From… last week? The week before that!?
This tea has been sitting in my queue of teas to write about for a while, and now I’ve forgotten the details surrounding when I drank it – but I know it was delicious and I wrote down for myself that all the title flavours were achieved, but the nicest element was the cooling minty finish!
Tasting note stops here!
Someone asked me about my “queue” the other day (that I reference in tasting notes) so here’s generally how I keep track for myself, if anyone is curious…
I generally try to write a tasting note for every tea that I drank that doesn’t relate directly to work (because I drink tea as part of my job), and I have a list on my desktop with all the teas I’ve drank that still need to be written about. I call this my “queue”.
In that list, I use a coded letter system to remember how I drank it/if I added anything to it outside of just having it hot and straight. An example might be…
Blueberry Mint Lemonade (H) … if I had it with honey
Blueberry Mint Lemonade (CB) … if it was a cold brew
Blueberry Mint Lemonade (P + M + S) … if I had a pot of it with milk, and it was a sipdown
There’s a bunch of letters I use as shorthand for myself. Sometimes I add a few jot notes for myself under each tea on the list if there are things I REALLY want to make sure I remember, but usually I’m really good at remembering those details or I can cross reference my instagram account.
As a general rule of thumb, I “allow” myself up to twenty teas in the queue before I have to set time aside to write them all out – those obviously I try not to let it get that full, and write tasting notes whenever I have the time. This helps me mentally balance the routine of wanting to write for everything though, and not spending literally every evening writing tasting notes; it’s enough of a buffer that with a totally empty queue that can give me at least two days, sometimes three, without filling it.
Also, as some people have realized, I don’t always write in order. There isn’t really a specific system as to why I write specific tasting notes before others – just depends on the mood I’m in. Though, one thing I typically don’t prioritize at all are notes for bubble tea/kombucha/bottled drinks, even though I do like to write about them. I also prefer to write about sipdowns more quickly, so I can keep my Steepster cupboard as up to date as possible.
So yeah – a glimpse into my crazy!
