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Made a cup of this in the morning, didn’t have time to drink it and poured it into a thermos to drink at work. I actually ended up finishing it en route.

It was very good cold today; I actually got a bunch of mint from it which was odd because that’s one of the many varied flavours in this blend that almost always escapes me…

Not that I’m complaining ;)

I think the next cup of this is a sipdown. Not sure if I should take advantage of that tomorrow morning or try a postpone it. Hmm…

Anyway, I had to get up this morning at 5AM to get ready for work (ick) – it actually wasn’t so bad though because I went to be really early last night. But this was my morning “pick me up”, whisked into cold milk. It frothed so well for me! Really, it was super enjoyable. Although, I think I got a bit more chocolate than coffee.

I’m thinking part of why I love having this in the morning is that the coffee “tricks” my mind into thinking there’s more caffeine than there really is.

And hey, while I’m reviewing a matcha, everyone should go vote for new matcha grade names here:

http://steepster.com/discuss/7378-contest-for-new-matcha-names-50-dollars

And I’m totally not just saying that because two of the top three ideas were mine, and I want the extra matcha money. Like really, I actually voted against myself…

Sipdown (170/172)!

Now that I I’m logging this one, I feel more excited about drinking it. It’s another easy sipdown for me to get in!

I mixed this with a bit of plain vodka (I also picked up vanilla and wildberry vodka) to kind of get my “sea legs” for it again; when I used to drink illegally vodka/whisky were my drinks of choice, but it’s been a long time since then so I’m easing back into it.

It was… ok.

Made this in my timolino for my trip to the mall; while I drank most of it there I didn’t finish it, so I’m having the last bit now… I believe I received my sample from Lala.

While on my fun little excursion I took the opportunity to stop at the post office and mail of my package for Cavocorax, so hopefully that makes it to her soon! I also checked my work schedule and much to my dismay it looks like my shift starts at 7AM(!) tomorrow morning – so it’s going to be an early night for me. Bleck.

I also noticed that next week’s schedule is up and I get Monday to Wednesday off; add that in with Sunday from this week, which I also have off, and that’s an awesome four day stretch! Since I know now that I have time next week to stop at DAVIDsTEA, I decided to hit up the liquor store instead; my first time going into a liquor store. I definitely look right on the cusp of 19 (I could fall either way on the “age line” or whatever) so I got lots of shifty looks, and one of the employees was following me around in store.

In the end I picked up a whole bunch of different kinds of vodka. Why, you ask? Well, I figured that’d allow me to make some tea infused martini type thingers – and that seemed like a cool idea: I’m always excited to explore different ways of drinking tea – and this is a way where maybe Tre will get into it too. Plus I’ve been 19 for a month now and haven’t popped my “legal drinking age cherry”, and that’s just sad – right?

So, there’s some of Butiki’s Ruby Pie cold brewing in a few shots worth of vodka in the fridge right now. Not sure how long I should let it cold brew for. Hmm…

Anyway this tea is pretty good. I added milk to it but lord knows why; apricot and milk are not really foods that are that associated with one another. It still works though. Before I get into it, can I just get a “hell yes” about the fact there’s no peach in this though? I mean, HELL YES. Apricot is not an automatic companion of peach.

But yeah; this is good even with the weird milk I added. In addition to the apricot which is fairly strong (and really creamy from the milk) I get strong notes of honey and then some lighter, faint chocolate notes – both I’m assuming from the base tea.

I still have another cup left, so I swear I’ll have that one straight to see how much my evaluation holds true when there isn’t the weird(ish) milk component involved.

Sipdown (171/173)!

Finally through with this one; it’s a good feeling!

This isn’t the worst cup I’ve made of this one, actually. In fact it’s pretty good compared to the others; there’s no bitterness/astringency, I can almost taste the fruitiness of the black current in each sip, and the vegetal qualities are leaning more on the “buttery” side of things and are less grass/seaweed like. More like spinach, really.

I’m sending some to Cavocorax, so fingers crossed she finds it more enjoyable and gets cups like this one, not like the bitter sludgey cups I’ve gotten in the past.

I need to go into work today to check when I work tomorrow – but I keep putting off doing it. I’m so cozy at home; I don’t want to leave! I don’t trust my foggy recollection of my schedule to get me there on time tomorrow, though…

Maybe I’ll get ready after this cuppa, and then reward myself by tacking on a trip to DAVIDsTEA for some tins and Cool Cucumber/Superberry (I’ve decided I don’t need more Bamboozled when I have Buddha Bamboo)…

I need to make that trip sooner than later anyway, what with Superberry soon to be discontinued.

