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oh man, I love this Tournament of TEAS idea.  It goes right along with my beloved Morning News Tournament of Books (that I’m really behind on the reading for… I’ve only read 9/18 books for….) so I’m already behind on one tournament so why not be crazy and DO A BRACKET WITH 32 TEAS.  Let’s do this thing.  I’m going to do one of the tea days in the brackets whenever I feel up to it, otherwise I will miss the funsy choice days.  So the brackets will definitely skip those days.How did I choose the teas?  I had two ‘random number generators’ up on google.  One for page number and one for the number of teas on each page (18).  I may have skipped adding a couple of the results to the bracket for one reason or another but it was already fun creating this bracket!!!  SO the first round of this tea tournament will take longer than 16 days, drinking the teas side by side in round one, but then after that some of these teas might be sipdowns, so I might just make quick decisions after that unless I want to revisit some tough decision future matches.  Thanks for the idea Mastress Alita.  If anything, it’s a great way to get some of these long lost teas out of the back of the cupboard.  And some of them that popped up I have been meaning to drink soon anyway!  

March Mad(Hatter) Tea Tournament!
Round #1 – Match #1    Davids – Cranberry Pear  VS.  Butiki – White Rhino
So a question: should I be judging these teas on how I remember them tasting over the years, as some of these are realllllyyy old? Or should I be judging them solely on the cups I’m steeping that day?
For this match, a tough one!  But not really.  The Cranberry Pear has always been consistent but also consistently old.  I’m not sure I’ve ever tried this tea fresh, but I would love to!  The pouch was probably old when I got it, and now it’s GONE.  I do like the idea of Cranberry Pear… it’s sweet, fruity, I love that it has vanilla. It’s amazing for an old tea.  And so much vanilla in the dregs of the pouch!  But what tea can really match up against White Rhino?   White Rhino is EVOLVING people.  It looks like a golden black tea now. Mostly gold leaves with hints of black.  You’d never guess this was once a white tea.  The flavor now is fairly starchy.  It’s not as good as it once was.  But the longevity both within a steep session and in how the tea ages over the years gives this tea points. Does it help that both teas are probably the same age?  It sure seems fair.  This was an extremely tasty sendoff for Cranberry Pear (probably the best cups I’ve ever had and I will raise the rating from a 73), and I’d love to stock up on more in the future, but the  winner here is…White Rhino.
2021 sipdowns: 27 (this + sample of Bird & Blend’s Figgy Pud)