THEODOR

Sipdown no. 28 of 2018 (no. 384 total).

Lately, I’ve been making sure I always have a pitcher of cold tea in the fridge. The kids, especially no. 2, really like tea but can’t tolerate the heat until it’s lukewarm. They really prefer to drink it cold, and since I need all the help I can get to clear out my out of control and increasingly aging tea collection, I’ve been enlisting their help.

This is going to sound more OCD than it is, but my system for selecting the next cold tea candidate is to pick one, generally a black tea or maybe an oolong, that I have enough of to make a full pitcher, and that is currently the lowest on my Steepster rating scale. This on the theory that I’ll be saving the ones I liked better to drink hot (at least until I catch up to those as well).

Most of this tin went to cold tea as it wasn’t particularly impressive to me hot. In fact, I’m bumping it down to the merely good category from very good in this final note.

It was a perfectly fine iced tea. No. 2 drank it in quantity. I’ve now put the very last bit in the fridge to steep, but since I only had enough for half the spoons, I had to mix it with a couple of other teas to get a full pitcher’s worth. I included the last little bit of the Premium Steap Black (India) Single Estate Assam Sessa FTGFOP1 and some of the Rishi 2nd Flush Darjeeling Muscatel from this morning. We’ll see what that does.

How many citrus fruits can you name? This tea is flavored with damn near every one I can come up with. Which is both fascinating and somewhat intimidating. It seems like it could be really delicious or a total fail. I’m going into this not knowing what to expect.

Right off the bat it gets points for cornflowers, with their adorable blueness among the dark leaves. There is also some citrus peel visible. The fragrance is strongly citrus, pretty heavy on the grapefruit to my nose. Though I’m also getting some of the orangey, tangeriney aspect. There’s a bitterness to it, which I suppose is from the peel.

From the color of the liquor and the aroma, I’m guessing the base here is Ceylon. It has a pretty russet color, and a mild fragrance. There is some definite citrus in the aroma; again I’m getting mostly grapefruit and some orange input. I’m a little worried going into the tasting that the citrus is going to be bitter, as it has that same bitter twinge to it that the dry leaves have.

But fortunately, there’s no bitterness to the taste. It turns out that the citrus is much mellower in taste than in smell. It’s actually almost too mellow for my taste. It doesn’t really make its presence known much at all until the finish, where I get some lemon, and maybe a little of the grapefruit and orange. The rest of the citrus blends together into a sort of single citrusy mish-mash. It’s tasty though. I don’t get a lot of bergamot, so if you’re not a bergamot fan you don’t need to be scared by this one.

I like French teas in general quite a bit, and I haven’t had anything from The O Dor so far that was an outright failure. This one is pleasant, but it doesn’t make me talk to myself under my breath as I’m drinking it. I’m not saying “wow” or “that’s good,” or “mmmm” or such things. By that standard I think it’s something I’ll enjoy drinking but isn’t going to be high on my list to replace when it is gone.

Like Jillian said: Oh. My. God. I also tasted this tea at the Urban Tea Merchant in Vancouver. I’ve never had a milky oolong before. The tasting I had in the store was actually a little bitter – I think they added too many leaves…but I could taste its potential, so I shelled out the big bucks to bring some of this home. I just brewed up my first pot. I pulled out my Yixing teapot for this one. The instructions recommend brewing it for 5 minutes, which seems kind of long to me. I usually only brew oolongs for a minute or two, but I went light on the amount of leaves I used and 5 minutes seems to have done the trick. It was YUMMY! It smells like butter and has a wonderful smooth creamy flavour. This may be my new favourite oolong. It is wonderful with some dark chocolate. A pot of this tea….some dark chocolate…..a cat on my lap….what could be better?

What a delicious tea! It’s beautiful dry and the steeped tea has a very sweet liquer. I can most certainly taste the marzipan/almond flavor. The pistachio is a bit more remote, but it’s there. I also pick up on a big coconut flavor which is not puzzling considering that the written catalogue I have mentions the flavour of “Parisian macaroons”.

This is a perfect pick-me-up afternoon black tea and it would also be perfect for a special meeting…. Simply lovely! The flavors are exquisite but the black tea does not compromise its strength.

My 300th tasting note? Really? Man, they accumulate fast. Lol.

