Silk Road

Iced tea.

I thought that based on the name, this would be a great iced tea. The dry leaf smelled really promising; hints of lemon and fresh mango. In reality, I wasn’t very impressed with it. It was really brisk and full bodied, but also quite astringent and a little bit bitter. Also, none of the fruit notes tasted all that fresh or light despite what the dry leaf smelled like.

I mean, it was a whole lot of lemongrass. Like, tons of lemongrass. Lemongrass can be good in moderation but straight up? I’ve never been a fan of the flavour. It’s just too much, and it’s NOT the same as actual lemon. The mango? Didn’t really taste it at all, to be honest. So, it was a let down for sure.

I’ll totally revisit it, but probably as a hot tea. I hope it’s better that way, ’cause this pairing sounds so promising. I was so excited about it…

Sipdown (649)!

Super awesome cold brew; really rich and clear flavour and a very crisp/cooling finish that highlighted just how refreshing the whole brew was. Strongest flavour was spearmint by a landslide, and then strong but not perfumey or soapy body notes of lavender. Just a hint of the red clover in the finish, which was interesting to me because it’s not an ingredient in the blend that I’ve really noticed too heavily before now.

I don’t think I’d go out of my way to get this blend again, but I definitely enjoyed it while I had it around!

It’s raining really heavily right now, and I’m just curled up on the couch with a mug of tea listening to some new Indie music alongside the sound of the rain outdoors. I have the window open just a little bit so that I can smell the rain. The tea is sweet and smooth, and hot on my throat in all the right ways. It tastes heavily of spearmint, with lavender undertones.

I feel at peace.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDrx1rsdQkk

Hot mug, grandpa style.

First half of this one was just fine; sweet, and refreshing spearmint with floral undertones. I liked how fresh everything was and the crispness of the flavours. Grandpa style was a mistake though because it was a good twenty minutes until I could get back to the mug to finish off the second half and by then it was so intense and cloying. The lavender was soapy, and the spearmint so rich that I was kind of gagging on it. Such a big, negative turn around – but it all comes down to the steep method and not the tea itself.

Midday tea earlier last week, meant to break up the several caffeinated teas I was drinking that day. It was soft, soothing and calming with A LOT of very sweet spearmint notes to it. That’s not a bad thing at all, I just know that there are quite a few different things in the blend so it’s always just a little weird when you get such a concentrated blast of one of those ingredients and not the other ones. I mean, I got a little lavender but honestly not a lot. Just TONS of spearmint.

Evening cuppa.

The dry leaf for this tea is just beautiful; I fucking adore the contrast of the pink and purple floral elements against the rich green of the spearmint. It’s so pleasing to look at!

Steeped up, this is nice – very soothing/relaxing. In particular, I really love the sweetness of the spearmint. I’ve always loved spearmint in teas – it’s just mint at its best. Refreshing, sweet, relaxing! The lavender in the tea is actually really nice too. I’ve been challenging myself with lavender teas as of late; traditionally it’s a flavour I don’t like at all but lately some experimentation has shown me that in mild quantities. That’s what it is in this blend – mild. A nice soothing, spa like blend/mix of spearmint and lavender with rosey undertones.

Just what I wanted from it!

Sipdown (528)!

Finished off as a latte with vanilla agave; in true ‘London Fog’ fashion! It was very rich, and obviously also very sweet. The vanilla was actually the strongest flavour overall, with more of that deep, citrusy/bergamot undertone. Perfectly fine; but I’ve never been the biggest EG fan in general so this one was a relief to finish off more than a sad thing.

Decent EG for sure; but it’s just not something I need around.

Evening cuppa, while playing games with the famjam.

I added some vanilla agave to this one – I don’t know why but I feel like every time I’ve made this one since first getting it it’s tasted less and less like vanilla, which is sad ‘cause the vanilla is 100% why I wanted it in the first place. It’s weird for a tea to degrade that fast though, so I don’t know what’s up. Added vanilla agave helped a lot though. It was still kinda astringent though, which was a little bleh.

Tea Press.

Yeah, I messed up and oversteeped this by a lot. I was making it in the morning before I left for work to bring with me and I got really caught up in getting ready and forgot the teapress was on the counter waiting to get pushed down. I don’t know how long it steeped in total.

What I do know is that this had a very bitter/astringent edge to it and I wasn’t able to taste any of the beautiful, silky vanilla notes that this tea should have. So that was a big disappointment. It wasn’t so bad I couldn’t drink it, and I did eventually add some milk and that helped soften some of the roughness. Totally not what I wanted from this one though when I chose it this morning.

