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.

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.

Yunnan Jig

I decided to try another of the teas from my last tea trade. This time I chose Adagio's Yunnan Jig. I was really looking forward to this one.

1st infusion: 6 minutes, boiling water
The liquor was a deep, dark red with a slightly gold tone to it. It smelled malty and citrus and tasted just as it smelled but with a bit of pepper, earth, and astringency.

2nd infusion: 6 minutes, boiling water
The liquor was more of a dark amber this time around. It smelled of citrus and damp loam, but the taste...Sweet, malty, smooth. A hint of citrus. It was almost like drinking a different tea.

It is an absolutely lovely tea. The two infusions were so different though that I could hardly remember the first after drinking the second.

Spicy Rose

Today I woke up to a light blanket of snow covering the trees and ground and decided to stick with chai again. I chose EnjoyingTea.com's Bangalore Rose Chai as a base and added Rosebud Black and Jasmine Yin Hao from Stash as well as my usual spices. I absolutely love the deep red that the Bangalore steeps to and the opaque peach-orange that results from adding milk is lovely as well. I should try brewing this the traditional way sometime.

Chocolate Seduction

So this morning I decided to give the China Seduction from Design A Tea another try. I measured out two heaping teaspoons, double what I had used before, and as I was doing so I realized that only about a third of the mix was tea leaves. The other two thirds were chocolate nibs and rose petals respectively. Perhaps that was the cause of the weak taste last time.

After steeping the liquor was a murky red-brown. Very murky, I could hardly make out where the spoon touched the bottom of the tea cup and I use a small cup.

First sip...WOW! Now THAT is CHOCOLATE! Milky smooth but with a slight dark coco bitterness. It actually tastes a lot like the jasmine-infused chocolates that I have. I'll have to try blending this with some jasmine tea at some point.

It also went marvelously with the bagel I had spread with spiced blackberry peach jam!

Headed South

So, yesterday afternoon I had gotten everything set up so I could make an omlet for lunch, including cracking the eggs into a bowl. Between one thing and another I ended up not getting any further than that on the lunch front. So this morning I decided to finish that omlet idea. I topped it with my black bean salsa and extra cheese and had a couple slices of banana bread as well.

Seeing how I seemed to be heading south for breakfast I decided to have some of EnjoyingTea.com's Roasted Mate Chai, rounded the flavor out with some Winey Keemum, and added my usual spice blend. I added a bit more nutmeg than usual though which gave the tea a pleasantly warm bite that complimented the salsa and the banana bread nicely.

Vanilla Rose Chai

Today dawned cloudy and chill so I decided to return to spiced black tea for the morning. I chose Stash's Rosebud black blended with the Vanilla Chai from EnjoyingTea.com and added my usual spice blend. I think it needed a bit more rose in there. I'll have to try that after our roses have bloomed and I've had the chance to dry the petals. Anyway, it was definitely what I needed this morning. And it even went well with the spiced blackberry-peach jam I had on my bagel, which I find amazing because usually the spices in the jam overpower the spices in the tea. While there was a bit of that going on the vanilla and rose flavor notes complimented the jam so well that it was totally forgivable.

Raspberry Takeover

So I decided to try one of the flavors I made from Design A Tea, the Chocolate Raspberry with a black tea base. There was definitely a strong raspberry note! The chocolate, sadly, seemed to be in hiding. The leaves smelled strongly of chocolate, the liquor smelled strongly of chocolate, but the taste just wasn't there. So, strike chocolate from my list of flavors to use but at least the raspberry has potential!

The rest of the story

Sorry about how late I'm posting this but I had to rush off this morning and didn't have time to tell this like it should be told. Anyway, remember my post about the wonderful shopping experience I had over at Design A Tea? Well, the package came in last night! The package smelled absolutely divine even before I opened it (hmm, might need to get tins for these) and inside were, not only the teas I had ordered, but another designer sample and a coupon for a small, no-frills packaging tea...FREE. If this company is looking for return customers they have one right here!

I decided to try the second tea I had ordered, the one that came free. It is a black tea called Ice Wine and it does indeed smell, and taste very much like wine. The smell of the tea liquor actually smelled very much like one of those old timey country/antique shops, very potpourri. It's not as sweet as I had hoped but still very good. I think I might try this iced next time.

