Kaley Tea

Day 20 of the Tea Thoughts winter countdown box. I don’t think I’ve ever had tea in this format before. It’s a bundle of leaves tied with a string at one end. You brew it up like a teabag and don’t need a steeper or filter because the string holds the leaves together and allows you to remove them easily when it’s done steeping. I suppose flowering tea balls are a close cousin to this format because they’re typically tied together, but I’ve never seen a tea ball with a string allowing you to remove it easily. Flavor-wise, it’s a bit thin but inoffensive. On the savory vegetal side rather than sweet or grassy. I just don’t have much more to say about the flavor, unfortunately!

Adventageddon Day 20

What an insanely cool looking tea to come from the Tea Thoughts advent today! I know that the company refers to it as a cigar and I can see why, but personally it made me think a lot of a bundle of campfire wood or even a pine tree all tied to itself before being brought home as a Christmas tree…

My gut impulse was to gongfu this tea thing, but I looked up the steeping through Nazanin’s info card and the company website just because it was a nice “format” of tea to me and I wanted to see if there was a traditional way to make it or any other type of recommendation, and it seemed like it was portioned out to be the right amount of tea to just let steep directly into a mug – so that’s what I did instead.

Honestly (and maybe this is me bringing in some bias towards green teas) I sort of felt like the flavour was a little lacking? I steeped it for actually longer than recommended because my initial sips were so light, but it just didn’t really get much strong and the flavour is pretty muted tasting to me overall. Definitely far from being astringent or bitter, which was kind of concern I had when I first saw how much tea was in this one cigar. I can barely get a sort of bean-y edamame or soy note and just a bit of nuttiness.

Overall opinion? Form factor is VERY cool here, but the taste is underwhelming. And taste trumps aesthetics, so it’s a little disappointing…

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DD0PAQWSm53/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58wkovYRuzo&ab_channel=slenderbodies