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Sipdown (539)!

This is the last of a sample from someone I traded with a long time ago that was lost to the depths of time last year. The rest of my work samples I have labeled with who gave it to me, but not this one. I had enough left here to just barely be enough for my teapot. I didn’t really want to break out the gravity infuser this afternoon, but I might still have to if the network doesn’t come up. We’re at an hour and a half of downtime so far as of writing this. I’ve been sort of cleaning my desk and organizing things but I’m really not sure what to do with myself with all this time that I should be working but I can’t work on anything because they push us to have everything on the server and it is and now we can’t work on it because the server is down. It’s very frustrating.

This is a touch bitter and mapley (?) somehow. It hasn’t been stored very well (ziplock bag) but it also hasn’t been stored next to a maple tea of any sort so it’s odd. The maple flavour is stronger in the aftertaste. I know this is supposed to taste like Red Velvet Cake but really I’m getting maple syrup. Not the good kind, the fake Aunt Jamima’s type of “maple” syrup that’s great on cheap pancakes when you don’t want to break out the expensive stuff. Not that I do that or anything… I may have underleafed a bit but the flavour on this is surprisingly clear and strong. The sip tastes like almost nothing with a touch of bitterness but as soon as I swallow BAM maple.

Yeah, I don’t know.

I’m writing this on a Word document because our network is down here at work and has been for the past 45 minutes as of writing this. I’m very bored and kind of anxious because I really need to get shit done today. I’ve only done 2 pomodoros so far because I got in late because of a couple of doctor appointments and then having to drive 35 miles in traffic. But one of the benefits of coming to work around lunchtime is that there are parking spaces near the building.

Anyway, the tea. This is a SIPDOWN (540) so there’s that. I will miss it until I order it again though because it is definitely a reorder. I used a bit more matcha than usual in order to get the last bits from the can. I’ll wash it as soon as I’m finished drinking if the network is still down. I’ve still got 6 opened matchas here at work so it’s still a sipdown work in progress. But anyway, this still tastes nice, though the flavouring has been fading with time. Not bitter at all and still quite tasty but I taste more matcha than flavouring. The hot latte is quite creamy today so I’m enjoying this.

Pretty sure my total will go back up again when I go home and open boxes but for this afternoon, I’ve done one sipdown. And I’m bored so I’m totally editing this for grammar mistakes. I still have a sentence fragment with the green squiggle underline but I think I’m going to leave it.

First time I’m having this with the ‘new’ Adagio parameters (aka, not boiling water for black base teas).

This blend is getting old and I’m really going to have to give some of it away if I’m going to get through it in a timely fashion. Maybe as a bonus tea in my next couple of swaps or something. Same with my other Adagio custom blend.

This is still slightly bitter, but not much, not even enough to bother me and I am super bitter sensitive. I pick up the hazelnut mostly and perhaps a touch of caramel but not much and none of the other flavours that are supposed to be in here either. Perhaps my tongue’s not up to it today after I abused it with honeybush yesterday. I have one more mug of this left before I can move on to a different tea. I really need to bring in a Finium basket to work. I bought one for this purpose and I just haven’t gotten around to doing it.

Also note to self, I need to bring in a chocolate tea or two because one of my coworkers wants one.

I really shouldn’t be drinking this tea. Really. Honeybush gives me an awful awful headache and I have a cat who wants attention who is interfering with everything I do right now. I could probably drink it now, it’s a good temperature, except I’m pretty sure the cup would get head booped right down my shirt. It’s taken me 5 minutes to write this paragraph.

Well, it’s sweet. It’s definitely sweet. I’m not in love with stevia, I actually dislike it quite a bit so that’s tempering my enjoyment of this. And it’s definitely giving me a headache, or bringing back the headache that I just managed to get rid of. But I definitely taste the vanilla and chamomile and they are very nice. Not picking up a whole lot of coconut but it’s quite creamy considering I didn’t put any milk in it. I don’t really pick up any lemongrass either.

So yes, I think if I could get over my sensitivities, this would be a pleasant cup but as it is, it is going into my swap bin.

I really really wanted a coconut tea this afternoon, on my sick day home from work. I’m not really sick but I got to sleep late and then slept super poorly and just could not get out of bed this morning. And by the time I felt better, it was past noon, so I just gave up on the whole day.

