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I opened a whole new tin of this today (a celebration in itself) to share with my new friend Y, who turned out to be exactly the person I needed to talk to about a specific thing. If there ever was a time and place for the serendipitea pun, trust me, this is it.

Either way, I made a whole pot of this, albeit a small pot, and then I had to run off to the ‘Possible Encounters’ exhibit by this guy: http://felixdavey.com/ leaving half of the tea behind.

So I decided to experiment a little and ice it; I’ve been curious about how something as desserty as Pleine Lune would fare iced. I poured the remains into a pitcher, but seeing as it was only about 1/3 full, I dropped the rest of the leaves in there, too, and topped it up with cold water. I’ll let it steep like that over night – not ideal conditions and not a very elegant experiment, for sure, but let’s give it a try. It’s more fun this way than not at all, after all.

I’ll update this note later with my (as always, highly scientific) findings.

[Surreptitiously acquired from Mariage Frères in London, August 2013.]

And this is the last unlogged tea! I’ve been saving this for last, because I knew how bad this was going to be. (I tried this before, see. Once.)

This is a very nice rooibos. There’s this surprising, buttery note both in the nose and in the cup. It mingles quite deliciously with the berryful body of the tea. And then…

…chili!

Seriously, the horror.

This is the first and last chili tea I try. I love spicy food. I love chili. But in a tea? To my palate, it’s an abomination.

Which is a shame, because I’m sure someone who enjoys chili teas might really like this one – hence the (possibly surprisingly) generous grade. It’s not you, Fruity Chili, it’s me.

I’ll see if I can find a new home for it; I vaguely recollect reading ‘I love rooibos and chili teas!’ on someone’s presentation, and I will hunt this person down.

[Purchased at Tehörnan in Uppsala, fall 2012.]

…and I will soldier on. After this one, there’s just one more unlogged tea in my cupboard.

This is one I’ve waited to write a note for, because I’ve found it confusing. It’s so frustrating when there’s a hint of something in terms of scent or taste that you just can’t place. But now I’ve finally figured it out. Incense!

It’s a pretty good strawberry for a simple rooibos, but the vanilla is only a scented vanilla – taste wise, it turns into a this little kick of perfumey incense.

This is not as vile as it sounds, but, either way, it’s not a favourite of mine.

[Purchased at Tehörnan in Uppsala, fall 2012.]

Here’s another basic, plain, fruity rooibos. It’s the kind of tea I’d put in my thermos on a chilly autumn day I planned to spend in the forest, hunting chanterelles.

It’s chanterelle-picking tea – robust, simple, foresty.

[Purchased at Tehörnan in Uppsala, fall 2012.]

When I got this, it was mostly an experiment – I haven’t been a fan of any artificial cherry flavouring (Dr. Pepper is death in a can.) since the liquid antibiotics incident back in ’84. Ugh.

This smelled more like berries in the store, though, so I went for it. The good news is that the berry note stays with the rooibos all the way into the cup. The bad news is that it doesn’t have a lot to do with cherry. It’s pretty bland, and it’s pretty simple. I don’t get any cardboard, but a hint of the old cardboard would have given this brew a bit more complexity, at least.

[Purchased at Tehörnan in Uppsala, fall 2012.]

I attempted a pitcher of this iced, much like I did with Paradise Green (also from Lupicia) the other day. This was also very good – but not as good as Paradise Green, which I also have rated slightly higher.

So, as opposed to A.C. Perch’s White Temple, which went from good to divine after a cold steep, Lupicia’s greens seem to remain fairly stable, quality wise. Which is reasonable, considering how much they depend on their exquisite bases.

So no, this pitcher won’t last long.

So this is the fourth and final tea from the gift pack I first talked about in this note: http://steepster.com/annchen/posts/184829

Today is an important day; it’s Swedish Cinnamon Roll Day! http://www.su.se/english/about/news-and-events/cinnamon-bun-day-kanelbullens-dag-1.5166 Please go honour this sacred occasion by procuring a suitable cinnamon pastry this very instant.

