Roswell Strange Send Message

I’m really distraught right now, and just absolutely panicking and freaking out. I really thought the day would be alright; I had all good teas with me, and was well rested (by my standards), I had on my lucky earrings… This were supposed to go well.

However they didn’t. I mean, they really didn’t.

I should have known things were going to go poorly when I showed up and the first thing they had me do was simultaneously train four first time cash handlers on till all while they were consistently ringing in customers and dealing with MASSIVE hoards of people because it was the “grand opening” and we were really, really busy.

And then, it should have been an even bigger sign when they replaced those four new people with four MORE new people and insisted they just use the same tills as the previous four, without checking float balances or doing any of the proper cashing out procedures. It was a horrible, horrible mess. But I figured my manager would at least be staying to cash out with me and Hazel, because we’d never cashed out on our own before – and this is a completely new store so we don’t know all the store mechanics yet.

But nope, she went home at 5:30 leaving Hazel and I a supposed ’nother four and a half hours to run the store on our own. And of course, when it came time to close literally EVERYTHING that could have gone wrong with the tills/money DID go wrong. Three out of four tills were over/short; one by four dollars, one by thirty dollars, and one by just over one hundred dollars. And of course there was NO record of who used the till when or when/how the money could have gone missing. And we just COULD NOT find the money.

Then nothing else would balance, and we got horribly behind on the paperwork and everything became one bug clusterfuck. When we called the manager, she basically (in the most “coldy angry” voice told us to leave it and just go home). We left work after midnight; more than two hours after we were supposed to. We had NO support system and we so out of our leagues. Fuck fuck fuck.

I’m like 95% sure than when I come in tomorrow I wont have a job anymore. And you know what, if I was her I’d fire me too. Everything is/was fucked up – and we should have handled things MUCH better. I’m not supposed to start tomorrow until 1:30PM, but I’m going in at 7AM (fully not expecting/wanting to get paid) so I can, if nothing else, face Kyla head on and, hopefully show her that I am serious about working here and that I want to learn what did go wrong so that is NEVER does again.

My only solace is knowing that I’ve at least earned enough money to pay for April’s rent. So that buys me a little more time to find another job…

But hey, this cold brew was nice! So there’s fucking that…

Fuck.

Matcha buzz before work? Hell fucking yes.

I made this as matcha soda; but instead of my usual 1/2 tsp. of matcha I opted for a full 1 tsp. and skipped the pinch of sugar. Extra buzz and extra flavour can only be good, right? Turns out that’s correct; I’m feeling much more alert, and on top of that I think this is actually tasting better; more “cola” like – though still a little off. And by off, I’m mostly meaning grassy.

Also, I couldn’t resist: I took a “work selfie” today to “commemorate” my sorta first day working. Technically it’s the first day/grand opening of my new store, so that kind of counts right?

https://scontent-a-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/t1.0-9/10155074_10202267130093605_1080906179_n.jpg

I’m wearing my lucky Swiss Cheese earrings!

Thought I was done with tea for the evening, but low and behold the clock ticks “3AM” and I wake up with an insatiable thirst for this tea! At least it’s bagged, so it made for a really easy to make/no effort cup, because I was so tired I doubt I could have measured anything.

But anyway; super cravings for this one! And then, once I have it, I’m sorta really let down by the flavour. This is my sleep addled brain talking, mind you, but it just tasted like “red”. The brain and body are weird sometimes, guys…

Apparently I was in a Pina Colada mood today; this was the second pineapple/coconut tea of the day, and it immediately followed Cancer from Nina’s Paris.

I actually had this pulled out of the cupboard for cold brewing, and DT’s Midsummer Night’s Dream picked out as a hot tea – but somehow the two ended up getting flipped, so I enjoyed this one tonight and will enjoy a mason jar sized amount of Midsummer Night’s Dream tomorrow at work. Spearmint is probably more refreshing for a work shift anyway.

This is so thick and lovely! It was definitely much better than Cancer sorry Nina’s. Also, I “indulged” a bit and ate a whole bunch of the sugar hearts, coconut shreds, and candied pineapple straight from the tin while this was brewing. Oops. Scribbles sent me a small package of this to “refill” my tin though, so I don’t feel that guilty, heh…

So apparently this blend never made it into my cupboard, so I’m back up a blend. It’s kind of a disappointing feeling because it negates the only sipdown I managed to get in all day.

Anyway, this sample comes from aisling of tea – I took advantage of the fact she has a whole bunch of RiverTea blends and I requested this one because it’s something I never would have ordered for myself, and Spring Tea because I wanted to do a comparison between it and Tea Desire’s version (which I still have to do).

This is a really interesting blend. Aesthetically speaking, it’s really beautiful – the colours of the very shapely orange swirls, blue cornflower, and the bright raspberry bits all really pop and make this something fun to look at. It’s something I’d be tempted to serve to guests/company purely because of the presentation of it.

