Various Artists

3 more sipdowns to report:

No. 1 Tippy Orthodox Darjeeling GFOP from Upton, this was a sample Sil sent to me. I was going to drink the rest of it with lunch, but I accidentlly spilled the entire sample on the floor. Had my floors been clean, I might have still steeped the leaves, but that was not the case (by a long shot). Needless to say, my floor is clean now!

Then I remembered that last night before I went to bed I started 2 cold brews, so I drank them with my lunch, one after the other. First up was
Twinings Pomegranate Delight Black, a sample tea bag they sent me months. I probably wouldn’t have cared much for it hot, but it made for a tasty & slightly tart cup of ice tea! I followed that with another sampler from Twinings, Peach Cold Brew ice tea, which was also nicely refreshing with my lunch. I thank Twinings for the samples.

I’ve been so busy the last couple of day & have hardly opened my computer at all. I have still been drinking tea, however. I was going to backtrack, but I’m at Tony’s & I can’t really remember what I drank, LOL.

I hosted an all afternoon rehearsal. It was a trio: Harp, Bass/Cello, & Flute. We’re doing a wedding together tomorrow, & when I initially booked the gig & they asked for a trio, I figured they’d want a bunch of classical stuff, right? When I met with the Bride, her Mom, & her Aunt, I was somewhat surprised at their selections:
Autumn, 1st movement (Vivaldi 4 seasons)
Time After Time (Cindy Lauper)
Fields of Gold (Sting)
The Swan (From the Carnival of Animals, Saint Saens. Cello & Harp duet)
Come Away with me (Nora Jones)
Canon in D (Pachelbel)
Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (Bach, seating of moms)
Air (Handel, entrance of Bridesmaids)
Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (entrance of Bride)
My Hope is built on Nothing less (accompany entire congregation to sing)
Right Here Waiting (Richard Marx, for Unity Candle)
I’m Yours (Jason Mraz, Recessional)
Ho Hey!! Final Song!!

So I offered Tea. The bass player drank a cup of Kai Matcha. I drank Premium Taiwanese Assam. The Flute player didn’t want any. The rehearsal was really fun, a nice mix of tunes (most of which I already play, but not usually with a trio).

My final tea of the day was a sample from Verdant that was part of the rewards private reserve collection of teas they sent out when you earned enough points. Nou Gui Xiang Dancong. The early steepings were very incense like. Then it became sweet, almost like peaches or apricot. Now it is kind of limey, or maybe kind of lime peel like.
This is my only sipdown of the day, leaving me with 338 teas left in my collection!

I can’t believe I’ve been away from Steepter all day!
I also can’t believe that I only drank 2 teas all day!
First up was Mandala’s “Keemun”, which is very tasty & satisfying. I steeped for 3 minutes, then resteeped for 5.
Then I gardened for awhile, & when I came in to teach I had Mandala’s “Long Life”, another tasty & satisfying tea. I followed the same steeping of 3 minutes, with a resteep of 5.

I had planned on drinking some oolong & some puer in the later part of the day, but I was hungry & I learned long ago that for the most part, it is best if I don’t drink tea on an empty stomach. By the time I had dinner, it was too late for tea.

Oh well, there’s always tomorrow!

I tried to create a page for this one, but it looks like the ‘add a tea’ feature isn’t really working right now. It keeps telling me I haven’t selected a brand. Oh well…

So I’m been sipping another of GT’s Kombuchas today: Third Eye Chai
I’ve never seen this one at the store in St. Louis, so I had to give it a try, & it’s delicious! I still think I prefer Gingerade, but this was a nice change of pace.

I haven’t really drank very much tea today. I feel like crap. Mom took me to the health food store (the throbbing of my head increased in the short time we were out, damn allergies) to get some nettles & elderberry. I immediately started brewing strong concoctions of both. My final cup of the day is yet another cup of Bengal Spice (celestial seasonings). Now I’m going to bed.
Tomorrow will be a better day. :)

I’m still feeling out of sorts. Last night I once again slept like a vampire at dawn, so deeply that I was drooling. I didn’t want to wake up, & I don’t really want to be awake right now. I’d like to go lay down, like an old dog, & just not move, in total silence, just breathing. No stimulus, please.
What’s going on?
A – the government is poisoning us (because I’m not the only person feeling this way). Yes….I’m a bit of a conspiracy theorist in my spare time…
B – it’s like that M Night Shymalan movie,(I’m a big Shymalan fan. His best movie, IMO, is Lady in the Water. I LOVE that movie) “The Happening”, where the plants are drugging us ….oh wait a minute, we call that allergies.
Who knows? As a precaution I’m drinking a strong cup of Elderberry (antiviral) followed by an even stronger cup of Nettles (antihistamine).

