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Having this in side by sides with two other Upton Import first flush darjeelings, Glenburn (FTGFOP) and Singbulli (SFTGFOP), while I scan documents from over 5 years ago, goofy drawings from coworkers and notes from my blossoming romance with my now-husband. Memory lane time calls for a tea type that induces nostalgia, and for me that’s darjeeling!

The liquor of these is pretty much identical looking (so glad I have my alphabet cups!). The Goomtee smells the best to me; it has a sweet, fresh, corn-like aroma. For aroma the Singbulli comes second; it has a super clean, almost soapy fresh scent. The Glenburn has the darkest scent, almost like a roasted oolong.

Funny enough, my scent preferences don’t match my taste ones at all. I think I like the Glenburn best, the Singbulli second (the soapiness carries into the flavor, but it’s not bad, refreshing and sweet), and Goomtee last! The Goomtee is surprisingly bitter given its sweet clean smell. But as the teas cool, I like the Goomtee best after all—a fruitiness comes out that’s really lovely, though there’s still a sharpness that lingers in the aftertaste. The Glenburn gets this weird powdered sugar/talc aftertaste I don’t care for, and the Singbulli’s soapiness becomes too much.

Having this in side by sides with two other Upton Import first flush darjeelings, Goomtee (FTGFOP) and Singbulli (SFTGFOP), while I scan documents from over 5 years ago, goofy drawings from coworkers and notes from my blossoming romance with my now-husband. Memory lane time calls for a tea type that induces nostalgia, and for me that’s darjeeling!

The liquor of these is pretty much identical looking (so glad I have my alphabet cups!). The Goomtee smells the best to me; it has a sweet, fresh, corn-like aroma. For aroma the Singbulli comes second; it has a super clean, almost soapy fresh scent. The Glenburn has the darkest scent, almost like a roasted oolong.

Funny enough, my scent preferences don’t match my taste ones at all. I think I like the Glenburn best, the Singbulli second (the soapiness carries into the flavor, but it’s not bad, refreshing and sweet), and Goomtee last! The Goomtee is surprisingly bitter given its sweet clean smell. But as the teas cool, I like the Goomtee best after all—a fruitiness comes out that’s really lovely, though there’s still a sharpness that lingers in the aftertaste. The Glenburn gets this weird powdered sugar/talc aftertaste I don’t care for, and the Singbulli’s soapiness becomes too much.

Black Lotus, I love you. I really think you might be my very favorite anytime,-don’t-think-about-it tea. I stayed up late last night reading Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination and working on our hastily thought through costumes, and woke this morning to perma-drizzle that’s going to make me glad I bought battery operated tea candles for our jack o’lanterns. Sipping this just always makes me feel better. It has the pep of a breakfast blend but as much delicious complexity as any of the premium straight black teas I’ve tried from Teavivre and maybe even Verdant. First it wakes me up, then it makes me glad I’ve returned to the world of the living, a world with so many good things to smell and taste and be reminded of.

This comes across as a pretty unusual combination. The vanilla combined with the green tea evokes being outdoors in a field smelling nature somehow, where the vanilla brings out the grassiness in the tea and the tea makes the vanilla feel more intense and sharp than when normally paired with a black base (I tend to think of vanilla as a soft, warm element), almost minty and cooling, medicinally numbing. It’s not unpleasant, but it is odd enough it takes some getting used to. There’s a toastiness at the end of the sip too. Not entirely sure what to make of it.

