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Do you all know that today is National Comfort Food day? To celebrate I am curled up on the couch under some covers with a good book, a huge mug of this delightful malty brew, and an even bigger bowl of some steaming hot curried lentil and carrot soup. My kind of holiday!

Many thanks to Sil for the super generous sample of this one.
I saw this one in Sil’s cupboard and though I usually go for straight blacks, this really jumped out at me. I’m a sucker for anything citrus-y and combined with vanilla it seemed like something I had to try.
Opening up the sample I can tell I’m going to enjoy this. There are big hunks of spice and orange peel which I always appreciate. And it smells just delightful. Brewed a bit strong at 4.5 minutes and added a bit of vanilla soy milk as I usually do with my chai (and chai-esque) blends. The citrus is a bit lost on me, but I’m fine with that. It’s really delightful as-is, very buttery and creamy with a nice amount of cinnamon and spice. It tastes just like a snickerdoodle cookie. So much so that I decided I needed to make some ASAP. And with a quick Google I stumbled upon this recipe http://www.theppk.com/2012/09/chaispicesnickerdoodles/ How perfect! Can’t wait to have them side-by-side with this tea.

Sarsonator posted a review of a not-yet-available mushroom pu-erh from WP and ever since I’ve have been salivating over it. How perfect is that marriage?
Well, as I can’t yet get my hands on any I settled for this one since I remember it to have delightful mushroom notes. It’s more savory than the shous I’ve had of the same flavor. Quite brothy with cooked brown rice and mushrooms being the most pervasive notes.
Being young and having the chopped leaves common in mini tuos I steep this one very short and not too hot to avoid too much bitterness, but it’s still there. More prevalent in some steeps than others. Overall a warming and lovely tea, especially for its $0.25 price tag.

The dry leaves in this one are quite lovely. They’re the deep black twisty twig type leaves that are nice and full. Brewed, the liquor smells a bit smoky. More of the Keemun sort of smoke rather than a Lapsang though. Like a smoldering bit of cedar wood. The taste isn’t smoky at all, but the wood notes are there with a bit of very ripe black cherry. It’s smooth with no astringency.
It tastes like its own thing, not being particularly comparable to any other region. What an intricate interesting tea! I don’t know that I’ve ever tried a black tea from Vietnam before, but I’m definitely going to seek them out after this.

And a hearty Happy Thanksgiving to all my American Steepster pals. I hope you all had a lovely day.

Rishi is one of the selected loose leaf companies my local grocery store carries, so every once in a while I’ll wander from the bulk tea section and check out if they have anything interesting to offer. Last week I stumbled upon this one which I probably wouldn’t have picked up otherwise, but it was on sale (I’m such a sucker) so of course I took it home with me. I got around to trying it a day so later and immediately went back and picked up two more boxes while it was still on sale (again, what a sucker).

This is the type of Assam I really adore. Malty and sweet, but not so sweet that it seems more like a Yunnan. Just enough to counter the touch of astringency . There’s not all that much to say about it. It’s just a really nice hearty classic Assam. Even with ever-changing preferences, I don’t think I’ll ever tire of theses types of teas.

I should note that I think this is the tea I got. My boxes only say Assam rather than Golden Assam. However the golden tips are plentiful and there is no plain Assam listed here or on Rishi’s website. So I think I’m putting this in the correct spot.

I think this is the first tea I’ve ever tried from Zhe Jiang Province, but if this one is indicative of the general quality I would certainly like to try more. This is definitely fruity as the description says, with a bit of brown sugar or molasses-y sweetness at the end of the sip. Overall though, it tastes mostly like a Keemun. A lovely light and fruity Keemun. Yum.
I don’t know if they’re still doing it, but I got free points at ESGreen by creating an account and signing up for their newsletter. Cashing them in I ended up getting my order for only a few dollars. So if you’re planning an order I definitely recommend trying that first.

I really like this one. It’s incredibly flavorful with tons of interesting notes hiding throughout the sip. Orange zest, sugarcane, potato and sweet potato a bit of undistinguishable spice… maybe pepper? And it’s a bit astringent. Not especially bitter but drying on my tongue. It’s not at all an unpleasant astringency.
If I hadn’t read the description I wouldn’t have guessed this was a Yunnan. It seems to have the mouthfeel of an Assam with a taste somewhere in between that and a Yunnan. Really unique and delightful. So far I’ve been extremely pleased with Tao of Tea’s products. I wonder why they aren’t more popular around these parts?