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Golden Moon Sampler Tea #23 (I think)
I am a bad person. Ever since I saw the entry about tea eggs in the cooking with tea thread, I have been wanting to make some. And lo and behold! I have five random eggs sitting in the fridge doing nothing. It is the PERFECT opportunity.

But wait! I am out of Lapsang Souchong! Except…for the Golden Moon sample! But it would be Wrong to use that without trying it! So, compromise! Brew up a smaller cup, try THAT, use the rest for tea eggs! Yay! Once again the day is saved by thinking about something for longer than 10 seconds.

Well, I’m not gonna have results on the tea eggs for a while, but I have mixed feelings about this stuff. At first, it seemed comparatively weaker in its smokiness than other LSes that I have tried. On the other hand, the aftertaste is VERY strongly smoky, so I’m wondering if it isn’t that sweet note that some of the other reviews mentioned making me THINK that the smokiness is weaker.

In sum. I don’t know. I’m not THAT big of a smoky tea aficionado, so I think I’ll just table the issue. Perhaps one day I will meet a Lapsang Souchong that I can’t live without, but apparently this isn’t it.

So the problem with Darjeeling as a base for Earl Grey is that I habitually oversteep Earl Greys – most of which are pretty forgiving, but oversteeping an Earl Grey flavored Darjeeling just seems to bring out the incongruity of the flavor. Or something like that. There’s definitely something off about the taste this time around.

Rating go down! I kind of wish I hadn’t left some of the more lackluster (for me) samples with my brother, since it seems my second tasting impression is quite different from the first. Oh well, at least this saves me from trying other Earl Grey/Darjeeling crossbreeds.

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #22:
Enough about dessert teas, it’s time to get back to work!
This is, as I have noted before, one of the teas that I’ve been dreading. Not as much as the licorice, because I can generally tolerate coconut in pastry, but still, expectations = not too high.

The leaves smell like macaroons. I am reminded that I quite like macaroons. Or at least fresh ones. Once I got the leaves wet, though, I could immediately sense the green tea, although the coconut/pastry scent was still there. I was a little worried about pouring in too much water, and I think I may have overshot the mark a bit. Oh well!

I…really like this! It has just the right amount of personality in the base tea and coconut flavoring. I can definitely see getting rice from it – although I’m more thinking of rice crispies – there’s a certain sense of toastedness about it. It’s VERY drinkable, I think I could just drink it all day. But especially if I had some curry or something. Maybe crab rangoons. Man, I wish I know how to make those.

This would confirm my theory, by the way, that most of my food dislikes have to do with texture more than taste. I hate peanuts but like peanut butter, I hate coconut flakes, but apparently am perfectly fine with coconut flavor. Not that this really allows me to do anything about it, but at least I know! Knowing things, it’s great!

Today’s moral is: I am totally getting more of this.

I woke up five minutes before class, oops! Grabbed some of this on the way out to have later. This was my favorite of the Earl Greys from my first go around, so I thought it would be nice to have on a morning that started out…not optimally.

So I wrote in my first tasting quote that I love Earl Grey But Moar teas, which is why I thought this stuff was great. This time though….I got soap! I blame Tippy Earl Grey. Or perhaps the water wasn’t hot enough? I was using water cooler water, which I assume does not go all the way up to boiling. It’s kind of tempting to say that going through all of those tastings with the Golden Moon sampler has refined my palate or something, but I refuse to accept the idea that in the space of a couple of weeks my tastes have completely changed regarding Earl Grey.

I guess I’ll bring my rating down. Maybe next time it will taste good again!

In other news I have the Robot Unicorn Attack song stuck in my head. This has nothing to do with my Earl Grey tasting like soap, but it’s not making me feel any better about it.

Well, my belly was feeling a little iffy (this may be a common theme in my tea notes, my belly hates me and tries to stage a coup for control of my body at least three times a week) so I was thinking of grabbing the Moroccan Mint from Golden Moon, but then I noticed that this had mint in it and I was like, close enough!

So when I smelled the tea leaves, I was really encouraged, it totally smelled like mint and chocolate – I, in fact, specially went out and got some chocolate covered pretzels today to make sure that I remember what chocolate tastes like (i suspect that is what angered my belly), so I am pretty confident about it this time. Anyway, I was pretty optimistic since this tea actually smelled like what it said it was.

I let it steep for five minutes, poured myself a cup (the bamboo strainer that comes with this set comes very handy for catching stray rooibos!), leaned down to smell it and got…sauerkraut.

Note to self: either move slow cooker away from teapot or move teapot away from slow cooker.

Ok, so when I actually smelled the TEA instead of DINNER, I got…not much actually, a light feeling of chocolate and maybe some mint. This seems, at least from my initial impression, to be the most subdued of the dessert teas, with the rooibos actually noticeable from the beginning. The mint is also obvious, and the chocolate…is there definitely, especially in the light sweetness and the aftertaste. There MIGHT be vanilla there somewhere. I think. Sometimes I sense it underneath the mint, and sometimes in the aftertaste with the chocolate. The rooibos is definitely dominant here followed by mint. To tell the truth, after the caramelized pear its almost a relief. And the predominance of the mint means that my belly is being pacified, so that’s good. And it’s not like the tea is BAD, it just doesn’t seem to have quite the same amazing…totality of flavor that the other teas have. It just tastes like a blended rooibos.

