Smokey Mountain sTEAp

Finally finished up the sample. :( Definitely want more of this!

Edit:
Ah! Totally thought I had reviewed this before! I thought I wrote down stuff somewhere but I can’t find it. Anyway, this is fantastic. It’s like s’mores over a fire. :) I’d write more but I really drank this quickly, I’ll just have to wait until I buy some. Very good!

So. Smokey mountain is the perfect name for this tea it smells and taste like a smokey campfire with hickory wood I like the tea but its not one of the faves this will take time to get use to it leaves this smoky flavor on my tong and in my nose hehehehe very good tea just not something I’m use too.
my husband reminded me that As i drank this tea Ronnie millsap Song Smokey mountain rain ran threw my head :)

I was sent a few samples from sTEAp Shoppe for their Virtual Tea Tasting tomorrow (9/23). This one is called Smokey Mountain and it definitely lives up to it’s name. This tea blend contains Organic Lapsang(which it was my first experience tasting this), Organic Assam and Organic Se Chung Special Oolong. It also contained organic cocoa nibs and organic vanilla bean.

I brewed Smokey Mountain to approximately 195 degrees fahrenheit. I steeped it for approximately three to four minutes. The tea liquor was a medium brown color to a dark brown color, it resembled the color of coffee.
It tasted very smoky as well as rich and astringent that also reminds me of a characteristic of coffee. It also possessed a bit of sweetness. I believed that this tea blend has complex flavors that make this very unique. The scent was a scent of smokiness. My friends commented that the tea smelled like bacon or beef jerky.

I had a wonderful experience drinking Smokey Mountain. This is my first experience drinking a tea with more of a smokiness to it. I love having the opportunity to expand my tea drinking experiences by trying a range of flavors.

I would like to once again thank sTEAp Shoppe for giving me the opportunity to try their wonderful samples! Thank you!

Wasn’t crazy about the dry leaf smell on this one—potpourri which I shy away from, but with a smoky edge—but this is quite nice to drink. The smoke is definitely present but it melds really well with the other components, especially the chicory (I love chicory). It’s like fall in a cup—the smell of smoke and firewood and dry leaves crunching beneath your feet, with the rich warmth vanilla brings and maple from the fenugreek.

Thawed some chili (Clay’s Colossal Chili recipe, from the Spice House: http://www.thespicehouse.com/recipes/clays-colossal-chili-recipe not as “die and go to heaven knock your socks off” as Lisa Fain The Homesick Texan’s 7 Chile Chili but that takes aaaaaall day to make and every pan and gadget in your entire house…this one’s more classic American “Super Bowl Sunday” type chili, comfortably satisfying and nostalgia-inducing, but with a surprising depth of flavor) and was pleasantly surprised to find it was even better after being frozen, losing none of its depth (awesome on Las Delicias chips). Going to make Brown Betty with the sack of 20oz NYS apples my mom gifted me last weekend, yay (and Pandowdy later this week!). Trying to decide what to carve on my pumpkin. Smoothing out the details of my Krazy and Ignatz costume. Warming my hands by gripping my tea cup over and over. Come at me fall, I love you best of all and always have.

Due to the demands of the semester, I have been drinking more coffee these days. After an interesting day, I felt like I needed tea to end the night. I still have many teas to get through in my cupboard, but I remembered I still had this sample hanging around. The smell is wonderful with hints of chocolate and smoke. I acutually over-steeped this tea by accident, but it had no effect on the flavor.

This tea reminds me of bonfires in autumn with s’mores! Given the fact that I do not eat flour and sugar, this was wonderful. I might wait to make my next cup when the temperatures drop, as this would be the ideal time to drink this marvelous tea. I am going to purchase a full amount when I need more! :-)

As I related in my notes for Milk Chocolate Caramel, the Smokey Mountain sTEAp sample made its presence known immediately upon opening the envelope. I waited several days to try each tea, but couldn’t resist giving this one an occasional sniff; it smelled SO good! After a few days the strong smokey smell subsided somewhat (sorry about the blatant alliteration… well… no, not really…), but the tea still smelled wonderful.

First steep (3 minutes): Odor still lovely campfire smokey, but not overpoweringly so. Taste has a bit of astringency (bitterness?), but it’s not unpleasant. Perhaps I should have given it a rinse, or perhaps it’s just the chicory. I generally like the odor of Lapsang Souchong better than the taste, but can’t recall ever having tried it in a blend. (I’ve lived a sheltered tea life.) This has a good, comforting taste; nicer and definitely more interesting than the straight Lapsang Souchongs I’ve had previously.

Second steep (4 minutes): I’ve never sweetened this type of tea, but while waiting for my kettle to reheat I idly took a sniff of the wet tea leaves in my infuser and was surprised to note some sweetness, so I decided to experiment and added a wee bit of stevia to my second cup in the hope that it might bring out some of the vanilla and/or cocoa. This resulted in a sweeter smokey taste, but the smoke still dominated (which is fine, as that’s what I love about LS tea!). I might add that it tasted suprisingly good with a bit of sweetener; something I would have doubted.

In conclusion, I can honestly say I liked this a lot and it’s going on my Shopping List. (I just received a sample order of Russian Caravan from another company expecting it to be mainly Lapsang Souchong but, to my disappointment, it contains not even a hint of smokiness. I can see I have a lot to learn about tea.)