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“today has been a no good very bad day. Door into the face on the bus, elbow smashed on my head on the subway, spilled crap on myself, tripped up stairs, bad news on the work front. So i drank some...” Read full tasting note
“OH CRAP. NOW i know what it’s like to have too many teas to try! swaps from TastyBrew, Shadowfall, Dinosara, Shelley_Lorraine have done me in. with whatshesaid, Sil, Scheherazade, and CHAroma...” Read full tasting note
“Okay, I think I know what is throwing my taste buds off. It’s cocoa nibs! Why are there cocoa nibs in a vanilla tea? This would be better without them. As far as vanilla black teas, my favorite was...” Read full tasting note
“Made a pot of this to share with my Mom. Used the smaller cups so there’s an extra cup for one of us. I like the vanilla. It’s nicely strong and bold and it’s a very pleasant taste. I do not...” Read full tasting note
Rich aromatic Vanilla Bean and High Grown Celon black tea. Wonderfully fragrant with a smooth and comforting taste.
The Vanilla pulls you in with it’s charming invite as the floral Ceylon rolls onto your tongue with a full mouth feel. Vanilla induces such fond memories of sweet moments in life when the simplicity of a delicious sweets made with love are not so overwhelmed by the necessities of life’s pursuits and challenges. This tea brings back a simplicity in your mind and your palate that can only be described as child like in nature without a care in the world.
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today has been a no good very bad day. Door into the face on the bus, elbow smashed on my head on the subway, spilled crap on myself, tripped up stairs, bad news on the work front.
So i drank some tea, wished for more…has a pumpkin scone for breakfast and 3 flavours of gelato for lunch. so there.
OH CRAP. NOW i know what it’s like to have too many teas to try!
swaps from TastyBrew, Shadowfall, Dinosara, Shelley_Lorraine have done me in.
with whatshesaid, Sil, Scheherazade, and CHAroma swaps still to come!
what have i done!?!?! hahahaha
it’s craziness. it’s chaos. teasanity! and VERY FUN!
but - i NEED a SYSTEM. i feel like i should apologize to Scheherazade and CHAroma for being such a disorganized swap partner this time around. i’ve lost complete track of what teas i have and what teas i am craving and what tea is still en route or in process.
i’m really new to the swapping and i kinda dove in headfirst with a flourish. as i usually do with everything.
i’m not a half measure type of person.
How do you guys do it?!
How do you make sure you don’t get swaps of things you already have?
Or have already tasted?
and how the hell do you decide from a mountain of tea what to drink next?!?!? haha
these are the funnest problems to have.
yesterday as i had a mountain of little tea swap samples spread out in front of me in the kitchen my boyfriend was like, “do you have a whole world of online friends that i don’t even know about?”, like it had just occurred to him that the tea comes from people (giving and thoughtful and passionate people), and i was like “duh ya”.
this tea. it’s nice. i like it. but it’s not super exciting.
i followed the steeping directions pretty closely. it is vanilla but not really enough. and the tea base isn’t thrilling either. it’s a middle tea. but this is the 296th unique tea i’ve tasted! all thanks to swapping. and this one specifically thanks to TastyBrew.
i STRONGLY suggest that if you’re doing a lot of swaps at once, the minute you get them, put the name of the person on to the package. I started adding mine when i realised that if i were going to get a few more teas in, i’d have lost who gave it to me. That way, even if it takes a while, i still know who gave it to me to thank them when i get around to it.
I also try to get to my swaps right away so that i can add them to my cupboard and then take them out sooner rather than later. If i do other swaps, i just warn the person i might not have a lot to share of some things. :)
i also have now needed to sort my swaps into “flavoured” and non flavoured so that i can just pull a random sample from the box depending on my mood for either.
Sil that was possibly some of the best advice you gave me, way back :) (well not that far back, haha)
it gets REAL easy to lose track REAL fast, haha.
oh flavored and non-flavored, that’s a good idea! very good. plus i was thinking i’ll start a “plain” tea cycle of tasting soon. i have so much to learn and teach my mouth, hopefully i will gain some tea XP.
i guess i use my email as an organization tool? when i send a swap i email myself a list of the teas i’ve sent and the address and swapper info. then when i receive it i also email myself a list of what was in the box. that way i can search my email for the tea and find out where the hell it came from. (basically a nerdier and more cumbersome way of doing what you recommended so efficiently) haha!
Sil, you are definitely an experienced tea wrangler. your masterful navigation of the tea stash is legendary!! and your tips have probably helped more than just me i’m sure. THANKS very much!
