Imperial Breakfast Blend

So far today I’ve been just laying around at my house, but I finally made some breakfast & have also been enjoying 3 & 5 min steeps of this tea. For some reason, it’s not as wonderful as I remember it, & seems kind of weak, even though I know I used the same quantity I always use.
It’s probably because my tastebuds & sinuses are allergy-affected.
OR maybe there was a higher ratio of white tea in that TB.
Who knows? Who cares?
It still tastes good, & although I drink hot tea year around, I especially enjoy it when the cool weather arrives, & it is pleasantly cool & wonderful here is St. Louis!

My visit with Sil was awesome, but short. We laughed a lot, & we drank a bunch of tea!
If you’d like to see a video of her playing my small harp, here it is:
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10204087208195877&set=vb.1095023403&type=2&theater
:D

soooo busy today. This was my first tea of the morning as i’m nearly done this one so i wanted to make sure i’m working on finishing it off. This weekend i need to get some serious sipdowns in, so i’m trying to help that along this week :) I still enjoy this one but i feel like i’d prefer to just pick up the individual teas. Maybe i’ll try making my own slightly different version heh

I’m Back! Hi my Friends!

I’ve been very, very sick the past few days with a violent allergic reaction to a handful of dried peas.
This was something like being seasick and having the flu and a migraine all at the same time.
Today is the first time I’ve been able to eat anything or drink tea.
Hooray for Tea!
Very carefully, I chose a tea that was not flavored with anything that would make me turn green since I’m still a little queezy.
A good malty tea with warm chocolate and caramel tone would go down well and Puer would be good for my stomach also.
I’ve had the past version of the Breakfast Blend as a sample, but not the Imperial Breakfast Summer Blend. I had ordered the tasting set of Alchemy Blends which arrived today (great timing).

This afternoon, I prepared a 24oz pot of tea. I was so ready, you have no idea how much I had missed tea for 2 days. I chose Western Style brewing so that I could continue with multiple steepings for soothing my stomach throughout the afternoon and to rehydrate myself.

Steep time 1min. Color of liquor light golden honey brown.

The tea was malty and naturally cocoa cinnamon with good body. The richness was what I wanted…a real tea hug. I can’t explain it better than that. I love this tea flavor. Malty, caramelly, cocoa rich tea makes me do a bad, bad thing.
I have an addiction!
When I run into a very good malty tea, I go to my secret stash of ginger cookies and take a few…
and slowly break off pieces of cookie and eat it crumb by sweet spicy crumb while drinking the malty cocoa, creamy tea.
I can’t explain the sensual goodness…the delight in this combination…of unsweetened tea…that blends in the mouth with the sweet of the ginger cookie somehow enhancing the flavor of the tea. Oh My Goodness! Absolutely sensational!

So, yes…ok…I went for it and had the cookies and tea and I came alive again! (Here I should insert organ music like in the Phantom of the Opera…She’s Alive!)…The tea was…Delicious!

I’ve conversed with a few people lately about what Puer would be good for evey day use and this is one tea that I recommend because the Puer is mixed with other tea’s as a blend. This is such a delicious tea, a perfect way to begin the day and a wonderful tea to have as an afternoon stress reducer.

I’m back! (Not in the horror movie sense of the phrase) ; )

First tea of the day here, we are under a snowfall warning, so my plans for the day are to sip tea and make cookies later! And watch my kitty, he got fixed yesterday poor little guy so he has to wear a cone now and he really doesn’t like it! :( so lots of pets for him today! Anyways, back to this tea, it’s so tasty western style! I should try the last little bit in my gaiwan, but it’s just so cozy and warming and soft in the mug. It went nicely with my waffles with apricot jam for breakfast. An excellent tea! See previous notes :)

This is SO SO SO SO Good!!!
Now THIS is what I’m talking about!
Chocolate
Malt
Caramel
Vanilla
Cinnamon but only ever so slightly
Creamy
DREAMY!!!!
Yes in fact I do get all these flavor elements and what a lovely wonderful much needed grounding tea right now!
Everyone’s schedule in this house is chaotic with exception of mine so I am the one doing backflips to accommodate everyone else after 10 years of being the only one working in the house and everyone accommodating ME lol
Its nice to have more income indeed and wonderful WONDERFUL that my daughter is working not one but TWO jobs September 31 of last year will be a YEAR since her neurosurgery!!
Amazing I am proud and grateful!
Still OMG make the noise STOP!!!!
LOL
everyone is bouncing off the walls and I am needing much more grounding, center, and focus to do MY work which is being fit into when I can get it done.
SO with that said – OH YES bring it on – THIS is the perfect tea for this. I am glad I got a sampler and now I am off to get a BUNCH of this!

