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Made this to take with for stock and merchandising tonight. I was going to make two cups to pour into my thermos, but I was running late and only made one cup to save time.

It was pretty good – especially since I decided that I didn’t have a lot of time to wait for the water to cool down to the right temp. so I steeped it in boiling water. As far as green teas go, I don’t think using boiling water really affects the taste of this one. It didn’t seem bitter at all, and no flavour was lost because I used hotter water than usual. So, since this is pretty forgiving I might take it with me to Winnipeg since it’s a green tea that I don’t have to worry about in regard to having perfect brewing parameters.

I wish I’d made time to make two cups, though. I ran out really quickly tonight and found myself wishing for more.

We finished merchandising almost and hour and a half early, though. That was nice – it means I get more time to myself this evening to play some Pokemon (plus, I have until Friday off which means time to be lazy, drink lots of tea, and battle a couple more gym leaders).

Nothing new to add taste wise though, other than the revelation this holds up well to higher temperatures.

Decided today that I either have to find a way to love this or just get over my reluctance to this tea and finish off what I have left. Which is about 60g. Urgh. Thankfully, Tre drinks this one (he’s actually consumed more than I have) so that helps with getting rid of it.

I’m actually drinking this whilst baking brownies (yum!), playing Pokemon (on my way to the 4th gym), and watching the first episode of season 7 of Supernatural. So much multi tasking! Actually, considering how much I’m multitasking I’m surprised I didn’t over steep this – that’s a problem I usually have even if I’m not multi tasking.

For anyone who plays Pokemon and is currently working their way through X or Y, I found a shiny Carbink last night! Woot! Be jealous of my mad skills at finding shinies. Carbink makes five caught out of a total eight ever found (not counting Red Gyarados, because it’s found in game and basically everyone has one)! I now have a shiny Butterfree, Crobat, Mightyena, Sawk, and Carbink all found without soft resetting or mass breeding eggs. I’ve seen eight though: first one I ever found was a shiny voltorb in Ruby, but I accidentally one hitted it. I’ve also found a shiny Sentret in HeartGold, but I found it at a point in game where I hadn’t even received Pokeballs (it was the first Pokemon I encountered in the wild). And, I soft reset a Togepi egg to find a shiny Togepi, and after about 30 or 40 soft resets I found one – but I’d gotten into the habit of resetting by then and I reset based on muscle memory before I realized what I’d done. Bleck. I also have a shiny Tangela which my brother found in game, but he didn’t like the colours so he gave it to me.

Anyway, back to the tea…

I think this is actually the reddest cup I’ve made of this – and considering it’s supposed to be red I guess that’s a good thing. Taste wise, a little better than usual but nothing really impressing. The chocolate flavour doesn’t taste as artificial as I usually find it, but there’s still a generic sweetness to it that I find off putting. I debated tossing the cup, but I think I’ll finish it just because it’s better than usual. Definitely not a restock though.

Ok, so today I decided to make this as a tea soda.

My biggest problem my first time drinking this was that I couldn’t get over how “unnatural” it felt to be drinking something so distinctly coke flavoured as, not only a non-carbonated beverage, but as hot beverage as well. So, the way I’m drinking it now has removed those two issues so I can see how I view this tea now.

What I did was brew up a cup of this that was slightly over leafed the way instructed on Della Terra’s packaging (over leafed so the flavour would be more concentrated when mixed with the club soda). I then stuck the hot cup of tea straight into the fridge to become cold and left it sit for a couple hours. I came back to it a few minutes ago, and went with a tea to club soda ratio of approximately 2/5ths club soda and the rest tea.

I’m gonna note that before mixing the club soda I let try have a sip of this and he said it tasted “just like watered down coke”. He didn’t comment on any of the other flavours that are supposed to be added in the tea (cherry and chocolate cake), so I don’t know if that’s because he didn’t taste them or because he was just acknowledging the coke part since that’s what I had been talking about while preparing everything.