I have a spreadsheet that includes putting in who sent me the tea and where I’ve stored it. That way I know what I have and then when I swap it, I know where to find it. It just requires maintaining because even the last time I swapped I had no idea where I put one tea.
I was going to say…i have a spreadsheet as well, though i’m been a bit silly with it. I put in what i get from people but then when it comes to what i sent, because i add in random things here and there. My spreadsheet is steepster name, what i asked for (not what i received); what they asked for, they’re real name and address and then future columns have repeats of what they asked for and what i gave them if there are repeat swaps with the same person.
I also colour code the spreadsheet – red means i’ve received something from them but they have not yet received my package. Yellow is, they’ve got it but i’m still waiting on theirs and then it’s green once we’re both in a happy place. Red = i’m a bad bad tea swapper…yellow because it’s typically “caution” and at least in that case it’s only ME out the tea, which i prefer to them not having received mypackage.
It’a a good way to track bugging people as to whether they’ve received MY swap so that i’m not inadvertantly not delivering on my end of things because they may have forgotten to tell me. Also RL comes up, so sometimes people just totally forget to say HEY! i got your package! ;)
You guys are hardcore! :)
whatshesaid…i prefer to just think of myself as anal retentive…or really organised lol. I dunno about hardcore…i just derive pleasure out of organising things…same reason i sort and organise my tea for fun every few weeks lol
man-handling my tea is my number one hobby.
Hardcore…tea organizers ;)
Okay, I think I know what is throwing my taste buds off. It’s cocoa nibs! Why are there cocoa nibs in a vanilla tea? This would be better without them. As far as vanilla black teas, my favorite was ESP Emporium’s. I had a sample of Lupicia’s that I didn’t like….too much like rum. I wonder why vanilla teas are so different across companies. Now I know why some of you steepsterites have been searching for the perfect vanilla tea. This one misses the mark for me.
Strange! I haven’t tried this one yet, but I have a sample so I’ll give it a go too. Vanilla really is a hard one. It’s either too perfumey, too light, the tea too light or dark, or any host of other things. Starry Night from art of tea and vanilla cream from culinary teas are both really good. I think there can still be better though. I’ll have to try ESP Emporium’s sometime. Loose leaf Vanilla tea is what first got me interested in loose leaf, so I like many others here, am always trying to find the “ultimate”.
I’d love to hear your opinion on this one!
I got the the blueberry cream cheese danish in the mail yesterday so I’m sipping on that right now, but I’ll have the Vanilla one a bit later and get back to you! I always have hard time choosing which tea to drink so you just made it much easier for me :-)
I was curious about that blueberry cream cheese danish tea, but I just ordered blueberry crumble from Della Terra. Too much tea to buy!!
I’m only a few sips into this tea. And I’m totally with you. I even had my expectations tempered by your review so I was kind of hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but this one doesn’t’ do it for me either. The cacao nibs don’t bother me per se, but the vanilla flavor is a vanilla that I tend to not like in any vanilla teas. I have no idea what it is. But whenever it’s present I can tell immediately and just don’t enjoy it very much. Bummer.
It’s nice to know I’m not alone!
Made a pot of this to share with my Mom. Used the smaller cups so there’s an extra cup for one of us.
I like the vanilla. It’s nicely strong and bold and it’s a very pleasant taste. I do not like so much the Ceylon base and my mother agreed when I talked to her. There’s just something not quite right with this combination. This ranks around the middle of the pack for vanilla black teas. This would have been much much better had the Steap Shoppe chosen an Assam or something for their base. Then I would buy again. In this instance, not going to.
Good thing I kept such diligent notes on my teas – taking the summer off from drinking has made my memory rather short.
But reading the note brought it back – this was the pseudo vanilla tea. The one that if you add sugar turns into chocolate. Which is problematic since I don’t really like chocolate tea.
So I was at least able to avoid bringing out the chocolate notes, though by following my prep notes I got a tea with a great texture (thanks to some milk), but with no flavor. Thick tasting water. Maybe as it cools I will get some more flavor.
And nope. Thick tasting water is all I came away with. Blech. Good thing my sample was done after this, because it is really not for me.
Did you find this tea very vanillay? Also, I’m sorry the day was so bad—the good news is that it’s just about over, and hopefully you can rest and feel recharged tomorrow morning. Things have a way of feeling so much worse when you haven’t rested.
this one isn’t bad…but angrboda sent me a vanilla tea that i vastly prefer. But i keep trying them all just in case haha
it IS the 13th…
Scones and gelato are wins at least. :)
Pumpkin scone!
tea hugs!!
oooh, pumpkin scone…sigh…I want one of those with a stout malty cup of something for breakfast!
I hope you have an easy going weekend!
At least you had good tea and food!!