And as I can’t get anything even remotely similar today (Seriously, Rome. Sometimes you’re just so Italian.) I’m tackling this chai mate. See, I despise cinnamon in tea. Loathe it. In food and pastries, cinnamon is one of my favourite flavours of all time, but drinking it is just vile.

In other words, I’m not the right person to review this poor tea. It has a weird sweet-sour hint to it – I can taste it on the sides of my tongue far better than on my tongue, which is a very weird feeling – disregarding the flavour, the mere act of drinking this tea is unsettling.

The tea tastes like it smells and looks – like spicy tea leftover salad. I guess it’s supposed to appear bountiful, but it just seems like there were all these bits and pieces that didn’t fit anywhere else, and that were just thrown together, resulting in this blend.

Just… no.

[Purchased/gifted at Teavana in Honolulu, January 2013.]

This is another of the few bagged teas I own. Not only that, it’s also from Lupicia, an anomaly in itself – I generally only buy greens and oolongs from them. Not because I’ve had a bad experience, but their blacks always come off as so very lightly scented, and I tend to go more for really full-bodied, rich black teas.

But hey, this was on sale.

In the bag(s), it smells light and fruity. In the cup, it smells light and fruity. The first taste is also very light and fruity, but the high temperature isn’t really doing it any favours – now that it’s cooled, however, it’s very smooth and light and nice. And yes; fruity.

On the one hand, I feel that Lupicia’s delicate, perfect flavourings are better suited for greens, on the other, I get a craving to fully explore their assortment of blacks, as this is so much more easily drunk than the ones I usually favour.

I’m increasingly aware of this divide in my tea preferences lately – on the one hand, there are all those lush, elegant French blends, and on the other, unassuming, fresh, gorgeous Lupicia everything.

I really love this tea company over any other.

[Purchased at Lupicia in Honolulu, December 2012.]

Okay. So FINALLY I’m getting around to writing tasting notes for those last tricky teas in my cupboard. This is one of very few bagged teas I own. I got it on sale when I did my big Lupicia run in Hawaii; I’m generally a little cautious with flavoured roasty teas, mostly because they’re confusing to my palate, but this one was so cheap it would just have been silly not to try it.

Plus, I really love apricots. The best thing about the scent of this tea is that smelling it, I get instant apricot mouthfeel. It’s uncanny. Lupicia are so spot-on in their flavourings, and this is no exception.

The reason I label this tea tricky, is that I’ve used it as one of my travel teas. Every sip of this puts me at an airport or on a flight. The first time I drank it, I was sitting on the floor at Heathrow, waiting to catch a flight. This was the last time ever I traveled without my thermos, because Starbucks had the nerve to charge for hot water. Pff! The insolence!

Either way, I really like this tea. It instantly calms me, which – again, I know I wrote about this in one of my tasting notes yesterday – seems unfair to add to a note, because it only reflects the fact that I’ve conditioned myself to perceiving this as a post-luggage hauling, post-security check, post-travel chaos treat; something I reward myself with when all I can do is placidly wait around for someone to make a boarding call or land a plane.

But either way, the body of this still has a good roastiness, and a nice, juicy, entirely authentic apricot.

And there’s just enough of it left for my next trip.

[Purchased at Lupicia in Honolulu, December 2012.]

This was just as beautiful as the last time around – a light, elegant, floral pick-me-up.

It’s struck me on several occasions that many of these greens from Mariage Frères would probably be excellent iced, but somehow they appeal to me more brewed hot. I think back at chilly winters in Paris, I guess, whereas Lupicia’s greens are all Hawaii to me and hence my favourites to ice.

I wish it were possible to redrink all these teas for the first time, entirely without the shackles of mnemonic, emotional and spatial attachments; to crumble and toss away the madeleine, if you will.

But, then again, that would lessen the experience. Beauty lies all in the context, after all.