THE O DOR

Soooo, lotus.

I have never (or not yet) had plain lotus tea. I have seen it for sale, plain lotus on chinese grocery stores, but never quite dared (most of tea in the local chinese grocery stores seems to be intentionally medicinal and/or for slimming and taste even worse than you would expect. Very dangerous places to buy tea if you are not totally sure what you are doing).

I think I am learning what lotus brings as a flavoring by comparing mentally teas that I have had which have had lotus as a flavoring (this, elixir d´amour), though not sure that is leading to the right image. Sultry and floral maybe.

Barbara and I have been swapping teas and since we are both fans of Theodor teas, we have been sharing a lot of our Theodor purchases. This is an interesting blend she sent me, one which I have been half eyeing towards purchase. Green tea with fig, and named saigon, ah, tempting (though admittedly just about everything from Theodor sounds tempting). Barbara has warned me about being careful when brewing this. I got to test with the rest of the sample, but I think I followed close enough. The result was lovely but I think I am probably not a lotus person (if I can figure out what lotus is). The fig was maybe in the background a dried fig like flavour and it was mostly a sultry floral-type. I could not detect the lemon. The tea base was lovely and not bitter.

Not rating this right now, since I want to try brewing this a couple more times to figure out if I am really brewing this right. And what lotus is supposedly to smell like!

I just found the last of this sample from a trade from years ago! Funny how a cupboard can eat thing, then randomly spit them back out. This tea is tasting like a faded mint vanilla with a slight cocoa finish, which I don’t think is at all representative of the tea when it was young and fresh. It is a little flat, but amazingly has some flavor left! Good job, little tea!

One of my older samples from a trade with Barbara.

I could smell lemon in the dry tea! This tea is so well rounded and balanced! There is an almost caramel/vanilla undertone to it with slight citrusy notes in there. Almost a touch of malt, but then it slips away. It is also very nice with cream and sugar.

I wish I had made tasting notes for this tea ages ago when I first got it! Kind of funny, but this sample has been in my travel pack and has traveled with me to Ireland, Dominican Republic, California, Hawaii and New York! And I’m just now having my 2nd cup ever of it! If I come across this tea, I’d definitely like to try some fresh!

Drinking the last of this sample that I got ages ago! I made the mistake of letting my cup get cold and it didn’t do the tea any favors. I heated it back up and it is much better. I’m not getting much fig this time around. Not sure if it is because of the age of the tea or the allergies I’m dealing with at the moment. What I’m picking up on most is the lemon, which evaded me in previous cups. There is a little tang that I’m getting on the sides of my tongue. The flavors seem delicate and not something I can pick up on right now.

Thank you Barbara for sending me this sample!
It’s fruity, it’s floral, it’s something I can’t quite put my finger on. The smell of this tea brewed didn’t really stand out as anything unique, but the taste has much more depth to it. At first I thought I was tasting peaches, but now as I taste a slight perfume like freshness on the sides of my tongue, I’m thinking roses. Not the overdone synthetic perfume rose flavor, but a true fresh rose petal flavor. The more sips I take, the stronger it tastes. My mouth feels a little dry after each sip with inviting me to drink more.

Now I’m reading the description of the tea to see what the flavors were… fig and lotus! Fig?! I mistook fig for roses? Now that I know what that flavor was, I can clearly taste how it is fresh fig off the tree, reminding me of how much of my childhood I spent up a fig tree. It amuses me that fig and rose have similar taste qualities, something I had never linked in my head before and I wonder how well they would pair.

The dangers of buying loose tea by the weight. I ordered this, which is supposed to be black erva-mate with red fruits and supposed to look like this

http://www.theodor.fr/shop/lang-en/the-weed/49-me-faltas-mate-noir.html

The non-local tea shop, whose existence and selection of teas I very much appreciate wrote Me Faltes ( I suspect some subconscious grammar correction, thinking that brazillians would not use the second person of the singular, LOL) on the package and they seem to have packed me this

http://www.theodor.fr/shop/lang-en/the-weed/139-lembranca.html

I need a small rant: IDIOTS! Oh well, I can not go there for them to fix it since it´s not a local shop, and Lembrança was on my wishlist for one day anyway. But sniff, I wanted this. Fazes-me falta, Me Faltas.