I told myself I wouldn’t open any more packages but I had no coconut teas open and I recently got this from The Tea Merchant in my order of teaware (and this, not a free sample, a whole couple of ounces I think). I’m glad I ordered it though because it is so very VERY nice.

I haven’t had many coconut teas before, much less white tea with coconut but I think right now that it is the perfect combination. There is a definite sweetness to this and a vanilla lingering taste. I’m also picking up something that is trying to taste like alcohol, without the alcohol burningness. Like maybe rum, I think. I usually don’t like rum in any form but it’s combining quite nicely in this. I wonder what’s causing that? Natural flavours ingredient perhaps.

At any rate, I’m glad this is so good because I’ll have to drink it up quickly before the coconut turns to soap. But this is, definitely, a very nice tea.

Made another cold smoothie. It tastes good but I need to figure out how to strike a balance between the insane amount of froth my blender produces and how blended the ice cubes are. Because there’s less froth this time but it’s much too chunky and I’m practically chewing this half the time.

A quandary. Have any of you out there encountered or fixed this problem?

So this was a gift during a trade with someone who’s name I can’t find. Thank you Mystery Person!

Generally speaking, I am NOT a fan of pu’erh. I am especially not a fan of Shu pu’erh. But I have it and I thought that I should try it. I had a little chunk of it with a label in a little plastic bag so here goes. I’m using my little yellow single person teapot and cup with the cats on them. I have a matching set of mugs, but the cup sits below the teapot when it is resting so I have a drinking vessel already.

I hope the pu’erh purists will forgive me, but I added a bit of sugar to each infusion because otherwise bitterness overwhelms everything. I will try to do this justice.

1st steep: 10 seconds: boiling water. This tastes really earthy and I’m not sure how to describe it. I’m not entirely turned off by it, and I’m rather surprised about that. I think I’m also getting a bit of that tea chaqi that Terri keeps mentioning. I’m feeling a little light-headed anyway and this after not even a cup of it.

Had to pour out the second steep because of reasons. Third infusion is 15 seconds, boiling water, and it’s not really noticeably darker than the first. I poured through a strainer because the parts keep coming off since the teapot doesn’t have it’s own strainer. This infusion is still a dark orange/brown colour and as I’m tasting it, the flavour has thinned out a bit but it’s becoming a bit more unpleasant for me. I think I will stop drinking this now and apologize for wasting this likely very nice tea when I truly have not developed a taste for shu pu’erh.

The new website seems to be having difficulty with saving the tasting notes. Or at least mine. This is the second time this has happened so far where it hung after the save button was clicked and then it loses my whole tasting note.

So here goes again: I underleafed this a lot because I didn’t come here and read about parameters first, my bad. I do have more of this in my Butiki order that I just unpacked so I will be able to try again.

I’m picking up faint hints of very sweet orange and a creaminess of the marshmallow (root or flavour or something. Vegan marshmallows) but not any chocolate. I’m going to hold off on rating this until I can brew it correctly.

I tried this because I felt I should. I wrote off guayusa a while ago but I thought to try it again because tastes change. I’ve been waiting for it to cool off for a while and it’s still hot but not burningly hot.

I am not sure how to describe how guayusa tastes to me, but earthy comes up a lot so I’ll use that. The mint really softens it down and makes it somewhat palatable. If I had to drink guayusa, this is a good one so far. It did, however, immediately give me a headache. I didn’t really get any vanilla except perhaps in the smoothness of the brew. It leaves an interesting aftertaste and a bit of a burning feeling in the back of the throat and for some reason behind my eyes.

It’s possible I’m sensitive to this as I am to honeybush so I think I’ll put some time between now and the next trial of this type of tea. If you do like guayusa though, I think this is a really good tea for you.

Have I had this before? It already has a rating so I must have. Which is good because I can’t tell how accurate this tasting note is going to be.

Let me preface this whole thing that my Breville desperately needs to be cleaned, as I just learned by making this tea, and I just bought some of those organic cleaning tablets on Amazon that should arrive in a couple of days (yay free two-day shipping!). Because…I had a bit of the unsweetened tea and it tasted vaguely of mold. So there’s that.

If I ignore that, it’s a very tasty tea. But yeah. Mold. I’m dumping the rest now that I’ve had a taste.