Oh jeez, I have that. I can't handle the Minty Punch In The Sinuses unless stuffed up but hot damn does it ever clear them out :D
Right now, I have a box of Kusmi chai (tastes pretty good, I'm sure I could get something better but it's the only brand we've got here), some rose-flavored Rooibos (the sample tasted good so I bought more, but it's not exactly something I'd drink everyday), and a bag of black tea with cocoa beans and almonds (which I bought a while ago, so, I stopped directly using it for drinking and use it as a flavoring for syrup, which tastes awesome.)
now you caught my attention how does one make tea flavored syrup *3* (dude i am making all the mint syrup ever)
The way I do it, I put a tablespoon of tea in a cup of boiling water, let it steep for three minutes, and then filter it, add a cup of sugar to the water, and boil it until it's thick enough. I usually have just enough left to fill a small jar.
By the way, I just tried this with Earl Grey (it turned out I had some in bags), which tastes even better. Be careful anyway, because the color makes it hard to see if the sugar is caramelizing and I'm not sure if that would be a good thing.
I got various teas for the holidays, and currently I am drinking Earl Grey Moonlight from Adagio- it's SO GOOD. The vanilla/cream/orange combo smells heavenly in the bag; once actually brewed, it gets a lot subtler. Plus the cornflowers float to the top and it's aesthetically pleasing.
I also got two flavored black teas - Hazelnut and Summer Rose - and their jasmine chun hao (green). The jasmine green is amazing, although I have yet to determine if it tastes any better than, for example, bagged jasmine green from a Trader Joes - I'm a sucker for jasmine in general so I like it even if it isn't Quality. The flavored ones are a little weird. I've only drank them a couple times because I fell in love with this Earl Grey, but for some reason, for me, the hazelnut clashes with the black tea and makes it taste like hot leaf juice... I can't figure out a better way to describe it than that, just that sometimes black tea for me tastes planty and weird, in a similar way that foods taste different if you brush your teeth beforehand. The hazelnut and rose both smell *amazing,* I just haven't decided if I like how they taste yet.
I got a sampler box from David's tea for christmas, and aside from a weird one with popcorn in it, they're all good. My favorite is the strawberry rhubarb, so far.
I went wandering through the tea aisle, which is usually pretty boring but sometimes has hidden gems, and found "love" by pukka. Name made my eyeroll but it's rose, lavender, and chamomile, and I'd never had lavender in tea before so I decided to get it. Turns out it's great, works better as a nighttime tea than most marketed as such, and even my super picky little sis loves it. I'm not a huge fan of chamomile because insomnia but I can't taste it at all, and the rose + lavender don't taste planty at all like some flower teas do. I don't know if lavender ever does the thing where it tastes like sticking a flower head in your mouth and eating it, but some rose teas I've had do that. Also re-ordered my Death Wish coffee because I've been forgetting to do that. Got 5lb bags this time so it should last. Have a bi-monthly subscription now for the original Death Wish, next month I'll do one for the Valhalla blend so I don't have to pay for them both at the same time. Also got a small bag of their Rum Ball, which is rum barrel + vanilla + chocolate.
@BPD anon gave me these for christmas: the green is a gunpowder-rolled green, tastes like sun-dried rather than steam-cured, kind of sharp; just on the verge of tasting like black tea, but not quite. it's a fantastic morning pick-me-up. the oolong is mild, with a warm, round flavor, brews up golden like sunshine, best afternoon relax tea. i add a dab of milk to the oolong if i'm having it with pastries, but it has no bitterness if i don't overbrew, it really doesn't demand milk. they're quite large tins, but i still don't think they'll last long. <3
http://littlewhitemouse.tumblr.com/post/137303214782 I am so excited for all this tea I bought for mostly myself. The SECRET PRESENT is for my fiancee, and since she isn't on this thread, I feel confident whispering here that it is four ounces of jasmine dragon phoenix pearls That will be one half of her valentine's day gift. The other half will be cool rocks. Anyway I've never had matcha for myself before because expensive and I am so excited, I am going to make matcha desserts with this, and matcha lattes, and I'm blissfully happy to have witch's broom again because it is my favorite tea ever, give me pu erh, give me pu erh enough to bathe in, oh my god
IT HAS ARRIVED. 5lb bags of both Death Wish and Valhalla Blend, plus the small bag of chocolate rum ball. I am so happy. I could smell it as soon as I opened the box and maybe got a little caffeine buzz just from that. Once dad's awake we'll have a test pot of the rum ball. :D
@Lazarae you know, I don't drink a lot of coffee, and I don't at all make it, so I've always wondered how coffee is flavored. Do they stick other things into the mix, like putting dried herbs into tea? Is it flavored with powder like foods? Do the beans themselves have widely variant flavors? Is it smoked in somehow? It's a mystery to me
It depends! Some of it depends on how it's roasted (blonde roasts are much lighter and less bitter than dark). The rum ball is kept in a cask that just finished being used for rum, and they add chocolate and vanilla (somehow. I don't actually know the specifics for that one. But I know how they do the rum!) so it absorbs the flavor. When dad makes coffee with cinnamon he breaks up a stick and puts it in with the grounds so the flavor seeps in as it's brewing. Syrups and stuff for individual taste, steamed(? it's been a while) milk for lattes, and mocha are added after it's done brewing. I think some beans are coated with stuff so that goes in when you grind them? Dad thinks that's why the Deathwish is so strong- it's both a dark roast (which brings out the natural caffeine) as well as possibly coated with something very caffeinated. I'm not an expert on the actual making of coffee, just the drinking of it. I like to learn things though!
So far this information is really cool! I may look it up myself and find out more. With tea, so much of the flavor variant comes in preparation of the leaves themselves-- when and how they are picked, dried, roasted, or cooked, if they are left to oxidize and age (pu erh) or dried out naturally (black) or steamed (green) and I would assume that coffee, too, changes vastly based on how it is processed after picking. But I just don't know >u< And with tea, if you want chocolate or vanillia or fruity flavor, almost without exception that's literal cocoa or dried vanilla bean or fruit peel mixed right in with the tea leaves, but coffee grounds always just looked like beans to me, with nothing else mixed in, so I always said 'how the flavor' Unless it was something obvious like a mocha and I watched them put the chocolate in. Yeah, that makes sense. Tell me about that rum coffee when you drink it, it sounds cool : O
One of the cool parts of dating the very weird guy I went out with a couple times was when I went to his house and one of his housemates made tea - just mixing different herbs to steep and explaining what he was doing. It ended up tasting delicious, too! My parents ended up regifting me some fancy Mayan Drinking Chocolate mix, which I should make sometime soon.
