Tea - Earl Grey - Hot - Decaf

2022-08-05

I have conducted taste tests. I bought a 40-count sampler of decaf and herbal teas, mentioned that and solicitated input on Argh Ink. The short of it: a four-way tie for first between decafs of Earl Grey, Lady Grey, English Breakfast Tea, and Irish Breakfast Tea. Fifth place goes to Decaf Green Tea. All the herbals tie for fortieth* place, whether they are fruity or flowery.

There was one other entry - Mu-16 Tea, which I am calling Mutagen 16. I confess I did not give it a fair test, so I will be giving it a second chance. The instructions say to boil it in a quart of water for ten minutes. I used two 500 mL bottles of spring water, set it to simmering, and went back to whatever I was doing. When I remembered it, I poured it into a large mug, added sweetener, and sipped. I managed to sip half the mug before I dumped the rest. Here's my review:

I have just, following recommendations here, brewed up my first pot of Mu-16 tea. How is it? There’s been some confusion for you see, my Mu-16 is unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe. Or to put it another way, “It tastes blahnd.”

I stole that from Wicked, the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, I think the song is titled, "Loathing". Here's the thing - I let it simmer too long. I said I dumped half? I measured it. Remember, on my diet I measure everything. I dumped between 200 and 250 mL, so I must have drunk, or at least sipped, the same amount. That means while I wasn't watching the pot boil, I steamed away over 500 mL of spring water, so the Mu-16 was very, very concentrated.

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* Although it was a 40-count sampler, every tea sample was duplicated, so there were 8 packets of 4 Black Decaf Teas, 4 packets of 2 Green Teas and 28 packets of 14 herbal teas. It is a measure of my opinion of the herbals that they tie for 40th rather than 6th or at least 20th. Herbal teas in general are a form of water pollution.