This smells wonderful, sweet, and fruity … but I am approaching with caution because of the plentifulicity (good word, don’t you think?) of the h-word.

However, I have it steeping in the sun on the porch of Shabby House and we’ll see how the experiment progresses.

(and later…)

After running errands and grabbing lunch at a funky little retro soda shop called the Bradbury Bishop Deli (very Route 66 in atmosphere), I came back to find a beautiful ruby-red jar of steepness on my front porch.

The thing about sun tea is that it’s not a very exact science. Proportions and steep times aren’t very uniform. So this test run tasted pretty heavy on the hibiscus, and all the potentially wonderful fruity flavors were kind of mushed together. I couldn’t pick up on anything separate like banana or cherry. A little sugar tamed the tart, and it’s still a nice fruity cooler on yet…another…stiflingly…hot…afternoon.

Just wondering, how do the rest of you feel about drinking fruity teas like this hot? I can’t seem to get past the notion that these flavor blends are summer-only.

Much gratitude for Doulton, the sponsor of this treat and front-porch laboratory experiement.

I had this tea to go in-shop (although the “to go” didn’t really work out very well, since I stuck around the shop until I finished it). I was very impatient and kept sipping it despite it being too hot still. This left me with a burned tongue, and a little less insight into the actual taste than I’d like.

What I DID get, however, was smoke. Delicious smoke, dark, not burnt. You could smell the fruit, faintly, but I didn’t get much of it in the taste right away (see: burning my tongue). As it cooled there was a pale fruityness. At one point, something a touch tart, perhaps. Either way, it’s going on my shopping list because I’d like to try it again. Smoke and Fruit? Sounds like a genius combination to me.

I bonded with the guy serving the tea, as we both enjoyed smoky teas. “Kindred spirits”, I think he said. We joked about how under appreciated it can be.

He had a set steep time (and temperature, I assume), but I don’t know what they were. Brewed to perfection, though.

Dor-o-thee, The-o-dor. Cute, isn’t it? Almost like a palindrome but not.

I got this as a sample with an embarrassingly large order I placed with The O Dor that arrived last week. I believe it to be what I wrote in the description, though the envelope containing the sample said “Mel. Dorothee.” I searched the The O Dor site and found no other product with Dorothee in the name.

In my sample, there are a ton of dried cherries. And hibiscus blossoms. And one thing that looks kind of like a dried banana chip. I don’t see any pineapple. I’m finding that samples are iffy things. Often, it seems, it’s just the luck of the scoop that you don’t get all of the ingredients in so small of a container. What I did have was gorgeous, though. Mostly various shades of dark magenta between the flowers and the cherries.

It brews to that same dark magenta color and smells of cherries and hibiscus (not surprising since that is mostly what’s in it). Here’s what I thought was interesting. Though I didn’t do a side by side, its look and smell reminded me pretty strongly of Tazo’s Passion.

It tastes much like Passion as well, even to the point of taking on a no-sugar-added grape juice flavor when sweetened up a bit. It is somewhat less tart than I recall Passion being, which is a plus — maybe that is the influence of the pineapple and banana flavoring agents. But I can’t help but wonder whether it’s really supposed to taste like this, or whether it is supposed to have a more tropical flavor, and whether a different sample, or a scoop from a full tin, would taste differently. I’m going to reserve rating since I can’t retest to verify my results.

I may have to order some just to find out, though given the humongoid nature of my most recent order I suspect it will be a while before I place another.

