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I indulged a little this morning and made two of my favourite teas for work. My excuse was that with my paycheck coming in I could easily afford to do so! I’ve tried to do the math, and with what’s already in my account taken into consideration I can set enough aside for December and January’s rent and my grocieries and still have approx. $200 left to spend on tea! Woot!

To buy what I want from DAVIDsTEA It’ll be about $40-50 dollars, and then I’m going to FINALLY put in my Butiki order which comes out to roughly $100 dollars (just a touch more) – which leaves around $50 for other orders. Hmm… So much to take into consideration. Do I put in my Della Terra order which is only $30ish or do I go for a Harney & Sons order and just get a whole bunch of sample sizes. One thing is for sure, I’m gonna be getting a lot more tea coming up soon (I could also wait until Black Friday sales – although I have another paycheck coming in on Dec. 3rd right after Black Friday).

Anyway, for this tea I steeped one teabag in 10 oz. of water for three minutes. This is probably my favourite bagged tea, by far – but it’s really touchy and gets bitter quite quickly so it’s easy to screw up. Thankfully, I didn’t and this is super smooth and yummy.

Right now I’m drinkinhg it cold – and there’s a very “pie like” quality to it. It’s like eating a fresh slice of my Grandma’s homemade Saskatoon Berry pie with the crust and everything: it’s just missing that dallop of vanilla icecream (which could be replicated with milk or cream, but oh well). The black tea base still comes through – but only seems to enhance the sweet syrupy Saskatoon berry taste for me. Yum! I get nice mellow notes of raspberries too, and very subtle notes of blackberries jam keep flickering in and out of the sip.

This is better hot though, honestly.

Also – I’m SO incredibly sick of crying children and parents who just don’t seem to know how to handle them. Maybe it’s naive of me to say this, not having kids of my own or anything like that, but don’t come to the mall if you’re going to bring your misbehaving little three year old son or daughter who doesn’t know to keep their hands off the stores’ merchandise (and not throw it across the store) or if you’re that stupid kind of parent that just lets their child have a tempertantrum in the middle of the mall and stands their and does nothing (or worse responds by freaking out back at them). Please, discipline your children or else they’re only going to get more self entitled and bratty.

Urgh. My head is killing me from dealing with all these absent parent’s and their screaming children. I know it’s not the kids’ fault – but I’m seriously starting to resent children.

I was looking for something to sip down tonight since my paycheck is tomorrow and I’m anticipating that, though I haven’t decided where yet, I’m going to be placing at least one medium to large sized order with someone. I’m torn right now between 52teas, Butiki (but we’re talking $100 order for this one), Della Terra, CeasersTea, Harney & Sons, and TeaCupany. So many places to try out…

Also, I’m gonna stop at my local DAVIDsTEA and replenish my Cranberry Pear and pick up more Gingerbread and White Chocolate Frost…

Anyway, I completely forgot I even had this tea bag – probably because for whatever reason it never got logged into my cupboard. I remember exactly where I got it from, though! Last time or second last time or whichever it was when I visited Robyn at the University I stole one of these teabags from their cafeteria (shhh). I remember that was right around when I got my Teavivre samples from Lala and I was on a “try all the jasmin!” type of kick that weekend.

So, sipdown! I steeped following directions on the teabag: 100 degrees celsius steeped for 1 1/2 min. To be honest, the teabag dry smelled disgusting: like some God awful combination of moss, lawn trimmings, medicinal orange flavoured stuff, and cheap jasmine perfume. Yuck! Steeped, however, this smells much more pleasant. The orange smells juicier, like when you’ve just finished cutting a large bowl of orange slices and there’s that very slight orange juice mist kind of hanging in the air. The passionfruit mingles nicely with this.

I’m not a huge green tea fan (though I am learning to tolerate flavoured greens), and there’s still a fairly cheap and unpleasant vegetal smell coming off the tea, but I’m tolerating it because it’s not as nasty as the dry teabag smelled. The jasmine smells ok and marries nicely with the orange and passionfruit – but it’s just a touch perfumey smelling.

