August Uncommon Tea

Smoky black teas are not something I reach for regularly, but they have some sort of allure that keeps me coming back (albeit irregularly). Outlaw has a little more allure than most and kept me amused all last night (erm, unintentional Tobias moment).

Honestly though, I think I like this one. It’s something to do with the flat cherry vanilla coke vibe I’m picking up (I mean that in the most flattering way). It also reminds me of the time I got to lick a cave in Poland (mineral notes, kay). It’s a lot of fun, and I’m sitting somewhere in the 80’s on it. I’m going to hold off rating for a bit because I’m not having as strong a reaction to it as I did with the Black Lodge (I think someone thought that name to be nostalgic and homey, but all it makes me think of is some horror story).

And just look at all the parentheses it inspired me to use!

CrowKettle wrote yesterday " It’s an unholy merging of pure things that brings one to weeping in disgust and horror." LOL – ok – I just received my tin of this, so of course I had to try it.

While I may not be getting the same notes that she did – not getting the smoked bacon – I’m agreeing with the sentiment in that statement.

My first impression was charred black rotten mushrooms. As it cools that’s changing to 6 hour old burned to the bottom of the pot coffee.

I added a little sweetener and a splash (or more than a splash of milk)…. Now there is some banana in here but I’m not sure that’s a good addition to this party.

There is no doubt that this is an AU smoked tea, they all have something a little odd in the back. This isn’t a little odd…….

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bcdmd_Qhlda/?taken-by=dex3657

ETA: Because I’m a sucker for punishment I did a 2nd steep. I did 95C 4 minutes. I added sweetener and milk. The smoke has been shoved way to the back. There is some caramel banana in here (but some of that might be the sweetener). I’m also getting meaty/mushroom/umami something that I wouldn’t call truffle. This is better but still way too strange……

Well, this is still an abomination of a chimera tea – but slightly more tolerable than I remember, so bumping up the rating from 35 to 45. Should probably bump it up higher tbh because I’m ok with resteeping and finishing the sample off. Less leaf is more with this one.

I still have this compulsion to dip my tea into aioli sauce, and this makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

Tastes like savoury smoked plantains slathered in truffle and olive oil. I can also taste the blackberry leaf and vanilla, which I think is supposed to fill out the banana note to a sweet caramelized point but just plays havoc with my sanity.

More palatable with oat milk. Maybe?

Steep Count: 2

Do you know the horrific Nina-chimera from Fullmetal Alchemist? Do you remember all of the raging emotions you experienced upon seeing that thing? This tea is like that. It’s an unholy merging of pure things that brings one to weeping in disgust and horror.

(If you’re not into anime/manga this explains that reference somewhat: https://kotaku.com/a-tribute-to-one-of-the-most-depressing-moments-in-anim-1787400241)

If you’ve ever wondered what truffles, smoked bacon, and banana would taste like in tea here you are. Don’t get me wrong; I love all of those things in different dishes, but tea… The truffle makes this monstrous in my opinion (tone it back). Milk helps to curb down the flavouring, but it’s so… overwhelming and absurd.

This tea is probably just perfect for someone out there, but that person is not me! Still, I’m glad I got to experience it? Maybe? I think I could learn to love it if I sacrificed some small part of me. I don’t know if I want to go down that rabbit hole though. It’s definitely a unique tea.

Sipdown!

Ok, I actually can’t handle this tea without some kind of milk. Without – it reminds me too much of a scented candle. It’s cloying in an artificial and heavily perfumed way; it makes me feel faint. With oat milk here it tastes like brown sugar mixed with melted butter, caramel pieces, and actual pumpkin (for real raw pumpkin in all of its questionable glory). It’s very rich but sometimes that’s alright. The aftertaste is nutty, apple-like, and buttery-sweet.

Erm… I guess this is sipdown because the entirety of the tin is now on the carpet. Thank you, crappy lid. I’m pretty sad about this one because there were at least 10 cups left in there.

Some of the rooibos and fruit pieces fell into my Ghost of Jasmine Dragon Pearls and that, at least, is nice.

Hurrah for impromptu vacuuming!

This is not bad. For a Rooibos.

Very rich and dark; there’s a light vanilla note that reminds me a tad of Vanille Coco perfume from Comptoir Sud Pacifique (Sephora). The brown sugar/caramel borders on boozy. Apple and blackberry leaves are detectable and bring out fall fruity notes. The pumpkin is baked, and is a thing I notice on my tongue more-so after I’ve finished my cup.

When I first smelled the blend I thought there were sunflower seeds. After drinking it, I still swear there are sunflower seeds.

017/365

I’m considering buying some more August Uncommon blends, now that I’m apparently back on a tea-buying bender. I feel like I’ve bought all the tea in the last two weeks. I’ve certainly made up for lost time!