Took advantage of the fact the tin of this was out (I was packaging some for Cavo) to brew myself up a mug of it! I haven’t had it in a while, so I thought “why not?”. This is a more expensive one to refill so I don’t have it on a regular basis – but it’s so good that I totally could.

It’s basically a super yummy cuppa of hot, liquid caramel and coconut. Mmm! So sweet and indulgent and rich! Plus you can still slightly taste the silverneedle which is awesome because I really enjoy silverneedles…

Watching the BBCan2 live feeds now, and someone just made a cup of green tea. It had me thinking that, should I ever make it into the house (which I hope to, someday) then I’d have to go without all my tea. It’d be one of the hardest things to do, but for Big Brother I think I could do it…

I’d try to smuggle in a few tins, though ;)

Sipdown (172/174)!

Even though I’m just drinking this one – this is sort of a sipdown on my Tiramisu Oolong as well. Or, at least, I’m sending the last cup of it to Cavocorax.

A while ago she sent me some samples, including this tea, so now that I can afford to I’m happily returning the favor and sending her some back! Currently I’m sipping on a lovely cold brew of this blend while packing up her tea.

This cold brew is pretty awesome! I set it up yesterday afternoon/last night but forgot about it overnight so it didn’t get strained until around an hour ago – I was worried that sitting that long would have made the cherry too potent and maybe medicinal, but it’s actually still quite delightful and lovely.

There’s a slight grassy undertone, but the strong balance of cherry and grapefruit flavours overcome it in a pleasant enough way.

I’m sad to see this one go; it’s something I would maybe consider reordering for cold brewing. Who knows, perhaps I’ll see more of this in my future?

Round Two for the evening.

This was the convenient tea option while I was painting my nails.

Does anyone else do that thing where they crack the can open enough that they can suck the pop out of the can but it still visibly looks closed? Tre noticed for the first time tonight that I do that and he was baffled by it. He asked why I do it and I told him I didn’t remember, but that was actually a bold faced lie since I knew he’d mock the real reason.

Truth is I remember very consciously making the observation in around fourth grade that my classmates were all more interesting than me, so I purposefully developed small habits to give myself more “quirks”. Among them were crossing my sevens and only cracking my cans of pop partly open. Now those things are just second nature to me…

Anyone else ever do things to deliberately be quirky and then have those things become real quirks? Or just me?

Our lovely MissB talks so highly about this one that the last time I was in Tea Desire I took the plunge and bought 50g of this to take home. It wasn’t a hard sell; I trust her opinion a lot plus it has caramel in it and a lot of it, which is a favourite flavour of mine in general, and I got to smell it in store as well so it wasn’t like I was just blindly ordering from their site. It smelled awesome, by the way.

I finally made it up tonight. I wasn’t sure if this was a Pu’Erh that really needed to be rinsed, so I did a quick 20 sec. rinse with warm water just in case. A five minute steep later, and I had my mug of this ready to go. It still smells incredible!

Man, this is a flat out tasty, tasty tea. It has the familiar caramel/toffee flavour I’ve experienced in other Tea Desire blends like Victoria Mint or Sweet Toffee but this is much earthier and almost “gritty” – but in a good way. It’s thick and creamy too, and very very rich.

I honestly think this is the first (but hopefully not the last) Pu’Erh I’ve tried that I’d want to keep restocked or in quantity; and hey, I have 50g of it now so that works out well! Looks like I’m going to need to clear out a spot in the tea closet for tins of Pu’Erh – at the moment such a section does not exist.

On a whim I decided to search the data base for this one…

Whenever Tre and I order in pizza, we always get the “2for1 Movie” deal, which comes with four cans of pop. Neither of us drink pop regularly, so we get Nestea since this is the “most agreeable” option for both of us – so there’s usually a few cans sitting in our fridge that eventually get drank.

Since we ordered pizza tonight, this holds especially true. I happen to be drinking one of them right now, actually.

Personally, I think that this gets a bad wrap among tea drinkers at the “Steepster” level (by which I mostly mean tea drinkers with lots of knowledge and many types of teas under their metaphorical tasting belts) – sure, it’s highly sweetened – but as a convenient kind of tea I think it’s probably the best in its respective class/market.

I know that personally, I would prefer a glass of this than the typically shitty, over steeped Lipton bagged green tea most restaurants offer. And at least when I’m eating out the average non-tea drinker knows what I mean when I say I’d like a Nestea, unlike when I say “Do you have any oolong?”. That counts for a lot, in my book.

It’s good for what it is.