Gingerbread Smoke

Was hoping some ginger would help clear sinuses, unclog my head. Ummmm nope.
I can’t even taste this. Maybe it’s not very ginger. Dunno. Will write proper tasting note once I can “taste” it. For now this did not have the desired effect. :((

Ehhhhh. This one is really not doing it for me. It really isn’t even that smokey for a Lapsang base, and the ginger is somewhat artificial tasting. Glad I got it in a swap and didn’t purchase a 2oz package!

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to try this one BrewTEAlly Sweet!

Additional notes: I’ll be drinking this one and another cup of the Inscape blend today, hopefully while finally finishing up the remainder of NOS4A2 today! I like the book… but I perhaps expected more zanniness from the son of Stephen King? There are more pop culture references that might apply to me, including some unexpected mentions of some David Mitchell books! I’m a David Mitchell fan. Oversteeping this one might be the thing to do…. it remains smooth but gets deeper. And I mean REALLY oversteep — like the infuser I was draining sideways fell in the mug again after I walked away type of oversteep.

Edited to add: Finished the book before the resteeps of Gingerbread Smoke and Inscape! What a trip… it’s amazing to me that the guy who writes the fastest turning pages for me, now has a son that also has me flipping the pages (these might be the only “page turners” I read?)

Backlog:

I really liked this one. Spicy, sweet, with hints of smoke. The smoke isn’t overwhelming, but there’s enough in there to contrast with the other flavors.

I can taste the gingerbread and even the sweet, buttery “cake-like” flavors to make it a true gingerbread and not a ginger tea. The black tea base is smooth and robust.

Really good.

Steep Information:
Amount: 2 tsp
Water: 500ml at 200°F
Tool: Breville One-Touch Tea Maker BTM800XL
Steep Time: 2 minutes 30 seconds
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: GINGER
Steeped Tea Smell: smoke, ginger
Flavor: bakey, ginger, sweet
Body: Full
Aftertaste: toasty
Liquor:dark translucent red brown

Rating: 2/4 leaves

http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2013/09/52teas-loose-leaf-black-tea-gingerbread.html

Woof! This tea is strong. It’s nice though. It’s strong in the gingerbread flavor and is accompanied by a smoky black base. It’s really strong actually. It tastes like a burnt gingerbread cookie with melted icing(in a good way of course..) This tea would be really good with a touch of honey and some creamer. YUMMM

HHTTB

Oh! I think I like this one! There is a bit of ginger in there, but it is more of a sweet ginger as opposed to a ginger with bite or kick. I’m usually one for very strong ginger, but this works well here. There is a little smoke, but it isn’t overpowering or dominating at all. This tea seems really well rounded to me. I’m really enjoying this one!

Last night I spent the entire night folding, it was great, made a few classic designs and tried out some new ones. My favorite of the new modular origami pieces that I worked on was a PHiZZ (pentagon hexagon zig-zag) Dodecahedron, the units are really simple to make, but interlocking the pieces can be a real pain. I foresee lots of them in my future.

Today’s tea has a bit of a smoky feel, a Gingerbread Smoke feel to be exact. This blend by 52teas is a combination of Premium Black Teas (including Lapsang Souchong) Ginger Root, and Organic Flavors. The aroma is more or less exactly what I expected from a tea named Gingerbread Smoke, it is quite richly smoky with warm spices and an especially strong kick of ginger. Everything about the aroma of this tea is warm, from the lingering memories of a fire to the spices, good for sniffing on a chilly evening.

Giving the leaves a nice steeping brings out a sweet quality to the spices and ginger, really bringing out the cookie quality of the tea. There is of course lots of smoke, though it is not as strong as the dry leaves. As a finish there is a hint of malt. The liquid is sweet ginger and lots of smoke, it also has a finish of malt…suddenly I am craving ginger snaps.

The taste is pretty true to the name, at first you get a surprisingly gentle burn of ginger, and of course where there is fire there is usually smoke, so the next taste note is the mild smoke. The tea has a natural sweetness from the ginger, which fades to a hint of oakiness. Usually I am not the biggest fan of 52tea’s black tea base (nothing wrong with it, just doesn’t do it for me) but this one I like, most likely thanks to the added Lapsang Souchong. Spicy smoky teas are a big win in my book now, certainly going to be on the lookout for more!

For photos (including origami!) and blog: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/52teas-gingerbread-smoke-tea-review.html

This is the first tea I decided to try out of the package MissB was holding for me (OMG! Thank you SO MUCH. I’m now at 258 from 219. :) ).

It… could be more. It’s actually pretty good, but it’s not quite what I was hoping for. There’s ginger, there’s rich black tea, but there’s hardly any smoke and there’s no molasses. I guess the “smoke” would be the slight campfire aftertaste. And by campfire aftertaste, I mean a flavour like when you’re slowly roasting marshmallows but then you accidentally set it on fire, so it’s delightful and melty and roasted, but there’s a bit of char as well, that usually tastes mildly yet distinctly of pine or cedar. THAT kind of campfire aftertaste.

So. I think I will be drying some ginger to add to the tea, I’ll also be mixing in some marshmallow root (IDK, I just feel it’s necessary), a few cracked peppercorns, and some Russian Caravan. I’ll probably end up having it with molasses as well, unless I decide to really go too far and dry some molasses and grind it up to add to the tea.

I’ll probably decide to go too far. :)

(1.5 tsp for ~11 oz)