I keep smelling pine and mint too, and that might be throwing me off. However, I know that’s not part of the tea – it’s from the vapor rub/muscle relaxant I just finished applying to all my aching limbs. Mostly I feel like jello right now – which is VERY nice. I have a feeling I’ll sleep well tonight but I don’t want to jinx it.

Ok – taking little baby sips now: the tea is still very hot and I don’t want to burn my mouth. It’s actually pretty good. The jasmine doesn’t come off as too artificial in the taste, although while the orange and passionfruit still taste juicy they have reverted a little bit back to the “medicinal” quality. It’s not unbearable, though. Not at all. The green tea isn’t too strong for me, and I appreciate that. Basically, everything marries together really well. Only real downside is that the aftertaste reminds me of those really grainy and chalky orange flavoured chewable vitamins. Not so fond of that…

However, considering this is Lipton and it’s really cheap, I could MAYBE see this as something I’d buy (or steal) more of just so I could have a cheap bagged jasmine tea with some other additional flavours for when I’m so lazy I just can’t put in the effort for a good cup of loose leaf, or to take with as a travel tea. However, operative word there is cheap.

From my swap with VariaTEA. This wasn’t actually initially part of initially our arranged swap, but she saw me mention something about it on another tasting note and offered to throw some in for me. And I’m glad she did, because I otherwise might have caved and bought some for myself – and I now know I would have regretted it.

I’ll explain…

I’m a HUGE fan of mint (especially peppermint) and typically I snatch up most blends with peppermint (although I’m working on being more choosy with mint blends). This is one of few David’s blends that contain mint that I just couldn’t buy for myself though: I sniff it nearly every time I go into David’s to see if my opinion has changed, but each time the smell does zero to entice me. Part of me thought it was because of the peppercorns which I find to be an odd thing to throw into a chocolate/mint blend. I still sorta think that.

The parcel from VariaTEA just smelled so strongly of this tea – and really you can smell the leaf through the bag it was packaged in. It’s incredibly chocolatey and the chocolate does smell pretty nummy, I’ll be honest. Like straight, melted down chocolate from a fondue or something (I’d kill for a cheese fondue right now – that’d be heavenly). However – and this is something I don’t often say in regard to mint blends – the other ingredients in this blend (chocolate, peppercorns, black tea base) practically drown out all the peppermint in the smell of the dry leaf. It’s just not minty enough for me.

For prep, I steeped 1 1/2 tsp. in my timolino (boiling water) for five minutes. The smell was very fudgey as it steeped with something else unusual (maybe the peppercorns) and not a whole lot of mint. I’m wondering if a longer steep time would have brought out the mint more. I guess I try that with the last cup worth of leaf I have.

I brought this to work, but I didn’t end up drinking it (combination of being too busy training and realizing I made two mint teas this morning and somewhat wanting to space them out) – so I’m drinking it now. This has a very smooth black base and I’m getting lots of rich chocolate and fudge type of notes that are present all throughout the sip. I bet milk with just serve to make this super rich and creamy, like milk chocolate. I’m not getting any type that’s explicitly peppercorns, but there is an unpleasant and distracting tickle/scratching feeling at my throat in the aftertaste that I’m sure must be from peppercorns because it also happens when I drink White Chocolate Frost (which is also a chocolate/peppercorn tea). I really dislike it.

As far as the mint goes, it’s so subtle and nearly totally drowned out by the chocolate that I’m only barely registering it’s there. Mind you, I LOVE mint and I love STRONG and CONCENTRATED amounts of it (I’ve even drank straight peppermint extract before) so maybe this’d be enough mint for someone with a more regular love and appreciation for it. But for me – it’s not enough and it’s not doing it for me. I’m pretty disappointed.

I prefer Della Terra’s Minty Cow – I like the addition of vanilla and I think that blend is better balanced. This is good if you want really chocolaty and fudgey tea, though. It’s not as if I wont finish my timolino of it.

