1403 Tasting Notes
I was in the mood for a thick heavy satisfying tongue-coating milk oolong. None of that subtle and thoughtful nonsense for me at this moment. I wanted the sledgehammer to the head approach of the milk oolong world. And this is it.
The heart wants what the heart wants.
Flavors: Butter, Cream, Floral, Milk, Pineapple
Preparation
My first cup of this was plain, straight up and unsweetened. I know, I know, this is not the way this tea was designed to be drunk. Still, it was nice and spicy with ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon notes although both chocolate and marshmallow tastes were missing. I did indeed see the chocolate chips in the dry leaf, but the taste didn’t translate steeped.
Now I have begun to tamper with the tea a bit. My daily coconut oil quota is not always that easy to include in food. I tend to favour Mediterranean flavours and coconut taste doesn’t tend to work well in combination.
Enter chai tea. Coconut works beautifully here. Somehow the oil slick of the dollop gets gobbled up or, at least, is not even slightly apparent in the sipping, especially compared with other teas that I’ve added the oil to. Here, the coconut sweetness of the oil makes the spice flavours pop and the lovely brisk black tea base nicely holds it all up. The chocolate and marshmallow are still not coming through for me.
Recently, I’ve discovered a gluten-free bakery in town, so I am enjoying this tea with a breakfast cookie filled to the brim with nuts and seeds. A lovely combination.
Nice blend, truly. I imagine it would be beautiful with milk and honey.
52teas does a stellar job with chai teas. This one is no exception.
Flavors: Cardamom, Cinnamon, Ginger
Preparation
You barbarian, you, not adding milk to the first cup! LOL I’ve never added coconut oil to tea. Might have to give that a try.
:)
I’ve just started this oil thing in the last week or two. So far, it has been most successful in this cup, so chai teas and heavier black bases are likely the way to go.
That is definitely a unique way to drink tea – do you add it instead of sweetener then? Instead of milk? The above note doesn’t suggest that you added anything other than the coconut oil. I ask because my daughter loves her coconut oil and it might be a new way for her to implement it to her diet.
Sounds like a delicious chai
It is, Sil.
Liber, TEAS,
I have tried adding honey, not with this particular tea but with my recent experiments with the Pineapple Marshallow one.
I am off of dairy currently, so that is out. And I am to be very conservative with carbohydrates as well, so honey, my preferred sweetener is mostly out, though I will have it if I am really in the mood.Mostly, I am experimenting with different ways to include coconut oil into my day as it doesn’t always work with my food. The naturopath said one tablespoon a day and I am looking at various ways of getting the job done. I would appreciate any brilliant ideas that your daughter has discovered in this vein.
Coconut oil does have the slightest bit of sweetness, so that was a bonus in the tea although it wasn’t my intention to sweeten.
Hope that helps.
I tried this today as well and this particular cup had an oil slick on the surface. Not for every taste. Another negative is that the oil keeps the tea from cooling as fast as it normally would, so one cannot drink it as soon as one would like.
I know that she adds a dollop of coconut oil to her smoothies when she makes them. I’ll have to ask her what other ways she incorporates it into her diet and get back to you. :)
Thanks.
So, my health-seeking/improving journey continues. Saw a naturopath for the first time the other day who suggested, among other things, that I include coconut oil in my nutrition plan. Yeah, I am continuing the One Night in Rio and Brazilian Fruit, as in previous post, now with the addition of a bit of coconut oil. A bit odd, but it works.
Does it make the tea texture oily at all?
Yes, it creates a coconut-flavoured oil slick on the surface. Odd, yes, but fine once you get used to it. You see, I have a daily quota to uphold. It may as well be in coconut pineapple and tropical fruit tea until I can find a better way to ingest it.
Also, the oiliness is a bit different from other oils, a bit less slick-like.
I continue to play with the combination of One Night in Rio by Camellia Sinensis, Pineapple Marshmallow by 52teas, and Brazilian Fruit by Mighty Leaf Tea: two out of three, and today three out of three. The possible combinations fascinate me.
Today, it’s half Brazilian Fruit and a quarter each of One Night in Rio and Pineapple Marshmallow. I wanted the ka-pow of the Chinese black base in BF, the pineapple and coconut fruit of ONIR, and the marshmallow softness in the PM. Mission accomplished. I added a spoon of honey to bring the fruit out even more.One Night in Rio, I’ve discovered, is a valuable tea to blend with other teas that need just a little bit of something extra.
As a tea on its own, One Night in Rio comes through as bright pineapple and coconut carried on a gentle Indian— I am guessing Ceylon—base. To my taste, the fruit and coconut flavours are mega assertive and the tea base seems weak in comparison. In other words, the blend strikes me as unbalanced.
Recently, I have blended it with 52teas’ Pineapple Marshmallow Black and that was a hit.
Today, I am blending it half and half with Mighty Leaf Tea’s Brazilian Fruit and this is magic.
Mighty Leaf Tea’s Brazilian Fruit is made with a frisky Chinese black tea base flavoured with papaya. The tea base is totally ka-pow while the fruit is gentle generic tropical fruit: could be lychee, could be mangosteen, could be papaya.So. This half and half mix is the perfect balance. The frisky Chinese black provides a bold background while toning down the tropical fruit flavours coming through: pineapple, coconut, papaya.
As I sip One Night in Rio down, I just may reorder it specifically to use as a blending tea to balance other blends. It does so beautifully.
My last cup of tea—not this tea— was made with a rather frisky Ceylon base, so this morning I was in the mood for a far gentler unobtrusive cup. This was it. I added more “leaf” than last time and the pistachio and ice cream notes came through beautifully in the first steep. Not so much in the second, but all good.
