Steven Smith Teamaker
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Sipdown!
Tea. Good.
Roommate wanted to use her coupon for a free drink at Starbucks so I just ordered hot water and this was the only caffeine-free tea I had with me haha.
Beating the system aww yiss :)
((Look at previous notes for the actual tasting note bit of this. Grande sized hot water, drank it all the way back home. Decided to roll out my yoga mat and sleep on the living room floor as my roommates watched tv. Oh it was great.))
Tea that I had while finishing up the last 100 pages of Insurgent!
Literally just finished that book like 5 minutes ago and I’m already starting Allegiant :) It’s a good series. Definitely liked the first book more though.
Yeah. Guns and war and blood and death. Needed a bit of chamomile to calm myself a bit. Good tea to end the night with :)
(lazy lazy laaaazzyyy. Read previous tasting notes to like.. actually read the tasting notes part of it haha)
This tea smells like butt from the chamomile (I kinda don’t like chamomile all that much oops) but it smells sooo much beter steeping!
The lemon comes out more, but I definitely don’t taste the rose petals.
Definitely a nice, well-rounded herbal tea.
I actually missed my midterm tonight oops. But my professor was all yeah, take it tomorrow, it’s totally fine! So that is what I’m doing :) I’ve got me some nice herbals to last me the night of studying :)
Flavors: Lemon Zest
Preparation
Oh my gosh I feel like the steepster app/email notification thing kinda stopped working for a bit because DANG MY PHONE WAS VIBRATING LIKE CRAZY JUST NOW.
Okay. Last tea of the night and then it’s off to bed. Concentrating on herbals this late because I need sleep but tea is good and yes class tomorrow morning and it’s not going to be fun if I sleep at 3am.
This is tasting note #199, I’m celebrating #200 tomorrow! Hmm but which tea should I make #200…
Definitely laughing at the state of my kitchen right now.
All my roommates have left for the weekend and I’ve just taken over the kitchen and dining area with my textbooks and teas because heck, why be cooped up in my room when the kitchen is nice and open?
I like washing dishes, I do I do, so right now the only things in the dish rack are the plates used over the past two days and… my tea pot and about 6 mugs because of all the tea that I’ve been drinking. A different mug for breakfast, lunch and dinner hehe :)
Still studying. Finishing up 302, and hopefully going to move to 374 at around 8 tonight. I’ve got my Meadow in my disappearing Tardis mug and I’m going to get through this weekend! So much studying but I’ve got time! Gotta pass all these midterms with flying colours, and I’ve got my teas to keep me company :)
Preparation
I went through 2 liters of tea tonight oh my gosh there is nothing wrong with me. There is absolutely nothing wrong with just sitting at the kitchen table with the kettle within arms reach and your entire tea collection just sitting there waiting to be drank.
Definitely been working on philosophy and studying for the THREE midterms I have next week. Ahh well. Lots of tea will be consumed this weekend. Looks like I’ve got my own one-person tea parties!
Laughing so hard because the top layer of the trash bin is all the tea I drank tonight ahaha
Chamomile alone is okay. I’ve had other chamomile blends where the chamomile was overpowering the other flavours. This blend, however, oh the chamomile was there, but I was able to taste the other flavours as well! The rose kinda got lost a bit after the second steeping, but overall a very wonderful flowery blend :)
Preparation
Another sample, care of TastyBrew. Thanks! :)
A mild green tea with Spearmint & Lemon Myrtle. I’m not always a huge mint fan, & I much prefer peppermint over spearmint, but this tea is a pleasant after-breakfast cup. This isn’t bitter at all, & is even mildly sweet. The sip starts out a little creamy, followed by a refreshing sensation, but ends somewhat astringent, & that’s the only thing I don’t care for about it.
I decided to have a cup of this chai with my breakfast with a little stevia. It’s a nice spicy one, & the only thing that would have made it better would have been some canned coconut milk, or actually the cream off the top of a can of coconut milk, or maybe some french vanilla coconut creamer. Thanks to Tasty Brew for this sample!
