Zen Tea

Ugh. I’m home, and I’m grumpy, and I just want something that will be right. I grabbed this tea and am currently enjoying a cup of creamy strawberry yumminess. Why can’t all things be this easy? Oy.

This was one of my Christmas presents, and the first tea of the day. It’s light and fruity with a great strawberry flavor. The creamy vanilla note helps to highlight the strawberry, and with a little sugar it turns this tea into a super yummy treat.

Merry Christmas everyone! May your day be filled with all good things.

My morning cup. I can’t see myself ever not loving this tea. It has such a wonderful sweet strawberry flavor and a lovely creaminess from the vanilla. It’s beautifully blended and it can be resteeped. What’s not to love?

Made an order to ZenTeaLife for staple teas and this was one of them. Good grief this is some good stuff! Lots of strawberry and creamy vanilla. I love this hot, but as an iced tea it’s perfect for summer. So glad this is back in cupboard!

First cup of the morning. The strawberry and vanilla flavors in here are so good. If I have to get out of bed in a cold rainy Tuesday then this is the way to do it.

My morning cup.

We received our Zen Tea order yesterday (yay!). Before going to bed last night my daughter asked that I make a pot of this for breakfast. It’s definitely a family favorite, and I’m happy to have it on my shelf again.

My daughter chose our tea this morning. After digging through my stash she decided on this one, but she looked worried that there was so little left. I had to pinky swear that I would buy more before we could sit down and enjoy our tea. I think I may have her hooked. Or rather this tea has her hooked. The strawberry is spot on, and while this definitely taste like a treat it’s not overly sweet or heavy. It’s just good – really, really good.

Oh mercy, this is good. This is a tea with no hidden agenda. You get a wonderful strawberry and cream flavor and a solid black tea to go with it. I added a touch of sugar to my cup and found that it was just enough to really bring out the strawberry. That said, this could be a delightful dessert tea with sugar and milk. And by delightful I’m thinking eye rollin’ good.

I’m so glad I added this one to my cart. It will most certainly be a pantry staple.

Another sipdown! I am sad this one is gone- not only is it tasty but it’s an oolong I can drink a lot of without getting a stomach ache! Huge bonus points for that.

Thanks again to Zen Tea for providing this sample!

First, thank you Zen Tea for providing generous samples!
I’ve had a couple sessions with this tea now. The first time I followed their instructions of 1 tsp per cup, and I felt it was lacking something. Not bad, but the flavor just kept almost tasting sweet and almost tasting bakey, etc. So I doubled the tea leaves and tried again. This was similar to the first steeping by ‘almost’ tasting like I was hoping it would.
Don’t get me wrong, though. I enjoyed drinking all 6 cups I had, and will enjoy finishing off my sample. This tea’s roasted-ness is delicious, and is very easy to drink. I just wish it had a tish more complexity. As I have more of this sample, maybe I will get my steeping parameters perfected and get the taste I’m looking for. If I do, I will update!

I’m drinking this today instead of A&D’s Assam because I’m trying to rotate it out before it hits the 1 year mark. I’ve had it 9 months now and I don’t think it’s lost any flavour at all, but sadly, it just can’t compete with my Tiger Assam. It has a Tiger on the tin! I’m suggestible and that gives it extra BAM for that.

Still this is a nice cup, and doesn’t require anything to enjoy it!

I’m drinking this cup as part of Operation:NoStaleTea since this tea is about 10-11 months old. It was the first Assam that I truly loved and it holds a place in my heart for that, but I don’t think it needs a place in my cupboard anymore. There’s something about it that I like less than, say, Tiger Assam. :D

I’m at 165 teas, and I’d like to end the month at 150, but I think that’s a silly thing to push myself towards. I’ve got one, possibly two packages that WILL arrive next week and I don’t want to be limited to drinking down those oddball teas when I have other choices. 1/3 of my teas are herbal, and I think that’s where most of my near-sipdown teas are, so they’re not going anywhere unless I go all day without caffeine. /flails/ NOOOO, you can’t make me.

Maybe I’ve had enough caffeine already?

But this was a good choice. It’s a nice straightforward Assam, and the first one that really stood out to me to help me realize that YES, Assam’s are a type of tea that I would like more of! And this has been in my cupboard since July so I should drink more of it. I don’t want any one tea to stick around for more than a year!

Ugh. I’m stressing out today and it’s silly because there’s nothing I can do about anything right now anyway, but I think that’s when a lot of us stress the most. We can’t help it.

So I’m drinking this tea. It’s comfort tea. I’ve never had a bad cup and it’s just good and simple. I might even indulge in a bit of milk and sugar to distract myself!

Also, this is distracting me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaLLUgR32fY (A violin cover of Gangham Style – it sounds so different!)

Still a pretty good Assam. Not as good as the Damn Fine Tea from A&D, but good. :) I won’t have any difficulty drinking this one down.

Today is a “grumpy, drag myself out of bed in a foul mood with not enough sleep along with an angry tired baby who woke me every hour or so” kinda day.

We’re roleplaying today and I was totally not into it but we ran to Tim Horton’s for an iced cap and timbits and I’m double-fisting it with my lovely kick me in the face Assam tea.

Things are looking up. Also, the baby has been asleep for nearly two hours. Win!

The problem with needing tea to wake up in the morning is that you’re not really awake when you make it. Not only may I have understeeped it, I added more than a dollop of cream and now this tea is warmish, creamy, and not very strong. I could just as easily go back to sleep as I could make a new cup.

Today is a stay-in-my-pjs-forever sorta day. I’ll make the new cup, but no guarantee I’ll be fully awake. :)

This? Pretty much the worst when it cools.
A great breakfast tea unless you’re distracted. Time to make something else!

I am really enjoying this Assam. It may even make it as my go-to black for the mornings! I could see what DavidsTea has for an Assam just to compare the two, but… Zen Tea also does sales so I’m probably best just sticking with this and buying it on sale.

Mmmmm… so bold and creamy and smooth, with a nice ceylon-like aftertaste. No bitterness=\0/

This is my first assam! It’s quite strong and malty – it makes me think that this would be the ‘coffee’ of teas! (That is, if coffee wasn’t just a vehicle to deliver cream/sugar to me…)

It’s cooled off a bit since I first steeped it, but I’m still sipping away at it and enjoying it. It sorta reminds me of Ceylon Best, but maltier. There’s no unpleasant astringency either so that puts it ahead of my Murchie’s blacks.

I guess I need to keep drinking these unflavoured blacks to get a better sense of what’s what!

I think cream/sugar would be a mistake here as there are a lot of flavours present I wouldn’t want to cover up!

Update: I re-steeped it in the afternoon, and it was even creamier!

This tea seems appropriate for today as I reflect on my tea journey! This was my favourite oolong for the longest time.

It still might be. It’s one of the few that I’d buy a tin of!

I haven’t had this in a while and nearly forgot about. It’s fantastic.

Yes! I was going to re-steep my Assam from Butiki but I had to take a break and drink some of this as it’s been sitting in my timolino for 4 hours now. I love being able to switch between two teas with both timo’s full.

LOVE LOVE LOVE this tea. I still don’t really know which one I prefer – this or DT’s. I guess when they’re this good it doesn’t really matter?

I am relaxing to a Pride&Prejudice inspired mix on 8tracks, which is great because I spent the morning watching Dr Who fanvids and tearing up. :P

I had one cup of this last night, and five today!

I love this tea.