Tea & Toxiphobia Send Message

Comparitively, this cuppa kicks Twining’s Oolong’s ass.
The directions are to steep for 2-3minutes, and this is adequate. The aroma is richer, the taste is richer… just a better quality oolong.
My only complaint is that I seriously struggle opening the packet containing the teabag! When I do finally manage to tear it open, I rip the teabag as well… so then I have to use a teaball/infuser… which feels demoralizing, somehow. =P

Five minutes of steepage isn’t doing justice for this tea, right off the bat. It doesn’t have a strong aroma… I need to put my nose quite close to my cup to catch its scent at all, really. The smell is subtle, roasty, and earthy… I wish it was stronger. I am reminded of brown rice cooking… that sort of nutty warmth.
Tastes much the way it smells. Seven minutes is what I would estimate the optimum steeping time. At five minutes it still tastes kind of watery.
I feel as if I should be eating steamed veggies to accompany this mug of tea.

I drink this when I feel like I need to think “healthy”. I had an acupuncture treatment before coming home from work today, and decided this was the tea to spur me on. I figure this is the next best thing to taking the time to go buy a bag of gǒuqǐ from the Chinese herbal store (cheaper, too).
Always when I am drinking this tea, I think foremost about how sweet it smells, and secondly how astringent it tends to be. Wandering through the isles at the drug store, I picked up a box of this and was reading the back… and I could have sworn that I spotted hibiscus as an ingredient. Which would explain the astringency.
Having eaten my share of goji… they’re not what comes to mind first when drinking this. Still good, though.

Today was a rather draggy day, and I decided to treat myself to an XL cup of tea from Good Earth Cafe at the university. Spending $2.50 (plus GST) for a single tea bag and a bunch of hot water isn’t usually my cup of tea, so to speak… but some days you just need the tea.
I had had the Vanilla Bean on a previous occassion and hadn’t been greatly impressed. It always seems to call to me… like it ought to be Earl Grey gone vanilla instead of bergamot. Regretfully, it never turns out this way. I’m not sure if it’s that the tea isn’t black enough, or if it’s one of those teas that just needs a splash of milk to wake it up. Today it just didn’t do it for me. And had a sort of strange plastic-like taste to it (I was sipping from the edge of my cup, not the plastic travel lid).
After my experience with this species of Mighty Leaf, I don’t think I would ever feel inclined to spend the upwards twelve dollars for 15 bags. Reading reviews of other ML teas, it seems that they do make some enjoyable ones. Vanilla Bean would appear to be the lemon.

I usually enjoy this tea a lot… but at the moment I’m getting hungry, which kind of ruins the experience.
As promised by the company, it doesn’t seem to get bitter, even after a good long steeping.
Near the bottom of my cup, here… I am contemplating iced Rooibos. I find that luke-warm Rooibos is a big turn-off, so I do wonder about iced. How about milk? Is Rooibos drunk with milk, ever? I seem to think it would be, for some reason. Maybe it’s a total taboo, I don’t know.
I suppose I’m not writing much about the actual tea. Some cups are like that.

Just winding down for the evening and though I have this thing where I enjoy black tea at night, I am behaving myself and going for a no/low-caffeine nightcap.
Let it be noted that I also have a habit of allowing my tea bag to wallow in my cup forever and ever amen.
I always seem to find myself disappointed with lemongrass teas, and I’m not sure why. What am I expecting? Something more lemony? More grassy? Whatever the case, my conclusion for this tea, even when it was newly poured and not steeped to the dickens… was simply, ‘meh’. I prefer my green tea… green.