tea and all its splendour

Sipdown (223)

This came from either Evol Ving Ness or Sil. Thank you!

I made this the usual way I make a latte, using 3 perfect tsps of leaf in about 6 oz of water and topped it with 6 oz of frothed milk. That clearly was not the right way to go because this tastes like spicy dirt :(

There seemed to be a proliferance of turmeric teas at our last tea festival in town. This is one of the ones I picked up from this new, for me, tea blender.

I’ve been experimenting with steeping methods and the winner for me is throwing a couple of spoons into a cooking pot, adding boiling water, covering with the lid, and letting it steep for 8 to 10 minutes, adding a spoon of honey and a glug of milk or half and half, and pouring the finished chai through a sieve into a cup or carry thing.

Nice ginger and turmeric bite. Healthy zip from the black pepper. Ginger and cardamom shine too. Vanilla softens things up a bit. Really nice blend. I’ve been quite pleased with teas from this maker: fresh, creative, inspired. I look forward to more from them.

This was the third tea in the Postal Teas box for this company, though I think it’s actually a Dethlefsen & Balk blend originally. It was nice to get a variety of teas in this subscription box: one black, one green, and one herbal, and they were all pretty good. The dried leaf for this one is very pretty – the picture doesn’t do it justice. Green leaves, tan/brown fruit/ginger pieces, and blue cornflower petals. The tisane is fresh and almost citrusy (that would be the lemongrass and maybe the verbena?), with a slight sweetness that I presume is from the apple. It’s nice to try a “zinger” tisane where the “zing” comes from ginger, and not hibiscus. :) I’m not getting much actual blueberry flavour from this, but I also didn’t see any blueberries in my spoonful of tea. Anyway, it’s refreshing and pleasant to drink , and I think I’ll try it iced next.

Another from my Postal Teas box, this one was just ok. I don’t really know what passion fruit tastes like, but my general impression was that this is a sort of generic fruity green tea. Like, there was nothing offensive about it, but also nothing particularly special either.

This is a very tasty tea! The dry leaf is almost overwhelmingly fruity and cherry scented, but happily it mellows out and becomes more balanced in the steeping. The scent of the steeped tea is a blend of tart cherry and an earthy sweetness that I suspect is from the fig. The taste has a strong but pleasant cherry flavour that lingers into the aftertaste – not medicinal or overly tart. There’s a slight sweetness that might be the fig. The base black tea is smooth and provides a good base without interfering with the other flavours at all. I bet this would be lovely as an iced tea in the summer.

I got this from the Postal Teas box, and I’m happy to have had a chance to try it, though I’m a little annoyed to be again getting teas from a subscription box that come from a vendor who is in turn reselling wholesale teas. I’m not sure where the blend actually originates, but it’s available for sale from both Deflethson & Balk and ESP Emporium, and Tealux sells it (under the name “Cherry Fantasy”) for cheaper than tea and all its spendour does. Ah well, at least I actually like the tea this time. :)

Well… at least I tried it when it was fresh, because it’s a bit stale-tasting now. I wish I knew which ingredient was the culprit, so I could maybe pick it out, because it’s unusual for a tea to develop a stale flavour. Typically, they just lose flavour, even the tisanes.

Either way, I didn’t remark on the stale flavour previously, only that it was kind of weak tasting. This time, I used more tea, and aside from the staleness, it was pretty good. I have a few more cups left to play with; we’ll see if I can make it work. I did unfortunately have to dump the cup due to the weird flavour.

This smelled good but WOW is it ever weak. I felt like I way overleafed (very generous 1.5 tsp… probably more than 2, for maybe 8 oz but probably 6 oz water?), and gave it a decently long infusion (4.5 minutes, okay, could have been longer), but there’s hardly any flavour here. I’m debating nuking my cup, adding a tbsp of the mix to the infuser, and seeing if that makes a difference, because at this strength, I don’t really want to drink it. Also, thanks Indigobloom via Sil and Raritea, apparently? :)

this was one from Indigobloom via Raritea Not my favourite. It’s not a bad tea, but it’s not really pumpkin spice, or fig. It’s like it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be and so it’s a melange of something that just doesn’t quite work. thanks for sharing though ladies! I do like getting to try new teas :)

1.5 tbsp for 375 ml

Dilute-tasting. Good mix of spice. Slight medicinal tinge. Possibly too many different flavours in this one.

Has a wonderful scent and the fruity flavours make the tea soft and sweet, with no bitterness that you would sometimes get from plain green tea.