After David’s MARVY Surprise Yesterday of a Karate Chop to the Taste Buds – I decided to try this one out to begin my day! I’m on my 2nd cup already and I’m really liking this!

A blend of Black, Oolong, Pu-erh, and White teas…I’m game!

I can totally taste individually and as a harmonious combo of the Black, Oolong, and Pu-erh. The white is slightly noted in the background, but not overly so. This is amazingly creative and the loose leaf ratios of each are done awesomely – in my opinion.

I haven’t been sleeping well the last several weeks. It’s my dogs. Mostly the one…Riley…he wakes me up at 3 – not sure what changed – he never has done this prior to a few weeks ago. I’m a Night Owl…I usually get settled in around midnight or 1. With Riley waking me up at 3…that isn’t fun…on top of that DH gets up for work at 3:30-ish and leaves shortly after 4. My alarm is set for 5:55 but I haven’t been making it that long lately. Riley either wants water, has to pee, wants to eat (he’s a piggie), or just wants to lay on the sofa. And that’s where I end up…on the sofa. Tremendous.

This morning in addition to lack of sleep Suzie (the other dog) bolted out of a dead sleep on the sofa and lunged at Riley – which I refer to as the “Bitch Attack”…I jump off the sofa and had to pry them off each other. 99.9% of the time these two dogs LOVE each other…but when the “Queen of the Castle” is in a dead sleep and the other one is too close to her she sometimes freaks.

So while this was happening…I could feel various tendons and muscles ripping in my neck, shoulder, and back. OYE.

So…yes…long story and way too much info…I totally needed a special tea to help me start my day!

This is IT!!!

This is certainly on the verge of a Karate Chop AKA Ninja Tea but not as in-your-face as the other GEM from yesterday. Perhaps I will refer to this one as The Round-House Kick :)

Malty-Chocolaty notes first and foremost are overly welcome and appreciated.

There are some cinnamon powdery hints throughout (even more-so in the 2nd infusion)

It has some odd but lovely creamy flavors that move like a football-stadium-crowd-wave throughout the sip.

In the first infusion – not really in the 2nd – I could taste reminiscent flavors of wet noodles as well. Also in the 1st infusion there was a completely different texture than in the 2nd infusion. It was somewhat grainy…much like a Gluten-Free Pasta Alternative or something. I found this very different, interesting, and likable.

This is a real work of art! Another wonderful offering from David and Verdant!!!!

Oh wow… from the aroma of the dry leaves I was expecting this to taste a lot like the Laoshan black, but it’s much richer and smokier – maybe that’s the pu’er, or the Big Red Robe? I don’t know, but I like it. I can taste the oolong for sure, but not a lot of caramel or vanilla on the first steep; on the second the caramel started coming out, and the oolong is still prominent. I don’t know my pu’ers well enough to pull out either of those flavors. There is a solid cocoa flavor, thanks to the Laoshan.

This has a stronger flavor than the two straight black teas I’ve had from Verdant (Laoshan and Golden Fleece), which I like. As a breakfast tea, it certainly makes me more willing to face the day, if it means getting more tea like this!

On steep 10 or so, I found this getting unexpectedly creamy. I hadn’t noticed any cinnamon in the flavor, but my mouth is convinced I’m drinking a light chai. Nifty!

gongfu style, 3g leaf to 3.5oz water, steeps starting ~5 seconds

Sipdown! Thanks Sil!

I re-read my tasting note of this from last time, and I pretty much would write an identical note this time. The flavour is very reminiscent of a lighter Laoshan Black, but perhaps with a bit more sweetness, and there is more depth in the flavour profile, in that there are many different things going on here. I’m choosing not to think about them too much though, and just enjoy this. As I mentioned before, this would be a great morning blend for me, as I’m not one for a tea with any sort of astringency/punch in the morning, as my stomach does not like that. Not to say that this isn’t packed with flavour, but it’s not an assault on my mouth, as I presume (perhaps incorrectly) many breakfast blends to be. All robust and strong.

