Nothing But Tea

Ah yes, this is the good stuff. It’s been a long time since I last had any of this because I knew the tin was running frightfully low, but I made a cup this morning. I expect to keep these leaves going all day, and will definitely have to put in an order for more in the not too distant future.

(I need to optimise how I use the shopping list feature here…)

I was on greens and flavoured white all day yesterday but today I wanted something rather more hale and hearty. I had a small discussion with myself whether to choose this one or the equally wonderful Tan Yang Te Ji from TeaSpring. Ippy-dippy ended up settling the issue.

I’m running a bit low on this one now actually. I have plans to make some Kusmi purchases in replacement for the package that disappeared once I get paid, but I’ll have to see if I can make room in the budget for a Nothing But Tea order as well, I think. I was looking through their remodelled webshop yesterday and discovered that I can keep a wishlist there. Let’s just say that it would have been easier with an ‘add all’ button and then weed out the things I didn’t want later…

But this orange pu-erh is definitely something that I’ll have to re-stock. It’s one of those things that I must have in the cupboard at all times, even if weeks go by sometimes when I don’t drink it. I haven’t actually defined an entire Standard Panel of stuff I’ll always have around, but this one is definitely on it. It’s my perfect orange tea.

I find that oranges and pu-erh are flavours that go really well together. Mind you, this is a cooked one. I’m far less certain it would work as well with a raw. But then again, I don’t really care much for the raw ones anyway, so that’s not really my problem.

I’ve brewed myself a strong cup today, so it’s very earthy and dusty in flavour. The orange is strong, sort of enveloping the pu-erh flavour without taking over. It’s sort of like each sip is a bubble that tastes like oranges, and all the pu-erh flavour is on the inside of the bubble. And then it bursts. The aftertaste is long and orange-y and it puts that funny fuzzy feeling on the tongue the same as eating a really good and sweet orange does as well. It’s not astringency at all, but it’s vaguely similar to that sensation.

The best thing about it, however, is that it doesn’t taste in the least bit synthetic. Not even a little bit. It’s proper fruit and there is a lot of it.

(I’ve mentioned before how sometimes I associate a flavour with a specific colour. How Senchas tend to be a dark pine green and Chinese green teas all taste somewhat more light-green/yellow-ish. This one is orange-tinted brown for me.)

Greetings Steepsterites.

You may have noticed that I’ve been active on the ol’ Dashboard today.

No, I have STILL not received either of my missing packages from Kusmi and 52teas. I have merely caved to siren call of all that Dashboard activity that I wasn’t part of.

And I have justified it too. I did get at least one spoiler (one that I’m aware of anyway), but that couldn’t be helped. I figure if I give up, the packages will be there tomorrow so I can be annoyed at myself for not having held out just that little bit longer. Similar to how pots won’t boil while you’re looking at them, but when you decide there’s time enough for you to quickly do something else, they boil over.

So I looked. And I spoiled myself. And now I expect my packages to arrive tomorrow, dammit!

“Hey Angrboda, what’s in your cup?”

Well, hot cocoa actually…

This is a backlog from this morning. This is what I chose to have in my travel cup for the morning trek to work through unholy amounts of snow. Or okay, maybe just around 20 cm where I live, but it’s a WHOLE LOT MORE than what we’re used to seeing in November. Which is nothing.

Anyway, nothing out of the ordinary on the tea choice, except for the fact that I got some involuntary experimentation out of it this morning.

At first I thought my travel cup was somehow mysteriously broken. But then I realised that it was more likely that I had made tea as usual this morning. Put the kettle on while brushing my teeth and then poured it on the leaves when I was finished with that. Only I forgot to actually turn the kettle on.

Which means I got to try this little number cold-brewed this morning. It was okay, I guess. But the thing is I’m not really an iced tea sort of person. Especially not when I’m waiting 25 minutes for the train in ankle deep snow.

