Various Artists

Yesterday was such a wonderful Day!
Sil, we didn’t play any games, but yes!
I drank tea, lots & lots of tea! And I can’t remember what I drank! LOL
Tony drank Della Terra’s Earl Grey Creme, which was sent to me awhile back from Sil, & he really enjoyed it! After everyone left I finished cleaning up, then went to Tony’s to watch more episodes of Supernatural, hahaha, we’re in the middle of season 4 now!

So I came home & Ms Theresa conned me into starting the ‘tea organizing job’. Hours later (3am to be exact), the job was still not complete.So today has been all about updating & organizing my Stash of Tea. It’s ridiculous & I’m almost done. And I ordered more tea because I realized I was out of a few things. I’m never allowed to order tea again (Ms Theresa said that…but she has to sleep sometime…mwahahaha).

I’ve been so busy today! Not too busy to drink tea, just too busy to post about it. So here’s a brief recap, before I return to being busy!
- Fortnum & Mason’s Breakfast blend, from Sil via BBBBox. Nice & robust!
- No. 49 Assam from Steven Smith, yeah baby!
- Guang Dong Phoenix Dan Cong Oolong – Thank you Angel of Teavivre. I oversteeped, so it was a little bitter. I believe this will be much better gongfu
- Hattialli golden Lion, Butiki: I underleafed, so it was a little weak, but still tasty
- Dinjoye Estate Assam, Butiki: That’s what I’m drinking now. It’s a pretty potent assam!
Sorry to say so little about each tea, I have a student walking in, gotta go! :)

Just a quick note to log the other teas I drank. I posted them with the app, but received a notice that they didn’t post. I don’t remember the exactly what the note said, but here’s what I drank today (cuz I’m tired, & just too lazy to pull up separate pages on each one):

At the first gig from 7:30 – 9am I had Black Gold (which successfully posted) & Black Beauty (yum). Both from Mandala. I also drank a cup of Elderberry before I left the house, because I was feeling a little bit like I might be getting sick, & since I’m pretty behind on sleep, I figured it might be a good idea. I need to stop by Cheryl’s herbs & get some more.

In between gigs I stopped by the house for 15 minutes to refill my travel mugs & take a few bites of something (I can’t even remember what I ate!)
At the 2nd gig, from 11:15 – 1:15, I drank Irish Breakfast (Butiki) & Teavivre’s Superfine fragrant Keemun.

When I got home I had Hattialli Golden Lion.
I wish I would be giving more details on all of these teas, but lets just say I thoroughly enjoyed them all.

I’m using the Steepster app, while I wait for my breakfast to arrive. I played another early morning gig today, out the door at 6:30am. The teasI brought along this morning were laoshan black & laoshan black chocolate genmaicha.

Happy USA Thanksgiving & Happy Hannukah!

I spent the day making food, as did my daughters. It took 2 kitchens, 3 chefs, & 2 sous chefs (my sons), then we transported the food made at my house to my daughter’s house (1 block away), & the feast was on.

Meanwhile, I DID drink tea, several pots full, most of which I’ll have to review the next time I drink them, but I also tried a delicious experiment, which I’ve been dying to share all day. Here it is:

1.5 Tb Laoshan Black + 1.5 Tb Shui Jin Gui Oolong + 1 cinnamon stick + 1 vanilla bean (after I used the seeds in something else), chopped up.
All of these were combined in my 16oz green cash iron dragonfly teapot.
Steep 3 minutes, and Oh My God!!! I also tried adding a little maple…
And of course, there were the resteeps…sigh…

I’m grateful for tea!

I’m starting the morning with a Breakfast Assam from a local tea company that is less than 5 minutes from my front door. I’m not going to share the name of the company, lest I incur the wrath of locals who think this tea is awesome. For them it probably is. For me, it’s just ok. Every time I brag on FB about a tea company I love, I get private messages from local friends wanting to know why I’m not encouraging people to ‘buy locally’ by promoting this company. They don’t get it. I can’t explain it without sounding like the snob that I am (and if you knew me, you would know that tea & good food are the only things I’m snobby about, & I don’t mean to be. I like good quality consumables, & if I’m going to drink tea & eat food, it’s gonna be damn good, or I probably won’t bother).

Final note: I realize that not every tea company can afford to go spend weeks in China, Taiwan, India, or wherever. Thus is life. If you’re selling mostly broken leaves that are probably way past their prime, & charging premium prices, don’t expect me to buy it & brag about it.
My rant is complete. Thank you.

