Day 34: Sencha "Matsuri"

Brand: Lupicia
Type: Green
Brew Time & Temperature: 2 minutes, 75-80 degrees C
Leaf Appearance: Olive green tea leaves; the majority are crushed or very small (probably because its a tea bag), but the larger leaves are very needle-like
Color: Mantis/bright green
Smell: Grassy with hints of seaweed and sweetness
Recommended with/as: As is
Rating: 8/10

Tasting notes and thoughts:
Man, the color of this tea is great. It's a brighter green that most of my green teas (which are usually yellow green, but this one really is light green). The smell is a bit average, but it has a bit of sweetness I can't seem to find in the previous teas.

As for the taste, it's strong with a bit of grassiness and saltiness. It's very brothy and vegetal however, and the sweet smell is nowhere to be found in the taste. There's little astringency or bitterness to be found, and its just a very flavorful tea in general. I would prefer it to have a bit of sweetness rather than a taste similar to soup, but it's still a decent green tea.  The strength of this might have been from the leaf (it was really broken up), so I think it wouldn't be as bad in the actual loose leaf version.

Other notes:
Since I did this review in the morning today because there's no school, I can't tell you if anything interesting happened today (other than hearing about the death of Leonard Nimoy- rest in peace you wonderful actor). I can, however, tell you about a conversation I had with a friend last night.

He was telling me about how he's wasting his life playing games all of the time and because of it, he can't do any of his work. It stresses him out to no end since he knows that if he keeps it up he won't get into a good college, but he can't stop since all of his friends are the same. I tried to tell him that it'll get better if you tried, but he told me that he'd already tried (many times) and had given up each and every time.

I know my words probably don't hold a lot of weight since most of my time now is still spent indoors, but I know that I've changed a lot since last year and the year before. In middle school and freshman year, my out-of-school life consisted of getting home, and since I had little to no work (I did it all in class), I just played video games. For hours on end. Until I had to sleep. I did meet a lot of people who I'd say are my friends now, but until this year, I didn't really get close to many, except a small handful. Going to hang out with those that I wasn't close with (aka most people, or anyone not from the small group of my guy friends from middle school) gave me huge anxiety, and I had almost no idea of what I should be doing with those people (as in, how to act while hanging out) and what I should be doing with my life. I will admit that playing games gave me some of the best friends I have ever met and talked to, but it's just sucked so much out of my life that playing them for long periods of time just filled me with regret and self-hate. Eventually, however, summer and sophomore year came around. I gave myself some goals: get a different hobby (and I think you can guess what it is now), join a club, just whatever that would help to get me out of the house. It worked, to some degree, but I fucked up a lot on the way. I like to think now that I'm at least better, socially, and meeting up with people outside of school doesn't scare me so much, but then again, there isn't much to prove that I am.

Anyway, the point that I'm trying to make is that if you want to make at least some change, you have to actually try. It'll take a super long time (even I'm not the person I want to be yet), since along with trying, you have to take it slow. Making a big life change won't happen overnight (I tried, and failed horribly), but if you have the motivation and make small changes over time, you'll at least feel different. It's a good thing too! But if you make all of your big life changes at once, you get a feeling that you're not getting anywhere, and eventually, you just give up. I'm not the nervous social wreck I was last year, but I will admit that I still am pretty bad at social things. I've actually been sort of excited for next year now, since I know I'm going to actually get stuff done that's not just academic. Just remember this: "Let your life be shaped by the decisions you made, not the ones you didn't" - mylasttie (a 24 year old guy on Reddit who was just diagnosed as terminal and has accepted that he will be gone soon- he's sort of the inspiration for this big block of text).

Next on the 100 Days of Tea: Earl Grey