Alphakitty

I often find that chocolate teas don’t quite live up to their name. Chocolate flavoring, artificial or natural, just never seems really chocolatey to me. So when I reach for a chocolate tea I usually just wind up having hot cocoa instead! So how do you fix that? Well, add chocolate to your tea, which is exactly what this blend is!

This still isn’t as chocolatey as hot chocolate, but it’s close! And unlike hot chocolate, it’s not one dimensional. The oolong gives it wonderfully roasty flavor and some soft floral notes as well. And it definitely curbs my chocolate craving with way less calories! I mean I assume there are some since there’s whole chocolate bits in here, but it’s not a powdered sugary slurry. Thanks Nature’s Tea Leaf!

I hereby dub this tea ‘Vanilla Cupcake’ because that’s what it tastes like. Vanilla and oolong seems to be a popular combination and I’ve tried quite a few: DAVIDsTEA’s Vanilla Oolong (good, a bit artificial), Persimmon Tree’s Mandarin Silk (excellent but more citrus than vanilla), and The Tea Merchant’s Silk Dragon (perfection!). This, though, tops them all.

It’s just SO GOOD. Creamy and rich and so decadent with no sugar at all, I swear this tastes like a fluffy cupcake from Magnolia. Actually I think Crumbs has better cupcakes (blasphemy in NY, I know!) but Magnolia’s buttercream frosting is just like… the god of desserts. And that’s what this tea reminds me of!

But not just cupcakes. The oolong is pretty darn high quality for a blend, with some soft floral notes and a really nice butteriness. And then I think there’s something SERIOUSLY whack with my tastebuds because I swear halfway through the cup it started tasting like… chocolate. I mean, not a little, but chocolatier than the most chocolatey tea I’ve tasted. What is this wizardry?! What ever it is, I like it. Thanks ne14t for the sample!

So, apparently I am allergic to something I ate/drank last night. Half of my chin has swollen up and it hurts so much worse than I ever thought a rash could. ;~; I didn’t have anything strange or unusual, so I think it might have been the 3 root tea, since it had 3 ingredients I’d never tried before. I could always taste it again to find out but… I’m really not about to potentially put myself in so much pain again!

To make myself feel better since I can’t eat or even talk much without searing pain, I decided to make some fancy tea. And what’s fancier than champagne? As I think I’ve mentioned before I love the non-alcohol part of many alcoholic drinks, but not the actual alcohol part since it just makes me sleepy and that’s no fun at all at a party. Have one drink, curl up on the couch and fall asleep (except for sake, for some reason). So teas like Pink Sonoma are my best friend!

As other notes have mentioned, this reminds me a LOT of Buddha’s Blend. Very strong peach and jasmine, and there’s a hint of pineapple there too but it’s not very strong. I get some champagne taste but it’s hard to picture it as champagne in my head because of the lack of, well, carbonation! I have enough of my sample from ne14t to mix some with something fizzy though!

If you live in NYC, you probably know about the dumpling wars. There is a small cluster of dumpling shops on the lower East Side area and there are constant wars about which is better (and no, Momofuku doesn’t count, we’re talking little dive $1 for 5 dumpling kind of joints!). My favorite is Vanessa’s: not the one in Union Square (which is decent) but the original shop. Not just because of the dumplings which, let’s face it, are very similar from shop to shop. But Vanessa’s has these fantastic sesame pancake sandwiches stuffed with crispy pulled pork or even DUCK. And to top off your greasy, delicious sandwich there’s the world’s best Hong Kong Milk Tea.

As amazingly delicious as HKMT is, it’s laden with calories from the sugar and evaporated milk AND condensed milk. Ugg, but it’s so good! I would love to find a lighter replacement, so I was thrilled to see this from Nature’s Tea Leaf. But can it replicate the wonders of Vanessa’s Hong Kong Milk Tea?

