Nothing But Tea

Random pick this morning.

I keep hoping for these Darjeelings to stand out, to show me something different, but they’re still all flowing together for me. The estate doesn’t matter.

Although, wait a minute… Were they all this spicy on the nose? I don’t really think they were. This one got three minutes, same amount of leaf as the others (well, duh. It’s a sample) and same amount of water. In the same pot, even. But it smells a little overdone.

Quite spicy on the flavour too. Grass-y spicy, kinda. I’m not sure I’m really a fan of that. It tastes a little overdone too. Maybe a little jasmine-y, which is a bit odd, because nothing jasmine-y has been in the pot ever. Was this cup not clean? It should be clean. Wait, let me get another cup. No, that’s the same story. Very floral. Almost… soap-y.

I think the conclusion I’m coming to with these is that Darjeeling is all well and good on occasion but I don’t think it’s the Indian for me. I’m beginning to strongly suspect that there isn’t really any specific Indian for me. There is the odd pearl here and there, but on the whole, I’m sticking to Chinese, I think.

Good evening Steepsterites.

We’ve been with my parents over night and I just got home around an hour ago. I am so tired now and in bad need of good tea.

Which makes my choice a bit of a mystery.

But I happened across the sample and wondered if it was as mind-numbingly boring as the one I’m drinking at work or if the work-one is a fluke. I haven’t looked the exact details of what I’ve said about the work-one up, so this should be relatively unbiased by that one. I hope.

The leaves looked pretty much the same and didn’t have much in the way of aroma, except a rather wood-y note. It gained a decent amount of aroma after steeping, but it’s also gone suspiciously dark, so now I’m wondering if my subconcious made me sabotage it through oversteeping.

Anyway, what aroma it has gained is pretty strong. It’s not as wood-y as the note I caught from the dry leaves, but rather more semi-fruit-y at first, maybe a little spicy and only after that the wood-y-ness.

Sabotage or not, it may have gone a wee bit past its prime, but not so that it has become bitter or unbearably astringent. It’s just a little… much. Overworked.

The flavour is very Tea. And also very Oolong. It doesn’t really have much else, other than that. It doesn’t have any surprising notes of something that it has never even seen, it’s not smoky and it doesn’t hit you with a mysterious sweetness.

It kind of reminds me a little of the Darjeelings I’ve tried, actually. No wonder I can’t even begin to tell any of those even slightly apart.

So no, it’s not as mind-numbingly boring as the work-one. But it’s not all that interesting either.

Darjeeling in today’s random pick. What to say about it?

You might as well just look up any other Darjeeling from NBT that I’ve had so far, because all these Darjeelings are running together for me. I couldn’t tell them apart if my life depended on it.

And yet, it seems that of all the indian ones I’ve tried so far, this is the area that sits the best with me. Maybe because of the dependable performance. It doesn’t really matter what the name on the label says. It’s a consistently good result.

It’s been eons since I last had a Keemun, and then, if memory serves me, it was a pretty low quality Keemun. I’ve seen lots of people in the meantime classify them as smokies and I didn’t really get it because I couldn’t remember ever having found smoke in one. Not that I’d looked, but you know. It sounded like it’s something I ought to have noticed.

This one though, a random pick, now this is smoky! Properly smoky too.

It’s reminding me rather a lot of my Lapsang, to be honest. It’s the same kind of prickly smoke flavour, but it’s smoother and much sweeter. This tastes like the Lapsang does when I get it just right and hit that sugar-y note. Only much less finicky.

I’ve never tried A&D’s Keemun which people say have strong caramel-y notes, but tasting the sweetness in this one, I think I know what they mean. If Kusmi’s Caramel was smoky and a little more frenchness, then this, I think, would be close.

Chinese black has come through for me again. We have a shopping list candidate here.

So the first bolivian black wasn’t much of a success. Maybe this one will do better?

It has the same sort of fruit-y pear-y aroma that the other one had, although this one smells more like pear-pear and less like fermented-pear.

Lots of flavour here, and actually quite smooth It does look like I really managed to damage that Rio Negro there. It still doesn’t have much in the way of flavour notes though. It’s just tea. Nothing bad, nothing exceptional. Just tea.

