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Sipdown 155/397

The first tea made with my new temperature-variable kettle! I don’t know how I made it this long without one. I raised the temperature, not to boiling but higher than typical for the way I brew green teas, and left it steeping much longer this time and got a lot more flavour out of it this way. Still indistinctly ‘fruity’ but far less underwhelming. Upping my rating a little from 59 to reflect this.

Drinking at work again but this time on a quiet lock-up shift. Much better! I drank it black, and there’s little astringency so I don’t need milk which drowns out the caramel flavour. The tea is actually a present malty note, not just a bland backbone for the caramel. The caramel is sweet and buttery. Yep, this is much better.

Edit: 400th tasting note! Woot!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I hope 2019 is good to you all.

I started the year of with a cup of Happiness, because well, it’s a cup of happiness. I picked it based on name alone and didn’t even look at the flavours or the recommended steeping parameters (boiling water??) so it’s not the most successful cup of tea I’ve ever had, but at least I’ve got enough leaf to do another cup properly next time. Guessing the flavour before I looked, I only knew it tasted generally fruity, and my mam said she could taste cinnamon (but she has a cold and her tastebuds are off). After finding out it’s peach and grapefruit, I can pick out a grapefruit note at the end of the sip but no peach. This is probably due to the fact that I steeped it at waaaaay too low a temperature – I din’t even know there was rooibos in it – and for too short a time, so I won’t hold it against this tea.

Here’s to a wonderful year!

Sipdown 154/397

I’m not getting any orange or citrus notes from this tea, which I’d say is a good thing since I find orange and caramel a slightly weird flavour combination. I remembered liking this more, but I think I’m confusing it with another tea since I seem to remember chunks of some sort of fudge, but there are none here. The oolong looks roasted from its appearance and the dark colour of the tea, but there’s none of the strong nutty tones I would expect from a good roasted oolong. It’s not a particularly strong tea, even though I overleafed slightly with it being my last cup, with the caramel flavour being stronger than the base though not by much. I had to add a whole teaspoon of sugar to coax out the butteriness of the caramel, which is something I prefer not to do if I can help it. Not a tea I will miss, which I guess is for the best since it’s long since discontinued.

Sample from Janelle ’s Mystery Box.

This is easily my favourite genmaicha I’ve ever tried. I’m not a huge fan of green vegetal teas or more savoury teas in general, vastly preferring black when given the choice, so I’m sure the addition of black tea to this mix has a lot to do with it. The caramel and vanilla flavours meld together really nicely, and create a sweeter genmaicha than any other I’ve found, whilst keeping the flavour more on the natural-tasting side. It’s definitely not an overpowering sweetness. Reminds me of Butiki’s Caramel Vanilla Assam, but with a lighter body and a roasty twist. Yummy! If I ever find a way of ordering from Nina’s – I had a look at their website and they don’t seem to have an online store – this would quite possibly go on the list. It is definitely the only genmaicha I would consider purchasing.

Thanks for sharing, VariaTEA! Sipdown 153/397.

This was the other tea I attempted to make at work on Saturday, and another failure. This time the teabag was left in the hot water for over an hour, and by the time I got around to it was ice cold. I expected extremely bitter tea, and was pleasantly surprised to find that this was not only drinkable but actually not bad. No mango flavour to be found, but the base tea was mild and not at all astringent until the final sip. I gulped it down iced and it was fine.

I had the idea to take a ziploc bag of individually-wrapped teabags to work with me since I have quite a lot of them and never really reach for them at home. It seemed like a brilliant idea, if it weren’t for the fact that I NEVER get enough time to make a cup of tea at work. This was the first I attempted to make yesterday on my 12-hour super busy matchday shift, and I ended up leaving the teabag in around 20-30 minutes before I had a chance to take it out and add milk. It was only very slightly warm when I drank it and it was the first thing I’d drank all day so I gulped the whole cup without paying much attention to it. I do remember thinking the caramel was weak, though. Unsurprising now I’ve read my old note back and realised I usually use 2 teabags for a cup of this. Plus, it’s embarrassingly 6 (!!!!) years old now, so that could account for a loss in flavour. It’s about time I finished these.

Sad sipdown (152/397)

Goodbye Golden Orchid, you were great and will be missed. Here’s hoping Brendan will reblend this in the future, it would be a definite purchase for me. I steeped the last leaf at a lower temperature hoping to find some nuances that were missed at boiling, but sadly this just made it lose flavour. Note to self, if this comes back, stick to boiling.

Drank with sugar, I am getting super intense marmalade this time around. Just as tasty as it was 2 years ago, only a little bit lighter. This could definitely be from underleafing, though – I had slightly less than a full spoon of leaf left and I didn’t feel like compromising on a smaller mug. The orange note intensified as the cup cools. I bet this would have been good iced.

Sipdown 151/397

Welp, I caved and opened another new instant tea. I figure it’s only a small sampler and I’ve had them all entirely too long, so I should try to get through them the same as I am with my other ‘proper’ teas. I’ll save a proper review for later since I have to go to bed now – I’ve got to get up early in the morning for my first driving lesson since I failed my test over a year ago, and I don’t want to be tired for it. It’s fruity, but I’m not sure I’d say cranberry and raspberry specifically, and quite sour too. I think I’ll use less tea crystals next time.