Well, of course it’s not thick and creamy from the milk, but it perfectly captures the condensed/evaporated milk taste. The tea isn’t cloudy so there’s no actual milk bits floating around, it’s just flavoring. Magic flavoring! I cold brewed this and without any sugar or other additions it really does taste like milk tea. Creamy, milk, with that distinct evaporated milk taste and a burst of sweetness. Mmmmm. I think I’m in love!

Another generous sample from tattooed_tea! I love coconut, I love mint and I love cream so I’ve been drooling over this blend since it first came out. I’m trying to sample a bunch of DAVIDsTEA blends before I make a big purchase though, so I don’t end up with something icky I don’t like. You never really know with them—most of their blends I love, but some are really hit or miss.

This blend… yeah, I definitely like! The mint is strong, it’s nice and creamy (vanilla maybe), and there’s a smooth hint of coconut in the background. This definitely reminds me of after dinner mints like Andes even though there’s no chocolate, the cream just adds a ton of depth. I do, however, wish the coconut was a wee bit stronger. I’m surprised they work at all though really, coconut and mint is something I never would have though of getting. I wonder who comes up with these ideas? What a fun job, coming up with tea flavors! Especially at DT, since they seem to have some really off the wall blends.

This tea is an odd one for sure. But when I saw it on Nature’s Tea Leaf site I felt compelled to try it. I love mint and it just seemed so unique! And I know a lot of people here are against the pseudo-science health benefits attached to tea but personally I’ve found that at least in terms of digestive issues they’re quite helpful! So why not give a traditional health blend a shot?

The smell of this brings back memories. When I was little I absolutely loved going to Chinatown (not that this has changed at all haha) and my aunt works in the NYC courthouses, which are about 4 blocks away so sometimes she’d take me to work and then to explore the winding streets of Chinatown. Now I know it’s not that big in size, but when I was a kid it was a huge, mystical land full of magic and adventure. Everything was wonderfully foreign and I loved going into the big grocery stores and peering into every jar of spices and herbs. This tea smells like that, medicinal but also quite pleasant and homey.

The taste is… odd. Not bad odd, but it’s really unique and hard to wrap my head around. The mint is very present but not assertive, definitely with the sweetness I associate with peppermint. The 3 roots add some incredibly complex flavors—it’s tart, fruity, with a berry-like sweetness and then a bit bitter (not in a bad way, akin to grapefruit juice) followed by a deep earthiness that reminds me of wet moss. You know the smell of the woods after rain in spring? Like that. Then at the end, suddenly pepper! It’s a whole taste adventure in a single tea.

And, best of all, it definitely did sooth my nausea a fair bit. Hooray! Definitely a winner, if just for the bizarre but pleasant adventure it took me on. Thanks to Nature’s Tea Leaf for the chance to try this!

I had an existential tea crisis yesterday. I was looking for a specific blend (that I can’t even remember now) and I searched through all 3 very large shelves I have for tea, along with the smaller compartments they’ve taken over… and then my 2 huge baskets of sample. And I realized. I have too much tea! So I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off fluttering over what to do about it. Sell big sample envelopes? But I dug through my samples and could hardly bare to part with any because I still want to try them. Ugh! So I stuffed a swap envelope I was preparing extra-full to make myself feel better and went to the post office in a tizzy. Tea is taking over my life! What shall I do! And then I came home to a package form tattooed_tea and quickly my worries were forgotten because hey, new tea to try! Of course this only compounds my problem but it’s hard to beat the new-tea rush (even when it’s only samples!)

I decided to try this first because I love Christmas. I find it a relaxing time of the year (usually… not in 2012 orz) and hoped a big cup of Christmas cheer would calm me down a little! I have floating anxiety that tends to “latch on” to every little problem and make it seem way bigger than it is. So really, the “too much tea” thing probably seems really silly but for a hour or so it filled me with so much anxiety I felt like I was going to burst at the seams with worry.

Ahh, this was just what I needed! It smells like, well, Christmas. Cinnamon, star anise, allspice, cranberry. And while there doesn’t seem to be much green tea when it’s dried it blows up and totally filled up my steeper. Or maybe that’s the mistletoe? Regardless this is a wonderful blend and quite different from other Christmas blends that I’ve tried which usually come down to cinnamon, orange and clove. The tastes here are surprisingly complex and I am loving the tartness the cranberry adds! The one downside is how darn heavy this blend is, it would be expensive to keep stocked round the year!

