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I reaaaaallly don’t like the flavour of this tea. It’s gross. However, that is NOT the point of drinking it. I’m currently drinking it steeped as directed for 15 minutes with 2 spoonfuls of honey and 2 tea bags in my large special order cat mug (I had it done with a black cat with yellow eyes on it. Currently all 3 of my pure black cats look like that so I can’t choose which one it is.)(I have another one with a white cat with blue eyes that is Sinatra. My other white cat Groucho (RIP) had one blue eye and one yellow one.)

SO yes. Disgusting. Have to say though, it does feel good on the throat. It’s stil a bit tickly but I’m not done with the mug yet and I can feel the ‘good slimy’ covering my throat in the back. Just needs to be a bit of a thicker layer and a bit more soothing. I have a stupid tickle in my throat that I think I picked up either from the cold air while walking or from gas fumes. Or possibly from the smokers outside that I had to walk past this morning. Cigarette smoke always makes me cough but usually I’m not still coughing 5 hours later.

I’m not even sick, so I can taste all of this and it is like being punched in the face by a giant animated liquorice stick. But like I said, that’s not the point.

I believe this one was sent to me by Roswell Strange quite a while ago, back when I was in the tea chat all the time. I can’t do that anymore because of work restrictions unfortunately.

Smelling the dry blend, it smells sort of like sugary maple syrup. That’s not quite right, but I can’t think of anything closer. I’m currently waiting for my water to get to an appropriate temperature (aka, not boiling) in my water heater. It’s being a bit stodgy today.

Waiting for the tea to cool off a bit, it smells lovely. Moreso than the coconut tea I just drank that had gone off.

I accidentally put some milk in this tea, forgetting it was white tea, but thankfully it doesn’t completely ruin it. The tea now tastes quite sweet and very creamy and smooth. There’s the tiniest tingle on the tip of my tongue that tells me that I’m glad I drank this now rather than waiting and having it go off on me, which would be a shame for a tea that was gifted to me.

Ah, I was gone from you for too long, delicious coconut white tea. I made a pot this morning and it’s got the faintest ’I’ve gone off’ taste to the coconut. I’ll finish the cup I have, but the rest of the pot, and the rest of the dry bag, are getting disposed of soon. Sad, because I love this tea and if I remember correctly, the maker of it is no longer in business.

There was a lot more spice than I was expecting since they weren’t in the ingredients as anything other than ‘natural flavours’. So I won’t be rating this because it will be biased due to the fact that I don’t like the spices traditionally used in pumpkin pie. Because this is pumpkin pie cheesecake, not just pumpkin cheesecake.

Tastes almost exactly what I would expect an iced tea flavoured as pumpkin cheesecake would taste. If that is to your liking, this is a tea for you.

Screwed up the proportions on this one and briefly thought I had killed my blender. Currently eating it in a bowl with a long handled spoon because long handled spoons are fun. Added the rest of a pack of frozen raspberries, which made it a bit too think for the liquid I added. Due to thinking I’d broken the blender, I didn’t continue to blend with more liquid, but after I washed it and attempted to blend some soapy water, it seems to be working again.

Decided on some more of this today. Also making some iced tea but it’s still code steeping for another couple of hours so hot tea it is!

This is sweet and tasty and not bitter at all so I made it correctly (for me) this time as opposed to last time. 1 tsp per 8 oz is the right ratio for me. It came out well.

Also did some kitchen reorganizing (along with other house chores done today) and found a space in a drawer for a lot of my tea paraphernalia so it isn’t just permanently out on the counter. Today was actually fairly productive considering that until 4pm, I was not up for doing anything except napping and complaining about how sore I was.

Review for 3/6/2015 – Friday AM

Going to start dating my reviews (if I remember) since the dates posted are on an increasingly crude timescale if it’s over a month or a year ago.