Breakfast for Lunch

We had french toast for lunch today so I decided to try the Port City blend from Old Wilmington Tea Co. I over-steeped it a bit (seven minutes instead of five) but it turned out OK for all that anyway, so...*shrugs*

The liquor was a bright amber with a very lively, brisk flavor. Strongly lemon with a bit of a floral note and a slight astringency. It reminded me of Earl Grey but tasted a lot better, in my opinion anyway (my first, and only, pot of Earl Grey got poured down the drain and the package swiftly disposed of to a more…interested party). Although I usually take my black teas with sugar and milk I decided to forgo the milk with this one because of the strong lemon flavor.

It is a pleasant afternoon tea. It didn’t wow me but I would consider drinking it again.

Sweet or Savory

This morning I had waffles and eggs so I needed a tea that would work well with both sweet and savory flavors. I chose the Winey Keemum English Breakfast as a base with some of Stash's Rosebud black tea, orange peel, and my usual spice blend plus some cardamom scavenged from another tea in my cupboard. The resulting blend worked perfectly with both breakfast foods.

A late start and a good buy

Wow, I'm posting this late...of course breakfast was more like lunch today anyway. Blasted time change. Anyway, today's blend was a base of Stash's Rosebud black tea with French Vanilla and Strawberry black tea from EnjoyingTea.com. Wish I'd had something chocolate to go with it but the bagel with cinnamon sugar was a decent match.


And last night I had the most wonderful tea-buying experience. I went to DesignATea.com to try out a couple of their free samples. Well, after picking the flavors I wanted I decided to go look at their other teas before checking out. There were three or four that sounded absolutely delicious but having already blown any sort of budget I might have had earlier in the week I decided to keep my extra spending down to one tea, making the total a reasonable $10 or so.

Later that evening I recieved an email from the owner of the company with a very generous offer. Since I paying more for shipping than I was for the tea he told me I could pick another tea from the site and he would include a small canister free of charge. I was in shock.

I did eventually manage to compose a return email without a thousand repetitions of "Thank You!" and with my choice of tea. I will definitely be buying from this company again!

A little fruity

Today's blend: Orange Rooibos and EnjoyingTea.com's Pineapple black tea. I definitely didn't add enough of the tea to the rooibos though, I could hardly taste it over the marmalade flavor. Oh well, at least I like marmalade even if that wasn't the flavor I was going for.

Chocolate Blossom

Today's blend: Chocolate Chai from the Bar Harbor Tea Company with Stash's Rosebud Black and Jasmine Yin Hao. It amazes me how much my son likes the floral teas when it took me so long to get used to drinking something that smelled like perfume. Perhaps it's because he's never smelled jasmine perfumes that he drinks it so readily.

We also enjoyed the toast with butter and cinnamon sugar that accompanied the tea.

Orange Blossom

Today's blend: Stash's Blood Orange black with Monkey King Jasmine and nutmeg. Glad I decided to go with the waffles instead of the omelet that I had been considering. And I got to drink the entire pot of tea again since my son decided he'd rather have orange juice with his grandfather.

Three teas later...

So this morning my son decided to sleep in. Getting tired of waiting I put together a blend of Sencha and Dragonwell green teas...and then he woke up. Ok, separate the teas , put them back, get out the big pot and grab a couple bags of Stash's Chai White tea. My son tried it and decided he did not like it so I got the small tetsubin out again and steeped some of the Blood Orange black tea with cinnamon and cloves. He liked that better but still only drank about half of what was in his small cup.

After he left the table I decided to take a break from the chai and try the tea I'd made for him. Of course. He'd been impatient for it to be done so I hadn't steeped it long enough and it was much too weak for my tastes. I'm now up to four pots of tea that have gone down the drain...but at least I didn't have to drink yet another pot of tea this morning...

Simple and Soothing

Today I decided to keep it simple and had some Winey Keemum with orange peel and cloves. It went very well with both the omlet and the banana bread that I had. It also did a great job at settling my son's tummy after a bit of an upset.

Tea and Truffles: Take II

So, I still have truffles left and had a bit of time this afternoon so I steeped a pot of Stash's Jasmine Yin Hao and Rosebud Black teas with a bit of orange peel. This blend worked MUCH better than my previous attempt with the Monkey King Jasmine tea paired with the truffles. Truffles are a very rich chocolate and I have found that rich flavors need rich-flavored teas to match them. The Monkey King Jasmine is more like a jasmine scented breeze compared to the Jasmine Yin Hao, which can be compared to standing in the middle of a garden full of blooming jasmine on a warm summer's day.