Review: Lemon Lift - Bigelow

Type: Black
Producer: Bigelow
Origin: USA
Brewing Parameters: 2 minutes, 1 2.3g teabag (recommended)
Appearance: Bleached trapezoidal tea bag with mostly black tea fannings
Rating: C | 75/100
# of Brews: 1

Tasting Notes and Thoughts
So, I was supposed to review a different tea today. I was at a law firm and I grabbed some teabags, in particular a darjeeling. I lost it; either, I misplaced it or it fell out of my pocket, so here we are now.  After brewing, this tea came out a very dark brown color. It actually had a lot more oil on the surface than any tea recently; a ring formed around the top of the cup because of that. The smell wasn't what I expected. It smelled like baked goods, sweet and with cinnamon and lemon. As for the actual taste, it was surprisingly close to the smell. It's not sour, or lemony really, but instead a bit more bitter. It's definitely astringent, too. The taste is subdued and earthy, with a bit of sour from the lemon. It becomes sweet for a while, but the bitterness lingers on the tongue long after and dries the throat. Overall, it's a pretty bland tea. It's not terrible, but it's not very good.


Other Notes
Today's album is Everywhere Else by little xs for eyes. I already mentioned them previously, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I checked out their work again. When I did the last time, they only had released their EP. This is their second full length album and I like it as much as the EP (the reason why I started listening to them in the first place).

As I mentioned in the last post, I got my license, so I drove my unitmate and my Cal friend to the Great Mall. It was an easy day; we played at the arcade, did some shopping for my dad's birthday gift, ate at the food court, watched Spiderman: Homecoming (really good– wasn't expecting that), and got some boba in town before heading back home. As much as I love arcades, I forgot how expensive Dave and Buster's is, and how badly maintained a few of the machines are. It's a good place for claw machines and new releases, though. Did I mention: in middle school, I used to be obsessed with claw machines. I stopped after my closet was filled with stuffed animal prizes, and now I think they're pretty easy to win if the machine isn't rigged; it's a good skill to have if I ever go on dates. Afterwards, my Cal friend and I came back to my house and we watched some of Over the Garden Wall before I drove her back to her home. I stayed up late to work on a research essay, which, admittedly, I'm currently procrastinating on.

Today was the second summer session for next year's We the People teams. It went pretty well; once again, my school's team had the least attendance. My job this time was to judge an alumni panel and then to judge some groups from next year's team. Compared to the questions asked by the actual judges there, I'm surprised at how rusty I am– I felt like I couldn't contribute much in terms of good questions and feedback. We went with some people from another school (not our rival school), and my unit called me out on finessing one of them (I was not). Once again, I was the only guy there, and she sat next to me so I talked to her. We took the BART together and I added her on Snapchat. Just being friendly. Not finessing, my unit. After that, I went home and, since it's my dad's birthday, we went out to eat at an all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue.