Dustin

I’m super excited to try this tea that I got in a swap with Stephanie. The dry tea smelled slightly cantaloupy but I didn’t take too much time to sniff before I eagerly dumped it in my steeper. While brewing it smells like super sweet cantaloupe, almost candy like. Wow, my first few sips taste like cantaloupe juice watered down just slightly, then gets creamy at the end. I could enjoy this without sugar, but I only have one cups worth and am curious to see how sweetener will add to this. Hmmm, I’m finding that sugar kind of kills the initial taste, but adds to the end and aftertaste. I’m not tasting the tea base at all which in my book translates to well executed flavors. On my second steeping I got sidetracked and left it steeping for quite a while, but this tea took a beating and still tasted good. After the brutal second steep, I got a third weak steep out of it which was more reminiscent of the flavors that had been. I can easily see why this tea won an award and it’s going on my shopping list right now!

This is the first tea by Butiki that I have tried and I’m really excited since I read so many good things about their teas! I got this sample in a swap from Stephanie, so thank you much for that! :)

When smelling the tea brewed I can detect the marshmallow and something a little deeper which I’m hoping will translate into a well rounded flavor. I’m not catching any of the orange or chocolate yet. On my first sip I’m greeted quickly by a lot of orange with a little bit of chocolate hidden behind it, but no marshmallow. Adding a little sugar now… The sugar brightens the flavors, but it doesn’t really change them or their balance. I might be getting a little more of the marshmallow now, but the orange and chocolate stand out the most. I think I have heard this tea described as one of those chocolate oranges that breaks into slices and I’m finding that description pretty accurate. The black tea base is undetectable which lets the three main flavors do their thing. I don’t think I could pick out if it was a green or black if I hadn’t known. This was a delicious first impression of Butiki teas and I’d like to enjoy it again sometime.

The smell lives up to the name, this is a fruity smelling tea. It took a few sips for me to be okay with this tea. There was something that was hitting me at first that I didn’t like. Maybe the green part? I think I can pick up apple and a touch of cinnamon on the sip. Over all it’s just kinda blah. It’s like a not very impressive version of a few other fruity rooibos teas that I have had. I’m really not finding anything special about it. Nope, not for me.

I was really excited to try Nina’s teas and this first impression didn’t let me down!

The dry rooibos didn’t smell particularly strong, but once brewed I could smell rich deep confection like cherries. At the beginning of each sip the cherries come on strong. After the rose joins the cherry, adding a perfume like aroma and pairing surprisingly well, then the cherry fades leaving the rose to finish off each sip. I am really liking this and steeped it three times without loosing much flavor! It has a light sweetness on it’s own, but I’m enjoying it with a little sugar which really makes the flavors more pronounced. I’m not picking up on the sour cherry that was mentioned in the description, but it doesn’t matter because what I am tasting is delicious. It’s a wonderfully rich caffeine free dessert tea with delicious well rounded depth to the flavor. It’s now on my Amazon wish list, but I’m not sure I can wait for someone to come a long and gift it to me before having this tea again. I can feel my willpower cracking already!

Looks like granola, smells like granola, tastes like granola. This tea is for hippies and mountain hikers! Kidding aside, it does taste like a warm mouthful of liquid granola. Almost oatmeal like but a little sweeter and more flavorful. It looks like there is hibiscus in this which I usually hate, but the sample I got didn’t have enough to ruin it for me. It leaves my mouth a little dry after each sip. I get a little bit of nuts in there, walnut I think and some cinnamon. It’s well done, the flavors all work together well in a nice balance, but it’s failing to catch my interest.

I just read the description… beets not hibiscus! No wonder it wasn’t bothering me! And even though I see it says almonds, my taste buds still say walnut.

To introduce myself to Della Terra teas, I had bought a few sample packs to figure out what I liked. I liked all the rooibos I tried, but the flavored black teas kept falling short of what I was hoping for and what I kept reading others were experiencing. Yesterday I happen to take a sip of a cup I had let get cold and dumped the rest of it before I tasted what I had in my mouth. I was caught off guard at the flavor and noted to try to cold brew some of their black tea. So last night I dumped a heaping teaspoon into a glass of water and stuck it in the fridge overnight. Added some sugar this morning and wow! I guess it turns out I just don’t like their black tea warm! This stuff is really flavorful! I get a pretty even cherry and chocolate flavor on the sip and chocolate lingering after. The cherry flavor is more like maraschino cherries than fresh, but in a pleasant way that matches well with the chocolate. I am really enjoying it and my cup is almost empty now! I want more… MOOOOOORE!!!

I tried this tea again today. I found myself thinking about it the past few days and wanting more. The first steep was yummy and filled with subtle cherry goodness, again with no sugar. I think this may be a good tea to scale back my sweetener usage with. The second steeping had no cherry taste that I could pick out. I’m not sure if my taste buds are off today or what, but the second steeping was dull. Even so, I’m finding I like the first steeping of this tea a bit more than I initially did. I think it is growing on me.

