Sami Kelsh Send Message

So I went a bit mad and decided to invest in Bluebird’s Tea Roulette sampler pack to see what would turn up on my door. Two days later, somebody buzzes my apartment from the front door. This has never happened to me before and I had no idea how that retro-telephone contraption by the door works, so I quickly threw on oants and ran down the four flights of stairs to my building’s front door, where the patient postie was dutifully filling out a delivery card for me. I asked if he’d just buzzed for my apartment, and he answered a lightly bewildered yes, and handed over my coveted box of shiny new teas. HOORAY!

First one I’m trying is coffee pu’erh, because there’s something morbidly intriguing about what I’ve always considered to be the unholy fusion of tea and coffee.

Mind you, it’s something I’ve hitherto only experienced by mistake at Tim Horton’s, where, out of habit, they do occassionally put a teabag in your cup and dutifully top it up with delicious coffee instead of the hot water that is more standard. Worst of both worlds, right there.

But I’m nothing if not adventurous, and as such am more than willing to give this a good go. In the bag, it smells very much like a really good quality coffee, and indeed I can see a few sweet little beans floating around in there. As someone who enjoys a good coffee almost as much as a good tea, we’re off to a good start.

I’m careful to observe the aroma as it’s brewing, and I notice that it starts to shift from something that smells very much like coffee to something much more resembling a roasty, earthy tea, as it approaches the 4-minute mark. Taken straight, that’s more or less just how it tastes as well, and the addition of some milk and sugar lightens it to that wonderful chocolaty pu’erh colour and brings out the tea’s creamy farm notes. How is this so good? It makes me very, very happy.