I got a sample of this and enjoyed it for Easter. I am undecided on this tea and doubt I will make a full purchase of this. If you enjoy Florence, you might enjoy a trip around the tea cosey with this.
I fear I am not a friend to chocolate scented teas.

My mother enjoyed it quiet a bit and even commented on its lovely aroma. I found the taste improved as it cooled. But on the whole this was not for me.
C’est la vie.

Found this beauty in capetown want to know where I can buy it here (uk) or do I have to go back to capetown again!!!

This rooibos is puzzling…
It’s very lovely with ylang-ylang flowers : the flowers are complete with the petals still attached to one another; they tend to rise on top of the rooibos needles when I shake my bag. After steeping, they still are full and look like they were freshly plucked.
After this aesthetic interlude, let’s move to the tasting note. I believe I must have had this rooibos at least 10 times now. And everytime I start drinking it, I’m puzzled by some tastes that overpower all the other flavors. The first would be the nutmeg, followed by pepper, which is rather subtile and which I find as an aftertaste and especially when licking my lips. Too much nutmeg in my opinion as it covers the other flavors – I cannot identify the ylang ylang though I can smell it on the dry leaves, no passion fruit, no vanilla, though this one might explain the creaminess of the blend.
This is a very nice blend, though not as subtle as I’d like it to be.

For the first time since last Sunday when the haze started to hit on us, I managed late today to open my windows and breath almost fresh air. Since my living-room used to stink increasingly like a smoking bar the morning after, when all ashtrays are overflown, I was in a very good mood to have the stench removed by a nice and not too smelly breeze.
That was definitely an opportunity for a celebration. What could be better than opening a new and promising tea bag? I chose this one so that the exotic fruit flavors remind me of some great pleasures I enjoy living in Singapore.
I’m really glad I did that, as drinking this tea definitely made me happier. The flavors of tropical fruits are rather blended, but gave me the feeling that only the tropical fruits I prefer had managed to reach the bag. Isn’t that fantastic! I recognized quite early my favorite passion-fruit, some pineapple is also there and some fruit that taste both sweet and very tangy at the same time and that have a creamy texture, a bit like mangosteen but not exactly this fruit. I then decided to look over what was the mysterious guanabana and I realized it was the French corossol and the English soursop – then it was clear it was this last fruit that brought out this tangy sweet slightly sour but overall very interesting and multi-dimensional.
To be drunk hot or warm – it seems not as interesting once it cools down.
I made a second tea-pot, right after finishing the first. I’m quite sure the bag will empty itself very quickly and I’ll certainly restock this one after.

This is the very last of the very generous sample Ysaurella sent me, and ah, this is one of those teas I keep loving better and better every time I had it. It´s almond, sort of pure, not truly bitter but with a hint of bitterness to warn you this is for grownups. A truly smooth base which is just not wimpy (nor too loud it is rude), and this was a major hit. A tea which normally would have been not a shopping priority and which I am definitely going to buy one day – though still unsure if I go with this proven tea or risk Je t´Aime on my next (soon, my preciouses…) Theodor order…

Oh my, this is like drinking marzipan – but in a good way!

Another sample very kindly sent by Ysaurella ( we have both been placing Theodor orders, and comparing them. It will not be my last order though!), and this is, as expected, great. I have no associations of galette des rois or almonds with Epiphany (almonds for us are a Easter thing instead and never bitter almond), so I can not compare it. But the taste of this tea is indeed almond almond with a bit of bitter almond to give it some punch. As usual, a very smooth base underneath.

I was chancing to drink this while nibbling on a bit of chocolate covered lemon peel, and that is a highly recommended combination!

PS – actually, because mostly I have been drinking rooibos lately, bitter almond would be a perfect flavour for rooibos (with vanilla!). Does anybody do it? My beloved Carpe Diem blend is sweet almond with raspberry and strawberry, but a bitter almond could be very interesting indeed with rooibos. Maybe caramel, vanilla and bitter almond?

