52 Teas - Browncoat Genmaicha

Browncoat Genmaicha

Sorry, no hot chocolate today, but instead I have a chocolate tea, Browncoat Genmaicha from 52 Teas.

Genmaicha is 'brown rice tea', green tea and roasted brown rice, some of the grains of rice pop like popcorn as seen in the picture to the right. Browncoat Genmaicha has chocolate added to it which makes pretty much everything better. 

Here is my Steepster Review: 

Browncoat Genmaicha

This is my first time trying genmaicha, and I do not think it was a bad introduction. This is also my first time trying anything from 52 Teas, I plan to try more of 52 Teas in the future.
In the first steeping the chocolate was very faint, barely there (Maybe my sample got exposed to too much light/air?) but it was still a really good cup of tea. So much like drinking slightly sweet popcorn.
Strangely the second steeping had a more chocolatey taste. Maybe I should have just steeped it longer the first time?
Makes me wish I had gotten around to watching Firefly so I know what this Browncoat is about.

 Unfortunately Browncoat Genmaicha was a limited edition and is now out of stock, though other 52 Tea blends have been revived with enough demand. Besides Browncoat Genmaicha there are other interesting blends at 52 Teas, free shipping in the US.

2013-01-31 - Update: 52Teas is now on a new website, Zoom Dweebie's, and has has a waiting list for the Archived Teas.

Nature's Leaf Tea - Green Tea with Bergamot and Chocolate Midnight

Nature's Leaf Tea sent me some free samples, all I have to do in return is review their teas. It's a good deal, and if you get a chance to get free samples of their tea go for it.

Samples

First off I'll say Nature's Leaf is not at all stingy with their free samples. I was expecting enough for 2-3 cups in a baggy, what I got was an ounce of each sample in nifty resealable pouches. They also have good customer service, when they could not send my free samples right away due to a shortage of bags they let me know via Steepster. Even then it did not take long for the teas to get to me, less than 2 weeks between requesting and their arrival in the mail.

Bergamot Green Tea

The first tea I tried was the Bergamot Green Tea. This tea is literally Sencha green tea with pieces of bergamot rind mixed in it. With green tea you must be careful to not let the water get too hot, a lot of people think they don't like green tea because it's 'bitter' when they're just brewing it wrong, if you add boiling water to green tea of course it will be bitter, you scalded the leaves! And you can not use color to determine when green tea is done steeping, green tea has a much lighter color than black tea, by the time green tea gets half as dark as black tea you have oversteeped it. For this particular tea the suggested temp is 175 degrees and one minute steep time. I need to get a proper tea thermometer but for now I'm using a digital meat thermometer.

Here is my Bergamot Green Tea Steepster review:

What a cup of green tea should look like

This is not Earl Grey but I still love my bergamot. This tea is more vegetal than citrusy, a nice break from all the dessert teas I'm usually drinking. The bergamot becomes more noticeable as the tea cools, and a pinch of sugar may help bring out the bergamot even more but this tea is fine alone. Has a slight peppery taste too, must be the sencha.

In the second steeping the bergamot was stronger, the tea slightly bitter from the bergamot, but still good. This Earl Grey with Bergamot tea is really strong and good for multiple steepings, I've already steeped the same leaves four times and it still has not weakened.

I cannot resist a good chocolate tea so I also tried the Chocolate Midnight black tea. Here is my Steepster review:

Chocolate

I think I've found my new favorite chocolate tea. This is the most chocolatey tea I've had. I really like the creamy texture it has. I was going to add milk but once again we're out, but this tea is fine without it.

The caffeine level in this tea is really high so I don't think I'll be sleeping well tonight...

Very dark tea

The directions on the packaging said 2 teaspoons to 8oz 195 degree water, I think 1 teaspoon would have been enough. Chocolate Midnight is made with Yunnan black tea, and Yunnan is a very strong dark tea, a lot stronger than I am used to and I did get a slight caffeine headache afterwards so I will be using less tea leaves per cup in the future. Chocolate Midnight is also infused with vanilla has large shavings of Belgium dark chocolate, it's tempting to pick the chocolate out of the leaves and eat the chips as they are.

I had also gotten a sample of their Soothing Charm Throat tea but have been so busy this week I have not even gotten a chance to try it, much less give a review.

Regina's Only Friend

I'm a fan of the TV show Once Upon a Time, so how about a post about Once Upon a Time?

Maleficent is really hurt right now

This is something that has been bothering me since the season one finale. Regina sends Emma under the library to see "an old friend" which turns out to be Maleficent trapped in her dragon form. Emma winds up having to blow her up with a well thrown sword, rumor has it Maleficent is still alive but usually when someone gets blown to ash they're pretty dead, or at least really hurt.

What I want to know is why Maleficent wound up getting the short end of the stick.

