I am in need of a light, citrus-y blend today. I’m making short ribs which, while delicious, have the downside of taking all day to make. Sure, most of it is just time in the oven, but chopping the veggies, prepping the seasonings, searing the meat, and caramelizing the onions takes a good 2 hours of work. Plus having the oven on for 5 hours isn’t that pleasant. So, a light tea it is! I was looking for one in my sample bin since I REALLY need to cut down on the overflow, and this caught my eye: not because of the citrus, really (though that’s why I ended up picking it) but because of the name on the label. Upton lets you put a name on your tea under “Packaged for.” I suppose it’s so you can gift them to people, but I decided to be delightfully immature so all my tea from them is for Batman.
I’ve been looking for the perfect grapefruit tea: I adore grapefruit juice but the flavor doesn’t seem to transfer completely in blends. I’ve tried quite a few and so far the vanilla grapefruit from H&S is my favorite, but it’s still not quite tart enough for me. The dry leaves of this smell SO grapefruity, so my hopes were pretty high. Sadly, I think the base is way too assertive here: it’s very powerful and even a little smokey which I find odd. The grapefruit is there, but only really in the aftertaste, and the juniper is muted as well. However, it’s more pure grapefruit than any other tea I’ve tried so I am not giving up hope! I have enough left in the sample to try some other brewing methods to see if it will bring out the flavor better: I’m thinking the water was too hot, even though they recommend boiling.
Preparation
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1) How awesome is the Batman thing! I wish I thought of stuff like that! Now I want to order tea from Upton just so I can put something cool on the label.
2) You are aware, aren’t you, that everyone who has your address from doing a swap with you is plugging it into their GPS right now to see if they can get there before all that food is gone!
Delicious sounding short ribs! Does this mean Batman is your tea drinking alias?
Nananana nananana Batman! How awesome is that?!
Yum! Short ribs! (if you ever want to do it in a crock pot slow after searing…I have a recipe that keeps the kitchen cool in the Summer! and tastes wonderful…but it uses dark beer and buckwheat honey…and of course those carmalized onions…). OUCH!
Haha, I’m glad you all approve of tea for Batman. That’s what I use when I get food anywhere that requires a name: it’s just so much fun watching a confused Jamba juice employee holding up a drink and asking for Batman.
@Bonnie: I was actually going to do the ribs in my slow cooker, but I wanted the veggies a little crunchy and firmer so braising was the way to go. I wish I’d though of dark beer/honey though, that sounds AMAZING! Totally going to try that next time.
Oh, the poor Jamba Juice employee!!
We actually got a sample of this, and a sample of their St. Isaac’s blend with our Upton order. Both are quite good, and very similar… but the St. Isaac’s was definitely a notch or two more grapefruity. If you’re a grapefruit fan, that one is worth a buck or two towards a sample to try.
I actually have a sample of St. Isaac’s already! I thought it might be less citrusy than the summer blend so I tried this one first, but St. Isaac’s is definitely next on the list. Good to know it’s more grapefruity, since this one was almost what I wanted.
Batman, LOL! I’ll have to tell the boyfriend about that, it should be right up his alley humour-wise. :D Lately he’s taken to naming his Diablo III characters after Danish words for fish.
Now I’m tempted to have my next Upton order packaged for Diablo, Lord of Destruction!
DO EEEEEEEET!!! :D
Lol this is too funny!
Pshhh, silly, Diablo is the Lord of Terror :P
I think I might have mine packed for Darth Vader, though the girls say I should go for a slightly more obscure character.
I think we should have a competition to see who can come up with the most ridiculous name to put on an Upton order. XD
Inigo Montoya?
OMG, Princess Bride, right, Dylan? That is such a great movie (and he is a great character).
You all totally crack me up. I am going to consider doing something like this sometime. How about, Morphius? Or (trying to be more obscure) a character from a book like, Mr. Wickham, or Duke Leto Atreides, or Sméagol?