This is a beautiful blend. Just beautiful, to look at and its perfume. And one of the most feminine tea blends I have ever tasted. Not girly, girly is a different thing, this is more grown up, much smarter and a bit mysterious. But and there is a but, it is not a tea for me.

It´s a floral, in a mix of black and green teas. Osmanthus, lotus and jasmine and they say some pepper. I think lotus is a note I dislike in general, I even bought some cheap vietnam lotus tea to check it (and ok, because of the tin, which was ohhh so pretty, so not a total waste of tea) and lotus definitely is a floral too floral for me. Here it is sort of balanced. But no matter how beautifully scented and intriguing it is, I keep finding this way too sultry somehow for my taste.

I sweetened this without thinking, it was a stupid idea and a mistake indeed.

Even if not a tea for me, it is so beautiful that I will try the rest of the sample Ysaurella (merci!) sent me with pleasure. Not at all bad, sublime at being that sort of thing, it is just not my cup of tea.

This is the famous tomato tea, which I have been intrigued by for ages and never been able to find on stock even in places which usually have it on stock – who knew that tomato tea sold out? Ysaurella came to the rescue and sent me this sample and I could (finally!) try it. Thank you, Ysaurella!

This is a very unexpected tea : flavoured darjeeling, with tomato and lemon. Recently I was talking of vegetables which fruits (tomato, pumpkins, peppers, avocados, etc) and vegetables which are fruits (rhubarb). Tomato is indeed a fruit, in my country a popular jam is made with tomatoes and I know someone who snacks on tomatoes as if they were apples (or carrots, now I think of it). So of course, tomato should have a chance to be something more. And it is very typical of Thé-o-dor teas that they experiment with it (and also typical that they could make it work).

I am not usually a fan of darjeeling and apart from Arya Rose d´Himalaya I do not recall ever having a flavoured darjeeling. I was very very careful brewing this, water was perhaps a smidgeon too cold, and used a timer for 2 and a half minutes. It was still a bit astringent, though IMO a desirable level of astringent for the flavours – but this is going to be indeed a tricky tricky tea.

The dry leaf is beautiful, and smells of hay-ish tea, lemon and tomato with the lemon being more noticeable than the tomato. While brewing the scent changes, the ripe tomato becomes the predominant flavour and I worried I was going to like this after all. The liquour thankfully has a more subdued, less liquid somehow (oh the irony), tomato note, lemon becames again noticeable. The non-verbal parts of my brain like it and do not care what it is. The verbal ones are still trying to figure out how came this works, but works indeed.

This is the strangest tea I ever tried, and amazingly it is good. It tastes not like an experiment or something meant to just shock, but well, it tastes perfectly finished, an interesting very eccentric tea which is so smart.

I am saying goodbye to the sample Ysaurella gave me and well this was a lovely surprise. I would never have put it on my shopping list, me and lavender earl greys, no not for me. Except wrong, apparently this one works and very well for me, enjoyed all of the sample very much (do not brew it too cold, though!) and this is going to my shopping list for one of those days.

I just got a very nice surprise with this tea – expectations are funny things! Ysaurella had kindly sent me a sample, and just last night she had reviewed it, and led me to expect more lavender. She in fact compares it to another lavender tea I also had, Gryphon´s Earl Grey Lavender (a very kind sample as well, this time from LaFleurBleue). And for once Ysaurella and I have diverging opinions – I prefer Mademoiselle and find it less lavender-ish.

I confess I might have mistreated this when brewing, and did not pay too much attention to how long it steeped. I think it might have steeped too long or too hot, it has a small hint of astringency but one which seems to bring out the bergamot. I get the lavender only as a background soothing things. The bergamot is a great bergamot and the base tea just right. Love it, it might be the one lavender earl grey for me.

PS – maybe it is water alchemy? I notice bergamot teas seem to react so differently to different tap waters! Though with my tap water usually it´s violent rebellion not improving alchemy.