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I brought last month’s sipsby box to work and forgot about it, and today I really needed SOMETHING and I didn’t want to get a soda (saving soda time for dinner!) and thus, I’m drinking this (also in the box is “pomegranate mojito” from zest tea? I dunno about that one).

the lil bag that this came in said to brew it for 4 minutes @ 212F and that seemed like…too much. I don’t know the temp of the water, but I turned on my kettle and kept working for a while before pouring over the leaves. I also only brewed for about 3 minutes and it is malty/bready perfection. I have hit/or misses with assam and I think it’s mostly due to the fact that I use too hot water and it gets so bitter. this is delicious though.

ah, yes. I love finishing off A&D tins, it always feels like an accomplishment. especially for this one, because it seems like this has been hiding in the cupboard for at least five forevers, popping out only occasionally and then hiding again. this is not my favourite tea from A&D, it’s brisk and bready and easy to drink, but it’s also just kinda meh. I’m glad that I had this for five forevers, but I’m also glad that it is gone.

Percy-cat update: I finally took her to the vet a couple of weeks ago and she chonky! I think of her as a baby and this is a MISTAKE, bc I feel that she is tiny and I’ve had to put her on a diet…and have felt so bad because she MEOWS at me and looks at me with her big eyes and I end up giving her more food bc I’m weak. her meowing is a big deal, because she usually just….gurgles? chirps? she makes weird noises that I sometimes don’t think are cat noises, but when she’s hungry she meows and I say ‘wow, Percy, you are a cat!’ and then she tries to trip me. rude. I’m in the process of switching her food, so that maybe that helps.

from this month’s sipsby box. I didn’t know DT was a..uh…supplier? partner? with sipsby, so that’s cool. I’ve actually always wanted to try this, but I have a weird relationship with DT. mostly, I love their teaware and am iffy on a lot of their blends.

this was fine. I needed some kind of tea after finally going through this box BOX of MYSTERY MICROFICHE that I’ve had at my desk for like a year. my boss said I had to go through it because there’s another dept. in the library that is currently doing a microfiche project and it would be helpful if they had access to anything that might be missing. IT TOOK ME ALL DAY. ALL. DAY. I HATE MICROFICHE SO MUCH. I still have a small lil pile of them, but only bc there were students sitting near where they needed to go and I feel awkward being all hunched over trying to find where exactly these fiche need to go, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

the label says there’s green tea in here, but mostly what I have is apple bits, which is fine. I love apple. but it doesn’t really taste like much? all I’m getting is a sweet vaguely apple-y flavour. meh.

anyway. this is fine. microfiche is terrible and I never want to see any again.

/cries into this beautiful dianhong for 10,000 years while rewatching Chungking Express for the millionth time/

12th tea of Christmas

my first whiff of this tea was all CLOVE and I whispered ‘yessssssss’ to no one. this is so tasty. to me, this is Christmas in a tea. ginger, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, there’s some nice custard-y flavours in there too. I’m going to have to try this with almond milk later. yessss.

11th tea of Christmas

ahhh, I’m late with this bc I got distracted bc we do all our celebrating on Christmas Eve and I was so tired, plus I brought Percy-cat home and it was an Experience and maybe I didn’t really plan and I should have just isolated her in a room on her own instead of letting her free roam. ahahaha. lesson learned. she’s on her own now and I hope that she will eat!

ANYWAY, I was quite excited about this one because I love monkey bread…but um. not this blend. all I taste is the rooibos and…I’d prefer not to. I do taste the caramel and the cinnamon-y flavours, but to me the rooibos overpowers it. MAYBE it’s just because I’m not the biggest fan (or a fan at all) of red rooibos. I think I can probably pass this one to someone who would enjoy it more than me.

10th tea of Christmas

You know, I’ve never actually had eggnog before so I wasn’t really sure….I wasn’t sure about this tea, but it is delicious. I’m drinking it while listening to Nick Cave and finally ‘wrapping’ presents (I put everything in bags bc I’m lame and think wrapping paper is a waste, at least bags are reusable? yeah? maybe it’s actually just laziness. who knows.) and ugh, so nice. cinnamon-y. nutmeg-y. the yunnan base is /chef kiss/.

also, I’m adopting my sister’s cat that she was going to rehome to a farm in NM, where that poor cat would have been living OUTSIDE, when she had been living in a home for the past two years and was used to people providing for her. wtf. I thought that was so cruel. Percy (the cat, a girl cat that my nephew named after Percy the train) might be a fellow anxiety sufferer. she might also be stressed out due to living in a house with two loud children and two older (and one who is definitely meaner) cats, all while not having a lot of attention (other than my sister yelling at her). we’ll see how she does in a much quieter environment. I think she deserves a chance to live her best life. that, and personally, it’s been a really jarring change for me to live in a cat-less house. when I woke up yesterday, I immediately went to go check on my Spooky-cat, like I normally would and then realized that he’s not here anymore and started crying. Percy isn’t a replacement, and she will be a very different cat, but at least there will be a little creature running around and I hope that she will feel more calm and more loved.

9th tea of Christmas

because I woke up very early yesterday morning and started crying, I decided to make this tea and not only does it straight up smell heavenly, it is comfort in a goddamn cup. it has a really beautiful brown sugar-y taste, it reminds me of a brittle that my grandma made (it was legendary, but I’m not really sure what kind of brittle it was).

8th tea of Christmas

hot damn, this one is delicious. this is another one that I drank yesterday morning, but forgot to write about. I love all of the marshmallow teas that Anne has done, well, all the ones I’ve tried anyway. I think it was last year that Marshmallow Assam came out and it was one of my favourites. the dry leaf just engulfs you in this nice comforting cloud of vanilla, I want this tea as a candle. there is also a really beautiful malty-ness in this tea as well. /cries/

7th tea of Christmas

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this, I don’t know what sticky fig is….but I do know that I love fig. first thought was like, a sticky rice? but it’s definitely not that. there’s some cinnamon? some kind of spices, and a kind of…caramel-y fig? I’m into it.