3403 Tasting Notes
Sipdown
This and Fig & Lavender were my favorite teas from Tea Grotto, received in the big box o’ tea from Youngest – many thanks!
I was so sure I had reviewed this, even remembered what I had said about it (I thought), but here we are with no tasting note yet.
This would be a great starter puerh for people who are afraid to try it. It could almost pass for a black tea. The aroma is divine and reminds me of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, even though the flavor is supposed to be mostly raspberry.
This does have the puerh duskiness, and without fishy smell. I think it makes a perfect breakfast tea and is also very good with snacks and even chocolates.
Would definitely repurchase this tea.
October Sipdown Challenge Prompt – World Smile Day
Sipdown
Should I really count this as a sipdown? Yes, I should! I was out of this tea for three hours before the post delivered my new one plus an Earl Grey as a little friend for it. I received this tea for Christmas last year as well as their Chinese Emperor’s Breakfast and I fully intended to wait until Christmas to restock, but they ran that free shipping weekend and I caved.
Boy, did this ever put a smile on my face today. I had to go to the hospital early for my pre-ops but was back home by 7:40 am, just in time to make a lovely breakfast and a huge pot of this. Two teaspoons, three steeps, and yes, it was quite a lot of tea. I smiled all the way through every cup.
This is a truly great breakfast tea to me. It is strong enough and yet does not require milk or sugar. I keep promising myself that I will try it with milk to bring out the chocolate notes as they suggest but I love it SO MUCH just as it is that I can’t bring myself to change anything. Maybe now that I have refilled my tin I will give it a try.
Does anyone know where we can find the exclusive story by Alexander McCall Smith that was put in the tins as a promotion many years ago?
I did a bit of googling, and it looks like he wrote a series of stories to be put in the Lost Malawi tea cannisters. I suspect they were incorporated into one of his many short story collections, though I haven’t been able to find more information. You could contact the owner of Rare Tea Company, and Alexander McCall Smith also has a contact page on his website. I’d love to solve this mystery! :)
I googled, but didn’t find anything definite about which stories were in the tins. I will contact Rare Tea Co. and ask, as they were the ones who sent me the link to the news article about it back when I read Smith’s book that mentioned their shop. They are very responsive and quick, so we should have an answer soon!
Yay! I also asked the tea geeks on TeaForum if they knew anything about these stories. Hopefully one of these sources will come through!
Good luck and speedy recovery from your operation!
Thank you, Michelle!
Sipdown!
October Sipdown Challenge Prompt – World Smile Day
Should I really count this as a sipdown? Yes, I should! I was out of this tea for three hours before the post delivered my new one plus an Earl Grey as a little friend for it. I received this tea for Christmas last year as well as their Chinese Emperor’s Breakfast and I fully intended to wait until Christmas to restock, but they ran that free shipping weekend and I caved.
Boy, did this ever put a smile on my face today. I had to go to the hospital early for my pre-ops but was back home by 7:40 am, just in time to make a lovely breakfast and a huge pot of this. Two teaspoons, three steeps, and yes, it was quite a lot of tea. I smiled all the way through every cup.
This is a truly great breakfast tea to me. It is strong enough and yet does not require milk or sugar. I keep promising myself that I will try it with milk to bring out the chocolate notes as they suggest but I love it SO MUCH just as it is that I can’t bring myself to change anything. Maybe now that I have refilled my tin I will give it a try.
Does anyone know where we can find the exclusive story by Alexander McCall Smith that was put in the tins as a promotion many years ago?
October Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a tea with cinnamon or clove
I have said many times that I don’t love red rooibos but like green rooibos in flavored blends. I haven’t tried green rooibos plain. I did enjoy Caramel and Rum Rooibos from Lupicia and plain Rooibos from Fortnum was okay.
I have been giving tea samples to a lady I met a few months ago and yesterday she surprised me with some samples from her Harney order, including this tea. I went for this one today because there was the most of it and I didn’t expect to like it, but it is very good.
The cinnamon reminds me of Hot Cinnamon Spice but is milder. There is no clove – hooray! There is cardamom. Double hooray!
I drank one cup plain and made a latte with the rest of the pot, and I can see myself drinking this all winter. Sometimes when I make a latte I feel like there isn’t enough flavor of the tea blend left. This one is nearly half milk and there is still lots of cinnamon and cardamom flavor.
