Sarjesa

Finding a bit of escape today from this grey and stormy afternoon through the gentle tropical flavours and subtle sweet ripe peach notes of this black tea. They’re both cheerful and calming, and the hint of earthy and warming ginger is the perfect cozy addition for this rainy day! Mmm…

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CcDp4Z_OmQJ/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-T6h-RqnCA&ab_channel=DavidDeanBurkhart

Cold Brew!

This tea gave me an immediate feeling of deja vu from the moment I took my first sip and it’s absolutely killing me that I haven’t been able to place why. I feel like it’s some deeply root childhood memory of some kind of pineapple juice box or something I would have gotten in a school lunch.

Aside from that persistent sense of familiarity, this was a pretty enjoyable tea. It’s very pineapple forward – and the kind of super natural/realistic pineapple that kind of “has some stank on it”. Know that I mean that in the nicest way possible – but it’s just that sometimes tropical fruits have this kind of waxy body odor taste to them that can be a turn off to people. Sometimes it is for me as well, but this wasn’t too strong and so more than anything it just read to me as super natural and tangy pineapple. I didn’t get a lot of peach, but I did get some ginger in the undertones and I really liked the pineapple/ginger combination. It was refreshing and broke up some of the stronger fruity flavours a lot more for me without being “too much” or having a distracting amount of spice. I actually buy a spicy pineapple soda that I love and, while the style of pineapple flavour is really different, the creeping heat of the ginger in the backdrop was similar and the overall “vibe” was sort of Jamaican leaning like that soda that I love so much.

Weirdly my gut feeling is that I’ll like this tea more hot, so I’m excited to try it that way and experiment. However, it’s unique and I thought the cold brew was tasty too!

#mugtober

Today’s theme was blue! I’ve been waiting for this one for a while so I could show off one of my favourite mugs in my collection – a blue cupid mug from Joro Studios. It took me almost a year of stalking her collection drops to manage to snag one. She sells out SO DAMN FAST.

For tea, it was no question at all that I’d be picking something blueberry flavoured. I just love blueberry teas so much. Truthfully, this one really is more like a straight black tea since the blueberry is so light – just a hint of dried blueberries in the finish and aftertaste. Otherwise it’s highly malty and floral with some woody and honey-like undertones to it. Very nice, especially when you want just that sliver of something extra on top of a brisk morning cuppa.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5LvLcDfpBs

Geek Steep S2E14 – The Dark Crystal

So this week’s episode of Geek Steep was filmed right in the middle of advent season, which we make abundantly clear with our long advent tangent right at the top of the episode…

This meant that on top of my eight advent teas for the day I was picking out a fandom pairing and then a tea for recording. This was the one I had during recording and I really seized the opportunity to steep up a tea that I had been craving for almost a week but hadn’t had time to drink on top of advent teas.

I just really needed a good, bold and robust black tea with just a bit of flavour. That describes this tea so perfectly – it’s just the best malty and rich thick black tea with a delicate note of blueberry that compliments really well. Simple but hit the spot!

Really love the straight forwardness of this blend! It’s basically your standard brisk and full bodied tannic and malty breakfast black tea but with just a kiss of a more cooked blueberry type of note. I had this cup straight and plain and I found it really lovely with a powerful overall flavour yet a gentle hand when it came to that flavour addition. I think it would be exceptional with milk and a tiny, tiny bit of sugar or honey though!