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So I remember that this came from the “Take it Away” thread, and that it was added in as an extra by the same person who added in the Taiwanese Mountain Assam, but I can’t for the life of me remember whom that was from! Damn! So sorry to whoever that package came from – I definitely appreciated it even if my lack of recollection may make it appear otherwise.

Dry the smell from this one is intense. I have it double bagged right now and can still slightly smell it. It’s amazing, delicious coconut – and so fresh, too.

Steeped up, this is really, really damn good. It’s a very buttery, and true kind of natural coconut. No frills or anything fancy to it – just coconut. I like that; it’s not trying to be anything else and it doesn’t over complicate itself because it doesn’t need to in order to be flat out amazing.

Why did I let this sample sit so long before trying it? I’m really happy to have more cups left of it, anyway! Mmm!

Backlog begins.

Had to have it again yesterday with the newly discovered pumpkin flakes to see if the magic from that cup could/would be replicated. I must say, it was still better than without the pumpkin flakes – but not as tasty as the cup I enjoyed the day before.

This is my cold brew for the day. Something told me this would make a really interesting/good cold brew and I seem to be dying of heat (even though it’s not really so hot in our apartment) so a cold brew definitely seems right for the moment.

In total, this cold brewed for about eight hours. Taste wise, it’s definitely a vegetal green with some very nice peach notes to it – and I can get behind the vegetalness of this one because it has actual vegetables in it. Quite thirst quenching and refreshing, indeed. I think this is better cold brewed, too – even if the peach is a little less strong. When I send some to VariaTEA I’ll make sure to add enough for her to try it hot and cold, though.

Unrelated, I am so thankful I’m going to the dentist’s again on Tuesday because I’m back to being in a lot of mouth pain again – and my pain meds are almost all gone. That said, only like half of it is actually coming from my teeth – the rest is from the inside of my left cheek where I cut myself on a piece of silverware, like an idiot. I think maybe it’s infected? At the very least – it’s really sore.

Sipdown (202/205)!

Thanks VariaTEA for the sample. It was neat comparing it to Forever Nuts and all the similar blends, but it wasn’t much of a comparison because this tastes exactly like Forever Nuts anyway.

For that reason, not sad that it’s gone because I have lots of Forever Nuts left.

Sipdown (203/206)!

Today has just miserably dredged on – and I think part of that is that there are practically no listings added on weekends so it feels like I’m not accomplishing anything at all. Additionally, no mail on Sunday so that’s just one other thing to not look forward to at all, and all of that is definitely putting me in a “non tea drinking mood”, so these are my first teas all day. Yup – it’s been a late start.

I’m trying to make this late start count, though, by making both morning cups sipdowns. Again, thank you VariaTEA for the sample of this one. Ultimately, this is a good tea and a decent fruity/floral greener oolong but it’s just not anything special to me, and so for that recent I’m happy this is a sipdown and one less thing in my cupboard.

Thanks VariaTEA for the sample. I actually thought it’d be a sipdown, but there’s still enough there for one more small cup.

I seem to be acquiring lots of the “Forever Nuts” type of teas, and I think I’m making decent enough progress getting through then. The nice thing is that they’re all a little bit different – or so I thought. When I brewed this one up it tasted exactly like Forever Nuts, complete with the pink tea liquor. Honestly, if I hadn’t prepared it myself I would have had NO IDEA that they were different teas.

So, that said – it was good, but totally not special or unique enough to persuade me to buy this one over Forever Nuts which is much more accessible.

After my Genmaicha I switched to caffeine free teas – and I just couldn’t stay away from this one. I’m probably kick starting and reigniting the pilot flame on my trend of hyper obsessing over Passion Fruit for week(ish) long periods of time. Last time that happened was 11th grade and I ate about seventy of the actual fruits in a seven day time span…

It’s probably a very good thing that this one isn’t available anymore. Or at least, not available for the time being.

Sipdown (204/207)!

Very tasty cup of Genmaicha that I had with dinner last night, so thank you again Kittenna for the sample. By the time I got to the last bit at the bottom of the mug, it was tasting pretty bitter, though.

It was very neat trying Butiki’s take on Genmaicha but I’m not too sad to see it depart my cupboard since I have so much Genmaicha as it is.

So, I was frustrated this wouldn’t come up in the search bar. In fact, nothing was showing up in the search bar so I went to look to see if I had misspelled something and instead of typing Pomegranate Oolong I definitely entered in “VariaTEA”.

Thank you VariaTEA for the sample sachets. Next cup will be a sipdown, so I may take advantage of that and make it sooner rather than later.

Dry this definitely gives off a very floral scent and all a pretty strong scent of pomegranate – though if I was smelling it blindly I may mistake it for a muddled raspberry. Taste wise, this is definitely floral and a greener oolong with some vegetal notes in here too. I get the fruitiness of the oolong, but it’s not incredibly distinct so I’m not incredibly sure if I could blindly point it out as pomegranate. There also just a tiny bit of butteryness.

Concluding thoughts are that this is definitely enjoyable and pleasant, but it’s not unique or distinct enough for me to feel that I could justify purchasing it. Ultimately, I think I would also crave my Raspberry Oolong from Tea Desire over it because it shares many of the same characteristics and it much more available. The only thing that would maybe compel me to make this a purchase is the beautiful tin design.

I have to say, I’ve tried several Harney blends now and while they’ve not been bad only one has really impressed me greatly.

So, I was shaking the bag up for this one and made a discovery which also made me feel like an idiot. There was tons of flaky orange pumpkiny vanilla bits at the bottom of my pouch which had sunk there and I guess hadn’t made it into previous cups because the bag was so full the leaf didn’t have enough room to move around and set all the little bits free.

So, this cup had lots of those little bits in it which were elusive to me otherwise – and I am expecting the addition of them will probably alter the time I’ve been experiencing previously.

And I was definitely correct in those expectations because this is much creamier with a very strong vanilla taste than any cup I’ve had prior. In fact, really all the mild/subtle flavours that I’ve felt were really muted are significantly strong and I’m absolutely getting the creamy pumpkin taste from the leaf. By far, this is a much happier cup.

I’m going to be very sure to shake this up ton before making it from now on because those little flaky bits are totally essential to the quality of the cup. This’ll make finishing what I have left a whole lot easier.