Holiday Marmalade

I think this was in a grab bag from 52Teas a while ago! I haven’t written a tasting note yet.  And I’m trying to write notes for the holiday teas, if I haven’t yet.  When I tried this before, I probably didn’t mix up the pouch.  Even if a tea is plain, the tiny leaves will settle from the big leaves, so I really need to learn to MIX EVERY TEA so I really get a mix of the flavors.  This seems much more representative of the flavors this time around.  I made sure to get the orange wedges and a good sampling of the spices.  I get this blend now.  It’s not plain marmalade, it’s HOLIDAY marmalade.  And I’m really getting a great balance of the orange and the spices.   And what a fantastic mix of spices: cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla bean.  It’s very tasty, especially with 1 1/2 teaspoons.   However, I could swear I’ve never tasted vanilla in any 52Teas  blend that had vanilla beans in the ingredients.  But this one is good!   Very accurate. The third steep is still very orange tasting.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug // 37 minutes after boiling // 2 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 35 minutes after boiling  // 2 1/2 minute steep
Steep #3 // much hotter // 3 min (3/4 full mug)

Holiday Tea-son! Coal! Coal in the Bird & Blend advent calendar today! I can’t do Lapsang Souchong because it is a migraine trigger, one wiff of the teabag of Smoky Russian and it promptly went into the bin. I tried a pine-smoked lapsang exactly once in my life, and the resulting migraine was one of the worst I’d ever had (smoke is one of my migraine triggers, and the aroma from the cuppa of lapsang souchong I tried in a teashop on vacation alone proved to be enough to tell my brain I absolutely needed that head pain right then). So never again.

So, I decided to brew up the Second Day of Tea from 52Tea’s 12 Days of Tea last year, Holiday Marmalade Green Tea, an orange spice blend on a green tea base rather than the typical black tea base. It certainly smells nice, particularly with a lot of orange and clove aroma coming from the dry leaf in the bag.

Since I was unburying my car when my tea timer went off, I actually don’t know how long this ended up steeping… I was pleasantly surprised it wasn’t a bitter mess. Oversteeped greens can get messy quick.

The flavor is quite nice. The orange tastes brisk and juicy, not overwhelming or wildly artificial as it can easily get in orange spice blends, and the spice is also not extremely strong and doesn’t leave any unpleasant hot or tingly sensations. Mostly I get tasty clove and allspice notes that compliment the orange nicely. There is a hint of sweet cinnamon toward the end of the sip, too. It’s a warming, comfy sort of tea. Probably not the best fit for first thing in the morning when I tend to go for something a bit more energizing, as I’m finding this the sort of thing that is quite relaxing on a foggy, cold, “had to unbury the car from last night’s snow” sort of morning. I’d be much happier if I could stay in under a pile of blankets and drink this, rather than having to catalog books with this in my work thermos. But that isn’t the tea’s fault. Meh.

Sipdown (637)!

Thanks for the share VariaTEA! This was really nice; the clove and orange combo was fantastic and really well balanced. I may be alone in this, but I think clove and orange is such a comforting and homey sort of flavour pairing and whenever I come across a tea that uses it I’m instantly brought back to giant Christmas gatherings with my extended family as a kid. It’s delicious and nostalgic. The very grassy undertones from the base did put me off a little bit; I definitely don’t enjoy them but even if I didn’t dislike the grassiness I feel like it still wouldn’t go along with the flavour pairings.

If this was revisited in the future around Christmas, I’d be really interested to see what it would be like on either a honeybush or darker oolong base…

I attended a small group writing workshop yesterday and one of the warm up exercises was to write a list called People who suffer. When we shared our pieces, the unanimous perspective was that all people suffer, though in various different ways. No one escapes.

There’s that Buddhist parable of the Second Arrow. The various types of pain that life brings are inescapable. It’s a fact that people get sick, suffer mild annoyances and big losses, and die. The second arrow is suffering we inflict on ourselves as we deal with the
hardships that life brings, so essentially we stab ourselves with various negative thoughts about ourselves and our situation as we try to cope. However, the fact of the particular hardship remains the same. The pain that life brings is a fact whereas the suffering we inflict around that is optional.

These are my early morning mullings after having been woken by baby next door at 3 and then 4 and then 6. And now as I write this, her older brother is racing like a dervish, his footsteps thudding and echoing through the walls and throughout the space.

I wonder whether my cursing this loud, noisy, and profoundly inconsiderate family—ongoing issues, not just the children— is the second arrow and what, aside from moving, I could be doing differently.

