Violin in C Sharp

 It's been a few days, but I finally had a morning where I had time to enjoy a cup of tea.  Only 7 days behind on getting to this one - oh well! White Ginger Pear.... actually sounds intriguing. Pear usually hits my palate with a nice level of natural sweetness, and I live how ginger spices up a tea, but I'm worried about the white tea.  Of all the varietals, I'm least familiar with white tea.  Mum says it's her favorite, but I've yet to drink a white tea blend that grabs me enough to want to explore it more.  All the white tea blends I've tried in the past have all hit my palate with an odd sweetness that almost reminds me of the aftertastes I get from splenda or stevia - but on the mid note instead of the aftertaste.  So, we'll see if the ginger spice manages to cut through the sweetness from both the white tea and the pear. Color wise, I don't know what I was expecting - as I've said, my experience with white tea is limited.  The lighter liquor wa...

  FINALLY!  A break from all those herbals! And to top it off - a chai!  My favorite!  Of course... a good chai is FABULOUS, but a bad chai is.... beyond heartbreaking. Ok... warming spices... the write up sounds promising... Ohhh... good dark color.... and I can smell the spices in the aroma.... this bodes well! First sip is mainly the taste of the black tea with a bit of cardamom and ginger on the end note.  The ginger, as usual, builds with each sip and made its way to the mid note on the second sip.  The cardamom stayed on the end note but the star anise and pepper showed up to the party in the end note as well.  Sip three had the ginger on the top note, the cardamom, star anise, and cinnamon dominating the mid note with the pepper and clove starting in the mid note and carrying into the end note.  The aftertaste was mostly on the back of the tongue and was weak tannin, pepper and ginger with clove hints traveling up the back of the throat to ...

Boy did I drag my feet in trying this blend Belgian Mint - the name sounds just fine, and I like mint Oh.... oh dear - dark chocolate?  The worst of all chocolates in my world.  I opened the tea bag box and it smelled like a Thin Mint cookie.  I realize for some people that this would be a GOOD thing.... but I happen to HATE Thin Mint cookies with a violent passion. I brewed it and for a mint based tinsane, it got pretty dark.... which made me worry that the dark chocolate flavor was going to be pretty strong. I got through the first sip - it wasn't pleasant.  It was like mint coated in semi-sweet chocolate chips.  The 2nd sip was worse as the chocolate got stronger.  The third sip made me physically gag from the combination of the heavy chocolate mint scent and the dark chocolate flavor swirling heavy in the mint water. I handed the mug to Jodie who finished happily while I took the salted caramel shortbread as solace to cleanse my palate and sooth my upse...

  Oh joy - a rooibos. Ok, so sometimes rooibos can be tasty.... sometimes - but more often than not I lump it in with honeybush as a sad weak tea substitute that only makes me crave a real cup of tea.  There are some exceptions - I have a lovely rooibos blend in my regular stock called Party in the Jungle which is a delightful cup, and my friend Brian used to stock an absolutely FABULOUS rooibos chai with spicy chili in it that I could not get enough of - but those are the exceptions and not the norm when it comes to rooibos for me.  This name - African Solstice - tells me NOTHING.  Time to look at the write up. Ok... now I'm full concerned.  Rose is such a strong flavor in tea for me.  Rose without a black tea to balance it... I would be tempted to skip this blend entirely except my roomate's girlfriend is down for the weekend and she likes florals.  So, I know if I don't like this, I can pass it on to her and she'll enjoy the hell out of it. The colo...

  This is another blend that it took me several days to work up to trying. I am not often a fan of either apricot or amaretto flavors in my tea. Amaretto flavor tends to hit my palate as almonds that have started to turn towards spoiling.  Apricot, on the other hand, tends to make anything it's paired with turn sickly sweet ..... I was not filled with hope. The color was a pale orange-y yellow.  My first sip... all I got was the fruity apricot hit to the front of my palate.  The second sip was almost like sucking on a warm jordan almond.  I took several more sips trying to get the flavor to settle instead of bouncing between the two extremes without the flavor actually being at all extreme.  I couldn't pick it apart, but I know I didn't enjoy it.   In desperation, I dipped in the little shortbread heart.  My next sip tasted 100% like liquid marzipan.  It was delightful!  I fully enjoyed the liquid marzipan tinsane ..... but then I f...