Next week while I’m visiting my folk in FL I can lay around all I want.
Today I can’t. I had a student this morning, I have to go upstairs to my office right now & pay bills, & I have a gig tonight, so I need a shower, & need to move my equipment, & I need to finish my laundry & figure out what I’m going to wear.
And I think I need to eat some Sushi!

Sipdown!
My final tea of the day is a mystery shu puer tuocha, wrapped in gold foil with tiny red writing on it. This was sent to me from Sil, & was a decent little Shu. Thanks!

Organic Champagne Oolong Darjeeling – Republic of Tea
I bought this tea a number of years ago when I was a huge Republic of Tea Fan. I haven’t drank it in…uh…a couple years? LOL, it’s sealed in one of their tins & worked it’s way to the back of the cupboard, & I rediscovered it awhile back, but was avoiding it because I knew it was old. Since I’m into some aged teas now, it’s time to give it a try :)

I’m not adding it to the database because it is no longer available, but according to the label it is from the Ambootia Estate at the foot of the Himalayas. There wasn’t much aroma of the dry leaf, & actually this is a pleasant, mildly cereal type cup, with no bitterness or stale taste to it at all.

Good Morning Steepsterites!
We had an amazing storm here last night, it was literally raining buckets! My ears kept popping, & for a little while I had an ear ache. I’m sure gmathis & my sister MsWhatsit will concur that it was a pretty wild evening. The Cardinals baseball game was delayed until about 10pm (they lost).

I had trouble sleeping & finally got up this morning at 9:00. Battled the birds in my yard over raspberries (they were all pretty pissed off that I ruined their berry picking extravaganza this morning). I think they got plenty to eat, & I came in with about a quart of berries!! Yeah! Nothing like homegrown berries! Here’s the photo:
https://www.facebook.com/terri.langerak

So, on to Tea! Leif picked Tardis to have with breakfast, which I’ve reviewed plenty of times. For those who have not tried it, it is Earl Grey Bravo, Blackberry, & Vanilla. A perfect selection for this morning, given the berry picking theme! Today it was especially nice, as the vanilla seemed more present.

We followed that with Plum Oolong. Tony has 3 favorite teas:
Earl Grey (any will do, but he is currently partial to Ahmad)
Jubilee (London tea room…basically earl grey with orange added)
and this Plum Oolong. He gets it from Kaldi’s, a local coffee roaster that opened a coffeehouse several years ago. Kaldi’s has blossomed into several coffee houses, & their coffee is available all over the place. I’m not a coffee drinker, but I understand theirs to be quite good. They have also branched off to include teas, for people like me, & for awhile they offered Numi bagged teas, but now they offer looseleaf. I have no idea who they are getting their teas from, but I have to admit, this is a tasty plum oolong, with hunks of fruit in it. It resembles the plum oolong offered by the Art of Tea. The flavor is tart & tasty.

I’m sitting here polishing off a sweet potato before bed. I just got home a little while ago from playing a gig & I’m not drinking any tea right now. But I drank ALOT of tea over the last 24 hours. It started yesterday when my sister arrived with her 2 adult children. I have 2 sisters, one is on steepster & goes by the name MsWhatsit (everybody friend her all of a sudden, it will freak her out, LOL). So it was my other sis who came to visit, & I’ve been introducing her & her kids to all the crazy teas I obsess over, so of course, we had to have tea last night, right?

I passed around my ‘menu’ of 300 or so items, each person picked one. My niece picked Adagio’s Almond Oolong. Then out came the gaiwans! First we drank Mi Lan Xiang Phoenix Mntn Dancong. Several steepings later we started another Gaiwan with Master Bi’s Jin Guanyin. We drank both of those for awhile, comparing flavors, etc. Next up was some Qianjiazhai Old Growth ’12 Sheng, followed by & interspersed with Xingyang Golden Buds 2010 Shu.

It was really fun to serve tea to everyone. They all think I’m some kind of tea expert now, LOL. We got to sample a lot of tea, & everyone went to bed waterlogged, about 2am.