The description for this one mentions tangerine, and I don’t get that at all. What I can taste is strawberry; sweet and juicy, and really flavour accurate. It tastes to me like a strawberry that’s maybe just a touch over-ripe, when they go soft and pinkish in patches, and become even sweeter and more strawberry-like than they were to begin with. The end of the sip brings a light lemon flavour, with just a hint of orange peel. It’s a semi-pithy flavour, rather than juicy, but it’s a good contrast with the super-sweet strawberry. There’s a slight earthiness in the aftertaste that I’m guessing might be the silver linden.

I was intrigued by the inclusion of thyme, but it’s actually totally lost as far as I can taste. That’s a shame, because I was hoping it would cross a kind of sweet/savoury divide. As it stands, this one mostly strikes me as a sweet dessert tea, and I would have liked more “forest”. It’s definitely a case of a description making promises the actual tea can’t deliver, although somehow it’s close. That’s maybe the most infuriating thing of all.

I noticed from reading other notes that people found the sencha to be fairly prominent, and I don’t get that at all. I feel like I have a low tolerance for green tea when it’s obviously getting in that way of the flavouring, or clouding my appreciation of what the blend is supposed to be delivering. I don’t find that to be the case here – it’s just a smooth, sweet backdrop for the equally smooth, sweet flavours – a green meadow on a sunny day, to keep with August’s imagery. I was a lot more conservative with my brew time than they recommend, though. If I’d left it for 5 minutes, as the pouch instructs, I feel it might be a different story. I don’t typically give my greens more than 3 minutes, particularly on first steep.

I like the flavour of this one, but I feel like it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I guess based on the few I’ve tried, I’ve become used to August Uncommon blends delivering something fairly unique, and this one really just isn’t. It’s a pleasant, easy drink though, and so I can’t really complain.

Tried this one with milk, and I’m not sure I’m convinced. I wouldn’t usually add milk to oolong, and it looks kind of thin, pale, and…uninspiring. It tastes fine; mostly peach, although more muted than it would be without the milk. I do think the white chocolate came through better, although how much of that was the tea and how much the milk, I can’t say for certain. I still don’t get pistachio. It was worth a try, but I think I’ll be finishing this one black.

010/365

More peach! I’ve had these samples sitting around for goodness knows how long, so I figured I’d continue with the small (tiny) start I made the other day. This one called to me out of those remaining – peach, lime, pistachio, and white chocolate sounds like a good combination to me.

The initial sip is very bright lime, not quite artificial in its intensity, but definitely on the way there. The mid-sip is all peach, and it’s good peach – sweet (but not overdone), juicy, pretty true-to-life. The end of the sip has a lingering floral note. I suspect it’s all supposed to come magically together and taste like iris, but I would say rose. And it’s a flavour apart from the rest, like it’s not really supposed to be there. It struck an odd note with me, but then floral isn’t really my thing anyway. I was happy with peach and lime.

I’m not getting any pistachio or white chocolate, which is disappointing, but according to the description that requires milk. I don’t have any at work right now, but that’s something I’ll have to try. I’m not sure that I’ve ever added milk to an oolong before (at least, not on purpose), so that’ll be an experience in itself. Speaking of oolong, that really isn’t a presence either, I suspect because the flavouring is so strong.

On the whole, though, I like this one. I just wish the company weren’t quite so… [no words]

Sipdown (584)!

Another sipdown where I finished the tea off with some added in eggnog. ’Tis the season, I guess!? I really, really liked the addition of it here though because the rich, creamy/custardy sweet element of the eggnog really helped to smooth out and balance some of the course, smoky lapsang in this blend that can be a little bit choppy/rough and too savory. What was left with this sort of “smoked” eggnog brulee profile!? And it was pretty tasty!

Very smoky profile overall, but somehow smokier teas just feel very appropriate for late night tea drinking – and that’s exactly what this was, a late night tea sipped on while sitting outside on my front porch and storm watching. It’s not just smoke though – it’s also got this nice burnt molasses/brown sugar/toffee sort of note that’s incredibly enticing to me. I added a little bit of orange flavoured honey to this, and with all three flavours grouped together it made me recall a very specific dessert that I’ve had before – and with such vivid recollection, too.

Basically, it reminded me of the hard burnt/carmelized sugar crust on top of this amazing orange flavored creme brulee that I once had at a super fancy restaurant for my mom’s birthday. It was sweet, and faintly orange flavoured but mostly just had this wonderful smoky, charred sugar taste. So, not only was this just a lovely profile overall but it was also, in a way, nostalgic.

Ok, so one – I totally thought that I’d tried this one already and two, I was definitely under the impression this was a blend of straight black teas. Turns out neither of those statements are true though ‘cause when I went to go find the sample of this one downstairs I saw that it hadn’t been opened yet and very clearly said it was a flavoured black tea…

Neither of those things are bad, of course – it was just a bit of a surprise is all. As soon as I cracked the package, I could immediately tell that there was Lapsang Souchong in this blend: it had a strong smokiness to it. It was also accompanied by sweet notes of caramelized brown sugar though which was intriguing and inviting.

