Podcast 10: Arnie bogies and Stash hits par for the most boring tea review ever.

What: Arnold Palmer  (Arizona)
How much: $1.05  (Mobile Gas Station)
Taste: Like a lemon party in my mouth
Repeat Drinkability: 5/10 (Higher when it's hot outside, lower when it's colder. In Wisconsin, that means it's gonna be lower, generally)
Manliness:  7/10  (Because, golf.)

What: White Christmas (Stash)
How much: $0.14 / bag (Amazon)
Taste: Lemon hookah water... not necessarily in a bad way
Repeat Drinkability: 4/10 (you ever try water like the picture below?)
Manliness: 5/10 (we're going to cite the same picture)

SPONSOR: The Stash Strikes Back

Click play below, and answer the troll poll after listening, damn it! Hint: it's on the right.

Podcast 2: The Stash Strikes Back



What: Christmas Morning
How much: ~$3.00/ oz (loose)
What kind: Frankentea
Taste: Even if it's loose leaf, a BLACK tea that is this bland on the palette is rare for obvious reasons.
Repeat Drinkability: 3/10  (It's incredibly safe... don't like too much tea flavor? you're in luck. Have about 3 pounds of sugar you don't know what to do with? Throw it in here. Need something to water your plants every other day? Use a Budweiser.)
Manliness: 4/10 (KFC is still the only place we know that can throw a whole bunch of shit in a bowl and make it taste good.)


What: Red Chai
How much: ~2.50/oz (loose)
What kind: Rooibos
Taste: Like Christmas, ironically.
Repeat Drinkability: 5/10  (Repeat steeps for a rooibos and it's pretty dece for a spicy tea. We'd use this as body wash if 1) we weren't men or 2) we didn't already smell like bacon.)
Manliness: 3/10 (What makes the red man red? Being caught drinking this in public.)

Spicy /T/ Helps Men Reach First Base on Venus

As a man, women are often confusing to me.  However, we at the Blag have noticed that we are better than most men at deciphering their complex language and behavior.  In time we will try to share this knowledge with our fellow male readers and hope that our female readers don't alter their secret culture based upon our discoveries.

Lesson one about women.  When women say yes, it means yes; when women say maybe, it means no; when women say no, it means maybe; and when women don't say anything, you're doing it right.

Sometimes to understand women, it's necessary to go undercover.  I don't mean wearing a bra like my uncle does or dancing to WHAM! when no one is watching.  I mean occasionally pretending to be invisible and eavesdropping on conversations or even trying to be some woman's friend (yes I went there).  I know, it's unspeakable.  But at least I didn't mention they who shall not be named.  On rare occasions, going undercover means drinking candy coffee, i.e. mocha frappuccino lattes, using conditioner (I know, I know), or making your own sandwich.  Well today was one of those days.  Your Duke decided to go undercover and try the girliest of all /t/s, a chai green tea.
 

Chai Green Tea by Stash.  The /t/ bag smelled like this.  Was I going to get that just brushed clean feeling from this /t/?  Oh god I hope so.  I have a hot date later with Ms. Jones.  Anyway, after steeping, the doublemint cinna-spolsion smell was still there but more subdued than before.  First swig down, this had the consistency of pea soup.  And.  It looked like Mr. Green.  Props to anyone who actually remembers what that was like.  Shit was delicious.  Like Dr. Pepper except with ginseng and a sewage color.  AND A FUCKING LIZARD ON THE FRONT.  Well pea soup /t/ was starting off to be aight.

After several swigs, the same mute cinnamon taste from the previous Stash Chai appeared like a god damn Pidgy.  FUCK PIDGY.  No one cares about Pidgy after the first two minutes of Pokemons.  No one cares about the lame cinnamon taste either.  The mint smell had entirely disappeared and the mint taste was fleeting.  This was shaping up to be slightly less "meh" than normal green tea.  I have a feeling Stash put the artificial cinnamon flavor in one of their /t/s and it sold well.  Then they were like, "What should we do next?" "Hurr durr, to the cloud!  Let's put cinnamon flavor in all our /t/s!" "Brilliant!" "Brilliant!" "That's brilliant!" "Capitol!" "Brilliant!" Then, spoiler alert, Severus kills Albus, a hunter kills Bambi's mom, and there's no such thing as a happy woman (or a good green tea).

