ashmanra’s Sipdown Challenge – “A tea with orange flavor”
A new month brings a new set of sipdown challenges! Going to try to use these prompts to steep up some teas that I either haven’t tried, haven’t written about, or just haven’t sipped in a long time.
Okay, technically this tea has clementine flavor, but I’m calling that close enough. :P This one is a bit disappointing to me, if I’m honest. It’s from my last Dammann order, which was in the fall of last year sometime, mostly made to get their advent calendar, but of course several teas tagged along. I wanted to try one of their flavored yerba matés (and by “try”, I mean order 100 grams because that’s the only option with Dammann), so I waffled between this one and Citron Cerise, and ended up deciding on this tea. Of course, I ended up trying and loving Citron Cerise in the advent…
Anyway, it’s not that this is a bad tea. It has a very prominent green yerba maté flavor to it, herbaceous and woody and slightly smoky. And I like yerba maté, so I do enjoy it. I just feel like the clementine takes such a backseat that it ends up being in more of a supporting role, rather than the star flavor. It does add a nice sweet, citrusy brightness to the blend, I’m just left wanting more of it.
Maybe next time I’ll try a shorter steep, or even try this cold steeped to see if it brings out more clementine zing.
P.S. – Dammann’s new website is gorgeous! And love the changes like displaying a short description of each tea’s flavors in the grid, and showing the ingredients on the product pages.
Flavors: Citrus, Citrus Zest, Hay, Herbaceous, Mandarin, Mineral, Raisins, Smoke, Smooth, Sweet, Tangerine, Woody
That’s a good idea! I wanted to try a new advent this year and that would be a good way to justify it – add in some old favorites. I actually put “orange”, backspaced and put “any citrus” and went back to “orange.”
I’ve never actually used these prompts, but I think it would be a good idea for me to get through some teas I never/rarely reach for!
I didn’t think I had any teas with orange left and found two tonight, so the prompts help me to rediscover blends that don’t have as much attention.
I love that! I really try to keep 60 teas or less, but one can still lose teas with that number, so this is very helpful!
I’m in a perpetual state of sipdown, which sort of narrows the range of teas I let myself drink. So this is a nice way to step outside that range every so often! :)