Tea Derivations

Queen Mary: Almond Cream

Queen Mary: Lady Earl Grey

Republic of Tea: Pineapple Ginger

Republic of Tea: Pineapple Guava

Harney & Sons: Peppermint Herbal

Today was a pretty good tea day; no duds, although there is a slight question mark in the case of Republic of Tea.

Almond Cream: Pretty decent. Still need to compare this to Republic of Tea’s Vanilla Almond; although I think both have a weird aftertaste, but then again, this is almonds we’re talking about.

Lady Earl Grey: Very good. I like this one; there’s more lemon in ratio to bergamot than Twinings’ Lady Grey; and not too much (to me, at least) as in Anastasia’s Anastasia, though not as complex.

Pineapple Ginger: As usual with Republic of Tea flavored green teas, more pineapple than green. I also can’t taste the spiciness of the ginger—it’s pretty much just pineapple. Which isn’t bad, but it’s a little disappointing.

Pineapple Guava: As usual with Republic of Tea flavored white teas, more pineapple than green. I also can’t taste the sweet/sour of the guava—it’s pretty much just pineapple. Which isn’t bad, but it’s a little depressing. And yes, it’s pretty much the previous tea in terms of taste, just much quicker to brew (30-60 seconds as opposed to 2-3 minutes).

Finished up with Peppermint Herbal.

By the by, I’m not sure why Republic of Tea’s white tea bags require so little brewing time; but perhaps that’s simply a function of the white tea being dust rather than full leaf. Most other white teas appear to be (a) full leaf, and (b) require 5+ minutes to brew.

Ah well. Eventually I will have empty tins, and I don’t mind finishing either of the Pineapple teas today. I might switch to Harney & Sons’ odd little Caribe.

Upton: New England Harvest Blend

Harney & Sons: Peppermint Herbal

Celestial Seasonings: Mandarin Orange Spice

What long-winded names some of these are…

New England Harvest Blend: purportedly apples, and definitely cinnamon. I may have to recheck my brewing of this; perhaps I didn’t get enough apple bits to taste the apple.

Peppermint Herbal: Alright, but doesn’t taste as fresh or even as bracing as Steven Smith’s Peppermint Leaves for some reason or other.

Mandarin Orange Spice: An oldie for me, but it’s still as good as I remember. I think it’s better than Bigelow’s Orange & Spice in terms of spice, and definitely in terms of balancing the taste of orange versus the spice.

It was a rather mundane tea day, all told….

Harney & Sons: Viennese Earl Grey

Harney & Sons: Sally's Secret

Tao of Tea: Mandarin Green

Revolution: Honeybush Caramel

Steven Smith: Peppermint Leaves

I’m tired, so I’l just note the notables.

Harney & Sons’ Viennese Earl Grey: this like a usual Earl Grey, except that Darjeeling is also added to the usual Ceylon base. A lot of people like Darjeeling, so that’s kind of brilliant, but unfortunately I am not one of them.

I do not like Darjeeling, Sam I Am.
I would not drink it with Assam.
I would not drink it with bergamot.
I would not drink it cold nor hot.

Harney & Sons’ Sally’s Secret: another Earl Grey variant, this time with rose buds. I usually don’t like rose in my tea, but they worked well for me here.

Tao of Tea’s Mandarin Green can be thought of as Silver Needle impregnated with mandarin flavor. It’s subtly mandarin, and you can still taste the green tea’s vegetativeness through it. For the record, I somewhat like it; a comparable tea is Harney & Sons’ Citron Green, which is one I also somewhat like.

Revolution’s Honeybush Caramel: It tastes like honeybush. There’s a little bit of caramel, but then again, caramel easily sinks into obscurity in a red or black tea’s base flavor.

Steven Smith’s Peppermint Leaves: Damn good.

And so to bed.

