Zen Tea

(backlog from 5/29/14)

I don’t usually like flavored green tea (with the exception, I have recently discovered, of jasmine!), but I thought that I’d try Arabian Night just for fun.

The sunflower is the dominant flavor in this blend, but there is also some sort of unidentified fruit (“flavor” in the ingredients list…) present. As I’m not a big fan of the taste of sunflowers (though I love the sight!) this blend is not for me.

From the spent leaves, it is clear that black tea is present here, too. I’ll probably use the rest of this envelope for iced tea this summer.

(Blazing New Rating #8)

I put “energizing chair” in the search when trying to look this tea up. LOL.

I had this tea last weekend as well. One of my new Zen tea additions, just a sample size though. The description didn’t sound too exciting to me, but I thought it would be worth trying anyway.

I was pleasantly surprised by deep chocolate notes I was getting from it. Slightly spicy dark chocolate drink. The mate in the mix is not too obtrusive, although it does pop out its head more as the cup cools down. I don’t know if it was energizing though, I am always energized enough because, thank god, most of the time I work in accordance with my very own circadian rhythm where I go to sleep very late at night and get up very late morning :D

But yeah, I am looking forward to trying this tea again, although I can see that it’s probably not going to be my very favorite.

I love coconut, and I love green tea. So I knew this would be good. And it sure is! Kind of creamy and a vegetal, and very coconutty. I just want to make a giant pitcher of this and dive in. I finished my cup much too fast. I need to try it iced!

This tea neverrrr gets olddd! Nor does it ever get bitter. :P
Took it with me yesterday during the family outting…which really wasn’t so much fun overall. I am not close to my dad, pretty much at all anymore. And since my sister returned home our relationship has gotten even worse…Which I guess isn’t surprising since she was the one that made it bad in the first place.
But still….being around my dad and sister in any circumstance is not fun at all, I tend to avoid it because it just makes everything in my own life worse. So yeah, Father’s Day was depressing…like everyone was just saying how much they loved their dads and all, which is great, don’t get me wrong. I’ve just not had a fantastic one.
Especially since recently finding out that he doesn’t think my severe health issues effect how I act and feel at all…that really just…I don’t know how to say it. He has knee and back problems so he assumes we are the same, even though we are entirely different. He assumes that since his issues don’t effect anything in his life, I shouldn’t let them effect things in mine, even though I can’t stop them from doing that at this point. I guess him being really arrogant about that on top of everything else just made me lose so so much more respect for him. And yeah…yesterday was just hard. really really hard. Really didn’t wanna be out. Was just a depressing day for me.
This tea was really a highlight though. It pulled me through the lunch we had at this Asian place that didn’t have any dipping sauce at all, so I didn’t eat anything. I usually would just eat rice, but I physically can’t eat rice thanks to that super tight wrap around my throat. :(
Anyway about the tea.
I love how I can just throw some leaves at the bottom of a tumbler and then just fill it with hot water and can let it steep g-pa style, and have it not get bitter at all. I wish it weren’t so expensive because this is the perfect tea for on the go! Seriously just never gets old. Still love it!
An oolong is always my go to, comfort tea for sucky times. They help tide me over! Definitely my favorite type of tea, hands down!

Backlog

This tea.
This tea is just so lovely.
How it looks. The aroma of it steeping. The taste.
It’s just such a beautiful oolong. (:

Picked some of this up when they had their BF sale! I have been wanting to get this one for the LONGEST time! Ever since they sent me a sample of it, I just needed to have it.
I love how unique this tea is. I just love how the little branches stick out of my mug like a mini tree. It just is so cool to me! I can’t even explain it!
Anyhow, this is just as good as I remember!
Don’t think I steeped enough, but it was still perfume-y and floral-y. Ugh. Just this tea. Love it so much!

After 4 hours of sleep it was nice to brew up a few cups of this tea. It smells so strong…I can’t really place how it tastes.
They definitely got the name right. It is pretty fragrant. Kinda ends up tasting fragrant too, now to think of it. xD
I would never have thought to buy this but they threw it in my order…it’s kinda expensive tea, but now I have to buy more since it’s so good.
And it’s helping me wake up-so it’s the perfect tea for today ^^

This was so much better than last time. I feel compelled to change my rating. Oh, I see that I neglected to attach a number…

Virtually everything is better with coconut on it, so I decided to take a chance on this Coconut Oolong from Zen Tea. I say that it was something of a gamble because I have had troubles in the past with oolongs. I used to also have troubles with jasmine, and lately I have found several palatable jasmine greens which have not disagreed with my system, so I was hoping that my problem in the past with these two types of teas was simply that I encountered inferior grades.

Coconut Oolong brews up fairly yellow (I may have oversteeped…), and tastes smooth and coconuty more than oolongy—so we’re off to a good start. The big question is: how will I feel in, say, half an hour? We shall see… For now, I can affirm that this blend is pleasing to this amateur of all things coconut!

second infusion: also tasty. Unfortunately, however, I have been overcome by that vague headache-y feeling induced by oolongs in the past (with only a couple of exceptions involving blends in which oolong played only a minor role). I do believe that this may be an allergy. sigh.

(Blazing New Rating #4)

I first had this months back, before I even liked black tea. In fact, I think it was the first straight black tea I tried since really getting in to tea. And I loved it. It’s sort of funny that it took me a couple more months to go to the dark side. I don’t think I’ve had it since I started to really get into black teas, so when I saw the packet in my sip down pile, I was curious to see what I still thought.

