THE O DOR

So I made this seeing that it was a green, and didn’t think to check ingredients. Oops!
I was finished more than half my cup before making it upstairs to see that the eeeeevil blerg plagued this blend. Welps. That isn’t good.
Well, kindof. I’ve been meaning to test the waters and see if I’m still sensitive. After all, I seem to be ok with vanilla and jasmine now. Of course, I always had the strongest reaction to Blerg (and lavender oil).
Anyhow. I had noticed that my tongue was a tad numb, but I’ve experienced something similar before with minty teas so simply assumed that was why.
I also didn’t notice any citrus at all, either in the dry/brewed scent or the taste.
Sighs. Inconclusive!
Anyhow, asides from the numbness, I found this cuppa nice but not mindblowing. I’m glad to have tried it, and hey I didn’t die!! yay. Sorry, my sense of humour has swung to the dark side today :P
Thank you MissB for the sample, and Sil for the distribution!

not a bad cup for this morning. I don’t ADORE this tea, so i’m glad that i’m getting around to finishing up the last of this. It’s interesting and it’s always nice to try new things but i won’t be upset when this one finally leaves my cupboard. What’s great is the price since i picked this one up in paris when our dollar was doing well – it was cheaper than a number of straight teas i typically stock from companies here :)

I had this one again today – still a little fussy for me, but i think the right magic is brewing hot and then letting it cool. Today this is much more like a middle 80 for me with maty noes and missing that brassy note.

steepeed this one at like 180 today to see if that made it a little less finicky. Worked out well as this is a much preferable cup of tea to how it usually comes across. Just wanted a straight black to drink with lunch before continuing on with my other puerh of the day.

it’s like this tea is cursed in my house. Every time i drink it, i either over steep it or i drink it so quickly i don’tt really pay attention to it. I’m guessing that means it sits somewhere in the middle of the road for me haha. either way, a decent bold cup with a strong brassy note this morning because the rental dog made me over steep this one.

I’m going to need to have this again and write a proper note for it. On the upside, i drank all of it..downside, i wasn’t really paying attention to it :(

From Sil. :)

I kept like 1/2 tsp back to try. I don’t like pear, so I’m not really expecting much from this tea.

It smells like fuzzy peaches, and pear jelly beans. Uhh…

Hmm. I didn’t steep it very long – maybe 30 seconds. It’s mostly peach I think, but with that icky overripe jelly bean pear flavour in the background.

I did another steep while I stirred my chili. Still really peachy and overripe pear. I think that if you love those flavours, this would be a good tea for you. It is high quality, and I am appreciating the oolong base. However, since the pear is really one of my LEAST favourite flavours, it’s falling flat for me.

But I did get a glass test tube with a cork cap out of the deal. ;)

Sipdown! From a long time ago…

Thanks to Sil, I got to sample this tea! Wasn’t planning on it, but her tales of how it is the only peachy tea she’s been enjoying lately (is that right?) made me curious.

I believe one of the comments was that this tea tastes somewhat apricotty – whether I’m confusing it with another tea or not, that was kind of my impression. I do like apricot. In fact, I should probably a) finish that delicious apricot blend I have from 52teas and b) petition for it to be reblended (but that’s another story).

So anyhow, this was apricotty/peachy, and green. The base was fine, no comment either way, really, and the flavouring was ok, but I’m having difficulty enjoying too many fruity greens lately, so I was thankful to only have a cup of this. I can see how it could be more enjoyable than other peach teas (there’s something about peachy teas that’s a total turnoff for me now; I’m not sure why), but it just doesn’t interest my tastebuds at this time.

When I looked up this one from MissB, I was excited to try it, since it has a lot of good reviews here and the flavors sounded pretty good. I’m not sure if I would recommend it as a cold brew, though. The fruit flavors became perhaps too intense, and the whole thing tasted like some kind of strange peach candy. I could also be reacting to the strawberry; I enjoy fresh strawberries, but anything else strawberry-flavored is not my thing. All in all, not my favorite fruit blend.

This is a tea I really wanted to try (pistachio and marzipan was the original description on The O Dor’s site), but the shop was out when I was in Brussels. Fortunately MissB had some to send along!

I feel like there are some weird translation issues here. Is it a macaroon, or macaron? Actually I think the answer is both? (Side note: The O Dor updated their website and it is a million billion times easier to use, plus they give ingredients now). It does have both “macaron” flavors, and coconut, which is more macaroon. What I taste is a lot of pistachio, a hint of almond, some creamy coconut, and an underlying base of chocolate. It’s not exactly what I was expecting, but it is delicious. I think I would prefer it without the coconut, but I don’t really care for coconut in my black tea. Regardless, I am happy to have tried this one (but I don’t think I will be ordering 100g any time soon).

I have been moving recently (up north, to take a new job), and thus not in a situation where I can easily drink tea all the time. But I have a few weeks where it will be easier, so I am going to attempt to drink more of the samples that MissB sent me recently!

I have wanted to try this one for a while, ever since people rhapsodized about how it was the perfect almond tea. Almond is perhaps my favorite flavor, yet I have never really found a perfect almond tea. Most often a purely almond-flavored tea suffers from thinness in the texture, I find. MissB was kind enough to send a bit of this my way so I could finally try it.

It certainly delivers in the almond flavor. And it isn’t as thin as say, DF’s Amande Amaretti, although it is still a little thinner than I would like. I agree with someone (Ysaurella?) that this seems like a keemun-y base. Decent, but not my fave. There is some light note that I don’t care for that is definitely coming from the base, but the almond covers it fairly well.

All in all I am very glad to have tried this one. I also think that I don’t necessarily need a straight up almond tea; apparently I like my almond a bit blended (preferrably with rose and vanilla). But this is definitely the best straight almond tea I have yet tried.

Thank you for the sample Marzipan :)

This reminded me a lot of my one of my fave from Fauchon, Chocolate Eclair!

Oh my…. chocolate hazelnut deliciousness in my cup right now! So creamy… so decadent… just like desert in liquid form! Thanks so much Sil for sending this one my way!!

so busy. working from home so i have a little time to focus on tea while multitasking work things. Pulled this one out because i really need to get through more of my flavoured teas but haven’t really felt like drinking them all that often. i tend to prefer drinking them out of ceramics for some reason. This one is nearly done and while i enjoy it a bunch, there are other teas with that vanila flavour that i prefer.

yay for digging out old favourites :) hazelnut nommyness.

I pulled this one out the other day because i wanted a little french love. I really enjoy drinking the teas that i picked up from paris, it’s just that due to the hot weather, it’s hard to be all about those creamy flavours that i adore in the winter. It’s like ice cream…i always want it in winter, but in summer i prefer popsicles haha. This is still a great tea – vanilla and then in to that hazelnut sort of love. yum.

love this. Still working on getting through trying all the teas in my cupboard, so this one was pulled out a few days ago and it is wonderful! Hazelnut and vanilla on a fancy french base that still holds it’s own. I really enjoyed this one..kind of curious how it would fare as a latte as well :)