Clue No. 4 [This would have been the last clue, if Rabs hadn’t figured out my mystery with only three! Awesome!]

Surprised I’m the first to write a note on this as it appears to be the flagship tea of The O Dor.

As a fan of Harney & Sons Florence, I was particularly curious about this tea as it’s also a chocolate and hazelnut flavored black.

The leaves smell different. The Wolf smells more like what I’d expected of Florence and been pleasantly surprised not to find: Frangelico and chocolate. Florence has a true nut smell, rather than a liqueur. But the liqueur of the Wolf is marvelous smelling in its own way. There are large nut fragments visible in the tea.

Steeped, the tea produces a truer nut smell with a chocolate undercurrent.

It’s a different taste than Florence. Though I’m not doing a side by side tasting, from memory I’d say it’s subtler, with less pronounced chocolate. That is both a minus and a plus, as it is naturally sweeter prior to milk and/or sweetening additives than Florence is and makes a really delicious drink plain — but the trade off is that it is less chocolatey overall.

I’m still liking Florence in the top spot, but this is a strong contender and one I think can coexist nicely for those times a straight up chocolate/hazelnut is calling.

The O Dor sent me a free sample of this delicious green tea. Next time I order from them I will select a full size of this. It’s grassy and a bit fruity although I cannot really identify the fruits—not exactly melon or citrus but perhaps a bit of a peach/nectarine/plum thing.

It’s a very fine tea indeed with some butter to it, but not so much as to be distracting.

The last of the The O Dor samples accompanying my order. Apparently they have at December 25th in almost every color. There’s a black, a green, and a red in addition to the white. Reminds me of my mom, who would buy a pair of shoes in several different colors. I don’t do that. OK, maybe once or twice, but that’s ALL.

They gave me the white one — I guess because I ordered a lot of black tea, so my samples were green, rooibos, this one, and mysteriously, Earl Grey. The dry leaves look like white peony (not that I’m an expert) with orange peel and other stuff in them. They smell like a fruitcake, or perhaps the more sophisticated sounding and generally better English version, a Christmas pudding.

There’s a dense, alcoholic (guessing rum) laced with fruit aroma coming from the steeped tea. The liquor is a burnished gold color with sencha-reminiscent particles suspended in it.

The taste is mildly fruit cake spicy, with an undercurrent of alcohol and a mellowness that borders on sweet that I am guessing is the contribution of the white tea. I feel like adding apple into it and calling it wassail.

It’s tasty and something that I might enjoy revisiting in winter. A bit too much for the coming summer heat, even with the white tea base.

Another detour along the path of Project Finish Golden Moon samples. This was another sample The O Dor threw in with my order from them.

It’s unclear to me exactly what is in this. It came in a white envelope with a handwitten label on it with just the name of the tea. The web site isn’t much help either. The dry mixture looks like sencha with red and pink flower petals in it, but it’s also got a couple of little twigs, which seems odd. It smells spectacularly like cherry. To the point where I can’t smell the tea at all. I’m guessing there was some flavoring added as I can’t believe a few dried flower petals could generate the sort of cherry fragrance I’m smelling (even if cherry blossoms smell like cherry, which they may, but I wouldn’t know).

The liquor has that characteristic, hazy sencha look, with little particles suspended in the water. It’s yellower than it is green, and on the lighter side but not pale. The cherry fragrance is present after steeping, but it isn’t as strong and is balanced with another, somewhat savory, buttery scent.

After all this build up, disappointingly, it doesn’ t have a lot of flavor. There is a subtle cherry note at the finish, but what comes before isn’t distinctive. I’m hard pressed to identify it as tea. It’s more like a broth without a lot of flavor. I imagine this is what sodium free “lite” chicken bouillon might taste like — mild to the point of almost tastelessness.

Sad. There’s nothing at all offensive about it, and the cherry is done well. In fact, the cherry being done well is the only reason I’m giving this a rating higher than the Golden Moon sencha, since I’ve experienced a lot of poorly flavored green teas. But I’d hoped for a flavored green breakthrough, figuring if anyone could do it, the French could. It’s a curse, I tell you.

Doulton’s Shakespeare: A Tasting Note in 5 Acts
Act II scene 1

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V scene 2

Enter Puck: the “shrewd and knavish sprite” (Act II scene 1) from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It truly is an outrageous tea that constantly catches me by surprise. I also think that it’ll be one of the most memorable “characters” from this tea box.

