Earl Black

In the middle of trying to quit my ridiculous tobacco habit for what’s probably about the tenth time. Can’t even explain how bad I feel. I think tea is helping a little bit, this stuff’s certainly refreshing and a little calming. I just need to try to flush this toxic crap out of my system for good. Nicotine is EVIL, EVIL, EVIL. Argh.. :(

I haven’t been online for a while but should be getting back to normal very shortly. Whilst doing my CBT for a motorbike I had an accident that has left me bed ridden for almost a week. Whilst turning a corner I turned the bike too much and fell down with the bike landing on top of me. As a result my left leg is very badly bruised and swollen leaving me not able to walk and my back has succumbed to further damage meaning I couldn’t move really at all.

I am alright through, my leg is still bruised and my back is still stiff and painful but I can at least walk around briefly now. :) I have another bike lesson on 27th July so hopefully I will pass the test this time.

Not had many teas since it’s a 30 degree c at least heatwave in the UK right now and well the fact that I couldn’t walk means I couldn’t make any tea. I missed it so much.

This is my first tea to celebrate being able to walk and drink again. Yahooooo!

Side note – A spoon of sugar really finishes this tea off beautifully.

On the fourth day of Christmas, 52teas gave to me Earl Black.

(Backlogging. 4 days ago. Monday afternoon.)

Upon cutting open the packet, I immediately identified the smell as Black Current Bai Mu Dan and thought we had gotten that before I pulled out the label. Taste-wise, the first and third steeps tasted pretty much identical to what I remember the Black Current Bai Mu Dan tasting like. The second steep I thought I could taste some citrus from the bergamot. The fourth steep was close to too watery to be drinkable and I prolly wouldn’t do again.

I’m rating this 74 same as the Black Current Bai Mu Dan.

2nd steep: 2 mins, 150 F
3rd steep: 3 mins, 160 F
4th steep: 4 mins, 160 F

I’m finishing this off from the 12 days of tea.

I do enjoy white teas when I drink them, but I tend to reach for them with less exuberance than black tea. This one is light, fruity, and refreshing. I enjoy the Black Currant flavor, and if I were more of a white tea lover, this would probably rank higher on my rating scale. This is better than I remember; (probably because I don’t have a cold today) I’m catching more of the subtleties of the tea. If a taste could be described as “pretty”, this tea would qualify.

I’ve noticed that this tea periodically goes on sale for half off which is a stellar deal, so if I catch this on sale while I’m ordering other teas, I would probably throw this one in as well. Upping my rating a smidge.

52teas 12 Days of Christmas Sampler 2012 – Day 4

Sorry I’ve been M.I.A. I went to my fiancé’s parent’s house for Christmas, and I don’t like to travel with my teas. So I’ll be completing the rest of this sampler pretty late. But better late than never!! I haven’t looked at 52teas’ site or Steepster for over a week. Therefore, the rest of these teas are going to be a surprise to me! :)

Oooh, I haven’t had this one before! The dry leaf aroma is juicy black currant. I don’t actually smell any bergamot, which is surprising. Bergamot usually lets itself be KNOWN! This just smells like sugary candy. Yum!

The brewed tea aroma is black currant and white tea. There’s still no bergamot to be found. Even in the taste! All I can smell and taste is juicy black currant and white tea. To me, that’s enough. I LOVE this tea!! But I’m just left feeling confused…where’s the berg???

The white tea base is naturally sweet but not too much so. Even though it smells sugary, it doesn’t taste sugary. Rather, it’s a sweet and sour tea. Really unique and very delicious. But I have to lower it a few points because there’s just no bergamot to be found anywhere, and this is supposed to be an Earl Grey white. And I’m left wondering what the Black Currant Bai Mu Dan tastes like…

I haven’t ordered from 52teas in a while, but when Red Leaf Tea offered a coupon for people who ordered from 52teas, I decided to take a perusal of their stocks to see if anything interested me. I do actually remember this one being released but I didn’t look closely and I assumed it was an Earl Grey black tea. I haven’t had the best successes with 52teas black teas in the past, so I didn’t give it a second glance until the other day when I noticed it was actually a black currant-bergamot white tea. Well then! I love bergamot, I love black currant, and a white tea seemed a decent base. I was excited.

The dry tea, however, smells disconcertingly like grape medicine. Hmm. The tea didn’t come with steeping parameters, and I don’t have a “default” for white teas because I don’t make them all that often, so I guesstimated some parameters after looking around a bit. The steeped tea also, unfortunately, smells like grape medicine. The taste is… weird. I have to say I don’t get bergamot or black currant out of this. It is oddly sweet (like really sweet!). Ok maybe some black currant candy flavors, but they are more grapey than curranty to me (and I don’t like grape flavoring). Meh. I can’t get the grape medicine out of my nose. And that sweetness, like there’s some kind of sweet additive, is not helping. It’s not undrinkable, but I am not likely to want another cup.

