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Story Time: Had my first guitar lesson today. I have been take bass ones for years, but I want to learn how to better compose music and play guitar. The guitar teacher my dad told me about is perfect for that. I can’t wait for next weeks lesson.

Tea Time:Made up a big two steep combine batch today. I love this tea when it has been in the fridge and cooled downed. I put in a bit more leaf then normal though and noticed a stronger astringency taste. Next time I will reduce it back.

Story Time: I finally got my Iggy Pop and the Stooges CD in today. I got the original Raw Power CD; before it was horribly remixed. It is a lot less over buzzed and pushed unlike the new one. I just wish I could play it louder so I can get the full effect, but I think my mom is starting to doze off; it is 9:20 PM.

Tea Time: I don’t think I used enough for my first steeping. I tried first using my teaspoon, but I don’t think it will work for this tea. It didn’t have right color and hue has it did online

Steep 1: The smell of the brew is like earthy flowers. First sip was spicy. Almost like cardamom. Next sips are not as spicy, but they sort of cool your tongue and have this buttery floralish taste to it. Is this a maltyness I taste? definitely a product of the ageing, since white tea never has this. This almost taste like a white chia tea. I can taste cloves.
cooled: More maltyness and clove appearing with a buttery floral after taste.
And all this was from not using enough leaf!

Steep 1.1: This almost smells like a black tea. It’s earthy and malty smelling.
This taste malty for sure. It has a sort of spice to it and with a hit of clove. Very smooth and leaves a sweet, crispy floral taste on the tongue. It is almost like a black tea minus the coco or darker bite black tea has.
It has cooled down some now. It isn’t as sparkly or quite as floraly, but the malty is showing through more. Going to put this in the freezer to cool it down more…
Way more malty. I can still taste a bit of clove. This is not crispy anymore, but more smooth and buttery. It is like a black tea without the astringency or darker tones. SIP: do I detect some clovey coco? Hmmm….. I can’t tell if I like it cool or hot. Must test more

Steep 2: This smells almost like coco….. MADNESS! The liquor is Yellower as well.
hmmm… I can’t taste an uber difference. Though it cooled a little more that I liked. This is starting to have an unusual mix of black and white tea quality’s. Malty, clovey, earthy, sweet, tingly, floral, crisp. SIP: I made sure to try to breath in and sip. I am getting the faintest of coco malt from it. My tongue feels like it has a pinch of spice put on it, but not heat spice, sting spice.

more luke warm/cool: less flora sparkle, but more malt.

Later on: My tongue almost feels the same way after I drank the zhu rong. Sort of savory and cyan.

Cold: More of a malt taste with a strong clove and earthiness. It seems that when this cools it gets more malty and aged flavor. It also seems to have a bit of spice sort of to it. SIP: wow really strong malt and clove. Like a punch to the face. Not sure if I like it or not.

Steep 3: Seems more sweet and floral with clove malt mixed in. Dang, I burnt the tip of my tongue. I hope this doesn’t hurt my tasting. SIP: Still seems more floral and crispy with less malt. It seems sort of i don’t know, grainy… ricey. It’s luke warm now. Malty grain is there, but with what seems to be a bit more floral.
Cold: Not nearly as clovey as the other cold brew. It has a little bit more noticeable floralness to it. Very sweet and sliky. It almost seems to have a strong earthy malty……and even coco like after taste. I would say that the taste is more of a expected white tea, but with the maltyness of dark tea. Definitely taste more grainy as well. Interesting……..

Steep 4: Smell more floral
Starting to get more of a classic white tea taste. Very crispy floral and has a hint of clove. SIP: Still more expected white tea taste, yet slightly deeper.
More luke warm now. I am getting a bit more malt and semolina flavor. It also leaves a sweet and savory after taste. SIP: The clove and malty is becoming more pronounced. My tongue still has this spicy tingle on it. I am also getting some honeysuckle as well in the after taste
I am noticing Luke warm is more like a mix of it being hot and cold; it is a lot less clovey.