The pears are only there in the aroma and maybe just a teensy tiny hint of it on the swallow, but other than that it’s a one-note show.

Just tea.

Here is another interesting black from the great big sampler box. I’ve got a bolivian green in my cupboard, and the company’s description of that one says that it’s similar to japanese greens. After having had a little foray into japanese greens, I found I agree with that. So if bolivian greens are similar to japanese greens, does that mean that a bolivian black would be similar to a japanese black if Japan made blacks? Oh, we shall never know.

Anyway, the leaves had a spicy note to the aroma which reminds me a bit of something in between Assam and Ceylon. I’m definitely getting a more indian-y/Ceylon-y feel from it than chinese-y. When it has steeped, the aroma suddenly acquires a brand new note. It still sits between Assam and Ceylon, but it’s got that note that I’m wondering if it might be something that would turn out to be characteristically bolivian. It’s difficult to pin it down, but it sort of reminds me of apples and pears, especially pears, that are just on the verge of fermenting. It’s not a clear note, it’s just an association.

This is very astringent! I think I over-brewed it a little bit. Apart from the astringency, it doesn’t have all that much flavour. I am still getting the funny fermented pear association from it without it actually tasting all that much of pear, fermented or otherwise.

Astringency and fermented pear associations. That’s it, really.

I would have liked it better if I hadn’t overbrewed it a bit, but I don’t think this is something that would have held my attention for very long. Totally drinkable, but not really all that memorable.

Maybe, if my hypothesis is correct, it’s just as well that Japan only produce greens.

Good morning Steepsterites, and gather round, because this is one of the most interesting teas I’ve ever seen.

It’s an oolong. From AFRICA!!! I have never seen anything other than blacks out of Africa before, and the vast majority of those were from Kenya. I can’t say I’ve ever been all that impressed with the Kenyan teas. I don’t really care for the CTC method because the leaf size becomes so tiny and difficult to manage when you brew with the leaves loose inthe pot. Flavour-wise I find them a bit like Ceylons. There are some real pearls in between but most of them just aren’t what I’m looking for. This one is from Malawi, though, so I don’t know what the taste profile from that country usually is. Not that you can really compare blacks to oolongs, even dark type oolongs, but you know what I mean.

It’s a nice copper-y colour when pouring, but there isn’t all that much aroma to speak of. What is there, however, has a very nice and very clear cocoa-y note. Oh thank Ceiling Cat! There is another note in the aroma, a spicier one that I can’t quite place. It seems familiar, but I’m not really sure of what it could be.

Gah, this is quite strong! It’s got an astringent, borderline bitter bite, a bit like an Indian black that has been eeeeever so slightly over-steeped. It hasn’t really retained the cocoa-y note in the flavour here, but it’s got that spicy kind of wooden note that I couldn’t identify in the aroma. I believe this is what is sometimes referred to as ‘oaky’. I have no clue what oak tastes like, I don’t customarily go around chewing branches of trees that I find on my way, but oakyness is the association that I get.

If this hadn’t had that bitterness to it, I would have liked it better. I think I steeped it a little too long, to be honest, but it still tastes like it has some great potential. I shall give it points now based on this and then adjust it later based on later steeps. Starting at 82 points.

I would definitely give an african oolong a go another time. I’m not the slightest bit disappointed by this so far.

Random draw from the sample box. Another Darjeeling of which I have a sample of both first and second flush, and by good luck I actually drew the first flush. It would seem strange to start with the second one. I’m neurotic that way.

I smelled the leaves briefly and didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. They smelled rather like the Margaret’s Hope leaves did, so nothing special to note there. They look the same too. After steeping it smells rather grass-y, and a hay-y sweetness. More than I recall the Margaret’s Hope smelling. I’m getting something here too, something that sort of reminds me of grapes, but not actually smelling like grapes at all. NBT says it’s flowery. I’m not really sure I agree with that, honestly…

A slight astringency in flavour, but also quite smooth. It’s one of those teas that seem to have two different and completely independent layers of flavour. There’s the astringent bottom note that seems a bit rough around the edges and with a good amount of hay in it. And then the somewhat lighter top note of smoothness and flowers.