Oh well, onto the swap list it goes.

fourth day of Christmas~~

I do not like how this one smells, which is kind of weird because I love black currant. I guess it’s the bergamot combined with it, because my initial thought was like day 3: citrus.

I agree with Dinosara, it’s definitely more like candy than a black currant flavor. It doesn’t remind me very much of black currant, like the black currant bai mu dan from 52 teas (and I believe I have one from ZenTea). It’s just not very enjoyable for me.

I’ve let it cool down now and it’s a bit better, but the floral notes of the white tea kind of make it a bit too much for me. I suppose this works better in the summer but I can’t say I’m really a fan. At least I got to try it, I was tempted many times before about maybe getting a pouch.

12 Days of Tea #4! And the first one I had yet to previously sample!

This was one of the teas that I had been wavering on so much about purchasing. However… I’m glad I didn’t. All I got from this was a black currant flavoured white tea. And given that I dislike Black Currant Bai Mu Dan…. I was not impressed. Couldn’t taste bergamot, but the black currant flavour that comes off quite fakey to me would have ruined it anyways. My roommate thought about the same (I noticed it was one she didn’t end up re-steeping).

Okay, the next tea! Again, I was sceptical as soon as I saw the label.

I almost always am when I see ‘Earl Grey’ and it’s not a black base. Earl Grey is a black tea. The end. Any other base with bergamot is simply bergamot flavoured. But then that’s just personal taste, really. And honestly, it’s also splitting hairs. Yes, I’m fully capable of seeing this myself.

Now, in the past I’ve tended to have a rather rocky relationship with Earl Grey or really most anything bergamot flavoured. Often it turns into a grey, dusty, kind of floral and somewhat attic-y sort of flavour for me, although there have been a few exceptions here. The smoky Earl Grey from Kusmi being a famous example. Gosh, that one is Teh Nom!

I also, these days, have a somewhat rocky relationship with white tea. I had a period where Bai Mu Dan was what I kept on hand as Celebration Tea. These days I get mostly a funny sort of squash-y, cucumber-y flavour profile from it which I don’t really care much for in my tea.

So what we’ve actually got here so far is a tea base I don’t much care for flavoured with a fruit I’m not a fan of.

Great.

Well. Minus times minus equals plus, right?

Then there is the black currant. I’ve been fairly fond of black currant flavoured tea for as long as I can remember. That flavouring has never really let me down. On top of that there was a black currant flavoured white tea from 52teas that was extremely pleasant. So looking at it this way I’ve got something which I know to be a hit with some bergamot in it.

Actually in spite of my misgivings about bergamot in general, the idea of the bergamot and black currant combination struck me as rather appealing. I would have just felt more confident about it if it had been on a black base, I think.

Now that I’ve gone around and been ambivalent about this whole thing for a bit, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I think it sounds pleasant.

The aroma is fairly close to how I remember that black currant flavoured Bai Mu Dan smelling only with a modicum of citrus added to the mix. Well that’s good enough.

The flavour was really much the same way, only it gave me a number of funny associations. First I thought it had a somewhat floral sort of note to it, but that went away pretty quickly. Then I thought it gave me a funny sort of plastic-y association, but that note did not go away. It stayed and after a few sips I was able to pin point where it was coming from.

It’s chewing gum. Not any particular flavour or kind of chewing gum, but that sort of feeling that you get in the mouth when chewing gum. I think it has to do with how the aftertaste is highly fruity and very long, as though it’s somehow sticky and has attached itself to my tastebuds. It’s like I’ve just been eating a lot of black currant and bergamot flavoured sweets. Winegums, maybe. Something that makes the mouth sticky.

And that brings me back to the base again, because now having tasted it, I still think I would have preferred a black base. This white one seems too delicate for this massive amount of fruit, and a black base might have been able to hold it up a bit better.

Thank you raritea for this sample!

So truth be told I don’t think I’ve ever had “normal” earl grey. I may have had one other variant of earl grey but from what I recall there was a hell of a lot of bergamot in it. This tea though? I actually quite enjoy the balance between the black currant and the bergamot. I Think I’d prefer drinking this one over franks black currant bai mu Dan. :) I had this first thing in the morning though I generally prefer straight black tea because I have a ton of running around to do. My parents have decided to come up over Christmas so I need to pick up a few things for them. Not to mention just general shopping before everyone panics because the stores are closing for a whole day!

Good start to the morning :) thanks again raritea!