I have gone back to this one. An old favourite, and I’ve just discovered, very suitable for the season! In Denmark it seems we get the very best oranges in winter, so that makes it a very winter-y minded fruit for me. With the snow outside (already!) we can’t deny the fact that it’s officially winter now. This is very early indeed for us to get snow, and it’s just a little drizzle that melts as soon as it hits the ground either. I’ve got some five centimeters outside right now. It’s all white all over the place.

So sitting here looking out at the snow and drinking orange pu-erh, that’s contentment.

November is finally upon us! Let procrastination writing commence!

And no, as a matter of fact, I am not currently procrastinating by writing this post. I am resting. The key to a succesful NaNo is to know your own limits and I know that my ability to concentrate is microscopic. So I write in 15 minute spurts. And that’s gone well enough throughout the day that I can already smell the first 5000 words, which I hope to reach before bedtime. And it’s only twenty past seven. HAH!

So I am resting. Gearing up for the last 15 minutes needed for my goal and taking the time to stay in the writing zone with a Steepster post.

I’ve been drinking this one through out the day and have just made yet another steep of the same leaves. I think it must be the fourth or fifth time or something today. These leaves are SO durable.

I really think I’ve become completely addicted to pu-erh with orange flavour. I loved this when first I had it, nommed my way through the first 100g purchase, nommed my way through the one Wombatgirl sent me (different brand though) and am now nomming my way through the second 100g purchase. Next time I suspect I’ll have to up the amount to a 250g purchase, because this is one of those flavours I really don’t see myself getting tired of.

It works so well when there’s something I’m working on throughout the day, like for example NaNoWriMo, because I don’t have to think while drinking it and I can steep again and again and again so I don’t have to consider things like water temperature or what to have next or anything. It’s also become my absolute favourite tea to have in the travel mug in the mornings when I go to work, which also accounts for some of the rapid nomming.

If you like pu-erh and if you like oranges, I strongly suggest you do yourself the favour of seeking out the combination, because in my opinion these flavours compliment each other so well.

At this point it’s become a stable tea for me, one that I’m very familiar with and know exactly what to expect from. But because the flavours are so well suited for each other and also very intense, it remains interesting to drink. As mentioned before, it’s not something that I can see myself getting bored with anytime soon.

Therefore I’m kicking the score all the way up to 100.

I’m so behind on my dashboard it’s not even funny. pokes it But I am still here, lurking a bit, and trying to concentrate on paying attention to what I eat so that maybe, just maybe I might be able to fit into that summer dress I bought last year, never got to wear and now a bit tight round the middle.

At least there are no calories in tea. Cheers Steepsterites.

I’m on an orange pu-erh kick these days. It started a few days ago, where I made a cup because I remembered having heard about various slimming qualities and fat reducing qualities and what have you that it supposedly has.

Let’s be honest. I don’t really believe all that stuff. Yes, maybe it does have some small positive effect, but there is no such thing as ‘Miracle Food’. It doesn’t exist. The secret lies in a varied and balanced diet, exercise and overcoming the siren call of fatty treats, hence the calories… So called Miracle Food alone will NEVER do the trick. Ever.

I know tea in general contains a lot of great things, but let’s be honest, if you eat right, you’ll get them anyway.

It was merely a reminder that I had it in the first place, and now I’m drinking it because it tastes absolutely lovely. And that’s the only reason. It’s a relaxing well-tasting thing to drink and I really wish people would stop trying to turn it into a chemistry lesson.

Okay, rant over. You can go back to your cups now.

You know what, screw the sample box. The Curse of Murphy’s Law has been upon me all day, and I need a treat.

This is, after all, the first DROP of tea I’ve had ALL DAY! And I’ve survived until dinnertime on only three bananas and a glass of milk, and before taking the train home, the best cafe latte in the world ever.

But it’s still not the same as a cup of real tea.