Sidenote – anyone on Steepster a fan of Cage The Elephant? I’ve been listening to their most recent album on repeat for days now. I think I have a lot of the tracks memorized at this point. It’s really good! If you’re at all into Indie/Rock music I recommend looking them up. This album is called Melophobia and I’m really enjoying the songs Come A Little Closer, Telescope, and Hypocrite specifically (they’re all good though).

Also Supernatural is now on Canadian netflix!!! YAY!!!

Today’s work shift just flew right by! I mean, that’s probably because I was training today so I had someone to talk to and lots of cover which gave my something to do consistently – but still. Actually, I sort of talked myself hoarse. Oops. Also, I officially sent out my swap with LovelyLotus today, so I can actually say good riddance to the last of that tea! I’m so very happy to be rid of it, and I genuinely hope that it’s much more appreciated there than it was here.

I made some of this in the morning and had it at work. What I did was use two bags for two cups of tea steeped for five minutes each in boiling water. I tried lots of Moroccan Mint teas, but honestly this bagged version is my favourite and one of few bagge teas that I feel I need to keep around.

I drank this at room temp. just like I’ve been doing with most of my mint teas lately. It was very pleasant and a great balance between fresh spearmint and peppermint and light and grassy (in the good way) green tea. Yum! Sorry other tea companies, but Stash just does this one RIGHT. It’s my go to when I want a ‘lighter’ but still flavourful mint tea.

So, I wanted to save my 200th tasting note for something special – and a Tetley tea is not something I exactly had in mind. However I suppose it’ll do.

Tonight Tre and I were invited to my Aunt’s house for a nice sit down meal. Honestly, best meal I’ve had all week BY FAR (but I guess that’s not too hard to say: I’ve been living off mall food for weeks now). Perhaps the best meal I’ve had since moving to Saskatoon (that, I think, is a good compliment). She made quiche florentine from scratch, squash, pickled beets (this was the only downside to the meal: I hate beets and anything pickled – however considering that they were quite delicious and still top three straight days of cheese and crackers), and homemade tomato and rosemary bread. Oh, it was SO heavenly and I stuffed myself like a glutinous little pig. All my aunts seem to be such AMAZING cooks (I know Tre was impressed by her cooking skills) but that makes sense since they grew up with my Grandma who was a caterer. For dessert we had rhubarb from her garden topped with homemade soy based yogurt and pecans. It was SO FREAKING GOOD.

Tre also had some of her homemade chardonnay (I passed because firstly I’m underage, and secondly because I’ve been substance free for approx. two years now and wish to keep it that way), and I was offered some tea. I had brought her large sample sizes of two teas from my stash that I dislike, but I genuinely thought she might like (Ontario Ice Wine and Earl of Lemon) and she asked if I wanted something from her stash or one of the ones I brought. I jumped at the chance to have something from her stash: she’s a pretty extensive tea drinker (my uncle not so much, he’s the type who’s impressed by the variety of teas carried by bulk barn and thinks chocolate tea is super fancy) and I know she’s got loose leaf from tons of local shops she’s travelled to when her and my uncle were touring Canada (they’re musicians/performers) so I thought I might get to try something I otherwise wouldn’t have access to.

Well, to my surprise she pulled this out… Really, of all the things she keeps stocked she wanted to drink Tetley. Oh well, not wanting to be rude I said I was happy with this one (and Tetley really is fine in its own right, it just wasn’t what I was expecting). Afterall, I was a guest in her home and no one appreciates an ungrateful guest who isn’t content with what’s offered. I guess the fact this tea was part of such a fancy and special dinner is enough to make it worthy of my 200th tasting note.

The tea itself was actually really good. I was probably being way more critical than necessary and it still managed to impress me. There was, of course, the signature taste of rooibos (I find Tetley’s rooibos teas have extra noticeable notes of “wood” and “maple”). The vanilla was super rich and very creamy. Tre ended up having a cup, and I don’t know if it was the pressure of being someone’s guest and not wanting to seem ungrateful (like I felt) or something else, but he didn’t even add any sugar to this one.