Tao of Tea: Peppermint

Mighty Leaf: Orange Dulce

Mighty Leaf: Vanilla Bean

Tao of Tea’s Peppermint and Steven Smith’s Peppermint Leaves are the only peppermints I steep anymore. I still need to finish my Harney & Sons Peppermint Herbal and then I’ll have a fairly large tin for some other tea.

I again screwed up brewing something (it ended up being cold-brewed): Mighty Leaf’s Vanilla Bean. It was still pretty good after sitting in cold water for a few hours. On the other hand, I brewed correctly their Orange Dulce, which was a bit of a relief.

And the rest of the day was too fretful for tea. I’m afraid the weekend is going to suck vis a vis tea as well.

Kusmi: Troika

Tao of Tea: Peppermint

Steven Smith: Peppermint Leaves

Not a terribly exciting day. It started off very well indeed with a thermos of Kusmi Tea’s enchanting Troika, although I think next time I’ll brew it at 4 minutes—3 minutes has remarkably less complexity in terms of taste, I think.

The rest of the day was devoted to many cups of peppermint tea (7 cups with the Steven Smith Peppermint Leaves sitting on the night stand right now) for the same reason that I had to down two Advil at once on coming into work. Peppermint works for more than just unhappy stomachs and guts, oddly enough.

I’m tired out by work this week (and it won’t stop this weekend, oh no). I thought I was tired enough to not write a tea post, but no, here I am, still awake, and very annoyed.

Tea is my outlet for frustration. I can enjoy it (or, sometimes, hate it immensely, which always makes for an amusing review), and I can blog about it in short bursts. In contrast, I often feel like I need to say something useful on my main blog, and my Sherlock Holmes blog can soak up a lot of brain power all by itself.

Anyways: onto the tea!

Thursday

This time, when I took my loose leaf Queen Mary tea to work, I actually labeled the baggies, unlike the previous day. And it turned a somewhat unpleasant day into a quite tolerable one.

Of course, I was so out of it that morning that I accidentally ended up cold-steeping the Almond Cream (and it really was the Almond Cream this time). However, I always bring two cups worth of any particular tea to work, so I drank the second cup hot. It was rather pleasant, and better than Republic of Tea’s Vanilla Almond (both bagged and full leaf). Almond Cream has more of a cream flavor to it as well as the almond, whereas Vanilla Almond tastes almost purely of almond with just a tiny smidgen of vanilla.

(The cold-steeped Almond Cream, by the way, turned out to be quite good, although I think this is a tea best drunk hot. And for reason the cold-steeped tea leaves more of a strange aftertaste.)

After the hot Almond Cream was Republic of Tea’s Cranberry Blood Orange, iced. I must say, it’s quite a good cranberry/orange black tea blend, and is excellent iced. (Sometimes it seems that the lower grade teas ice better than the higher grade teas; but I may simply just not have had enough experience with higher grade teas.) Cranberry Blood Orange goes well with almost any fast food, which is a blessing, as work is surrounded by fast food places.

Next was Queen Mary’s Lady Earl Grey, which is similar to Twinings’ Lady Grey: both contain a more delicate touch of bergamot than their own plain Earl Greys, with a bit of lemon built in. I’ve been drinking Lady Grey since forever, although I think I ought to at least try the full leaf version before I switch over to Lady Earl Grey.

Afterwards was the usual Tao of Tea’s Peppermint. You know, a long time ago, I accidentally discovered that peppermint tea was good for the digestive system. It’s even good for That Time of the Month when the cramps come, although it’s not as effective as ibuprofen. Apparently it calms muscle spasms, including those involved with the digestive system, though how it manages to calm down the uterus’ contractions is beyond me.

Friday

Started the bleary morning (ugh) with Queen Mary’s French Vanilla. I think I love it; it’s a little different from other vanilla teas, including Mighty Leaf’s Vanilla Bean, any of the rooibos vanilla blends I’ve tried, and other teas blending vanilla with some other ingredient. It’s almost ice-cream style French Vanilla, although again, if you don’t like black tea, you won’t like this vanilla tea.

