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Sipdown (199/201)!

Ha, take that! Back under 200 again! Not to just keep the sipdowns going ;)

Anyway, there was probably enough left of this for two cups worth but most of it was just very small, fine bits of chamomile and I don’t like chamomile at all – so I mostly scooped out the fruit and then tossed the rest of the chamomile bits in the trash. Is that cheating? Maybe a little – but the prospect of a mostly just straight chamomile cup was not appealing and not the nature of this blend anyway.

Sadly, my last cup of this was pretty awful. It tasted like mango medicine. That’s not a flavour I’ve ever experienced with mangoes or really with this tea – but it was really cough syrupy and horrible. Horrible. I didn’t finish the mug – there was still like 2/3 of it left. And I didn’t feel bad about tossing it out after trying this last bit.

Not sad to see this one gone!

GUESS WHAT!

I didn’t type “Eggnong” when I was looking for this in the search bar. I’m so proud of myself!

Anyway, I only have one more serving of this left after the cup I made myself last night. I’m pretty ok with that though; it was yummy but not really something that screams “summer matcha” – right? Right. Plus, I have so many other kinds to enjoy thanks to all you crazy generous people!

I noticed this was frothing up really fucking well last night so I “drank” the entire 10 oz. of it as froth. Some of it was added to Adagio’s The Pint – but most of it was just continuously frothed up and the scooped out of the cup and enjoyed as this lovely light and airy eggnog treat. It took forever to finish it off, because I kept having to refroth – but it was delicious.

On the Ninth Day of Christmas Steepster gave to me Nine Ladies Dancing…

This was (obviously) part of the Christmas swap, which was a long time ago – but I put off trying this one because of the green tea and the ginger. Neither sounded good to me, even though I was really excited by getting a LoT blend – but I realized yesterday that I could probably sip this down quickly, and I was right – after yesterday’s cup I now only have one more cup of this.

Really, it wasn’t so bad; pretty bitter but I actually think that was probably a plus because then it was harder to taste the green tea and ginger. Heh…

What I actually ended up doing was frothing up the matcha latte I was having a lot and the scooping out the froth and adding it to this one – and that helped a little bit because it tamed the bitterness/astringency and made this just a touch creamier. I don’t know – I may take that quick sipdown today or get Tre to drink it for me; it shouldn’t be too hard to get him to try a LoT tea.

He might not even fight me on it ;)

Anyway, thanks Khaleesical. Even if I don’t love the tea itself, I liked getting another adagio fandom blend! And trying things outside my comfort zone isn’t necessarily a bad thing either.

Sipdown (200/202)!

As soon as I was done my Peach Bloom yesterday I just had to make another and I decided on this one because it was the one I was most interested in (because of the lychee) and the one I think I would least want to share – because I intend to save the last ones for when I have people over.

I briefly skimmed the other tasting notes for this one and didn’t see any other mention of this – so I’m thinking I’m the odd one out here but, while I did really enjoy this bloom, I was thrown off by the taste because while there is lychee flavour I found the black tea gave off very strong chocolate and malt notes which was really weird in comparison to the usually quite floral taste of lychee. So, I was a little startled by the flavour notes but it was really good and I definitely enjoyed the beauty of this one and that flavour.

Thanks VariaTEA! These blooms are quick sipdowns :) And so fun!

Spearmint is my favourite kind of mint – hands down.

I’m so happy to have this one in my possession. Right now, I’m using it as a palate cleanser while I switch back and forth between my Peach Bloom tea and Chocolate Orange (both from DT). The Chocolate Orange is really oily and sort of sweet and strong, and the Peach Bloom is very delicate and floral so I don’t want to jump right between the two. This is a very tasty and refreshing transition.

Take a sip of Peach Bloom, take a sip of Absolute Spearmint, take a sip of Chocolate Orange, back to the Spearmint, and repeat…

Plus any excuse to enjoy Spearmint is something I can get on board with.

Also – I just discovered this very neat show called Intelligence a few hours ago and I’m on episode 2 now. It’s basically about a crime solving type dude, but he has a very high class chip in his head that allows him to connect with the internet at all times in his mind. So, he can access all sorts of things that are useful for solving crimes (DMV records, as an example, or building layouts) so long as he’s in internet/satellite range.

Bonus points: The protag’ is played by the highly entertaining, amazingly skilled, and overall very attractive Josh Holloway, who LOST fans will know as Sawyer. Be still my heart; I’m sold!

One more cup and this is gone. I’ll see if I can pawn that cup off on Tre later tonight when he gets home…

I added milk to this cup, but I don’t think it took it exceptionally well. I find this one has an oilyness to it when consumed straight, and that mixed very funnily with the milk. There’s a whole layer of oily scum on the surface of my tea which is offputting; mostly because it translates into the taste. I want this to be a tea that I can relax with – but everytime I drink it I find that it’s… Distracting? And not in a good way.