And you know what? This tea was pretty awesome from the sample I had. It’s infinitely better whne bought in a proper quantity. There are big bits of dried orange in it too, which I didn’t see any of in the sample. I know they’re little more than decoration, but they’re still part of the overall impression one gets of the product.

It’s much more orange-y now. I think it’s because I’m also dosing the leaves differently than I did with the sample packet.

I would really advise all of you to go out and try an orange flavoured pu-erh. Orange and pu-erh flavours suit each other amazingly well.

Oh yum. I can’t even begin to describe how much I needed this.

(Also, I went and bought some new tea to have at work (on days where I have time to get some, mind!) for me and my boss, and I went into a tea shop in the city where I work and asked her for an oolong off the darker end of the spectrum and she looked at me funny. Then showed me two and pointed out a difference in leaf size. And said something about ‘half-fermented’. She has a tea shop. Isn’t she supposed to know that oolongs come in more than just the one colour and degree of fermentation? And that ‘half-fermented’ is a relative term? And is she really going to stand there and show me a ‘Formosa Oolong’ and a ‘Taiwan Oolong’ and try to make me believe they don’t come from the same general area? REALLY??? I would have headdesk-ed but I was honestly too busy looking like this: O.o
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is just one more in the long list of reasons I don’t like using that particular shop much.)

Teaplz had the blood orange pu-ehr from Samovar earlier and it inspired me. Since then there were a couple other citrus-y posts, so maybe we’ve got the Citrus Craze coming in? It’s been a while since we’ve had one of those flavour-trend days, hasn’t it? I just got a (regular) orange pu-ehr sample after all, and feeling optimistic due to the very successful pot of the lemon oolong, I thought why not continue on the citrus line?

The leaves look like a black tea. They’re small and well, black, and they smell largely of orange rind. Not much else, to be honest. On the other hand, it’s not a synthetic orange smell, so I’m not really sure whether or not to be worried here.

After steeping, though, I’m very pleased to say that my nose detected an absolutely delicious pu-ehr smell. Vaguely cow stable-ish. Not really how a cow stable actually smells, but more the memory of the way it smelled when you were very very little and visited your great-grandparents on their farm and your great-grandfather took you with him out to tend to the animals. I can’t actually remember him doing that, but I’m sure he must have, you know? And I associate the smell with that and with them. I sincerely doubt my great-grandparents would have liked this, and I don’t even know if they drank tea at all, but the smell reminds me of their house. I can remember what the kitchen looked like and the little pantry where my great-grandmother fed me jam with a spoon straight out of the glass (“because that was such a nice little mouth, it couldn’t hurt”) and I remember the low ceilling of the living room with my great-grandfather at the end of the table with his pipe and how you had to pass through the cold cold hallway at the back to get to the bathroom, how the garden looked like and the ‘nice’ livingroom which was ONLY used on special occasions. Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent into my earliest childhood memories there. My very first encounter wtih pu-ehr I didn’t like the smell very much , but now a couple of years later pu-ehr, to me, smells like these memories.

Let’s get back to the tea. The taste is very pu-ehr. Not so much orange. Mind you, it’s been so long since I’ve last had a proper plain pu-ehr (or any sort of plain pu-ehr, actually) that in the mmmmm pu-ehr!-ness of it, I’m completely missing out on the orange-ness. If I concentrate though, I can find it sort of at the end of the sip, and it’s going very well with a piece of chocolate. The pu-ehr itself is… I can’t really describe it. I can’t really tell you about tasting notes here at all because it’s just…. pu-ehr! It tastes like pu-ehr! Yummy, but just pu-ehr.

I’m enjoying this enormously, but unlike the lemon oolong, I’ll have to put some thought into whether or not it’s something I want to stock up on.

Another tin emptied. This is the second steep actually, and since I’m feeling a little cranky and non-social at present, my brain decided that sweets were needed. Which then led to the thought that this might be quite nice with a little liquid honey in it. Make it sort of a lemon curd flavoured tea instead.

