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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…

Work tea! Actually, I’m justing getting home from work now. My manager got in a car accident today (thankfully she’s ok), but because of it there wasn’t anyone to switch over shifts with me until 30 min. after I was supposed to be off, and since she hadn’t been able to come when she was supposed to I never had anyone to watch the store so I could take a break. It was a very long day for me (though I’m sure so much longer for her).

Anyway, I steeped two cups of this today – but for 5 min. and using the same leaf (so one of the cups was, obviously, a resteep). I actually started drinking this pretty much as soon as I got to work (I guess I was feeling really dehydrated), so it was still really hot. Today, this was everything “peaches and cream” with some lovely added notes of apricot and subtle almond and the oolong base. I was actually kind of concerned it wouldn’t taste good, because it was smelling really perfumy and artificial to me – but that wasn’t the case.

I ended up drinking this whilst snacking on some Golden Grahms cereal, and the two flavours went surprisingly well together. For people who don’t know what Golden Grahms are, they taste like maple syrup coated grahm crackers.

So, my only real complaint of this tea is that I didn’t have more of it with me! I ran out a few hours into my shift and I spent the rest of my shift dying of thirst and wishing I had more.

The last few days since Tuesday have been really awful for more, so this is a backlog from yesterday since I literally had no energy to do anything yesterday. I actually realized at about 9 PM that I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink (literally nothing at all) all day since about 5 PM the day before, so I made myself a hot cup of this (I opted for rooibos because of the absence of caffeine – I just wanted to go to bed and have the day be over with) and had an oatmeal chocolate chip muffin.

The tea itself was really good, and I think drinking something warm and cakey was really comforting. In fact, later tonight I’ll probably drink this again or one of the other rooibos teas I have.

The tea was very smooth, although it did have a bit of an oily mouthfeel. I didn’t get any medical taste – but there was the sort of “wood chip” like flavour kinda characteristic for rooibos. Nice and vanilla!

I still love that this is my first loose leaf tea and, therefore, my ‘introduction’ tea. It’ll always have a really special place to me because of that.

Brought with me to work.

To make it, I made one cup like I normally would have and then added an extra 1/2 tsp of fresh dry leaf to what I’d already steeped, for the second cup. Both were poured into the same water bottle.

By the time I started drinking it at work, it was pretty much room temperature: neither hot nor cold, and that was kind of weird. I don’t really like room temp. teas – I want something toasty I can cuddle up with or something cold and refreshing.

Still, it tasted pretty good regardless. The taste of the green tea base was extra present today – and I could really taste floral notes like rose alongside the typically present mango notes I usually get from this tea. Downside of all this was, for whatever reason, after I was about 3/4 done what was in my water bottle I started to feel just slightly queasy and nauseous. It might not have been the tea – I felt kind of the same way a few days ago and I wasn’t drinking any tea at the time, but even so I haven’t finished the last 1/4 of what’s in my thermos and I think it’s probably just going to be thrown out.

I brought this with me on to James’ house yesterday. I kinda was feeling ‘mint’ as a flavour (definitely a mint day yesterday) and needed the decadence of chocolate to go with it.

Have I mentioned how much this reminds me of drinking a liquid After Eight chocolate bar or of mint chocolate chip ice cream? Mmm… Yum!

Anyway, I actually drank this cold – and I was really thinking I’d love it as much as I did because I don’t usually like chocolate teas cold – but I was really pleasantly surprised.

Urgh, backlog…

I’ve been really busy lately; maybe I’m actually progressing towards having a social life here in Saskatoon.

Anyway, yesterday night was my first ‘date’ with James, and I made this for myself right before I left to meet him (mostly, I think, because I had just finished packaging up about 25g as a gift for him). I love peppermint tea, and it just seemed like the perfect gift thing/idea/whatever… He’s told me he gets headaches, and peppermint is great for headaches and upset stomachs; plus, since he doesn’t drink tea it’s a perfect “starter tea” to get him trying things, and it was inexpensive and therefore not overwhelming or ‘too serious’ for a first date or anything, but still personal because I’m really interested in tea (which he knows) and it ties in to him… Plus, it ‘earned’ me a really sweet hug.