In a lot of ways I was pretty heavily reminded of DAVIDsTEA’s Birthday Cake. It’s quite similar, but still very different. Of the two, I much prefer to stock Birthday Cake – but this still went down very smoothly and I had no issues finishing it. It was a great complimenting flavour to the rhubarb as well.

Unfortunately, since I didn’t prepare this for myself I have no idea what the brewing parameters were though.

(Extra bonus story: On the drive home I was talking to my Uncle about tea, and he mentioned that in the morning my aunt had made him his first chai tea. Except, he knew nothing about what kind of chai it was or even than there are multiple kinds of chai, and the tea he described sounded almost exactly like the flavour profile or this tea or perhaps a cinnamon vanilla rooibos; he used the words “woody” and “medicine” like to describe it and that sounds like most people’s perception of rooibos)

Ouch, I just slammed my thumb in between the register drawer and till. In front of a customer too, which was sort of embarrasing (he was very good looking and I was relatively attracted to him).

My preperation of this today was maybe a little haphazard and sloppy, but oh well. I used 1 1/2 tsp. steeping in 6 oz. of boiling water for five minutes, which went fine and was fairly normal. I then realized I didn’t have time before I was supposed to leave to make a second cup to pour into my water bottle so instead of steeping another cup I just poured a few ounces of hot water into the water bottle and then the cup of brewed tea. So I’m thinking this might be fairly watered down today, and truthfully I have no clue how many ounces of additional water I poured in.

I’m drinking this now and it’s at about room temperature. It smells intoxicatingly juicy and nummy, and taste wise it’s not half bad. I don’t know how this would have worked out, but the pear seems to have been watered down and while it smells juicy it’s not quite as flavourful as usual (not surprising). However, the black tea base is just as present as usual. With the way the pear is watered down it tastes kind of perfumey and it’s not sitting too well though. Actually, my stomach actually feels like it’s doing an acrobatics routine.

So, the taste of this one is just kind of adequate, but it’s leaving my sotmach feeling all flippy in a bad way. Dang, this just isn’t Perfect Pear’s day (although I’m thinking it’s my fault because of the sloppy brewing method).

Also, this is tasting note #199! So now I need to be really choosey about what I drink for my 200th tasting note. I feel like it should be fairly special.

Wow – I can’t believe the rating on this is so low. Last time I looked it was something in the seventies, and now fifty four!? Jeez… I guess a lot of people are anti licorice root. Alas, I still love this one (and considering the low rating and generally negative reception I’m thinking this wont be returning so I’m glad I’ve stocked up).

Anyway, this morning I decided I was in a black tea mood and I needed something breakfasty because, well, the tea was going to be my breakfast (although black tea itself is just good breakfast tea in general). Despite my determination to drink some of my lovely black teas today, I kept coming back to this one. My remembering this actually does have black tea in it and then opening my tin of Pumpkin Chai and realizing it wasn’t as full as I’d imagined was enough to justify making this for work.

For prep, I used a 1/2 tbsp. steeped in my timolino for five minutes (with boiling water). I was making Perfect Pear from Della Terra at the same time (the other tea I’ve brought to work today) but the smell of this one steeping completely overshadowed the smell of the Perfect Pear. My last mug of this was a resteep tasting primarily of graham crackers but this one smells boldly like chocolate and hazelnuts with sweet licorice in the background. Yum!

I’ve been stealing small sips over the last few hours because this is still really hot and a big sip would burn my tongue, but it’s very nummy and the chocolatey licorice aftertaste lingers long enough that I’m not in any rush to chug back this super hot liquid Nutella beverage. I’m glad I made this my breakfast tea choice: it’s almost as good as Nutella smeared toast (which I might have had instead if we actually had bread in the house). Oh well.