Steeped up, I think this one is delicious! It’s a very dark flavour profile, and really full bodied/intense. The smoke is a strong flavour, but it’s not overpowering. There are also some really great notes of caramelized brown sugar and bourbon – particularly in the body of the sip, though that kind of bourbon flavour carries really well into the finish. Some vanilla undertones are present as well, and some soft notes of wood. Honestly, there’s a surprising amount of nuance and flavour layering going on overall.

Just a really dark flavour overall with lots of depth. Kind of haunting too, in a way? Really pleasant, though! I like that sweet and smoky combo; and it’s really well done here.

Well, now that I’ve located this one, and now that I have understood that it contains black tea, and now that I have become intimate with its deliciousness, I seem to be drinking it every day.

This tea has aged, so I will refrain from rating. The cocoa is right there, but the pineapple is vague. I detect it only when I know that it is supposed to be present. Vanilla makes the occasional overture. It’s all delicious though.

I had grand plans for this morning before I went to my exercise class. And now, the morning has flown by and my exercise class has already started and I am in bed with my second big cup and no plans to move any too quickly.

Some mornings have to be that way.

Ok, I got up at the crack of dawn again today. How much of it is baby next door and how much of it is my body rebelling against daylight savings time, I don’t know. I did, however, feel a sense of urgency to get to the library to return my things before 9 am when fines started kicking in.

Where I am going with this is that it was dark and dim when I was choosing my morning tea. In addition, there seems to be a problem with the lighting too and even if there weren’t, I didn’t have my glasses handy. I didn’t want my usual morning standbys nor did I want desserty types of blacks nor did I crave Chinese blacks.

Right then, so I couldn’t see and I refused to go with tried and true choices. Bad combination of events.

I reached for this one, which I think was Silencio, which I thought was a flavoured green. When I opened it, of course, I discovered that it wasn’t green, or it didn’t look like green. So I decided this was black.

Steeped it up as for a black and delicious. I took it back to bed, where there was light, and read for an hour.

As the tea cooled enough to enjoy, it was all about cocoa nibs and so, I decided it was a rooibos with cocoa nibs. Without black tea.

Short story is that I will be going back to the box and rebrewing and reading and finding out what it was that I started the day with.

#mugtober

…and for the final day of October the prompt was simply “Halloween”. The perfect excuse to sweet what is probably my favourite pumpkin tea in my collection. It’s so rich with cozy, sweet brown sugar and bourbon notes to go alongside hints of apple and pumpkin pie filling. I drank this one while listening to my favourite “This Is Halloween” AMV, which is one of many traditions I have surrounding Halloween.

Song/AMV Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qztch6_Uhuk&ab_channel=PauloPT90

It’s finally starting to feel like Autumn slowly but surely, and I’m starting to feel the seasonal flavour cravings creepin’ on in. This is always a total banger, and it just felt right to pull it out and make a mug. Rich, molasses-y brown sugar and boozy bourbon tinged by a bit of top note fruity brightness, a hint of citrusy pumpkin and warming spices, and lots of caramel and vanilla. It’s complex, it’s dark, it’s sweet… It’s all the things that make me feel like autumn. I just want to frolic in crunchy leaves, and carve pumpkins.

I know the next few weeks will 100% bee me flip flopping back and forth between clinging onto the last bit of summer and embracing the fall. But, in this moment where I was feeling that seasonal shift, this was a perfect cuppa.

Oops All Pumpkin 10/10!

This was another very, very rich pumpkin tea from the day though I had it a little earlier on in the day so I don’t think that bothered me the same way Pumpkin Cheesecake did by the end of the day. Plus, I had it plain so I wasn’t bogged down my more alt milk either.

On top of a rich flavour, it’s also just surprisingly complex. There’s sort of a bright and almost fruity top note of maple to this blend that tastes almost “bouncy” on the palate when compared to deeper, darker brown notes of bourbon, molasses, and caramel that anchor the cup. Right square in the middle is the taste of pumpkin; not quite raw but also not as processed as something like a pumpkin pie. It still has just a bit of that naturally citrus adjacent fresh snap to it. Really, really love how much flavour is packed into this tea. Even though it skus very “sweet and brown” all of those notes seem distinguished from one another to me instead of blurring together at the edges. That’s a mighty feat!

My second favourite of all the teas today.

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CkYo7Xju3Rv/ (Tenth photo)

Even though I loved this tea a lot, I put it last in my post because the photo is just awful. There wasn’t really any natural light in my room at this point, and it just came out wonky. I didn’t want to omit it though because the tea is just so, so good.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEZ713Hw-dc

I’m so glad I picked up another bag of this because it’s just so unbelievably decadent and delicious with so much more complexity to it than almost any other pumpkin blend I’ve had the pleasure of tasting. Notes of, yes, pumpkin but also brown sugar, molasses, dark rum and bourbon, vanilla extract, caramel, and maple syrup. A lot of “sweet brown” flavours but despite that it’s not an overly sweet/cloying profile. It was so, so satisfying! Especially since it’s sort of finally beginning to feel like Autumn is creeping in now…