Anyway, a few sips and… This is better! I’ve eliminated the two things I found most problematic about this tea and there IS a noticeable improvement. I think I actually (maybe) like this better than actual coke which I personally find too strong so the fact this is mildly weaker is working in its favor. A couple sips in I recalled Lala saying she often sweetens her tea soda, so I added about a tsp and a half of sugar to this and swirled it around (I haven’t added sugar to any of the other tea sodas I’ve tried) – and it not only sharpened the cola notes but it brought out the taste of cherry that had been my third issue with this tea.

That last sentence maybe sounded confusing – I’ll clarify. The first time I drank this hot there was a lot going on flavour profile wise and aside from the notes of coke the other flavours were all muddled and it was hard to REALLY taste things. In fact, the “cherry” almost tasted like a really weird artificial orange taste. I made sure to get at least one piece of chocolate and one piece of cherry in the dry leaf I used since I wasn’t sure if I’d actually used pieces of either last time, but until adding the sugar all the flavour profiles were still really jumbled. With sugar, I can tell that YES I am drinking a ‘cherry cola’ – although, the taste of chocolate is still really weird and I don’t think I’d call it “cakey”.

So, in conclusion… As a tea soda, this is an improvement! It’s still not awesome, and I still have issues with it, but I am going to increase my rating just slightly.

PS. I just wanted to add in that this is still one of the PRETTIEST teas I’ve ever had. It’s just so nice and shimmery with all the little silver flecks. If nothing else, I enjoy looking at it.

EDIT: I lied a little… The more I drank, the more prominent the chocolate flavour got, and it did begin to taste “cakey” and not just oddly chocolate. Although, the cake flavour is REALLY weird with the cola and the carbonation of the club soda. With or without club soda, I think this tea just tries to have too much going on.

Took this to work with me! It’s truly become a favorite of mine, and I think I’d feel a little lost if I didn’t have this as a fall back black tea choice. As always, it was great – although even though I was careful to measure out exactly 1 1/4 tsp. of leaf it did taste a little weaker than usual (but not in a problematic way).

For the second time this week, I find myself wishing I owned maple syrup to try adding to some teas. For this one, I’m thinking it would really solidify the “blueberry pancake syrup” type of taste I get from this.

It was great drinking it hot on the way to work (and at work too) – the weather has been gross these lat few days (very rainy), although I’m really thankful I’m not back home in Regina since, apparently, it’s been snowing there all week. I hate snow! My belief is that there shouldn’t be any snow until after Halloween. Once it’s November then, begrudingly, I’m ok with there being some snow.

Unrelated (but also not), I started my Christmas shopping today. I get a KILLER discount at the calendar store, so my initial thought was “everyone gets calendars!” – it would have been a great plan since we have SO MANY kinds of calendars I would be able to be cheap (save all the money for rent!) but still thoughtful with a calendar to suit each family member’s interests, but then I realized that four of the seven people I HAVE to buy gifts for live in the same house and four calendars in one house is excessive. Still, we also sell games and even though I don’t get as good a discount on those, it’s still enough that everyone else will be getting games.

So, today I bought a Calendar for my Dad (a fishing one because he’s been even crazier about fishing this year than usual), my Grandma (it’s all these crazy beautiful gardens from around the world), my Aunt (Coca Cola – she’s obsessed and it’s the default ‘theme’ of all out presents for her), a day planner for my step mom (it has beautiful paintings and scripture passages that she’ll eat right up), and then one for myself.

I got a Buffy calendar for mine (the last one!) because I’m just IN LOVE with the show and I saw that one of the months in it is COMPLETELY devoted to James Marster’s character Spike. James Marsters is one of my favourite actors (and just people in general) and Spike is my favourite character in the show, and since I’m going to Winnepeg Comic Con at the end of the month I realized that I’m going to need something for him to sign! Yes, that’s right – my IDOL is going to be at Winnepeg comic con and I’m going to meet him (and completely fan girl)!

I also realized that I’m going to need to invest in travel tins for some of my tea… There’s no way I’m going four days with only crappy bagged hotel or Tim Horton’s tea. And that brings up an even harder question…

What tea will I take with me!?