 I was predisposed not to like this herbal blend.  In all honesty, it took me days to work up the interest and willingness to try it. Blueberry Merlot just did not sound appetizing to me. The write up didn't make it sound much better than the name - mainly because sweet and sage are not buzzwords I enjoy in my tea. I didn't get a photo of the brewed cup, but the color was a deep rich burgundy that really did look like the color of a merlot wine.  That was the first thing that intrigued me and gave me hope.  I do tend to enjoy a darker tinsane more than a lighter brew. The first few sips were super heavy on the blueberry and not at all unpleasant.  In fact, I very much enjoyed it.  It was slightly sweet, but not as sweet as blueberry juice.  Whatever they had added for the merlot bit, gave an extra tang to the sweet of the blueberry that I very much enjoyed. When I added the shortbread round, suddenly my tea tasted like a lovely cup of mulled wine!!...

  I was ecstatic when I opened the little door for the 11th.  YES!  I love Black Currant tea!  Now, not all Black Currant blends are created equal of course... .... and I must admit at this time that it wasn't the write up on the bottom of the box that gave me the confidence to know with 100% certainty that I was going to enjoy this cup. The confidence and surety came from this: Yup, that's an ENTIRE box of this blend - and it's only about half full.  I've already enjoyed the first half of the box.  In point of fact, my enjoyment of this Black Currant blend was the driving impetuous behind choosing Tea Forte as my calendar this year.  I figured if they could make a successful Black Currant blend as much as I like this one, than 24 days of their tea would be an enjoyable journey. Because I'm so familiar with this tasty blend, I didn't bother to taste it straight off the steep.  I know from experience that I enjoy this blend with a touch of cream....

  Oh I was so happy to open the calendar to be greeted by this blend. Earl Grey is one of my favorite tea blends.  When done right, the Assam + the bergamot makes for a heavenly cup. Of course, when the balance is off, it can also be one of the most disappointing cups of tea to deal with.  However, all of the Assam blends in this calendar so far have been most enjoyable, so my hopes were high. I forgot to take a picture of the brewed cup, but the color was dark, yet not dark enough to be mistaken for coffee.  The color made me think the brew would be suitably strong, yet still having an overall mildness.  The fragrance was lovely, but not overly heavy on the bergamot.  There was no oily residue on the top of the cup either, which let me know that they hadn't overly oiled the leaves to get the bergamot blend.  I appreciate this. The first few sips were.... nice.  But it tasted - closed.  To be honest, most good Earl Greys do this to my palate ...

  I do love a good Jasmine Green tea, and while it is DIFFICULT to mess it up, it IS possible if your green tea isn't the right quality or if you are too heavy on the Jasmine, or if you use a Jasmine oil instead of blossoms or pre-scenting the leaves.  So - I was excited but cautiously so. Reading the description of the blend made me feel safer that it was indeed going to be a well done and lovely cup of Jasmine Green.  Why you ask?  Because they labeled the tea as a Chung Hao.  Chung Hao is a Chinese tea from the Fujian province where the Jasmine Green tea blend was invented for use in the Imperial Court.  To say it is a Chung Hao usually means that the tea has been hand harvested and DEFINITLY means that the tea has been scented by mixing the drying tea with fresh jasmine blossoms and then removing the blossoms before packing the tea.  It gives an entirely different balance to the tea than using oil, or adding blossoms after the leaves have already b...

