Om

Hello! So sorry I have not been around, the headache turned out to be the start of a 48 hour flu/virus/bug thing, I won’t get into details, but that had knocked me out of commission for a few days. I’m at about 99%, food is still an enemy, but I am definitely feeling better, and ready for tea!

I started with this one, because I wanted the caffeine. I wanted a smooth black tea blended with a full green tea to help me kick start my day and push the rest of whatever that was that ruined the last few days of my life out!

Brewed hot, three minutes, added one packet of splenda sweetener. I feel the splenda, being sweeter than the equivalent amount of sugar, helps this tea. This tea hits the common problem that if you brew it long enough to be a black you make the green extra bitter, but if you brew only quick enough to be a green, you get no black tea at all. This is why, I always go with three minutes, a nice median, and a little bit of sweetener to brighten the black and dull the bitterness of the green.

I have to say I’m thankful that I’ve come to the end of this box. I only wish I didn’t still have about half a box left at work to get through.

Over the course of a few months I’ve tried this sixteen ways to Sunday — lower temp, longer steeps, shorter steeps, shorter temp, cold, hot, warm. It’s just not something I look forward to no matter how I prepare it. Sometimes there’s more peach, other times there’s more cucumber, sometimes there’s more or less tea, but it doesn’t really matter. It just doesn’t send me.

I have to bump it down a few points for not even having the ability to grow on me over time.

I grabbed a bag of this this morning and got a cup of “warm” water from one of the campus coffee shops. Needless to say, I thought it was going to steep terribly with this warm cup of water, but actually the opposite happened. For once I actually tasted the peach flavors in this. I’ve never tasted it before and it was quite good. Steeped for about 3 minutes I believe. I’m now a fan again.

I adore this tea. It tastes like the dry summer breeze. Whiffs of brittle pastures, sweet overtones of peach and cool shadows of cucumber. I am careful about the time I let it brew because it is very easy for it to become bitter, but I adore it just short of that point with a smidge of honey

A very temperamental tea, Om, but one of my favourites as well. Some cups are heavier on the peach; others are heavier on the cucumber. I haven’t pinned down what causes different cups to taste differently (when made the same way) but I love it regardless. I’ve settled on 190F and 4 minutes for this particular blend and it seems to work well: the black tea is noticeable and the green doesn’t become too bitter. (What bitterness there is I cover well enough with a bit of sugar.)

When opened, the package gave a very calming scent of each of the green and black teas. You could smell the cucumber a lot and I figured this was going to be a refreshing tea. Once brewed, it had only the flavor of the green tea. Now since I am a green tea fanatic, I really liked the flavor it gave off. However, if you are wanting to taste the cucumber or peach I would not recommend this tea for that.

Had to oversteep but it was ok after doing so. Not much for aroma. You can taste the Green Tea but not the Black. Not really tasting much of the Peach or Cucumber either…pretty much Green. This was just OK for me. Not bad but not great either.

The notes of cucumber and peach blend well, and add a nice high note to the blend of black and green teas. Sweetened, it’s got a lovely flavor to it, and is making this a quite nice morning.

The description of this tea sounds so appealing. Sadly, it seems to taste like vomit.

I tried adding honey. It tasted like I had vomited up honey.

I tried it a second time, in case I had been on crack the first time. I may well have been, but that didn’t account for the vomit factor.

Perhaps this is because I have not yet reached enlightenment.