This is one of those teas that almost gets better in the later steeps. The first steep was fine, a bit smokey (that was the note I was picking up the first time I had this that I didn’t like), and a bit cocoa, and almost powdery. But each steep gets fuller and thicker and smoother and more cocoa. Around the fourth steep, there’s a bit of caramel and honey popping up, and some grain.

This is delicious, and I’m almost out. And I can hardly believe that it’s $10 for 100g. I’m still kicking myself for not loading up when it was an additional 40% off. But maybe they’ll run another sale around Black Friday and I can load up (; and even if not, it’s still such a steal that I might even place an order for just this tea.

When I first took a sip of this, while still very hot, I wasn’t in love. There was some flavor there that I wasn’t digging. But once it cools off a bit, the cocoa notes really came through! This is so delicious, so smooth and lightly sweet and chocolaty and with a little bit of a caramel hint to it. Resteeping, even more cocoa notes, and slightly more sweeter. I loved the way the flavor slowly transforms, yet holds up after 3 resteeps. I need to see how many steeps I can get out of this one. And I’m kicking myself for only buying 20g! I need to get more!

This is the first time I’ve ever tried a tisane that purely dried fruits. There’s so much yumminess going on it this. Overall, its sweet and fruity and delicious. I think I’ll try cutting it with some green tea next time so I can try and make the bag stretch. I wish I ordered more than 50 g! I also must try this iced, the fruitiness just screams iced.

I don’t believe I’ve ever had a rose tea before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The dry leaf smells like smelling a fresh rose, next to like a cherry pie. Sweet and cherry and floral. Smells good, but I still wasn’t sure how it would taste.
I’m surprised by how much I like it. I didn’t taste much cherry, mostly just rose, though I think I might have had the water too hot. It was still very yummy. Rosy, with a touch of sweet cherry, supported by the slightly vegetal green tea. I really want to try it iced.

Okay, it’s time to backlog some teas!

So, I got my order from Zen Tea on Friday and I already tried some teas I was most curious about. Since I am a huge fan of Golden Moon’s Coconut Pouchong, I decided it would be a great idea to try this! And it seems like the base here is also Pouchong…

I cannot say much about the comparison of the base between the two, pouchong always just seems to me the shyest of oolongs that nevertheless makes a great base for flavored teas. However, the coconut flavor is creamier and bolder here, which does not necessarily make it better than the GM’s counterpart. It doesn’t make it worse either! Just different! Which is great because what would be the point of having virtually the same teas? :D It makes for a very delicious cup and I might be tempted to keep it in stock most of the time along with the Golden Moon’s one.

I’ve had a recurring headache the last few days which seems to happen to me whenever the weather is changing… ugh. I wanted something yesterday that was familiar, but not plain, yet I didn’t want a lot of flavor. This one hit the spot… a familiar favorite as in being a nice black tea. The flavor of vanilla came through nicely w/o encouraging my headache to become more pronounced.. smelling a couple of blends was enough to turn my nose to them at the peak of the headache because the smell almost made the pain worse.

I re-steeped this today just because it was still in my steeper basket and I was feeling lazy. Still a nice black tea w/a faintness of vanilla. Thankfully my headache is feeling about half better today and I’m considering trying something more flavorful later :)

I got this one from Tea Sipper’s Stash sale and had this one yesterday morning. I didn’t have high expectations for it after reading the reviews. I do sometimes like a plain black tea w/o much going on so I figured if the vanilla wasn’t there for me I could still enjoy it.

I can faintly smell the vanilla when it is dry leaf. Steeped, I do get some vanilla, although it isn’t real strong and if I didn’t know it was supposed to be vanilla I don’t know if I could pick it out. I do find it a drinkable cup, so think I can make it through these few cups.

So I decided to try the tea soda thing. I brewed up a cup of this double strength and added sweetener and let it cool to room temperature. I then added a cup of cold carbonated water. I would say it was a success! The only down side is I think I prefer this fruit tea hot, for once. But know I know a technique for tea soda that works for me (:

This smells incredible, sweet and buttery and creamy. I want to dive in.
This is nice sweet, creamy rooibos. And the little caramel squares are such a cute touch. The creamy caramel takes front stage while the woody rooibos supports the caramel in a way that reminds me even more of browned caramel.

Thanks to the TTB-C R2 I was able to sample another lovely tea. I love toffee and this is only mildly toffee. It is good and the white tea base is a change from the common black dessert teas. I would love a little more toffee, but I’m crazy. I added a bit of stevia (Ah, my old friend) It’s nice and the toffee flavor becomes a bit more prominent. I probably wouldn’t keep it in my cupboard but I would always drink a cup if it were in a swap or TTB.
My husband and I got back from our mini vacation. I did a LOT of walking and my sprained knee handled it well. I’m not sore at all. I am still wearing a brace but more for additional support. YEAH!!! I’m so glad to be back to being able to exercise. And yes, I’m still taking breaks and being careful with it. I don’t want to have to start over again!

Here’s Hoping traveling teabox – Round 3

I thought I would like this a lot more than I am as I tend to really enjoy rooibos blends with almond in them. This one is only ok. It just doesn’t seem almond enough for me and there’s almost something sour about it. I added a bit of sweetener, but that didn’t really help. Maybe it’s the cherry notes? I don’t know – something about it, though. Just not for me.

sipdown #1 for today…