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I saved the leaves from the Element Tea chai last night, since it seems like such a waste to use them only once when they’re the only chance I’ll ever have to try this tea! However, I didn’t think there was enough oomph in them for a cup by themselves—it was a teeny sample and I brewed it for extra-long last night. I brought a few teas to my parents’ house to try but went through them all, which means blending time!

The only thing I had that I thought would work was the ETS Scottist Toffee Caramel Pu-erh, so into the little french press it went! As a side note, my parents have a freaking adorable little Bodum french press with enough room at the bottom to not squish the tea leaves when you’re pouring, perfect for saving them for re-steeps. They never use it since it’s a 1-cup thing, so now it’s all mine!

These two teas melded perfectly. Spicy and bold from the chai, rich earthy and sweet from the pu-erh. They went together so perfectly it was hard to tell what base notes were from which tea, definitely a happy marriage! I have a few other chais I might try mixing with dessert-y teas now since this worked so well.

Well I WAS originally planning on using the rest of my All The Raj sample for blending, but I thought there was probably at least one steep left in the first batch of “leaves” so I decided to just go for it tonight. So into my already-steeped herbal tea went some Jasmine Pearls from DAVIDsTEA (which I actually haven’t tried on their own yet) and a pinch of Tea Cozy’s Lavender Earl Grey. Might as well go all-out on the floral! Also, I have way too many samples and need a way to get rid of some of them.

Since there were so many different types of tea, this was really fun to watch brew—stuff floating all over the place! The pearls looked kind of like aliens as they opened though. I did just see Prometheus so that might be kind of warping my view… let’s hope nothing weird starts crawling out of me. Anyway, the tea! It’s floral heaven! Rose, lavender, jasmine, in wonderful harmony. I also put some honey in which I rarely do and that just makes it even better. As a lover of floral teas this gets a big thumbs-up from me… I’ll probably end up throwing my flower teas together more often.

I have two pumpkin teas from Culinary Teas—the Sleepy Hollow Chai isn’t really pumpkin-y enough for me but is very spiced and the Pumpkin Cream isn’t spiced enough but has tons of pumpkin flavor. The solution is, of course, to put them together. OH. MY. GOD. It’s pumpkin pie in a cup. Silky, smooth, sweet, creamy, full of ginger, clove and cinnamon, and oh-so pumpkin-y. I think I might just throw my two bags together into a tin cause really now, when am I ever going to drink them separately?

Tea of the morning…..

I am onto a new Franken Breakfast Blend. The last batch got over smoked by some Lapsang Souchong (and that will permeate everything in the blend, so go very, very sparingly if you blend with smokey teas as they take over!) Right now it is 2 parts Mountain Rose Herbs Assam, 3 parts China Panyang Congou from Upton, and 3 parts Gen Ben Shi, a Yunnan from Upton. At one point, I was going to give this whole blending thing up, but today I am glad that I did not.

The resulting blend is very good. Smooth, malty, cocoa-noted, and cozy. Not a hint of bitterness or astringency. There is a slight difference in leaf size on these three teas, so I did my scooping from the bottom of the tin (the Gen Ben Shi is a huge tea!) It also reminds me that I probably need more of the Congou at some point as it is perfect for blending tea and smoothing everything together.

Usual teapot method.

Tea of the morning….

I needed this today. Just enough smoke to wake me up. A good balance of malt and kick. Lower on the cocoa notes and honey notes that I usually drink. A hint of breadiness.

I highly recommend playing around with your moderate to inexpensive teas to come up with something completely suited to your palate. It is like home in the morning, if that makes sense.

Special thanks to ScottTeaMan for the awesome product pic!

Usual teapot method.

Tea of the morning…….

I have recently added some Lapsang to my Assam/Keemun/Ceylon/Yunnan/Congou blend. We now have notes of chocolate, malt, and smoke. It kind of reminds me of Mark T. Wendell Victorian Afternoon.

I am in love! I will be drinking this to the end of the tin, and then starting anew. Fortunately, (or not for my goals of stash reduction) I have a whole box full of things to blend for breakfast tea on my next go around.

Usual teapot method.

