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I haven’t logged this one before? WHUT?

I likes me a good Lapsang. Don’t get me wrong there. But the lack of logging (ha! say that ten times fast!) might have something to do with the fact that I bought this one primarily to give my boyfriend when he’s here and secondarily for myself.

Right now though, I’m having the hardest time focusing on NaNo and I need a bit of a kick in the rear. Caffeine me. My green semi-spree is not going to cut it here. I know the amount of caffeine is the same, but the black tea just feels like it has more. Also this place, with the introduction of comments and liking and interaction, has became bloody addictive! Just the other day I discovered that on the front page that you get to when you’re not logged in, there are featured posts and featured users if you scroll down! I’m a featured user, apparently! It made me go WEEEEEE!!!! and immediately add all the other featured users to my follow list. You lot are all to blame if I don’t reach the 50K this year, I swear. Either that or I’ll start counting words on tea posts and include them.

The leaves smell all nice and smokey and with a hint of tobacco, which is something I’ve just recently learned to pay attention to in aroma. I get inspired when I see how you others describe these hard-to-describe things. The steeped tea is less smokey in scent and it has an underlying note of something sweet. I want to say caramel but I’m not really sure that’s the best description for it. Definitely tobacco too. Now that I’ve noticed, it’s really clear.

I think I’ve understeeped it a bit because I got impatient, but I made it good and strong with more leaves than usual. The flavour doesn’t have so much of the smoky flavour in it, but I expect the next cup with be better on that aspect. I think I might be getting the ‘pepper’ though. A sort of prickly flavour at the very back of my mouth like black pepper. But again, it might be because I used more leaves. This may not have been the most ideal brew, but it’s one of my black favourites, and aforementioned boyfriend is a good excuse to keep stocked up on it.

Right. I have my caffeine kick now and I need to get back to my pretense at novel writing. I’m going to take 15 concentrated minutes of writing and then I can slack off for a couple of minutes more. (This doesn’t sound like much, but it totally works. A short spurt of concentration, a couple of minutes break. Easy to over-look. Not so scary. And if you disregard all typos you can get a decent amount of words out in 15 minutes.)

I’m posting this at 6.28 pm my time. If you see any activity from me at all before fifteen minutes have passed, come by and kick my butt.

This one comes with a bit of a story. Prepare yourself for a lengthy post. Fingers on scroll-buttons.

I was a scout when I was a child. At one point when I was around 9-11 or so, we had these two pretty alternative individuals as leaders. Two younger men, who seemed to be brought up on the belief that sweets=evil and if it came from the Far East it was Good by definition. This is why, whenever we had any sort of celebration of sorts, like before holiday breaks or the last time before christmas or what have you, we had chai.

I had never heard about it before, and I didn’t have the slightest clue that it was something to do with tea. And back then I wouldn’t have cared either. All I remember about it was this strangely coloured spicy fluid that was just about drinkable, all the while wondering what the heck was suddenly so wrong with hot cocoa! So I was biased against chai at a fairly early age.

Many many years later I started getting interested in tea and one day I purchased a chai (Tengla chai, from Chaplon) to see if it was really so horrible as I had remembered it and also out of curiosity about the fact that there are as many recipies for chai as there are people in the world, just about. Oh, I remember it well. There were instructions for how to make it with milk and what not. I didn’t like it one bit. Couldn’t get it down. There was something or other in it that made it impossible for me to swallow without making a face and got rid of the rest of it in the first and the best swap that came along. Having shown people the list of ingredients it had in it, I have been told that the thing I didn’t like was likely ginger.

Fast forward to this past saturday. There’s a really great ice cream shop near where I live. They make a load of different flavours, some fairly unusual (it’s the only place, for example, that I’ve ever seen a plum sorbet. Which by the way is delicious) and you never quite now what they have to choose from on any given day. This past saturday they had one called chai latte. I don’t much care for chai, but I like tea a lot, so I’m enough of a dork that I had to try that one. There was just NO WAY I’d be able to walk away from it ever.

Turns out chai turned to ice cream was rather nice. Surprisingly nice. Nice enough that I could totally buy it again if I saw it there another time. It made me think that possibly it was time to give chai another chance.