I think the tea is a little lower grade than Vanilla Bean, which is one of the more awesome black teas I’ve drunk. But it’s still quite a good tea.

The middle of the day livened up with Queen Mary’s Strawberry Pepper for a lunch tea, with Upton Tea’s Earl Grey Chocolate. I’ve never considered it before, but an earl grey chocolate tea comes close to an orange chocolate tea, but with earl grey. This would probably boost it past my other orange chocolate teas, except that earl grey’s bergamot interferes with some of my medication (which is why I can’t drink any of it late at night, even herbal earl grey blends).

As an early evening tea (the afternoon was… fun) I switched to Tazo’s Wild Sweet Orange, this time hot instead of iced. I think I prefer their Passion to Wild Sweet Orange, and I usually drink Passion iced as a dinner tea—as I did today.

For a nightcap, I drank both Queen Mary’s Apple Strudel (sweet and dessertish as always) and Mighty Leaf’s Chocolate Mint Truffle (which I think isn’t as good as Harney & Sons’ Chocolate Mint, but then again, this entirely lacks caffeine, whereas Harney & Sons’ is a black tea).

I still haven’t finished the Chocolate Mint Truffle; for some reason, Mighty Leaf tea always steeps in 12oz units, rather than 6oz or 8oz, so there’s often extra tea left over that goes cold. Sigh.

Hmmm.

I notice I drink quite a lot of tea in a day, sipping all sorts of flavors from multiple blenders. This variety beats soda almost any day, and certainly any week.

Ah well. I enjoy all this immensely.

And so to bed.

Well, it’s been a sucky few last days for tea. I kept falling asleep over the weekend, resulting in a total of two (two!!) teas drunk over 48 hours. And yesterday was a sort of rotten Monday vis a vis tea drinking opportunities. Today was so-so, but it’s nearly the middle of the week, and my tea recording is long overdue.

Plus I got another shipment of tea from Queen Mary! My current collection will hold me out for some time, I think.

Saturday

I woke up late, cheerfully drank my first cup of Upton Tea’s Earl Grey Crème Vanilla, which was excellent, and then after lunch I promptly fell asleep. This is kind of impressive, since I’m an insomniac and I usually have an overreaction to caffeine.

I guess sleep debt caught up to me after all….

Sunday

I woke up late, catalogued some tea, had Tazo’s Wild Sweet Orange iced, and then fell asleep.

Monday

Work sucked. Tea was OK.

On Harney & Sons’ Earl Grey Supreme: It’s still an excellent Earl Grey, but as I can’t drink milk without being prepared these days, I find myself more and more drawn to Earl Grey variants with creme flavoring or some such in them. Sigh.

Mighty Leaf’s Orange Dulce was thus a nice way to get something a little Earl Greyish with vanilla and cream built in. Unfortunately they seem to no longer sell it as full leaf, which makes me wonder if Orange Dulce’s days are numbered… I hope not. It’s an excellent flavored black tea.

Currently work has a total of one (1) ice cube tray shared across the entire floor, so making iced tea is a selfish act (I refill it as efficiently as possible, however). I engaged in it on Monday—and again today—in icing Republic of Tea’s Cranberry Blood Orange. Of their flavored teas, this is among the nicest, though I look forwards to perhaps using the tin for another tea at some point. I don’t know why Cranberry Blood Orange isn’t available full leaf—it’s a weird thing they do, where some of their teas are only available bagged.

The day finished with Tao of Tea’s Peppermint, because I remain allergic to food. Sigh.

Nightcap was Harney & Sons’ Strawberry-Kiwi Fruit Tea. I really need to try this iced.

Tuesday

Today was a little better than yesterday on the general life side of things. Tea side is still a little so-so.

The morning tea, because I wanted to spoil myself, was Mighty Leaf’s Vanilla Bean, which is one of the few good vanilla black teas that don’t hammer you over the head with raw vanilla. It’s not overly sweet, and so it’s a good start to the day.