This morning the fun started again.
My nephew & I fixed breakfast & drank a pot of Laoshan Black together, with resteeps. Then he wanted to try something smokey, so I fixed a pot of A & D’s Caravan. He decided he doesn’t really care for smoke.
Everyone wanted Bilbo Brew with breakfast.
Once breakfast was over they headed for home (Mansfield). I went to the Chiropractor.

I’ve been sitting around drinking various caffeine free teas this evening, because I want to sleep well. Of course, I probably won’t have any trouble falling asleep, since I worked out in the garden almost the entire day. I really got a lot done, & Leif was there with me through most of it. We had a good time, & my garden is looking pretty good!

I followed dinner with a cup of Adagio’s Rooibos Lemon Cloud, which is kind of tasty in a creamy lemony sort of way, but also tastes more like a lemon sucker than the real thing.
Then it was More Cowbell!, which I’ve decided I don’t really care for. It sounded good:chocolate, vanilla, caramel, rooibos, honeybush. I think it was better if I use aLOT more tea. I didn’t, so it’s just blah.

I’d really like to end my day with one cup of something really good, but all the teas I love the most, all the teas that are supremely satisfying, are teas that pack a punch.

Just finally came in from my garden about half an hour ago. Now I’m having a salad of homegrown asian mesclun, scallions, & radishes. I love gardening!

So earlier today I stopped by Cheryl’s Herbs to get more Nettles, to help keep my allergies at bay. Cheryl (the owner & amazing herbalist) had a chance to visit, & I told her that although the nettles are helping, I think I need more help. She recommended that I start drinking Lapacho (Pau d’arco), which I have. I don’t care much for it, it’s in a powdered extract form & bitter, but I told her I’d start using it. Her prescription: 1/4 to 1/2 tsp as a tea, 2 X per day, for the next 3 months or so, then switch back to Astragulus root in the fall (which I usually drink in the fall). Both are great immune enhancing teas.

Lapacha is a dark powder. I grimaced as I brought it down from the shelf. Then my eyes settled on the almost empty Gingerbread Rooibos from Trail Lodge tea, a fairly spicy chai like blend. I brewed the Rooibos blend, adding 1/4 tsp of Lapacha to it, along with some stevia, & it was awesome! That was the last of the gingerbread blend, but I have other Chai’s I can mix that “bitter pill” into, or, in the words of Mary Poppins, “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!”

I’m still working on Sil’s Super Stash of Sipping Splendor
This one has a label that says, “Smokey Black Tea from China”. There’s no company listed, so it ends up here in the Random Steepings heading.
I remember the first time I tried a smokey tea…it totally freaked me out! Now that smokey flavor has grown on me.
This tea has a nice Keemun-type profile, a moderate amount of smoke, a caramelized brown sugar sweetness, and a smooth & creamy vanilla-like mouth feel. A pleasure to drink. Thanks Sil!

My grand daughter Julianna (age 8) came over for a little while after school & we did the same kind of sampling that Leif & I did earlier:
4 oz Gaiwan + 1/2 tsp or so tea, steep the usual time for each tea.
We drank our of tiny cups, & I let her pick any teas from the TTB-A that she though she might like. Here’s what we drank:
Oriental – Mariage Freres
Classic Phoenix Oolong – Element Tea
Bossa Nova Oolong – Teagschwinder
Coquelicott Gourmand – Damman Freres
Hazelnut Mate – Fava Tea
Candy Cane – 52 teas
I believe that’s everything we sampled! She was kind of a grumpus when she arrived, but by the time she left she was happy as a lark! :D

Leif asked me to log 2 teas for him from TTB-A:
Candy Cane – 52 teas – steeped for 3 minutes – nice peppermint flavor!
Ice Cream Cake – David’s – very sweet on it’s own, as might be expected. The bits of freeze dried ice cream & rainbow sprinkles dissolved to sweeten the whole cup. No sweetener needed. He added creamer, which brought out the flavors even more.

Holy Red Zinger! This is some tart stuff!!
So I know most everybody on steepster dislikes Hibiscus. It’s been a long time since I drank anything with hibiscus in it, & they had it in the bulk section, so I figured, what the heck? I brewed up some, sweetened it with stevia, iced it down, & it is Tart! It’s like cranberry juice, which I actually like unsweetened (real cranberry, not the cocktail kind). Anyway, it’s not something I’ll drink often, but I’m gardening today (& yesterday & the day before, things are starting to take shape out there!), & I thought it might be refreshing. It is, but I think I need to dilute it more & add more ice. It’s pretty intense stuff!