Day 3 in Florida, 1st sip down of the day. Thanks for including this in the BBBB, TastyBrew. It is, in my opinion, a manly tea: Leather, wood, a little musty. Not as sweet as some of the Yunnan’s Ive enjoyed, but still a decent tea to drink.
I have a sample of this one that I haven’t tried yet. Manly tea! :P
Terri, what’s your parameters for this tea? Hope you enjoying the trip!
Boychik, I’ve tried it a couple of different ways:
1 tsp X 3 was ok, but kind of weak, IMO
1TB gongfu…it just wasn’t that interesting that way
1 TB 1/2/5 not much better than the gongfu
1 TB X 3 good, but a little strong
I probably should have gone with 2 t X 3. I think that would have been the sweet spot.
I should try when I get home. It’s still unopened . Thanks for the advice!
Another sample from TastyBrew. Thanks!
I’m not a big fan of Ceylon teas. They tend to taste like the ice tea of my youth, & like green tea, they tend to make me sick on an empty stomach, probably due to astringency. Their flavor profile also doesn’t appeal to me nearly as much as some other teas. They lack a low end.
Having said all that, this is a decent cup. Nothing memorable about it, very ‘even’, slightly floral, slightly oaky, a hint of citrus, slightly astringent. Not bad, not exciting.
NEXT!
Another tea from TastyBrew! Thanks!
This is an interesting brew. I’m not a fan of Ceylon much, but I enjoyed this with breakfast. It was definitely fruity, in a winey sort of way, and a little tart. I’ve never had a tea that was aged in a wine barrel, & honestly never thought about that sort of thing. It’s actually a pretty cool idea though. Probably not something I’d ever purchase, but worth trying. Thanks Tasty, for the opportunity!
Back from my Pacific Northwest adventure! Had a wonderful time, especially adored Portland (the vibe of the city, all the lively varied neighborhoods, tea shops!, used book stores!, kitchen pantry dream shops like The Meadow!, naked bike night!, first Thursday art walk!, food truck areas full of people having fun late into the night!, so much craft beer!, Ground Kontrol!, Lan Su Chinese Garden, Washington Park’s Rose Garden and Japanese Garden and Hoyt Arboretum, taking the old historic highway through the Columbia River Gorge, Sauvie Island, driving down the Oregon coastline from Astoria to Arcadia Beach to Manzanita, the Tabor Park cinder cone at dusk, Mount Hood, all the yummy well sourced food…), though everything (Olympic National Park, particularly the rainforests and coastline beaches like Rialto and Ruby, the lavender farms in Sequim, Pike Market!, the ferry ride to Bainbridge Island, flying into Seattle right by Mount Rainier, on and on) was great.
Wasn’t expecting so much tea (there’s virtually none anymore in Memphis, alas), so that was a great surprise (husband dug how the bubble tea around town has more choices than tapioca pearls, stuff like coconut bits and fruit/plant jellies). Steven Smith and Stash seem the default in restaurants yay, and we just stumbled upon places like the Tea Zone and Camellia Lounge, multiple Townshend’s locations, and the Tao of Tea as we wandered places. So great.
I have a minor cold now (not too surprising, ugh air travel) so I’ll refrain from rating this while my sinuses and throat are impaired but I must say it’s really hitting the spot. Strong and bold without being harsh, and with a more citrusy bergamot than usual that somehow I dig (normally I prefer my bergamot flowery and complex, not fruity at all). Yum.
Preparation
Sounds like a fun trip! I was there recently myself. :)
Glad you enjoyed Portland! It’s a pretty great place to live :-)
I love Portland. I live just a few minutes from it in Vancouver, WA. And Steven Smith’s Tea Shop is one of my favorite places to go! There’s also a great tea shop called Tea Chai Te – they have a few locations as well.
LiberTEAS- I was just at their sellwood location yesterday! Had their hojicha/matcha chai. I like Steven smith too, but if I want a good tea shop, I love townshends on Alberta. Their tea isn’t the best ever, but i love the atmosphere.
thanks, Amy oh! it was my first time visiting…
had no idea you were a resident, TastyBrew! jealous. a friend of mine who visited last summer and i were bonding over how much we want to move now, ha.
