omorka | Map Meme and Tea Musings

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My tea collection is getting rather large (again). I should take another comprehensive survey at some point.

I'm not a very good tea snob. Tea snobs drink first-flush Pu-erh with no adulterants, or an estate Darjeeling, same. I add sugar or honey and either half-and-half or (more often) a wedge of lemon to pretty much all my teas. I am also entirely too fond of frou-frou flavored teas, things with dried raspbery bits and hibiscus blossoms and slivers of vanilla bean jumbled amongst the tea leaves. I am, in fact, Republic of Tea's bitch. Having said that, of the three "traditional" flavored teas - jasmine, lapsang souchong, and Earl Grey - I'm really only fond of jasmine. Lapsang souchong tastes like creosote. And most Earl Greys have more bergamot than I can handle. (There's a related, more recent family called the Lady Greys that have less bergamot, and usually a little lemon or orange peel, and I do enjoy those, in particular Stash's Empress Grey. RoT's Earl Greyer is way, way too strong for me.)

Moreover, while I'm fond of most greens, and black tea is what I was raised on, I'm just not really developing a taste for oolongs. I kind of like Ti Quan Yin, if I'm in the right mood, but otherwise most oolongs taste vaguely astringent. Which doesn't make sense, right? An oolong is just halfway between green and black. I do like rooibos, although I wish people would stop calling it red tea - it's its own plant, not Camellia sinensis at all. And I also tend to like it better gussied up with citrus peel or spice.

Anyway, my current favorite is Mighty Leaf's Orange Dulce, which has orange, a bit of bergamot, and vanilla. Not a morning tea, though - not enough caffeine to wake you up. More of an after-dinner or midafternoon tea with cookies.