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Sipdown no. 14 of 2020 (no. 609 total).

It’s a cliche by now, but 2020 was a horrible year all around. It was also bad for me on the tea front.

As my usual life routines crumbled in the wake of the pandemic and election doom scrolling, tea was one of the things that fell away. Mostly because I couldn’t really enjoy it. My coffee consumption increased instead, of coffees with no subtlety, but a huge punch — I didn’t have to think about them too much. They were just a caffeine delivery vehicle.

Reading also fell away for the first time in my life. I couldn’t get into a book, because the minute an alert came in on my phone about the next horrifying thing, I felt compelled to look at it. Binge watching took its place. Name a show on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon. If it’s not a comedy, a cartoon, or a reality show, I’ve probably seen it.

Add to all of that an unseasonably hot summer (during which our AC decided to become less than optimal), and while I was able to keep some iced tea in the fridge for most of the summer, I did not drink much of anything hot. Then when the weather transitioned to cooler temps, I never resumed the habit.

And yet, I really do need to drink my tea — we are looking at a potential addition/remodel this coming year and I have so much STUFF I have to get rid of before then that I have to start now. And not just with the tea.

As for this one, it’s still got its silky mouthfeel and a fruity quality and finish that is really honey, but that I often mistake for something else. Plum maybe. Which is all the more amazing when I looked back at my original note and discovered I’d written it 5 years ago.

It’s freaky to think I’ve spent more than 10 years of my life with tea and Steepster a part of it.

In any case, how are you?

Sipdown no. 13 of 2020 (no. 608 total).

Continuing on my iced shu kick, we sipped this one down cold. Refreshing, if a bit earthier than the usual cold brew tea, but the rose lightens that aspect a little. And it didn’t seem to matter to no. 2, who was very eager for the last batch to be strained and drinkable.

For my thoughts on this hot, see original note.

My original note for this tea is under a duplicate entry, which is currently inaccessible. I get a 404 error when I go to that page. Frustrating. New overlords, if you are listening, can you fix that please?

Sipdown no. 12 of 2020 (no. 607 total).

After the discussion of cold brew puer, I was in the mood. So my last two cold brew pitchers have been of this tea. The little nests made it really easy — I just unwrapped them and plunked them into the pitcher. The first time I left them in the fridge way longer than I intended, and they pretty much unfurled themselves completely. The second time, they retained some of their shape after about 1.5 days steeping.

Shu is actually quite pleasant cold, at least the ones I have tired. This one is. It’s like a very full bodied black tea. Not particularly the best vehicle for discerning nuances in flavor, color, aroma, etc. but the trade off is a very refreshing cold tea.

I wish I could read what I wrote about this before so I could figure out if I have anything to add. I can’t even tell how I rated it before.

Grumble.

Sipdown no. 11 of 2020 (no. 606 total).

A little smoky for my taste in cold brew, but no. 2 loved it. I couldn’t keep it in the fridge for more than a day.

See previous notes for more detail.

Hope everyone is safe and healthy.

Sipdown no. 10 of 2020 (no. 605 total).

I could have sworn I just posted a note on this. Maybe it didn’t take?

Luckily, it was short. I just noted we polished off the rest of this as cold brew and it was every bit as tasty as it was hot. The first two notes provide detail upon which I can’t improve.

Sipdown no. 9 of 2020 (no. 604 total).

This was an accidental sipdown. I am sipping down from lowest rated to highest rated, generally. But I was in a hurry and I have a lot of pu-erh that at this rate I’ll never get around to drinking, so I used this to make a cold brew.

It’s a mild pu-erh which is why I rated it on the high side, and for that reason it made a very nice cold brew — just a tad earthy, but not so much that no. 2, who is the primary consumer of the cold brew these days, thought it worthy of mention. He just demolished the pitcher’s worth.

For more detail, see previous note. In my original note I mentioned I didn’t get much earthiness, which may be why no. 2 didn’t notice it either. My tastebuds are, I hope, a bit more refined than they were when I wrote the original note 10 years ago….

Sipdown no. 8 of 2020 (no. 603 total).

It was sort of weird as a cold brew. Weirder than I thought a cinnamon tea would be.

Why was it weird? I guess the part of my original note that mentioned the subtlety of the cinnamon flavor is closest to coming up with a reason. There isn’t enough cinnamon flavor for it to be obviously cinnamon, but there’s obviously something other than tea there. The puzzlement is what makes it weird, I suppose.

But the kids must not have had the same thought because they plowed through it pretty fast, particularly no. 2.

I hope everyone is staying safe — we are good so far. The stay at home is getting a bit old, but as our household falls into several risk categories I would rather stay home than risk our collective healths.

Sipdown no. 7 of 2020 (no. 602 total).

We drank the last of this as a cold brew and it made a good one. It has a rather intense tea essence. Like Nestea but obviously better. But that makes it a really excellent iced tea.

Sipdown no. 6 of 2020 (no. 601 total).

We had a virtual coffee chat for my team at work and I brought the last of this along.

I must say that my group is doing a nice job of keeping people in touch even though we’re on week three of working from home. I probably see some people more on video now than I did in person.

Anyway, this tea. With age, it’s a little less juicy on the tea front and the cherry has a sort of “dry” aspect for lack of a better word. But it was still enjoyable. The original note provides an interesting record to compare this to from back when this tea was young.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy!

Sipdown no. 5 of 2020 (no. 600 total). A milestone!

We drank the last of this as cold brew and it wasn’t as weird that way as it might sound.

As I mentioned in the original note, if you’re looking for a chocolate mint tea, this is a nice one. The mint is a little stronger than the chocolate, but not significantly so.