I suppose, is that you can always just put the bag back in.

Longer steep… Doesn’t do much. Slightly stronger taste of the oolong I think. Not the peach, though. Still has a serious sort of ‘wine’ taste. Especially at the edge of my tongue. How odd. Unsure how to rate it.