Long time no post

Well, it certainly has been a while since my last blog post. My daughter got more active (yay babies), I got a job, lost it, got a different job, and just generally had life happen. My adventures with tea never ended though! I discovered that I actually like slightly smokey teas like the Bohea and Star Village limited teas from The Tao of Tea; I've been attempting to find a good travel cup (preferably clear glass); and with the return of colder weather I've started blending teas and spices again.

While I certainly will not be able to update this blog every day like I used to I'm hoping to be able to write some more during the cold months. Perhaps I'll even get to try out the tea jelly recipe that I found this summer while we were doing our annual berry jamming!

First Flowering Tea

So, yesterday my Woot.com order came with my Primula glass teapot and 39 flowering teas...I am stocked on flowering teas for the next year+ now I think. The real reason I ordered this was so I could get the full experience with the Dragon Balls I won from a member on Steepster.com but I decided it couldn't hurt to try it out first.

I decided on the green tea with jasmine and picked one pretty much at random, ending up with one called Noble Madame. I only poured in enough water to fill the pot 2/3 of the way since I really didn't feel like drinking 40oz of liquid all by myself. I must say, I'm not sure which was more fun, watching the flower unfold or watching my son watch the flower unfold! He was quite torn between watching the tea and helping Grampy cook breakfast.

About 5 minutes in I poured my first cup. The liquor was a pale yellow-peach with a light, pleasant jasmine flavor, comparable to Stash's Monkey King Jasmine in strength.

At 18 minutes I poured another cup. This time the liquor was a bright peach-apricot color with a slightly stronger jasmine flavor.

The liquor kept getting darker the longer it steeped (up to a deep red-amber) but I couldn't detect any bitterness up until the tea had steeped about 45 minutes. At which point the level of liquid was down enough that it just fit in one of my mugs.

This even tastes quite pleasant when it's cold (I forgot about my mug sitting beside me on the shelf -o- )

Fragrant Flowers

This morning I decided to have a blend and wanted something floral to celebrate the lovely weather we've been having. I chose the Che Sen Lotus and Jasmine Yin Hao from Stash. Amazingly, even though the two floral notes were easily identifiable, they also combined to add a lovely lilac note. Or perhaps that's just my wishful thinking considering I recently found two tea companies that sell lilac tea.

Chocolate Rose

Huzzah for propane! To celebrate I pulled out my black teas and blended my Rosebud from Stash and the last of the Chocolate Chai. I added my usual spice blend and !boiling! water. I ended up steeping it for longer than I meant to due to dealing with fussy baby and overactive toddler but luckily it didn't seem to affect the taste at all.

Che Sen Cherry

We've been out of propane for nearly a week now so I've been drinking a lot of green teas since the coffee maker I use to heat water with at times like this only reaches about 200F, not quite boiling and not hot enough for black teas. This morning I decided I'd rather make my own blend than pick just one. So I picked the Cherry Rose Kyoto Sencha and Che Sen Lotus green teas from my now-organized cupboard. Yes, I now have all my teas organized in nice covered boxes ($6 at WalMart), I'll have to get photos later. Anyway, back to the tea.

The bright yellow liquor smelled like cherry syrup (like what maraschino cherries are packed in in those little jars), luckily the taste wasn't quite so candy-like. The Lotus tea gave this blend a mellower flavor and a very distinct lotus note.

Roseberry

Yesterday the family went to Denny's after church. I got two orders of the chocolate chip pancake puppies thinking that my son might want a couple. He was more interested in Daddy's vanilla milkshake though so I brought the leftovers home and had them for breakfast this morning.

Now, pancake puppies are dollops of pancake batter that have been deep fried and dusted with powdered sugar. They are rich and heavy and the chocolate chip variety is even more so. I needed a tea that was light enough to not leave me feeling like my stomach had turned into a cement mixer, but heavy enough to not be overwhelmed by the pancake puppies.

I chose Stash's Rosebud Black blended with Strawberry Black from EnjoyingTea.com. Though this is lovely with or without milk I chose to go without as the milk dulled the lightness of the floral notes.

Gotta get a tea-timer,,,,

Yeah, it's been a while since my last entry. Life got quite busy and, while I still had time to drink tea I didn't have time to write about it. Plus I wasn't drinking blends. Well, ok, so I didn't do a blend this morning either but I feel like writing this anyway.

With the recent (and hopefully very short-lived) wet weather we have been having I decided to make a return to chai, specifically Stash's Chai Spice Black Tea. It's been a while since I've had one of the wonderfully spiced chais from Stash so it took me a little bit to get the milk/sugar/tea ratio just right. Well, that and I think I steeped it just a bit too long. I really need to get a tea-timer so that even when I get busy (read: two children + attempting to make breakfast for myself and convince my son to decide what he wants) I can still avoid over-steeping. But for all that it didn't turn out terrible...unlike that blend I tried to do Easter morning. Pro-tip: do not attempt blending fruit melanges with anything other than another fruit melange, the result is quite weak and drinkability is questionable (that was dump-down-the-drain pot #4 ).

The Rescue

This morning I decided to try something different. After my brother admitted the other day to not liking fruit-flavored teas, and having not even opened the tins of fruit-flavored teas he had grabbed from the smorgasbord of samplers, I went down to his desk in the basement and liberated the two tins from their lonely exile. I decided to try the Passion Fruit Black Tea first. It was a lovely red-amber after 5 minutes of steeping and tasted like honey and black tea with a fruity note. Slightly floral. Absolutely lovely. I am very glad I rescued this from my brother's uncaring clutches.

It also brought out a nicely contrasting lemon flavor in the blueberry muffins I was eating.

Vanilla Chai

Still rainy, cloudy, and icky out and my son wanted to share tea again so I chose the Vanilla Chai from EnjoyingTea.com and added my usual spices. I know I didn't add any pepper but I can still taste it...and looking at the ingredients listed on the site there is indeed pepper.