{"id":225,"date":"2017-08-30T02:47:33","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T02:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gentlemantranslator.com\/?p=225"},"modified":"2020-12-30T08:11:02","modified_gmt":"2020-12-30T08:11:02","slug":"august-teas-of-the-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gentlemantranslator.com\/index.php\/2017\/08\/30\/august-teas-of-the-month\/","title":{"rendered":"August Teas of the Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every once in a while I like to try something new, so I signed up for a Tea of the Month<\/a> club. Since I was at Worldcon, I got my August selection, which contained four packets of different teas, on the 14th, and have tried them all out at least twice, except for the Lavender Earl Gray, which I gave to my sister. (Bergamot, ugh.)<\/p>\n

I usually make black tea (along with the occasional pu’erh, or gen mai cha, or an herbal blend with mint and chamomile), so the Classic Laoshan Black was the first one I tried. They describe it as “very smooth and viscous” with “a distinct dark chocolate bite”, phrases which are descriptive and convey useful meaning while not literally describing anything real. I found the chocolate notes unpleasant, but was surprised the second time I made it, when the flavor seemed less obtrusive; perhaps my palate got used to it? A decent tea, but I liked it more when the distinctive elements were less prominent, so not something I would come back to after the packet was exhausted.<\/p>\n

The Nirvana blend (“sencha-style green tea, peony petal, berries, and figs”) sounds like the sort of fruity herbal tea that I’ll occasionally drink as a change of pace, but which has never been a favorite. And indeed that was my first impression, although oddly enough not my second. The first cup I made was very fruity, to the point where the green tea was completely overwhelmed. Basically, okay. The other cups were less fruity, and I could taste the green tea, but the whole was less than the sum of the parts: a boldly fruity herbal tea, or an unflavored green tea, would have been preferable to a a combination in which both flavors were present but neither dominated. I’m not sure what made the difference, if my palate adjusted so the fruity flavors were less conspicuous, or if I simply used a bigger spoonful the first time I made it, or if the flavorings were unevenly distributed in the tea and I got a more concentrated dose of the fruity elements the first time. Regardless, if I were to buy another tea like it, I would get an herbal tea only, with no actual tea at all in it.<\/p>\n

The surprise of the month was the Imperial Green Biluochun. When I first started drinking tea, I found black tea too harsh and drank exclusively green tea. After a while, I progressed to an occasional oolong, and then mostly oolong, and then I tried black tea again and found varieties I liked, until eventually I was drinking almost all black tea and hardly ever tried a green tea. This is a reminder of what good green tea is like, delicate, but with a complex and pleasant flavor. (It’s also a reminder that it is really, really easy to forget to take the tea bag out, and that when green tea oversteeps it becomes undrinkable.)<\/p>\n

On the whole, the shipment did what I hoped it would do, which is to knock me out of my rut and get me to try different flavors. September’s shipment has a ginger lime rooibos tea, which sounds intriguing despite my usual dislike of spices in herbal tea, plus a black tea, a green tea, and a matcha\/mat\u00e9 blend. And then starting in October, I’ll have the option of receiving only unflavored teas, which could be an improvement. I think I’ll probably only stick with it for three or six months, but for now it’s a nice change of pace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every once in a while I like to try something new, so I signed up for a Tea of the Month club. Since I was at Worldcon, I got my August selection, which contained four packets of different teas, on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gentlemantranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gentlemantranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gentlemantranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gentlemantranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gentlemantranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gentlemantranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227,"href":"https:\/\/www.gentlemantranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gentlemantranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gentlemantranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gentlemantranslator.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}