While I was at traveling tea, I bought several samples. I promise if I actually buy a larger amount, I will add a page for them. I already tried 2 of them:
Peachy peach is a rooibos peach blend (duh). It’s nice enough, using real peach pieces

Pumpkin chai is the bomb!! It’s also a rooibos blend, with locally grown & dehydrated super thin pumpkin slices & chai spices. I must have more!

I stopped by the Traveling Tea company, a local tea shop.
I bought several samples, & so far I tried the Golden Halo Organic. It’s a nice little yunnan. Sorry I’m too lazy to add a listing for it, I get tired of doing that sometimes.
http://www.traveling-tea.com

I’ve been packing up the BBBBox for Sil & Tasty Brew, with a couple of black teas & a sweet little trick or treat surprise (never mind that they won’t get it for awhile, lol).

I’ve also packed up my latest collection of samples for You, Sil!
And because of that, I get to count the following Sipdowns:
Coconut Milky Oolong – The Tea Spot
Smokejumper Ginger – The Tea Spot
Qu Hao Silk – The Tea Spot
Russian Caravan – The Tea Spot
Blackberry Custard – Trail Lodge Teas
I was gonna send the last of the Trail Lodge Caramel Oolong, but one of the boys drank it!

This has been a busy morning! First I dropped my car off for an oil change, then I had consultations with 2 different brides & their mothers. The first bride came at 10. She drank ‘Refresh’ by Tazo, her mother drank Republic of Tea’s Ginger Peach black tea over ice. I drank a cup of Laoshan Black.

The 2nd bride came at 11. We all drank Bergamot Rose Laoshan Black. They loved it!

A quick backtrack off yesterday, because I DID drink a lot of tea!
Crazy me, saturday night I stayed up til 3am, because I decided to redo my entire Bridal Fair display, & there were things that I needed to do at the last minute. I’m not always great at thinking very far ahead.

So yesterday I got up at 7, took a quick shower, & brewed 2 steepings of The Black Lotus. 1.5 went into my go cup, the other .5 was drank while stumbling around the house, loading the final bit of stuff into the car, etc. The go cup of tea was enjoyed while driving & unloading my gear into my booth. Then I went to breakfast. My first 2 cups of tea there were meant as a test of the water, using tbags that were in my purse. I drank a cup of Tazo Awake (pretty bitter), & a cup of Twinings English breakfast, which was acceptable. Then I pulled out the Anxi Fo Shou, had 3 cups of that (3min/4/5). Thank you Verdant Tea!
Then I poured 6 Mandala Black pearls into my portable brew basket on top of the Anxi & ran 2 more steeps (4/5), refilling my go cup, & savoring the last bit. This kept me happy for an hour at the Bridal Fair.
I was able to refill my cup with hot water at the fair one more time, dropping 2 Tazo Chai bags in there with some stevia.
Final tea of the day, once it was all over with & I was at Tony’s house in my pjs, a lovely cup of Bilbo Brew.
A long day, but luckily with some tasty teas, & hopefully profitable in the long run as well.

I’m trying to get myself to drink things that I don’t always drink, & I have this Yerba Mate sample from the Tea Spot, & it’s not in the database. And I’m tired of adding teas to the database, so here we are. I guess I’m being lazy here.
I’m also not really digging this tea, & I would hate for the first posting about it to be negative, so there’s another reason.
Anyway, it’s ok, probably good quality, but not my thing. Kind of bland & grassy.

This is my final sipdown of the day & weekend!!
‘Menta Poleo’, from La Indiana. Sil got this during her vacation in Cuba.
What can I say? It’s mint tea, with 10% Pennyroyal I think. Which makes it a little more minty & refreshing, with a little slightly bitter bite at the bottom.

I’m done drinking tea for the night, I am waterlogged. I’m also out of sipdown material! All the other small quantities I have are either black teas or puerh samples, so this is it!

Thanks Sil! This was a lot of fun. I’m not sure who the official Queen of the Sipdowns is, we can figure that out tomorrow, but this has been an awesome & crazy tea drinking weekend, & I made it through 46 teas! So my cupboard total is 216.

The 2nd of the Chang Yun tuochas was a purple bud, which I steeped in my Gaiwan, doing a series of pours in between the other teas I’ve been drinking. Sort of a palate cleanser, LOL.
I enjoyed this one more than the sticky rice one. The flavor was a little richer, in my opinion. Otherwise, neither one was particularly remarkable.