So today, when going home from work, I went into Baresso and got a small chai-cino. I’ve seen people log chai latte or some such from Starbucks and I assume this is pretty much the same deal. They make it like a cafe latte (or in this case, like a cappucino) only instead of the espresso shot, they use this chai mix. I just got a small one, in case of extreme dislike. I’ve tried looking it up on their website and it would appear that the contents of said chai mix is a closely guarded secret. Can’t say I’m really surprised there.

They asked me, “do you want cinnamon on top?”
I dithered a bit on this and finally answered, “yes please, but not too much.”
This, apparently, was not a problem. Except, I saw his colleague make it and her definition of ‘not too much cinnamon’ was about three times my definition of same. I would have stopped her, but I hadn’t realised yet at the time that it was my order.

It was very very very VERY sweet. Sweet and fat. I’m glad I only got the small one, because I don’t think I’d be able to finish the large one. And I’m honestly not usually all that fat-frightened. You’d be amazed at the amount of cake with whipped cream I’m capable of consuming with utmost pleasure.

The contents of the chai mix being a state secret, I tried to decipher the flavour myself. There was cinnamon, definitely. The lot she had shaken on top was pretty overwhelming, but I’m certain there was cinnamon in the chai mix itself too. Also vanilla. And definitely sugar. These were most obvious flavours. I also picked up a note of something that I suspect might have been anise and something that was possibly cloves. Rather surprisingly I couldn’t find anything in the flavour that reminded me all that much of cardamom, but I expect it was probably hiding underneath all that cinnamon.

I liked it. I wouldn’t say I loved it, but it was drinkable. Definitely more so than my previous encounters, and I’m not completely turned off the idea of experimenting a bit the concept, depending on the list of ingredients in any given chai. The chai-cino from Baresso is also available on ice, blended with ice cubes. Considering how sweet and fat the taste was, I think that might actually be the way it would work the best.

Backlogging. I’ve had this one for a long time, it’s one of the teas that have been forgotten during a long period of time where greens didn’t really interest me much. It’s one of those green ones that get an almost neon-like colour and you wonder if there might have radio-active waste involved in making it. It’s really old though, and the flavour has faded rather a lot, especially the cactus flavour.

But it was awesome when it was fresh.

I think my tongue must be recovering.

I tried a second steep of this yesterday and then I thought the blueberry flavour was as dominant as everybody else said it would be. Then I made another pot today (to wash down the icky rooibos) and thought that was pretty heavy on the blueberry too. Encouraged by yesterday’s success, I’m trying a resteep of that again now.

It’s weird for me though. I’ve never had much luck with resteeping black tea before.

I think I’m getting close to making this my ideal blueberry tea, if it hadn’t been for the fact that it’s the only one I’ve ever had, so I can’t really compare with anything.

The European Adagio store has a very limited selection though, and that one order I got from Adagio was definitely on the extravagant side, so it’s not something we’re going to repeat a lot. If ever, in spite of the good experience I’ve had with it.

First the media was all over the blueberry, proclaiming it the healthiest food ever and claiming that it could do practically anything from curing the common cold to granting eternal life. Then the media was all over the story of how the blueberry had been completely overrated health-wise and how it wasn’t even remotely as healthy as everyone had thought and people were all up in arms over how they had ‘wasted’ money and energy on eating all those blueberries that apparently had absolutely no value.

Erm, excuse me? Just because it’s not miracle-food doesn’t mean it’s not healthy. It’s fruit. Therefore it is healthy. And also, they still taste lovely. So exactly what the problem was, I have no idea.

Me, I have never ever met a blueberry that I didn’t like. (Except if they’ve gone mouldy) Therefore it is not only puzzling, it’s downright alarming and weird that this sample tin looks like it’s never even been opened before! I must have somehow missed it when I tried all the other sample tins (I bought it as part of the sampler set).

I can find the blueberries in the scent of both the dry leaves and steeped tea. It’s there, it’s easy find, it smells natural and it’s not overwhelming.

The tea tastes nice and sweet. Fruity, but subtle. It’s like I’m getting black tea and then the blueberry is a sort of afterthought. The weird thing is that while I earlier proclaimed the strawberry tea from Whittard’s of Chelsea my ideal strawberry tea because I could actually taste real natural strawberry, you would think that I would find this one somewhat bland.