Cold: The clove once again is very pronounced. However there is hints of other floral flavors as well. Also the malt and more pronounced. There is more a of a lingering semolina flavor in the after taste. SIP: Still VERY CLOVEY. I’m not sure if I like this when it is cold. The clove can get to be sickening.

Ok by this point I think I am tea drunk and sick. I didn’t eat anything before I started, since I thought it might hurt my pallet. However I hadn’t eaten anything in a while. Ugh, my stomach hurts a little and my eyes feel glazy. It is because of this that I decided to stop and eat some pretzels and do a weird brewing session. Sometimes with teas like this I will brew them for a long time to extract all the liquor from them and get a supper over infused cup. I know this sounds blasphemous, but sometimes it works…… sometimes it doesn’t.

Steep 5: After brewing for 25 minutes in a makeshift gaiwan in about 8-9ish ounces:
This smells is like a black tea…..hmmm
With no sweetener: The liquor color is a clear light brown…. Interesting. This taste like a black tea, but with clove and not as deep, and with a little astringency.
Sweeten with agave: Taste more like a black tea, but the bitter astringency is gone. It’s definitely clovey. It is like black tea, but less strong, yet not washed out. A lot stronger coco malt as well. Very smooth…

Overall I am very intrigued by this tea. It has such potential that when I can I am going to buy a cake to age it more to enhance its flavor. I must say that the whole time I was tasting this though I kept thinking how this would taste if used for a chai or with a added fruit flavor. Something to help complement its’ profile.

P.S. The Liquor become yellower with every infusion. Also the wet leaf smells like a black tea with bits of coco.

I would recommend this to pu’er lovers and white tea lovers

Unrelated: This is one of my favorite songs from the Album I bought
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPyUXb2QwDM&list=PL0F4F1D0F36A715C1&index=70&feature=plpp_video

Specifics
Used a mug covered with a saucer as a gaiwan; and would pre heat before brewing.
Water amount: About 6 ounces for all but the last infusion.
Leaf: um I think 5 grams, or close to that.
Steepings: Fallowed the directions from the site except for the last one.
Sweetener: non except for the last.

Story Time: School is still going pretty well, even though I don’t have a lot of time to make tea like I did over the summer. meh… I am kinda mad that one of my graphic design classes is a dud. The teacher doesn’t really know what he is doing./rages\ At least the other ones are good.

Tea Time: I have had this sample from Azzrian for a while, but kept forgetting to post a note about it.
The smell of this is your typical nice and true EC smell…hmmm. The liquor is more of a brownish color then red; and smells like a typical EC. This one is defiantly more of a light EC flavor. It does have a sort of odd sour aftertaste. Overall it is a good simple Earl Grey. Not spectacular, but good and simple.

Overall I would recommend this to someone who likes lighter Earl Greys.

P.S. This song has been stuck in my head lately for some reason. At least I know got around to buying the album…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPyUXb2QwDM&feature=g-vrec

P.S.2: Thanks Azzrian for the sample
****************
Specifics
Water: 28 ounces
Pot: Glass
Leaf: 3 tsp
Sweetener: almost 1 tbsp for a 10 oz mug

Story Time: School just started up again last week. I think this semester won’t be too bad. Most of the classes I have are in graphic design. It has been raining and gray for the past few days now thanks to the storm out in the gulf. I don’t mind the rain(I like it), but when i goes on for so long I get sooooo lazy.

Tea Time: This awesome sample was from Will Work For Tea
Being a coconut lover I was really excited to try this tea. The smell of this is like smelling a bag of sweeten coconut flakes…..YESTH! The leaf makes a really nice reddish liquor as well. OMG This smells and taste like drinking sweeten coconut shavings mixed with cream. IT IS SOOO GOOD!!! The only thing that is holding it back is that i don’t really taste the pie crust or something like that.

