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October Sipdown Prompt – a tea with maple syrup or flavor

A friend brought a couple of sachets of this tea for me to try and I had it for my afternoon snack yesterday. I made it latte style with about half water and half milk and sweetened it with maple syrup.

It was really delicious, but masala chai lovers will probably not consider it to be a real chai. This is very chocolately with mild spices and absolutely delicious as a latte and satisfying as a dessert alternative for me. I don’t love clove or black peppercorns in tea, so this is my kind of chai.

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October Sipdown Prompt – Art Day!

I have been hitting Simpson and Vail’s Almond Black hard, and this morning I remembered that I had just enough of this similar tea (almond heavy) left for one pot.

As for the art, I haven’t created it yet, BUT my daughter had a themed gift at the table for me again today and this time is was not tea but art supplies!

When I got my cancer diagnosis in August, I decided it was time to try watercoloring. I am not a good artist by any stretch of the imagination, but our local cancer center offered free art nights once a week to patients and their families back when I had my first diagnosis years ago. At the time I was much busier and much more worried about not being good at it so I didn’t participate.

They still offer it, but when I mentioned I might try it for stress relief my friend bought me the Emily Lex workbooks to get me started and I made enough headway to make a few greeting cards that were good enough to send.

Now thanks to my daughter I have some tube watercolors, a tiny travel palette and paper holder, and a whole stack of good paper, as well as a pot of good tea to sip while I wait for inspiration to hit. And who knows? This time around maybe Ashman (who is a VERY good artist) and I might participate in an art night or two.

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October Sipdown Prompt – a tea with an unusual name

This was sent to me a while back by Nicole – many thanks!

Looking at the ingredient list, I decided this was one that would probably be too floral for Ashman, so I saved it to drink by myself. I am surprised there is black tea as well as oolong in here. They are definitely light.

I liked this tea much more than I thought I would, as I thought it would be chamomile heavy and while I WILL drink it for the benefits, it is not a favorite. This tea has tons of floral flavor so it is well named, but the chamomile is very nicely accompanied by the lavender and rose. Those are the florals I taste in order, although the chamomile may be leading more in smell than taste.

The oolong is stronger than the black here and gives the cup a nice base so that you don’t feel like you are drinking a plain herbal tisane.

October Sipdown Prompt – tea from a favorite fall cup or mug

Once again, I awoke to find a placard and a gift bag at my place at the table. This sign announced that it is October 21st is Apple Day and the gift bag from the daughter who lives with us contained this tea.

For my favorite fall cup or mug, I don’t really have any mugs that are specifically fall and I very rarely drink tea from a mug. However, I do switch to Old Country Roses for fall (especially Thanksgiving) through Easter, as I use Lady Carlyle for spring and summer tea times or parties. Everyday ware is anything blue and white by Spode, collected at bargain prices over many years, just as the china sets were absolutely stunning deals.

In Old Country Roses pattern, I have two of the breakfast cups that I purchased from eBay that are absolutely HUGE. I would love to get more as they are great for serving soups, but even on eBay they tend to run expensive and I felt fortunate to find these in good condition many years ago. So that will count as my fall cup or mug!

The tea is good, and while drinking it I felt that the apple was very subtle and the coffeecake aspect was dominant, but now that I have finished it the apple flavor is the lingering taste with cinnamon dancing over the top.

I have a bad, horribly itchy rash from a reaction to the antibiotic so my tastes are weird and off and I just don’t want my normal breakfasts right now. I had this with biscotti, then grabbed a pecan shortbread cookie and found that to be a perfect pairing for the tea, so now I have a great excuse to put shortbread cookies on the grocery list every week for a while. Fortunately, we love the cheap store brand at our grocery and the name brand are frequently BOGO.

I think this would make a good latte or be great with milk and/or sugar. It is a tad drying and brisk, which isn’t as noticeable with food.

October Sipdown Prompt – a tea that reminds you of falling leaves

My daughter who lives with us has been giving me support gifts and celebration gifts all throughout this recent breast cancer journey. Yesterday I was presented with the newest Alexander McCall Smith book and two teas from rare Tea Company for whom he wrote special short stories to be included in their tins of Lost Malawi tea, which he was given the privilege of naming. (She also gave me some of that tea – a favorite!)

I had noticed this one on their website and intended to try it someday and that day is here. My tastes have been off since my surgery, and I have to cast about in my mind to see if anything particular appeals to me, because a lot of things that I normally like seem a little unappetizing. It’s not that I am that poorly, just a weird thing that is probably quite temporary. Dry foods are mostly a big no. But I was really curious about this tea so I didn’t cast about to see what my body wanted, I just grabbed it.

It grabbed back.

I opened the pouch knowing that the description says it is smoked over guava leaves and was somehow taken by surprise that it smelled smokey. Eye opening. Enticing. Appetite stimulating.

