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Huh.

Came home, really really tired – my body’s beat, not sure why, but I slept from 12pm to 9am, and then from about 10am-3pm. And I’m still exhausted and my eyes hurt and I have a headache, so I think I’m going to finish watching Sherlock with my friend (she’s never seen it before and she’s in Iowa, so she’s liveblogging it, and her comments are hilarious.) and get my words in for tonight and then just go to bed. Long shift tomorrow too. Fun.

Tea.

Tossed one of these little tuochas into my tasting cup. I’m underwhelmed. It’s a decent pu’erh, I guess, but it’s fairly flavorless. Generally just meh.

Thanks to Teavivre for this sample!

My first experience with milk oolong was bad, to say the least. I tried the Quangzhou Milk Oolong from David’s, as it came in a sampler pack, and I took two sips and threw it out. All I could taste was rice pudding, and that’s not what I want when I’m drinking tea.

I tried this with a bit of trepidation, fully expecting to hate it. But I like it!

It’s really creamy and floral, and while the milkiness isn’t my favorite, it’s certainly not as rice-y as I remember the one from David’s to be.

I don’t think it’s a tea I’d buy, but it’s a good cup for today.

Woke up this morning with a craving for oolong. Okay. I don’t have a ton, but I knew I had about half this sample kicking around in my sample box.

It was generally unremarkable. Not to say it was bad – it was just exactly what you’d expect from an oolong, fairly run-of-the-mill, not very exciting. It was smooth and creamy, a little bit buttery, some floral notes on later steeps.

All in all, a solid tea and a good start to the morning, just not one that I’d go out of my way to purchase.

DOCTOR WHO SERIES – JACKIE TYLER

Comforting and protective, she’ll give you a hug while simultaneously kicking someone’s ass for you.

A combination of chamomile, orange, rosehip and rosepetals, this tea is sweet and light and just a little bit tart. The chamomile lends it a bit of honey flavor at the front of the sip, and it finishes with the rosehip and orange.

Really, really good. Much better than expected. I’ve had an idea for this forever, and never had the ingredients to make it happen. I kind of feel as though I should be logging these as separate teas, since the ingredients are more or less finalized… but oh well. When I get around to doing the label artwork.

Oh, hey there, hibiscus, didn’t see you hiding there.

I really only got this because David’s had the 50g free with any purchase promotion last week. I have to say – shipping to MA is about three days faster than shipping to NY, which is cool. And of course David’s emails me today with a Perfect Mug promotion… I’ve been wanting to get one of those for months… and but I have textbooks et al to buy now. Not cool, David’s, not cool.

Opening the bag, this smells fantastic. I’m reminded of Teavana’s Youthberry / Wild Orange blend, but better. It’s a bit fuller, like it has something that the Teavana blend is lacking. Maybe it’s tea itself, having a more substantial black/green base as opposed to their barely-there white? I don’t know.

The color is beautiful. It’ a rich ruby red. I haven’t drank fruity tea in so long, it’s been awhile since I’ve had any tea that’s not a variant of brown or green!

But, oh, the hibiscus. It’s all I taste. And I like hibiscus. In moderation.

I’m leaving off a rating because I had a few sips of this hot, fell asleep, and I’m not liking it after it’s cooled down, but man, I’m just not feeling this.

A friend sent me a small sample of this, with the description “Indian White.”

It looks like a white peony / bai mu dan – all brittle, flat leaves.

I’m very sad that this is the end of the sample, since I’m on the third steep and still going strong. Really sweet and soft, creamy. It’s almost like sugar snap peas. It sparkles.

Does anyone have any Indian White teas to recommend me? I haven’t tried any outside of this, but I don’t want to let this one go!

Thanks so much to Epi Tea for the pre-release sample of this!

Uh… this is kind of long. Sorry! Skip to the second half for the actual tea :)

Whew. Busy morning. I dropped my sister off at camp, came home, brewed and photographed this. I had computer issues. Panicked. I only have one tea bag, and I need the photo for my blog, and if I can’t get the pictures of the memory card, I can’t drink this tea yet! And of course it was time for work too. I changed into my uniform and drove all the way out there, punched in, rang out a customer, checked the schedule and realized that my 11-5 is next Tuesday, not this Tuesday. Sigh.

I punched out, changed back into street clothes, figured I might as well pick up some envelopes and school supplies while I was there. I was looking at notebooks, and a girl was complaining to her mum that the only notebooks we had were black or grey. I work there… even on my day off, I feel obligated to do what I can. Especially during Back to School season (our busiest). So I ran up the ladder and pulled a couple of boxes down for her. My boss walked by, just sort of shook his head in exasperation at me. Customer was happy, though, so that’s all good.

On to the tea. I didn’t put any milk or sugar in this, but I don’t need to. There’s usually too much bergamot in Earl Greys, but I didn’t get that impression with this one at all. The first flavor I get is lavender. Not overdone lavender, just lavender. Good. I haven’t had lavender in awhile, and I forgot how much I liked it! That’s intermingled with the black tea base (Ceylon? Assam?). And then, finally, at the very very end of the sip, almost in the aftertaste, comes a bit of the dry, soapy bergamot.

That sounds bad. It’s very, very good. It compliments the cool dryness of the lavender really really well, and it almost lends a texture more than a flavor.

I’ve found my Earl Grey. This is fantastic. I want to buy some as soon as it’s available!

Feeling lazy tonight. I’ve been using bags all day. I’ve had about six cups of Adagio’s Ginger Peach, but I’m bored of that. So out comes the Lapsang!

I went to go harass collect eggs from the chickens while this was steeping. Two from Cora, one from Addie and one from Mabel. (That’s assuming, of course, that they haven’t been stealing each others’ eggs… Cora lays green eggs, though, so we know which ones are hers!)

Came back, decided that I really didn’t want hot tea, poured it into a different cup, filled this one with ice cubes, then poured it back over the ice. I didn’t plan for this to be iced, so it’s a bit light in flavor, but that’s perfect.

Just the right amount of smokiness here. It’s a little bit malty and a little bit spicy. I think I’ll spend the rest of the night in bed with Netflix and a few cups of this :)

Decupboarding! Backlogging from earlier today.

This was the first sample we offered at the tea party my friend and I hosted a few weeks ago – so much fun!

This is the best Cream of Earl Grey I’ve tried. I don’t like Teavana’s offering at all – their straight Earl Grey is far too strong, and their EGC tastes incredibly artificial.

This is light and smooth. I usually add a bit of milk and sugar, and it’s equally as good hot as iced. Not sure I’ll be ordering more, just because I’ve still got 2oz of Teavana’s to sipdown, and I can’t really justify buying more tea (isn’t that everyone’s problem?)

I love how Virtuous has a little basket of their bestsellers as free samples. As I was checking out the last time I was there, the woman sort of waved the basket in front of me and said “Free samples! Help yourself.” I got very excited of course, and took this one as well as a few others.

No steeping paramaters provided, and I didn’t feel like going online, so I just did a general 180 degree, 2 minute steep.

I don’t get a lot of flavor out of this. It’s really creamy, that I will say. After looking at the description of the tea online, I taste hints of vanilla and pumpkin. There’s a really light green taste behind that as well.

It says it’s excellent iced, and I’m brewing it hot, so that might be something too. I don’t dislike the tea, it’s just a bit lackluster for me. Leaving off a rating because I’m not sure it’s fair to review a tea badly just because I might have made it wrong, especially when I’m the only review!