Queued post, written April 9th 2014
Perhaps I’m a little bad, taking things out of a travelling teabox that I’ve already tried before, but I did it anyway. This one was from the EU TTB round 2, and I stole it. I feel no shame.
Now the first time I had it I thought that it was good, but not quite on par with the hype surrounding the blend at the time. This hype has died down in recent time, so that the blend has now reached a sort of legendary status and is drawn out on occasion to bask in the glory of it. That’s the sort of vibe I get from people who occasionally post about it.
It smells lovely. It’s quite wood-y and a bit malty. I’m also finding a note of grain down there, which is strong, but not at the forefront. There’s a hint of cocoa, but not very much. I can’t remember what goes into this at all, but I suspect something to do with Keemun and Assam.
Flavourwise, I think I get it now. I think I get the hype. This is a strong tea and it’s very heavy on the Assam. I think I tried it the first time during a period of not much Assam appreciation (Assampreciation, hur hur!) and that put me off. This is very Assam-y, complete with smidge of cardboard and touch of raisin. There is also something in there that gives off a grainy note and a little bit of a smoky one as well. It brings me back to my earlier thought of something to do with Assam and Keemun, but I don’t think that all there is to it. There’s an almost toasty flavour as well and something that makes me think ‘Keemun, but stronger’. Perhaps there’s some low-grown Ceylon in there as well. I had one which, when brewed just so, gave me that same ‘Keemun, but stronger’ impression. Which is pretty good going, because in my opinion Keemun is a pretty strong tea all by itself. I’m a little uncertain here if this means I think there’s a low-grown Ceylon in combination with Keemun or if it’s only the Ceylon masquerading as Keemun. Either way there are those grain-y notes and a wee bit of almost-smoke on the swallow, so much definitely be in that territory.
Have you noticed, Steepsterites, that as soon as I sit down to write about a black blend I seem incapable of describing what it tastes like and almost invariably end up trying to decipher what it’s made of instead? Curious! It’s a bit like a puzzle. Having looked up the solution I find that it’s actually neither Assam nor Ceylon at all, but a pure Chinese blend. Three teas have gone into it, and I feel absolutely certain at this point that one of them must be a Keemun. I’m uncertain about the two others, though. Perhaps a not-too-hay-y Yunnan? The third one eludes me.
I just went back and re-read my first post about this blend from three years ago. Ah, yes! That was the time the on-off switch had broken off the old kettle, rendering it useless and making tea required boiling water in a saucepan on the hob! I remember that, it was ever so impractical. (Quite funny in hindsight, though) I don’t know if it was the fact that I didn’t have to bother with saucepans this time or whether my standard brewing methods have evolved a bit or perhaps my own preferences have, but I definitely had a vastly different experience with this blend this time. I mentioned it reminded me of Kusmi’s Samovar blend back then, though. I’d quite forgotten that one! If I were allowed to buy anything at all at the moment (which I’m not, I’ve got a To Try Box to empty!) I would go and see if I could find that one again. Ooooh yes, that was the one I bought when we were on a weekend trip to Paris, visiting friends who lived there for a year. That was the time I planned to ask them if we could make a stop in Mariage Freres while there and then only remembered it when on the plane home, stupid girl. (I later learned that M also had that same sort of vague plan while they lived there, but never got around to it and only realised that she had passed the chance after they had come home to Denmark. She’s not a tea-drinker quite on the average Steepster-level but she does have a mild sort of on-off curiosity about it. Oh well, these things happen.)
I enjoyed this tea very much this time around and I’m nudging my original rating upwards. It was 82 previously.
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Are you a native Dane? Because your English is GREAT. Even the nuances.
I bought a tin of this at H&S while in NYC this weekend after tasting it in the shop.
Marzipan, I am. English came relatively easy to me in school (unlike German, where I never got further than learning a lot of words, but not how to put them together into something that makes sense), and then having spent the last 14 years living on the internet. Livejournal, mostly. I’m not very good at punctuation though. I find commas difficult. Being married to an Englishman helps a lot as well. :) I have to admit we speak mostly English at home. Husband speaks Danish at work, and we speak Danish at home if we have company or if it’s Saturday. I suddenly lose all ability to understand English when it’s Saturday. :p It’s a left-over from when he was taking his Danish classes and was preparing for his exams. We probably ought to speak more Danish at home, but we’re so used to speaking English together, making the switch can feel a bit awkward, even for me. I mostly read books in English as well, because I find it better to read the original version rather than a translation. Sometimes things are lost in translation and the original is the version that author actually wrote. Seems silly to read a translation when I can just as easily read the original. :) Besides, I like reading fantasy, and it seems precious little of that genre gets translated into Danish.
Sorry, that was a bit of a novel. And I didn’t even say thank you for your compliment. Thank you for your compliment. :)
MzPriss, I actually caught myself having a bit of a panic last night when Husband nearly asked for a cup of it. I was having something he doesn’t like, you see, so he’s gone to choose something else from the drawer. Luckily he settled on a different one in the end. (I did not say or do anything to influence him. Just panicked quietly.)
