I feel so out of it right now.
Because I’m 20 and I think it’s important (so long as you don’t make it a regular habit) to sometimes be reckless I decided to call in sick today and play hookie. Then, I went down to the beach with a few friends, and get so trashed. I haven’t been to the beach in years and it was a lot of fun, and definitely pulled me out of the sad funk I had been most of this week.
We went swimming, had quite a few beers, and then rented out these paddle boat type things for an hour and half-drunkenly paddled around the lake.
At one point two out of the four of us fell out of the paddle boats and then because of the way they sit on the water it was too high for them to get back in, so my friend Dylan and I each had to operate a two person paddle boat on our own and the other two had to swim all the way back into shore. It was such a work out; and not gonna lie there was a lot of bickering on the journey back to shore but it was a really memorable experience overall.
And now I’m back at home and I’m so tired. I made a mug of this after I’d showered off and got all the sand out of unpleasant crevices, and seaweed out of my hair. I have to say the convenience of making these ‘instant powdered teas’ was a life saver. I really don’t feel like I’m exaggerating if I say that I would have been too tired to deal with loose leaf.
That said; this was the blend I was least looking forward to out of the samples from Chi Whole Leaf; I’m not a big fan of Chai and ginger in particular is one of my least favourite flavours. The dry powdered smell? It’s so gingery; but with everything else it made me feel like I’d just stuck my head in my Grandma’s spice drawer for a solid couple minutes just really deeply inhaling. Perhaps that sounds pleasant to some people (who?) but NOT me.
But the water hit the powder, and I whisked it all up regardless and then added a little bit of milk and the smell wasn’t as bad. Still very gingery, but at a level I was more ok with. Taste wise; I think I actually picked up on cinnamon more than anything else though; and a very odd, sharp cinnamon note at that. There was a little clove, but very much in the background. I think personally adding milk was a great idea for me – it contributed a creaminess that offset the spice a little bit and sort of reminded me of gingerbread? But there was an oddness I couldn’t place.
It took until I reached the bottom of the mug (sludge was also an issue with this blend) before it hit me! It was reminding me of these little Gingerbread cinnamon Christmas decorations we made at Christmas one year. Except, they weren’t meant to be edible – just nice smelling, and that way you could rehang them year after year. I even, after a quick Google search found basically the same recipe we used:
http://backtoherroots.com/2013/12/10/super-easy-homemade-cinnamon-ornaments/
Turns out that thing I couldn’t identify was glue! Uhh…
So, this definitely was not as bad as I had imagined, and I liked some parts of it quite a lot but I can’t deny that once I realized what I was tasting reminded me of white table glue I was pretty turned off. That said; I know that part of why this blend and I didn’t hit it off is my own distaste towards Chai in general, and a bad personal association. So I’m going to elect not to give this blend a numerical rating; I’m sure others will find it much more pleasant.