LiberTEAS, i actually thought of you when i finally nabbed some Lord Bergamot—i knew from reviews you liked it, and i think that might also be how i found out in passing you live near portland. jealous! i really wanted to visit the actual shop because of that cool stuff they’re doing with tea cocktail mixer things (?) but it was a little out of the way for us and the hours didn’t work given we’d spend business hours out in nature most of the time. ah well!
all the tea shops around town made me so jealous. we were at a townshend’s on division the night of the naked bike ride, and thankfully a cute local guy a table next to us asked us if we knew when it was starting and explained the whole thing when we said we had no idea and were tourists. it makes me laugh imagining not knowing why hordes of naked cyclists were roaming the roadblocked streets downtown like a parade.
Sipdown # 24, I think. I’ll have to do some calculating, but I’m pretty sure that’s where I’m at! I was gonna send this one off, but I decided to just drink it, LOL. It’s bold, it’s bright, it’s a little brash this morning, but definitely makes a pretty good breakfast companion!
How do you accomplish several sipdowns in one night without drinking a thing? Pack up some tea for family/friends, including those smaller samples that you already tried, so they can try them to!! Nothing old or stale, mind you, just smaller quantities. I haven’t done the math yet, but I have boxes in the works for My sis, Sil, & a few others. It will be fun to see what my collection numbers at by the time I’m done. And I think I’m going to start next week with a Sipdown Extravaganza!
This tea is almost gone. I believe I’m going to include the final cup in one of the above mentioned boxes, so that I can claim a sipdown on it as well. It’s bold, it’s bright, it’s pretty good with a robust breakfast (which is what I usually eat). Any other time it is way too Ceylon for me, & it really leaves a puckery shrill high not on the tip & center of the tongue, long after the cup is drained.
I’m getting down near the end of this one, which is sad, because it is really a great breakfast blend, perfect for the kind of robust breakfast that I like to have. (vegetarians & vegans, you might want to stop reading now).
This morning I’m having venison & asparagus. Tony’s best friend Dan (who I like to call Hunter Dan) gifted me with a backstrap (tenderloin), a roast, & a steak. Talk about Locavore eating! I’ve been slicing off medallions of the tenderloin & searing them in a cast iron skillet for a few days now. My energy level is off the wall, I feel great. I used to be a vegetarian, most of my adult life, with a variety of autoimmune disorders. So glad I eat meat now. The human body really can heal itself if you give it the right materials.
Didn’t you have trouble transistioning back to eating meat? Husband has been a vegetarian for nearly twenty years now, and if he eats something with meat in it his body reacts as if it’s food poisoning. And that was just a soup with chicken stock in it (which I’m sure was an accident, because it wouldn’t be like them at all to sneak it in on purpose thinking he couldn’t tell). Mind you, he’s not even contemplating going back to meat, I’m just wondering.
Personally I can definitely tell that I’m not getting very much meat at all these days. It’s a different way of feeling full. Recently the entire staff at the hospital where I work was given free lunch of Christmas food and I went for all the things I don’t get at home. Sausage, chicken tartlet, roast duck (we pause here for a moment to contemplate the loveliness of roast duck) and fish! And only a little bit of spinach and even less red cabbage. Tasted great, but I felt decidedly blah and ‘meat-y’ for the rest of the day. And I haven’t even given meat up, I just don’t get very much of it.
So I have difficulties imagining going back to it after being so unused to having it.
Angrboda – I think we each react differently. I was vegan and went back to eating meat and diary in one fell swoop and was ok :) I know people who got really sick just eating a little meat or dairy after being vegan. I think there are people who do really well on a vegan or vegetarian diet and others who do better with some meat.
I loved being vegan for ethical reasons but it was hard on friendships and relationships — I hated not being able to share all of the food when I was invited somewhere. Food and what I could not eat became the focus of almost everything. I finally lost it when I went to Italy and was not able to fully participate in my travels. What I could and could not eat became the focus rather than the amazing place and cuisine and people I was with.
I still don’t eat a lot of meat compared with the average carnivore, but I am really enjoying being able to say yes, thank you when I am with others sharing whatever they have been generous enough to serve.