Tea of the afternoon……

After reading JacquelineM’s review of the Lemon Tea from Mountain Rose Herbs, I remembered that I had purchased some licorice root from there a while back to make an herbal blend like an herbal blend of a similar name that is very expensive from this one spa type salon. (Sorry I am being vague, but if you know of this tea, you know…)

I am also trying to drink more blends that don’t require sweetening. This one does not due to the licorice root. I find it pretty relaxing, so I think it will be a staple in the cupboard since it is so easy to mix up, and really pretty inexpensive, too. (Recipe plus my ammendments is on the tea’s main page….) I was planning to add some tulsi to my blend all along, and was out of basil in my spice cabinet. But then I remembered that tulsi is a kind of basil, and I almost wonder if that is what they really use in the original…..

Sweet and minty. And there is a hint of anise flavor. Yum.

Teapot method for 5 minutes. No additions. (Not rating this one as I blended it up in my kitchen!)

My brother and I went shopping for Mother’s Day today and we stopped by the Coffee bean stand. I got some more Taro bubble tea and it is awesome like always. They have an almond flavor that I think I’m going to try next time, but I am almost too fond of the taro flavor to change. I really need to find some taro powder so I can make it at home.

Ha! More bubble tea today. They made it with matcha and it was fantastic! I actually ate most of the bubbles this time because I didn’t want to waste any matcha taste clinging to them. So fantastic!

The bubble teas they have in the mall are more like smoothies than anything, but it was fantastic to have something nice and cold on a hot day after a long day at work.

I splurged today and got a bubble tea from the mall when my fiance and I went. They had taro flavor and I had to try it. I am so glad I did! It was so delicious and I might have to get it again in a month or so. I’m not quite sure how to describe it and the only thing that I can come up with is bubble gum but not as sweet and not as gummy. It was really good though and I now know why that flavor is popular. Yum!

In honor of today being the last day the Chinese Club is selling bubble tea to raise money for Relay for Life, I bought two. One to drink now and one to have for later. I have ice in them today and they are still super yummy! I think I might have to ask what type of black tea base they are using because it makes really good bubble tea.

Mmmm, this is the best bubble tea batch that our Chinese Club girls have done all week. The bubbles taste carmelly and the tea is nice and strong. I am so glad I got a cup today.

Another day and another cup of bubble tea. The price is right and I found myself wanting another when I woke up this morning. So, I got another after lunch. It is less sweet this time and I find the boba really satisfying. I was also explaining it to a group of girls and I think I might have enabled at least four of them into trying it. If I see them tomorrow, I will have to ask if they did or not.

I decided to put this in as a custom tea because it is the first time in a while that I have had any bubble tea. Wow, it is sweet! They sweetened it with honey and the honey taste is really thick. It is good, just sweeter than I expected.

Funny…now that I’m far enough along in my tea journey to be at least a little discriminating in what I like and don’t like…standards go completely out the window when temps warm up and I need iced tea. My guideline for cold tea … aaah, that’ll do; whatever!

This bits and bops mixture from the lovely Jacquelinem fits the “whatever” category very nicely. I’m not much of an EG fan, though I try to be. But the bergamot, which annoys me hot, is cooling and refreshing after an afternoon in the fridge. Will be a nice fridge standard.

A backlog from my lovely Memorial Day dinner! It’s the same mix as last time (Sencha Jade Reserve from Teavana, Fresh Green Mate from Mate Factor, and Fusion Tea Room’s Orange Grapefruit). I used 1.5-1.5-1 in terms of measurement (respectively) and then I poured it over ice.

Yumm! So tart and then there’s the grassy flavor of the sencha that provides a nice contrast. Yummy!

In other news, this three day weekend was quite rough. Saturday was very busy in a not-so-pleasant way (between marching in a parade in a full suit in 90 degree weather to then rushing to an improv show to then going home and doing chores in the hot weather) and then on Sunday, we had to put my poor kitty down :( Well, not really a kitty, as she was older than me, but still! I’ve come to terms with it now, but it is a weird adjustment because I’ve literally had her my whole life and it’s weird that she just isn’t here anymore. However, it was her time and she was in pain so I’m glad we were able to put her down and send her to a better place without any misery on her part!

