THEODOR

it’s like this tea is cursed in my house. Every time i drink it, i either over steep it or i drink it so quickly i don’tt really pay attention to it. I’m guessing that means it sits somewhere in the middle of the road for me haha. either way, a decent bold cup with a strong brassy note this morning because the rental dog made me over steep this one.

I’m going to need to have this again and write a proper note for it. On the upside, i drank all of it..downside, i wasn’t really paying attention to it :(

From Sil. :)

I kept like 1/2 tsp back to try. I don’t like pear, so I’m not really expecting much from this tea.

It smells like fuzzy peaches, and pear jelly beans. Uhh…

Hmm. I didn’t steep it very long – maybe 30 seconds. It’s mostly peach I think, but with that icky overripe jelly bean pear flavour in the background.

I did another steep while I stirred my chili. Still really peachy and overripe pear. I think that if you love those flavours, this would be a good tea for you. It is high quality, and I am appreciating the oolong base. However, since the pear is really one of my LEAST favourite flavours, it’s falling flat for me.

But I did get a glass test tube with a cork cap out of the deal. ;)

Sipdown! From a long time ago…

Thanks to Sil, I got to sample this tea! Wasn’t planning on it, but her tales of how it is the only peachy tea she’s been enjoying lately (is that right?) made me curious.

I believe one of the comments was that this tea tastes somewhat apricotty – whether I’m confusing it with another tea or not, that was kind of my impression. I do like apricot. In fact, I should probably a) finish that delicious apricot blend I have from 52teas and b) petition for it to be reblended (but that’s another story).

So anyhow, this was apricotty/peachy, and green. The base was fine, no comment either way, really, and the flavouring was ok, but I’m having difficulty enjoying too many fruity greens lately, so I was thankful to only have a cup of this. I can see how it could be more enjoyable than other peach teas (there’s something about peachy teas that’s a total turnoff for me now; I’m not sure why), but it just doesn’t interest my tastebuds at this time.

When I looked up this one from MissB, I was excited to try it, since it has a lot of good reviews here and the flavors sounded pretty good. I’m not sure if I would recommend it as a cold brew, though. The fruit flavors became perhaps too intense, and the whole thing tasted like some kind of strange peach candy. I could also be reacting to the strawberry; I enjoy fresh strawberries, but anything else strawberry-flavored is not my thing. All in all, not my favorite fruit blend.

This is a tea I really wanted to try (pistachio and marzipan was the original description on The O Dor’s site), but the shop was out when I was in Brussels. Fortunately MissB had some to send along!

I feel like there are some weird translation issues here. Is it a macaroon, or macaron? Actually I think the answer is both? (Side note: The O Dor updated their website and it is a million billion times easier to use, plus they give ingredients now). It does have both “macaron” flavors, and coconut, which is more macaroon. What I taste is a lot of pistachio, a hint of almond, some creamy coconut, and an underlying base of chocolate. It’s not exactly what I was expecting, but it is delicious. I think I would prefer it without the coconut, but I don’t really care for coconut in my black tea. Regardless, I am happy to have tried this one (but I don’t think I will be ordering 100g any time soon).

I have been moving recently (up north, to take a new job), and thus not in a situation where I can easily drink tea all the time. But I have a few weeks where it will be easier, so I am going to attempt to drink more of the samples that MissB sent me recently!

I have wanted to try this one for a while, ever since people rhapsodized about how it was the perfect almond tea. Almond is perhaps my favorite flavor, yet I have never really found a perfect almond tea. Most often a purely almond-flavored tea suffers from thinness in the texture, I find. MissB was kind enough to send a bit of this my way so I could finally try it.

It certainly delivers in the almond flavor. And it isn’t as thin as say, DF’s Amande Amaretti, although it is still a little thinner than I would like. I agree with someone (Ysaurella?) that this seems like a keemun-y base. Decent, but not my fave. There is some light note that I don’t care for that is definitely coming from the base, but the almond covers it fairly well.

All in all I am very glad to have tried this one. I also think that I don’t necessarily need a straight up almond tea; apparently I like my almond a bit blended (preferrably with rose and vanilla). But this is definitely the best straight almond tea I have yet tried.