This is one of those blends that I’m a little frightened of. I mean there’s just so much STUFF in it! Sprinkles, freeze-dried ice cream bits, I didn’t know what to think. Sounds like too much going on, but it has decent reviews so I was pleased to get a sample from Nicole. I’ll try any tea once! Except for maybe that bug butt tea from a while back.

This… actually tastes like cake! I cold brewed it and was surprised to smell the delicious scent of baked goods wafting up at me. It doesn’t remind me of Della Terra’s Pineapple Upside Down Cake though, which is the cakiest blend I have tried. This one is more… cake in a box cake. Not that there’s anything wrong with cake from a box! It just doesn’t have that rich brown sugar butteriness I was hoping for.

I get why people read Neapolitan from this—I don’t get much in the way of chocolate, but there’s definitely vanilla and a hint of strawberry. Perhaps from the freeze dried ice cream? There’s also, um, stuff floating in my glass that I find a bit unnerving. Like when there’s a shaft of light and you see all the dust motes: first it’s pretty and then you have an “oh my god am I breathing that stuff?!” moment. I had that with this tea: there’s little “cake motes” from the sprinkles and whatnot that freaked me out for a minute there!

All in all a pretty unique and adventurous blend. Not something I’d reach for on a regular basis, but I was happy to try it! I guess now I have to hunt down the other DT cake teas and compare them…

Vanilla is probably one of the most basic tea flavors, but surprisingly I’ve tried almost no vanilla teas! In fact, my first was Della Terra’s Cafe Vanilla in the 12 days of Christmas swap. I don’t know why I’ve kind of avoided vanilla, maybe because it’s just so basic I always get drawn to fancier and more exotic blends. But sometimes you want a cup of simple comfort!

Dry, this tea smells so scrumptious. Like baking! There are big chunks of vanilla pod in there which is a good sign, along with some almond slivers. Steeped it tastes, unsurprisingly, like vanilla bean ice cream. The vanilla is light though, not overpowering in fact I expected it to be a lot stronger. There’s a nice toasty, nutty flavor from the almonds and it makes me think of sugar cookies for some reason while I sip this. The black base comes through nicely, I think this would be an excellent evening blend! Thanks to The Persimmon Tree for this sample.

Thanks to Kasumi for this sample! Lavender teas often blend together for me: I’ve tried so many that it’s hard to tell one from the other. But this one definitely stands out from the pack, mostly because of the lovely sencha base. Often sencha blends will use a lower-grade sencha since the flavor will be partially masked, but the sencha in this is divine! Grassy and creamy, with a slightly salty-seaweed-y undertone that’s a pleasant contrast to the floral lavender. Yum!

This was one of the many teas in my happy bag from Lupicia—not exactly a tea I was dying to try but hey, you can never have enough genmaicha! I’ve tried quite a few but only one other with matcha, Den’s Extra Green which is, to date, my favorite genmaicha.

Probably the best thing about this tea is the nuclear green color. Green tea + matcha looks like toxic goop! But, you know, in an appetizing way. The base isn’t as pleasantly grassy and sweet as Den’s version, in fact the green flavor is pretty much overrun by the nuttiness of the popped rice. Wow, is it ever strong! Not in a bad way, it’s just extra toasty. The matcha adds some thickness but I’m not sure if there’s a substantial taste from it—at least, I’m not getting any brothy, vegetal buttery notes like I do in Den’s. Not to say that this isn’t a good tea, I’m just holding it up to a pretty fantastic blend.

You know, I’ve been thinking about mixing my own matcha + genmaicha with KaiMatcha, imagine how tasty THAT would be… maybe with Den’s Houji genmaicha? Hmm… time for an experiment, I think.