I went through the wonderful dilemma of picking out my morning tea with only the thought that I must have one of my “bookshelf” tea samples. When I received Doulton’s Shakespeare box it smelled absolutely divine, but there were some very bold teas that I was concerned might taint my entire tea cupboard. Therefore I took the box to my bedroom and took the smelliest of the teas and distributed them amongst the books on two of my bookshelves. So not only does my bedroom smell marvelous, but it’s like a mini treasure hunt when I decide that I want an extra-fragrant tea. The two packets that I pulled out this morning were Cocotte and a Lapsang Souchong. The Cocotte looked like a pretty and floral black tea which better suited my mood this morning. Little did I know what a trickster tea I had in my hands.

I pop open the baggie and take a sniff. What the hell?!?! This is not what I was expecting by a long shot. I couldn’t even put a finger on the scents: a sort of earthy maybe even vinegary smell. But no, vinegar isn’t right but it’s something that I should know. I stop everything and hop online to look this mysterious tea up on Steepster. Holy Oberon: this is the infamous tomato tea! The pieces of the olfactory puzzle snap into place. The mysterious not-vinegar smell is tomato. I’m not a huge tomato fan, but I’m excited to try this and share my impressions. And maybe I’ll finally get a chance to use some of the darker/nastier Shakespeare ideas that I’ve had for teas that I don’t like.

I steeped the leaves for just under 3 minutes and I’m glad that I didn’t go further: there was an astringency there that was on the verge of being too much. What a bizarre tea! For me it is like someone took an entire tomato plant (including the dirt-covered roots) and turned it into a tea. It’s a tea that demands attention. I keep expecting to be offended with every sip, but as I taste and swallow the tea it just absolutely intrigues me. This is bizarre, but in a good way.

I shortened the second steep to a bit over 2 minutes and I like it better. I get more of a sense of the Darjeeling. I’m even really curious as to what this tea would be like cold brewed. I’m also flummoxed as to how to rate this. It’s better than Nice Enough, but there was no Teagasm. I think that I shall call it a Dream. Neither a good nor bad dream, but it is so unique that it will be very memorable. And I applaud it loudly.

I’m trying to work my way through all of the samples I’ve received from very generous people like Doulton on my days off from work. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be nuts about this, since I used to hate the taste of coffee. Now, however, I get tons of free samples from the cafe in the bookstore where I work (be jealous), so I’ve become somewhat used to the harsh taste of coffee. As a precaution, I’ve added some milk to this in an attempt to hopefully cut the harshness and make this easier on my stomach.

In the first sip, it was the citrus flavor that hit me. The combination of the coffee and citrus is making this a bit bitter, but in a coffee way, not in a bad way. If you concentrate, you taste the sweet notes underneath the sharp orange taste. The caramel hides in the aftertaste, while the cream floats around throughout the cup. I’m not getting any chocolate, but that’s fine by me, as I’m not much of a chocolatey tea person anyway.

After subsequent sips of this, the bitterness is dying down a lot. Now it’s mainly sweet orange and cream with those fleeting hints of glorious caramel. This is quite a unique tea; all the tea that Doulton has sent me have been uncommon, surprising teas. Thank you!

More flowers and less tomato this time around…I finished up the last little bit in my stash today…sorry to see another friend depart…

Almost finished with a cup of this now. It seems to be helping the cough jag I was just having. So that’s a plus!

I could taste a fruity-floral type taste – I hope my taster is coming back!!!!

OMG!

Seriously when I smelled this I thought to myself am I smelling tomato and flowers!? How strange! Indeed, I was! This is just about finished with the infusion. And I can’t wait to drink tea with tomato in it! LOL

The fresh tomato from the vine type scent intensifies as it steeps.

You know how sometimes tomatoes from the vine can have a peppery type taste to the skin? This kind of reminds me of that at first sip.

As I continue to sip there is a bit of bitterness to it but it almost seems to fit.I’m thinking there is a bit too much perfume/flower taste to it and I would have rather there been more sweet cherry tomato taste. Yes…I will say that again…MORE TOMATO…less flower! :)

All-in-All this tea interests me. I like the concept. I think I like the concept a bit more than the taste but I am liking the taste a little, too.

