Evol Ving Ness Send Message

Drinking this straight up and detecting maple. No maple in the ingredients, but perhaps this is under the umbrella of natural flavours.

Not sure what I have done with this cup, but here I have, for the first time, marzipan and orange blossom. Not just a hint either. Wow.

Note—straight, no additions.

I’m on a daily roll with adding eggnog to this tea. Delicious.

However, as I’ve discovered, it is not a good idea to leave this combination languishing in a travel mug. Draw your own conclusions.

Ok, with all this advent excitement, I am conveniently ignoring mine for now.

I hate the idea of drinking tea on someone else’s schedule.

The eggnog I purchased has this citrus peel vanilla nutmeg thing going on. It’s also super creamy. A very good fit for this tea which has strong orange dominating. The combination of the two orange flavours turns the tea into creamy smoothie orange juice with several added levels of dimension. A winner.

With all this talk of eggnog, I bought some on the way home yesterday.

I considered having some with dark rum, but decided against it. For now.

The next quandary was which tea could I have eggnog with, yet still know that I was drinking tea. Ding, ding, ding.

Clearly, the best choice that I could come up with would be H & S’s strongest tea, Scottish Morn. And wow, strong it is.

The leaf is teeny tiny: CTC, I’m guessing, and black black. Assam and Ceylon blend.

Perfect for my eggnog experiment. The tea comes through—strong— and the eggnog shines.

Two cups of this is quite enough. I may need some rum later, just to settle down.

So today, I gave the leaf a good shake before dipping my spoon in. I steeped each cup for a good four or five minutes.

The result is far better today. The cup is far more layered and the flavours are more nuanced. The Chinese base tea is far more present and supportive. Much much better. Much more of a balanced cup.

Still, the overall impression is that of Polish or German spice cookies, the hard round ones drizzled with crunchy icing sugar glaze. Bright orange lingers in the after sip.

There is still a bit of that mystery unpleasant—to me—flavour which I have dispatched with a glug of evaporated milk. With milk, this is quite lovely.

This is my first cup of this and I am just two sips in. Here’s what I’ve got so far.

The flavour reminds me of Polish or German Christmas holiday cookies: the hard round ones with dark faintly ginger scented cookie covered with a crisp white icing sugar glaze. (The same brand makes the soft heart shaped version covered in bittersweet chocolate.)

So that’s what this tea tastes like with the addition of orange and lemon, like candied bits of citrus peel. The Chinese black base supports my ginger cookie premise.

The orange and hint of vanilla flavours are a bit cloying. There’s something vaguely unpleasant going on here, an ingredient I often come across in DT’s blends—chicory? Stevia? So far, this cup is ok, but I am not loving this tea yet.

Maybe a glug of milk would be good here.

That said, my first impression may not be all that accurate. The bag of leaf was full, so skimmed from the top. Perhaps things will improve once I am able to shake up the leaf.

I must mention here also that my steeping was not as focussed as it could have been. The water may have cooled more than needed. The steep time may have been too brief.

Stay tuned.

Edit—there was that wonky note that was not working for me. Thankfully, I had a tin of evaporated milk handy. A glug of that was a great help and vastly improved my cup. Quite delicious now.

Do you remember that conversation I had with the owner of the Thai restaurant I like about maybe serving hot tea since winter is coming?

My thinking was based on the fact that everything I’ve had in the small place has been excellent. Including their strong exquisite Thai iced tea. I was thinking that they might serve an equally excellent hot tea in the colder months.

Last week’s Orange Pekoe was truly underwhelming. It was hot, I’ll give it that.

I had already had two super strong super wonderful Hong Kong style milk teas with my breakfast by the time I stopped in to pick up the chef’s special. I had no intention of having any more tea until I got home.

Placed my order, paid, sat down to wait. The owner came over.

I’d like to treat you to a cup of tea. What would you like?

We went through the options. So far, I knew that the Orange Pekoe was hopeless. Ok, jasmine green. And what brand is it? The kind in a big yellow box with red Chinese characters.

The sweet man brought over the steeped tea. I thanked him.

The tea— so lacklustre. The jasmine had a false note. The leaf tasted dusty and dull.

Such a sad cup.

These teabags were likely the cheapest option. I get that. But how much more of an investment would it have been to buy teabags that were just a bit more bearable? Delicious even?

I’m trying to come up with a diplomatic way of saying that the tea is not great. Maybe some things are better left unsaid.

My food came and off I went for the long long long cold wait for the bus. A good percentage of the drivers had been let go because they refused to get vaccinated against COVId-19. The transit commission had not anticipated the driver shortage.

Ugh. Just ugh.