3010 Tasting Notes
Vintage. Tucked what was left in the storage-tub-o’-tins that survived the Great Unpleasantness, so I have a seasonal bit left to enjoy. This is one flavor permuation ago, so it truly is more pumpkin-y than chai-y. That and the fact that I truly don’t know how old it is. Still mild and nice with a little half and half.
Proof that old teas never die, they just … grow a little less steep?
Friend gave my teenager a bag of this and he asked me to steep it for him; since I’m still trying to win him over to the tea side, I did so with great care to time, temp, and taste. Zen is consistently light and nice, but I wondered if it would be a good first experience with green tea for a newbie.
He drank it all to humor me and the tea-giver, but commented, “It pretty much just tastes like water with an asterisk.”
Oh, well, I’ll keep trying.
Don’t lose hope! My oldest daughter (who is now 19) now drinks tea daily, but a few years ago, I couldn’t even get her to take a sip of it!
My eldest two won’t touch it, and whine when I ask them to sample something. The younger two are absolutely addicted. Among some friends, a couple who said they were coffee lovers and wouldn’t be won over have come to the tea side now and are happily purchasing all the accoutrements for the habit!
My favorite Monk’s Blend is the Metropolitan/Mlesna version from Culinary Teas. This one is still really good, but the vanilla/grenadine flavoring is almost a little … syrupy? (Duh—grenadine is syrup, yes?) Anyway, it was strong enough I could dump in a half teaspoon of mate leaves without much flavor deterioration at at all.
I am sure this is the same stuff. The Whistilng Kettle has to many teas that are like Metro teas for it to be a concindence.
I wondered about that, and if that’s the case and it’s the same stuff, it must be my imagination about the flavor difference. Judging books by their cover and all :)
Then again, I had a full pound of Monks Blend that I milked for I don’t know how many seasons, so it’s possible that my taste memory was registering the stuff that was getting old.
I’d love to be a tea taster when I grow up, but my taste buds are awfully inconsistent to be objective!
I often wonder if freshness could be an issue. Some tea vendors are better about storage than others. Flavor difference could also come from the water, the amount of tea used, etc. Maybe your taster is just noticing those kinds of subtleties. (I remember sending you this one becasue it was on your list of ones you liked!)
..ummm…because. I seem to always get my ‘s’ and ‘u’ switched when typing that word…..
My brain is such that once I’ve made a certain typo, I’ll make it from that point forward forever.
First, there are several Tealiciouses out there; I believe this little sample chased me all over southwest Missouri from … Singapore, maybe? So if I’ve pulled the wrong vendor information into the tea info, apologies.
This is a nice, fruity black tea that, since I’ve never consciously bitten into a fresh papaya (I don’t count dried ones that show up in my trail mix), I’m not sure how accurate it is on flavor. Reminds me of apricots. Pineapple … I’ll just have to take their word for it; I’m not picking up much at all. I have yet to encounter a pinappley tea that was.
No instructions on the little packet I have, so I did your basic flavored black time and temp, and it came out a little bit bitter, but not undrinkable. Thinking this would be good and refreshing iced.
Ever notice that tea just tastes better in the fall, and twice as good from a rocking chair on a Sunday morning when you don’t have to hurry?
I’m aiming to drink up scraps in hope-hope-hope-hope of getting to pack up my tea drawer in a few weeks and move it to a home, not a camping place, but I am going to be sorry to see this one go. I’ve never tasted a tea with such a neat cocoa-fruity balance. Definitely on my order-for-real list. In significant quantities :)
As I posted elsewhere, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12). Here’s to the other side of the comma for all of you today.
Ever notice how when you do things in the wrong order in the morning, it throws the whole rhythm of things off? I B’d before I A’d, and then when it came to C, I forgot the tea was steeping, so this ended up more like burnt toast than lightly toasted morning goodness.
Though I don’t usually put milk in Chinese teas, it helped in this case.
Oh boy – did you fly to work on Tippy Yunnan fumes today. This tea wakes me up like no other! I once steeped it for 5 minutes and I thought I was going to rocket off the earth!
I agree! I give this one an extra short steep compared to my other black teas!
Hmmm…I was so groggy (which was why that was my morning choice) I think it would’ve taken straight premium unleaded to get me going. I’ve upgraded to only slightly out of it :)
I know tea’s caffeine delivery system is somewhat different, but generally I can drink the “heavy stuff” without too many rocket-engine side affects. On the flipside, put a cup of coffee in me and you have to pull me off the ceiling.
Gosh I hate when that sort of thing happens. I get the same sort of thing at work when people insist on trying to help me, even though I’ve made it very clear to everybody that I prefer to not be helped. You lose track of what you’re doing.
This smells absolutely heavenly—could stand its own as potpourri—but is tart (oh, hibiscus, you are such a nuisance). So I experiment and half-and-halved it with SpecialTeas Blueberry Cocktail. Ended up with a sort of warm fruitie slush suicide. Not bad; nothing I’d serve to anybody I was trying to impress, but a nice evening wind-down.
