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.

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.

Feels like I just went camping

I was feeling adventurous this afternoon and decided to give the Green Pu'erh I'd bought from Old Wilmington Tea Co a try. I've seen so many different directions on how to steep pu'erh, I was quite confused on where to start so I figured start short and work my way to longer steepings if necessary.

1st infusion: 30 seconds, temp just under boiling
The liquor is a smokey gold, rather appropriate considering it smells, and tastes, like wet campfire. Like the smell you get when you pour water over the fire to douse it. It is like nothing I've ever had before. And for some reason I can't stop sipping at it. I'm not sure if I actually like it or if I'm drinking it in the hopes that the flavor will change. It's like...going camping but without the dirt/bugs/weather/lack of amenities/ever-present dampness/too-noisy kids from neighboring campsites that constantly race past on their bikes.

2nd infusion: 30 seconds, boiling water
The wet leaves now smell like wet, canned spinach dumped over hot coals. The liquor is slightly darker and tastes a bit more bitter.

3rd infusion: 30 seconds, boiling water
The same as the last except the campfire taste is slightly, VERY slightly abated...or perhaps I'm just getting used to it. There is also a slightly sweet vegetal flavor just hovering at the back of my mouth.

I could probably get a few more infusions out of this but I'm really not sure if I want to. Is this how pu'erh is supposed to taste or am I doing something wrong? It it just from being a young pu'erh? Would I get better flavor with a longer steep time? So many questions left unanswered!

Lemony

I made up some of my Pad Thai again and wanted a green tea blend to go with it. I decided to use the lemongrass I had bought from Tavalon with Pingshui and Dragonwell teas from EnjoyingTea.com. I might have used a bit more of the lemongrass than I needed but it had a very pleasant, lemony flavor that went wonderfully with the Pad Thai.

A Peachy Morning

This morning I decided to try the Plum Peach Oolong I had designed with Design A Tea. It was absolutely lovely the way you could pick out each flavor and still have them meld together into a lovely whole. At one point I found myself thinking "Is this tea or is this nectar?" it was so good!

And I have found another tea that goes well with the spiced blackberry peach jam! Happy day!

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.

Cherry Blossom

So for lunch guess what I had. If you thought "breakfast" go get yourself a cookie. Maybe I should get a cookie too after I write this... Anyway, I decided to have a nice floral green blend and chose the Cherry Rose Kyoto Sencha and Jasmine Dragon Pearls from EnjoyingTea.com. It was so naturally sweet that I almost didn't even have to put sugar in which is saying a lot from a sugar-lover like myself! I was eating French toast with syrup though so if I hadn't added the sugar the flavor would have been overwhelmed. I didn't add much though.

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!

Revisiting an old favorite

Blasted weather still hasn't warmed back up yet. I needed a tea this morning that could warm me up so I chose Stash's Kashmiri Chai Green Tea and used two bags in my tetsubin for extra strength. Loaded up with lots of milk and sugar it was smooth and silky with just the amount of spice I needed to start my day. I was enjoying my tea so much I nearly forgot to eat my banana bread!

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.