Nostalgia

Tea Advent Calendar – Day 12

Honestly wasn’t the biggest fan of this one. It was a light, smooth blend with just a ghost of vanilla flavor…would have liked either a more robust base tea or more vanilla.

Sipdown

I was drinking this on Saturday evening before bed, but with the result of it being a black tea, my bedtime came later. Ha-ha. I oftentimes will have a sample of oolong, shou, or green tea prior to bed, but I’ve been in the “drinking down my samples” mood. I’ve acquired more tea through swaps with friends, rather than the actual tea that I own, so it is my goal to have everything finished by next summer. Ha-ha. I think that this one here is the last of the LP tea blends. I may be wrong, but I’ll find out after digging down to the bottom of the tea sample boxes…..

Notes: Creamy vanilla; almost reminds me of pancakes.

Edit: This was not from a swap, but the “sipdown” stuff will get thrown into those boxes as well. ;P

Mastress Alita’s Monthly Sipdown Challenge
March 2022 → A discontinued/otherwise unavailable-for-purchase tea

I remember having this a while back and thinking that it didn’t have much flavor. I checked my notes from before and decided to double up on the tea leaves and use 2 teaspoons this time instead of only one. It probably helped some, but it still wasn’t the most flavorful cup. It was more aromatic than flavorful. Mostly I noticed the vanilla before steeping and a roasted aroma after (probably from the oolong).

Work sipdown.
The lower temperature water available at work stopped the wood note that I didn’t like in this tea. Probably because the temp was too low to extract it.
I did get creamy vanilla black. The vanilla really popped out here since it wasn’t under the wood.
Will I miss this tea? No. I did like the creamy vanilla-ness a lot so I’ll need to try to find another tea that’ll do the job.

GGTTB6 sample that I removed to try later. I used about 3/4 of a teaspoon because I wanted to make sure there was enough for others to try too. I brew small pots of tea most of the time anyway.

Looseleaf: Beautiful orange sandlewood contrasted against dark black tea.

Steep 1: Used 1 tsp leaf in 250 mL hot water
Very deep and rich. Minerals, cocoa, leather? not exactly smoke, more like tanned leather, lots of tannins, but never bitter or tannic. Extremely complex and flavourful.

Steep 2: 250mL hot (90 deg C water)
Dark chocolate, the smell of tobacco cigars and incense, dark/old wood like from a really old antique shelf.

Steep 3: "
More woody than the previous steeps, quite Earthy tones (not like wet soil, more like dry decayed wood, tanned leather, minerals in rich cocoa powder). Less rich and more Earthy.

Yet another mind blowing blends from LP. I’ve never had anything quite like this.

To be honest, I didn’t really get a lot of flavour out of this cup until it started cooling down considerably. At that point I picked up more on the vanilla and just a tiinnyyyyy little bit of the sandalwood. However, it’s a practically ancient tea sample so I forgive it.

Here’s Hoping Teabox – Round Six – Tea #23
Sorry everyone, this one was a teabox sipdown! I thought there would be one serving left when I started scooping but nope. I like where this tea was going. There seemed to be very complimentary ingredients here. I wish I was tasting more vanilla though! The black tea and roasted oolong worked very well together. The black tea reminded me of a light Laoshan black. The sandalwood didn’t overwhelm the tea — a nice subtle flavor that was a nice addition. A comforting three steeps, definitely!

Think I brewed this wrong because it is sort of a plain black tea. Bland and generic. Though, I think that is on me and not a reflection of the tea so we will see how subsequent brews go with this in the future.

Really enjoying how the vanilla is worked into this — it’s not a strong vanilla at all, but it’s distinctive, and makes a great accent for the woodsy base teas. Oolong and black teas are not something I usually see blended, but I think it works here, probably because the oolong is so dark.

Opened this one today. On first sip, it actually reminds me quite of lot of French Toast Dianhong, in as much as the creamy vanilla flavour is very similar, and the black tea base is quite light and definitely chocolatey. I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 3 minutes in boiling water. I wasn’t sure whether to go with boiling at first because of the oolong, but I figured it was worth a try – I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?

I almost get vanilla chocolate brownie from this one, except the flavour isn’t quite as full or rich as that would suggest. All the elements are there, though, and I might try a longer brew time for my next cup to see how that impacts things.

The oolong is a lot less prominent than I thought it might be. Mostly, I can taste the Fujian black and the vanilla, with only a little woodiness/mineral from the oolong. Also, something that’s putting me in mind of coconut. It works, though, somehow! A delicious start to the morning, and the work week.