gmathis Send Message

Derk, you made my day with this one! Long, blonde leaves that meld into cocoa and sweet wheat toast. Definitely my gold standard! Off to try a second steep.

(My husband is used to me sticking dry tea leaves under his nose for him to smell, but this morning, when I pulled the packet away, he said, “Wait a minute! I want to smell that again!” High praise.)

Ever swig down a tasty tea so fast you didn’t take good mental notes for reviewing purposes? This one is nearly gone, and I enjoyed it immensely, but about the only descriptors I can grab are leather and cocoa. Even the cool remaining half cup smells good! (Thanks, derk!)

This one is going to take some tinkering. Generally, I am not patient with tinker-needful teas. At four minutes with roughly the appropriate temperature (remember, I am a barbarian who does “kinda” and “sorta”) and a smidge less leaf than the tin recommends, this tastes much more like a Darjeeling than an oolong—and a rather bitter one at that.

I skimmed through other reviews, and another Steepster described it as an oolong evidently grown less than 20 miles from the Darjeeling region. That pretty much sums it up!

All the same, it was good to shake up my morning synapses with something different.

Very quick fly-by note, with thanks to derk … my first experience with a Thai tea, I think. Mild and subtle; the flavor reminded me most of unsweet molasses. I was going to try the final steep iced, but oops - too late now! I chugged the last tumbler at my desk without realizing it!

According to Ecclesiastes, there is a season for everything under heaven; a time to keep, and a time to throw away. I am NOT throwing away my last hoarded half-box of these beloved strawberry tea bags, but I have decided that it is high time that I used them.

Especially since it is blinkin’ hot! From the coolest spring in several decades, BAM! we switched immediately to mid-90’s rainforest weather this week.

So I have kept a mason jar of this faithful, can’t-fail strawberry black tea in the fridge for several days now for cool-down purposes. But here’s the twist: thanks to some chit-chat here on Steepster about herb-laced water, and not having enough tea to fill my tumbler, I finished off the top half with some rosemary water. Fruity, brisk, a little piney…I think I am going to do this on purpose again!

Still can’t get over what a pretty tea this is dry—for some reason, the leaves remind me of long eyelashes. I added a little extra leaf to some spent ones in my steeping basket and let the whole thing go a little longer this morning; results: fruit and brown sugar. Really nice.

I need a t-shirt that says, “Mail is my love language.” This traveled to my house from derk in an envelope peppered with cheerful, artsy stamps. Furthermore, I have the luxury of some use-it-or-lose-it vacation time to burn before end of the month, so I am enjoying it at home, not in the office.

I tasted before I investigated the description, and couldn’t quite place the flavor, although the scent was deliciously rich. Come to find out, says Whispering Pines, this is a lapsang souchong variety. If so, it is the mildest one I’ve ever sampled—like the outside rim of a very lightly toasted marshmallow rather than campfires and bacon.

Despite being embarrassingly past its prime and poorly stored, my last cup of this dragonwell was nearly as enjoyable as it was in its heyday. It has always led with “sweet and toasty” and followed up with the “green and good for you like vegetables.”

I try to keep the “Need New Tea” monster fenced in during the summer and drink up bits and scraps of what I have (like that’s going to happen), but if I wanted to return a dragonwell to my collection, what would you recommend?

I got carried away in the craft room. (What started out as a 20 minute quickie project turned into 2 hours of “Oh! That paper will go with those stickers and those scraps will work for that Cricut cutout…”)

So when I finally sat down for tea, I settled for a quickie afternooner instead of something requiring more fuss. When you go light on the time and temp, this is a perky little floral tea, light on the green vegetation, light on the cherry, heavier on the blossom.

In other news, I WENT to church today. Live. Real orchestra. Mary Beth’s exquisite piano solo (she’s one of those stellar talents that can just sit down and twiddle her fingers and it sounds like she’d been planning it for days). Air hugs with some people I love and an illicit elbow bump or two. :) It was like water on a dry sponge.

This isn’t currently appearing on the TeaMaze website, and that’s a shame because the leaves are long and lacy. You’d like the way it looks.

Though “Breakfast” is in the title, this really isn’t the brash and bold thing I require to get my eyes open. “Brunch” or “afternooner” would be a better time-of-day recommendation. The first sensation is on the back of the tongue: sweet—almost brown sugary, with a very subtle malt-and-cocoa sensation that tickles the tip of the tongue as you swallow.

With that said, this is a fine, elegant tea. Just be alert enough to appreciate it.