I have a swap waiting to be sent out tomorrow, so that’s something to look forward to. I’ll be getting rid of the rest of my tin of Red Velvet Cake that I wasn’t so fond of. I actually considered one last cup of it this morning instead of this, sort of as a “final goodbye” or whatever. But no thanks – I’ll pass. I hope its new home is more welcoming to it than my home was. Anyway, that’s removed from my cupboard now and I’ve got more tin space now! I think I’ll fill the tin with some Cranberry Pear, since I’m nearly out of that and definitely want more. Damn, when am I going to find time to make a DAVIDsTEA run inbetween all this work? Better yet – when will I find time to head to the bank and cash the paychecdk I’ll be getting on Tuesday. Plus buying groceries (cheese and crackers just isn’t cutting it) and doing dishes… Ick, life.

I also have dinner tonight with my Aunt Nancy (the only family I have living in town with me). Honestly, I’m kind of impartial towards her – we’re not super close and she wasn’t a large part of my childhood growing up. However, it IS a hot cooked meal that I don’t have to prepare or worry about doing the dishes for (that’s really selfish of me to think, but I don’t greatly care right now). Also, she’s a big tea drinker (the Steepster kind of tea drinker, not the “I have three different kinds of teabags and one is cherry: I’m crazy experimentive with my tea” kind of tea drinker) so that’s one thing we DO have in common. Maybe I’ll bring her 25g or so of one of the tea I have which I don’t plan to restock/desperately want to get rid of. That’s a nice balance between lovely gesture for making me food and selfishly clearing out my stash – right?

…And I just realized that I’m pretty heavily rambling now and this note no longer has much going on in the way of relevant information or critique regarding this tea so I think I’ll stop now. Oops.

From my swap with VariaTEA! It had been on my Christmas/sample list, so she threw some in for me. Today at work while I was, covertly, on Steepster I realized I’d been bulking up on the fruity teas – so this seemed like a nice switch up, plus an excellent relaxation tea too.

I tried my best to follow the steeping instructions left to me by VariaTEA, but in my quest to find something (ANYTHING) to eat as a MEAL in this household (not just spoonfuls of peanut butter like I’ve been doing for breakfast) that didn’t require saucepans/frying pans for cooking, bowls, forks, spoons, a strainer, grated anything, and a few other things (basically none of my dishes are done) I WAY lost track of time and frankly have no idea how long this steeped (at least 7 or 8 minutes). Otherwise everything else was followed (1 1/2 tsp. for 8 oz. steeped in boiling water). As for supper, I went with crackers with melted on cheese. Not exactly gourmet but better than the mall food I’ve been living on (in the last three days the only things I’ve eaten are A&W hashbrowns, chocolate milk, baby carrots, spoonfuls of peanut butter, cookie dough morsels, boba balls, and tea).

Dry leaf for this smells heavenly. I’m lost in the creamy and strong smell of the coconut with the soothing lavender. I’m pleased that these smells carry through into the steeped smell, albeit a tad bit milder. In eating my not so fancy supper, I let this sit a few minutes – so now that I’m about to drink it it’s a little cooler.

First taste, and I’m getting a wave of coconut followed by soft gentle lavender. The coconut is reminding me of when I was like seven and I used to sneak into my mom’s baking cabinet. I’d steal greedy little handfuls of things like chocolate chips or coconut shavings. Right now, I’m reminded of the coconut shavings. The lavender is nice and gentle, but I’m finding that in the aftertaste it’s sitting in a slightly less pleasant way, practically right on that line between yummy natural lavender done in all the right ways and perfumey kind of lavender. The coconut also present in the aftertaste saves it though, and keep the lavender from tasting bad.

I’ll be honest, I had to go back and reread the ingredients: I keep randomly getting little tiny inklings of licorice in the blend – nothing strong, just very brief notes in the very forefront of the sip as the liquor just hits your tongue. And then ‘poof’, gone. Hmmm. Not bad at all, just interesting. As for the rooibos base, it’s still present (I don’t mind rooibos though, so that’s not a bad thing) in an average/mild way in the body of the sip. It’s not buried under the coconut or cornflower or lavender or which ever, but it’s also not nearly as noticeable. I think the flavour notes of the rooibos and the other ingredients are ‘playing nicely’ together.