I’m learning, the more I drink this tea, that less is more. Less dry leaf and less steep time has been yielding really great results and I think this is probably the best cup of this I’ve yet to have.

So, for this cup I steeped 1 tsp. for 4 minutes – the minimum steep time that DAVIDsTEA suggests. I’m left with a deep caramel brown liquor with lots of murkyness and floaty bits (the ‘salt’ in the dry leaf) with an oily coat on the top that smells like black tea and really rich, high quality, caramel and toffee. The kind that comes in giant bars that you have to wrestle with the pull of a chunk to eat – which then becomes this elaborate procedure because it’s so thick and sticky it’s nearly impossible to chew. Yum. That’s the best kind of caramel.

For the first time ever, I’m actually getting the “salt” notes that the title of this tea promises yet, up until this point, had never delivered. I also have this great, almost malty black tea base which is standing strongly on its own and the deep, slightly burnt taste of caramel. There is NO astringency or bitterness at all in this cup. Seriously, I’m going to have to say the only reason I haven’t loved drinking this as much as I’m loving drinking it now has got to be user error completely – too much leaf and too much steep time, something I’m guilty of more frequently than I care to admit.

So, as a note to myself, DO NOT OVERLEAF THIS BEAUTY AND DO NOT OVERSTEEP IT. FOUR MINUTES IS YOUR GOLDEN TIME! And, that said (or shouted) I’m going to have to increase my rating.

So, I left some of this in a jug of water in my fridge last night to cold brew; I guess I’d gotten it in my head that the best way to combat a miserable, rainy fall day was to drink lots of summer teas.

Anyway, I woke up this morning to a jug of this all ready to go. I strained all the leaves out of it, and it was pretty good. Then I thought to myself – I bet it’d be even better as a pop! So, I poured a can of club soda into the jug. Yeah, I was pretty wrong…

I mean, it’s not BAD but there’s some kind of taste that just makes it not ‘right’. It’s bitter (which is a word I never find myself using in regard to HERBAL teas), and the eucalyptus seems really intense. So, I did what any kind, generous roommate with a jug of disgusting tea soda would do – I poured my roommate Tre a LARGE glass of it and tried to guilt him into drinking some of it for me.

Yeah, he didn’t go for it. He took a few sips and then promptly walked to the sink and poured it down the drain. I acted all offended (“What a waste of perfectly good tea!” and “But it’s so much healthier for you!”) but I’m secretly grateful. That’s a lot better than him giving the rest to me…

Also, random question, but… I found out today that Tre regularly takes one of our cups from the kitchen to use as a “spit cup” (literally just so spit in or huck loogies in) because he’s too lazy (and disgusting) to go to the bathroom and discretely huck a loogie there or just to, I don’t know, swallow his spit? And then he just empties it out every few days and tosses it in with the rest of the dishes…

Does anyone else know someone who does that, and am I weird for finding it completely disgusting and revolting?

Dammit! Steepster ate my tasting note – and I had this one really well written out! Urgh. I guess I’ll summarize basically what I had said…

First, I had started with an interesting story: Last time I went into Tea Desire I was looking to get more of this, but I was unable to do so because apparently it’s so popular here in S’toon that a woman came in about bought 450g of it – cleaning out the rest of their stock, so now I have to wait. I believe I also shared that story on Lala’s tasting note of this tea…

And then I also mentioned that I haven’t bought tea in a really long time – actually, since my first day starting at the mall. Yay me! I’m just biding my time until I have enough saved up from paychecks to put in a really large Butiki order though, so maybe not yay me?