I can’t really come up with a lot of other stuff to say about it. I feel like I’ve said it all before only that was about Margaret’s Hope. I honestly can’t find much, if any, difference between them. The rating reflects how I feel about it today, as opposed to in comparison with Margaret’s Hope.

Random draw from the sample box gave me chocolate. I added this sample to my order on a chocolate-crazed whim, and it’s not until now that I’m beginning to wonder if that was an all together good idea. The chocolate bit is good enough, but I’m getting concerned by the ‘Mayan’ of the name. Every other chocolate tea I’ve seen on here that was named something with Mayan involved chili or spice in some way. I don’t want spice. I just want chocolate.

The leaves smell like milk chocolate primarily, but there is also a hint of paprika there. I think. It might just be something that I think is there because I’m so scared that it’ll be true. I desperately don’t want it to be true! NBT’s info doesn’t say anything about anything else than chocolate and cocoa kernels though, so okay. That’s somewhat reassuring. One could hope that the paprika-y note is really the tea’s aroma being distorted by copious amounts of chocolate. It has lots of those little chocolate droplets that melt as it steeps.

It’s got an absolutely gorgeous red colour after steeping, although rather murky, but the aroma is… weird, to say it nicely. Something that desperately tries to be chocolate but doesn’t quite make it. The more you smell it, the more you’ll convince yourself that yes, this really is a full, rich chocolate smell, but in the back of your mind the initial ‘wtf is this???!’ reaction still lurks.

Well. At least it doesn’t taste like there’s spices in it. It’s still way worse than the aroma though. Nothing in this could ever convince me that this is ‘chocolate’. It’s not full. It’s not rich. It bears a vague resemblance to chocolate but that’s as close as we get. It’s got a nutty bitterness. Like hazelnuts that have gone a bit off.

I tried adding a little milk to see if that might help with the bitterness and bring out the chocolate more, but it didn’t work.

Xp

It’s not really a tea flavour. And it’s definitely not chocolate. It’s like a bastard child from the two. And it’s NOT very nice.

This is not going anywhere near my shopping list. In fact if we had a Never Ever Again Ever! list, this would be marching straight into a prime spot. I have had a few things that were more undrinkable than this. But not very many.

Now get me some proper tea, plz!

(Also, Sophistre, I’ve managed 95 words, yay!)

Argh, I want to write! But I can’t. I can’t! It won’t come.

And this tea? Spicy, a little astringent, a little bitter, rather grass-y, and not sweet at all.

No, this isn’t it either.

Good morning Steepsterites.

This morning we’ve got another not-random choice. I had the first flush from this estate yesterday evening and thought I ought to do this one while I had that one in fresh memory. Then we’ll see if I can tell a difference.

At least these leaves don’t smell of curry. The aroma after steeping isn’t that much different from the first flush. Perhaps a little darker in the grass note, but that’s all. It smells a little more like what I tend to connect with Darjeelings, which I guess makes sense, doesn’t it. If the first flush is all swallowed up by prestige.

Taste is a bit more what I normally associate with Darjeelings, but it still seems very familiar to the first flush. I seriously doubt I could tell them apart if you gave me a blind test or something. Again, a little harsher on the grass-y note. It’s difficult to explain, it just tastes rougher and darker.

It doesn’t have as much of that astringent bitterness on the swallow that the first flush had, but I think that can be explained away by water temperature. I’m pretty certain the water was a little cooler today than it was yesterday. It’s coming out more as the cup cools a bit, though. I don’t think it’s something you can get rid of completely, I think it’s supposed to be there. But you can control the amount to a degree.

The grape-that-I-don’t-recognise-as-grapes doesn’t seem to have put in an appearance, though.

When it comes to the first and second flush, I don’t really think I’ve got a preference here.

AAAAAAHHHH!!! Paws submerged in bucket of cold water = sweet relief!

Thus fortified against the onslaught of the heatwave, I decided to have some tea. I’ve been curious about this one for a while now because there seems to have been a conspiracy among my Steepsterites to make me try it. Or, at least, a lot of you said nice things about it recently.

Been ages since I had a proper Darjeeling that wasn’t mixed into something else. I used to be infatuated with the whole concept of Darjeelings and immense prestige of the first flush every year. It had Speshul Factor. And then, for some reason, I just sort of rather lost interest. It wasn’t that I had one that was sub-par, it was just that the whole thing puttered out of existance. Probably around the same time that I really started getting my eyes opened for the yummy Chinese.

