88
drank Scandale by THEODOR
681 tasting notes

Oh, wow. Okay.
This tea is incredible. Another tea which has to be a couple of years old, and yet it still tastes amazing! I didn’t read up on the flavours of this tea before I pulled it out for this afternoon, I just picked it out at random, I think I was expecting it to be a fruity black. Imagine my surprise when the rich cinnamon scent of this tea hit the air! I knew there and then I was going to love it, and man was I right. I adore cinnamon, and this tasted like a very sophisticated cinnamon cookie was dunked in a cup of rich, full-bodied pu’erh. Amazing. I gave it a quick rinse and then brewed the pot for a few minutes before pouring my first cup, which came out a lot more opaque and dark than I was expecting. There was no astringency at all, and the base tea balanced really well with the cinnamon and vanilla flavours. I added a little honey to my second cup, expecting it to bring the flavours out more, and regretted it. This is definitely a tea best served plain. The flavours actually retreated when sweetened, and though still tasty it just lost a little of the sophisticated dessert feel that the first cup had. I convinced my mam to have a sip, and even she – a woman who turns her nose up at every tea I’ve ever presented her with – admitted that it was ‘quite nice’. I’ve just finished the entire pot on my own and I’m selfishly glad I didn’t share this one! Now to resteep the leaves…

Thank you so much Sil for being so generous as to send this tea my way many, many months ago! It was very much appreciated.

ETA: This didn’t resteep well, sadly.

Sipdown 118/395

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 4 min, 0 sec 3 tsp 24 OZ / 709 ML
Sil

haha glad you finally enjoyed it :)

ashmanra

Oh my! That does sound good! My daughter just got a shipment from The O’Dor today and is taunting me with descriptions of her samples. There was a pinecone in the box. Any idea what that’s all about?

Sil

haha christmas pinecone! lol no idea

Nattie

Yeah! Christmas trees are pine trees, right?

Nattie

It maybe it fell in by accident, lol. XD

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Comments

Sil

haha glad you finally enjoyed it :)

ashmanra

Oh my! That does sound good! My daughter just got a shipment from The O’Dor today and is taunting me with descriptions of her samples. There was a pinecone in the box. Any idea what that’s all about?

Sil

haha christmas pinecone! lol no idea

Nattie

Yeah! Christmas trees are pine trees, right?

Nattie

It maybe it fell in by accident, lol. XD

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Bio

I first got into loose leaf teas when a friend of mine showed me Cara McGee’s Sherlock fandom blends on Adagio a good few years back, but they weren’t on sale in the UK so I started trying other kinds instead and have been hooked for almost three years (and have purchased several fandom tea sets including the Sherlock one I lusted over for so long).

Flavoured teas make up the majority of my collection, but I’m growing increasingly fond of unflavoured teas too. I usually reach for a black, oolong or white tea base over a pu’erh or green tea, though I do have my exceptions. I will update my likes and dislikes as I discover more about my palate, but for now:

Tea-likes: I’m generally easily pleased and will enjoy most flavours, but my absolute favourites are maple, caramel, chestnut, pecan, raspberry, coconut, blueberry, lemon, pumpkin, rose, hazelnut and peach

Tea-dislikes: vanilla (on its own), ginger, coriander/cilantro, cardamom, liquorice, pineapple and chocolate

I am a 25 year old bartender, English Literature sort-of-graduate and current student working towards finishing my degree. I am hoping to one day complete a masters degree in Mental Health Social Work and get a job working in care. Other than drinking, hoarding and reviewing tea, my hobbies include reading, doing quizzes and puzzles, TV watching, football/soccer (Sunderland AFC supporter and employee of my local football club), music, artsy weird makeup, and learning new things (currently British Sign Language).

I should probably also mention my tea-rating system, which seems to be much harsher than others I’ve seen on here. It’s not always concrete, but I’ll try to define it:

• 50 is the base-line which all teas start at. A normal, nothing-special industrial-type black teabag of regular old fannings would be a 50.

• 0 – 49 is bad, and varying degrees of bad. This is probably the least concrete as I hardly ever find something I don’t like.

• I have never given below a 20, and will not unless that tea is SO bad that I have to wash my mouth out after one sip. Any teas rated as such are unquestionably awful.

• This means most teas I don’t enjoy will be in the 30 – 50 range. This might just mean the tea is not to my own personal taste.

• 51+ are teas I enjoy. A good cup of tea will be in the 50 – 70 range.

• If I rate a tea at 70+, it means I really, really like it. Here’s where the system gets a little more concrete, and I can probably define this part, as it’s rarer for a tea to get there.

• 71- 80: I really enjoyed this tea, enough to tell somebody about, and will probably hang onto it for a little longer than I perhaps should because I don’t want to lose it.

• 81 – 90: I will power through this tea before I even know it’s gone, and will re-order the next time the mood takes me.

• 91 – 100: This is one of the best teas I’ve ever tasted, and I will re-order while I still have a good few cups left, so that I never have to run out. This is the crème de la crème, the Ivy League of teas.

I never rate a tea down, and my ratings are always based on my best experience of a tea if I drink it multiple times. I feel that this is fairest as many factors could affect the experience of one particular cup.

I am always happy to trade and share my teas with others, so feel free to look through my cupboard and message me if you’re interested in doing a swap. I keep it up-to-date, although this doesn’t mean I will definitely have enough to swap, as I also include my small samples.
Currently unable to swap as I’ve returned after a long hiatus to a cupboard of mostly-stale teas I’m trying to work through before I let myself purchase anything fresh

I also tend to ramble on a bit.

Location

South Shields, UK

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