For those looking for a visual, here’s one from quite a few years ago, though she doesn’t/didn’t look any different (she was quite……. large to say the least :P): http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/215913_1021623156092_1690618482_40422_2489514_n.jpg. This was the only image I could find :( It’s not very good but that black one is our other cat who is now larger but still a kitty

I decided to try again this morning with the same combination of teas I used yesterday

This time I modified it to 1 teaspoon of the sencha, 1 teaspoon of the orange grapefruit, and then half a teaspoon of the mate. Oh. My. God. This was heaven. I just can’t even contain myself adklfjdklzxjfkljs. If this was a blend that was actually made-I would buy 5 pounds of it, not kidding. It was pretty fruity and a little tart (but not excessively) and then there was that sweet grassy flavor of the sencha that peaked through just to say hello. I couldn’t taste the mate, but it did its job in a slight caffeine rush. Oh my goodness. This was so good, and I really want to try it iced now. I will be making more of this, and I think I might just devote whatever I have left of each of these teas/tisanes and just mix them together in one big tin. This was heaven.

I was in the mood for a fruity green tea this morning and so I decided to try my hand at custom blending!

This was made up of 1.5 teaspoons of Sencha Jade Reserve by Teavana, .5 teaspoons of Orange Grapefruit Fruit Tisane by Fusion Tea Room (thanks for the sample!), and .5 teaspoons of Fresh Green Mate by Mate Factor (to help wake me up). I figured the mate would be best mixed with a green tea because it’s unroasted, and I knew that I had a lot of Sencha left to brew up, and I wanted to try to do something with the tisanes that I got from Fusion Tea Room. So, this monster was created!

The verdict: eh. Just eh. I know the reason is that there wasn’t enough orange grapefruit and too much sencha. Next time I do this combo, I’m going to do 1 teaspoon of sencha and 1 teaspoon of the tisane, and the same amount of mate to provide just a little kickstart. I think that that will elevate the flavors.

1 tsp jasmine green tea, 1/2 tsp spearmint, 750 ml water, to make about 3 16-oz glasses of iced tea.

This tea is nice and refreshing. I’m looking forward to having more in warmer weather!

Even though my head cold is next to gone these days, this morning I had some uugghh tummy troubles, no doubt from something I ate last night. I’m actually fine now, but I decided to brew up a cup of this to have with lunch anyway just because it’s soothing and pleasant and tasty. I added honey, which helps mask the flavor of this tieguanyin that I am tired of drinking but have so much of. Seriously, why on earth did I buy 100g of this? Clearly it was some misguided feeling that I had to, or something. I think I could have asked for less, but language barriers. They suck.

Today I used two lemon slices and it was almost too lemony! I think I’ll stick to one large or two small. I must have ended up with less ginger because I didn’t taste it as much, so I’ll try to remember to put more in. Added plenty of honey, too.

The air quality is supposed to be better today in Beijing (yesterday the air quality index was “Unhealthy”), so I’m hoping my lungs will get a relief.

I debated making a listing for this blend, but I figure I will likely be drinking it often while I’m here so I went for it. I went to the grocery store today, originally hoping to find just some bagged tea with lemon and/or ginger. Right when you walk in the grocery store, though, they have a ton of bulk loose green and oolong tea of various kinds, and while I was looking at what was available I realized that on the table there was also a ton of dried “mix ins” for your tea! All kinds of flowers, mostly, but also some herbs, goji berries, anise, etc. I picked up a bag of jasmine flowers to try, but I was most excited to see a lovely bag of dried lemon slices. Score! I couldn’t find any dried ginger so I picked up a fresh tuber. This cup of tea was made with a small scoop of the Wu Yu Tai Tieguanyin Third Grade, one large lemon slice, and about a half inch of ginger root. I also added honey for its throat soothing qualities. The result? Yummy! My random blending worked out. I could maybe go for a tad more lemon, but I can still taste it there no problem. The ginger is perfect. And it is soothing on the throat, with soothing vapors for my poor, battered lungs. This is definitely the fastest I’ve ever had a cough go from zero to very painful (1 day), and it probably won’t get any better until I leave Beijing and it’s pollution behind (a little over 2 weeks). So yeah, I’ll be brewing up this one often.