After having another cuppa iced Cranberry Blood Orange, I ended up in a kind of quagmire at work, during which I sipped Tao of Tea’s Mandarin Green. It’s pleasingly vegetative as all non-roasted green teas are with a touch of mandarin. It’s a little bit like a green Lady Grey without lemon.

At this point work got so frustrating (in the “hell is other people” sense) that I leveled off early to an herbal: Tao of Tea’s Cranberry Orange. It’s not got the same pleasant zing as Republic of Tea’s Cranberry Blood Orange, but on the other hand it has no caffeine: it’s purely a fruit tea.

I’d hope to do better tomorrow, but this kind of week only gets worse. Fortunately, that does mean next week will be heaven. I live in hope.

Now must go decide on Queen Mary teas to sip tonight. Eee!

I must have been clairvoyant, saving up for a slow tea day to blog the relative awesomeness of the weekend’s teas.

Saturday

This was my first introduction to Queen Mary Tea, and I was very impressed.

First up was Queen Mary’s Earl Grey Rooibos. And I was very impressed; it’s a good Earl Grey all by itself, and almost completely fooled me into thinking it was actually a black Earl Grey. (Indeed, in a blind taste test, I’d probably not be able to tell the difference.) Unfortunately I can’t drink Earl Grey very close to bed time… but this is a good caffeine-free late afternoon tea.

Next was Queen Mary’s Sweetheart Rooibos, and… well, just look at it! It has little hearts in it! And it really does smell and taste like a cupcake in a tea cup. I found that it’s so sweet that I can only drink one cup of it; two cups is far too much. This is a very different tea, so I quite like it.

The next Queen Mary tea, After the Ball Rooibos, was a little disappointing. It’s a very good tea—but it’s almost, for some reason, note by note the same as Mighty Leaf’s Chamomile Citrus, except with rooibos. Given the general taste of rooibos, Queen Mary’s blend of the other ingredients is different, but still a little strange.

Finishing the evening was the local teashoppe’s¹ clandestine “rooibos evening” blend, which is a rooibos with fruit and flower notes. It’s a nice way to end the evening, but I still love their rooibos mango blend best.

Sunday

For some reason I just wanted iced tea that day. The usual: Tazo’s Wild Sweet Orange, followed by Harney & Sons’ Peppermint Herbal—surprisingly very good for the stomach iced—and then followed by Tazo’s Passion. All wonderful iced. Perhaps I need to revise my statement about my local tea shoppe’s rooibos mango blend: I love Passion as a tart mango blend, and the local rooibos blend as a sweeter mango blend.

The last tea of the night was the local rooibos ginger blend. It’s… okay. I mean, it’s a pure ginger blend. What rooibos taste? I’m told it’s excellent as a tad of flavoring to the rooibos mango blend when making iced tea.

Monday

Today was a sucky tea day. First, I screwed up Mighty Leaf’s Beatles’ Blend by forgetting that their tea is already more or less designed as one rounded teaspoon to 12 oz of boiling water, not two teaspoons. This resulted in a bitter brew, with only the Jasmine notes preserved and the bergamot drowned out. Fortunately this evening (when due to the job I expected little sleep and a need for caffeine) I got the proportion right.

I otherwise had Wild Sweet Orange prepared in a flask. But I forgot the flask is so insulated for such a thin-walled container that the ice actually stayed around for hours afterward, so the resulting mix wasn’t as diluted as I usually like. Sigh.

Someone asked me how much tea I drink in a day. In a good day I can drink the equivalent of four personal pots (12 oz each) of tea. I usually brew 12oz of tea at a time, except when the tea is blended to fit into 8 oz best. Today was not a good day. (And indeed, I drink enough tea for tannin or bergamot overdose to take effect, which is unusual.)