This is definitely a good chai type blend for me, as I just don’t love the ones with lots of clove and black pepper. Yums! This will be good to sip while sitting by the Christmas tree.
September Sipdown Prompt – a tea from Africa
This tea is marked as “the older the better” so I have been in no hurry to drink it, but I have had it at least twice, so I am befuddled as to why there is no tasting note from me.
I have had it with food each time I drank it, usually with breakfast, so I haven’t picked up as much detail as others here. Today we were just having cinnamon raisin bagels so it seemed like this little sweetie would be a good pairing.
My impressions each time have been: 1. Good, medium body with a light creaminess 2. Clear golden color 3. More flavor than I would expect from the stems of a tea plant, certainly enough flavor to pair with food.
Overall, it reminds me of the first shou mei I ever drank, which I liked very much. There is a little nuttiness, and rich, warm hay. It is certainly no shrinking violet so you don’t need to worry about searching for flavor in it, but it is a quite a lovely, soft tea for fall.
This was a gift in the big box o’ tea from Youngest – many thanks!
It has been raining since last night, Superanna’s creek is flooded, they are under a tornado watch, the farm my son’s family lives on has a tree down and wind damage, and Ashman has to work late because of all the havoc. Schools are closed and non-essential personnel were given a two hour delay which didn’t make sense because that was really when the bad weather was supposed to begin…all from a hurricane several states away. We already had flooding that had just started to subside when this hurricane came. It is so muggy from all this rain and saturated soil! The garden has standing water in it now. It will soak in pretty quickly, though. But in this nasty heat and wet weather, we do need some refreshing tea!
Cucumber and melon get paired a lot, and we used to love the scent from Bath and Body Works, so I was pretty excited about this one. It hasn’t let me down. It is in a glass carafe so it is extra cold. I find the melon to be the strongest flavor and that’s good because Ashman does NOT like cucumber. It is just the thing for a streak of nasty weather like this!
Gah! Hope the waters recede from their various collection points!
And here we are in the Dust Bowl begging Helena to visit after she calms down a little…
This afternoon is lovely for those of us who have power! We are under an unrelated boil advisory for the second day so that stinks, but at least the waters are starting to recede and the wind is pretty calm, just breezy.
September Sipdown Prompt – World Tourism Day
I had to stretch for this one for several reasons. First, I am a homebody and I don’t want to go anywhere! I am content right here, and when I am away I usually can not wait to get back. I have lived on the same street for over five decades and can walk to the hospital where I (and Ashman) was born.
Our trip to Ireland did cause me to see how amazing travel can be but also made me want to stay for a very long time, because I wanted to do than just SEE the place. I wanted to truly KNOW it.
As I pondered where I would like to go, I remembered that when I read Alexander Mccall Smith’s books set in Botswana, I thought I would love to visit there. He clearly loves Africa and makes his readers fall in love with it, too. Since I don’t have any tea from Botswana, a tea from Malawi seems appropriate because he also wrote a short story that was only available to those who purchased a tin of this tea. The proceeds from this tea benefited social programs to help the people of Malawi so he happily agreed to write this bespoke story for them. I wish I had known about it back when they did the offer, because the story is no longer included! Perhaps I can find it online.
I was horrified to see that I have only a couple of servings of this tea left and I had told myself that I would put it on my Christmas list instead of purchasing it. I may have ti have another talk with myself about that…
I made three steeps to stretch it out and I combined them in one pot, using my gravity steeper to make it. Even with three steeps combined, it is still rich with deep brown sugar notes and maltiness on the tongue. It is so awesome with meals.
I have never added anything to it but they say milk makes it chocolate-y. Maybe someday I will try it but I just love it like this – plain and unadulterated.
September Sipdown Prompt – a tea from India
I had to ransack to fulfill this prompt. I also had to settle for something that is a blend. Tea from India can provoke my tender tummy unless prepared just exactly so, and I love so many teas from China. I found teas from Nepal and Malawi on shelf and lots of unidentified black tea blend bases but only this tea identified tea from India for sure. You don’t have to twist my arm to get me to drink it.
There is a wonderful interaction between the tongue teasing “salt” and the berry flavor. It makes a great cuppa for breakfast or afternoon. You WILL stop and notice this tea in a most surprised and pleasant way. I can not imagine picking up the cup and mindlessly sipping. It just won’t let you do that. And you wouldn’t want to.
Woohoo! \o/
Nice effort!