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Taken with milk.

It had been a while since I had this one, so I pulled the tin and took a long, deep inhale of the dry leaf. Mmm! It smelled so creamy and good. Yup; it was awesome: strong notes of creamy vanilla and a divine bergamot flavour. It was like a London Fog. Just… Pretty perfect. I could honestly go for a second cup.

To echo Marzipan in one of her earlier tasting notes today: it’s nice returning to old friends.

Mmmm…

I don’t feel up to writing a ton so I’ll just keep it short and sweet and very tasting note focused: the lychee was extra present and very juicy with a lovely floral finish that nicely contrasted the somewhat malty black base. I drew out the cup over a long stretch of time and really enjoyed the scent and flavour of it. It felt like a very sensual cup.

I always take the time to really draw this one out and enjoy it.

I think I like this slightly better today; I may be getting less fruit but I’m also getting more brown sugary, caramel cake like flavour and that’s fitting my current mood/cravings pretty perfectly. Who knows; I might ever be kind of sad when I run out of this one.

I think I want to try it with milk next time.

I’m in a weird place right now; one that I’ve never really been in before and that I’m not sure how to navigate – and when I opened up to Tre about it he basically called me crazy and we got in this huge debate/fight and I guess that’s led to my opening up to you guys on Steepster about it?

http://globalnews.ca/news/1263356/18-year-old-charged-with-attempted-murder-2/

I found that article by accident today while looking up some other reports on things going on in Regina (updates on the Cornwall Stabbings and on the arrest of Peter Labarbera and Bill Whatcott for their anti-gay rights protest at the U of R, and subsequent arrest – some serious stuff is going down in Regina as of late). Normally I think I would have just glazed over the article, except for one crucial thing…

I know Tristan. I grew up with him; we went to elementary school together and highschool up until he dropped out. We were never the type of “friends” who interacted during school hours but he was the sort of friend who I would FB at one or two in the morning to have those late night, depressing conversations with were both parties kind of bare their soul a little bit.

This is even an “excerpt” I said in one of our late night conversations a few months after I moved to Saskatoon.

“But yeah – as long as what you’re doing isn’t harmful to another person (like going around stabbing people just for kicks) I think you should be able to do whatever makes you happiest.”

I just feel really… Shellshocked. And a huge part of me wants to reach out to both here his side of things and just see how he’s doing too. Tre thinks that’s wrong of me; that he’s clearly guilty and that people’s past and the trauma they’ve experienced shouldn’t warrant my guilt or his forgiveness. In part I think he’s right, but still. He was/is a friend; why is it wrong of me to want to reach out to him?

Oh well; at least this tea is light and fruity and just divine enough to put my mind somewhat at ease for now. But I don’t think this is something I can just “move on” from like Tre thinks should be easy for me to do.

Sipdown (167/171)!

So Monday I bought just enough of this to do one cold brew to see whether or not this one was “for me” and could work as a cold brewed Coconut Grove replacement. I set up said Trial Cold Brew yesterday and about 18ish hours later here we are ready to go!

I’ve been sipping on it all morning actually, just getting a a good feel for it and enjoying it for the most part. I must say, the coconut in this almost takes on a pastry or baking like quality which, again, is different from the coconut flavour I experience with Coconut Grove – and not totally was I was looking and hoping for. It’s not necessarily a negative; I like that this is buttery and pastry like because I usually like that quality in general with my tea but it still doesn’t feel complete.

Something that is a bit of a negative is the lemongrass. Lemongrass is a commonly used tea ingredient that I still haven’t really made my mind up about yet: sometimes I enjoy it and sometimes I really don’t. Unfortunately this is one of those times: it’s distracting here and I feel it detracts from the overall taste of the tea, especially in the aftertaste. My understanding is that the old formula for this blend didn’t include lemongrass; I think I’d be interested in trying that formula. I wonder why they added it to the new revised one?

So not a replacement, probably not a repurchase… But glad I tried it!

Sipdown (168/172)!