The leaves had a spicy note. Almost like curry. That was a bit odd for me. Curry! Odd! After steeping it thankfully doesn’t smell of curry. It has a rather thick, sweet aroma. There is a grass note and something quite fruity. I wonder if that would be the grapes that people keep mentioning in connection with Darjeeling.

It’s actually not bad. Not so harshly grass-y leaf-y as I generally associate with the area. It’s smooth at first and then on the swallow a slightly bitter touch of astringency comes in from the side and hijacks the flavour. It brings the promise of something unbelievably bitter if oversteeped, so it’s definitely a tea that it’s important to keep in check.

I was told a while ago that Darjeeling blacks aren’t really traditional blacks, as they aren’t generally a full 100% fermented, but technically a type of oolong. From what I understand the difference lies in the way the leaves are whithered. Knowing this, I decided to user somewhat colder water like I would for a greener type oolong. With that hint of bitterness up there, I’m glad I did. I think that would have been worse if I hadn’t.

As for the grape. Well. I can pick something up that I’m sure must be what people identify as grapes. I’m not sure how grape-y I think it is, but hey, that could just be me. It does make me want to eat grapes though. I wish I’d picked some up when I did the groceries earlier.

And my body heat has already made my formerly ice-cold foot water borderline lukewarm. Gosh…

As an addendum to the last post, I would have to say it’s not a tea that is suitable for drinking larger pots of. It got a bit cloying towards the end there.

But this is not about that. This post is about a cup I poured and popped in the fridge because I had so much of it and I figured I’d try and see what it was like when chilled too.

I can’t say I’m impressed. It doesn’t really taste that much of lychee anymore as much as it just tastes of cold tea, and as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a huge iced tea drinker. I’m very very picky with what sorts of tea I like chilled. VERY picky.

And this is just ‘cold tea’ with some astringency on top and a somewhat unpleasant aftertaste. If/When I buy this, I shall stick to drinking it hot.

Goodmorning Steepsterites.

You hardly even made any posts at all since I went to bed. What gives with that? Are you all outside melting in the heat and unable to drink tea? I am. Not outside mind, because it’s cooler in here. But other than that. Tea doesn’t go down easily at the moment. Shame I’m not a bigger fan of iced tea than I am. I’m super-ultra picky with that and really prefer it hot at all times. (My lemon oolong might work on ice though. Thought.)

This was not a random pick. I went deliberately for this one because I felt like trying it and it seemed like something that fit the heat and humidity (Oh my word, I’m drowning!). Lychee is something that I get very very rarely. I love them, but shops don’t often have them and when they do have them, it’s extremely rarely that they have them at a price I’m willing to pay. Very expensive stuff in Denmark.

Some of you have posted about lychee flavoured teas before and there was that russian blend from Samovar that had hints of lychee notes in it, and it made me really really REALLY want to try a lychee flavoured tea too. Thankfully, when I put in my NBT order, there it was.

Now I’m scared I won’t like it.

It’s smells very sweet and lychee-y! This bodes well, I think. I feel like I can also pick up a standard black underneath, but I couldn’t hazard a guess as to what the base might be like.

Flavour seems a bit thin. It might be something that could be helped with a changed leaf to water ratio, but as I mentioned before these samples are just exactly too big OR too small to make the tea in exactly the same way as I normally make tea. If I use the big pot, there’s too much water to the leaf amount. If I use the small pot there will either be way too many leaves for the amount of water or I get ridculously small and useless amount of leaves to save. 10g is a good size sample, but it don’t fit any of my pots.

Anyway, a bit thin in flavour, but it’s definitely lychee-y. It’s quite tropical and nice and tastes like the treat that lychee in fruit-form generally is. Especially on the swallow and the aftertaste. It reminds me a little of Adagio’s guananananabananananuave thing. The one that I only ever got a sample of becuase I had never heard of the fruit before and I was intrigued, but not particularly impressed.

Not sure about the base tea, though. I can pick up tea flavour easily enough, but I can’t get any closer than that.

This is really nice! I do believe I shall put it on the shopping list.

