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I bought myself a little “I survived holiday shopping at the mall” present last year – it was a slab of Septarian (dragon stone). It’s beautiful, I just love it. Soooooo I’ve been looking around for an equally amazing stone to buy for myself this year and hadn’t really found anything. Lots of beautiful pieces out there, but nothing that I just had to have. And then I found it….. and brought it home. So gorgeous……

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc3XKb7hB5I/?taken-by=dex3657

I of course had to pull out the most beautiful tea to go with my beautiful stone, and they don’t get much prettier than this one. I’ve been breaking the chunks off the back of the cake because I don’t want to spoil it.
I absolutely adore moonlight tea, and while this may not be my favorite, it’s pretty good. Much better than some I’ve tried. It actually seems better tonight than it has on other occasions. Sweet, apricoty, a little hay. Just a nice light tea to drink – and it’s even an awesome dark gold color. I’m pretty happy with this tonight.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc3cuIOhUal/?taken-by=dex3657
(that photo doesn’t look as good on my computer as it does on my phone…. sad face)

I don’t drink nearly enough pu’erh – especially considering how much of it I have in my cupboard. So I dug out my cute little yellow gaiwan – I love it – so tiny yet well shaped that you don’t really burn your fingers. It works really well for small samples and I only had a little of this one left.
I don’t have much to say – really dark, not much fermentation, a little chocolate, a lot of earthiness, some woodiness. I like it – it’s what I want in a nice shou.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc0yLobhqPT/?taken-by=dex3657

Not sure what’s wrong with me. Either my taste buds are on strike or I’ve forgotten everything I knew about tea.
This was another sample that I received with my teabento order. This is two in a row that wasn’t at all what I was expecting.
Plum and brassy – that’s how I feel. Pale liquor with a thin mouthfeel. This is way more like an Indian than a Chinese black. I don’t really like this one either….
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc0X5JJhf5a/?taken-by=dex3657

I received my teabento order today. Not happy with the outer packaging – my box was ripped and squashed. All the tea is here but I think some of it might have been a bit crushed.
Super Spiny was one of the free samples included with my order.
This one confuses me, it’s not really what I expect from a Keemun. The liquor is a beautiful deep dark red. It looks like a big bold black tea, but feels really light and thin in the mouth. The first couple of steeps sweet, fruity, with just a touch of smoke. The next few steeps were really fruity – light grape, sweet, maybe a hint of honey.
This isn’t for me, it’s way too light – I really prefer bolder black teas.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcyouKfB9tA/?taken-by=dex3657

When I went into work yesterday and this was sitting on my desk:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bcvzs1sBY4w/?taken-by=dex3657

I love my work experience trainee. She is just an amazing young woman – insanely intelligent – learns quick – nice, friendly – works hard. She is studying at the university here on a student visa from China. Her mother sent her some tea, she would rather drink coffee – so I ended up with a care package. We won’t be able to keep her as an employee – she will continue her studies, improve her English and probably go on to cure cancer, or CEO a fortune 500 company. I just think she’s awesome.

But I digress…..

Tonight I’m drinking the tea labelled “black”. I thought this was just going to be some generic Chinese black until I opened the package. This looks beautiful, it has some really nice golden tips to it. Hmmmm maybe I should treat this with a little more respect. I put away my mug and pulled out a proper tea pot and steeped it as modified gong fu. About 30 seconds first steep. That wasn’t quite enough, it was a little flat. I added another package to the pot and did about a minute. This is awesome. It’s not starchy/yamish like I would expect from a Yunnan black or a Dian Hong. This is more like a Bailin – it deep and dark, with just a little bit of chocolate notes, there are some fruity notes but really is just a great black tea. I’m really happy with this – her mom has great taste in tea.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bcv2vRkB7u9/?taken-by=dex3657

VariaTEA has inspired me to try cold steeping tea in milk. This is my number one choice for that experiment – there is some in the fridge right now.

Because I pulled it out to cold steep, I made a cup hot as well. I love this tea, I’ve loved this tea for years. It’s one of those that I always have in my cupboard, and I enjoy it every time I drink it. It’s coffee, it’s pu’erh, it’s dark, it’s smooth, it’s amazing.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BciZI2SBVFU/?taken-by=dex3657

Whoa!!!!! GINGER!!! No thank you – I don’t need spicy in my fruit oolong. Moving on…

This is the kind of tea I was talking about in my previous note. This is fine, it’s ok – there was only a little left so I’m going to finish it off tonight. I probably bought this because I was lacking fruity oolong in my cupboard. I need to stop buying ok teas, and only get the stuff I really love. I have an amazing fruit oolong now so all these other ones can go.

This is mostly fruit, not much oolong. It’s a little champagne, it’s a little fruity (I would say berry rather than strawberry), and not much floral. This would be better if it had more oolong.

The problem with not buying tea in forever is that all the tea I have is getting old. I am in the process of going through all my flavored stuff and deciding if it’s worth drinking or if it can be purged. All my tea is well stored and for the most part should still be ok, but I have so much that I really just want to get down to the stuff I really love. The other problem is I horde stuff I love and then never drink it. I want to be drinking my horded stuff and get rid of anything I don’t care about. (I’m only talking about my flavored tea – all my straight tea is fine.)

So in that spirit I pulled this one out today. This is one of my all time favorite fruity oolongs. It’s still really good – maybe not quite as plum as it used to be, but it’s still really good. Maybe a touch more floral than I really want, but that can be fixed with water temp. Will steep a little lower next time. Yep this is good and I’m happy drinking it today.

Even though I had Thai curry chicken for dinner, I’m still have some nasty dead mushroom aftertaste thing happening from that icky tea…. I feel that this is the only tea in my cupboard that has any chance to stand up to that.

I’m disappointed in this one tonight. I think this is different than the last time I had it. There is more green powder something (if it’s the green mate then it’s really small leaf) than I’ve seen before. This green powder has move through my strainer into the cup. That’s weird – this tea doesn’t usually do that. It also have a really sharp bite to it. Dunno. I normally love this one, but it’s just not working for me tonight. sigh….