This review should be taken with a grain of salt since I’m not a huge fan of bergamot to begin with, although occasionally, it’s completely awesome. My last Verdant tea with Bergamot, I loved so I took a chance on this one. I do not love. It’s not terrible but it’s not something I would drink if I had better choices (for me) so it will likely be donated to my local guy who only drinks Earl Grey since that’s pretty much what this is. A floral Earl Grey. This guy is otherwise known as my veterinarian so it works out. Will have to wait until I get my car fixed though, hopefully Tuesday. I walked to work today (not as bad as expected) and will likely do it again on Monday.

This is a delicious example of a Fujian Black tea as a type. Bready and caramelly and just very nice. Took half of my pot to work in a tumbler (stands up to that treatment very well) and drank the other half in the morning while taking meds (deserves better than that treatment). Just a really good tea.

Made correctly this time with 3 teaspoons (1 tbsp) per 500 ml (2 cups).

ETA: Second steep was just as good, though I’m not going for a 3rd.

Was trying to clear a bit off of my limited counter space and had 2 boxes of this taking up space so I used 8 tea bags (7 in one box and opened the other) to make iced tea in my 2 quart pitcher. Set the kitchen timer for 8 hours since I didn’t do it overnight this time and let it cold steep. Was pretty good about taking it out in time, added one spoonful of sugar (using my sugar spoon, not the tea spoon) for each cup in it (8) and shook it up. Then I let it sit because I was drinking hot tea and I didn’t want the sweetness to screw up my Elderwood.

This morning/afternoon, I tried it out. It’s a bit strong, so I’m letting the ice cubes melt a bit, but otherwise, the tea to sugar ratio is pretty good and it isn’t bad tasting, so I’ll consider this a successful iced tea. I’m historically terrible at iced tea so I take my victories where I can. This is older tea too, I generally keep it around for my mother but she hasn’t visited in the last year and a half or so (I visited her and then we went on a joint trip to London and the family reunion in the summer so it’s not like I didn’t see her at all, plus I call her almost every night), so it was getting old. Not that almost all of my tea collection isn’t super old, but I was justifying.

Anyway, a bit sleep deprived still. Just woke up from a nap and realized that I’d sacrificed half of my second Elderwood steep to a travel mug that was still a bit soapy so had to pour that out. Bleh. Today is full of chores and veterinarian visits (preventative) because tomorrow I go back to work for the first time in more than 5 weeks. Yay successful surgery.

So I like to stack my activities on my ‘get up from the couch and computer’ periods because evicting the cats from my lap is a time consuming and guilt inducing process and I try to limit that. So this period involved (in order): bathroom, panning for gold in los rios gatos, trash (including bathroom trash and the big stupid plastic bags in the bedroom that the cats keep licking in the middle of the night, I hate that noise), setting up the laundry, making tea, going for a 15 minute walk on the demon hill, coming back to made tea (yay!) and then sitting down again.

I told you this so you would understand why I keep coughing. It is below 50F right now (which is ridiculously warm compared to the rest of the US, but still cold when I only sort of put a coat on and then go for a walk in the dark). During my walk, which was a bit more strenuous than I’ve been doing in my surgery recovery process, I was breathing through my mouth and since then I haven’t been able to stop coughing :(

Anyway, this tea is helping with the coughing a bit, since it’s a warm liquid on my poor throat. I’m glad I read the reviews before sipping for the first time because I was expecting a bit more vanilla in this vanilla tea but the third review down, WP put in a comment that he blends to accentuate the notes present in the base tea rather than attempting a face-punch vanilla flavour. I prefer the latter, usually, but this is definitely the former and it’s none the worse for it because it DOES, in fact, accomplish that goal. The base tea is definitely a really really nice black tea and the milder vanilla is really very nice with it and makes it seem like there isn’t a vanilla ingredient at all, but just that it’s a really vanilla-y black tea, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I’ve figured out how to enjoy the first cup of my pots of WP tea now, which is to ignore the instructions on the bag and add approximately a teaspoon per 250 ml instead of half that. Perhaps once I acclimate my tastebuds again, I’ll be able to go back to the milder flavours, but right now they’re used to soda again and I haven’t had much tea these last few months.

tl;dr: this is a good mild vanilla-y black tea. Approved.