Regina was at her most evil right before she set the Dark Curse. For whatever reason Maleficent had traded her sleeping curse with Regina for the Dark Curse, probably to go after Sleeping Beauty (Aurora and/or Aurora's mother) But Regina is the sort of customer who would expect to get a full refund for any product that does not completely meet her every expectation. Because Snow was freed from the sleeping curse Regina uses that as a reason to get the Dark Curse back from Regina. Maleficent and Regina have a magic fight with lots of CGI, a miniature unicorn almost gets killed, and in the end Regina traps Maleficent with a bunch of chandelier loop things from the ceiling. Maleficent expects Regina to kill her but Regina does not because Maleficent is her only friend, and shows uncharacteristic mercy by leaving Maleficent to awkwardly squirm out of that stupid hoop thing but alive.

I killed my horse for nothing?! I look like such an idiot right now.

An undetermined amount of time later Regina first kills her horse, then her father (both things she loves the most) in order to enact the Dark Curse.

So Regina would not kill Maleficent because she was her only friend but cursed her worse than most. Even Mary Margaret got to be human, interact with other people, go places around town. But Maleficent got stuck in her dragon form, trapped in some underground caves, completely alone, with nothing to do but move Snow White's glass coffin around (The coffin was under the abandoned mines in "Still Small Voice" but was under the library/town in "Land without Magic". Some people wonder why some of the glass was broken, I'm surprised the dragon didn't smash it completely.) as her only piece of furniture, for 28 years.

Why (and how) Maleficent was trapped in dragon form is something I would like to know. Maleficent was not the only shape shifter; Regina herself shifted into a mouse to visit Rumpelstiltskin. Red was a werewolf but Ruby would not change in Storybrooke because there was no magic. Isn't a dragon a magical creature and impossible to exist, fly and breathe fire in Storybrooke? It is possible that Maleficent was in her dragon form when the Dark Curse hit and so she stayed in that form. But Billy was never human in the Enchanted Forest, he was a mouse, Gus, and possibly was briefly a horse if they want to borrow from the Cinderella story. For some odd reason Gus got turned into a human when he was brought to Storybrooke. So even dragon Maleficent should have been turned back into a human when she was brought to Storybrooke.

Could Maleficent get pregnant from this?

Maleficent being a dragon in Storybrooke could not have been unintentional, what Regina said to Emma about Maleficent being trapped in a different form suggested that Regina did it on purpose. Why did Regina do that to her? Did Maleficent remember her previous life, or did she get her memory erased like everyone else? And how emotionally scarred was Maleficent after having Charming shove that egg in her gills? Or is her dragon form like Red's Wolf form before she learned to embrace the Wolf, in blacked out dragon rage?




In honor of Maleficent I blended a tea on Adagio called Regina's Only Friend, a mostly green tea with bergamot (Earl Grey Green) and spearmint with a little cinnamon flavored black tea with ginger accent. I've paired it with my other OUAT fandom tea Evil Queen.If you get it use code 8581843594 to save $5, the code expires in 24 hours.

Casablanca Tea

I like New Mexico Tea Company's Casablanca, as you can see in my post on Steepster:

I love my bergamot.
I got this as a free sample from the NM Tea Company and I wish I had a couple ounces of it, this is good stuff. I’m usually not too crazy about mint teas because the mint tends to get overpowering, but in this tea I can also taste the tea and more importantly the bergamot. The mint blends well with it.
I only meant to steep this tea for 2 minutes but got distracted, I think it would be better with a shorter steeping time but it was still good. Added just a little sugar and drink it like I drink my regular Earl Grey – enjoying and trying to make it last instead of gulping it down too fast.

NM Tea Co Casablanca

It is a very attractive tea, one of the best smelling I've ever sniffed. I'd like to get a shower gel that smells like this.

Like Dorian Grey there are several teas with this name but are different, a lot of them are actually tisanes. 

• Pekko Teas Casablanca is a fruity herbal; Luxury natural dried apple pieces, Hibiscus, Rosehip, Elderberries, Maracuja pieces, Sunflower petals, Passion flowers, Rose petals, Raspberry pieces, Strawberry pieces, Kiwi pieces, Cornflower petals, Natural flavors.
• Culinary Teas Casablanca is also herbal; Hibiscus petals, Rosehip chips, Dried apple pieces, Dried strawberries, Dried currants, Cornflower petals, Calendula petals, Natural Flavors 
• The Tea Table Casablanca herbal, dried apple pieces, hibiscus, rose hip peels, elderberries, raspberry, strawberry, kiwi, and passion fruit pieces, sunflower, cornflower, and rose petals, and natural flavors.
• Special Tea Casablanca Is a fruity black tea, ceylon black tea, safflower, rose petals, natural flavor. Special Tea also has roobios Casablanca.
• Mariage Freres Casablanca is similar to NM Tea Casablanca, green tea with Moroccan mint and bergamot-flavoured tea
•  Leland Tea Co Casablanca is a white tea with Mediterranean fig.

I plan on putting in another order with NM Tea Co in a couple weeks, it's a little more expensive per ounce than ETS but you have the option of buying as little as 1 oz at a time, free shipping on any order and free samples so it's still a good deal. NM Tea Co is also the cheapest I've seen this version of Casablanca tea.