Ahh, Earl Grey Cream, one of my absolute favorite teas. I’ve been thinking about that thread—the “if you could only drink one tea for the rest of your life, what would it be?” one… and EGC might be it for me. That or a nice brisk assam, or bao zhong. Okay so I could never choose one, BUT Earl Grey Cremes are near the very top of the list. I have tried a ton of them, but mysteriously this one slipped through my fingers even though I have tasted a ton from The Persimmon Tree. So how does it stack up against the myriad of other EGCs?

Well, it’s impossible to go wrong here really. Earl Grey + Vanilla? This one, though, is one of the creamiest I’ve had. Well, not creamy, but vanilla-y. Often the flavor comes out as just plain cream, but here it’s distinctly nice vanilla—not boring vanilla extract, but actual whole bean vanilla. It’s very complex and gives the tea an almost pudding-like dimension with milk and sugar (which I used on my first steep). Rich, decadent, very dessert-like. Towards the end of the cup I’m reminded of a vanilla cupcake with lemon zest in the batter, or I guess bergamot zest if that’s a thing you could actually bake with.

While the bergamot isn’t in the forefront in the first steep, it comes out loud and strong in the second one and the vanilla smooths out even more. It’s less prominent, but still distinctly an EGC—just with more bergamot than most, which is good because many go light on the bergamot and super heavy on the cream. Here I think they’re nicely balanced, and I definitely have enough to try my favorite EGC method, cold brewing! Thanks to The Persimmon Tree for this sample, it’s divine!

Ahh, lychee. When I was little my parents used to get me little canned lychees from one of the many Asian grocery stores in NYC and I’d suck them down like candy. I’ve grown very fond of the taste, to the point where I’ll buy anything lychee flavored—of all the things I’ve tried, I think lychee ramune is my favorite though. Fizzy lychee, mmm. Of course this means I’ve tried quite a few lychee teas, though most of them tend to be straight lychee or add a floral element (like rose or jasmine) even though lychee is quite floral on its own. So I was intrigued by this blend—lychee peach?

I have a totally bizarre relationship with peach anything. I hate artificial peach flavoring, but when it comes to either real peach goodies or naturally peach flavored things I am totally convinced I’ll hate them… even though, every time, I really enjoy them! I don’t know why, my brain is just stuck on “you hate peach!” Which is blatantly not true, since there are about 10 peach teas in my cupboard. And oh man, I dream of blueberry peach pie. What a combo! Hint hint, someone needs to make a blueberry peach pie tea. With pie flavor included.

At first sip this blend is reminiscent of a lychee congou—strong(ish) black base, fresh and bright lychee flavor that fades into floral notes that fill your mouth. It’s not as heavily floral as other lychee teas I’ve tried, which is probably great for most people since I know quite a few who are not fans of floral blends. Then, at the very end, the peach comes in—subtly fruity, not full on “hey there I’m a peach tea!” There are definite apricot notes, and it’s more… summery-tasting than straight-up peach. It’s got a real juicy quality! Definitely one of my favorite lychee blends that I’ve tried, thanks to The Persimmon Tree for the opportunity to taste this gem!

I am a ginger hound. Gingerale, ginger beer, ginger tea, ginger candy, ginger anything, I’ll eat/drink it! Not just for the flavor (which I adore) but I have an as-of-yet undiagnosed stomach condition that makes me nauseous annoyingly frequently and ginger is the one thing that always helps. I have a ton of ginger teas, but the nausea usually hits late at night so I am always looking for a good, solid ginger herbal to add to my cupboard. Right now my go-to is Twinnings Lemon Ginger (yes, bagged, I know!) because it’s very potent, but sometimes I want a more mild blend. Enter The Persimmon Tree’s French Lemon Ginger!

This tea seems to have pretty low ratings, but I guess it’s one of those love it or hate it blends (as ginger teas often are!). It’s mild and smooth, the ginger is not at all overpowering even after an 8-minute steep. I’d even say it was subtle, without the spicy heat ginger sometimes packs. The lemon comes not from lemon rind but from lemongrass and verbena so it’s not punchy citrus but mellow and tame: this is like a toned-down version of those in-your-face herbal blends. Nothing overwhelms, you can even taste some sweet woody notes from the honeybush. A very pleasant tummy-soothing night blend if you’re a fan of ginger! Thanks to The Persimmon Tree for this lovely sample.