I like smokey teas and I also like VERY smokey teas but I do want some quality tea flavor in there and not just a cup of char. The leaves were whole, long, twisted, deep brown and almost like an oolong in appearance. I steeped twice at 176F per instructions and went a full two minutes for the steep.

The result is a lovely cup of smoked tea that had me sniffing and thinking hard trying to decipher what notes I was getting that made it different from Lapsang Souchong. Brown sugar crossed my mind but that wasn’t it. Sweet. Yes, sweet. But…fruity. That’s it. Soft and subtle. Not sharp like the fruity muscatel edge of a darjeeling with drying grape must.

This tea is dried over burning guava leaves, a fortunate happenstance that came about when the guava leaves surrounding the tea fields were building up on the ground and attracting pests, so when they decided to rake and burn the guava leaves someone thought to try using them to dry and scent the tea.

I won’t say the fruity taste is like guava or is coming from the guava leaves. I think it is inherent in the tea leaf itself. This is a lovely smoked tea that is suitable for all times of day and is just different enough from Lapsang Souchong that if you like smoked teas you may want to give it a try.

I am unrolling the whole brown leaves and smoothing them out to paint in watercolor later. Somehow, seeing whole leaves makes me stop and think, “A half a world away, someone’s hands picked this tea and now it is here for me to enjoy. Bless them.” And that is what Rare Tea Company tries to do through Rare Charity. I can get behind that.

Today was the big day! I had my post-surgical check up and got the results of my biopsies. No chemo! They were able to remove all the cancer, and no radiation needed this time.

When Ashman came home to go to my appointment with me, he had a bag from Winterbloom Tea which is here in our town. A co-worker and his wife had bought four wellness teas for me as a gift!

The cranberry and bilberry in this one intrigued me, and the birch and seabuckthorn sounded like something I could use right now with four wounds in my body and a huge reaction from neck to waist from an antibiotic. Maybe the birch will be soothing and help me sleep comfortably tonight since it is affiliated with the spirea family from whence we get aspirin.

I don’t drink very many herbal tisanes or wellness teas, but this one is really good. The cranberry is true, the bilberry is a nice touch, I definitely get the seabuckthorn berry flavor, and overall it was a pleasant cup to sip on. I didn’t add anything but honey would be really nice with it if you like to sweeten your teas.

October Sipdown Prompt – World Food Day: have tea with a favorite food

Still had a bit iced so I enjoyed this for lunch with our copy cat of Sprout’s Honey Nut Chicken Salad. Delish. Recipe is simple – diced chicken, mayo, T honey, handful of Craisins, handful of pecans, salt, pepper, and Penzey’s garlic powder. Chop chop with Mr Choppy and I don’t know what he is really called but his job in my childhood was to chop my spaghetti. Looks like a biscuit cutter with a handle but has a serrated or scalloped edge.

Another tea that I am not adding to my cupboard. My friend brought this at the same time as the Vanilla Strawberry Hibiscus that tastes only of red rooibos and hibiscus to me and she said it tasted like booze and dirt to her. Lol

This one she liked a little better but said it just wasn’t a favorite and there are too many other things she would rather drink so she wanted me to try it and pass it on if I didn’t want it. I passed it on to the same padawan who got the Vanilla Strawberry. At least the tins are adorable.

This isn’t for me because I don’t love mint in tea except on rare occasions, like Tin Roof Teas Moroccan Mint which is yummmm. I don’t like much ginger in my tea, just a wee sparkle. And this was lemongrass and coconut heavy which are things I like but I didn’t find this combination and balance of things appealing. I took a few sips and poured it out.

Hopefully the person I gave it to will enjoy it, or pass it on to someone who will. I am sure it is a fine tea, just not to my tastes. The only one from this collection I was really interested in trying was the Honey Chamomile, mostly to see if I liked the ashwaganda and to see if it truly has a calming effect.

I am not adding this one to cupboard because I gave it away within 36 hours of it coming into my possession. A friend purchased it and didn’t like it, saying it tasted like booze instead of tea. She gave it to me, knowing I could pass it on if I didn’t want it.

I did try it, because I just tried Harney’s Thai Rooibos and I really like it – very much. I will probably buy it eventually, especially for tea sodas.

This, however, I will not buy. It is mostly a fist in the face of very woody Robitussinesque rooibos, boozy flavor, hibiscus, and very little vanilla or strawberry to me. So many teas and tisanes use hibiscus for strawberry flavored things and it just doesn’t work for me. If I had a blind tasting of this, I would have had no idea it was supposed to be strawberry or vanilla.

I tried it hot. Then I made a concentrated syrup of it to make tea soda and…it stills tastes like Robitussin. With fizz.

Not for me but I passed it on to a new tea padawan who does lots of evening tisanes and has liked rooibos in the past.

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The aroma of this tea is magnificent. You could simmer it in a pot and enjoy it all day for a spot of sunshine. My only complaint with it is that the base tea is incredibly light. To remedy this, I mix in a teaspoon of a strong black tea for a small pot, or use it half and half for sweet iced tea.