Anyhow! A yummy cup, sad to see it go but I probably could recreate something pretty close with the other teas I have from Verdant, hahaha.

2 tsp for 300mL @100C, steeped four minutes Western style, drunk bare.

Oh, oh, oh.

Liquor is quite dark, letting me know there’s pu-erh in the blend. I can smell the pu-erh, too, and it’s a type of tea I generally don’t care for, but it’s giving heft and depth to this blend. Bready and toasty — roasted grains, and a winey finish that reminds me of some good Keemuns. Some faint Yunnan pepper, stronger in the aftertaste, and some honey notes. Florals in the finish, too. Deep notes of cocoa and sweet potato and minerals. Wow. I’ve never tasted a blend like this.

As is the norm for me, because I can’t remember from nose to mouth, I placed a Verdant Tea order and promptly forgot about what three quarters of it was. Then I saw TerriHarpLady post about this one and hoped that it would be in there. And it was! How excellent!

On the paper it sounds like an extremely interesting blend and not a single ingredient like your average breakfast blends. No Assam, no Ceylon, no Keemun. Is it even possible to create something breakfast-y without those three? Yes. Yes it is, apparently. Instead a mixture of the Laoshan Black (which I lurve) and some Jin Jun Mei, which Spoonvonstup introduced me to (although I preferred the Fujian ones, but really… who’s surprised by that?), and then some Da Hong Pao and some Silver Needle and some pu’erh to fill out and accentuate and what have you. I mean seriously! I’m not surprised that it turned out that I did order some of this. I’m highly surprised that I couldn’t remember doing so, because really! O.O I sounds like the sort of thing I’d remember…

The leaf smelled wonderfully grainy, and there were some Yunnan-y notes in there, but none of the ones that I don’t like. When I was pouring it after steeping (still from the stupid pot and over the sink, WHEN OH WHEN will my new Roy Kirkham china arrive???) I got a faceful of something thick, sweet and grainy. It’s really hard to describe this aroma as anything other than thick. It smells like something that really ought to be tangible at first. After the cup has settled down a bit, it becomes less so and actual notes start to seep out.

My first thought is dulce de leche. And LOTS of it! Underneath that something chocolate-y and something cinnamon-y an just a smidge of smoke, which weirdly manages to somehow not be a top note. blink I don’t get that bit. Smoke has always been a top note for me. Always! Curious.

This peculiarity is fixed in the flavour, though, where the smidge of smoke is restored to its rightful place at the top. And all is again right with the world. That note is immediately followed by the chocolate, cinnamon, dulce de leche combination, which lasts for the entire sip and then goes straight to the aftertaste, which, to my surprise, is indeed with a bit of vanilla to it. I wasn’t actually expecting that. Whenever I see vanilla (and to some degree also caramel) described as a naturally occurring flavour in something, I can never seem to find any, so I’ve stopped expecting it. Maybe it has to do with my obsession with finding the perfect vanilla flavoured black?

It’s not until after I’ve swallowed that I realise something is missing. Where exactly was the body in this? Where was that grain and malt and stuff that I picked up from the dry leaf? Where did that go? Laoshan Black and Jin Jun Mei are both teas with pretty assertive and strong flavours, so… where did they go? It’s like all their top notes just banded together, ganged up on the rest of the notes and locked them in a cellar somewhere. I can’t find even a hint of grain in this. How peculiar!

And yet… And yet, if you really could take the body notes out of the equation all together, I don’t think you would actually end up with this result. They are there, I just can’t taste them because they are the stuff that holds all the rest together in a united front. Without them, it would probably just be something that tasted layered and somewhat thin. They are there. They are important notes. They’re just working behind the scenes on this one.

I apologise for that last be becoming a little odd. Blame it on my having acquired some sicks somewhere, it seems. I feel all ‘W and F’, as the father in law says (Weak & Feeble).

‘Peculiar’ seems to be the keyword here. What an all round peculiar tea. Peculiar, but living up to my initial expectations completely and utterly. Auggy, there will definitely be a share of this in your care package. I’m very much looking forward to what you think about it.