Roswell Strange Send Message

I cold brewed this one yesterday, strained it last night, and then had it today first thing in the morning. I actually thought it was much better as a cold brew than hot because it didn’t have that bit of finicky astringency to it, and the cinnamon was more muted so it tasted stronger of the fruits in the blend.

Lots of cranberry, and then more mild notes of banana and the mango. The big surprise to me, though, was how much more present the vanilla was! Usually the cinnamon is rather dominating but I felt the strength the cinnamon typically has was matched – if not exceeded- by the vanilla in this batch.

Also, the neat thing about cold brewing it was that because I used much more leaf I got to include a little bit of all the different chunks of stuff!

Had this about a month ago and thought it tasted soapy, so I hadn’t touched it since but I was portioning some out for a couple people a few days ago (most of it for Robyn), and realized I should try it again so that’s what I did last night.

Actually, it’s not as bad as I remembered it being. In fact, it was mostly creamy orange and rooibos, with just a touch of cinnamon to create this kind if “warm” nighttime cup of comfort. I mean, it wasn’t exceptional but the last bit of it (yay for not having a ton left) might be drinkable enough for me to not have to send it all away…

Not much to add on this one, except it really hit the spot last night despite all the little floaties. I have a lot of it left to burn through…

It seems silly, but after bad Fruits d’Alsace experiences the last few days I had to make this one last night to reassure myself that I hadn’t stopped liking it spontaneously.

Rest assured, it’s still really good. Whew…

Sipdown (198/200)!

This is a good example of a tea which tastes drastically different when prepared in different ways. Cold brewed, like I’ve had it in the past, it’s a very sweet and juicy peach drink with a refreshing and quenching bamboo finish. This cup, however, was prepared hot because I didn’t have enough left to make another cold brew out of it and it tasted a lot more sour and had a stronger pineapple/fuzzy peach (they’re sorta sour, you know?) flavour and was also a little less “refreshing” in taste.

That’s not to say it was bad hot – it was good still, just in a really different way. I think I do like the cold brew better, though…

Tre finally bought butter, so while my company was over last night we made Banana Pudding sugar Cookies, and I mixed in a whole bunch of the dry bits of this into the dough. I may have even overdone it a little bit because now my reserve of this is severely depleted. Maybe that’s for the better though? I still have tons of other teas and can take a break from this one for a while.

Anyway, the cookies were DELICIOUS! I really liked them, and I think my company did too – although Tre was being a butt and said they didn’t taste cooked enough, but I like when my baking is kinda chewy and he likes when he cookies are pucks and can get dunked in milk and what not.

I just wish I could have saved me from myself, because in the course of three hours I pounded back about 20 sugar cookies and then I felt a little sick all night from over eating (and now there’s no more cookies). Wah.

THE RECIPE:

Ingredients:

- A full pouch of instant pudding mix in whatever flavour you’d like (I enjoy banana or pistachio, personally)
- 1 Cup of soft butter
- 1 Cup of Flour (I use whole wheat, but all purpose or white would work too)
- 2 tbsp. of milk
- Approx. 1/2 cup of ‘add ins’ such as raisins (ick), chocolate chips, crushed nuts; this is optional

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Cream the Pudding mix and butter together in a mixing bowl (and your extras if you’ve chosen any)
3. Add in the milk and flour and mix together until a well blended and even consistency
4. On a pan, form tbsp. sized balls of dough and slightly flatten them; they should be spaced about two or three CM apart from the edge of the pan and from each other
5. Bake for 12 to 15 min. or to your own preference

Yeilds approx. two dozen.

This is what I served to my company while she was over last night (along with cookies, noodles, and corn because that compiles a pretty fucking awesome meal imo).

She didn’t really comment on it, but I got the impression she didn’t really like it and was just too kind/polite to say so. I snuck a sip from her mug while I was preparing it to see if it was done (using a spoon, because I’m not just gonna drink from her cup then give it to her), and I didn’t really like it either…

Anyway, this finishes up the sample from Rosehips, though I still have the very generous sample from Keychange to get through still.

Sipdown (199/201)!

Tre just headed off to work for the evening, so I’ve got the computer again and can continue with my backlog. I wont have computer access at all tomorrow, so I really want to clear as much of it as possible. It’s also nice to see the dash is back up and running, again!

In the mean time, while he was home, my swap package from Courtney showed up, and she included some really lovely looking extras. I’ve already tried one of the teas she sent to me (I’ll get to its tasting note eventually). I also found a couple things in my sample drawer that I’ve tried and personally didn’t like but I think she will, so I’ve added them to my package for her which I still haven’t sent out yet (I’m working on it). So that gets in a couple unexpected “sipdowns” for me. Yay! Still under 200!

But anyway, I had this last night while we had company over, and I made Tre a mug of it too which meant that was all of it used up! Yay! Tre’s mug was very sugared, and in mine I just added some milk in the hope that it’d calm down the unpleasant rooibos taste and mellow out the overwhelming vanilla. I’m very happy to report that adding milk did all those things – and the mug was significantly better than the last, albeit still not overwhelmingly good either.

I ended up using it to dunk cookies in!

So, I’m happy to report this was a nice enough sipdown, and I’m going to cautiously up my rating just a bit.

Holy fucking butts.

Thank you VariaTEA for the sample; I was excited to make this my first tea from Camellia Sinensis because it just smelled so lovely and wonderful dry. Like sweet flowers and fruity candy!

And man, is this ever fucking tasty! I had company over when I brewed this one up – and I had to hide all my excitement because I really didn’t want to share it at all. Heh, selfish me. But really, it was super sweet delicious yummy cherry candy and candied rose and it was amazing. I’m probably going to finish my sample really quickly, and then I’ll be sad. Yup. That’s how this is gonna go down.

So, onto my shopping list I guess?

Thanks Cavocorax for the very generous sample. I broke it out last night because I wanted to work on sipping down some of the blacks in my sample drawer that are in large quantity (so not one or two cup sipdowns).

This is another Rivertea blend with lots of bits, so I slightly overleafed it to try and get a few more of the chunks included (a huge piece of star anise!). Taste wise, I got prominent notes of cardamom, cinnamon, and chocolate and then slightly more background notes of the black base, vanilla, and the anise. Yes, that’s right – I finally tasted the yummy anise (screw you Ceylon Star with your no anise taste)! I do really wish it was stronger though in comparison to the spices. But I guess this is meant to be spice cake so it does it’s intended job.

Overall impression? I think this is a solidly average flavored black that would totally be some people’s cup of tea, but maybe not mine. And that’s ok.