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Jackee and his compadre Thomas arrived chez Ca’ dei Gatti late yesterday afternoon. My first morning choice was Jackee. I had read the reviews and the mention of “smoke” enthralled me. I love “smoke” when it comes to perfumes, teas, salmon, prunes, paprika, nuts, and scotch. “Smoke” has got to walk a thin line between enhancing and highlighting that which is smoked and overwhelming it.

Jackee Muntz is a fine, rich, deep tea with a smoke that does manage to evoke the burnt sugary taste of caramel—but I liked to linger on the smokiness. I thought of an excellent poem I read recently called “Shopping List” by Anna Adams. The premise is that “all of life /
is hinted at on strips of scrap”. The imaginative mind can take a simple shopping list and go places—dig deeply like an anthropologist or archeologist.

“Cornfields come with the brown bread rolls,
orchards with apples, and the sea
heaves, vast, around the herring shoals,
and China swims in Lapsang Souchong tea.”

A tea that wakes me up, makes me think of poetry, and which unfolds layers of taste and meaning is a great one. I’ve already re-ordered.

I need to become a serious Buddhist to cope with all of the limited edition teas I’ve fallen in love with. I’ve wept buckets when books and perfumes go out of print, Jackee, my man, you’ve reversed the ill-effects of a bad night of sleep.

JacquelineM put this into the traveling tea box and when it came to my door there was only one scant tsp. left. But I am the kind of person who appreciates the labour of love that trudging through the snow can be. The best way to honor JacquelineM is to thank her for her efforts and not allow this tea to travel to a potentially less appreciative home.

I am going to need to place an order with Premium Steap. I like coconut teas and this one is so utterly true and pure and rich. There’s been no compromise whatsoever on flavor. It’s Full Metal Jacket Coconut with no frilly little nods to the tropics. So many times the exquisite flavor of coconut gets lost in a marriage with chocolate or in a threesome with chocolate and pineapple or into a tropical melange of flavors. The purity of this tea really allows one to focus on the coconut and the satisfactions it offers.

This flavor is excellent. Coconut has taken rather a bashing with all those synthetic shampoos and soaps and sun-lotions. This is not a Copper-Tone kind of coconut, but rather a Tea at the Savoy kind of coconut. I could imagine the Queen of England sipping this whilst murmuring endearments to her corgi dogs.

This is an exquisite tea that I will need to keep in stock. It’s a tea for grown-ups. I added a tiny crystal of brown sugar and an ort of milk.

So here I sit sipping a cup of … " Cabochard? “Boss?”
“Thé Vert au jasmin” by L’Occitane? Matthew Williamson’s “Sheer?”

I associate Jasmine so strongly with perfumes that I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy drinking jasmine with any frequencly. But yet I wanted to try this, thanks to the great Travelling Tea Box. Pearls are fun to watch. I wonder if there’s a very slow film of them unfurling anywhere? I watched these little pearls unwind and slowly get bigger. I won’t call it an agony exactly. They looked more like that were transitioning from nap time to recess at a little nursery school for tea.

This tea smells very nice, but I have just not conditioned myself to tasting this odor. The great thing about the Travelling Tea Box is that I’ve been able to try things that I might have hesitated to spend money on. You make new friends with teas you have not tried before; you find new tea companies and race to the internet to place an order; your prejudices are either confirmed or toppled.

Jasmine, for me, is a nice middle-note or top-note for perfumes. I’ve never liked it as a base-note. I don’t think I can ever accustom myself to drinking it but I suspect it’s a taste once acquired that does pay dividends. I’m in no hurry to run and spray Clinique “Aromatics” into my mouth but I also don’t feel a need to rinse out my mouth. The aftertaste is pleasant.

Adieu, Jasmine Pearls! You’re moving on to your next destination!

I typically do not have an affinity for green tea. The problem lies not in the tea, but rather in my limited palate. A bad green tea tastes like nothing to me. Just warm water. A good green tea, and I suspect that this is one of them, opens up a world of vegetation in my mouth.

“Spring Snail Shell” tastes like the smell of a really funky warm rainy day in Florida when the heat and water brings out the vegetable smell and the air smells like burgeoning fecundity. It tastes rather like lounging in deep meadows (much like a snail might do) and taking in the green, grassy, aroma that is part funk, part fresh with a dash of sweetness and clarity.