But the tea was great, and so was the date. For anyone who cares, we went for a walk and then over to his house (but only after he’s made sure I was absolutely comfortable with it). We watched the first Pink Panther movie (and I mean first – the one from the 1960s with Peter Sellers), and then I picked out You’re Next to watch since it’s my favourite horror movie currently and I wanted to share a movie I love with him since he’d shared the Pink Panther movies, which he loves, with me.

Then I got to hear the music (‘beats’) he makes, and they were really cool! My favourite was one called Aquamatic. And we sorta cuddled? Sorta. Then we watched some South Park and both wound up practically crying from laughing so hard. It was awesome. By the time I left it was past midnight (and I only left because I was working at 9 in the morning) – so I was there for over 7 hours.

So, I made this as a Soda today…

I brewed up 2 tsp. in boiling water, but only used about and ounce and a half or two ounces of water, so it was very concentrated. After letting it cool to about room temperature, I mixed it with a full can of club soda.

Actually, it was pretty good. I think maybe I enjoyed this tea as much this way as I do iced or a hot beverage. The melon flavour really shone through, but the hibiscus was quite tart and it didn’t seem to mix too well with the carbonation of the soda. It was an odd experience.

Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll have anything to add tomorrow. It seems like I’m going to have a fairly busy day: I’m going on a first ‘date’ (though, not a date – since we both agree that dates are too high stress with too much social expectation to live up to for either party) with someone I met using an online dating site…

Originally I was just looking to meet a few friends here in Saskatoon (since I know my mom used a dating site when she was looking to meet people, and it worked very favourably with her) but this was actually a nice and unexpected surprise. So, I hope it goes well – and fingers crossed?

I think I’m going to bring him some peppermint tea, since he said he finds my tea obsession “cute” (I don’t think he understands just how much I love and drink tea – and even that is nothing compared to many of you all) and he was complaining about getting headaches – which peppermint tea is good for. Also, since he doesn’t drink tea often it’s a good way to sort of ease him in to it? I don’t know – what do you think? Cute or corny?

Mmm! Perfect Thanksgiving tea is perfect. Happy Thanksgiving to all the fellow Canadians on Steepster! It’s a lonely Thanksgiving for me – Tre went back to Regina to see his Dad and Grandma, Robyn and her roommate Casey are both with family and out of town (I’m not even sure when they get back), my new friend James is probably going to be busy this evening having supper with his mom and sister, even our landlord Rob and his daughter Maria are off at their cabin celebrating, and all my family is back in Regina…

I could have gone to visit for a few days, but I thought I’d be working so I stayed in Saskatoon. However, I ended up with the day off so it’s just me, but I’m making the most of it! Instead of turkey I’ve made myself a yummy tofu chicken burger sandwich with cucumber and some Pumpkin Chai tea instead of Pumpkin pie. Plus, I have ANTM episodes to catch up on, and Pokemon Y to keep me company!

For anyone currently playing through X or Y right now, this is how my team stands: I’m using a Farfetch’d (Churro), Frogadier (Ebonezer), Fletchling (Jaqcuimo), Dunsparce (Chinoko), and Floette (Titania), all of which are currently level 23. I just passed route 5 and anticipate that I’ll be facing the second gym leader soon. Also, kudos to you if you can get any of the (relatively stretched) references for my nicknames!

But anyway, back to the tea! I added some milk and honey since I really enjoyed the last cup I had of this which was prepared that way. I steeped 1 1/2 tsp. for the full 6 minutes. I’m finding this cup to be a bit more spiced tasting than I’ve had in the past, but it hasn’t reached an undesirable level of spice, so that’s good. Maybe it’s because it’s Thanksgiving and I’m finding myself waxing nostalgic for some actual Pumpkin Pie, but I’m really wishing this was sweeter with the pumpkin taste just a touch more prominent. If I had vanilla creamer or flavoured agave, I bet I could really replicate the taste of Pumpkin Pie and vanilla ice cream, minus the flakey crust. Oh well, this is still really good and hitting most of the right buttons today.

I’m not sure whether the follow up tea to this should be Cantaloupe and Cream since I have leaves to resteep, Goji Pop which is nice and melony also and which I’d love to try as a soda or S’mores/Minty Cow because I could go for chocolate right now too… Tough choices.