Té de Frutas

This tea smells like fresh peach with a hint of rose. It smells more like real peach than other teas. Unsweetened, it’s mild with a hint of peach at the end, with floral notes. Sweetened, the peach and rose flavors are not that strong, but they are recognizable. It has a similar taste to the Napa Blanc with its balance of fruits and florals, though I find that I prefer the latter. It’s a fairly good rose tea, but now that I’ve consumed several rose teas, I think I might not enjoy them as much as I thought I would. If the flavor was closer to the smell, I think I would enjoy it more.

Thank you Maria for the sale a while back! I love the tiny little flowers in the blend. This certainly doesn’t taste like decaf, just a lighter black tea. But that works for the lovely flavors. The scent of the dry leaves is identical to the flavor: mostly lychee and sweet strawberry. Not really peach to me. Very tasty, crisp and refreshing. Not a boring decaf at all! I should have more to say about this one with so many elements to it…
Steep #1 // just boiled // 3 min

I was able to visit a store again! :) The clerk was very nice. She made me a sample of this tea. This is French for ‘Fruit Tea’, which is a really good name. This is certainly a fruity too. Scent- I get mostly lychee, and some strawberry. Flavour- It is sweet, with strong notes of lychee, the strawberry and peach flavours are more subtle.

Sipdown!

Man, the past few days have been really really encouraging, freelance-wise. First there was the unexpected rush editing job I did yesterday that I think turned out well.

Then, I managed to nab a completely new freelance writing client this afternoon! When I responded to the client’s call for writers to write profiles about independent businesses in Toronto, they initially turned me down saying that they had enough writers show interest, but also saying they might want to get back in touch with me in a few weeks.

In response, I said that I’d love to hear from them again, and that when they do contact me, I’d be willing to write stories about the suburb that I live in, Scarborough, which doesn’t get much love in the press.

The client’s response? Something along the lines of “Well, if you WANT to write about SCARBOROUGH instead of downtown, then we’ll hire you ASAP.”

So, yeah. That happened.

After that, I completely reorganized the bookshelves in my office to make my main reference materials (style guides, dictionaries, grammar textbooks) easier to reach, and also to clear away clutter.

Now I’m suffused with the satisfied glow of a hard day’s work.

Um, yeah, the tea. Hmm..

This is nice and fruity/floral, but I have to admit that it doesn’t taste as sweet as it smells. It’s nicel, but mostly I’m going for it because it’s decaf and because it’s an easy sipdown.

So, um, yeah. That was my day today.

Thanks very much to Sil for sending me a sample of this.

Technical difficulties with this tea. I put it into my David’s “Favorite Tumbler” and I think the metal must have expanded with the heat because I can’t get the plastic lid back off to let the tea cool faster. It’s an issue that has been happening often with this tumbler. The only other cup I have in my room to pour the tea into is a glow in the dark silicone cup and I can’t tell if it’s effecting the taste of my tea. The flavors are falling flat. I can get a little lychee, but it’s pretty flavorless aside from that. :/ I give up.

Thank you Kat Maria! I cold-brewed this overnight and am enjoying it right now. I just took a bit as the rest will go to TK. (yay! decaf!) It’s really good. Naturally sweet without being crazy about it, and I can taste the fruit. I don’t know why I didn’t expect this to taste as good as it does, but I’m very pleasantly surprised.

Sipdown!! (175)

This cup has much more lychee flavor than the last. If I didn’t know any better, I would assume I was drinking a straight lychee tea with no other flavors. It is a great tasting tea, I just wished it delivered on what it promised. Nonetheless, I am happy to have tried it and may even restock when I get my cupboard under control (though I believe that means I have to go to San Francisco). Thank you for sharing, Kat_Maria!!

It’s been a bummer of a day. I just haven’t felt up to doing much aside from resting due to pain and insomnia. I woke up from a nap though, which was really nice. I don’t think I need any more caffeine for the rest of the day, so I thought I’d check out this tea I got last week.

In the tin, this has a very intense fruit aroma of strawberry, peach and lychee. I decided to steep this for 3 minutes according to package directions. The flavor of the tea is definitely a lot more delicate than the aroma of it. Thankfully this doesn’t have the bitterness of some decaf teas I’ve tried, but I was hoping for a little more of a flavor punch. I’m getting a bit of strawberry and peach but the lychee is difficult to find and something is a tad astringent about the whole deal. A pinch of sugar was helpful. Still, I have pretty low expectations when it comes to decaf black teas and overall I think this is o.k.

I decided to stick some in the fridge and cold brew it overnight in the Lupicia handy cooler. Maybe that will help bring out some of the flavor a bit more?

While I like this tea a little bit more than Lupicia’s Lychee, it is not anything particularly striking my fancy. It has all these nice fruit in there but somehow it is kind of… boring. Like an aunt’s birthday party kind of boring. You know, there’s all these good homemade pastries and cakes but then… damn, does it drag and the clock must have frozen!

Mabe it’s because its decaf? It’s good to have a decaf tea that pretends to be a black blend though, once in a while every tea drinker needs something like that.

I think I’ll move on to some oolongs soon today. It’s time!