Plus side – the tea liquor is a really beautiful colour despite the oil drops. The artist in me had to go scour Google Images looking for visual representations. Something like these:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U30zqUrq4NM/T3BI0zatdWI/AAAAAAAAG38/WFU2GtgaJIc/s400/cherry-0810-4-mdn.jpg

http://www.africanafrican.com/PhotoAlbum3/fullsize/cherry-wood.jpg

http://www.art-paints.com/Paints/Marker/Liquimark/Global-Colors/Mahogany/Mahogany.gif

The colour is so relaxing (I would want my dream house to incorporate this colour; either on the bathroom walls or in hardwood, accessories, trim, something…) but why can’t the damn tea be just as relaxing?

Sipdown (201/203)!

VariaTEA sent me a whole bunch of bloom teas – which I’m very excited about. It suddenly came to me that my mason jar is large enough to handle a bloom tea and clear so I finally have some equipment that’ll let me properly enjoy them! Very cool! Seriously, Keychange – this was the gift that keeps on giving.

So, for my first at home bloom tea I went with the one she sent which I was least excited about – just in case it was a giant fail or the mason jar didn’t work for whatever reason. But nope, it turned out really neat and I’m very much enjoying the beauty of the tea. I took a whole bunch of pictures and changed my phone background to a picture of the fully bloomed tea – it’s the first time I’ve switched my background since probably… June? Maybe early July? My previous picture was a very (deliberately) terrible selfie from when I worked at the movie theatre.

The tea itself is ok; I’m finding the flavour a little weak compared to other blooms I’ve experienced and it definitely leans heavily to a floral side. If I had to give a brief flavour description for the package or something along that line it’d like be “Floral black with light peach notes”. But, you know, jazzier because of marketing and all that…

The blooms are supposed to be good for multiple infusions, but I’m not sure yet whether I’ll do another infusion after this one. I’m probably going to decide against it though; I don’t think I’m loving it enough to want another 25 oz. of it. Maybe if I was sharing with someone – but I’m not…

Sipdown (202/204)!

This went completely cold before I got to it; I was too busy enjoying the complexities of White Rhino – and now this blend is falling a little bit short as a cold tea; I think hot would have hit the spot much more. So a little bit of a let down as far as sipdowns go.

Still, the tang is quite strong in this cup (I think it gets stronger the colder the tea is) but the chocolate is totally MIA.

Decently enjoyable as far as samples go; so thank’s VariaTEA – but I think in the long run this will be a forgettable blend.

Thanks Courtney for the sample of this! It’s great to finally check it off the list of Butiki teas I need to try; I’ve been curious about it since Stacy released it. I will say I was really surprised that this one steeps at boiling temperature; I looked up the steep temp. here on Steepster before making it, just to confirm that what you’d written out on the sample bag was in fact accurate (not that I didn’t trust you; but my mind was very conflicted because this is a white).

While prepping this I burnt my hand pretty badly on some Spiderman Alphagetti; damn scalding hot cobwebs! That distracted me for a little while; so this has cooled a fair bit now.

It’s really good though; and I can tell there’s a lot of complexity to this one that I hope I can do justice in my description. Upon initial sip, I taste what I would describe as “Sweet Bread” and cream, sort of like Easter Buns which are like a cross between bread and pastry (but without the fruit bits). I’m not really a fan of Easter Buns because they usually have raisins in them (ew) – but the dough itself is tasty!

Moving on from that initial flavour is more of a subtle fruity/hay combo. Think… Hay, and maybe sweet cherries? The same kind of cherry flavour in pastry – not a medicinal or abundantly “stone fruit” flavour. Hmm. No, on second thought not cherry. It’s something else – but not apricot like the description says. I definitely get a different, separate fruit flavour – and it’s one that’s common to baking, but I can’t place which. There’s also maybe a little bit of malt – and then in the end this goes back to Easter Bun sweet bread.

Definitely tasty and one I’d probably keep around full time for a straight white – but only after clearing out a few more of the Butiki blends I have around which I don’t want to keep stocked full time, such as Irish Cream Cheesecake, Rhubarb Vanilla Ale or Traditional Plum Pudding…

Sipdown (203/205)!

I cold brewed the rest of this because it was really tasty that way. The fact VariaTEA sent me 25g of Creme Brulee (which I adored) was really good incentive to finish off this one quickly because I did not want Birthday Cake, Oh Canada!, and Creme Brulee all stocked at the same time.

It’s not that I don’t like this one, but Creme Brulee is so much better!

But anyway, what a nice way to polish this one off; very sweet and refreshing. I’m happy with the experience I had with this one – but not too sad to see it gone, though.