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Trying to remember the teas I had yesterday. The wine has my head a little fuzzy…

I made this one in the afternoon when I wasn’t really sure what sounded good. This ended up being a good choice. I brewed it at 180 for about 2.5 and then let it cool for about 5 minutes before I drank any. Both the chocolate and caramel are present and accounted for as is a nice strong black base. This is good dessert tea and no additions are necessary at all. Not sure I’ll have to keep this around all the time, but I can see reordering this from time to time.

After discovering how much tastier the Simpson & Vail teas are if they are steeped at a lower temp, I tried that with this tea. Often the 52tea flavors get lost by the bitter taste of the tea so I did this one for 2.5 @ 180. This is ok. I’m a little disappointed though. I was hoping for some buttery cake. I’m getting only brandy. And I do like brandy. So this is ok, but I was craving some buttery cake. Not that of Pineapple upside down cake, that’s straight cake, I wanted something with a good black base. I guess I’ll keep looking.

Backlog from yesterday

I got this in the mail yesterday and was super excited as I’m digging the flavored Genmaichas. I was a little nervous about the cherry flavor as cherry flavor often reminds me cough medicine and I absolutely hate cough medicine. I cannot take it. Yuck. Anyway, this doesn’t have any kind of cough mediciney taste at all. In fact, the cherry flavor is really good. This will definitely make it into my nighttime rotation.

I wasn’t having any luck with tea this morning. Made several cups that just weren’t working for me. I decided to give this one another try at a much lower temp (180) to see if this one improves like the almond sugar cookie. It definitely improved it and I enjoyed it a lot. It tastes nearly identical to the sugar cookie but substituting apple for the almond. I prefer the almond but can see craving this one from time to time.

I got this from culinary teas not realizing it is a different brand of tea. It comes in bags and not the fancy kind. The tea smells very blueberry candy-y dry. Once it steeped, I took a few sips and realized that this would be much better iced. It’s chilling in my fridge now and I’ll update this when I’ve tried it. Hot, it was very much an artificially blueberry tea, which was disappointing. I think it has good cold brew potential. I hope…

FYI whatshesaid this one definitely wasn’t worth the wait :-(

Jackie T gave me some good steeping advice for the S&V teas so I tried this one again. Man am I glad I did. This tea is ridiculous. So yummy. The cookie is spot on. No additions necessary this time around. I used about 1.5tsp per cup and steeped at 180 for 3 minutes. Resteeped for about 5 or 6 and still tasted great. Definite keeper. And the first time I made this I really didn’t like it much!

Backlog from this morning
Jackie T very generously gave a sample of this. I’ve been wanting to try it, but didnt want to buy it as I don’t like pancakes in general. But for some reason the tea sounds very appealing.
Unfortunately, I didn’t like it much. I couldn’t really taste anything out of it. But I do have a bit of a cold, so maybe that’s the culprit. I still have a bit left of my sample so I’ll try the rest when I’m cold free.

My son had itty bitty little tubes put it in his ears this morning. Not a big deal at all but required him to go under anasthesia. I chose this tea for my hospital day because 1) it’s delicious 2) can be resteeped a bujillion times. I simply threw some in my travel mug that has a strainer and then filled it over and over with the hot water from the pump and dumped it into my little paper cup. Worked perfectly. As did his procedure. Just waiting for the groggy little man to be awake enough for us to head home and eat popsicles all day!

I’ve been meaning to experiment more with keemuns. I had a bad one once that kept me away for awhile but its time to try again now that my tastes are evolving. Thankful Stacy included a sample of this with one of my recent orders. I’m on my 3rd steep and have enjoyed every drop! I think keemuns are definitely worth exploring. Love the honey sweetness of this paired with the rich flavor. Not sure I taste all the other subtleties mentioned in the description, but this is a sweet enjoyable cup! Thanks Stacy!

I was at a Japanese grocery store last week and in their tea section they sell large bags of the toasted rice used in genmaicha. First off, it’s so tasty just to snack on. Second, sizzling rice soup is one of my favorites soups ever but making the rice is a pain, this stuff is perfect! Finally, I’m having so much fun adding this to all varieties of tea. I added the rice to my movie night tonight and it was amazing. First steep was much more popcorn like than apple, which normally dominates, and the popcorn flavor tasted like it was from a movie popper, just a tad burnt, in a good way! The second steep tasted like a toasted apple tea, also very enjoyable. Tomorrow I’m going to add it to my morning tea just for giggles and see what happens! So far it’s made everything better!