Tea!

Last night I went to the gym quite early due to a hard workout at the gym so around 7am this morning I woke up bright and early- nice and awake.  I enjoy when I can have some quiet time to myself (if I ignore the hyper morning dog) so with my personal time, I began another attempt at exploring the Iron Buddha Hand tea I had received from Tim at the Mandarin Tea Room.

First of all, it is an oolong tea which I believe is the fall harvest (and if I recall correctly, I believe they recently received the spring harvest as well- it would be interesting to compare the two sometime later).

To me, upon first impressions, it smells rather vegetal, but in a citrus-y way with floral undertones.  The flavor is rather light, but alluring and secretive.  I quickly found that I needed to brew it longer for a stronger cup which I found more enjoyable. The scent quickly gave way to more of an astringent tone, but cleaner and lighter than lemons.  Less sweet and more fresh.

In my attempt to get as much quiet time before things got livelier, I chose to wait to eat breakfast (since I wasn't hungry before I started) which was a mistake.  I had to take a break to eat some food and will have to come back to experiencing my tea later.

As a final note, however, I did find that the tea definitely warmed me up and left my mouth surprisingly dry with a lingering sweetness.

(As I am proofreading this post, said hyper morning dog is trying to hop around on my back and going into play mode every time I shoot him a look)