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Green Caramel – Just Add Honey – 2/5/14
2 minutes, 175 degrees

This smells smoky to me. Is there smoke in the ingredients? Looking at the ingredients, I suppose it could be one of the roasted things but it’s really quite strong. I kept to the green steeping parameters because although rooibos can do boiling and a long steep, I don’t think the green would survive that. The steeping smell still has a bit of smoke but I can pick up more on the wood smell coming from the rooibos now. I’m not really a fan of rooibos so I hope it stays subtle.

Without sugar, this tastes very smoky to me. Like a very very mild lapsang might. With sugar, I’m still tasting a horrible taste reminiscent of beef jerky covered in caramel. Wow. I’m forcing myself to drink the rest of this but it’s a struggle. This is not a tea for me.

TTBB #6 (after lunch)

Pineapple Upside Down Cake Green – 52Teas – 2/5/14
2 minutes, 175 degrees

Sugar at the bottom, I definitely get cake. Buttery cake. Not quite in mouthfeel but definitely in taste. When I stir the sugar up, the pineapple starts showing through, though faintly. As it cools the base starts getting a lot more prominent and it’s definitely not my favourite green tea. Chinese Sencha? Isn’t sencha Japanese? Anyway, pleasant to try, would not order if it were reblended by Frank.

Don’t you hate it at work when the customer comes around and stuff doesn’t match like it should and you investigate and are like ‘yep, sent you the wrong thing, sorry’. I hate that. That’s what happened to me this morning. I’ve already put together the revised thing because a revision c of this particular thing is going out soon anyway but it’s embarrassing.

TTBB #5 (lunch at work)

Momoko – Lupicia – 2/5/14
2 minutes, 175 degrees.

I read some of the other tasting notes to get an idea of what I should be tasting but it wasn’t entirely clear. I also thought I might have tried this before but there are no tasting notes from me so it appears that that is not the case.

I’m definitely picking up some vanilla amidst the green tea flavour. As I sip a bit more, the peach becomes stronger until it’s quite clear. Originally it just tasted a bit generically tropical before resolving into straight peach. I’m not an enormous fan of the green tea base in this, it leaves a yucky aftertaste and it is somewhat astringent despite my somewhat conservative steeping time/temp. The whole thing put together is pleasant enough, but it is not something I think I would ever buy now that I’ve tasted it.

TTBB#4 (Not even 10am at work)

Boulder Blues – The Tea Spot – 2/5/14
2 minutes, 175 degrees.

Strawberry Rhubarb? Well it certainly smells like pie innards. I put some sugar in (as I usually do) but I took a sip before stirring and it’s actually still quite nice. Not entirely to my taste but nice. After stirring, the flavours come out more, especially the rhubarb. I wish it had been the strawberry instead because rhubarb is not my favourite thing but alas. The green base is both subdued and sharp at the same time in several different places in the sip. I can taste it in my cheeks after the sip, somewhat metallic, and during it is quite mellow, allowing the rhubarb to come forth.

TTBB #3 (The work editions)

TTBB #2. I’m not going to add these to my cupboard unless I keep more than the cup I drink so there won’t be any sipdowns for a while.

I’ve never tried green rooibos before, though I’ve been meaning to. I have some….somewhere in the tea tubs but I couldn’t even tell you what brand it is. This smells very strongly of fruit, mostly pear as other commenters have mentioned.

Just took a drink and it’s reminding me of SOMETHING very very strongly. I’m having a sense memory but I couldn’t tell you what. Maybe…root beer? Something in root beer is twigging at me. Pear up front but this mystery flavour in the back. In the middle is something vaguely horrible that I think is the green rooibos. What is that?? Anyway, aside from the visceral shudder reaction, I think this tastes good. I would never buy it, but it’s good.

I am getting a quick onset headache since drinking this so I might have found another food sensitivity. Crap. I suspect the rooibos but I don’t have enough data points to tell. Possibly a flavouring.

In other news, my kidneys have been sore all day and I’m not sure why. It’s very irritating.

