16757 Tasting Notes
Bought this one in QueenofTarts’s tea sale, and passed some along to VariaTEA who liked it enough to pick up a pouch of it – but this is the first time I’m personally trying it!
It’s the pineapple that drew me in; I’ll try any pineapple tea at least one, and a white pineapple sounded extra amazing. I also love angel food cake; my Grandma used to make it for my brother, cousin, and me when we stayed over for a few weeks in the summer and I’d always get in trouble for picking off the spongey brown layer on the outside of the cake, which is the best part of it. Dry, this smells just like that rich spongey brown layer if it had a light pineapple glaze or drizzle on top; yum!
I think I may have let my water cool down a bit too much though, because this is pretty weak in flavour but I definitely get the impression that the leaf had more to give and I just goofed in the preperation. Still, the flavour I do get is very nice; a sweet pineapple that softens into a light and airy sponge cake kind of taste. I think this does a good job of living up to its name. Also, as VariaTEA noted it is getting a bit better as it cools.
This will be fun to play around with! I can’t wait to see if I can push a little bit more out of the leaf!
Preparation
Since the BBCan feeds are down still (are there any other BB fan here? Please tell me I’m not alone!) I’ve gravitated to Youtube while I wait for the most recent Supernatural episode to load. Damn Ghostfacers…
I’m stuck on The Voice studio recordings – and pretty much just the same three songs. These ones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXFR-RszcsA&list=PLSqrvQ7tmotHMBICOhG5tL7vcgTBHvdax
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMkxaMkbgIA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpRblccQ28o
It’s been a very long time since any of the duos on the show have really blown me away, but both duos so far as awesome in my opinion, and definitely in my top picks. And then, who can’t love Zombie!? Though to be honest, I think her live audition was better than the studio recording; it had much more passion. Palpable; that’s what it was. It’s pretty fantastic. So yeah, so far those are my picks.
I also like the guy who did Usher’s song though, and who can’t love Bennie and the Jets or Lady Marmalade?
But anyway – I’m sure you all care about the tea a lot more. It’s just that I’ve written so much on this one already that I didn’t feel so bad about getting completely off topic.
It’s a good cup, though! Like a soft, creamy EG pillow to gently rest on in the “wee” hours of the morning. Is it laughable that I consider noon to be super early in the morning – even when it’s technically in the afternoon? It’s early to me…
De and I love BB, but for some reason, BBCan doesn’t draw us in. It totally should, but…meh
I’m really into BBCan – but perhaps that’s because its existence gives me hope that I’ll finally have a chance to get on the show. If it’s renewed for a third season I’ll finally be old enough to audition! I’ve been watching since the All Stars season in the States (I would have been… 11?) but I’ve seen every season now. Last years was… shit. It was painful to watch it. But I live BB during BB season(s). Including cold showers when my favourites are Have Nots and constantly having the live feeds playing in the background.
My wife got me into it back when we were just dating, it was one of the things we would watch together while long distance. I can’t imagine being in the Big Brother House, I can tell you it would NOT bring out a good side in me XD
It’s one of, like, five things on my bucket list XD
Breakfast of champions: 25 oz. of Boatsman cold brew, a cup of hot EG, and microwaved day old pizza leftovers while watching (or at least trying to) the BBCan live feeds.
The four inside cameras have been on fish all morning (basically means they’re not airing anything new), and the fifth camera focused on the isolated houseguests has been off and on the last few hours. Last it left off they were playing Cheerio basketball. I’m sad only one will make it in; they’re all super awesome and entertaining.
Anyway, to the tea! This one cold brewed for a 13 hour total and is delightfully light, fresh, and creamy fruity. Tons of creamy mango/banana today! It’s a great thirst quencher. I think I have enough leaf left for one more cold brew batch; so, I’m kinda excited to finish it off. Mmm!
Again, the best part of cold brewing this one is the lack of astringency/cinnamon.
Sipdown (195/197)!
My laptop was reset to default settings when I got it back today (new hard drive), and that stupid “tap to click” function is enabled and I can’t figure out how to turn it off, so I just lost a long and detailed tasting note because I accidentally tapped near the “X” button and cancelled out of my own tasting note. I’ve also been inadvertently highlighting and deleting paragraphs all day. ERGH!
Tre brought me back a single bag of this from Regina (he got back today) – and I kind of didn’t want it, so I just got the sipdown out of the way. I feel bad when he gets me tea because he tries really hard, but often is really egotistical about it/pretends to know way more than he does or he just gets things completely outside of my personal taste – and if he payed attention to what I say about my tea he wouldn’t have either of those issues.
Take this one for example: he gave it to me and was really trying to play up the tea brand, and I just totally shut him down with what I know about Tazo (which he was mispronouncing horribly, and I was quick to point out). I don’t really drink Tazo not because I ’don’t know it exists’ but because I’ve been less than impressed with the few teas I’ve tried from them.
This isn’t an exception: it’s pretty weak in flavour and is underlying bitter – though there is a subtle fruitiness to it which I’ll admit tastes natural (a win), albeit also kinda generic. Personally, I don’t think I’d drink it again though and I sort of feel like I’ve wasted a bit of my time in trying it. Sorry Tre.