If there’s one thing I want from this tea that I’m not getting, it would be just a touch more creaminess. I’m sure a splash of milk or cream would fix that pretty quickly, but I don’t like to have to add things to tea: I want to enjoy my tea straight and then have the option to add things to play around with it and makes things interesting: it shouldn’t be a requirement to have things added for a cup to be bearable (not that I’m saying this is unbearable – it’s actually rather delicious).

Damn! Now I want to pick more of this up but as it’s on my Christmas list I can’t do that since I might receive some from family… Thanks for the sample though, VariaTEA! This was awesome. I’m glad I have enough left for another cup, although I’ll have to wait for the perfect time to use it up since I wont be getting any of this until after Christmas (either as a gift or if not, I’m going out and buying myself some).

Mmm! It’s been a while since I had this hot – and I’m really enjoying it. I mean, this is still pretty incredible cold; drinking it that way makes it almost juice like. Still – I missed this as a hot beverage. It seems a little less earthy tasting, and more like sweet tropical orange goodness. Quite tangy, if you will.

For prep, I used 2 tsp. steeped in my timolino for six minutes (with boiling water). It left the kitchen smelling HEAVENLY, which is good because the sinking is spilling over with disgusting and nasty dishes that I’m putting off washing (not gonna lie, I think I saw something molding in one of the bowls). I REALLY need a day off to not only catch up on domestic duties but just to rest and sleep. The fact I can hear my bones cracking every time I turn my neck and and my fingers and forearms and almost consistantly throbbing from lifting and moving around so much stock is NOT a good thing.

Finally, I’m thinking I should be adding denture tablets to my shopping list. For the last few teas I’ve made in my timolino there’s been an unexplained creamy white chocolate taste – and I’m thinking it MUST be some lingering flavour from another blend (like the DAVIDsTEA White Chocolate Frost I have). So, time to REALLY clean this thermos out. This lingering flavour is messing with me.

Two fruity teas today, though… I’m thinking if I have the energy after work when I get home I’m gonna crack open the sample of Jessie’s Tea that VariaTEA sent me: I could use some coconut and some calming tea! Really, I could use a day off (I’m sick of borderline pervy seniors and spoiled rotten three years olds who throw tempertantrums at my kiosk) – but that’s not gonna happen for at least another week.

Ooh! I’m on Steepster at work! Such a badass :P

Anyway, this is gonna be super helpful for writing tasting notes while I drink my work teas instead of making notes while at work and then having to type everything out at home after work when I’m already super exhausted. Actually, this set up would be perfect if only the work till had sound (for watching TV at work when it’s slow).

Anyway, I made a 6 oz. cup of this steeped with 1 1/2 tsp. in 80 degree water for 2 minutes(ish). The colour of the liquor was daker than usual, which I found out. I then steeped a half cup (around 3 to 4 oz) with the same leaves, for the same steep time in the same temp. of water. Both cups were poured into my waterbottle and allowed to cool to room temperature – and are now being sipped away at.

Today, the tea itself is average in comparrison to other cups I’ve enjoyed of this blend: it’s consistantly well balanced between the flavour notes, and tastes delicious. What’s remarable is that I’ve discovered the perfect food to eat with this tea! There’s one of those fancy shamncy serve yourself icecream/yogurt places that charges by weight right next to my kiosk (like, 3 feet away) and I’;ve discovered that it’s rather affordable to buy a full cup of boba balls (these yummy fruit balls filled with sweet fruit juice) and cookie dough morsels (and skip the icecream/yogurt) – so I’ve been doing that for the last few days and just popping a cookie dough morsel and boba ball in my mouth between transactions to stave off hunger (and also because they’re very yummy).

So, today I’m enjoying a cup of cookie dough and green apple boba balls, along with this tea. And I can’t explain it – but everything is meshing together really nicely. You wouldn’t think it, but chocolate chip cookie dough, sweet green apple (not tangy or sour), strawberry, spearmint, ginger, and green tea all apparently go together quite nicely.

I guess I’ve been working two hours now, and it’s felt like maybe 20 minutes? So good day so far. And, if I get really sluggish the second tea I brought with today is a Mate so hopefully that’ll be helpful.