I had roast duck last night at a party as a matter of fact, and I so know what you mean :) I probably won’t have it again for at least a year, but oh!
Hmm, that’s probably true. Mind you, before meeting Husband I wouldn’t have thought it at all possible to survive on vegetarian food either. Now I find I rather enjoy it. I don’t want to give up meat entirely, I want to still be able to eat it when we’re out and that sort of thing, but I have MANY new favourite dishes at home. Husband isn’t vegan though. He says I’d have had a problem if he was because I love cheese. I’ve noticed recipes that use cheese almost always only say half the amount you actually need. :p
Roast duck is the most common for Christmas dinner in this country. Some people have pork roast or goose and in the South of Jutland most people favour turkey, but in my family it’s nearly always duck. Depends on who’s hosting. My grandmother have been known to serve pork in previous years, and my aunt once served goose just because she’d never had one of those before. :)
Roast duck…sigh…it’s been awhile!
Regarding switching from a vegetarian to meat eating…the hardest part of the transition for me was what I ‘thought’ was the ethical issue, the myth that being vegetarian somehow helps the planet to feed more people, which is actually not true. The more I looked at the economics of grain vs locally raised grass eating meat & veggies, the more I realized that being a carnivore was the better choice, not only for my body, but also for the economy. Anyway, couple that with growing food sensitivities, ect, I started my switch a few years ago. I started by adding homemade chicken stock into my diet, & chicken. Then Beef stock. And beef (which I prefer over chicken). The real confirmation came a month or so in, when I began to really notice the difference in how much better I felt, how much better my digestion is, & the amount of weight I’d lost! (a nice perk!). I drink stock often, it’s SO good for you, I eat a lot of veggies, a variety of meats, homemade cultured things, occasional fruit, & occasional gluten free treats (but not too often).
Food for thought: I’m still a royal pain to eat with, as I’m sensitive to chemicals, dairy, grains, etc. Many meats are processed with Nitrates & other chems, so I don’t eat out much. You never know what they are really serving! I’ve made friends with local farmers, so I pretty much get most of my meat & eggs from them, which allows me to support local people who actually raise the animals. I like that.
It’s been soooo long since I had venison. My father in law used to hunt and now he just fishes. So we get lots of crappie but no venison. :( I miss the occasional wild turkey as well. Venison & asparagus for breakfast sounds divine!
for years I lived on 2 elk and 2 deer a year.sometimes other game too like the occasional antelope or bison…good stuff….
ok, it IS my tastebuds. I know for a fact that there is more to this tea than I’m tasting, & basically, all I’m tasting is bitterness.
I’m not gonna waste any more time drinking new teas today, until I can reset my tastebuds somehow.
It’s probably a manifestation of my general grumpiness today.
I added a little sweetening, but I’m not really digging that either, although I’ll go ahead & drink this cup, in hopes that the caffeine will lift my mood. We’re watching ‘interns’, & I have Dr Who set to record (don’t worry, I won’t post any spoilers). I’m just gonna zone out & do Reiki on myself & watch this movie.
Hmmm…for some reason this tea didn’t come out quite as expected…
It seemed like the time went off kind of quickly, so I put the brew basket back in the cup for a few more minutes, and yes, that’s better. That’s more like what I was expecting! Bold, tangy, bright, & a little smoke. Much much better.
It’s the last day of the month! I keep trying to make the last day of the month my day to clean house, complete any loose ends, etc. Today I’d really like to accomplish some things, & I have no students until 2:30, so hopefully I’ll get a move on here shortly. But first breakfast & more tea!
For all my love of full leaf individual teas, I also love a good blend. That’s exactly what this is too! It’s bright, it’s rich, it’s earthy, it’s bassy. It’s also sweet, clean, fruity/winelike. What more can I say? Nothing. So I’ll finish this cup. And my breakfast.
Hahaha. “Tea. Good.” Straight to the point…I like it.
I seriously wrote this a couple hours ago and today has been EXHAUSTING. I was like half asleep when I typed it up.
Oh well, I’ve had this tea before so I have better tasting notes than this one hhaha
Well not every note needs to be elaborate of course. I quite enjoyed reading this one.