This rating may change but for now I will go with this one…I like it, I want to like it more, I like the idea…it’s ok so far.

…the leafs mixed with dried flower pedals look very inviting. The fragrance is great.
The spiciness, this rhapsody of flavors is almost overpowering. Although I like this blend a lot and keep on drinking it like a madman…I can not help thinking that someone over-did it in the vanilla department. There is not much room anymore for sencing the jasmin and the bergamot (…until today I haven’t found anything that goes even near something like citrus…).

Another sample that came with my order.

Group A streptococcus has paid a visit to our house, and between the sick kidlet not sleeping well and his younger brother being jealous that he was getting all the attention in the middle of the night and choosing to have a tantrum about it, I did not sleep well either. My eyes are pretty much at half mast this morning and we’re out of toothpicks.

So I though I’d invite the Earl to tea and see what sort of impression he made.

Yellow and blue petals among dry leaves that smell strongly of bergamot. Steeps to a very dark, reddish caramel color. Less bergamot in the aroma after steeping, instead it is more of an orange scent and a very rich, almost chocolatey black tea undercurrent.

The taste is quite nice. The bergamot is not strong and perfumy, which is great. Strong, oily, perfumy bergamot upsets my stomach. It’s more of an impression the tea gives rather than an outright taste. It’s like the way a good jasmine or other flower scented tea gives the impression more than an actual taste. To the extent it’s a taste, it’s orangy, fruity and mild rather than tasting like rubbing alcohol smells, as some bergamot oils do.

The underlying tea is a yummy, smooth black tea. Medium-to-full bodied and medium-sweet with low astringency.

It’s a gentle, polite Earl and he’s welcome to come back to visit any time.

A pleasingly strawberry tea sprinkled with cornflowers. This tea has an interesting after taste that I cant place.
The strawberry reminds me of the strawberry blends you find so often in Teavana not quiet on par with Marco Polo. Its nice… but just nice.

Picked this one up due to the odd list of ingredients and if it fails to sip well, they recommend using it in a good sauce or as a rub. Hell! I am up for that! Waste not want not, right?

Out of the bag it is a confused sort of tea. I smell tea, earth and a vegetal melange dusted over in what looks like rose petals but one website states peony.

Now as a first sip, I have ruined it perhaps. I was so craving a tea for milk and honey and this could be it but the flavors have been adulterated. I get the pepper but not as in “whoa, what the hell!” It’s a pleasant punch along with a tomato or a random drive by veggie. This is a savory tea fit for a rustic loaf and excellent local cheeses!

I like it for it’s oddity and perhaps its predisposed nature to be a tea fated for other and better things, a roast. It isn’t something I would purchase again and might not even be the next tea I reach for when bored. This is a tea that makes me go, “Hummm?”

There is so much to be said about this tea!
First is that it is amazing and second, don’t steep it for the full three minutes. I can safely say two is fine and the flavor is just as poetic.
I have been enjoying this beauty while out at sea and have had numerous compliments on how the scent of this tea while steeping in my little French press has over-powered the space, in a good way. And it is a tea that desires no sugars nor milk and I am a sucker for both. In one brewing I even got whole flowers to watch dance around in the steeping process!

The liquid is a cadmium dark with a hint of ocher (for you painter types) when steeped properly. It never transitions into what I consider a traditional tea brown. The taste? Sweet and floral. I think I get the bergamot and some have said lemongrass too although it is not listed in the notes. And it is safe to say, Historie Tibtaine is a ‘gateway’ tea as it inspired several of my co-workers to purchase tea cups of their own to join me in my Buddha moment. The tea possesses flavours of bergamot, flowers, vanilla and jasmine as per the Urban Merchant Website.

Steep Information:
Amount: 1 tsp
Water: 1 zarafina cup filtered water
Tool: Zarafina black-loose-medium
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: hazelnut, orange
Steeped Tea Smell: hazelnut, almond, chocolate, orange
Flavor: smooth orange black tea with hints of nuts as you swallow
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: a hint of chocolate and nut
Liquor: translucent orange-brown

This sample was from the wonderful Doulton who was kind enough to include two servings, I must assume she is a details person and the other one is for my mom!

This came bundled up with my Dammann Freres (which Doulton was kind enough to arrange, and has thus far made my mother very happy and me kind of sad at French subtlety).