It’s raining, it’s pouring…
The lazy teenager old man is snoring…

I had a crazy good sleep and then woke up with some tasty, tasty oolongs. It’s been a pretty simple, relaxed day so far! However, I think I’m ready to go back to work tomorrow; it’s been a nice “vacation”.

Thank you aisling of tea for the sample of this one; it’s another RiverTea blend that’s eerily similar to Tea Desire’s blends so I was also excited to compare the two since TD’s Raspberry Oolong is another blend I keep stocked.

I must say the two are very, very similar: both have an incredibly strong and juicy raspberry taste that dominates the cup and commands your undivided attention and both have a touch of floral quality and nice buttery, pastry like notes. The main difference I experienced was that this one tastes greener and TD’s steps up the pastry comparison to a whole ’nother level.

For my personal tastes, I think I would prefer to keep TD’s stocked just because I’m not the biggest fan of green/vegetal tasting teas, so I like the pastry quality of their blend better than the green quality of this one. That works out well I guess since TD is local. However, someone who prefers a slightly greener oolong would likely enjoy this one more than the TD blend.

Both are very good, however.

Sipdown (169/173)!

Well, that’s it for this one – hopefully for a while…

I order in too much (tonight included) so I’m definitely going to try and cut back and maybe, you know, eat the food that I actually have in the house?

I recently parceled this out for someone but I forget who. Anyway, it was out on the counter so while I was making my Sky Dive I thought “Hey, I haven’t had this in a while – let’s make it too!”. So, of course, I did.

I don’t think my water was quite cool enough when I started steeping; the resulting cup had a slight bitter edge to it that made the aftertaste a little unpleasant. Overall, this was pretty decent though it did taste especially green tonight. The strawberry also had a harsh “tang” to it – but I recall seeing more strawberry pieces in the dry leaf than usual, so there’s that.

Ordered in again (but not pizza)! It was a toss up between Saskatoon Berry pie or Onion Rings and Chocolate Cheesecake. In the end the rings and cheesecake won out – though I am wishing I had pie too…

Sipdown (170/174)!

An unexpected one, at that…

I was sure there was enough leaf left for one more cup so I could do a direct “side to side” comparison between this and Tea Desire’s Chai Apricot – but I suppose not. But overall, I think that’s ok. Based on what I tasted in this hot cup I think that would have been unnecessary: this tastes basically exactly like Chai Apricot (not surprising; they’re strikingly similar) except with maybe a little bit more clove. It’s also missing one flavour note that I’ve grown to love and expect from Chai Apricot: the weird, hard to place and identify where it’s coming from presence of ketchup…

So I think between the two I like Chai Apricot more just for that weird, exotic flavour note that only I seem to get. That’s not to say this wasn’t good, though!

Hey, backlog complete! I’m finally logging a tea that I’m actually drinking today. Hooray for that! It feels like a nice little mini accomplishment.

Yesterdat I cracked open my sealed 25g pack of this from the Christmas gift box thingy I received from my Dad back in January so I could parcel some out for 221Tea. I probably would have opened it sooner rather than later anyway; I’ve been looking for dessert teas and black teas I can work towards sipping down and this fits bot of those criteria.

It was my breakfast tea this morning, and I have to say I’m not totally sure how I feel about it. I’ll probably need subsequent cups to determine that. It’s problematic to me because I was reminded of DT’s Red Velvet Cake which I despise as well as Della Terra’s Pineapple Upside Down Cake, which I adore. This is somewhere inbetween both of those.

As far as the RVC comparison goes, this had the same sort of artificial and general generic sweetness that I dislike greatly in the former – but it didn’t come off as chemical like I recall experiencing, and I think the lack of chocolate worked in favour of this blend.

Now comparing it to Pineapple Upside Down Cake; I think this had slightly more generic fruityness to it (especially in the aftertaste) but similarly nothing obviously flavoured: you would not know it’s pineapple or cherry providing the fruitiness. There’s also that similar brown sugar sponge cake vibe from this. In this blend, it was more aromatic than PUDC, but PUDC tastes better/captures it in a better and more realistic way.

So yes; somewhere in the middle. Perplexing, indeed…