 Yes, I realize this post is out of order - no you are not missing anything.  In playing catch up with my teas, I decided to drink them out of order for several reasons -  I wanted to drink the heavily caffeinated teas in the morning instead of later in the day Day 7 is a Ginger Lemongrass that I REALLY was not in the mood for Day 9 is a Raspberry Ganache which I am distrustful of, but Day 8 is a Jasmine Green which I'm pretty sure I will enjoy and thus is my safety in case the Day 9 tea is as bad as I expect it will be. So then - Day 9 Raspberry Ganache.  Ganache meaning chocolate. Yup, the write up mentions chocolate..... ung.  If you have ever read my tea reviews from previous years, you will probably remember (as my roommate does) that I almost always DESPISE chocolate flavor in my tea.  I may have finished a full cup of chocolate tea.... once.  Ruins a good cup in my opinion. I had hope when I smelled the tea bag because I couldn't smell the choco...

  I had a busy day on Wednesday and knew that a Green tea was just NOT going to cut it to get me through my long day - so I skipped it and had coffee instead.  Yesterday, the idea of green tea made my stomach turn (I was fighting over exertion from the day before).  This evening however, as I sat down with my dinner of take out dumplings, I remembered that I had a green tea ready for me to try and thought it sounded like quite the fine idea! With a name like cherry blossom, I was expecting the tea to be floral.  Even the write up mentions florals.  I braced myself for florals.... however, after getting past the soft delicate florals in the light fragrance of my cup, the florals vanished.  On the palate, it is all green tea and cherry and ... it's lovely! It reminds me a lot of a nice Jasmine Green tea in how delicate it is on the top note and also in the way that the tartness of the cherry mixes with the green tea to wipe away any hints of a grassy note....

  I wasn't too excited to see English breakfast as my blend on Tuesday morning.  I admit to having become dis-enchanted with English Breakfast over the last few years.  Mostly, because the English Breakfast blends I've tried have been.... boring and lackluster.  They've been serviceable but dull, or have been made with mediocre tea, or haven't held up well to cream.  When given the choice between an English Breakfast and an Earl Grey, I will almost always choose the Earl Grey. So, imagine my delight and surprise when I took my first sip and tasted a wonderfully malty flavor from high quality Assam in the blend!  I enjoyed the malt flavor on the mid and end note so much that it wasn't until half way through the cup that I remembered to try creaming the tea.  So, in the second half of the cup I added heavy cream and no sugar and.... oh lord it was heaven.   It was even MORE heavenly when I paired it with my shortbread of the day - a classic pla...

 A Green Tea today, so I was far more excited than the last two days of herbals.  I'm not sure though if I've actually ever had a Tea Forte green tea.  I think that before this advent calendar, I had only purchased black blends from them.  I mention this because green tea varies DRASTICALLY depending on where it is sourced from and how it is processed.  When it comes to green tea, I tend to favor Japanese companies over any others because their processing style sits better on my palate, but on occasion, I admit that I have been pleasantly surprised by non Japanese green blends - just not often. The write up gave me hope that even if this green tea varietal was on the grassy side, that the cherry and almond might either hide that grassy-ness, or work with it to create something interesting. The color, of course, was on the light green side. My first sip was all grass and cherry.  My second sip was far more balanced.  The green tea was still a bit too gr...

  2nd herbal of the calendar but I was slightly more excited for this one.  Mint, when done right, is a nice pleasant cup that I can enjoy. Straight out of the box, there wasn't much aroma from the dry tea bag.  A little bit of mint, and not even a hint of citrus - so I was a little confused and slightly worried. The write up is pretty basic, and in all honesty, so was the blend. Don't get me wrong!  Basic is basic for a reason - it's a no nonsense serviceable blend that isn't trying to be fancy because it doesn't need to.   The mint dominated any citrus that may have been in the blend.  As I drank, mouth got that weird tingly antiseptic feel that strong mint gives in toothpaste, so in that way it was refreshing. Today's shortbread was also basic - a plain butter shortbread heart.  In all honesty, I didn't expect them to pair well together.  I thought the butter of the shortbread and the astringency of the mint would fight.  I was deligh...