Alas, we have no liquid honey, or any other sorts of honey in the house. Instead of then using a little cane sugar like a normal person, Muggins here decided to give maple syrup a try instead.

Well, Muggins here should not be allowed to start inventing while preparing tea. It’s not working. Not one bit. Oh it’s perfectly drinkable, but the lemon flavour is completely broken and the whole thing has turned into something fairly generic and boring tasting.

Who could have thought one teaspoon of maple syrup could have such a large effect?

Even worse, it has made me want pancakes. Maybe I’ll get some batter mix one of these days and see if the boyfriend wants to share with me. We are on holiday, after all.

Ooooooh it’s been a long time since I had any of this!

It seems a good choice for today. Something refreshing and pick-me-up-y. It’s coming in on a day where I’ve been drinking a good tea at work and been unable to get anything really good out of it, and I’ll tell you why because it has to do with why I’m having lemon oolong now.

My boss made tea for us today and asked me to guess which one it was. When faced with this challenge, what do you think my problem was?
a) tasting it the first time when it was still so hot you can’t taste anything.
b) having it out of a travel mug that held pu-erh the same morning.
c) having it out of a travel mug that is rather due for a cleaning.
d) all of the above.

If you guessed d, have a virtual cookie. Of course me having all these excuses just made her laugh at me. Oh well. She had made me a chingwo and I think I asked her three times if she was sure it wasn’t something fruity.

The rest of the day it just tasted wrong because my brain kept insisted on it having something fruity in it. I was that certain before I gave her my first guess. No fruit, though. It just goes to show how difficult blind tasting actually is. When we drink tea here we can relatively easily tell the different types and regions apart because we know what we’re having and what we can expect from that area. It all gets a lot more difficult when we’re forced to analyse the aroma and flavour all the way from the bottom up to figure out what we’re having. Even when it’s something relatively well known.

And THAT is why I’m having the lemon oolong now. This one is obvious. You can’t sneak this one around anybody, not even in a pu-erh tainted dirty travel mug at well above boiling.

It’s fruity lemony and fresh, with deep green vegetative notes of the oolong. Oolong with lemon rather than lemon on oolong. Nicely spring-y, this one. Now that I have my Standard Panel figured out, maybe the next project should be my perfect seasonal teas? I nominate lemon oolong for spring tea.

Attention Wombatgirl

I’m having our lemon oolong today.

Mmmmmm! :)

Look what I rediscovered!

Lemon-y fresh. Although for some reason the freshness is somewhat absent today. It’s just lemon oolong today. No pizzazz!

What the H happened to my pizzazz? Give it back!

I changed the steeping parameters around a bit. 25% more leaf, 25% shorter steep. And I think therein lies the problem. I’ll try the new steeping time again and then add some more leaf for the second steep.

What I’ve actually got coming through is the oolong first and foremost. A sweet oolong, rather grassy and very green tasting. Not as green as the Dong Ding which didn’t even taste oolong-y but something along those lines. i can’t get it any closer than that.

The lemon is more sort of hovering above everything, being there and giving freshness and flavour, but somehow keeping a little to itself. It’s a bit like there’s a middle layer of sharpness missing here.

Of course this is written towards the bottom of the cup and the tea has cooled off rather a lot by now. It may have been there when it was newly brewed, but I wasn’t really paying attention to it then, being busy with the archeological dig that was my lack of filing system. (Would you know! There were letter trays underneath all that paper!)

So did the leaf modification help with the second steep?

The answer here is yes.

This is the real good thing. The tea isn’t so tea-y and the lemon is much more sparkly fresh. And a sweet-y-sour-y sharpness on the tongue, all juicy and lemon-y fresh.

It makes me want to eat strawberries. Om nom nom nom!

♥

I made it all the way through the flower-y soap water, although I changed my mind about a new rating, but I still think I deserve the reward/compensation that I had lined up.