Another random pick in the sample box and another Assam. I might as well give up on the random picks and try to go through them more systematically, because they seem to come out in trends no matter what I do. I even had my eyes closed, for Ceiling Cat’s sake!

I’m also wondering if maybe I ought to try and figure out where these estates are located more specifically. I mean, yeah, they’re all from Assam, but I’m thinking about stuff like how high or low grown they are and whether or not that might be something that makes a difference for me. I’m just not really sure where to start with such an undertaking though, so I’m just going to go through them as usual and then maybe figure all this stuff out afterwards. Perhaps there will be a pattern.

The description from NBT sure sounds promising! But then they always say that sort of stuff, don’t they? I tried looking at what people had said about Hazelbank from other companies, but I didn’t really find anything super-helpful there either.

This one has more aroma than the Orangajuli. The same maltyness but stronger. It smells blacker. There’s a wooden note too, and wait a minute, raisins! Raisins again? Then the raisin note in the Orangajuli probably didn’t come from my breakfast after all. It’s just a touch, but I do think there is one. How kind of bizarre… Yes, this is weird to me when I’m perfectly happy to accept a naturally occurring cocoa note. Go figure.

The flavour is completely different from Orangajuli. This one has the same astringent bite, but the flavour itself is stronger and more sort of wooden. I want to say oaky and sound pretentious, but I can’t honestly say that I know what different sorts of wood tastes like. So, it’s wooden.

I like this better than the Orangajuli, but given the fact that this has a stronger flavour… No, that’s not right. Given the fact that this has more flavour than Orangajuli, I’m not really surprised. The astringency is biting a little harder here, but that’s not really a bad thing.

This is better, but it’s still not IT.

Assam is one of those teas where I would really like to be able to find The Perfect Assam. Unlike Ceylon, which is just… Ceylon. Some are great, most are merely meh, but I don’t really feel the need to explore the area further. Assam though… There’s something about it that makes me want to like it more than I really do. And I think that’s because I haven’t found the best that Assam can be yet.

It was quite lucky that I happened to get an Assam this morning from the sample box, because I’m just exactly in an Assam-y mood!

I’m not getting much aroma from this cup. It’s malty and reminds me somewhat of raisins, although that smell might be coming from my fingers as I have been eating some raisins this morning.

There’s an astringent bite to this and it’s rather hard for me to really pick up anything else. This is not the perfect Assam either. I’m not sure what’s really wrong with it, but I can’t pick the flavour apart and this is just not it. I’m sure it’s a good tea. But it’s not IT.

I tested this on the boyfriend this morning. For some reason I had got it in my head that he didn’t like this type at all, so I’ve been avoiding it for the shared pot for the longest time. This morning however I finally decided to ask him either confirm or reject this notion. He couldn’t remember what it was like, so we had a pot.

Turns out it was indeed a wild notion of mine, and that he didn’t have any opinions on it for or against. Not a favourite obviously, but totally not ruled out either.

Excellent! It’s good to know these things.

I have a rather ambivalent relationship with Yunnan. I think it’s because they have such a very distinctive flavour profile. Sometimes they’re the bee’s knees and the cat’s pajamas, and other times they’re simply ‘meh’. Or even worse, like drinking hay. Makes me feel rather like a cow, really.

When I first had this one it was obviously a bee’s knees phase, and during those times I like it so much that I feel it’s unfair to fiddle with the rating now that I’ve been in meh phase, if not an actual cow phase, for so long.

Today, though, I decided to have it based on the fact that it’s been so long since I’ve had any. I have a couple of different brands to choose from and it’s only now, after I’ve made my cup, that I realise that had I chosen a different brand I could have crossed off one more sample. Oh well. Ten samples, three tins to go before I am allowed to make a new order. I’ll get through that quickly enough anyway.

I think actually right now I’m not quite in a bee’s knees phase, but it’s not quite a meh phase either. We’re in-betweening here. I think I’ll take this cup with me and watch some tv, maybe. After having checked a few things and places and all, of course.

(Work. It ought to be illegal!)

I’m having this cup for Indigobloom with whom I had an exchange of comments yesterday regarding pu-erh and Yunnan tea as a type. I was inspired.