I was totally absent from Steepster yesterday. I spent the entire morning running errands with my sons, then lunch at PF Changs to commemorate Drew’s 24th birthday (a week late), then finally I came home & worked in the garden for the rest of the day until I could no longer see. My Gazebo area is finally fully planted with a variety things: various peas, radishes, lettuces, beets, turnips, parsnips, dill, leeks, red scallions, etc. Some were planted a few weeks ago, some during this past week.

So during all this, I did actually drink quite a bit of tea! I started with #49 Assam from Smith tea, which is wonderful! Then I made a 16 oz of Foxy Roxy’s, very lightly sweetened with stevia, & sipped on that all morning while I was driving around. It amazes me how long teas stay hot in that thermal cup!

While I was gardening I sipped on the rest of the ginger peach ice tea from Monday. And that my friends is all the tea I drank yesterday.

Call me a wierdo, but I actually like roasted chicory root. I always have.
I’m probably the only person on steepster that likes chicory.
I hadn’t drank it in awhile though, because I like black tea better.
So a few weeks ago I was drinking a cup of Adagios Rooibos Vanilla Chai, & the whole time I’m drinking it, I’m thinking, “This would be better if I added a little chicory to it…”, but I didn’t have any laying around. I think that’s one of the reasons I’m just not a huge rooibos fan, it always seems like it needs something more.

So last week when I was checking out the Frontier bulk tea display at the health food store, I noticed that they had roasted chicory (and rosebuds, & hibiscus flowers & other fun stuff). So I nabbed some, & in my quest to minimize my caffeine in the evening, I just enjoyed a cup.
If I wanted it to taste like coffee or black tea, I’d be sorely disappointed, but I don’t, so I’m not. It’s bold enough to feel like I’m really drinking something, & I like it!

I’d like to apologize for being such a whiner last night. My head was throbbing & my allergies were so bad that we had to turn on the air conditioning, which I’d rather not do this soon in the season. I also started drinking Nettles, which I should have been drinking for a few weeks at least. After 24 hours, I feel so much better!

1 cup dried Nettles (yes, that is a lot, but it’s not a pricey herb)

Put the nettles in a quart jar, fill with boiling water, put the lid on & leave it sitting over night. Strain it in the morning & enjoy a cup. Refrigerate & drink throughout the day, either a cup at a time, or sipping occasionally. Make another quart before you go to bed.
Drink a quart everyday! Once your symptoms are alleviated, you can probably drink it less often, & it will keep in the frig for about 36 hours or so. It’s high in Querticin, & other good stuff!

Places to order Nettles:
www.cherylsherbs.com (a st louis herb company)
www.frontiercoop.com

You can also probably pick it up at the health food store.

I hate allergies! My head’s been throbbing all day, my eyes are watering, ears itching, sneezing…ghaaa!
This evening I’ve been sitting around, making adjustments to the list of my tea collection on my computer. There were several sipdowns, so those items were removed, & I added all the teas I purchased recently. I now have a total of 260 teas! This includes samples, bags, tins, everything.
While I’ve been doing this, I’ve been sipping on cups of Nettles tea, as it is rumored to be helpful for allergies. I used to take massive doses of Shaklee Alfalfa tablets for allergies, & it really helped, but these days I just can’t swallow that many tablets (20 tablets, 4 times a day, that’s what it took to keep my allergies away). So I’m drinking Nettles, & I’m using BioAllers Homeopathic Sinus & Allergy spray.

Nettles tea is a natural anti-inflammatory & anti-histamine, & isn’t unpleasant. It just tastes green, with a bit of a minty sensation to it. For years I’ve drank a mix of Nettles, Oatstraw, & a pinch of Horsetail (herb), which is a good tonic for women, high in bone building minerals (according to Susun Weed, herbalist).

Tony & I went to breakfast at our usual haunt. They have the Numi box of teas that they bring to the table, which is ok for bagged tea, but there wasn’t much of a selection today (or last weekend). I ended up foraging through the selections in my purse.

Tony got the 2 Mighty Leaf Earl Grey bags, since EG is his thing. He said that it was good. I drank:
The mighty leaf English Breakfast – 1 bag…it was ok…
The Numi Magnolia Puer – earthy puer with a hint of floral…better
Harrod’s Earl Grey – not much bergamot flavor, ok.

Glad to be back at Tony’s, where I’m drinking the 3rd re-steep of this morning’s cup of Anxi Fo Shou & getting ready to join the Sample Sipdown Saturday!