Somehow this was to segue seamlessly to the description of this fine cup of tea. The transition eludes me. This cup, however, is delicious.

The citrus is bright, both flesh and rind. The spices are subtle enough to not hijack the rest of the flavours. The base is a bit creamy.

mmm i want to try this one with just a tiny bit of sugar added to it. However, as far as holiday teas go, either it’s because i haven’t had any in a long time OR this is a pretty tasty blend (haha) but i am enjoying this one. It reminds me of making christmas oranged where you stick a bunch of cloves in to an orange and hang it up to dry out over the holidays haha. It tastes like that smell…which is a good thing in this case :) thanks for sharing VariaTEA!

So, here it is, Day 3 of the countdown to Christmas with TEA – and I’m already behind a day! In my defense, I was gone pretty much all day yesterday, Mat HAD to see the new Star Wars movie yesterday and was even kinda/sorta lamenting that we didn’t go to see it just after midnight. Instead, we went to see it at 10:30 am yesterday. Seriously? Who goes to see a movie at 10:30 am? Or, to put it another way, what NIGHT OWL goes to see a movie at 10:30 am?

Anyway, after that, I went to watch my grandson graduate from his Tiny Tigers martial arts course which is something I wouldn’t miss for the world. Then my oldest daughter and I went shopping for Christmas and I didn’t get home until about 8 pm – and I came home to a hungry younger daughter and Mat – so yeah, not a lot of time to do other things.

Moving on to tea – this was yesterday’s tea in the 12 Teas of Christmas countdown. Holiday Marmalade. You may be wondering why I chose this name. The name didn’t inspire the tea – I didn’t start out with the name already given to the tea. To be honest, this tea went through a few names before I found one that I was content to give this tea.

My original vision for this tea was a spiced orange curd – you know, sort of like a lemon curd only with oranges. And spices. So I built the tea around that idea, with oranges and vanilla bean and spices – but I was never really happy with the name “Spiced Orange Curd.” I think it was the “Spiced” part. It seems like every time I add some fall or wintery spices to a tea, I just slap on the word “Spiced” or “Spice” to it and wa-lah … it just kind of lacked any sort of creativity whatsoever. So then I thought, Holiday Curd? No, I didn’t like that either. I don’t know why but it just wasn’t doing it for me.

After a few other name variants that I came up with and was equally as dissatisfied with I thought: what about marmalade? It’s not exactly an orange marmalade – well, it is, but it’s also got those spices and I didn’t want to call it Spiced Orange Marmalade for the same reason I didn’t want to call it Spiced Orange Curd. So – after some thought, I decided that Holiday Marmalade sounded right. I just liked the sound of it. Then I found this musical jam with holiday music lead by guitarist Jorma Kaukonen which is called “Holiday Marmalade” (as opposed to “Holiday Jam”) and I absolutely LOVED it … so Holiday Marmalade became the name of this tea – more so for this melody of music than for the actual tea. :)

https://youtu.be/SbigWwHY0Do

I got super excited about this blend after scratching off the label for today’s tea. The name Holiday Marmalade just sounded so promising. I hadn’t looked up the ingredients, but I was expecting mostly fruit with maybe a hint of spice. I think I imagined it would be heavy on the citrus fruits (lemons and oranges), have a bit of cherry or cranberry (possibly teetering into relish territory), and be kissed with some warming spices (ginger popped into my head first). I was wrong, very wrong.

Given the name, I was expecting a completely different flavor profile. Consequently, I’m a bit bummed that the tea isn’t fruitier.

Truthfully, I don’t mind the tea. It’s a nice blend. It’s just that it’s very reminiscent of last year’s Hot Buttered Spiced Rum (which I adored and stocked up on). I don’t have any left or I’d compare the two. I’ll use the rest of my sample bag to make eggnog lattes.

This year instead of scratch-off labels, the 12 teas of Christmas came with peel-off labels. Unfortunately, today when I pulled the label for the 2nd tea of Christmas, I also managed to pull off the second word of the tea so I think it’s “Holiday Marmalade” but I could be wrong.

From the dry leaf, there is green tea, orange pieces, and spices. I didn’t focus on the specific spices because I was distracted by the lovely citrus smell of the tea. The orange is strong and there is a bit of a sweet grass note from the base (though very subtle). It definitely has an overall holiday vibe given the sweet, the orange, and the spices. I feel like there is clove and cinnamon and perhaps ginger. Honestly though, this was pretty good so I might have drank this rather quickly without really paying attention.