Oh this smells so good dry, vividly like a Terry’s Chocolate Orange (memories of Christmas as a kid and getting them in my stocking!), but then at the tail end a fresher, zestier orange aroma too. Steeped the orange smell recedes and the chocolate and marshmallow come out. I really like how the chocolate and marshmallow work together (surprising for me to say that too, as I don’t like candy that has both usually) to form something creamy and sweet, evoking marshmallows coated in a thin glaze of pitch black chocolate. As for the taste, yum! I figured there was no way the flavor would live up to the creamy sweet, gently zesty candy aroma but it does! It’s thick, creamy, mouth-filling, but not too sweet; most of the sweetness stays in the smell and not taste. I like that a lot as it keeps it from being too cloying, and the sweet aroma is so pervasive it suffices. (I have been digging how so many of the teas I’ve been trying lately with chocolate notes are of the bittersweet kind, by the way. As the sort who hates Cadbury’s-type toothache milk chocolate, I definitely approve.) Yum yum yum! I keep thinking I’m going to be let off the hook and find a few Butikis I don’t adore so I won’t feel sad if I don’t reorder them, and it’s not happening at all I must say (husband had my leftover cold steeped Ruby Pie today and made it clear he wants me to order more, a lot more…have a feeling Peach Hoppitea’s going to be the same way). A tea I will drink Christmas midday maybe, to take me down memory lane.

I was impressed with how this wasn’t hit you over the head cloying in smell or taste—maple flavored things often are, forgetting how distinct but also often gentle real maple can be—and how it creates a texture on one’s tongue and teeth and throat similar to maple syrup and walnuts, that tingly slight raspiness. Not very green tea-y, just slightly—tastes sort of in between one and a flavored oolong or even black. Would drink again on a cool evening to feel like I’m a little closer north/home.

The last of my great samples Stacy packed for me, thanks! This smelled really good and comforting this afternoon. I can’t really go into detail about it except to say it was good and what I needed—I had just put the cup together when I got some very bad news about an old friend who’d moved away (he was only my age, 31, and passed away this week), and in my shock and sadness it was soothing. Still not really processing the news though when my husband came home (he knew him too) we had afternoon tea and sandwiches and talked about him and it helped. I have this hang up about people not being forgotten when they pass away, especially people who had a hard life but always made the best of it and tried to stay positive and were kind to everybody, which he always was. It meant a lot to me to be able to talk about what a good person he was with someone else who knew him.

Dry this has a sweet and tangy fruity smell similar to watermelon candy. It tastes less candy sweet thankfully, and warm it turned out to be an excellent pairing with the Sindhi curry we had for dinner (which was very straightforward/simple flavor-profile-wise, buttery and fresh tasting but HOT!), the sweet-tart-fresh flavor really cut through the richness and heat.

(recipe for pressure cooker Sindhi curry here: http://www.hawkinscookers.com/8.1.receipe.aspx?rcp_cd=77
didn’t use yogurt ’cause it curdles in such heat, subbed sour cream)

By the way, my notes today are all out of order. Been distracted, now trying to remember and logging teas I had today in any order I remember.

Ick, not a fan. Keep scratching my head that I can love lemongrass so much in food but dislike it so much in tea. It’s like bathroom cleaner, which in turn makes me think faint whiff of urine, bleugh. Huh.

This smells so yummy steeping. It’s a tad finicky for late night (I am so lazy about heating milk for some reason, always have been…my husband can’t drink normal hot chocolate and the kind I buy him, Dagoba’s Xocolatl, is really good but best with hot milk so we only have it when it’s snowing out ha) and I’ve never made chai before that used both hot water and hot milk, just one or the other, so it’s new to me but man. LiberTEAS is right that it smells a whole lot like a cinnamon sugar cake donut. It tastes delicious too. I have a couple more no-caf chais to try from my sample stash before I come to a decision about which will be this winter’s bedtime treat, but right now I have serious doubts any will smell this good. The convenience factor’s a bit ehhh but I haven’t bothered to see if the others need hot milk too so that point might be moot anyway. And besides, something that smells this good can definitely motivate me to heat some milk. Oh so good. Decadent! To be honest after some ok-but-not-astounding samples of their Earls months ago I was kind of hoping to be able to write off Townshend’s as a fond memory of my first trip to Portland (including the story of how a customer another table over tipped me off all friendly-like about Naked Bike Night, whee) but not amazeballs enough to reorder from (I’m trying to whittle my vendors list, it cuts down on shipping and all that) but this could well be Very Necessary (Salt n Pepa reference, har), which means I can get more Soaring Crane (a nice tasty undemanding green) in the process.