Vietnam Ca Phe Project

Whoops, I took so long to finish my notes on the Tea Thoughts winter countdown box that the spring one is coming out in just over a week! I don’t remember the last time I had a Vietnamese tea, if ever. Thankfully this came with enough leaf to play around with. I made the last of it Western-style today. I enjoyed it, but I think I liked it better with a gong fu brew because the flavor was just stronger and more robust. Today, I mostly got malty, sweet, and jammy notes with a slightly drying effect at the end of the sip. Easy on the stomach, too. 

Another excellent countdown box from Nazanin. I’m still thrilled about the cute little tea tray, and there were some delightful and interesting teas in here. I think I’ve skipped maybe one of her seasonal boxes since I started getting them a few years ago. I can’t say enough good things about them, I’m just a big Tea Thoughts fan in general. I like the stickers, the jewelry, the washi tape, the sticky notes, the notebooks, the pouches… I use my Tea Thoughts tote bag literally every time I leave the house (the old version with the zipper and inside pocket). I use handwritten notes for a lot of things, so I justify the stationery as a practical purchase. So yes, I think it’s safe to say that I’ll keep getting the countdown boxes :-)

Adventageddon Day 24

Gongfu!

I think this is such a cool tea to be ending the Tea Thoughts advent with, and I spent some time this afternoon reading about the Ca Phe Project and that really only deepened my excitement to try this one. It was so delicious, too!

Even from the first steep this is a pretty sweet and syrupy tasting black tea with a lot of upfront, bright fruity flavours. However, there’s an underlying depth to it as well that starts to come out more in the second and third steep. Yes, it tastes like sweet plums, cherries, and grenadine but also has that almost maillard burnt sugar and baked sweet potato flavour that’s complex, rich and brown tasting. I love the push pull sensation of starting with such lively red-feeling top notes before being pulled back into decadence laced with umami and malt.

This is one of the teas in the advent where a larger tea amount was given, and I’m so excited about that because the tea was so rich and lovely! Definitely something I really want to explore a little bit more in the future outside of the context of Adventageddon.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DD-iurcyqIK/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW_q28dW7ag&ab_channel=Wilderado-Topic