Also, speaking of mispronouncing things it really amuses me how much the three isolated potential houseguests are butchering the contestants names. I mean, they don’t know any better – but it is a little amusing. My favourite is the pronounciation of “Adel”. It’s supposed to be like the singer “Adele” but they’re saying it like “Ladle” without the L. With a hard A. Heh.
There should be an option in Control Panel → Mouse. Or Touchpad. :) I’m on a desktop so I can’t be more specific than that!
We spent hours today looking it up, and where the touchpad SHOULD show up, it instead says I have a mouse installed and no touchpad. Which is very inaccurate; I don’t have/use a mouse for my laptop and never have. I can switch the settings for “the mouse” which do nothing, but apparently there’s no record of my laptop ever having a trackpad. I’m thinking it’s something to do with the new hard drive (my Dad bought it for me as a birthday present), which I know nothing about. It’s very frustrating.
Oh no! That is so weird. The computer should recognize the touchpad as a separate entity. Have you gone to the manufacturer website and seen if there are driver updates to install? I had to do that for my work laptop. Windows doesn’t always get the drivers right.
If you use Chrome, there’s an add-on called “lazarus” that automatically saves anything typed into a blank form for two weeks or so, so if something like that happens, you can pull it “back from the dead”. It has saved my butt numerous times.
ok, a quick question, how do you pronounce Tazo, so I don’t come across as a total idiot when talking with others. I assumed it was ta as in tap and zo with a long o sound.
Like “Tah-zo”.
Sipdown (196/198)!
Ok, there was about two cups worth of this but I accidentally dumped a bunch of this onto the floor – so a bit of an unexpected sipdown I suppose. I don’t feel too bad about it though I guess, I have a lot of Genmaicha and this just brings me a little closer to finally feeling like I can open up my Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha.
This is good though; but it’s got lots of little green tea “bits” from the bottom of the bag, which of course escaped the filter. So it is getting bitter a little quickly…
My Dad brought me some home baked muffins today when he came to visit, and I’m having one right now. It’s ok but it tastes ‘healthy’. Healthy is not typically a word I use to describe the foods I really like…
This is a cold brew (12 hours total steep time), and it feels a little heavy handed on the Bergamot – but that could just be because it’s late at night and I associate EG with morning teas. I don’t know – it’s oddly “musty” too though. Tea shouldn’t taste musty…
The Houseguests are being really amusing right now!
Finally have this in my cupboard!
I really regretted not picking it up when I went to Cuppa’T early/mid January – so I made a request for it from my family in Regina to get as a birthday tea! My mom may have goofed and picked up some less than stellar looking blends instead of my precious Monk’s Blend – but she delivered by picking this one up!
I wish I had an ingredients list – but it smells/tastes like some glorious combinations of vanilla, lemon, and wintergreen mint. Mmm! It also has these amazing sugar snowflake crystals which are so cute, and as I learned today delicious.
This was my Dad’s pick for tea this afternoon and I couldn’t resist stealing some to try. It’s in the kitchen cupboard right now, because I’m going to need a cup to myself sooner rather than later!
Also, that’s the last of the backlog! Hip hip hooray! So, yay for hopefully not getting this backlogged again for a long time.
Reserving my rating until I’ve had a cup to myself.
Made this for my brother today because I thought it’d be something he’d be able to taste. He seems to like fruity (but not hibiscus sour) herbals, but hasn’t had any success with actual tea – and I thought this could be a breakthrough for him in regard to drinking tea with tea in it! He did say it smelled really good…
Unfortunately, while he said he could taste it and that it tasted pretty “decent” it made his stomach hurt a lot and he couldn’t finish the cup. I thinking that was the mate. So, I finished his cup worth for him. It was strong, but that’s because I really overleafed to try and make a cup he could taste well.
My morning cold brew today!
I’m sad this is gone; I’ve really fallen in love with the idea of having a cold brewed pretty much straight up coconut tea around during the spring/summer seasons after trying this one and Zen Tea’s Coconut Oolong as cold brews. It’s like coconut water, but so much better.
If the rumours about Coconut Oolong coming back as April’s tea of month for DT are true, I might be very compelled to get some despite not having tried the much raved about Coconut Oolong yet. Though I’m still hoping they bring back Coconut Grove instead – because DT needs to step up their white selection and this one is fantastic.
Ooh, this sounds like something I’d like. If it does come back, I’m getting some.
Roswell Strange, have you seen this thread? http://steepster.com/discuss/7160-searching-for-the-perfect-white-coconut-tea-any-suggestions
I thought of you when I saw it. That plus the Coconut Grove from Steep City sounded really tasty.
I have not! (MIA for 4 Days)…
Also, Steep City’s Coconut Grove does seem interesting, though the large amount of rose in it is a little concerning.
In a Timolino.
It traveled pretty amazingly well; and had a strong pie crust/graham crust flavour and a delicious “sparking strawberry” aftertaste. I was really happy with it though so I’ll reiterate; a win for Sil and Stacy.
Although, to be perfectly fair it was a bit bitter by the end of it – but I’m thinking that’s just from sitting in the thermos for several hours.
I am glad you liked it as well. One cup I had was better than the other and that one was truly amazing!