I find this tea a little subtle, but enjoyable. This is not a first cup of the morning wake up drink however.

Resteep: Zarafina black-loose-medium
a slight bit astringent, otherwise just as good

It’s yummy, not craving it, but I will not turn down more, and would consider tossing some of this in an order if I were already placing it.

Images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/04/o-dor-loose-leaf-black-tea-photo-de.html

Another sample that came with my order. I’m knocking back a few of the decaf ones given the time it has gotten to be.

The handwritten label on the sample says “Rooibos Chaman” rather than Chammann, which is the name given on the web site. Now, I couldn’t find a translation of Chammann, but Chaman, it turns out, is shaman (or sorceror or mage). I really was joking when I made that crack about The de Druids (Druid’s Tea), something to the effect of “do they have tea of the shaman, mage, warlock [fill in your World of Warcraft class here].” Now I’m thinking, I bet Guillaume Leleu is in a raiding guild in his spare time. It’s just too much of a coinkidink.

Anyway. Vanilla rooibos, indeed. It’s a nice one. There’s a certain intensity to the vanilla that fulfills what has become my primary criterion for acceptable flavored rooibos — that the rooibos flavor be secondary to the flavoring agent. As secondary as possible, without disappearing altogether. It’s the vanilla that stays with when the sip is done, not the rooibos. I like that about this tisane.

And I also like the name. Back in my WoW days my main was a whammy shammy, so I feel like this one’s for moi.

Lovely afternoon tea. Cinnamon orange cream carmel tea? I’m finding it hard to pin anything down except mmmmmm delicious!! Thank you Doulton!!

I may have to drink this several times before I come to any conclusions. The dry aroma really highlights the tomato. Pretend that you are in a tomato garden and you can smell the more distant odor of basil and green bell peppers. And tea, of course.

The French store, from which I ordered this says that: “Many great things are born from the most outrageous ideas. So for which reason should a tea not be perfumed by the lush perfume of tomatoes? Flavor: Tomato and lemon. Base: Darjeeling.”

Sipping my first cup, I am having a bit of cognitive dissonance. This tea is so very summer salad and at the same time so very much a black tea. I could see it working more with a green tea, but I also think I need some time to lean into this tea. I might add a bit o’ sugar next time. I think that I am going to like it because now that the tea is finished, I want to do an immediate second steep.

I feel that I ate a very juicy and ripe tomato that was grown in a garden in the full summer. Some green bell pepper and maybe some basil were added. A couple of grains of salt and black pepper were sprinkled over it and then a squeeze of lemon juice.. And then some caffeine steroids were added.

Gratitude to The O Dor for their interesting ideas and I suspect that this tea will gain more points as I drink it more. I don’t think it’s for tea purists, but it’s probably for anyone who likes something different. It’s piquant!

EDIT:
This tea is very tricky, fussy, and moody although it’s worth it if you can get it right. Steeped too long, and it’s bitter quickly. 2 minutes and 45 seconds is perfect for me. It can be very astringent. It is highly reminiscent of gazpacho. It’s worth pursuing to try to get it right, in spite of its moodiness.

Place Saint Marc is a good medium-strength black/strawberry tea with an aroma that suggests various florals that I cannot quite put my finger on. It’s very good, but I don’t think it is “to die for”. Were you to be served this at the actual Piazza Santo Marco, it would cost you about $75. American dollars. Walk around the corner, however, and the same drink would translate to about $3.

This is an excellent afternoon tea choice, with a lovely fragrance. All of the French teas I’ve been sampling are very good and worthy of high ratings but none of them has yet “popped” as being far and away the best and the brightest and utterly unique. On the other hand, none has disappointed me in the least.

The lingering after-taste of strawberries is really quite lovely. I don’t understand why a poetry textbook, edited by Kennedy and Gioia, in most respects a very good book, asserts that “your breath smells like tea” is a terrible simile, although I would specify the type of tea.

I’ve had the pleasure of trying many magnificent teas recently. This is another way that sustains a very high standard of a creamy chocolate black tea with clear citrus notes. The aroma is floral candy; the taste is a citrus chocolately black tea, and the after taste is where the coffee emerges a bit.

Another delightful beverage! Very good straight up but I think I like this one with the milk and sugar I added midway through.