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Sipdown

Almost a cup of cocoa with milk and sugar I bet. I drank it plain and Ashman and I both enjoyed it. The chocolate flavor was pretty natural tasting without the weird chemical and mildew vibes.

February Sipdown Challenge Prompt – drink a latté or milk tea

Time for a pick me up! I have been making brownies and chocolate covered strawberries for Valentine’s tonight. I wanted a little something before starting to cook supper.

I thought I had used a bit too much matcha but I really would have liked even more. I put about four little scoops of matcha in a matcha bowl, added a tiny amount of cold water and made a smooth paste, added a small amount of sugar and whisked some more until it was perfectly smooth, and it was gorgeous. The color was a bright and intense green. I scraped the matcha bowl contents into a glass of milk (metal Boroux cup) and used an Aerolatte to mix it all together. It didn’t last very long at all. The froth was excellent.

The chocolate covered strawberries wouldn’t all fit into the container so I took one for the team and ate one. It was so perfect with my latte. I almost always have plain whisked matcha with a sweet little something like a truffle, so why not the latté as well?

February 14 Sipdown Challenge Prompt – International Book Giving Day

Not a sipdown but a brand new tea! My daughter gave this to me for Valentine’s Day. And because flowers don’t mean a lot to her and she has plenty of candles, I followed the prompt and gave her books for Valentine’s! (Or for International Book Giving Day, however you want to look at it!)

I cut open the pouch and sniffed the dry leaves and was transported to that place I loved to visit where I can no longer go – A Southern Season in Chapel Hill, NC. This is TEA.

Though it is labeled an English breakfast style tea, the directions call for 185F for 1-2 minutes. I decided to be bold and go for two minutes.

It is delicious! I taste the Assam first I think, and then the Malawi black tea gives it another layer of interest. What surprised me was that it has a moderate creaminess to the body, something totally unexpected.

I thought I might need milk since I am sometimes an Assam wimp and I did go the full steep, but I didn’t. Either it is smoother than many non-golden tip Assam teas, or I am better-faster-stronger than I used to be and can enjoy more teas from India. The lower steep temp and time also help make it smoother, no doubt. I need to remember that next time I run into an Assam I can’t handle. By the end of the pot of tea, the last sips in my cup were becoming a bit more assertive but were welcome, nevertheless.

Edit to add: I resteeped the leaves about an hour later. Just as good as the first steep, and I may even have liked it better.

February Sipdown Prompt – a tea you hoard

I wrote this prompt and yet I couldn’t decide what I really meant by hoard. Do I mean tea that I buy lots of and keep buying before it can run out, like a dragon adding coins and sparkly bits and bobs to his cave? Or do I mean a tea that I have and just don’t drink because I don’t want it to go away.

The beauty of it is that we are all free to interpret the prompts as we wish. I do hoard Lost Malawi, because I don’t want to run out. The tin doesn’t get very low. I drink it whenever I wish, though.

This tea I have purchased only once, after having a sample of it from lovely, wonderful beerandbeancurd. It always felt too nice and too rare to just open it and drink it, and Ashman doesn’t love bergamot so I knew I would be drinking it alone most likely and there it sat still sealed until today.

I was afraid I had left it too long and the flavor would be dulled, but the packaging must have really worked because it is fresh and lovely. The dry leaves are a thing of beauty – soft curls, impossibly light, gold and brown mixed but mostly gold. It looks like ashman has been using a handplane on an exotic soft wood.

For this first steep ever from this pouch, the bergamot is strong but not obnoxiously so. The base is one that tends to medium and low notes, which carries the bergamot nicely. I dislike bergamot on high grown Ceylon and other tea that has natural sharp or high notes.

For the previous samples we had, a few of us noticed that the bergamot fades quickly once the pouch is opened. I have transferred this to a double seal tin to see if that preserves the aromatics, but if it doesn’t I won’t be mad honestly, because the base is really good. It would probably also bring the bergamot to a level Ashman would enjoy.

Sipdown

This is a sad sipdown! I feel sure I will order it again sometime. This has powerful aroma, heavy on the fig when dry. When steeped it is a very even blend of fig and lavender in both aroma and taste. The base – hallelujah – is strong enough to let you know you are drinking black tea and not a cup of scented water. The base is not astringent or so brisk as to require milk or sugar.

It is a supremely well done flavored black tea and worth a try if you like these flavors.

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February Sipdown Prompt – a tea best for afternoons

This tea has been a go-to for late afternoons, especially on warm days. We try to avoid caffeine after 3 pm because we have become sensitive to it and don’t fall asleep until the wee hours if we have it in late afternoon.This has no caffeine and is light and fruity. We drink it iced and sweet, and I hade two gallons of it in the past week and a half.

Sharedown

A young student has just fallen in love with tea and loves Paris, so I gifted her my tin of Decaf Paris so she can enjoy it in the evening as well. It is still within date and has enough for a number of pots of tea for the kids to enjoy together.

I will eventually repurchase when my stock of decaf teas gets low, but that isn’t a danger right now. Ha ha!

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Ashman is still sick. Just a cold but he is sore and a bit miserable. He worked a half day and came home at lunch, so I made an Asian dumpling soup with frozen dumplings and fresh veggies and herbs in chicken broth, plus some red pepper flakes for a little heat to help clear his stuffy nose. We had some spring rolls on the side – again, just frozen ones I heated in the oven and some sweet chili sauce with a little kick. This tea was perfect with it.

I made three steeps with water at about 160F and kept the time to around thirty seconds. Second steep went long as I was multitasking unsuccessfully, but it was still perfect.

Always with this tea there is a lot of particulate matter in the pot but it does not cause any bitterness as “dregs” can sometimes do. This seemed especially mild today, perhaps because it was slightly less leaf since it was the last of the bag. It is so brothy and hearty. I will miss it.

I am so glad I finally got the hang of Japanese green tea. I really enjoy it!

February Sipdown Prompt – your most post-date tea

Sipdown!

Thanks to a really good year of sipdowns two years ago, I don’t have much that is past date. This one managed to go a little past and is possibly my only past date tea, and it only lasted this long because I was given so much tea last year as gifts that I couldn’t keep up with drinking everything even though I gave away lots of tea! Good problem to have.

This is one of Ashman’s favorites so I might get it again one day, but right now I am concentrating on cupboard control. It was somewhat overleafed because there was an awkward amount left, but we got four marvelous and flavorful Western steeps out of it for its last hurrah.

Ashman came home sick. It seems to be a cold so far, so I gave him our old standby Alka Seltzer Plus Cold Medicine and then made a cup of this tea. I decided I would drink some in hopes it will strengthen my immune against whatever he has.

It is surprisingly tasty for a medicinal blend! It smells minty but as I sip I get a lot of ginger. I have never had mullein that I can recall so I don’t know what that is contributing. I was almost sure there had to be licorice root or something because it tastes a bit sweet, but nope, nothing like that in here.

I have chronically swollen sinuses because of multiple allergies and I think I am breathing better than I have in weeks. Hopefully it will do us both some good, especially since I need to be in tip top shape for surgery in 20 days.