I tried my best to pay attention to an earthy note that Indigobloom finds in both pu-erh and Yunnan blacks. Personally I’ve only ever found it in pu-erhs, but not in Yunnan blacks, so I focused mostly on that while drinking.

This is actually the second steep fo the leaves as I had the first steep with me this morning on the train.

I’m still not sure I’ve found anything earthy in this, Indigobloom, but now that I’ve really been paying attention to it, I think I understand what you mean. I just experience that particular note differently and for me it’s not the primary note. To me, Yunnan blacks are largely hay-like, and this particular one is extremely honeyed.

I can definitely, just to write the post backwards, find lots of earthy goodness in the aroma, though. Even without searching for it. I’ve never noticed that before.

I feel like I’ve been helped to discover a whole new dimension of this region. Thanks for that, Indigobloom!

The boyfriend and I went to the rainforest yesterday (http://www.regnskoven.dk/en/frontpage/) and I’m still all exhausted. It did inspire my choice of tea, though, because I’ve discovered that I associate the idea of Yunnans with that sort of climate and nature. I have no idea what that area of China looks like, but in my head it just makes that connection. This was a pretty new discovery for me, so don’t bother asking me what my associations with the Fujian teas or Keemun would be because I haven’t the foggiest idea yet. I only discovered it about Yunnans this morning when I thought it seemed appropriate for a post-rainforest visit cup.

Unfortunately I’ve managed to make it a bit of a weakling cup this morning, which frankly doesn’t suit it very well. A large part of the body of the flavour seems to be missing and has just gone watery instead.

The spicy pepper note is intact, though, and it has a sort of hay-ish tint to it as well. The sweet note that it often has also seems to be missing along with the rest of the body, though, and that really is a shame.

It’s a good tea, this one. This is just not the most succesful cup I’ve ever made of it. That’s all.

Om nom nom jelly beans! Steepsterites, green tea flavoured jelly beans are odd! Not bad, just… odd. And to me they’re rather more like a green oolong than an actual green. But then again there are so many jelly beans that are odd flavoured. I fully admit that I chose some of them because of the flavour striking me as bizarre and american. Butter, for example, has no business being anywhere near popcorn. In Denmark popcorn has salt on them. Just salt. And always salt. (And then the english boyfriend said something about toffee which made me go O.o) Just. Salt. Please.

That said the cappucino flavoured ones and the pink grapefruit flavoured ones are to die for.

I’ve put the bowl away now, though. I’ve had quite enough jelly beans now for one day. The great thing about jelly beans is that they’re so forcefully flavoured I usually can’t eat that many.

I rather need something with a more wholesome flavour in my mouth now and tonight’s cup has been chosen specifically for that purpose. I shall enjoy it while wasting some time on silly Facebook games and tv.

Half the day is gone already! How did this happen?! (Might it have something to do with it turning 11 before I managed to get out of bed?)

So I’m Yunnan-ing today. It’s one of those days where I look at all the tins and unable to make a decision just grabs one at random. It was the first one of the lot that I looked at twice so I figured it was selection.

Hopefully this will provide some energy and give me a kick in the rear about NaNoWriMo. I’m currently about 7500 words behind my personal daily goal system which is rather annoying. But before you bring out the pep-talk and the cheerleading and the encouragement, I’ll just tell you all something, because you might not want to do the pep and cheer afterwards. I may be behind on the personal goal, but I’m still 12K ahead of the minimum to NaNo goal for this day, and set to reach 50K at record (for me) speed. Still want to cheer? Go ahead. :) smug

So is this an inspiring tea, then? Does it smell and taste like the tea that can zoom me through at least 5K today?

I’m surprised at how sweet it turned out today. It’s very much as if there’s sugar in it, which, as anybody who knows me just a little bit will know, is not the case, and certainly not on a first sip. Ever. It’s not the honey of an Assam and it’s not the caramel of a Keemun (which I have only nearly been able to find). This is more like just plain sugar, but a little smoother than refined sugar. It’s like, if you can imagine the sweetness of refined sugar but without the stickyness of it. I want to say it’s something more fruit-like than plain sugar, but I can’t seem to think of a fruit that comes close in flavour. I’m leaning a bit towards ripe pears here, but without it actually tasting like pear. It’s that kind of sweet.