Overall I would highly recommend this to someone who is a coconut lover.

P.S. You can get two good steepings from this.

Specifics
Leaf: 2.5oz
Water: 28oz
Pot: Glass
Sweetener: about 1 tbsp light agave per 14 oz glass

Story Time: Well I have experienced food poisoning for the first time. I ate some of my left over stir fry that I think was a day or two past prime. For that night and to late after noon I was suuuuper nausea’s. Luckily I felt good enough to eat tonight, but man that was not fun. I think I am going to wait to make my stir fry again though for a while.

Tea Time: My Verdant tea order came in today. Even though I was not going to buy any more tea so i can get WHO tickets, as soon as I saw the email from Verdant Tea saying that they had sample sizes, the impulse was just to great to ignore. This one was the sample sent with it. It is funny cause I was planning on trying this one, but was going to have to wait due to money constraints. Maybe David is psychic…

The tea leaves look really interesting. I have never seen white tea look like this before; then again i don’t normally drink white tea. The smell of the leaf is light, but crisp.

I was a little nervous when I noticed that the liquor had no color when it was done brewing; but i had to remember that this is white tea of course. The liquor itself smelled crisp and a little dewy….ohhhh.

The first sip of this warm was good, but not OMG! However, I figured this would be better cooler then warmer so I let it set for a bit. I am glad I did. This tastes soooooo refreshing. Very sparkly on the tongue and taste like dew off of pine needles, and taste like how a summer rain smells. The after taste is great. It leaves this cooling dewy sensation in your mouth.

This is a highly addicting tea. I have been make a half and hour long brews from this tea. I am leaving the rest in a mug to cold brew over night to see what comes of it.

I have been intriged by the concept of pu erd white tea. I must say I think it adds a nice level of earthy fullness to white. I diffidently will be trying Verdant Tea’s other pu erd white tea and the alchemy mix with this tea.

I would recommend this tea to white tea lovers and anyone interested in trying a white pu er.

Specifics
Water: 8 oz steepings
Pot: Make shift Gaiwan
Sweetener: sometimes a couple of drops, but not really needed.

I added a stick of cinnamon and a few cloves to this before I took my brother to night class. (currently waiting in the lobby for it to end). The adding of the spices really added to and awakened this tea’s potential. It really taste like pumkin pie minus the crust. And oh the creaminess…. (K^>)

Story Time: Ok ever since I heard that The Who was going to be playing in Orlando I have been wanting to get tickets. At this point though I am determined to get the two floor seats that are available. I have been selling off all my old college books and other stuff on Craigslist; which is going pretty well.

On a tea note I was going to get a Brown Betty teapot, but getting those tickets is the priority now. Also I want to thank Verdant Tea’s for making individual sample sizes of their tea. I have been wanting to try their tea for so long now, but lacked the funds. Now I just need to find a good Gaiwan to test them in.

Tea Time
I got this awesome sample in a tea trade with Will Work For Tea.

The dry leaf smells very creamy and like pumpkin from the can with a minor sent of sour cream… interesting. It brews up a nice golden tan color too. The smell of it though is a bit odd. It smells very strongly of sour cream to me; the taste does not. ZOMG this tea is SUPER CREAMY!!! Very smooth and velvet and leaves a soft feel in the mouth. The flavor is not really a pumpkin spice, but more like a pumpkin and cream shake mixed with tea and a little pinch of spice. I can’t wait to try this with a cinnamon stick in it.

If you are a fan of TF2 you have to listen to this…. or even if your not, it is epic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbNwvQXkYrY&list=LLVE6XBMoZYemnrtOIql1QLw&feature=mh_lolz

Over all I would recommend this tea to people who want a really creamy and un-spicy pumpkin flavor

specifics
Water: 28oz
Pot: Glass
Sweetener: almost 1 tbsp in a 10oz mug
Leaf: 3 tsp