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I love it when I try a new tea (or in this case, one I haven’t had for a long time) and my initial taste descriptor actually shows up on the tea description. I live for affirmation.

In this case, said descriptor was mineral. In a good way. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of cupping your hands and lapping up water from a spring so cold it makes your hands and toes ache, this might be close.

Also has a sweetness that I didn’t expect; but I’m still a pu-erh rookie.

Just another reason I continue to be amazed at how one humble plant can be coaxed, flavored, steamed, aged, rolled, and fried into so many gazillion lovely permutations.

I always wake up craving tea; less often craving a specific flavor. But CHOCOMATE was imprinted on the inside of my eyelids today. Needed a strong and obvious chocolate fix and this is the only tea that will do it speedily and efficiently.

Interestingly, I added 3 teaspoons of coconut milk, thinking I’d come up with a sort of latte thing, and it didn’t do much to affect the flavor either way.

Wasn’t as sweet as I remembered/expected, but then, this is one of those days I’d love to hit Smallcakes and ask for a waffle cone filled with buttercream ;) Raspberry flavor is nicely strong, nicely balanced, didn’t get much cheesecake. Might have had I added a little milk.

I had this one misfiled as a green/oolong, and I believe it’s a Darjeeling — and wow, what a nice one! Big old fluffy leaves that are, indeed, silvery. At just 2 1/2 minutes, it’s a light copper color with what I think is the fruitiest flavor I’ve ever encountered with a Darjeeling. Almost apple cidery. Medium weight and very silky to the tongue.

Since SpecialTeas is obsolete now, I’ll have to putter a bit and see if this variety is available under another umbrella.

The trick with this one, I think, is being lavish on the leaf and longish on the time. Done so, all the fruit goodies have time to define themselves instead of having to compete with strong chamomile. Getting some nice broad lemony-orange flavor (as opposed to thin, tight citrus tartness, if that makes sense).

Good company on a calm evening in my backyard while I surf for what I did wrong with these confounded laifen rice noodles! I am determined not to let these things defeat me! Any accomplished Thai/Asian cooks know how to properly prepare Sinbo Brand rice vermicelli? Following the poorly translated English directions didn’t work :)

Found the other half-packet of this while prowling through wilderness of the back half of my tea cabinet. Now that the temps are spiking, I’m craving lighter, greener, oolonger varieties, and this fits the bill nicely.

It’s a good quality sencha and when you taste it, your brain says, “cool, tropical!” It does not necessarily say, “ah-hah! I’m tasting pineapple.” The flavors and florals counteract any heavy vegetal taste that might normally come with the sencha.

Had some leftover coconut milk from the Thai incident the other night. (Who KNEW that you had to soak the noodles first?) So I stirred a cautious teaspoon into this ice-creamy flavored rooibos, and it wasn’t bad. I consider that advance confirmation that with a larger proportion of c-milk, chilled, it would make a nice frappucino-alike.

Still don’t know too much about the company itself and what it offers. This box was another TJ Maxx find.

I am a walking cuppa Lapsang Souchong … we burned a huge pile of dead limbs (tree limbs, not people parts) in the back yard this afternoon. Had a quart of good old PG Tips chilled in the fridge to swig—strong and straight enough for my sweaty spouse to guzzle without quibbling about it.

Bit of a dinner disaster. The experimental chicken satay was pretty tasty (bottled sauce so I couldn’t ruin it) but the gluey rice noodle mess I ended up with was nothing like the light and tasty noodly-salad thing they serve with satay at the mom-and-pop Thai restaurant we like.

Pawed through my oolong basket (I try to sort by category) and found a bit of a sample left and decided some really fine tea would be balm to my wounded wannabe chef psyche.

This is, indeed, one of those fine oolongs that starts florally and ends caramelly. Good as dessert. Enjoying it and watching two Alfreds play in my backyard. All live bunnies at our house are named Alfred. The zombie bunny is just Anonymous.