But the blueberry sort of builds up as I drink and the more I drink the more I can taste the blueberry. And I like that. I wouldn’t say no to a blueberry tea that just said PA-SHAM! and then there was natural blueberry flavour all over the place, but this is quite nice too. It tastes very well-balanced.

EDIT
I’ve read the other reviews on this now and WOW!!! O.o I’ve had the exact opposite experience from everybody else. Others have found it a strong blueberry flavour while I found it a bit more subtle. I’ll have to try this again as soon as I’m snot-free, I think. And buy some blueberries to remind myself of the exact flavour.

Wow, just like one can post while drunk for some potientially hilarious and cringe-worthy result, one can do the same while sleep deprived. But probably shouldn’t. I swear I was only drinking TEA! O.o Anyway, as predicted I slept like a rock last night. This morning I’m still sleepy and in bad need of tea.

And we’re continuing in the theme of teas I forgot I had. This one was actually a shame to forget. It’s the last I’ve got of it and it’s the only flowering tea I’ve got at the moment. It’s the tea that prompted me to buy a godawful ugly clear cheap as dirt plastic teapot a while back, so I could see what was going on while steeping. This isn’t a recent picture at all, but it’s the same tea.
Picture: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/MixL4_NVJrzPfQ_PbE3TTQ?feat=directlink

I don’t know if the light in the picture is off or if I steeped it longer before taking the picture back then, but it’s not really quite as dark as it looks like in the picture. Same sort of shade, but lighter.

I must admit I forgot to sniff it before pouring water on it, but after steeping and decanting it smells rather a lot like… boiled broccoli. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I like broccoli. And with a little butter in the water while boiling, yum.

The tea itself possible has an aroma. My nose is only partly closed up, but I’m still having difficulties picking up smell. If I close my eyes and concentrate I can pick up a sweet floral sort of smell which probably comes from the osmanthus flowers inside the bud. It doesn’t smell perfumed though, it’s just sort of there.

There isn’t really all that much in the way of flavour. I’ve taken several sips trying to figure out what it tastes like, but I’m getting very little. There is zero tail on this. No after taste what so ever. Some experimenting with slurping and generally bad table manners can provoke a little bit of after taste which sort of reminds me a bit of liquorice root, but if you just take a normal sip there’s nothing.

All show, no flavour. It IS pretty to look at though.

WHOOOOOOAAAAHHH!!!

Last night’s insomnia is finally catching up with me. I had maybe a total of four hours sleep and have still been, to use a danish and directly translated expression, fresh as a fish all day. In spite, I might add, of having acquired the sniffles.

It’s now 9pm and I’m beginning to suspect that tonight I’ll sleep well. Although I’m not really ready for bed yet. I’m not finished being awake for today. And I wanted a good cup of tea first too.

So why this kinda mediocre generic one? I don’t know. I’ve seen a lot of people review green lately (and pu-ehr but sadly I don’t have any of that) and what can I say? You lot are inspiring.

It’s really dark. Okay, so I was busy writing the intro on this post and nearly forgot, so it’s probably just a teensy bit oversteeped but it’s still good. I kinda wish I could remember what I said about it when I reviewed it earlier because I hate ending up contradicting myself. It makes me look like a dork who can’t make up her mind. (And I don’t want anybody to find out the horrible truth)

Today though, I’m finding that I still agree with my previous rating. It’s a nice tea, but not super-duper awesome. The first Gunpowder I ever had was from Chaplon and it was also iirc the first green I ever had (that didn’t come in a cheap bag). I just remember that one as better than this.

OMG! I just realised I also have dinner leftovers heating in the oven! Man, imsonmia really IS catching up with me.

These oven potatoes are a bit bland, possibly they should have been heated just little lon-WAIT! I’m supposed to be talking about the tea!

Anyway, the tea. It’s pleasant. I think it would be a good one for my travel mug in the mornings (gosh, I love that thing! How did I go for so long without?). I’m picking up a kind of… Well, there’s definitely a note there, I just can’t really describe it. It’s not nutty or salty (Salty? Really? I’ve never found a salty note in a tea! Where do you lot get that from?) or grassy or leafy or anything. It’s just sort of… green. Yeah, it has a green flavour.