Passion fruit is one of those flavors that I adore, but no one else in my family likes so I rarely get anything flavored with it. It also doesn’t seem that common in teas, oddly enough—I guess it’s one of those fruity flavors that’s hard to capture? So of course when I saw this blend I had to try it!

Dry this blend is divine, and very strongly floral (which I love). Passion fruit already has a hint of floral, and the jasmine amps it up a lot. I cold brewed this even though it is the middle of January—it’s so warm in my apartment that with the heaters off and fans on I am still walking around in a tank top. In New York. I really need some iced tea! And is this ever a refreshing one. Heavily floral but not perfumey, and the passion fruit and jasmine are perfectly balanced. I think jasmine can easily overpower other ingredients but it’s used lightly here so the passion fruit still shines. I swear there’s a hint of pear in here too, perhaps from the base? Which is a black/green blend but tastes mostly like a green to me.

It’s also naturally quite sweet, honey-like almost—not artificial or cloying. Definitely more complex than I was expecting! Thanks to The Persimmon Tree for this sample.

Is this really a Teavana blend with no tasting notes? How strange! I got this in a swap with Chuckieroy, apparently almost all the teas I requested were pineapple-based and I didn’t even notice it until now. I guess I’m on a pineapple kick? Honestly, I wanted to try this one because of the name and the little heart confetti. So cute!

Wow, this is pina colada in a cup. Strong pineapple and coconut notes that (for once!) don’t overpower the green base. It’s got some nice grassy notes along with a strong nuttiness that I find intriguing. Apparently it contains peanuts, though I swear there were none in the spoonful I brewed. And yet, the nuttiness is here! Not identifiable as an particular nut thankfully, it just adds a dimension of richness. And while there’s added sugar (from the heart candies) it’s not a sweet blend at all surprisingly. Much nicer than I was expecting! I could definitely see this being a go-t tea in the hot summer months.

It’s a cold, rainy night in NY and I am craving a cup of something rich and warming. Something like… cake! As luck would have it I just got a sample of this tea from Chuckieroy, what perfect timing. This tea smells just divine, not just pineapple-y but very much like cake. Often cake blends fail to deliver on that aspect, but I had high hopes for this one since Della Terra seems to excel at dessert blends.

Oh my GOODNESS. This tastes just like cake! The pineapple is strong but tempered by brown sugar and a rich, creamy quality. It’s so buttery and, well, cake-y! Definitely the most cake-like tea I’ve tasted, this so lives up to its name and I will be adding this to my permanent stash for sure. Thanks so much for letting me try this one, Chuckieroy!

I somehow went from owning absolutely no teas from Teavana to having a ton in the span of about a week. First there was the Heavenly Sale, and then I got some as a Christmas gift from my boyfriend’s mom! I was definitely not expecting that, since I know without all the sales Teavana can be quite pricey. I got the nice box set that has what are apparently their 4 bestselling teas—Earl Grey, the Acai Blueberry one, Sevenberry Sangria, and this. I haven’t tried any of them before!

This smells so strongly of ripe, fresh peaches in the bag, it’s very soft and lovely. I noticed that there’s no hibiscus in the ingredients list, which is an automatic plus in my book. Even though it’s the middle of winter I cold brewed this one because really, how am I supposed to drink hot peach tea? With ginger, sure, but just peach (especially an herbal) needs to be cold for me.

My first thought was “ugh, why does Teavana always have to put something sour in their blends?!” No hibiscus here, but there are rosehips for no discernible reason. Peaches are not tart, they’re sweet, so why are they here? The peach taste is spot on, and I would probably rank this in the high 80’s if not for the sour note that comes at the end of the sip. It’s not overwhelming or anything and this is certainly a nice drinkable tea, but I find myself really confused by the sour element that just doesn’t belong at all. Especially after getting a bunch of peach teas from Lupicia, which are, y’know, not laden down by random extra ingredients.

