Hot Apple Ginger Toddy

meh. not enough ginger and too much like a diluted apple cider. Drinkable but i feel like Herbal Infusions can do better. I’ve got at least another cup so i’ll try playing with the parameters to see how that goes. :) thanks dexter! having a great time with these.

This came to me from both MissB and Cavocorax (although this particular cup is from MissB). I was a little nervous about having so much because I am finding that often I am not a huge fan of Herbal Infusions black base but tbh, I actually really like this one. To me, it tastes like warm apple cider. In fact, the taste is spot on and the astringency is more subtle and almost adds to the flavor.

I actually smiled when drinking this cup because it reminds me of my mother who got drunk for the first time drinking hot apple ciders in Old Montreal. The thought of my tiny, drunk Mom and my very confused grandparents (no one knew the cider had alcohol) just makes me laugh. So thank you MissB (and Cavo) for sending this my way :)

Yeah. Overleafed, 185F for just over 2 minutes. Not too bitter, although I still don’t like the base tea.

Nice apple flavour. I need more apple teas without loads of cinnamon, please and thanks!

Grossly oversteeped, so I’m unsure if this is really how the tea is supposed to taste.

Strong apple flavor with a sort of granular apple feel to it (like an applesauce almost). I smell ginger however fail to taste it, yet there are some other unknown) apple-like spices in here. It’s the toddy part that’s getting to me. I’ve made many a Hot Toddy (had one the other day!) and whatever they’ve used for the whiskey (or booze) is offputting. Again though, maybe I’ve just oversteeped this and it’s the base yelling at me to do it justice.

I have to say that this tea SMELLED really tasty. I do love a spiced apple cider, and this seemed like it would be a nice blend. In fact, it is overall fairly tasty but there is just a hint of fake-ness to the apple component. It really reminds me of the taste of powdered instant apple cider, rather than fresh cider. I could definitely use more spices (ginger where?), but my main problem here is that it just came out bitter. And somehow, while being bitter, the flavor of the base tea was MIA. Oh well, thanks for the sample, MissB!

The apple-ginger is an interesting mix. It’s very much apple cider with a little bit of a kick. I feel like I’m going to fall asleep right now on the computer – too much dinner and cookies? Probably. Not a bad day though! Our little bear got a lot of great toys and we had a good time visiting people.

7/12

Another sample from Cavocorax!

I don’t much care for apple flavoured things, so admittedly I wasn’t excited to try this one.
It smells pretty good in the bag though.
And I do like apple cider, so I was kind of hoping it would be along those lines.

It ended up tasting pretty weak, though. Not really worth drinking!
Happy to have the chance to try it!

Thanks, Cavo :)

SSTTB: Pick #21

So this is/was the last tea that I pulled out of the box to try for myself. I did take a couple of the DT blooming teas because I find them really pretty and more enjoyable than most bloom teas because of their black base, and I kept the Sweet Cinnamon Pu’Erh from Verdant – but otherwise everything that I didn’t finish off and all my contributions are now sealed up and ready to be sent away!

…I just have to get around to actually mailing everything off. Ugh.

I don’t really know why I picked this one; there wasn’t much appeal from the ingredients/flavours – I guess it was just the allure of trying a limited edition blend? I made it in my timolino anyway, and I don’t recall much about what it tasted like. In my notes that I wrote for myself on the computer I just said:

- Very Flavourless
- Cup of hot Blah
- Tell them the Subway story!!!

So there you have it. Looking back right now I feel like the “Subway Story” is not as exciting/irritating as it was in the moment – but I suppose I’ll share it anyway if for no other reason than to not let “Past Me” down.

Basically I went, on my break at work, to get a Sub from the foodcourt. I only have a half hour break though, and it takes like 15 min. of it to actually acquire said Sub but I really, really wanted to get a sub. I hadn’t had anything to eat all day (and it was like 6PM) and nothing sounded better than hot bread, cheddar cheese, lettuce, spinach, and mother fucking shit tonne of pineapple, and sweet onion sauce. Mmm!

So I was in line and had picked my bread size and style as well as cheese for my VEGETARIAN sub (given I am a very strict VEGETARIAN) and was waiting to pick veggies while the Sandwhich Artist toasted it. However, in the down time the SA decided that was the PERFECT opportunity to organize ALL of the MEAT by systematically grabbing the different slices with her gloved hands and making them into nice piles. And then, when my sub was done toasting, she went back to adding my requested stuff WITHOUT CHANGING THE GLOVES.

Ugh! Are you fucking kidding me!? I even called her out on it; you’re making a VEGETARIAN sub but you’re going to handle all the meat then touch my veggies and try to serve it to me? I hate people who are rude to customer service/food service workers but I just don’t think that’s cool. It’s not vegetarian friendly any more! I understand it’s Subway and there’s a certain level of cross contamination that’s bound to happen but that’s pretty fucking direct.

To me, that’s not really any different than assholes who say “Well what if we order a Pepperoni Pizza and then you just pick the meat off it? Isn’t that vegetarian friendly?”. Excuse me? Fuck you, no it’s not! If I pee in a cup then dump the pee out, but don’t wash it before I pour your soda into the cup for you to drink that doesn’t change the fact that at least a little bit you’re drinking my pee. The whole thing is ruined.

So yeah, I called her out on it and she was all “no, I didn’t put meat on it!” so I tried explaining the whole contamination bit to her and she just went "Well I’ll give it to you for free to shut you up ". That doesn’t make me feel better; now I have a free sandwich that I wont/can’t eat and no time to wait for you to make another one for me because I’m on a fucking timed break. So yeah, no food for me. I went from fucking 11AM to 10:30PM when I got home with nothing to eat. Bad mood all day.

Tldr; this tea was blah and flavourless, and fuck Subway.

Molar ged this little gem out of the travelling tea box. Tonight seemed like a great night to sit and contemplate a cup of it as my living room was full of boys discussing basketball. Brewed up, I smelled the ginger, which worried me. But the taste was heavier on the apple, which was perfect. The base was oneself but mild and u certainly got an apple cider vibe from the tea. I don’t know if I need to have a bunch of this, but it enjoyed the cup I had.