I did think of Andrew Marvell’s line: “A green thought in a green shade” from “The Garden” when I drank this. I suspect that green tea aficiandos would really like this tea. And, as I finish my cup here and now, I start to think that perhaps I should purchase some and maybe I should make certain to keep green tea on hand. It’s a nice change, and it makes me feel like a “back to nature” person which is pleasant because my inner essence is so very library and bedroom.

Edited to add:
Three days later, I have sent this Spring Snail on in the Travelling Tea Box. Yet somehow I long for it. I keep thinking maybe I could just have some spinach—but yet that isn’t it. Maybe I do want some more of the grassy, vegetable tastes? I simply will have to order some. I’ve got a Jones and his name is Mr. Spring Snail.

This tea is good. It’s soothing. Yet it does not “pop” in my mouth with the excitement that a Mariage Freres tea typically manages.

According to the web site,
“Easter bells are ringing in a gourmet treat: the flavour of a black tea scented with fruits and citrus, spiked with notes of noble spices and sweet overtones for a heavenly delight.”

I expect a superb experience from Mariage Frères and I would give this tea a second chance. I may try to find it new and see if it gives me that Blair-Waldorf-on-“Gossip Girl” sense of privilege.

I hope to lay hands on some more of this tea and return to give a revised report.

This is a nice, albeit rather pedestrian, black tea. There were no particular flavor highlights I could pick up on. Because I am a huge “flavor” junkie, I have downgraded this tea.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a good and strong “basic black” with a hint of creaminess, this one might just be your proverbial cup of tea! Smooth and strong, this is the sort of tea that could convert anyone to abandon supermarket-brand tea-bags.

Out to a bookstore/tea/coffee place with some friends late on Saturday night. Caffeine is out for me. I notice that Harney & Sons teas are being sold.

This is a post-prandial cup of tea and I’m stuffed to the gills. Plain peppermint seems like an excellent, simple, uncomplicated choice for the occasion.

I ordered a “medium” and they put two tea bags in the cup. I am quite certain that their water was about 50 times the temperature of boiling—maybe their water was about 2500 degrees on the Kelvin scale. So my tea steeped for a good ten minutes before I could take a taste.

Finally I was rewarded with a big, single-note peppermint tea that was more flavorful than other peppermints I have had. I don’t feel a need to keep this at home, but if I ever wanted a straight, strict peppermint, I would turn to Harney & Sons. This refreshing tea kept me perky and also permitted me to descend into the arms of Morpheus when the time came.

I love almonds and almond flavors so I came to this tea with a propensity to like it and I feel abundantly rewarded. There are many flavored teas that disappoint me because I just cannot pick up on the flavor. Perhaps the fault is in my tongue or my nose, or perhaps the teas are insipid and/or cheap.

SpecialTeas has done a bang-up job with this one. With a very small amount of sugar and milk, I have a sweet and creamy and very flavorful brew in which the almond flavor really “pops.” I’m about to order some more from SpecialTeas, which is my highest accolade. When I want to make sure that I am within a minute’s reach of a tea, I know that I like it.

If you like almond, you might want to try this. It’s the first really successful nut-flavored tea I’ve had.

David’s Teas have consistently pleased me. I had this in the late afternoon, instead of “after midnight” as the title suggests. The good news is that it works at any time of day, I believe.

The complex blend of chocolate and orange and a touch of spice takes a couple of sips to establish itself. And then it explodes! I could really tell that the chocolate was dark—deeper and richer and with just a tiny touch of bitterness. It ended up being more effective than milk chocolate teas, I believe, in delivering the chocolate taste.

After a bit I added milk and I would suggest going with milk from the start here. The milk rounded out the slight bitterness and only seemed to make the tea richer and smoother. Ultimately I added a touch of sugar and I would recommend that you add sugar if you want a sweeter drink—duh! The tea is excellent both with and without the sugar.

Overall, David’s continues to delight me and this will be on my reorder list. So many chocolate teas simply get it wrong. “After Midnight” has it right.

I have mixed feelings about Mighty Leaf. Sometimes they do things very right. I love their Chamomile Tea and I am not a chamomile fan. I tried the Organic Detox mixture last night. The peppermint came through most strongly and overwhelmed the other flavors. But flavorful it was. It was most pleasant.

For the record, I did sleep unusually well last night. I don’t know yet if I can credit the tea, but it certainly was a great late-night beverage for me.

Ignore the picture of the orange-peel on the bag. Any citrus flavor does not emerge.