I’m getting nowhere with this. I’m finishing my tea and my meal and going to bed. Clearly, since I also wrote ‘imsonmia’ up there, it’s the only sensible thing to do.

I’ve been modifying all my previously logged teas and I got inspired. Inspired, but not able to make any sort of decision, so I closed my eyes, stuck my hand in the tea cabinet and picked a tin at random. And this is what I “won”.

Not a bad pick. Another tea I’d forgotten I still had.

I noticed today that the leaves are broken. I’d say it’s because I’m at the bottom of the tin, but when I bought it, it was taken out of the middle-ish of the tin in the shop, so I don’t think tin-bottom is the reason. There are too many broken leaves for the middle of a big tin for that, if you know what I mean. It just goes to prove the fact that teas with additives and flavouring is probably a lower quality tea than what is used for the plain teas.

Also, I managed to oversteep it just a little bit, because I momentarily forgot about it. It didn’t turn bitter though, just full flavoured. To be honest it kind of tastes more green than white to me and the fruit additives are nothing special.

But I’m chalking all that up to slight oversteeping and having acquired a snot-nose and therefore somewhat reduced sense of taste. I stand by it being an otherwise lovely tea.

Oh, I like this new rating system. I’ll try to get around to fixing my old reviews. Eventually. I especially like the smiley for teas we don’t like, it’s cute. :D The steeping time and water temperature are nice touches too, although less relevant for me since most of my tea is brewed sort of on the fly. I can’t really figure out why they have thumbs up/thumbs down symbols though, but I expect that’s something that’ll get fixed eventually. (May I suggest a drop for water temperature and a clock for steeping time?)

Anyway, this is a backlog from yesterday morning. I had this in my travel mug on the train going to work. It was given to me as a present from a colleague who had seen it. I’d never seen this variation before, but the brand is one you can find in most danish grocery shops and supermarkets. They deal mainly in loose leaf as far as I’ve noticed. I haven’t seen much in bags from them, except chamomile and such. Quality-wise it’s a bit… I wouldn’t exactly say it’s an awesome quality but it’s not any worse than any other supermarket brand.

I think I oversteeped it a little because the tea had a sort of roughness to it that I don’t think should be present in a white tea. It wasn’t bitter and it didn’t taste stewed at all, it was just kind of… off.

As for the pomegranate… Oh, is that what it was? I couldn’t really find the pomegranate flavour at all. On the whole the tea was rather dry and I don’t know if that was the tea being dry or if it was the way pomegranates have a dry sort of flavour.

This all doesn’t sound like a tea that I found particularly enjoyable, does it? But strangely enough it is. It was well suited for a morning travel tea. It’s just a question of finding the right purpose for it.

I’d forgotten I had this. As in… I hadn’t really forgotten as such, I just knew there was very little left and I didn’t think it would be enough for a pot so I didn’t bother with it until yesterday when I looked in the tin and got a surprise. I’ve made a small pot of it now and there should be enough for another small pot.

For a black tea the leaves seem a bit on the large side and they smell nice and sweet. For having been forgotten for the better part of six months and purchased who knows how much earlier than that, they have definitely retained aroma.

It’s relatively light in colour and while the dry leaves had a very good aroma the tea seems to have little. It’s there and it’s very similar to the ‘dry’ aroma, but it’s not as pronounced.

I’ve logged it before as a tea that disappointed me a little. While good, it didn’t live up to my expectations of it. I described it as sort of delicate but not really. I’m not sure what I meant with that… Today I would say it’s fairly delicate, period.

It’s possible it’s lost a bit of flavour, but I’m quite happy with my collection of tins that are all air-tight and light-proof and I would claim that I’m storing my correctly, so I don’t really think it would have lost all that much. I think it’s just supposed to be this way.

So, delicate. Yes. Not nearly as sweet as the smell of it would have you believe and not much in the way of after taste. Even somewhat oversteeped (10 minutes or so ahem) I didn’t really get a whole lost of flavour out of it. If the flavour intensity could be doubled or trippled, I’d like it a lot. I’d say it was a nice and smooth tea.

Apart from not really sure what I actually meant the last time I logged it, I think I still agree with myself that I had too high expectations of it. I’m finding it a bit boring and probably wouldn’t try it again. So I’m neutral on this one.