1088 Tasting Notes
Popped into a DT’s shop today to take advantage of the 2x FS points offer on leaf and yay, yet another free cup of tea of the day. Which again was this one—could do much worse. Good and gentle and nicely steeped. This reminds me of the bottled green tea blends in the refrigerator section of the corner store, plus the suggestion of green apple. The kombucha fizziness and slight sourness is missing altogether here but that is all to the good.
Steeped up a good strong cup of this and poured it in with the leftover Heavenly Cream plus cream in my travel mug and omgoshwow. All the excellence of Heavenly Cream and the heft of bittersweet chocolate of this. Score!
If only my migraine would subside…
Went to the Art Gallery of Ontario today to see the Femmes Noir exhibit. Had this while visiting with a friend in the cafe. Think thick vanilla clotted cream with the barest hint of bergamot. Delicious. I added half and half to it to take it over the top. Highly recommend. (However, the tins are overpriced.)
Awesome exhibit. Catch it if you can. https://nowtoronto.com/culture/art-and-design/mickalene-thomas-ago-femmes-noires/
Ayup, GREAT vanilla toning down the lavender. And the lavender is toning down the bergamot. And all the flavours are toning down the rather harsh black base. All good.
Mmm, that sounds like a winning combo.
I like this tea because the vanilla is a winner and it overrides all else/brings it all together.
I just went to their website and I predict an order in my future.
Oh dear. Yes, this sounds amazing. I love cream EGs; I love lavender.
Well, now that ATR is, sadly, no longer, I’ve been hoarding the last shreds of this favourite.
The trick is, of course, to drink it while it is still holding its magic.
Initially, I was thinking that the magic had dissipated, but just when I was getting used to the idea that this was just ordinary. BOOM! A liquid sugary sweet raisin almond saffron pastry came through in each sip. All that was missing was that dense chewy fresh sweet breadiness that you bite into, leaving a tooth imprint in every bite.
To borrow from derk, this is an old ass tea. Perhaps three, moving on to four years old. That said, the packet had been unopened and reasonably well stored.
I steeped it with slightly cooled water to attempt to coax all the things.
Malt, a bit of citrus, and a bit of muscatel. A beautiful cup. The apricot is not showing up for me. Perhaps it has left the building altogether.
Unopened usually spells good things for me, despite age :)
Me too. And now that it is open, the pressure is on. :)
From Ms. Roswell Strange—
Basically, the use of “Clonal” means that the tea was grown from hybrid clones instead of seeds – it’s essentially controlling the tea breeding/growing to achieve specific qualities. With teas from India in particular, generally what is being bred for is a higher percentage of golden tips since the higher the percentage the higher the grade they can attribute to the tea. A higher grade generally means that they can sell for a significantly higher profit since there’s a perception that higher grade = higher quality. It’s sort of true that generally a higher grade is higher quality but since tea leaf grading ONLY describes the physical appearance of tea you can absolutely have lower grades that taste better than higher grades (plus taste is ultimately subjective anyway).
I’m sad I had to miss this day. We’re down to one car, and my husband has soccer on Thursdays… it just wasn’t going to work for me to make it to a DT with the baby. Kind of bummed. Hopefully these Frequent Steeper events happen a few times a year!
Today is free cup of tea of the day day in honour of International Women’s Day! Maybe that’ll work. (Babies are cute but loud and cumbersome. But they’re cute, so there’s that.)
Yep, I saw that and think I might make my way there this afternoon after I get the car! Had it just been me yesterday, maybe I would have tried the bus, but I’m just not willing to do that with the baby (I know, so many people do, and they are incredible; I am absolutely lazy and entitled.)
hahha
I didn’t get to DT’s today. thought about it and that’s as far as it got.
I made it! I got a free Frozen Raspberry TOTD, which was lovely, and also a free sample of a not-yet-released tea. And then I purchased about $15 of matcha, Green Apple Kombucha, and Mango Boost samples, which would have been nice to get 2x Frequent Steeper points on!