I think I might experiment with blending the rest of this, perhaps with a ginger or lemon tea so the sour note doesn’t seem so out of place. Like most Teavana teas, it definitely has a lot of blending potential!

How does this tea have no notes yet?! It’s sold out so certainly it’s popular! I don’t think I’ve ever had the first note for a 52teas blend before, how exciting. The magic of tea of the month club! Which, funny story, my mom accidentally ordered 2 of (in a 3 month increment) and instead of cancelling the second one decided to just give me 6 months. My family is pretty awesome in supporting my tea habits! Though part of the deal is that they get to try them all, which of course is no problem for me. I love sharing tea!

I am very picky about cinnamon tea. I love it when it’s done right, and man oh man… is this done right. My dad is a connoisseur of cinnamon teas and says that this is his favorite blend with cinnamon, and I agree. Let’s start with the base: it’s a dragonwell, giving it a nice lightness along with a buttery smooth quality. The cinnamon is hot, not mild and bake-y like cinnamon bark, but it also doesn’t have that fake Big Red quality you sometimes find in cinnamon. It’s pure and delicious!

It’s backed up by a punch of heat from the pepper, which gives it a bite that of course any dragon tea should have. The smoke is very subtle: in fact my only criticism is that I could have used perhaps a bit more, but I think going light was a good decision because lapsang tends to be really divisive.

Best of all, this tea stands up to a ridiculous number of steeps for a flavored blend. I did 4 hot steeps and a cold brew and the flavor lasted all the way through! As you’d expect the cinnamon fades a bit and the pepper was almost nonexistent by the end, but the dragonwell shines through a lot more and has a really crisp quality in steeps 3-4. And the cinnamon doesn’t seem watered down, just less strong. I think I’m going to shed some tears when I eventually run out of this blend, it’s perfect!

My tastebuds have been shot recently due to a nasty cold, but I’m finally feeling better which of course means it’s time to taste some new teas! I actually just got this yesterday along with Smaug, my second package from my tea of the week plan! Best Christmas present ever. The black base lends some almost cocoa qualities, but not overwhelmingly so. Definitely not going to be hard to finish off my pouch! I think it would actually be really fun to infuse some actual marshmallows with this blend.

52tea’s marshmallow blends are some of my favorite from them, along with their cotton candy ones. I dream of one day having a marshmallow cotton candy blend! And of course I love peppermint, so I knew this was going to be a winner before I even took the fist heavenly sniff. It smells like peppermint patties! The smell reminds me a lot of Della Terra’s Peppermint Bark and David’s Santa’s Secret, but this one definitely stands out among creamy peppermint blends. It doesn’t taste candy-like or artificial when you brew it, but the peppermint stays crisp and bright. It’s mellowed out a bit from the marshmallow, which has that same sweet fluffy quality I love in my beloved Kitten Tea.

My go-to tea when I am sick is Rishi’s Pu-erh Ginger. Nothing makes me feel better than a hot cup of it! I am in quite the conundrum at the moment since I am at my parent’s for the holidays, and I’ve come down with the flu. Well, I thought it was a cold at first, but 5 days later and I’m just feeling worse so sadly, seems like I caught the evil winter bug. And I don’t have my beloved tea! But just in the nick of time I got my swap package from Kasumi which mercifully contains ginger pu-erh.

I have only tried a few Numi teas but I’ve liked them all, so I had high hopes for this. It smells great for a bagged tea, and brews up nice and dark. I sweetened my cup liberally with honey, but I took a sip before and the earthy, woodsy flavors come through very well. The ginger is nice and sharp, not quite as strong as the Rishi blend (unsurprising, since I’m comparing bagged vs loose-leaf) but it’s so nice and warming and a smidge peppery. The perfect throat-soother! And, miraculously, I got 3 steeps out of one bag and the flavor didn’t even fade! Just increased the time by 2 minutes, I think I’ll try for a 4th before I curl up in bed for the night. Thanks so much, Kasumi!