First tea of the Traveling Tea Box B! I just took a little over a teaspoon out of this so the rest will go back into the box. It brewed up quite dark. Smells very generic tropical fruit.

It actually tastes quite mango with little hints of other fruits that aren’t strong enough for me to identify. One of them feels quite ‘sharp’ at the back of my throat but I don’t know what it is. As I drink more of this it is becoming less tasty and more ‘woody’ somehow. I don’t know how old this sample is.

Happy to have tried it, but I wouldn’t order any.

More of this! Getting one step closer to a sipdown. Hot latte, as always at work. Just over a half teaspoon was all I dared to put in and it’s a tinge chemically tasting but it’s not awful. Still creamy smooth though I’m mostly getting cream and not so much cookie this time. Ah well. This will hopefully keep me awake on my drive home in 15 minutes (if only because I’ll have to pee).

Sipdown (539)!

This is the last of a sample from someone I traded with a long time ago that was lost to the depths of time last year. The rest of my work samples I have labeled with who gave it to me, but not this one. I had enough left here to just barely be enough for my teapot. I didn’t really want to break out the gravity infuser this afternoon, but I might still have to if the network doesn’t come up. We’re at an hour and a half of downtime so far as of writing this. I’ve been sort of cleaning my desk and organizing things but I’m really not sure what to do with myself with all this time that I should be working but I can’t work on anything because they push us to have everything on the server and it is and now we can’t work on it because the server is down. It’s very frustrating.

This is a touch bitter and mapley (?) somehow. It hasn’t been stored very well (ziplock bag) but it also hasn’t been stored next to a maple tea of any sort so it’s odd. The maple flavour is stronger in the aftertaste. I know this is supposed to taste like Red Velvet Cake but really I’m getting maple syrup. Not the good kind, the fake Aunt Jamima’s type of “maple” syrup that’s great on cheap pancakes when you don’t want to break out the expensive stuff. Not that I do that or anything… I may have underleafed a bit but the flavour on this is surprisingly clear and strong. The sip tastes like almost nothing with a touch of bitterness but as soon as I swallow BAM maple.

Yeah, I don’t know.

I’m writing this on a Word document because our network is down here at work and has been for the past 45 minutes as of writing this. I’m very bored and kind of anxious because I really need to get shit done today. I’ve only done 2 pomodoros so far because I got in late because of a couple of doctor appointments and then having to drive 35 miles in traffic. But one of the benefits of coming to work around lunchtime is that there are parking spaces near the building.

Anyway, the tea. This is a SIPDOWN (540) so there’s that. I will miss it until I order it again though because it is definitely a reorder. I used a bit more matcha than usual in order to get the last bits from the can. I’ll wash it as soon as I’m finished drinking if the network is still down. I’ve still got 6 opened matchas here at work so it’s still a sipdown work in progress. But anyway, this still tastes nice, though the flavouring has been fading with time. Not bitter at all and still quite tasty but I taste more matcha than flavouring. The hot latte is quite creamy today so I’m enjoying this.

Pretty sure my total will go back up again when I go home and open boxes but for this afternoon, I’ve done one sipdown. And I’m bored so I’m totally editing this for grammar mistakes. I still have a sentence fragment with the green squiggle underline but I think I’m going to leave it.

First time I’m having this with the ‘new’ Adagio parameters (aka, not boiling water for black base teas).

This blend is getting old and I’m really going to have to give some of it away if I’m going to get through it in a timely fashion. Maybe as a bonus tea in my next couple of swaps or something. Same with my other Adagio custom blend.

This is still slightly bitter, but not much, not even enough to bother me and I am super bitter sensitive. I pick up the hazelnut mostly and perhaps a touch of caramel but not much and none of the other flavours that are supposed to be in here either. Perhaps my tongue’s not up to it today after I abused it with honeybush yesterday. I have one more mug of this left before I can move on to a different tea. I really need to bring in a Finium basket to work. I bought one for this purpose and I just haven’t gotten around to doing it.

Also note to self, I need to bring in a chocolate tea or two because one of my coworkers wants one.