I’m still not really that experienced with Pu’Erh blends, so I don’t know how much my word should be taken on this, but I found that the Pu’Erh really stood out – much in the way I experienced DT’s Chocolate Orange. It was really thick, and the word that springs to mind is “oily”. I also felt like there was a kind of earthy musk to it. The fruit flavours were a little lost under all that ‘weighty’ Pu’Erh, but I could still get a feel of the orange (in a sort of rind like way) and the raspberry in a really subtle, nuanced way.

My overall impression is that as a first cup this was really weird but in an intriguing way where I wanted to keep drinking just to experience all the layers of it. I think it’s the kind of blend that would really grow on you the more you have it; an “acquired taste” type of tea.

Next one is a sipdown.

Hmm…

I can sort of see what VariaTEA meant by finding Nina’s rooibos blends a little, uh how did she word it, distinct? The rooibos sticks out in a really noticeable way – although I don’t think it tastes bad, just present. Other than that I think this is pretty enjoyable; the pineapple is sweet and maybe a bit tangy. I love that I could see the large pineapple chunks in the dry leaf!

The coconut is really what I find most interesting about this one; it’s really buttery, especially in the aftertaste. Like, seriously buttery: the way my mouth feels about I’ve swallowed the tea is as if I’ve literally licked a block of butter. It’s maybe more distracting than the rooibos in the blend.

I think the pineapple would have to be a lot stronger to negate this buttery weirdness.

So overall, I think this is good and I feel like I’ll be able to drink the rest of the cup and my sample from VariaTEA without much problem – but assuming this buttery trait is a consistent one in all subsequent cups of this, then this is a blend I wouldn’t really seek out more of.

Sipdown (184/186)!

Is anyone else hooked on the game 2048!? I can’t remember who showed it to me, but I’ve been really addicted ever since! It’s such a simple concept (similar to Flappy Bird) but it’s so damn hard to achieve!

Here’s the link for anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about:
http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/

Basically, you have to move the tiles and group them together until you get a tile worth 2048; everytime you slide two matching tiles together they merge into one tile worth twice the value. And I keep getting stuck on tile 512! Bleck.

Anyway; this tea! I’m happy I squeaked in a sipdown today; it’s probably the only one I’m going to accomplish today – the other blends in my lineup for today and tomorrow aren’t really at the sipdown level yet (but some are very close).

I think this one tastes better today. It’s less oddly floral, though still a little floral. The chocolate is really fudgey, and that’s appreciated. I almost made another batch of brownies this afternoon because I was in a chocolate mood – but I made this instead because it required far less effort; and then I just finished off my tub of lime sorbet and had some PB&J pita rolls instead.

I’m still not sure what my “closing thoughts” on this blend are. I do like it, but it’s still feeling really weird to me. Maybe it’s something I’d include in a future Harney order, though I can’t picture ever being at a point/place where I’d need a whole 4 oz. of it. I’d probably swap for a smaller portion, though!

My favourite thing about this sample from VariaTEA? The overwhelming lack of spices!

I don’t understand the need to load pumpkin teas up with this abundance of spice; the two aren’t mutually exclusive! In fact, when I eat Pumpkin Pie the last thing I notice is the spices – instead I pick up on the natural creaminess, and the pulpiness of the fruit. To me, this blend tastes like how pumpkin guts smell when you’re scooping out a pumpkin to carve it. No spices; just that kind of fresh, pulpy aroma! I saw the word “melon” mentioned in someone’s tasting note, and that’s a fairly apt comparison, I think. Not spot on – but it sort of gets the general idea across. It’s “fruity”.

On top of that, there’s a borderline “pie crust” taste that’s sort of there, but not quite (I actually wish it was stronger) and I think that adds just enough dimension to this blend. I quite like this one, and I’m sad that one or two more cups and I’ll be out – I think this would be my “pumpkin tea” of choice to restock other than, perhaps, DT’s Pumpkin Chai. The two are really, really different though – so it wouldn’t feel like too much having both of them stocked up.

This is probably the best Herbal Infusions blend I’ve tried thus far.

So last night, after remembering how surprisingly good Oh Canada! was as a cold brew, I decided to use some of this to try out a cold brew – hoping for similar results and knowing that worst case scenario I’d have just burned through a bunch of leaf which is the goal anyway.

I’m happy to report that this is so good as a cold brew! All the oilyness and scum that I’ve been complaining about as of late isn’t present at all, and instead it’s like drinking liquid vanilla cake batter! It’s a refreshing contrast from the mediocre (if you can even call them that; it might be too kind of a description) hot cups I’ve been drinking.

Yup, the remainder of this is TOTALLY going to be finished off by cold brewing it! Hooray for an ever quicker sipdown!