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Today’s latte. The amaretto flavour is accurate and quite strong – it has a bit of throat hit to it. The matcha definitely takes a back seat to the amaretto. Quite delicious.

I ordered this with Distinctive flavour strength, though I think if I were to order it again I would go with less flavouring, to get a better amaretto matcha balance.

I’m finally trying out my sample (from Lindsay, I think?), and wow am I glad I did. This is such a unique tea.

The dry leaf smells strongly of sweet, fruity alcohol. I’m thinking brandy, a tawny port or some kind of liqueur.

Steeped, the tea soup has the same strong, alcohol fragrance to it, which carries through to the palate. In addition, there are also notes of Chinese medicine, dates, prunes, and lou han gou fruit.

This is definitely a rich and luxurious cup of tea. The ingredients combine in such an interesting way, that I don’t actually identify any of them in the flavour.

I don’t think I’d drink this often, but for a special treat, this is amazing.

I would not have guessed this was a Darjeeling. It was fairly malty, with only a bit of that pungent, spiced Darjeelingness to it. Quite light, very enjoyable. 5 mins made it ever so slightly astringent, so next time I might do 4:30 instead.

Tired, headachey and irritable – this was the perfect cup. Smoke and bergamot. Delicious.

This has been sitting in my cupboard for ages, a packet with two cups left, that I haven’t tried in so long, I’d completely forgotten what it tasted like. Clearly it couldn’t have been too horrible, since I had 25g and drank most of it, but I really had no recollection. I’ve been avoiding it for a while and the ingredients list made me think I’d probably hate it.

But tonight, I figured I might as well try it out again and see about getting it out of my cupboard.

Opening the packet, I was greeted by the smell of cinnamon soap and dismay. Yup, fairly sure I was going to hate it.

And the the first sip was bizarrely all juicy pineapple. And then subsequent sips have been tart, sweet, papaya and cinnamon. Somehow it works. In spite it hibiscus being at the top of the ingredient list, smelling like soap, having old coconut in it and containing stevia. This is actually really nice.

I’m now a little sad that it’ll be gone forever soon, though not heartbroken or anything. But I’m glad I finally got around to trying this (again).

I went for a float in a sensory deprivation tank today, and was served this tea afterwards. It was quite light, sweet and fruity, with a hint of tartness, and a bit creamy. Quite nice.

The float was really quite neat. You’re in a pod with a few inches of body temp water and 1000lbs of salt dissolved in it. You can have light and music or dark and silent – I opted for dark and silent. The water keeps your body very buoyant and the space is very quiet. All I could hear was my heartbeat, my stomach and the occasional splash when I moved.

I was a bit too distracted with thoughts and noticing my body – I’m a bit hyper-sensitive and aware of things like itches, and my neck has been bothering me, so I noticed this stuff a lot. But a few times I did hit that kind of dreamy, half asleep half awake zone that’s so lovely and meditative. But it was pleasant, and when I got out I actually felt taller and my posture felt so much better.

All in all a really lovely experience – the staff, the spa, the float itself. I’m looking forward to going back and trying it with some soothing spa music to hopefully help quiet my thoughts.

I had this as my first cup of the day and it seemed to be, for the most part, a pleasant Darjeeling, and yet, it lacked a full mouth flavour – there was just something missing from the back of the mouth. Perhaps a longer steep next time.

Tea of the evening, to go with a delicious dinner of mapo doufu. I made a cup for my partner to try, and I’m not sure why I haven’t offered it to him before, because it’s pretty much a flavour combination that was made for him. Ginger, licorice, sichuan pepper, and a hint smokey and musty. Lovely.