Check out Lupicia’s Grapefruit Green if you want a citrusy punch in the mouth. As for picking a character name, I think it’s funnier if it’s a well-known character instead of someone obscure. If it’s obscure, you might be the only one who gets the reference. Batman takes the cake. ;)
I hear you, CHAroma. When it comes down to it, who’s ‘well-known’ and who’s ‘obscure’ are actually judgements. The characters I mention are all actually ‘significant’ characters from ‘very popular’ novels (my judgement). And,for example, hearing (or reading) the name “Inigo Montoya” gives me much more meaning than hearing (or reading) the name ‘Batman’; still, I respect the fact that others may find it otherwise. Although ‘obscure’ things are ‘less likely’ to be identified by others, the more obscure they are, the more meaningful the connection is, for me, anyway. But, to each his own, eh? : – )
For the most part, I agree with you. But even people who have seen the LOTR movies don’t remember that Gollum was born Smeagol. So, they’d probably be even less likely to recognize the name when printed on a tea package.
1) How awesome is the Batman thing! I wish I thought of stuff like that! Now I want to order tea from Upton just so I can put something cool on the label.
2) You are aware, aren’t you, that everyone who has your address from doing a swap with you is plugging it into their GPS right now to see if they can get there before all that food is gone!
Delicious sounding short ribs! Does this mean Batman is your tea drinking alias?
Nananana nananana Batman! How awesome is that?!
Yum! Short ribs! (if you ever want to do it in a crock pot slow after searing…I have a recipe that keeps the kitchen cool in the Summer! and tastes wonderful…but it uses dark beer and buckwheat honey…and of course those carmalized onions…). OUCH!
Haha, I’m glad you all approve of tea for Batman. That’s what I use when I get food anywhere that requires a name: it’s just so much fun watching a confused Jamba juice employee holding up a drink and asking for Batman.
@Bonnie: I was actually going to do the ribs in my slow cooker, but I wanted the veggies a little crunchy and firmer so braising was the way to go. I wish I’d though of dark beer/honey though, that sounds AMAZING! Totally going to try that next time.
Oh, the poor Jamba Juice employee!!
We actually got a sample of this, and a sample of their St. Isaac’s blend with our Upton order. Both are quite good, and very similar… but the St. Isaac’s was definitely a notch or two more grapefruity. If you’re a grapefruit fan, that one is worth a buck or two towards a sample to try.
I actually have a sample of St. Isaac’s already! I thought it might be less citrusy than the summer blend so I tried this one first, but St. Isaac’s is definitely next on the list. Good to know it’s more grapefruity, since this one was almost what I wanted.
Batman, LOL! I’ll have to tell the boyfriend about that, it should be right up his alley humour-wise. :D Lately he’s taken to naming his Diablo III characters after Danish words for fish.
Now I’m tempted to have my next Upton order packaged for Diablo, Lord of Destruction!
DO EEEEEEEET!!! :D
Lol this is too funny!
Pshhh, silly, Diablo is the Lord of Terror :P
I think I might have mine packed for Darth Vader, though the girls say I should go for a slightly more obscure character.
I think we should have a competition to see who can come up with the most ridiculous name to put on an Upton order. XD
Inigo Montoya?
OMG, Princess Bride, right, Dylan? That is such a great movie (and he is a great character).
You all totally crack me up. I am going to consider doing something like this sometime. How about, Morphius? Or (trying to be more obscure) a character from a book like, Mr. Wickham, or Duke Leto Atreides, or Sméagol?
Check out Lupicia’s Grapefruit Green if you want a citrusy punch in the mouth. As for picking a character name, I think it’s funnier if it’s a well-known character instead of someone obscure. If it’s obscure, you might be the only one who gets the reference. Batman takes the cake. ;)
I hear you, CHAroma. When it comes down to it, who’s ‘well-known’ and who’s ‘obscure’ are actually judgements. The characters I mention are all actually ‘significant’ characters from ‘very popular’ novels (my judgement). And,for example, hearing (or reading) the name “Inigo Montoya” gives me much more meaning than hearing (or reading) the name ‘Batman’; still, I respect the fact that others may find it otherwise. Although ‘obscure’ things are ‘less likely’ to be identified by others, the more obscure they are, the more meaningful the connection is, for me, anyway. But, to each his own, eh? : – )
For the most part, I agree with you. But even people who have seen the LOTR movies don’t remember that Gollum was born Smeagol. So, they’d probably be even less likely to recognize the name when printed on a tea package.