What: Chai Green Tea (Stash)
How much: $5.45 a box (30 tea bags)
What kind: Green - Spiced
Taste: Like someone poured an apple pie into your pea soup
Repeat Drinkability: 4.5/10 (About half a notch above "meh")
Manliness: 4/10 (Spices are a plus, men still love Big Red gum, but no caffeine makes me sad)

Between the Devil and the deep black tea

When Amerigo Vespucci invented sailing and discovered how to rob indigenous peoples of their land, spices were still expensive. That's not the case anymore because the same kids that make your Air Jordan's and answer your customer service questions also grow your cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, blah blah blah. Actually that brings up an interesting question. Is it still a sweatshop if it's air conditioned? Think about that, but I digress...It's basic economics; the supply is larger, which lowers the cost to us. Because of that, everything is spiced now, but especially crappy /t/. I like to call it chai tea. Actually I don't because chai means tea in a bunch of different language tongues. See what I did there? I'll do it again. Chai means tea in the languages of many different country nations.

In a round about way, I'm getting to the fact that I'm reviewing a “chai” /t/ aka tea tea, redundant tea, or a tea within a tea. Since it was basically free and my first experience with Stash, I thought what the hell. Plus the package looked cool. I like bright red things.

I opened the /t/ bag, and immediately my nose was assaulted by more cinnamon than Big Red gum. I was fully expecting to get a spice ship from India when I opened the microwave, but instead I got this tea. It has a normal black /t/ base with a cinnamon scent. There is also a subtle cinnamon bite to it that builds, likely from the Big Red flavoring, but the clove and nutmeg flavors that are announced on the box are only present when the tea is room temperature or colder. It's a little dusty too, probably from ground spices. To be honest, I consider the artificial cinnamon taste a big negative along with the dustiness. It really lacked depth. The spices were there, yes, but they didn't really enhance this tea in any way. A straight cinnamon tea would've been better, like this one /t/ me and the Tea_Pain had at Macha Teahouse last year. A tea with spices other than cinnamon would've been better too, provided the spices were in the right quantities, proportions, etc. When you have so many spices, you spread out the flavor. Sometimes it's best to go with a larger quantity of fewer spices. Stash, you need to go deeper.

What: Chai Spice Black Tea (Stash) aka redundant tea is redundant
How much: $5.45 per box (30 bags)
What kind: Black - Spiced
Taste: Like a tea within a tea.  Probably would be better as a tea within a tea within a tea.
Repeat Drinkability: 6/10 (I expected more. More of what? Exactly.)
Manliness: 7/10 (men love Big Red gum and spices)

Seriously... Pomegranates. How do they work?

I am currently travelling across the state of Wisconsin. Why do I do this? Because it's cold, snowy, and I like walking around shirtless or in ungodly amounts of flannel. Yes, I'm somewhat disappointed that this state can't support its own tea industry, but I survive.

Today, I figured that since my voice sounded like shit coming out of a meat grinder, that I would tell my throat to MAN UP! Sadly, my host only had, you guessed it, more herbal teas. I chose the Strawberry Pomegranate Rooibos tea from Stash. At first, I was impressed, the color slowly took the form of blood, like I had taken a field of fruit and slaughtered it like my enemies so that I may quench my thirst. Like the title suggests though, I still have no idea what makes pomegranates so great. They taste like watered-down crystal light and take about as much time to eat as one of Duke's pudding fart movies, but still, girls gobble this shit up.

Now, have you ever drank water? Have you ever drank RED water? Well kudos, you have just described this tea. I kept the /t/ bag in the brew for the entirety of this drink. What came of this? More red, no flavor. Sure it smelled like some sugary sap from the heavens, but in reality it was so extremely subtle in flavor that you'd think you were drinking hot water. "But Tea_Pain, girls love gentle things like kittens, bunnies, and lightly flavored beverages!" Yeah? Well at least you can make Chinese food and stews out of the first two. Still, you know what makes guys manly? Getting girls. So to embrace this tea means that you will be embracing women later. Repeatedly. In 5 minute bursts.

I'm kinda disappointed with this rooibos blend. Usually they're pretty pleasant and tangy /t/eas. If anything, I got a hint of sweetness in the background. It's kinda like taking your woman to the mall, buying her $hit tons of shoes, and then realizing that she actually looks pretty hot in those throwaway stockings. You want to be happy with your purchase but you realize you could've been just as well off doing nothing. Those shoes are just as much trinkets as diabetes is to a McDonald's fanatic and disappointment is to a liberal arts major.

What: Strawberry Pomegranate Red Tea (Rooibos) (Stash)
How much: $0.18 per bag on the Stash website.
What kind: Rooibos- herbal
Taste: where? maybe a 2/10
Repeat Drinkability: 2/10
Manliness: 3/10 (looks like thinned out B-movie blood)