For one thing, to remove the aforementioned from my tongue’s memory, for another thing to be able to cross one more sample off the Lockdown List of DOOM but mostly to see if it really was that good.

I remember it as almost otherworld-y nommy. But can anything really be that awesome?

Can it?

The answer is a resounding YES!

It’s so nice and fresh. Perky even. And it’s every bit as yummy as the infamous raspberry oolong, which is pretty much the standard I hold all flavoured oolong up to. Well. All flavoured dark type oolong. This might very well be the green type oolong standard.

It’s my perfect lemon tea.

Nothing But Tea order has arrived and I’m starting with this one. I bought the oolong sample set and the pu-ehr sample set so that’s about 15 or so 10g samples.

I’ve never had a lemon oolong before, but it strikes me as a flavour that would go well with oolong. The leaves have that deep green colour that I love in an oolong and there are some large bits in it that I think must be lemon bits. It smells lemony too, but not synthetic.

In the cup it’s as yellow as a lemon, which seems fitting. I’m pleased to find that while there is a lemon note in the aroma, it’s still very much smelling like an oolong. The lemon just feels so natural there.

I like this. It tastes very much like it smells. It’s a good solid oolong, Tie Guan Yin-ish even, which as you know is sure to make it a number one hit with me, and the lemon is just there. Discreet, but strong. It just FITS, you know? Like you go ‘mmmmm, oolong’ and then ‘wait, lemon!’

It’s like it just belongs here in the oolong. The finishing touch flavour.

Now, anybody willing swap backs with me?

I gave up on sleep at 6:50 am, got up, started installing multiple programmes on the computer, and made a pot of this tea for the first time ever (my first pu-erh too) Obviously it’s going to be one of those days.

I have no idea what I think of it. Earthy and sort of musty tasting but somehow not unpleasantly so; it tastes – and this is gonna get weird – you know in The Magicians Nephew by C. S. Lewis, the wood between the worlds? If you put some of the mud from that place in a teapot and brewed it I think it would taste like this.

I can’t even tell if I like it or not.

There’s a delicate taste of ginseng, but it’s only just there and I really prefer Oolong Tea Shop’s ginseng oolong. This is practically flavourless and the leaves aren’t even unfurling at all. I won’t be buying a larger pack and I’m dubious about trying the fancy ginseng oolong now.

I’m upping my rating a bit because of more teas coming in at my lower end. I won’t be buying more of this from NBTea, but I’m at least drinking it.

I’m not impressed. I was hoping for something similar to Tea Pigs’ Popcorn Tea, and this isn’t in the same league (actually if Tea Pigs’ league exploded this tea wouldn’t hear the bang for a few days.)

The green tea taste is bitter, and I’ve tried multiple steep times, temperatures, and leaf amounts to try and get around it – to no avail. The nuttiness from the rice is very weak. I’m regretting buying a 100g pouch, to be honest.

This also tastes lovely cold-brewed. 2 tsp of tea to 500 ml of filtered cold water, put it in the fridge for 3 hours to brew, then filter and drink. Very delicate cherry flavour; I could drink it all day but really like taking it with me to drink when I’m swimming laps.

When I opened the packet I decided that even if I hated the taste, the smell of this is glorious. Fortunately the taste carries through. There isn’t much flavour in the drinking itself (I may try a longer steep-time next to see if I can change that) but the aftertaste is lingering and delicious.

Not one for people who don’t like cherries.

Edit: more green tea taste coming through on the second steep.

I actually forgot about it and steeped for 10 minutes, which is longer than I normally do for my rooibos, but it tastes very nice. Sweet but refreshing with some nicely complicated flavours, I will definitely be ordering more (for the studio, this one has my evil twin’s seal of approval too, and that just doesn’t happen with rooibos teas. We may have found a replacement for TeaNoir’s Bangkok!!)

I really like this. I’m on my third steeping from the same leaves, and all cups so far have tasted good. It has a slightly malty taste which reminds me of some milk oolong I tried from a different company.