I love Thai iced tea. It’s one of the reasons I am always convincing people to go get Thai food with me. Well… that and the food, which I adore. Massaman curry, oh yeah! I’ve always wanted to recreate a nice Thai iced tea, so when this was on sale for ~$1.50 for 2 ounces of course I had to grab some! Now I wish I’d gotten 4 ounces… or maybe even 8. It’s so good! Seriously, I’d be happy with a pound so I could cold brew big pitchers and sip it all day long. But alas, I didn’t think I would like it this much!

The black base is quite strong and does stand up to the flavors, which seems to be an issue with Teavana’s white & green blends which are totally overpowered by the additions. Here it’s nice and malty and brisk like a good Thai iced tea should be, with bright pops of star anise, cardamom and almond. It’s got a wonderfully exotic feel—I made it both iced and hot, and it’s perfection. And this is with 2% milk, not even condensed milk like it should be! It’s very creamy and thankfully even though it’s heavily spiced I don’t feel like I am drinking a chai blend. I mean I love chais, but that’s not really what I want in a Thai tea!

When I was in junior high my friends and I would head straight to the local deli after school for one thing—Bubbilicious gum. There were a million different flavors but my favorite was always strawberry lemonade (and later, raspberry lemonade). I’m not sure why, but that stuff was like mana from heaven for a group of gossipy 13-year-olds. Chewy, overly sweet and utterly delicious.

This is one of the blends I got during the Heavenly sale, and upon opening the bag I was instantly transported back to that time. Hot summer days spent sitting on walls blowing bubbles, watching small town life pass us by. Idle chatter about who was dating who, as if at 13 you really could date something. As much as I disliked junior high and high school there were some shining happy moments thrown in, many of them revolving around Bubbilicious gum. And this tisane smells JUST like my favorite, strawberry lemonade! Like identical.

Of course that means it’s sugary-sweet, even without sugar. It’s got a strong lemon and strawberry flavor though without the tartness you’d associate with lemonade. It’s smooth and rather one-note, without the depth you’d expect from an actual tea blend. Granted, perhaps this isn’t anything special, but sipping it right now I’m brought right back to those shimmering summer days even though it’s snowing rather heavily outside. A+ for nostalgia, B- for flavor, but I’m still really enjoying it! I imagine this would be best in the summer, more like cooling juice than tea really, though I’m finding that is true of many of Teavana’s herbal blends.

I think a lot of people have one ingredient that can ruin chai for them. With so many powerful spices in the mix, it’s no surprise! For some it’s ginger, or black pepper. For me, it’s cinnamon. It’s a spice I am very sensitive to if it’s not cinnamon bark—cinnamon flavoring reminds me of Big Red gum, and I find it way too overwhelming. In fact, it makes me a little nauseous.

Sadly, this blend has a LOT of cinnamon. Funny, because their other chai/chai blend (samurai mate and white whatever) smells much more cinnamon-y but is lighter in flavor. I placed an order at Teavana for just those chais when they were about 40% off and got an ounce of this blend as well. Of course I ended up adoring the other chai/chai and placed a second order for more (and like 7 other teas) during their Heavenly sale and got ANOTHER one ounce sample of this. Meaning I now have 2 ounces pretty much, funny that they are so generous with the samples. I was kind of hoping I’d love this one too, but alas.

At first sip it’s really nice: clove and nutmeg. There’s almost no ginger or cardamom though, which are my favorite chai spices. And while it says there is pineapple in the blend, it’s not really fruity at all like the samurai/white blend which had double fruit. It’s just… a kind of regular chai with too much cinnamon. The oolong/mate mix does add something extra, like a layer of richness, but honestly I can’t get past the cinnamon abuse. It’s drinkable, but I doubt I am ever going to think “man I could go for a cup of this tea.” This one just isn’t for me—which is fine, because I have 8 ounces of the other (better) one to tide me over until the next sale!