Dolce Orange

Had another cup of this with some half and half. This batch still isn’t as good as the original sample I had. So hormones are ruled out? But it’s still pretty decent. At least the base doesn’t go bitter.

Epic Rant Time

Off-topic, but man am I ever fuming about online orders/shipping right now. Aside from the Herbal Infusions fiasco, I made a Bare Minerals order whilst visiting my mom here in Alberta at the end of October. The company never gave me a tracking number, and since the shipping notification email vaguely said that they sent it either via USPS or Fedex, I assumed they therefore sent it via the former. Weeks went by and nothing. Finally decided to contact Bare Minerals to inquire about tracking. Took nearly a week for them to respond, saying that they need to retrieve the tracking number from the warehouse. Finally got an email from them this morning, the freaking day I’m flying back to the West Coast , giving me a Fedex tracking number, and the employee orthographically giggled gleefully and assured that the package should be here by December 2nd.

But wait, it gets better. Look up the tracking number and you will see that my parcel has in fact been here since November 6th and they attempted to deliver it four times. They didn’t have my phone number since Bare Minerals didn’t ask for one when placing the order, plus my mom lives in an apartment with 28 floors so I didn’t see a shipping notification tag (and neither was I looking out for one since this entire time, as mentioned, I was expecting a package via USPS/Canada Post). Plus the apartment doesn’t have a buzzer. So, of all times, they decided as of 12:11 this morning to send it back to Bare Minerals and has just left the facility. So I missed it by one day after all of this.

SO, I called Fedex asking if I could possibly get it rerouted to my Victoria address since I’m heading back there today and the employee said nope, no can do, it is already in Saska-freaking-toon on its way back to the Bare Minerals warehouse in Ohio, so I’d have to ask them to reship it to my Victoria apartment when they get it back.

An email later asking for them to resend it to my address once it gets back to them and I am sitting here on pins and needles. Ugh! Crossing the fingers they won’t recharge me for shipping and won’t have a problem with a reroute.

And have I mentioned that I was never able to make a Dammann Freres order because my bank thinks that European addresses are evil and has therefore barred me from using my credit card to order from their site?

End Rant

On the upside, I snagged some great local teas yesterday and will be enjoying/writing about those once I get back!

As always, a visit to Janet’s left me with a grin on my face and a slightly lighter wallet. If you’re in Victoria and haven’t stopped in to Janet’s Special Teas in Sidney (on Beacon Ave), you don’t know what you’re missing! Janet, the owner, is a total hoot, and treats everyone like family. She’s truly passionate about the tea she sells and offers generous sample pouches for $1 (with enough leaf for at LEAST 3 cups). She’s even been known to bring in teas that she wouldn’t normally carry for customers who request it, so don’t be afraid to ask if you don’t see what you’re looking for.

But on to the tea itself. I LOVE orange teas, and orange juice. Which is funny because I can’t stand oranges (but I’ll happily eat a whole grapefruit) or creamsicles. But I do make my own “creamsicles” every summer, using tea and condensed milk. And that’s actually the main reason I picked up 50g of this tea.

I generally make my creamsicles out of DAVIDs Orange Blossom rooibos, but after experimenting last year, I found that rooibos just doesn’t make the nicest popsicles, it’s just not strong enough. So when my lovely hostages, I mean tea companions, asked to sniff the Dolce Orange, I couldn’t resist grabbing some to play around with. I brewed up some double strength when I got home, then split it into two parts. I added 2 TBSP of condensed milk to one part, and 2 TBSP of vanilla simple syrup to the other (when making popsicles you really do need to add sweetener. The extreme cold of freezing the tea cuts a lot of the flavour, and the sweetener helps to highlight the flavour of the tea and make it pop despite the coldness, without being overwhelmingly sweet). Poured into popsicle molds and put them in the deep freeze overnight. Wehn I finally crawled out of bed at 2pm, and despite the below freezing temperatures outside, I grabbed one of each pops and tested them. The creaminess of the vanilla in the tea, mixed with the smoothness of the black base, the pops really didn’t need the condensed milk! I prefer them with just the vanilla syrup, actually. In fact, next time I’ll cut the syrup in half and do just 1 TBSP.

Of course, after testing the popsicles, I had to warm up, so I made a cup of this hot. And by cup I mean my 750ml teapot-sized-mug, haha! 2 heaping tsp (so close to 1 TBSP I guess?) to 750ml of water, steeped for 2.5minutes at 175F. Beautiful orange liquor with a sweet and creamy scent very much like melted creamsicles. First sip was pure orange goodness with a bit of vanilla left on my breath at the end of the sip. As it cooled I got more vanilla notes, and a slightly malty black note as well. Janet mentioned Sri Lanka, but I don’t remember if she was referring to this or to the back based Sidney Sunrise (which I also picked up even though I have a bit of the rooibos base left. The black base just smells nicer, though I’ll keep the roobios based blend on hand for the sake of having a tasty caffeine free option. but I digress.), but I almost wonder if the base to this one is an assam?

I’ll definitely be popping over to the shop on Friday on my way to see the pony (since he’s boarded literally across the highway from Janet’s shop, so when he’s going good and steady in the cart I want to attempt to drive him over and tie him to a post outside her shop, haha) to get more, both for drinking and for popsicle making. This may be my favourite non-spiced orange tea, very slightly beating out the blood orange pu’erh I keep on hand.

I got this tea yesterday, on a pilgrimage to Janet’s out in Sidney…I got four little $1 sample pouches, and this was one. Her words were like it is orange creamsicle flavoured….so orange and vanilla. It did, indeed, smell like a creamsicle, and very much like DAVIDs Orange Blossom tea, minus the rooibos base and currants.

I did a full boil steep, but only for a few minutes. This tea, to me, is fine on it’s own with a little sweetener and no milk, though I may try it with milk one day to see how the creaminess plays in.

I did not find the base bitter or astringent at all, with this steeping, and the follow up steep I did later. I’ll see how the rest of my pouch goes, but I think that this is something I could keep regularly, or semi-regularly. Curious to see how it cold steeps with the warmer weather. I think it could be good.

Since im in ottawa for a few days my notes have been abysmal. Rest assured I AM drinking lots of tea though. This was one of teh teas that I brought with me so that I could try a few things while I was away from my cupboard in the hopes of beings able to still reach my sipdown goal. bearwithme sent this one me way and it’s one that I’ve been looking forward to trying out since I love a good orange tea. While this isn’t my favourite orange tea, I can certainly see the appeal. This is orange and vanilla and is super tasty as a black tea. What I did find though, was its a little finicky, and if you’re not a bit careful, there’s a bitterness in the orange that can come out. I also wished I had my vanilla sugar here so that I could add a bit extra to the cup. over all though, a really tasty tea. I’ll have to let a few others try the remainder of this one :) thanks bear with me!

WOOO!!! Thanks, Ceylon Star!

Smells SO GOOD. Like an Orange Julius, almost.

Yeah. If an Orange Julius were a tea, I think this might be it. Will probably update more in comments later. Must flee!