I read a lot of second language English since half of my family is in your area. Even when my husband first moved here he made some really cute and funny mistakes. So I can usually pick up on it, but yours is really great. It’s really funny with him since he (like you) switches back and forth a lot. He is basically like a language vending machine, whatever you put in, he responds in kind. So he can be speaking English with me and the phone rings and it’s Danish all the way. I love to listen to it. His sisters say his Danish is starting to sound a little outdated.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. Husband says he’s forgetting how to speak proper English. He’ll be saying something in English and wants a particular word and the first one that he thinks of is Danish. Or he’ll start a sentence in a particular way because he’s forgotten that the keyword is a Danish one that has no clear English equivalent. He’s been here for five years now.
My written English is best. I make more mistakes when speaking, mostly because I get a bit sloppy, or I get distracted by sudden uncertainty about is/are in the middle of a sentence or something. :)
I remember a couple of funny ones he said when he first lived here. He called ear muffs “Ear muffins” (so cute) and we were going on an online video game and he asked if I wanted to go to the grocery to buy “raid munchkins” (so cute!). He also used to pronounce “steak” like “steek” and “taco” like “tack-o”
I loved reading this
You sneaky Zeke,lol, I think I would have done the same thing.
Husband once had to show me a dictionary before I would believe that ‘unpractical’ wasn’t a real word. It was quite shocking, I’d been saying that forever! (I still say it just to tease him. :p ) Mind you, he’s had some good ones in Danish as well. I usually proof read his emails in Danish before he’s comfortable sending them and he has a tendency to get overly formal sometimes. He also once sent me a postcard when he’d been travelling for his old job and wrote about a cathedral he had gone to see. He wanted to say it was impressive, but actually said it was impressed. :)
One funny one we have noticed, is that where I live (in the US south), people who say “I reckon” are like, total hicks. But to him it’s totally normal to hear British people say so he has a whole different idea of it.
‘I reckon’, yes, I’ve picked that one up as well. I don’t (think I) use ‘I figure’ very much though. It seems like an Americanism to me. I’ve been trying to weed those out of my English in recent years, because what with being influenced by films and television from both North America and from the UK, it was such a jumble. It’s quite difficult, because I don’t know that something is an Americanism until someone tells me and then I have to remember to avoid it. Sometimes that leads to further confusion, like when I learned that ‘gotten’ is an Americanism and only used in British English in a few particular dialects (can’t remember which now). It got me in such a muddle I had to go back and ask if, when I ought to say ‘got’ instead of ‘gotten’, should I also say ‘forgot’ instead of ‘forgotten’? I still find it a little weird that I’m allowed ‘forgotten’ but not ‘gotten.’ The words are so similar.
I’m also having to pay attention to how I use ‘okay’. If you ask, ‘would you like go and do such and such’ and a Danish person says ‘okay’ they actually mean ‘yes, let’s go and do that’ and not ‘we could, but I’d rather not.’ I caused no end of insecurity for Husband with that when we first met and it seemed to him like none of his suggestions were met with enthusiasm. :)
I had to get over that sort of thing with my cooking. It doesn’t matter what I make, I could only get something like, “It’s good” out of him. Over here people would go on and on about food and how it is so great, so I always felt like I couldn’t make anything that he really liked. But eventually I figured out it’s just him being Danish. I think somehow it all goes back to janteloven and keeping things low key.
I’m glad he chose something else. I have comma trouble myself. I like them too much.
Marzipan, This is true, it’s definitely a Danish thing. If I’d cooked for someone and they started gushing about how wonderful it was, I’d just start getting embarrassed and a little annoyed at them. At first because ‘yes, I heard you the first time’ and later because I’d start thinking they were just trying to hide how awful they thought it was. As a nation, we are not always very good at taking compliments. At least not the gushing kind. Janteloven is probably one of the greatest classical works that we’ve got, because it defines the Danish character very very precisely. Axel Sandemose ought to be a mandatory part of the curriculum, at least in gymnasiet (Danish equivalent to the American high school, for those following this conversation and not in the know).
MzPriss, if only you lot would use the Danish comma rules, my life would be a lot easier. :D Seems to me every single comma rule in English is followed by ‘except if such and such’
Are you a native Dane? Because your English is GREAT. Even the nuances.
I bought a tin of this at H&S while in NYC this weekend after tasting it in the shop.
Marzipan, I am. English came relatively easy to me in school (unlike German, where I never got further than learning a lot of words, but not how to put them together into something that makes sense), and then having spent the last 14 years living on the internet. Livejournal, mostly. I’m not very good at punctuation though. I find commas difficult. Being married to an Englishman helps a lot as well. :) I have to admit we speak mostly English at home. Husband speaks Danish at work, and we speak Danish at home if we have company or if it’s Saturday. I suddenly lose all ability to understand English when it’s Saturday. :p It’s a left-over from when he was taking his Danish classes and was preparing for his exams. We probably ought to speak more Danish at home, but we’re so used to speaking English together, making the switch can feel a bit awkward, even for me. I mostly read books in English as well, because I find it better to read the original version rather than a translation. Sometimes things are lost in translation and the original is the version that author actually wrote. Seems silly to read a translation when I can just as easily read the original. :) Besides, I like reading fantasy, and it seems precious little of that genre gets translated into Danish.
