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Happy Mardi Gras! It’s snowing where I am, which is decidedly not Mardi Gras weather, but I’m recognizing the holiday with some low-key at-home activities. My partner made vegan jambalaya, I’ve got a king cake-scented candle, got my fleur-de-lis earrings on, etc. Of course I had to find a tea that’s on theme. I finally landed on a coconut oolong in a nod to Zulu coconuts (decorated coconuts are a prized giveaway at the Zulu Social Aide and Pleasure Club float parade on Mardi Gras day). My partner thinks it’s a stretch but I’m sticking by it. Also because the creaminess of this coconut oolong complemented the spiciness of the jambalaya nicely. So thank you to whoever put this in the Strange VariaTea TTB!

Once I finally made it out of bed, I decided to brew up a favorite tea for a mood lift. I’ve been hoarding some of this ever since DT discontinued it years ago. It’s still good, but the vanilla flavor does seem to be fading a bit. Looking at my old tasting notes, I think next time I’ll try it cold and with some sweetener to really make the vanilla pop. I should probably prioritize finishing this off soon while it’s still good. I wish DT would bring it back, but since that’s pretty unlikely, suggestions for other good vanilla oolongs are welcome!

My body is being extra rebellious today. I do not appreciate this; I indulged the need for rest and recovery yesterday, but I’m still in pain and now I’m just annoyed. There are things I wanted to get done today besides being stuck in bed or on the couch! Ok, thanks for letting me complain, and I promise it’s relevant to this tasting note.
I wasn’t in any condition to make my own tea and I wanted something anti-inflammatory, so I asked my partner to make me some ginger tea. What I meant for him to make was the Harney Ginger Lemon. What he actually made was this, which is kept in a repurposed, relabeled Harney tin directly above the Ginger Lemon. So I take a sip and immediately think “oh no what happened.” He confirmed that he made this and didn’t even know we had the Ginger Lemon! Complete facepalm moment. I’m making the best of this unpleasant (admittedly not the end of the world) situation by at least making a tasting note.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I do not like this tea. Maybe it’s the carrot. Maybe it’s the licorice root. These are ingredients that I have enjoyed just fine in other blends but something just feels off about the specific combination and ratio of ingredients here. I would swear there’s stevia in here if I didn’t know better. Plus this blend has ginger in the name, it’s the second ingredient, but I have never found the ginger to be particularly noticeable – it’s drowned out by that unusual sweetness. But my partner doesn’t mind this blend at all and is always surprised by the vehemence of my reaction, so YMMV.

I’m really missing New Orleans for some reason as Mardi Gras nears, so I’m indulging in assorted on-theme treats. I couldn’t leave tea (or in this case, a tisane) out of the equation! This ground roasted chicory root from a New Orleans-based company perfectly hits the spot. It’s nutty, with a bit of an almost chocolatey note. It has just a bit of sharpness or acidity, just enough to be reminiscent of coffee. While I liked it just fine straight, I ended up adding oat milk for a creamier take. All that’s missing now are the beignets…

Sipdown, sadly. I so enjoyed this blend. It’s obvious that the coconut was starting to fade/turn, though, so I’m glad to be finishing it off while it’s still pretty good. There’s just an oh-so-slightly acrid and soapy note that I know wasn’t there when I first got this. Still not terrible, just not as utterly delightful as it first was. I wish Davids would bring this one back.

Taking it easy tonight with a big ole mug of this soothing blend. Delicious as always. The rose is particularly pleasing at the moment.

Sipdown. This one’s so old that I actually bought it in-store as part of a set back when DavidsTea still had stores in the U.S. I only really drink it when I have a sore throat or am sick. Mostly it just tastes like licorice root – at this point that’s all it tastes like, but I don’t remember it ever tasting like more. It does still have a bit of a demulcent effect, which is really all I need from it. And this counts as a tea bought “in-store” for ashmanra’s sipdown challenge.

Dipped into my Taiwan stash again today. I paired this tea with some Red on Tree mango jam on a couple of butter cookies. No regrets.
The jasmine here is present but not in the same forward way that it often is with jasmine green teas. Here it’s more like the jasmine adds a floral quality that just amplifies whatever floral notes the oolong might already have had. I got a lot of butteriness from this (before eating the cookie, so it wasn’t a contamination thing). You wouldn’t necessarily think that buttery and floral would go well together, but it works very nicely here.
On a practical note: this tea comes in pre-portioned loose leaf, but I quickly found that the instructions to brew an entire packet Western-style in a 12oz mug for 3-5 minutes creates too strong a cup. So I ignored that it’s pre-portioned and used about two tsps in an 8oz mug. That gave me four solid steeps and counting, with enough dry leaf left over to do it again.

Sipdown! Counting this as a tea ordered online for ashmanra’s sipdown challenge. This is probably one of the more popular teas/herbals in our home, in that both I and my partner like it. Although I learned recently that we drink it at radically different strengths! I tend to brew it long and strong to really bring out that good burn, whereas he tends to do a more standard steep and add milk and sweetener for a ginger latte situation. We’re almost certainly going to restock this sooner rather than later, but since I just placed a DavidsTea order for Manoomin Maple I just picked up their ginger blend to tide us over for a bit rather than place two separate tea orders/pay shipping twice.

Unrelated: Roswell Strange has me dreaming of trying the mint blends from Foggy River Farm. Except they’re in Canada and I’m in the U.S.! They have free shipping for orders over $175, though, so if anyone in the U.S. is interested in going in on an order together I’d be happy to coordinate.

Yay, it’s BACK! DavidsTea has restocked Manoomin Maple, which means I can finally dip more into the tiny stash I’ve been hoarding for a year. I really didn’t expect to like this one, both because black teas are always risky for me and because I’m not big on blueberries. But it turned out to be really wonderful, and by the time I figured that out it was already out of stock. Happy it’s back, have already placed my order before it disappears again.
So I’m continuing my Canadian food theme today, pairing this tea with a different vegan lox. This particular lox turns out to be phenomenal, by the way – Living Tree Foods’ Slammin’ Lox. It’s not exactly in wide distribution outside of British Columbia and literally one online grocer, unfortunately, but for anyone who doesn’t eat fish and can get their hands on it, I highly recommend it. This blend, as an oat milk latte, actually paired really well with a bagel/cream cheese/lox. I think that’s because the maple isn’t super sweet, and the maltiness of the black base plus the roastiness of the wild rice gives it some heft that works well with a savory meal. Also this lox isn’t as strongly smoky as the one I had yesterday. So the smoke/sweet flavor contrast wasn’t as jarring between the lox and the tea.