It’s very difficult to identify it anyway, because on top of all that there’s a prickly layer of spicyness and if you focus really hard on the flavour to try and figure out where that sweetness comes from you end up with a mouthful of pepper prickly and not much else.

It’s funny, though, that a tea can be so pepper prickly on the tongue and at the same time as smooth as velvet. The two things just don’t seem to get along in the head, do they? But the thing is the prickly stays mainly on the tongue and isn’t noticed when swallowing, so combined with the lack of astringency to speak of, we have in fact at arrived something that is smooth in a prickly way. How fun is that! I think that’s awesome.

I used to consider golden yunnans to be of the smoky spectrum, and I was surprised when others consistently identified that note as pepper. The more I’m tasting it however the more I find myself moving into the pepper camp. I remember the first golden Yunnan I ever had. It was from Chaplon and I had not yet discovered the awesome appeal of smokies. I thought it tasted very smoky and I didn’t much like it at the time. Right now though I would dearly like to go back in time and try that one again because I really think that it would have been a hugely different experience for me today.

But is this inspiring? Yes, you know what, I think it is. I shall go get some words out now, and hope that my characters will behave themselves.

T – 5h 45min on NaNoWriMo starting. If there are any other wrimos out there, feel free to add me as buddy. I’m Angrboda there too, but if you use a different name there be sure to let me know who you are.

I’m on holiday this coming week, planned so that again this year I could get a midnight start. However due to some social circumstances I slept rather badly last night and woke up a lot, so I’m beginning to feel rather used at the moment.

Caffeine is required, and why not warm up for the writing month by writing a tea post.

I had a sample of this one before and on a whim, inspired by the Yunnan Auggy shared with me recently, decided to throw in a bag of it. I can see now why it stuck in my mind. 95 points, I gave the sample! That’s a lot of points. Now I just hope it’ll still live up to that score.

I’m struck by how floral the aroma is. Kind of rosy. Just flowers to begin with and then deeper down when taking a better sniff the pepper-y spicyness comes through. (My mouse just died. Again. Lovely.)

Very spicy on the first sip. I was slurping a lot and I got a mouthful of wet smoke and pepper out of it. Without slurping, it’s more spicy and pepper-y with a hint of smoke than actually smoky. There’s a hint of something sort of citrus-y too at the back of the mouth.

It’s a relatively strong cup of tea, and it certainly has a lot of flavour, but it’s not really all that complicated. I’m not sure I still think it’s with 95 points but with my mouse currently being dead as a dodo, I can’t do anything about the rating until I’ve rebooted the computer.

I do hope I’ll be able to hold on until midnight and get a good midnight start. I’m totally excited about NaNo starting.

(And the mouse is back! Ha! New score.)

I made a random grab in the sample box and got a Nuwara Eliya. I kid you not. ANOTHER Ceylon. I just couldn’t face another Ceylon right now and I just don’t think I’m a Ceylon-person much at all, so I put it back and made another grab. And as I did that, I suddenly knew what I wanted and rummaged until I found one of the three chinese samples.

I didn’t bother about leaf smelling and what not. I was desperate, okay. But I can tell you that they were the prettiest golden brown colour that you ever saw.

After steeping, it actually has pretty close to that same colour. Perhaps with a slightly more reddish tint, but more or less the same colour. And the aroma is just wonderful. Not too strong, but with a very clear note of… of… of… of China! I’ve never been to China so I haven’t a clue what China likely smells of. Chinese food, I’d wager. And of all the chinese teas I seem to be leaning strongly towards those from the Fujian area and the ones with that lovely cocoa note. This doesn’t have the cocoa note (and it doesn’t smell of chinese food either, in case you were wondering (Ricky!) )

But smoke. Or pepper, if that’s the way you interpret that note. Under a lot of sugar-y sweetness. Really, I suspect I might end up having a love affair with this tea, and I haven’t even tasted it yet.

Oh my word!

It’s Smoooooth, with a capital SMOO!

It’s even got a little cocoa note in it! But no hint of smoky, though. It’s not pepper either. It’s something but it’s not one of those. Not really. What’s a middle thing between smoky and pepper-y?

Love affair? Oh yes. You are going on the shopping list, Tippy Yunnan!