Sorry, that was a bit of a novel. And I didn’t even say thank you for your compliment. Thank you for your compliment. :)
MzPriss, I actually caught myself having a bit of a panic last night when Husband nearly asked for a cup of it. I was having something he doesn’t like, you see, so he’s gone to choose something else from the drawer. Luckily he settled on a different one in the end. (I did not say or do anything to influence him. Just panicked quietly.)
I read a lot of second language English since half of my family is in your area. Even when my husband first moved here he made some really cute and funny mistakes. So I can usually pick up on it, but yours is really great. It’s really funny with him since he (like you) switches back and forth a lot. He is basically like a language vending machine, whatever you put in, he responds in kind. So he can be speaking English with me and the phone rings and it’s Danish all the way. I love to listen to it. His sisters say his Danish is starting to sound a little outdated.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. Husband says he’s forgetting how to speak proper English. He’ll be saying something in English and wants a particular word and the first one that he thinks of is Danish. Or he’ll start a sentence in a particular way because he’s forgotten that the keyword is a Danish one that has no clear English equivalent. He’s been here for five years now.
My written English is best. I make more mistakes when speaking, mostly because I get a bit sloppy, or I get distracted by sudden uncertainty about is/are in the middle of a sentence or something. :)
I remember a couple of funny ones he said when he first lived here. He called ear muffs “Ear muffins” (so cute) and we were going on an online video game and he asked if I wanted to go to the grocery to buy “raid munchkins” (so cute!). He also used to pronounce “steak” like “steek” and “taco” like “tack-o”
I loved reading this
You sneaky Zeke,lol, I think I would have done the same thing.
Husband once had to show me a dictionary before I would believe that ‘unpractical’ wasn’t a real word. It was quite shocking, I’d been saying that forever! (I still say it just to tease him. :p ) Mind you, he’s had some good ones in Danish as well. I usually proof read his emails in Danish before he’s comfortable sending them and he has a tendency to get overly formal sometimes. He also once sent me a postcard when he’d been travelling for his old job and wrote about a cathedral he had gone to see. He wanted to say it was impressive, but actually said it was impressed. :)
One funny one we have noticed, is that where I live (in the US south), people who say “I reckon” are like, total hicks. But to him it’s totally normal to hear British people say so he has a whole different idea of it.
‘I reckon’, yes, I’ve picked that one up as well. I don’t (think I) use ‘I figure’ very much though. It seems like an Americanism to me. I’ve been trying to weed those out of my English in recent years, because what with being influenced by films and television from both North America and from the UK, it was such a jumble. It’s quite difficult, because I don’t know that something is an Americanism until someone tells me and then I have to remember to avoid it. Sometimes that leads to further confusion, like when I learned that ‘gotten’ is an Americanism and only used in British English in a few particular dialects (can’t remember which now). It got me in such a muddle I had to go back and ask if, when I ought to say ‘got’ instead of ‘gotten’, should I also say ‘forgot’ instead of ‘forgotten’? I still find it a little weird that I’m allowed ‘forgotten’ but not ‘gotten.’ The words are so similar.
I’m also having to pay attention to how I use ‘okay’. If you ask, ‘would you like go and do such and such’ and a Danish person says ‘okay’ they actually mean ‘yes, let’s go and do that’ and not ‘we could, but I’d rather not.’ I caused no end of insecurity for Husband with that when we first met and it seemed to him like none of his suggestions were met with enthusiasm. :)
I had to get over that sort of thing with my cooking. It doesn’t matter what I make, I could only get something like, “It’s good” out of him. Over here people would go on and on about food and how it is so great, so I always felt like I couldn’t make anything that he really liked. But eventually I figured out it’s just him being Danish. I think somehow it all goes back to janteloven and keeping things low key.
I’m glad he chose something else. I have comma trouble myself. I like them too much.
Marzipan, This is true, it’s definitely a Danish thing. If I’d cooked for someone and they started gushing about how wonderful it was, I’d just start getting embarrassed and a little annoyed at them. At first because ‘yes, I heard you the first time’ and later because I’d start thinking they were just trying to hide how awful they thought it was. As a nation, we are not always very good at taking compliments. At least not the gushing kind. Janteloven is probably one of the greatest classical works that we’ve got, because it defines the Danish character very very precisely. Axel Sandemose ought to be a mandatory part of the curriculum, at least in gymnasiet (Danish equivalent to the American high school, for those following this conversation and not in the know).
MzPriss, if only you lot would use the Danish comma rules, my life would be a lot easier. :D Seems to me every single comma rule in English is followed by ‘except if such and such’