So, I’ve tried all four teas in the sampler, and right now Caramelized Pear is in first place, followed by Chocolate Monkey (even thought it’s weird), followed by the Vanilla Berry Truffle, and then this. I’m sorry Velvet Tea! Please don’t feel bad…you were just up against some really tough competition!

This is the tea that I drank this morning instead of the Irish Breakfast that I had originally brewed. It’s what I had in my trusty “portable loose leaf tea kit.”

Well, besides the fact that it was in a tea bag and a paper cup and neither of those are going to do a tea any favors, it was perfectly serviceable. I think the Irish Breakfast packs more of an early morning punch though. Note: that may just mean that the Irish Breakfast comes out more bitter.

So yeah, I made this this morning to take with me to class when I realized…I had left my travel mug in the car and I was ALREADY late! Yes, fellow steepsterites (do you realize that if you combine steepster with people, you can conceivably argue that you get steeple? I’m gonna call you steeples from now on. or maybe steoples?) I was going out to face the horrible, horrible morning tea-less. Fortunately, I have my trusty tea case, so I bought some hot water from the coffee stand and had my (different) tea after class.

Still, I had MADE this tea, and I’m not gonna make a tea and not drink it. So I am now drinking cold incredibly strong Irish Breakfast. And that’s…pretty much exactly what it tastes like!

Ho-Lee Buckets!
Remember how I said I was looking for a dessert tea that could trick my sweet tooth into thinking I had dessert? I think I have found it. And I think it may be TOO good.

I am FULL. Seriously, this tea has made me feel FULL. It is PACKED with flavor. Supersaturated I would say. It’s like, a smack upside the head of flavor and it is HEAVY. Woah. I don’t know how they did it. (Witchcraft is looking more and more likely!) It’s actually too much for me, I had to add milk to tone it down a bit. Clearly this will require some tweaking of steep time, amount, etc. Glad I have the whole rest of the packet to mess with.

The taste is fascinating. It reminds me of dried pear more than of fresh, but I suppose cooked pear would work too. I definitely get the pear and a caramel taste so strong it’s almost metallic. There’s a hint of honey there too, I think this might be what Honey Pear wishes it was.

Right now this is the forerunner for ordering more of, since it was EXTREMELY effective at silencing my sweet tooth. But I’m gonna have to see if I can get it to a not quite so overwhelming level, because DAYUM.

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #21:
Guys, I think there’s something wrong with my tastebuds. I’m getting…chocolate from this?

Let me start at the beginning, as usual, I drew this out randomly. I was pretty pleased because while out grocery shopping I had picked up a thermometer for frying that I am going to attempt to use to measure the temperature of my water. Yes, I am cheap. I’m a graduate student, this should not be surprising.

When I opened up the sample packet, I got melon right away. I marveled at the giant-ass leaves for a while but then got down to business. When I poured in the water, that’s when it began. The smell became pretty vegetal, but I was also catching whiffs of, yes, chocolate.

I did a two minute steep for my first cup and then brought it up to 3.5 minutes for subsequent cups. The first cup was…wow! Despite the smell this doesn’t taste vegetal at all! It’s light and sweet, and totally melony. Honeydew, I’d say. But I could be wrong, I don’t eat melon THAT often.

But there was still a problem. I was still getting chocolate! At the same time as melon. W. T. F.

Second cup, the longer steeping time has allowed the tea itself to come forward a bit more, and I am no longer getting the weird chocolate flashes. There is an undertone of, I guess fermentation that I think other people have likened to liquor, but it makes me think of overripe fruit more. I think the combination of the sweetness of the tea and the hint of fermentation was somehow combining to give me the idea of chocolate, don’t as me why. Maybe I haven’t had chocolate for too long and have forgotten how it’s really supposed to taste. Clearly a trip to the candy store is required.

But enough about me being weird. Let’s talk about the tea! I quite like it, but I’m not sure I like it enough to buy more of it. I am pretty much meh on melon, so I don’t know if this tea will have legs once the novelty wears off. I suspect it will not. Still, I give it a definite “maybe.” ;)

Just HAD to have some earl grey this morning. Do you realize that I haven’t had any earl grey at ALL this week? I am not counting my horrible paper + soap tippy earl grey experience. In fact, I am attempting to block it from my memory altogether. It’s not really working well so far.

It’s interesting coming back to this tea now after having gone through all of my Upton samples, since I think this was only the second Earl Grey I tried. It may just be Earl Grey withdrawal talking, but I am enjoying it a lot more the second time around. I really like the kind of fruity flavor that I suppose the cornflower brings, it accents the bergamot flavor very nicely, and gives it a nice well-rounded taste that’s not just “ohai gaiz we added MOAR bergamot.”

May have to seriously consider getting more of this. But have to try the Extra Bergamot again, first. (Ok, fine, I am totally a fan of the “ohai gaiz we added MOAR bergamot” approach. I feel suitably ashamed of myself)