Unidentified Tea-like Substances

In an effort to support my tea related endeavors my mother recently presented me with two different teas. Her intent was that I with my tea related prowess might be able to judge whether the teas were still good and what kind of teas they were. To begin this task I entrusted my senses and smelled the tea. Although I inhaled a bit of dust which then triggered my allergies this making it harder to smell, the teas themselves at least seemed to have a standard tea like aroma. Unimpressed with my sense of smell I proceeded to taste. The tea show in the center seemed that it was indeed past its prime. It was a weak black tea. Any flare it had once possessed mostly gone. The tea shown in the lower most image turned out much better. It was a still potent jasmine with an especially floral flavor. 

AFC Canned Green Tea

I don't usually drink tea out of cans but when I do its probably because I'm really tired and very susceptible to any tea related marketing. I found this particular tea, awaiting my sleep deprived self, perched above the sushi I was in the process of surveying. At first I dismissed the tea, I assumed it was thoroughly sugared and I had already partook in a very sugary lichee juice that day. However upon closer inspection I found that the tea was unsweetened so I purchased it to accompany my sushi. The tea itself was surprising good. It had a complex flavor set off but what I can best describe as nuttiness.

Yet my biggest take away from this experience was: why buy tea in a can when I am fully capable of canning my own tea? I simply need to brew tea in larger batches and then I can keep it in jars until the time comes to drink it. More on that to come....

Chai (Again!) (From Tony's Coffee)

I used to think that coffee shop baristas were on a level that paralleled wizardry. When they went behind their counters they made caffeine magic. However I have gotten to a point where I acknowledge that this is not entirely the case. I've discovered that many coffee shops instead of creating their own chai blends simply invest in large quantities of Oregon Chai, which then then mix with steamed milk: a far cry from magic. After I realized that my campus coffee establishments were some of the culprits that outsource their magic to oregon I stopped buying their chai lattes for a while, and subsisted off london fog alone when I needed milk to accompany my tea. Yet I couldn't stay away for long. As much as it pains me to say Oregon Chai is a splendid beverage. I am still eternally grateful to coffee shops that make their own chai blends but I'll try not to complain too much.