Lady T

Another more herbal tasting tea that might not exactly be up my alley on a less stressful evening, but that worked wonders for me this week. It’s fairly simple with a mix of chamomile (yuck!), rooibos, lavender, and vanilla. Those last three ingredients combined together get a nice big yum from me. Really loved the vanilla flavour used here in particular. With the lavender, it was sweet but also very relaxing.

Steeped this one up on Monday!

It’s definitely a very heavily spiced guayusa blend and there’s a lot going on that wouldn’t normally be up my alley. Ginger. Cardamom. Cinnamon. Like, it’s a ton of Chai spices and just a lot. However, it was a very cold day and it was blizzarding so hard outside that I felt more compelled than normal to steep something spiced. Plus, it’s got one BIG saving grace. From the dry leaf aroma all the way to the last sip. There’s a lot of lovely black licorice notes from the anise in the blend.

And I love black licorice teas…

Sipped on this one today and it was fine. Mind you, I don’t love bergamot too much but I do think the lemongrass is really complimentary and kind of emphasizes the aromatic citrus notes in a lovely way. My main thing is that there’s sort of a metallic kind of undertone to this tea, and I don[t think the earthiness of the turmeric helps it much. Some honey might have made a pleasant improvement to the flavour.

Geek Steep S2E9 – Star Trek: Lower Decks

So spoilers for our episode, but I did enjoy the fandom enough to keep watching outside of the initial episodes that Marika had picked for us. The bonus to continuing to watch was having a chance to redo my tea pairing with a better feel for the show.

It’s low hanging fruit, but I ended up choosing this Earl Grey variant. I’ve tried not to touch Earl Grey when doing Star Trek pairings because it’s just sooooo obvious, but having watched a few episode taking that direction of Earl Grey and choosing an unusually flavoured “variant Earl Grey” felt right because that’s kind of the heart of what this show is – a love letter to fans of Star Trek explored through a genre that’s never really been properly incorporated into the franchise.

I felt really good about this pairing because it was just fun and the series is also fun! Plus, this slightly more spicy and earthy turmeric Earl Grey is just a unique take in and of itself. I don’t reach for EG often in my normal tea drinking but I liked this one a lot in this context!

Cold Brew Sipdown (1532)!

I had low expectations for this one based on dry leaf smell. I wasn’t getting any lychee and the jasmine seemed dull and somewhat chalky smelling!? Steeped up it’s not too bad though; certainly vegetal and very clearly green tea but relatively smooth and approachable with heady thick jasmine notes and a pinch of juicy sweet lychee. I absolutely find myself wanting much, much more lychee flavour and wishing the overall profile was either lighter or brighter or both. However, it’s drinkable!