780 Tasting Notes
Still in the throws of Covid. Though they are becoming gentle punches. It is more like a cold now. Be careful my friends. If you feel a cold coming on test for covid so you don’t spread it to our more vulnerable population. Ah, but I was truly worried I would lose my sense of taste and smell. Which I did for a bit but it is back now. Perfect time for this tea. It starts off with an aroma of sweet woods and then moves to hay. Composting hay and burnt squash. The flavor is similar but no burnt notes. There is an earthy depth to this tea that is somewhat difficult to wrangle.
It’s bound to get you eventually. Just like the cold. Covid has stuck our house. But so far only my son and I are positive. I’m praying my husband and and daughter stay negative because we leave for vacation soon. But this brings me to why I am drinking this blend. It is called Natural Defense, seems like a good thing to drink right now. The aroma is sweet and fruity and I love the bag! It’s cute and not full of chemicals. The taste is very soothing. Berries and different fruits. Very soothing.
Hope it is mild, quick, and GONE very soon!
Oooof. That sucks. Hope the healing is swift.
Ooooooh no! I hope you feel better soon and no one else in the house gets it!
Thank you all. My 4 year old also caught it and I’m pretty sure it came from his preschool. My son is fine. I feel like I am on the mend but my body is still telling me to take it easy
Hope you recover quick. I had both shots and still caught it..
Feel better soon!
This is a note a few months late in writing. Don’t let it stop you from trying it bu just note my palate prefers plain hojicha when reading. This one would be great while sick. Honey and lemon combined are a great healer. But right now…. not so much. The aroma and the flavor are far too medicinal for this one. Though there are some interesting lemon drop candy hints every now and then.
http://teatiff.com/2021/01/25/3-leaf-tea/
While updating my teatiff.com website I decided I need a cuppa. It’s hard to do anything that involves tea without actually drinking a cup. I had yet to open my new pack of this and since I haven’t tried it for a few years I figured now was a good time. Though I feel anxious because I haven’t had any flavored tea in a while. The aroma is sweet. I thought it smelled a little artificial at first but I just had to give my nostrils time to adjust. Sweet brown rice. Caramel corn. Tapioca pudding. Flavor: A little bit too sweet for my taste as I generally prefer my genmai as is but for those who prefer flavored you will highly enjoy this tea. It is sweet enough that you don’t have to add any sugar but could still work as a latte for those who like to ‘milk up’ their tea. The toasty notes still hold up as the tea enters your mouth and then changes to a marshmallow-infused flavor. There is a slight astringency, as to be expected, but it helps give the tea a better body. I am going to try it as a latte later.
http://teatiff.com/2021/01/26/52-teas/
The last of my advent teas (minus some herbals). Thank you very much, Michelle. his has been an awesome tea journey! The aroma coming from the steeping leaves is very nice. Full of earthy flavors; musty earth, compost, wet leaves, summer veggies. WOW. That flavor. Was not expecting that. Begins very earthy but then swirls with orange sweet potato and white sweet potato notes. (On a side note have you ever had purple sweet potato? Either Stokes or Okinawan. Regular sweet potatoes are good but purple is fantastic). The appearance of the leaves also makes for a very pleasant tea session. Beautiful curly leaves of varying light brown shades. This tea becomes astringent quite quickly.
I have had (and enjoyed!) Okinawan sweet potatoes. I live two hours from Boise, Idaho, and there is a local chain there called “Boise Fry Company” where you pretty much just order fries as a meal (you can get a small “side burger” if you wish). They have several different varieties of potatoes, including the purple Okinawan, and a large bar of different types of fry sauce (including the Idaho/Utah original fry sauce, of course).
^ this sounds very cool. I’d love to go there and get a sampler potato fry plate if they had such a thing. Otherwise, I’d have to come back to try all their potatoes.
Also, I was under the impression that sweet potatoes and yams were the same thing. Apparently, they are not.Glad you liked the tea, I had fun putting it together :)
Ah, I love purple potatoes but didn’t know about purple SWEET potatoes.
Mastress Alita – that place sounds amazing, as fries have always been one of my favorite foods. And “side burger”. har har
A unique blend of ingredients. It’s soothing and soft on the palate. It is pleasant with refreshing hints. The rooibos is a perfect accompaniment to the rest of the flavors, a gentle guide that harmoniously ties it all together and leaves you with that wonderful slightly earthy, sightly milky aftertaste. That being said, I feel this is more of a “tea to drink when sick” tea than it is a drink whenever tea. I wouldn’t go pick this out on a regular night or daytime unless I wasn’t feeling good.
This is my second session with these same leaves. Steeped once in my favorite mug, which sadly didn’t reveal nearly as much flavor as I was hoping and so me thinks it’s time to give the mug a good scrub. This second round is being done gong fu style. The flavors are much more pronounced. The first sip revealed honeyed flavors and earthy wet wood notes. As the session progresses each becomes increasingly tainted with astringency and damp forest. Decomposing wood.
Started drinking this while eating my bacon-wrapped potato wedge and I realized I couldn’t really taste the tea. So I steeped it longer. This is a good tea for this type of breakfast. The bacon escalates some of the woody notes and tones down the tobacco. The banana doesn’t help. Its sweet flavor almost makes me want to stop drinking the tea. But maybe… Nope. It’s not the banana. I oversteeped it a bit. But what is this flavor? It is tannic. It is tanned leather. It is not something I enjoy in my mouth. Burnt… something.
Ah, what an earthy brew. The mouthfeel is incredibly smooth. It has a bit of astringency but nothing jarring. Wet woods, farm field. I’m on the fourth infusion now and it’s lost quite a bit of gusto. The first impact was quite a face full of different farm notes. But I also can’t help bit wonder if that’s because the name makes me think of the movie Black Beauty.
Glad to hear you are on the mend! Good tea always helps :)
Good to hear that you are feeling better. Scary stuff. Hope that’s the end of it.
I know so many people who have recently had or have covid at the moment! My sister has it for the 2nd time. Glad your sense of taste is back! Loosing that and staring at all your tea is a special kind of torture.
^what he said.