Good Morning

Good Morning! I received this tea in my Lupicia happy bag. Uggg I’m in pain all over, holiday break from jiu jitsu and returning after the break = painful. I hurt all over and feel tired. Feels great to be back, though annoyed I couldn’t finish a choke on a guy as he got saved by the bell!

STEEPED: classic dark amber brown black tea look.

TASTE: English breakfasty tasting, though I find this one (compared to other bags of English breakfast I’ve had) very clean tasting. No bitterness or dryness.

Admittedly, I don’t drink this kind of tea very much and it’s something I don’t buy for myself, so other than it tasting pretty clean and not bitter, not sure how this stacks up against others. Though I think this tea not bad.

Going back to ice packs and heating pads.

I drank this cuppa this morning, but I’ve only now had time to actually sit down and log on to my laptop. There was only enough tea leaf for one more cup so I had it with some skim milk. The milk smoothes the tea out nicely and while it doesn’t turn it into anything mind-blowing I could see this being a solid, go-to breakfast tea for people like me who need a kick in the ass in the morning.

Drinking a morning tea in the afternoon is surely the best way to start the day. This is one of the last teas from my Lupicia Happy Bag that I haven’t tried yet, and the reason for that is, I have never been a breakfast tea type person. Don’t get me wrong, — I love a mean Earl Grey like the rest of them, but ultimately, I prefer sweet and fruity black teas over bold ones. I often find them too bitter.

This one, however, is the exception. It is still a bold tea, but even with brewing it a minute longer than Lupicia’s recommendation, I had a very smooth experience. Anyway, I added two ounces of milk, so there’s that, haha.

I don’t think I’ll repurchase it nevertheless.

I used too much tea. I will be using my husbands razor to shave my chest soon. JAYZUS was this tea strong! Re-do needed. I still drank it. I’m such a tea whore.

boring tea is boring :) nothing overly special about this one – just a typical sort of every day black.

Book of Tea #1/100

My first tea from my Tea Book! I’ve been so hesitant to start trying the teas since I want to actually be able to taste them properly, but I’ve decided that running through them at work, where I at least no longer have to use travel mugs, will be okay, at least until I want to do side-by-side comparison. So, I drank this one and one other last Friday at work.

Assessment? This was a pretty decent standard black tea, and it was fabulous with milk and sugar. The small sip I had before adding the milk/sugar was okay (but too hot), but doesn’t really have the profile I look for in teas that I drink plain, so it was probably best enjoyed as it was. Would recommend this as a robust morning tea.

This tea is okay. Its a perfectly acceptable morning tea to get you going.

TTTTB

Gods, this is just what I needed after an almost 5mi run at 0700 today…it’s full-bodied like an assam, but without the lingering astringency and bitterness that I often run into. Two tsps of sugar and a splash of whole milk served to mellow the brew out nicely and it made a perfect accompaniment to watching Terra Nova and responding to emails.

This tea is good at being what it is, which unfortunately means that it’s not really to my taste at all. It’s very strong and quite bitter, even when brewed normally, and the flavor is fairly malty. I always have to add milk and usually also sweeten it — I’m finishing it up with some vanilla creamer right now, and for me it needs that to make it easy to drink without wincing from the bitterness. On the flipside, if you like strong black teas and want to be able to add a lot of things to them, you’ll probably love this. (Although perhaps unsurprisingly, I haven’t tried many teas similar to this one and I can’t really directly compare it.)

It’s ridiculous how cold it is outside :(

I wasn’t very impressed when I got this tea in this year’s Happy Bag. And then CTC Assam that I saw disappointed me further (Not sure why? I keep thinking that CTC stuff is some below-mediocre leaves. Where did I get it from?). I thought it would be just a boring and astringent blend.

I am happy to announce, however, that it is much better than I expected. While it brews into a very dark amber color, it is not crazily astringent at all. Sure there’s bitterness, but with no wince-worthy aftertaste that I dislike. Actually there’s a fair amount of sweetness to it.

While I probably wouldn’t seek out the opportunity to buy it, these days it seems to make a nice everyday morning tea – which I am guessing was Lupicia’s goal here. So – well done!