__Morgana__ Send Message

Almost at the end of my Herbal Infusions samples. I don’t know if they’re even offering this tea anymore. I went to the web site to see what was listed in the ingredients and all they have there now when I search the site is Caramel Cherry Cheesecake, and I’m pretty sure that’s not the same as this.

So I have to guess at the ingredients. There are some yellow and red petals in among the dark brown tea leaves, I’m gonna say jasmine and maybe some hibiscus. The leaves certainly smell like they have some hibiscus in them to me. They have an indeterminate cherry/berry aroma. I don’t smell cheesecake or anything creamy or otherwise suggestive of it.

Steeped, it smells more cherry like and there is a hint of something that could be cheesecake, though to me it’s a more generic cream/vanilla note. The taste is, however, mysteriously suggestive of cherry and cake, though more shortcake than cheesecake.

It’s nice, and I’d drink it again, but like the Ontario Ice Wine it doesn’t bowl me over.

Golden Moon sample No. 15 of 31. About halfway through my random grab bag and loving every minute of it! Today I have a sick kid home from school with me, and had a hectic working morning, so for my lunch break I wanted something distracting and, hopefully, soothing and stimulating at the same time. Fortunately, yesterday after the caramel oolong, I hooked this tea on my random line.

The leaves on this one are really pretty. Some are very dark and brown; some are lighter and green; and some are silvery white. It’s identified as an organic black, though, so these colorful variations are all the more interesting and even a little puzzling. They smell to me like wood, and somewhere between the wood of a living tree and that of an unfinished board. It’s a dark, sweet scent, with a roasty/toasty tang.

V. pretty red/gold/brown clear liquor. The aroma is of vanilla and brown sugar with a woody undertone.

Wow. It tastes not a lot like it smells, but I like it. The note that the taste and smell have in common is wood. I find the taste hard to describe in comparison to other blacks. It’s almost easier to describe what it isn’t than what it is.

It’s not sweet except through the finish where I can taste some maltiness. I don’t get vanilla taste at all, nor do I get a strong floral taste. It’s like a super concentrated version of a high grade “tea-flavored” black tea. It’s super concentrated, without being overly strong or bitter. Oddly, despite its strong flavor, it doesn’t seem full-bodied so much as medium-bodied. But I am noticing that I am finding the Golden Moon blacks I’ve tasted medium-bodied in comparison to blacks from other companies. I also don’t think I’d call it smooth so much as “brisk.” Though it isn’t overly drying either.

I like it well enough to drink it as a staple black, I think, at least until I hone my tastes in black tea a bit more.

Had the last bags in my tin last night, which is something of the end of an era. This was the first thing I tried when I started my tea adventure last February and at the time I fell in love with it. Though I’ve long passed the pixie dust stage with it, it will always be special to me, though I’m not sure I’ll keep it stocked given my ambivalence toward rooibos. But this isn’t truly goodbye, at least not yet. I was so excited by it when I first tried it, I bought my boyfriend a tin, and his is still pretty full. :-)

Tonight, steeped at 1 minute instead of 1.5 to see what difference that might make.

Either it’s the steeping or it’s the luck of the draw of the flavoring agents out of the sample packet, but this time around I’m getting less sweet and more suggestion of rum. It’s a darker note, but it’s present in a faded sort of way so it gives the overall impression of less flavor.

Second try, with 1.5 cups water, 1.5 tbsp chai, 1.5 cups milk. Much creamier, much nommier. Bumping the rating a tad.

Made this using the stovetop method. This is the first time I’ve made more than a sample size of any chai using that method, and I learned something pretty major.

This time, since I put in two cups of water, the water didn’t boil away in the first ten minutes of boiling. I actually think it tastes better when the water does boil away, so next time I’ll either boil until it’s mostly gone or I’ll make it in smaller batches. On the other hand, having two cups of milk go into the mix allowed me to boil for five minutes after adding the milk. I expected this to take the excess water out, but I don’t think it quite did the trick. The flavor is delicious, but the consistency isn’t as creamy and chewy as it was when I made the Samovar and the Golden Moon. My guess is there was about a fourth of a cup of water left in the mix and that this was enough to dilute the creaminess.

I used two tablespoons of chai, which frankly seems the right amount — I can imagine maybe using 1.5 instead, but not much less than that for this amount of water/milk. Tasting it now, it’s strong, spicy and has a kick, but it’s really yummy.