I don’t know why I drink so much tea. I suspect it’s a distraction technique. Or I’m simply enjoying a large amount of variety that I didn’t have when I only drank diet Pepsi.

Tomorrow will be better, hopefully. I don’t have a complete plan, but perhaps I should try. Maybe Queen Mary’s creamy Earl Grey should be next….

1. Deserves the double p and extra e. Yes, I order from Amazon, but mostly because if my mercantile exchange is going to be loveless and even hostile, I’m going to at make that experience convenient. Sorry, local stores with sucky staff. [↩]

No April Fools here! But definitely April Fools there!

Anyways, today was a day of endless meetings, pizza, and playing with the Numi Tea sampler box. 18 different teas in one box. Eeeee!

Today’s Earl Grey was an incidental one. I had an early morning errand to run before work, and was a little unsteady from a sleepless night. Fortunately I stopped at a little local coffee shop and had a bit of black tea in good, filtered, boiling water. It turned out to be Choice Oragnic Tea’s Earl Grey with Lavender (as opposed to their regular Earl Grey). It was rather pleasant, and the lavender of course took the edge off both the black and the bergamot. I like the edge, but this was a nice change.

In the first meeting, I had a cup of Numi Tea’s Morning Rise. Slightly toasty, very good black breakfast tea. I was definitely awake afterwards, and maybe slightly excited.

To start the afternoon, however, after a pizza lunch that made me a little bit sick, I returned to Tao of Tea’s (Oregon) Peppermint again. Highly reliable. And followed up with Numi Tea’s Simply Mint, which consists of Moroccan mint. It’s alright, but someone who likes Moroccan mint would be a better judge than me.

I’m quite amazed that thus far I love the Numi Tea (still need to get a better bead on their herbals, or “teasans” as they call them). I’ve got to get a sampler for home as well as work. To be clear, I got the Assorted Melange box of teabags, not the full leaf, but I’m quite interested in at least some of their full leaf teas now.

Today (actually, now that I think about it, yesterday) was all about the green tea, baby. No black tea at all, and one herbal. And not only is it green tea, but it’s roasted or toasted bancha. Not even high-grade sencha, which I actually don’t like, but lower grade bancha. I personally think sencha is too snooty to roast well, but that’s just me.

The joy of roasted green tea is that it tastes much more like coffee than tea—roasted, and sometimes sweet and sometimes a bit bitter, but in a coffee kind of way. I’m surprised that the two teas I’m covering here—hojicha¹ and genmaicha²—are not better known in the US, or even Seattle, the capital of coffee drinkers and Starbucks.

Let’s talk about hojicha first. Hojicha refers to a whole class of green teas that are roasted, akin to coffee. Very akin, with a lighter taste, and less bitter, than most coffees. Many upscale tea lines have at least one of their very own hojicha, from Republic of Tea’s Big Green Hojicha (which they subtitle as “Carry Water Chop Wood” tea, and hojicha is certainly a great tea to drink during a work day) to Mighty Leaf’s Organic Hojicha. Today, I had the Mighty Leaf version. Mmmm.

Now, genmaicha. Genmaicha also refers to a whole class of green teas that are also roasted, or maybe toasted; but they’re much sweeter. They also have kernels of brown rice, which add to the sweetness. And admittedly, if you hate brown rice, you’ll hate geimacha. Genmaicha is sometimes known as “popcorn” tea, because some of the rice pops during toasting or brewing, and looks like tiny popcorn. Some upscale tea lines have at least one genmaicha, from Mighty Leaf’s Kyoto Rice to Harney & Sons’ Matcha iri Genmaicha. I also had the Mighty Leaf version, which I think has an awesome name. Also Mmmm.

Interstingly, both of these teas are considered low enough in caffeine in Japan to be evening teas. Ah, doesn’t work so well with me.

I finished up today with Tao of Tea’s Peppermint.

1. Sometimes spelled “houjicha” in the West. [↩]
2. Sometimes spelled “genmacha” in the West. [↩]