One of about ten teas I recently picked up from Silk Road; most of them were sample amounts (including this one) but a couple were larger restocks. This wasn’t a planned sample though; generally I don’t really go for Earl Greys and I’ve had so many vanilla Earl Greys now that there’s just nothing really exciting about them to me…

So why did I end up with a sample of this one? I think I must have just been really craving vanilla the day that I ordered – otherwise I would have skipped over this one like I normally do when companies offer vanilla Earl Greys. When I cracked open the tin it smelled really good though; strong whiffs of vanilla bean with mild, fresh bergamot undertones to it! I’ll admit, even I was excited to try it.

I steeped it up this evening to watch while checking out Netflix’s new Magic School Bus reboot! I was totally excited to talk about the new show with The Boyfriend but he hasn’t started it yet, and apparently he’s excited enough about it that he’s placed a ban on discussing it with him until he catches up. I didn’t realize Magic School Bus was such a big deal that ‘spoilers’ would ruin the experience.

Since I was riding the nostalgia wave watching the new reboot, this was a good tea to sip on since it provided a sense of comfort and familiarity even if this was just my first time trying it. Unlike the dry aroma, I think this is more bergamot than vanilla but both are really pleasant flavours. I like that the bergamot doesn’t seem to push past being a medium bodied flavour; that doesn’t make it too intense/make me feel like I need to add milk to it to soften it, but it’s strong enough that if I DID add milk I don’t think I’d lose the flavour. The vanilla is so creamy and fresh tasting, I really liked it too.

I think for this to be a perfect London Fog kind of flavour representation for me it would have had to be a little bit sweeter though, but all in all it’s a satisfying enough flavour and even though it’s not something I generally find myself craving I think it’s pleasant enough I’ll be able to finish it off no troubles.

And I guess I should give you all a spoiler warning since I’m going to let out my thoughts on the first few episodes of the Magic School Bus reboot here since The Boyfriend doesn’t want me ruining anything for him and I REALLY want to talk about it:

- Not digging the new animation style thus far, though I’m sure I’ll adjust
- I absolutely LOVE the redone theme; Lin Manuel Miranda singing it is PERFECT
- The new Mrs. Frizzle is great; and I love the explanation for WHY she’s taking over
- The fact they got Lily Tomlin back for the OG Frizzle is equally wonderful
- And based on the few episodes I’ve seen, she IS reoccurring throughout the show
- That or they’re just gently easing us into the new Frizz, which is fine too
- THEY KEPT THE PHONE SEQUENCE AT THE END OF THE EPISODES
- Where they explain more of the science/things they depicted that were a bit inaccurate
- OG Frizzle’s new sidekick “Goldie” is the fucking best
- Arnold’s cousin Janet is in episode two which is pretty cool!
- The new kid is neat; I liked the ecosystem explanation/tie in for her & new Frizz
- Is that really the only explanation we get for Pheobe being written out!?
- Like, it’s realistic but also unsatisfactory…

Sipdown (486)!

Finished this one off early in the afternoon along with the first chapters of a new book. This one was a sipdown that felt good; green tea isn’t usually my jam so finishing off a small tin of if definitely feels like an accomplishment.

Flavour wise, it was fine. Nothing different from what I’ve experienced from it the last few months so I’ve got to praise the consistency. That said, I think I just wasn’t in the mood for green tea today because it took me forever to finish the mug. Not because I was distracted or anything, but just because I didn’t feel overly compelled to to take that next sip. There was no ‘draw’…

So mixed experience today overall.

This is a queued tasting note.

Working on finishing this one off since I just ordered some of Silk Dragon’s Buddha Dragonwell a few days ago – there’s really no need for me to have two different Dragonwell teas stocked at the same time from the same company, especially since I don’t drink green tea that often in the first place…

This mug of tea was good though; not really any different than the others I’ve had of it though. A bit of sweetness in the top of the sip; reminded me a little bit of a diluted agave syrup with a hint of floral undertone. The rest of the sip was very, very nutty though and almost instantly ate up that floral quality that was, fleetingly, present.

Echoing my thoughts from last time I tried this one… It’s very nutty.

Like, my first half of the sip went pretty normally/like expected for Dragonwell: “Hmm, this is pretty smooth with a mix of mild grassy and vegetal notes”. It was in the transition from body sip flavour to the finish that I was surprised. It’s just so nutty, and toasty as well? Not in an unpleasant way, and I know Dragonwell often is a nuttier green tea anyway. It’s just that this is REALLY nutty. I don’t even know how to convey just how nutty it was because I feel like that could still just be interpreted as the normal amount of nutty flavour generally associated with Dragonwell.

I don’t know, one more time for the people in the back and just in case you didn’t pick up on it the first billion times I said it… This was REALLY nutty.

Another one from my mom’s BC trip/haul.

I had actually asked for their Buddha Dragonwell because that’s a bit more unique/hard to come by, but my mom didn’t know the difference between than one and regular Dragonwell so she just got this one. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed because you can get a Dragonwell just about anywhere so there’s not really anything special to it, but I can understand the confusion and I appreciate her just grabbing tea for me at all on her vacation regardless.

