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Sipdown (293)

I don’t know if Roswell Strange was trying to broaden my horizons or torture me or a bit of both but back in December when she gave me a bunch of teas, she gave me a bunch of puerhs. As many of you know, me and puerh are not friends but also if someone shares something with me, I feel compelled to try it. So to ease myself in, I went for a flavoured puerh.

This definitely has a great pistachio flavor. It’s clear and distinct but doesn’t overpower the puerh base, as much as I wish it would. The base smells earthier/muddier than it tastes, which is nice but it definitely still has those qualities. Per Roswell Strange’s recommendation, I added a shitton of milk.

There is something cookie-like about this with the milk. The pistachio comes through and so does the puerh, though not as strongly. With that said, I don’t know where it’s coming from but I’m also getting something that is sort of like rubber/latex – kinda like the flavor you get in your mouth after blowing a bunch of balloons. Also as I continue to drink, the smell of dirt that puerh has fills my nose and it’s just not my thing.

Thank you Roswell Strange for sharing! While this was better than puerhs I’ve had in the past, I’m just not quite at the point in my tea journey where I enjoy puerh tea. Who knows if I ever will be…

I am going through the bag of teas I have for Sil and I noticed I didn’t share any of this. I have two bags of this since it grew on me as a latte so I decided I would take the rest of the emptier bag and pass that long (I also don’t have my sample bags for trading here so I am trying to save the three I happened to have). However, there was still a fair bit in that bag and I thought Sil may not want that much. Plus, I haven’t had a latte in a few days so I thought I’d just make a latte and pass the rest on.

As I made it though, I realized this tea didn’t quite match the warmth and sun trickling in from outside. I am sipping it now and I am enjoying it, but I am also not really in the mood for it. As such, there is a weird juxtaposition of “I like this” and “I don’t want this right now”.

Thank you teakruthi for the sample. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a CTC type tea since I haven’t had a lot of experience with it and the experiences I have had weren’t great. However, this is quite nice. It’s strong and a touch astringent. As I drink, petrichor comes to mind, as well as the idea of wet and dark woods. It’s also a bit malty which provides a nice counterbalance to the other flavours.

Today’s baking wasn’t really baking at all. My brother asked for banana pudding so we delivered with a banana pudding trifle-esque dessert: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_YuQfVgRIR/?igshid=1ey4s9hfok8v7

Ofc I needed a tea to go with it and it seemed like as good a time as any to have this banana pudding tea.

While the dessert was fairly light, dinner was a cheese soup that we made in honour of the Disney trip we were supposed to be starting today. It’s delicious but heavy so after the dessert, even the tea seemed like it would be too much given how full I was. So, I brought the tea upstairs with me.

Now I’m sipping on it and watching Drag Race and while it smells quite accurate to the banana pudding and tastes similar, the base is a touch too floral and takes away from the overall accuracy of the tea. It’s still tasty though and a nice follow up to the meal.

This was a nice black tea but I didn’t get much lemon. I will try it again to see if I can coax out that flavor. Nevertheless, thank you teakruthi for the sample.

This was best before February 2020 and I finally opened it today. Despite being past it’s prime, it’s quite good. It’s bready and caramelized with sweet Potato and brown sugar notes. It can be the slightest bit minerally at time but mostly it’s just caramelized bready goodness.

We’ve made chocolate covered strawberry cream puffs and in order to incorporate them into my #365daysoftea, I pulled out this tea which seemed on the nose. See the pic here: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_TEFt8gJTO/?igshid=1xgkalfgt7kkr

It’s weird because this smells exactly like chocolate covered strawberries. It does have a strawberry with slight chocolate flavor. It’s quite nice and I didn’t anticipate it would be this accurate. You do still get a lot of apple flavor as well but if you can ignore that, it’s chocolate strawberry.

Inspired by Roswell Strange to pick this up so I am now enjoying it while I wait for the choux pastry we just baked for cream puffs to cool. It’s got a nice spice profile from the chai. I am getting a lot of clove and a dash of cardamom. However, it doesn’t have nearly as much vanilla or caramel that I expected and I just want more. Next time I will make it as a latte and see if that helps to coax out some of those flavors I am looking for.

Cold Brew Sipdown (294)

Last time I had this, it was like cough syrup. This time it was like bad medicinal rooibos. Normally with caffeine free teas I drink the bad ones just to get the hydration but this was so bad, it got dumped.

What also got dumped? Another cold brew bottle. This time my little one. I fell over while drying…twice…and cracked. So that’s two cold brew bottles broken.