Preparation:

- Heavily over leafed because tonight is about doing whatever I want to feel good (so about 2 tsp. of leaf)
- Steeped for a short period of time (between a minute and a minute and a half) so I can still get a potent resteep out of it
- Water temp was pretty close to exactly 80 degrees

Taste:

- Strong notes of currants which make me think of currant jam
- Very subtle and slight notes of strawberry; perhaps as a psychological thing from reading in Lala’s review that she tasted strawberries
- Clear presence and taste of the white tea base

I think I’m actually being able to taste the base in white teas much more than I used to be able to before. I think, perhaps, that’s because I’m more knowledgeable now and have further developed my palette to the point where I can clearly identify such notes and distinctions in white tea (since it’s a tea type that is pretty new to me – typically I’ve drank herbals or blacks).

Anyway, now to stretch out and do something totally lazy and relaxing. Curse you steepster for eating tasting notes! But also, bless you tea for being a great turn around for a miserable day!

It feels like forever since I actually reviewed a tea WHILE I was drinking it. Actually, I can’t remember the last time that happened…

Anyway, after a miserable 8 hour shift I realized that before I walked home I had to stop and pick up groceries – more specifically bread. I promised Tre yesterday that I’d get bread but because I’d had to stay late at work it slipped my mind when I was finally off so I came home without bread. I certainly wasn’t going to listen to him complain again – so as soon as I was off I headed to Safeway to pick up food.

Well, just my luck… It’s raining today in Saskatoon. It’s miserably cold and windy and raining. So, I walked home after doing all my stupid shopping in the pouring rain wearing only a t-shirt (it had been beautiful when I walked TO work this morning…), and it freaking sucked. When I got home, soaked in rain, I proudly showed Tre the bread and he responded with “if it was raining, you didn’t need to pick any up and go out of your way”; URGH! Oh well, at least I can have Nutella covered toast in the morning.

Just a warning, there are adult words ahead

But after just a miserable day I decided that tonight will be a mental healing day. I’m blaring Lily Allen’s “Fuck You” on my laptop as loud as it will go, both as a “Fuck You” to James and to this day and cooking some vegetarian style Hamburger Helper (it is SO good to have a hot meal after basically living on mall food all week) whilst drinking this tea.

Seriously, this tea tastes just like creamsicles with some nice fresh spearmint (because mint is so comforting) and is the perfect “summer day throwback” to help me forget about the rain. And the cheese and the spice from the HH are really offset by the strong flavour notes in the tea. It’s also just really great having a cup of something hot in my hands… Tea is food for the soul, truly!

I think the next step is to finish my supper and get all cocooned on the couch with either Pokemon Y or some TV. Thankfully I have tomorrow off, so I think I have lots more tea ahead of me tonight and tomorrow! I’m going to take the opportunity to indulge in some favourites.

Please day, get better!

So this came with me to work today.

I woke up really sore and stiff, and I just KNEW it was going to be a lousy day so I figured something delish and soothing like Jasmine would be the perfect comfort drink today during my shift. And I was so right.

Actually though, my shift started off alright and I spent a few hours texting Robyn about all of the ridiculous calendars we sell. But, at the same time I really wish I had been texting James. Pardon my language (I seem to recall reading somewhere to avoid swearing in reviews or on the forum), but fuck him. I’m so frustrated with how things worked out (I even shared my favourite tea with him!) – and I guess I only have myself to blame for being so stupid about all of it and so trusting. Still, even if it was only a month or so talking to him during every shift sort of became a routine for me…

Anyway, this was practically a sipdown for me. I only have enough leaf left for one more cup, which is disappointing because this was SO good. I savoured this ALL day – and it was perfect hot and cold. I need, NEED to get more.

And, because I don’t want to cram it all into one review, tales of my awful day will continue in my next tasting note for what I’m currently drinking… Best to pace the pissed off rants, right?

So, I made this for last night… So, again, it’s a bit of a backlog. I believe I mentioned in a note from earlier yesterday that I was craving something rooibos and comforting. And, this seemed perfect! Leave it to me to fall back upon mint as a tool for comfort.

But basically, it had strong notes of peppermint and a creamy, woody caramel taste that seemed a bit more present to me this time than my last time drinking it. Also, there was a medicinal taste – but in a good way. It almost felt like I was “taking medicine for the soul”. It’s been a lousy week…