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The best thing about having to boil water on the stove because I don’t have a working french press is that it gives me an excuse to clean the kitchen while I wait. I didn’t have enough milk to turn this into chai this morning, so it is just a regular cup of tea with some milk. It isn’t as delicious as it was yesterday, but it is still warm, cozy, comforting, and gets me ready for the day.

My fiance got me this tea a while ago and I had it a couple times before I was irresponsible and had the fine strainer for my Alice in Wonderland french press got all scummy. Since I made chai the other day, I realized that there is more one way to make a small pot of tea. Kitchen tools to the rescue!

Since it was brewing up really dark, I only let this steep for a minute which was a mistake! The flavor was really, really light and most of the flavor was in the aroma. I should have let it steep for at least two minutes or even three minutes. It still made for a nice cup of tea and I do enjoy it every time I drink it.

Sometimes, you just want and need a really good cup of chai. I love making my own since I get to control the spices even if the only spices I have are cinnamon and clove. Using whole milk also makes me feel super decadent since I normally use 2%.

This blend brings in such a nice malty caramel note that I don’t quite understand why I never thought of using this tea as a base for my chai before. Luckily, making a single serving takes about ten minutes or less, so I was able to make and drink this before running off to work.

After a long time, I have decided to get away from coffee and soda to get back into tea with thanks to my fiance for insisting on picking up two boxes of Numi pu-erh tea.

I have discovered that I like the Numi pu-erhs brewed with one bag for 8 oz of water and have them brewed for at least five minutes. I like taking them to work because I can overbrew them and they don’t turn bitter or gross on me. In fact, I like them brewed stronger because they have more flavor.

This one has to be drunk when it is still hot or else it has a bit of an aftertaste. It isn’t my favorite, but it is quite tasty when it is hot.

I am so confident that so much has happened since my last note that I’m not even going to look at it to see how long ago that was. I do know it was long enough for me to move into an apartment with my fiance and completely lose track of all of my teas. Which caused me to go and get at least two or three of these in teabags. I think I am on my third one.

This has become my plain Earl Grey that I drink with just a bit of milk. Sometimes I put honey in it if I want to be really fancy, but mostly it is just Earl Grey with milk. Nothing fancy. Just a nice solid base that isn’t too bitter or too overwhelming. An everyday tea.

My fiance has discovered that the quickest way to turn my bad mood into a good mood in the fall and winter is to put a steaming cup of Chai into my hands (and to be honest, he is right). So, when I got curious over this tea in the store he picked it up with this rationale: it is Chai, you are almost out, and even if you don’t love it you will drink it or give it to your mother.

Once again, he isn’t wrong. Luckily, the spices in this one are strong enough that I don’t have to double bag the tea with half a cup of hot water before adding milk. One bag is normally enough to do the trick.

This morning, I goofed a little on the amount of milk. Let’s be honest, I goofed a lot. The cup was more milk than tea, but it was the best cup of Pumpkin Chai I’ve had with this so far! The extra milk brought out the sweetness and creaminess of the pumpkin while having a nice rounded spice finishing aftertaste. It was delicious and complimented my sausage, egg, and spinach breakfast really nicely.

This does make me wonder if I’ve been making this tea all wrong in the first place though. If that much extra milk brought out extra sweetness and creaminess, then I should just pick up a little bit of cream to see if using less of cream instead of milk will bring about the same sort of deal without cooling down the cup to iced tea levels. Luckily I still have about four bags of this left, so I have time to expirament a little and see.

I don’t even want to look and see what year it was when I sat down to write about a tea in Steepster. It was a long time ago and I had stopped drinking my teas for a while. Life happened and I’m in a new apartment with my fiance! He got be a variable temperature kettle (best fiance ever) and I am back to drinking all of my tea!

I process magazines into the library and I remember when I first saw an ad for these teabags. I do drink the bottled Pure Leaf from time to time (not my favorite bottled tea, but it is ok) so when I saw this on the shelf in Giant, I decided to snag a box to see how it was.

I didn’t even notice it was black tea with vanilla until I got it home since I just grabbed the black tea. It smells so good when steeping. All vanilla teas smell good when steeping. I was surprised to see on the box that this is an Assam black tea. I don’t normally see that mentioned on store brand teas. When I do it is normally in a breakfast blend.

I have no sugar in the apartment currently, so I’m trying this plain first to see how it is.

It tastes like a normal vanilla tea. Not quite sweet enough to tell it is vanilla. No smell of vanilla once it is done steeping. A bit astringent after the sip with just a tad bit of something sweet lingering. It might be good iced, but it is winter and I don’t really want cold tea unless I am taking it to work.

With Milk:
I normally have some milk in my morning tea now since I’ve been drinking boxes and boxes of Twinings Chai. I have no idea why I keep thinking that milk will fix all vanilla tea and bring out the vanilla like magic. No vanilla, but the milk makes the tea taste slightly caramel. That is always nice and appreciated in the morning.

Good thing I have a paycheck coming this week. This one would probably taste best with sugar, but other than that it tastes like any other vanilla tea. Slightly disappointing that the tea never tastes how it smells when it is steeping, but overall fine for a cup. Kinda like the bottled tea.

After much reading and research into TeaPop, I decided to try it with this tea. It would have turned out fine and tasty because the chamomile was lightly floral and iced the honey and vanilla took center stage.

But I used club soda….

The horrors of the horrible tasting club soda! I had some on its own to make sure that was what I was tasting and apparently I am one of the people that can taste the difference in club soda and regular seltzer water. This is heightened by the feeling of finding seltzer water this morning that was already in the house. Oh well, I’ll just have to try it again later.

I am seriously considering throwing out this tea. I’ve had it for a while and I barely drink it. I think I remember why now. The lavender is way, way too strong and it makes the entire cup taste like lavender perfume. Not pleasant at all.

Backlog 1: Drank the rest of this last night, hot with milk and just a little bit of sugar. Super comforting and now I’m down a tin of tea.