Thank you for the sample Marzipan :)

This reminded me a lot of my one of my fave from Fauchon, Chocolate Eclair!

Oh my…. chocolate hazelnut deliciousness in my cup right now! So creamy… so decadent… just like desert in liquid form! Thanks so much Sil for sending this one my way!!

so busy. working from home so i have a little time to focus on tea while multitasking work things. Pulled this one out because i really need to get through more of my flavoured teas but haven’t really felt like drinking them all that often. i tend to prefer drinking them out of ceramics for some reason. This one is nearly done and while i enjoy it a bunch, there are other teas with that vanila flavour that i prefer.

yay for digging out old favourites :) hazelnut nommyness.

I pulled this one out the other day because i wanted a little french love. I really enjoy drinking the teas that i picked up from paris, it’s just that due to the hot weather, it’s hard to be all about those creamy flavours that i adore in the winter. It’s like ice cream…i always want it in winter, but in summer i prefer popsicles haha. This is still a great tea – vanilla and then in to that hazelnut sort of love. yum.

love this. Still working on getting through trying all the teas in my cupboard, so this one was pulled out a few days ago and it is wonderful! Hazelnut and vanilla on a fancy french base that still holds it’s own. I really enjoyed this one..kind of curious how it would fare as a latte as well :)

It is a pretty dark green leaf Oolong, rolled and mixed with Goji berries from a deep orange-red and flowers. The dry leaf smell is very strong, very fruity and peach -y. I do not feel especially the floral side of the low oxidized Oolong.

I decide to steep this Oolong at 80 ° c and for 4 minutes.

The leaves unfold quite well but still have a great potential for future steeps. The Goji berry is still very orange and energetic!

The infusion smells peach and fruit. The colour is really beautiful with a very warm orange yellow.

Unsurprisingly peach is the first detected aroma, it is powerful, maybe a touch too much. But peach, despite its ingenuous physical, is not a so discreet fruit. Refined but not discreet, it often takes everything out its way.

This peach does not play on the sweet side, which brings a great freshness to the blend.

On the next sips I can now detect very specifically pear notes, very significant. We should not sometimes rush to much to isolate and detect flavours. And I love pear …

However I am quite happy to not really detect lotus as my palate was not thrilled by all the lotus teas that I tried in the past.

The texture is very light, a bit mellow but nothing more.

While cooling, the pear begins to seriously challenge the peach … for my highest pleasure. I think it must be absolutely divine as an iced Oolong tea.

This is a successful tea and I’ll be more than happy to buy some this summer.

Pics of this very lovely tea (liquor and leaves are gorgeous) are available here : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/tag/theodor/

When the mint, pepper, and smokiness of the gunpowder(?) are all paired together my imagination goes down the road of savory lamb roasts and stews. Yet it’s also citrusy, refreshing ,and floral. I finished off the sample quickly enough but I still don’t know what to think of it (mostly enjoyable).

I was eager to try this after OMGsrsly listed the unlikely pairing of ingredients, and ever since Sil’s and MissB’s notes first appeared. Thanks for sending this my way! I always enjoy my gunpowder greens and mint.

someone else wrote up a great review of the tea launch that i had the fortune of attending while i was in Paris.

http://madaboutmacarons.com/2015/05/teatime-with-theodor-launch-of-absolu-oolong-tea/

The tea that was launched was this one, and i realised today that i hadn’t logged that i’d had it. I know Ysaurella also had an opportunity to sample it.I’d gone because while at the store, i was told that this was a pear tea that would be launched. What they failed to tell me was that it was also PEACH. Sadly while it was a really nicely blended tea…it was way more peach than pear. Even my other half, upon smelling it, remarked that it smelled entirely of peaches. Still though, if you’re a fan of oolongs and peach – this is a lovely creation from the o dor.

It’s the first oolong tea I drank and I loved it !

Last cup of this today. While it’s a decent enough tea, i find myself wanting many other of my fancy french teas before i was pulling this one out. ESP since this is meant to be a lemony tea…it really hasn’t quite figured out what it wants to be imo…but that’s ok.

Count: 107. Pretty sure i won’t make it to 70 by the time the end of september hits, but i can always try! haha

not much new to say on this one, just trying to work through some sipdowns and the older teas in my cupboard :)