Note to self: Next time try less water, maybe 1 or 1.5 cups, and maybe a tiny bit less chai, maybe 1.5 tablespoons, boil 10 minutes, then add 2 cups milk and boil 5 minutes.

As for the flavor, there’s a lot of cardamom and a lot of pepper. It’s less gingerbready than the others I’ve tried, which I think has something to do with the consistency as well as the spices. Although I’ve never had authentic Indian chai, I have had authentic Indian food. It’s a somewhat intangible thing, but the feel of the spices in this is similar to the feel of the spiciness of the food — without necessarily being the same spices, if that makes sense.

Not sure where this will ultimately fall in my chai pantheon, but for now it’s getting a fairly high mark.

Golden Moon sample No. 14 of 31.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t be in a position to taste this today, but I had to sequester myself at home today to devote myself to finishing a project for work rather than go into the office, and that put a sort of crimp in the day that had me feeling out of sorts, so I decided to give my latest random pick a try over lunchtime and see if it cheered me up.

And boy, did it ever. I have gone from feeling peeved at how my day was unfolding to feeling lucky that such decadence was at hand to improve my mood. And this after having a not so great experience with an earlier Golden Moon oolong. I had been worried that I wouldn’t like this one that much, either. I’ve never been so glad to be wrong!

Tightly curled dry leaves that smell of — crackerjacks! Or maybe those cube shaped caramel candies in the clear plastic individual wrappers. They smell of this, and nothing else I could detect. It’s a delicious, strong scent. It brews to a pale yellow, clear liquor.

When I steeped them the first time, I didn’t get so much caramel in the aroma, though it was there. What I got more of was the butter of green oolong. So I wondered what I’d taste.

And on the very first steep — yum. It’s caramel. Not overly sweet, not overly strong, but definitely caramel. And soothing. There’s butter as well, and a slightly vegetal flavor, but for a green oolong it’s leaning toward nutty/toasty. I suspect because of the caramel, which could easily turn it that way.

Second steep: 3 min. More sugar! The flavor deepens to reveal more sugar and more caramel. The sugar has the quality of the sugar from a dried fruit, which I suppose could be dates.

Third steep: 4 min. A step back on the sugar, though it is still there. The caramel is as well. There is less butter, and less vegetal flavor, and more toasty nuttiness.

Fourth steep: 5 min. The sugar and caramel is mostly gone, but the buttery, nutty taste remains, though it has weakened some. I fear a fifth steep would be disappointing so I am quitting while I’m ahead.

I really like the feeling of something suggestive of candy that is, at the same time, so obviously not candy. That’s why I feel so decadent having this and why I am going to have to order more.

There’s no heaviness to it like what you could get from eating actual caramels, nothing to stick in your teeth. There’s no feeling of guilt afterwards, or bloatedness, or a sugar high or precipitous fall. But it gives (at least the illusion) of the same serotonin-inducing comfort one could get from eating handfuls of caramels.

And I needed that today. Two thumbs up.

Continuing on with the project of finishing up my earliest batch of tea splurge, I am saying goodbye to this one today.

It actually grew on me quite a bit from my initial tasting. After drinking my way through a box of it, I was used to the tartness and could get right to the berry flavor pretty quickly. It’s a cheerful flavor that doesn’t obliterate the tea, but it may be a little too strong and too weak at the same time — it reminds me a little of Kool Aid.

Hail and farewell! Thanks for the memories.

There are nice big pieces of orange peel and smaller, pretty reddish petals in among the tea. In the packet, it does have an orange smell (in a baby aspirin orange/creamsicle sort of way), and although I do get the note that is called cheesecake, I am smelling, more than cheesecake, a fairly strong coconut scent.

The orange/coconut also comes out in the aroma of the steeped tea, while the creaminess associated with cheesecake comes out more in the flavor along with a small amount of orange. I did not find the tea discernible except for a slight bitterness in the finish. The liquor is yellow-green with suspended particles in it.

The orange flavor in this doesn’t have the strength and sweetness I recall tasting in the Orange Creamsicle, but I do find that these teas differ from cup to cup depending on how the flavoring agents have been distributed.

That said, this is one of the more flavorful of the NecessiTeas flavored green teas I have sampled, probably behind Raspberry Jasmine and Orange Creamsicle, and maybe Strawberry Lemonade. But my standards have become somewhat pickier since I sampled those.

Hat trick! The third from my original group of “starter tea” boxes I’m saying goodbye to in one day. Woot!

This is not one I will likely revisit, now that I have a better idea of what I like in chai, even decaf versions.