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Procrastinating writing an essay by writing a tasting note for the first time in two years, apparently…

Bag left in while drinking. Nice malty black tea with very little astringency, slight hint of the spices with the star anise the most noticeable, followed by the cloves and then not much of the ginger except for a little warmth at the back of the throat. Take this with a pinch of salt though, I’m drinking through an advent calendar from last year so there’s a good chance the tea has just gotten old and lost flavour! (I will admit though, with some shame, that I have much older teas than this in my cupboard which still have much more flavour).

Anyway, I’m going to attempt to get on with my essay now and not get too too distracted! If I start writing dozens of tasting notes over the next few days, somebody please stage an intervention.

Edit: The more I drink, the more I feel like there is some mint coming through, though it’s not listed in the ingredients. Looking at English Tea Shop’s ‘Spicy Anise’, which looks very similar but lists mint, I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be the same blend but renamed for the ‘organic’ version.

I finally finished my online training so I’m baaaack! I’ve missed you guys. Drinking this today because it’s instant and we have people coming to view the house later today so I didn’t want to make a mess with loose leaf. I still don’t get why this is called ‘dreamtime’ when it’s full of sugar and caffeine. Still, it’s pretty tasty once you get past the name.

One of the teas Jack sent up with my birthday present. I’m surprised by how quickly I’ve gone through them! This is my second to last teabag of the Earl Grey, and I’m finding myself wishing I had more. It’s nothing mind blowing or super unique, but it’s a really nice EG with a good balance between the tea and the bergamot and it goes down well. It’s one of those teas that is just really easy to drink, you know? It’s not bergamot-mad like the Clipper EG I like so much, but it’s also not as weak as most bagged teas. If I were in the market for a quick and easy Earl Grey, I think this would be a top contender. Especially if I get more freebies!

I haven’t been around for a few days, so I’m just leaving a quick note here so I don’t get out of the habit of it. This last week has been really busy with my studying, and we also had to move my brother back home from uni for a few days when his lease ran out on his old place, and then move him all the way back when his new lease kicked in today. I’ve still been drinking tea, mostly this one – which is still delicious, resteeps fantastically and is actually less astringent now than it used to be – and some Taylor’s of Harrogate samples that my cousin (who works for them) sent up with my birthday present. I’ve just been too busy to read or write any notes. I am missing Steepster like crazy! Hopefully I’ll get on top of my work load enough in the next couple of days to start writing up more notes again. I hope everyone is doing well!

Cold brew, though it’s not the best weather for it. I left it steeping for much longer than I originally intended, so it’s not quite as sweet and delicate as I’d hoped. It is still very tasty though, and quite different to the profile I get from this one when it’s hot. It’s thick with fruity notes, mostly stonefruits, with flowery florals which complement the fruitiness well. Peach, plum, papaya, lychee, white grape, rose, honeysuckle and gardenia all meld together with a rocky mineral backbone which I suspect is more noticeable because of the almost 24 hour steep I gave this. With a pinch of soft brown sugar, this is delicious. Bumping my rating up a couple of points from 75, because I appreciate when a nice tea makes a good cold brew as well as hot. We love a dual purpose!

Morning latte, inspired by the pictures and descriptions of the lattes VariaTEA is always making, and a recent conversation on here about this tea vs. Read My Lips, which led to a full blown conversation where basically everyone enabled me to buy chocolate. When comparing the two teas, I prefer this one because it doesn’t have that artificial waxy chocolate flavour which I dislike so much in RML and most other chocolate teas. I’d rather have creamy vanilla mint than chocolate mint in tea form any day! That conversation got me thinking about this tea, and how much I like it and hadn’t had it for ages. It got me thinking about how I hadn’t tried it as a latte yet, how incredibly decadent that sounded, and then I couldn’t stop thinking about it until I made one. So here we are. I’ve just finished off a huge mug of sweet, creamy, minty, satisfying Santa’s Secret Latte and it was heavenly. I was pleasantly surprised with how strongly the tea itself came through, making it more ‘tea-like’ and less like a babyccino or a warm milkshake. I was also surprised to notice some background spices, something which I knew was in here because of the description, but never really believed or noticed before, kind of like some mythical old wives’ tale. I’m surprised by how well it all works together. This is a tea I will definitely be sad to part with. I’ll probably try to strategically plan my Canada trip (if it ever happens) in the winter so I can pick up more of this.

Sipped down last night when I was too tired to write a note. I kind of fell behind on the online courses through the week with birthday shenanigans, so yesterday I really pushed myself to catch back up. I drank coffee while I was working and by the time I finished for the day at 10pm I was mentally exhausted, starving, and had somehow given myself a blister on my thumb from writing so much (I keep notes in a notebook as I’m studying). My original plan was to finish around 8/9ish, make myself a strawberry daiquiri and relax with an episode of The Sinner on Netflix. Instead I finished after 10pm, heated up my long-neglected dinner, and made a crème caramel rooibos latte to enjoy alongside a short YouTube video before heading straight to bed. Sadly this was kind of underwhelming as a latte and it used up the last of my leaf. The caramel flavour didn’t really hold up, so it was more of a woodsy, sour rooibos latte with a hint of caramel. I ended up adding syrup to sweeten it, which I’m trying not to do too often. It was fine, but I was too tired to fully enjoy it anyway – I only made it half way through the video I was watching before giving up and going to bed. Not the saddest sipdown ever, but I wish I’d been able to enjoy it more.

243/402

Well, I made this as a hot brew without reading my previous note on it, which meant I didn’t see my reminder to myself that it was astringent and I should steep it at a lower temperature. As predicted, this was very bitter at my usual 80 degrees Celsius. It’s such a shame because it smells like it’s going to be a really sweet, delicate and delicious jasmine, but the bitterness of the poor quality base tea just overpowers it. Here’s hoping I actually remember to lower the steeping temperature for my third and final cup!

I was really excited to try this one because I love pink grapefruit, and the scent of it in this was absolutely mouth-watering. I again left it for a few hours as I would with any cold brew, and was disappointed when I came back to it to find that the water actually just tasted like orange juice. I tried an overnight resteep as I did with the other one, but this didn’t turn out nearly as well. Mostly it’s like drinking water, with a very slight hint of pink grapefruit and orange if you squint. Hopefully the pink grapefruit comes out more with a shorter steep, like is actually intended for this.

I didn’t get around to drinking this yesterday on my actual birthday, so I finished it off tonight instead as a latte while we did the virtual pub quiz over Zoom. Usually this isn’t something I get excited about because it’s vanilla, and my dislike of vanilla is well-documented. As a latte though, it really shone! I mean it’s still just vanilla and not very exciting, but it was sweet and creamy and indulgent, which is all you can really ask for of vanilla. I had a break from actual birthday cake today since I had so much of it yesterday, and this was a good substitute so that now I’m ready to overindulge again tomorrow! My cake has fresh cream, so I’m going to have to finish it all in one go. Wish me luck! (There’s not actually that much left).

Sipdown 242/402