This afternoon I’ve been sipping on 2 tuochas in between various other teas. I got them both from the HHTTB. The first one is the Chang yun sticky rice tuocha. It is a Sheng that amazingly smells & tastes like sticky rice. The aroma brings back fond memories of a dessert they serve at the vietnamese restaurant that I used to frequent. It was a mound of sticky rice, topped with a mango half, & drizzled with coconut milk. Delicious, & not too sweet. This sheng, of course, tastes nothing like that, but it does have the sticky rice flavor, which is kind of amazing. Other than that, it is a sheng, a little on the bitter end.

Here’s another tea sample from Sil. This is another Beijing Wuyutai foil package, this one is cream colored. As soon as I opened it, my sinuses were assailed with the sweet aroma of Jasmine. Yup, a potent jasmine tea, this one is. Maybe too potent for me.

This one brings my count down to 227, Sil. I’m not sure how many more teas I can handle today, but we’ll see.

Another one from Sil, I couldn’t find the company, & I’m too lazy to enter it, lol.
This is a chamomile tea from La Indiana infusiones. I needed a break from all the caffeine, haha. It’s nicely sweet & appley, like chamomiles are suppose to be. Thanks Sil!
Tony & I are watching ‘7 Psychopaths’ & contemplating BBQ for dinner.

Here’s another one from Sil, & this one is a real winner!!
This is a gold foil sample from Beijing Wuyutai.
OMG, this is awesome. Without a doubt, I’m pretty sure this one is a Jin Jun Mei, & it is SO delicious. I want MOAR!
Thanks Sil, you are an awesome tea sister!

I have no idea what Sil’s cupboard count is now, & it will still be an hour or so probably before I have time to check it, but I’m pretty sure I’m eating her dust, for now.

The tea I’m drinking is a sample from the Verdant rewards package, which Sil shared with me (although I also had one of my own, some time back). This is the “2006 Wild Picked Stone-Pressed Yabao”. I can’t find it in the database, & since it was a limited edition kind of thing anyway, there’s no point in adding it, right?

Yabao is not something that I’m hugely fond of. To be honest, it’s kind of in there with white tea, for me. Little Terri says, “It’s Boring.”
Ms Theresa eyes it with suspicion, “Exactly what is this?”
I never drink the full 18 steeps, or whatever it’s suppose to go to. It’s just not going to happen. There are way more interesting teas to drink, in my opinion.
Having said that, this is ok. It’s an interesting contrast to the Houjimaicha. It’s one of those teas that is lightly sweet & cereal like, almost sheng-like but not really, it’s smooth, it’s bland, & yet it has a ‘pure’ quality to it, as if one is drinking from a special spring somewhere in a secret place, high in the mountains. I’m also getting a kind of maltomeal creaminess & lingering sweet after taste.

Here’s another silver sample packet that I got from Sil, which isn’t listed in the database, at least not from what I can tell.
The tea is Longyuanhao Yiwu Mountain 2007 Shu.
I’ve been enjoying steepings of this one & the bamboo flavored Henan Heicha for quite awhile this evening. The bamboo taste on the Heicha softened over time & it took on a sweet ‘rain’ kind of flavor.
This Yiwu has kind of a coffee taste too it, it’s rather bold.
I think it’s time for me to start winding down my caffeine consumption for the day, as I also drank a couple of cups of ice tea with lunch. It wasn’t a fancy iced tea, but it was good, especially with BBQ!
Just for the record, dear Sil, I’m currently at 250.

I have no idea what this tea is. It’s from Sil, & it was in a silver package that looks like one of the packages Verdant sent out in it’s special sampler awhile back. The label says, “2007 Henan Heicha”, so it’s a Dark Tea, something in the puer type family, but I couldn’t find any reference to it, so I’m not really sure who made it, or anything.
Flavor-wise, it tastes kind of like bamboo.

Another tea from the Here’s Hoping TTB. This one doesn’t have a page, & quite honestly I’m feeling a little drained this afternoon, so I’m just putting it here.
English Breakfast teabag from Den’s Tea.
I am a fan of breakfast blends at times, so I couldn’t resist giving this one a try, plus it was one of the only unflavored black teas in the box. It’s not bad, kind of like a tea you might get if you asked for tea at a restaurant. Rather generic, but acceptable.

Day 5 of Little Terri’s Sipdown Extravaganza!!
I’m having a busy day, so I’m just going to cram all these sipdowns into one blurb!
1. Keemun by Mandala
2. Long Life by Mandala
3. Earl Greyer by Republic of Tea, much thanks to Lariel for this sample!! I did a cold brew of it last night.

Onward through the fog!