268 Tasting Notes
Experimenting with lattes! This one is 1 cup milk, 1 cup water, and 2 tsp tea steeped for 3 minutes. It’s alright but I think I need to make the tea stronger to get more of the chocolate flavor I was hoping for, or maybe less milk. It still smells like a black tea. I do get a light chocolate flavor, not bad for the first of the day. Overall, this concoction is drinkable but needs improvements on my part.
Cold brewed with 8 tsp in 32oz for 8 hours. The color is beautiful. I didn’t take the time to take an after picture. But the end product was a deeper purple than pictured. I feel like I want to mix this with lemonade and it would be wonderful. This is drinkable but I don’t really know what happened, it almost tastes disjointed, if that’s possible. When I take a sip it tastes like water and then the taste follows shortly after. It’s a good taste so I don’t mind, just strange that it’s not right when you take the sip.
Made this one iced. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to brew a white tea. This confirms that I do need to wait until I purchase something that helps me control the temperature as this came out bitter. Until then, I plan to try this one cold brewed. What I can get out of this attempt is that this may be a light, pleasant tea with a blueberry taste. I feel like it has promise, just needs to be brewed right.
Preparation
3 tsp, 2 cups milk, 1 tsp sugar
Needed a kick to start off my studying today. For my second attempt with my first kind of matcha, not bad. I can taste the mocha and I think some of the “vegetative” taste that I have seen matchas described as. I feel like this was a decent way to introduce myself to the world of matcha. Looking forward to checking out the higher qualities and maybe some of the fun flavors from Red Leaf Tea.
Taking a break from my morning black tea sipdown (Rose with French Vanilla by Dilmah) to try one of my newest teas.
Definitely need caffeine today. A dive trip and a cancelled flight home leading to staying overnight in the Baltimore airport have made it very difficult for me to wake up let alone get some productive studying accomplished. On to the tea -
The dry leaf smells pleasant and it’s fun to see the cacao pieces in it. You can see the little bits of cornflower too. The liquid is a light brown. Smells less pleasant than the dry leaf. Taste is interesting. I do currently have a bit of a cold/allergy thing going on and maybe the start of an ear infection due to diving. I don’t taste the chocolate until the back of the sip (if that makes any sense), even then I seem to find myself wishing for more. The addition of sugar seems to round out the sip. I believe I am tasting the black tea base. For a black tea, for me, this is enjoyable. It is a bit bitter but most black teas do seem that way to me. I don’t know what cornflower tastes like so I cannot pick it out.
I do not have milk in the house but I feel that it would be a good addition for this one, maybe even make this tea into a latte. I will hold off rating until these cold symptoms pass.
Preparation
Used my Frequent Steeper points for this a while back as I didn’t want to spend the money on something that I was unsure I would enjoy. I don’t have the equipment, such as the special whisk or the bowl for matcha. I knew that it was popular to make matcha into lattes. So after a brief Google search I found this, http://www.justonecookbook.com/green-tea-latte/ .
I definitely enjoy this. I think I need a better strainer (or better quality matcha), and a better whisk as I feel this is more watered (milked?) down than it should be. I get the Mocha flavor but not much more than that. I do, however it may be the placebo effect, feel more energized than I previously did this morning.
Since it is unlikely that my tea of choice tonight will be purchased again any time soon and I am unsure that anyone on Steepster would also have it in their stash. I am including this under this “Random Steepings” entry.
Tonight I am drinking “Honeybush & Rooibos” by the South African Collection. This was picked up on my way out of Swaziland, via the stop Johannesburg airport. Not much to say about it. I like to add honey to this one to sweeten it up a bit. I haven’t had this in quite some time. It is a nice reminder that simple can be just as enjoyable.
This tea is more forgiving than I thought it would be. I am having a difficult time waking up this morning and forgot about this steeping in the kitchen when I sat down to study. I have no clue how long it was sitting there, oversteeping. I thought it was going to be terrible. It came out slightly bitter, which I haven’t gotten from this tea before, but still drinkable. This is my current morning sip-down tea. I will be sad when it is gone and on the hunt for a loose leaf version.