This one isn’t bad, it’s lightly astringent with a vegetal bean/artichoke-y sort of quality. More than anything else, it’s quite nutty though. Of course, that’s not surprising since that’s kind of the defining/separating trait of Dragonwell in the first place. I guess as a green tea in general, it’s pretty tolerable but really nothing special at all.

Cold Brew!

Such a flat, flavourless brew – but it did have a hint of elderflower so it wasn’t a total write off. I’m nearly done this tin though – cold brewing killed a bunch of the leaf that was left. It’ll be a big relief when I finish it off.

Another not so great cup from this week. Enough so that I think I’m officially giving up on this blend, and will have to really drop my rating from the 71 it’s currently sitting at (which is already dropped from my initial rating too, sadly). I just miss the black currant notes! Where are they!? They first few times I had this is was AMAZING and mind blowing how juicy those notes were – it’s almost like this second batch didn’t have any added at all, like they had accidentally missed that step when blending!? Without the currant, all you have is a sad elderflower black tea…

Really tasted like elderflower; not at all like black currant.

I feel like I need to reduce my rating on this one; it’s just consistently not be the jammy, sweet black currant flavour that my first purchase of this tasted like and that’s just massively disappointing to me. Dropping from an 86 to a 71…

Hot cuppa; my commute tea this morning.

This was nice today! Pleasantly astringent, with a mix of notes of malt, cocoa, black currant, and elderflower. I did add in a tiny amount of cherry infused honey but I actually didn’t feel like I was tasting it in the steeped tea at all so I don’t know how much it actually did. I feel like this is a more fickle blend; but this cup was a winner.

With a touch of agave.

The almost always delivers in terms of elderflower notes, but what I really wanted was something jammy and currant heavy. You know, something that would taste a little bit like Ribena; and that’s what the agave was for. I needed a little more ‘oomph’ and ‘sparkle’, and I got it! Very satisfying.

This cuppa was very jammy, with a lot more currant notes than anything else. The black tea itself is a little bland tasting, but the added in flavours are truly lovely. Didn’t get much florals from this cup though.

Biggest thing I dislike about this one is just the general inconsistency.

Hot cup, yesterday.

Wasn’t nearly as flavourful in the black currant department as I’d wanted. In fact, for whatever reason this cup hardly tasted like black currant at all. Instead it was very floral with a potent malt/yeasty kind of quality from the black tea base. I ended up adding a little bit of frothed milk to kind of lean more into the malty/yeasty quality as it was reminding me a little bit of breakfast blends/Irish Breakfast.

It wasn’t a bad cup but it wasn’t really a good cup either.

Loved my sample of this one so much that I had to go and buy one of the larger tins of it.

In fact, my desire to have more of this in my cupboard is the whole reason I went and placed an order with Silk Road in the first place. I just liked this one so much. It’s probably the best currant tea on a black base I’ve had to date and I think tied with Tea Desire’s Champagne Cassis for favourite currant tea overall.

This cup was really satisfying! I made a little bit of a mistake with my food pairing and I chose something that kind of overpowered the taste of the tea; a cheesy cauliflower curry. I mean, it was delicious but I would have preferred to get more of my tea’s flavour. I only really got to experience that delicious jammy currant flavour in the few sips I had before I started supper and the few sips afterwards. Oh well, at least I have lots of this one now! Hooray for stocking up.

Sipdown (343)!

Finished this one off in my tea press, and it’s one that I’m actually really sad to be saying goodbye to. I don’t know the next time I’m gonna be in BC or that I’m gonna have family in BC that can restock this one for me, but it’s something I definitely 100% want more of.

Unfortunately, this last tea press worth of tea wasn’t the best incarnation of it either. It didn’t taste bad, mind you, but there was A LOT of elderflower left in the last little bit of tea so that flavour far dominated the profile of the mug and the sweet, jammy currant wasn’t all that noticeable under all of that intense elderflower. I do really like elderflower, but I just wanted more rich currant. Also, the black base was just a hint astringent but I think that’s more a result from my slightly oversteeping this one (six minutes instead of the normal four). It was really malty, as well. I actually liked the pairing of malt and elderflower though; I don’t know why but it really worked for me.

Goodbye yummy currant tea!

This cup was a lot more floral than I’ve experienced with the last two; tons and tons of strong, heady elderflower notes. Not that the black currant was absent; just more of a jammy undertone to compliment the rich floral body.

I like this one a lot.

While I definitely like the other teas I’ve had from this company, I do think that this is the only one I’d legitimately consider purchasing again – though honestly, I wasn’t even the one who purchased it for me in the first place. Point still stands.