I LOVE jasmine tea and this tea in particular has a sentimental spot in my heart. Years ago there was an amazing guy I had casually mentioned my love of jasmine tea to. Being the thoughtful man that he was, he picked out a bag of this jasmine tea for me on a visit to the Tea Embassy and gave it to me on our first date. I had forgotten that I had said anything about it and was impressed that he made note of such a small detail in our conversations. I remember that tea tasting better than any other jasmine I had experienced. It was clear and crisp and strong. Such a pure jasmine taste and I believe it was my first loose leaf tea experience too!

Recently I went to the Tea Embassy and picked out a bag of that same tea. I took it back to the home I share with that man, who I still think is just as amazing (if not more) and the family we now have. I’m excited to try that tea and see if it holds up to my memories of it.

When I open the bag, the dry tea has such a strong jasmine smell to it almost like I’m sticking my nose in a flowering jasmine bush! The instructions on the the bag say to steep for 2-5 minutes and I did only two for the first steep. Wow, it’s still just as bright and crisp as I remember. I can’t taste any tea, just jasmine. It almost borders on the line of soapy in it’s intensity, but I have always like over the top floral flavors. It isn’t bitter like some jasmine teas I have had, but now days I’m much more careful and aware of over steeping unless I have to walk away from my steeper for a while (which is what happened on the second steeping). Second steeping was a little tongue puckering in it’s intensity, but adding cream and sugar made it an enjoyable drink again. I adore this tea and am glad to be reunited with it! To me, this tea is love.

This smelled fantastic in the bag! I may have brewed it a touch too long. When I first sipped it I was ho hum about it. A little bitter with pumpkin. I added some sugar and the cheesecake taste came out. Added a little more to see what would happen and the cheesecake flavor was even more pronounced with a pumpkin taste lingering. Even with the flavors being more pronounced than the initial few sips, the taste is not a full mouth assault and I kind of like being assaulted by my tea. Oh god! My second steeping I managed to murder with some soy milk. Yuck! I think I need to try this with some real cream. Trying with real cream… nope, that doesn’t work either. I seems like any cream kills the pumpkin flavor. This one is best with just sugar. Unfortunately I have gone through the whole sample now.

This tea sounds delicious, but the taste ended up being quite subtle. I didn’t like it the first time I tried it, so I brewed it much stronger this time. I am now able to pick up on the nuttiness of the pecans on the sip which is followed quickly by a brief raspberry taste. Adding sugar brightens it up a bit, but I’m still not impressed. I’m glad I bought only a sample on this one.

I think I like this one! It smells and tastes very cinnamony, but not in an overpowering way that will give me heartburn and curdle my tongue. I get a hearty full base flavor that I like. Could it be the pu erh? I can’t detect chocolate when the tea is hot, but maybe that is part of the base I am tasting? When it cools, I think I can pick out the cloves and cardamon as well as chocolate on the aftertaste, but cinnamon is still the predominant flavor. I do wish there was more chocolate.

I had never tried Della Terra teas before, so I ordered two of the pick your own sample packs and this was one of my picks. Those things are brilliant and I wish every company would give you a trial option like that! I can smell cinnamon, oatmeal and raisins when this tea is dry and a strong cinnamon scent when it’s brewed. When trying it plain I can’t pick out much flavor on the sip, but the aftertaste is very much like I just had an oatmeal cookie in my mouth! Next I added what may amount to a little too much sugar – whoops. The cinnamon is much more pronounced on the sip and the cookie aftertaste is stronger too. Now I’ll try it with cream! The cream tones down the cinnamon which is nice because it was being a bit of a stage hog. The scent is more even too and I can pick out the oatmeal taste at the end of each sip as well as after now. My first impression is that this tea is yummy and interesting, but it isn’t awing me either. What it is doing is making me want to bake oatmeal raisin cookies. I wonder if that is the result of a flavor association in my brain. My mouth tastes oatmeal and my brain expects my stomach to feel full? Strange!

I received some of this from Chuckieroy in a trade that was far more generous on his end, so thank you to you sir! I would not have chosen this tea had I seen it for sale and I would have missed out on something good. I find candy sprinkles in my tea amusing yet foreign and distrustful, something that I am slowly overcoming. It’s really quite stuffy of me! The dry tea smells exactly like what I remember Mighty Leaf’s African Nectar smelling like; a tropical fruity rooibos. It also tastes like what I remember that tea tasting like and I loved that tea… until I tried it again recently and found it fell short of the nostalgic pedestal I had placed it on. This tea is what I wanted when I bought a box of that other tea recently and I’m guessing by the name that I’ll have to wait until next Halloween to get my hands on more. Just another reason for me to love Halloween I guess!

No notes yet.

I did a little local self guided tea tour the other day and Zhi Tea was my first stop. The cherry part of this tea caught my eye, so I got a sample. I love sample sizes! Dry, this tea smells like rich cherries. I can just barely smell the green tea behind it. The taste is pretty smooth and subtle compared to the loudly flavored teas I am used to and love. I can pick out some cherry on the sip, but most of what I am getting is on the after sip. There wasn’t any bitter or tart edge that needed to be balanced out, so I opted not to add sugar for most of it which is unusual for me. So far it has been equally good for two steepings and at the end of the second cup I added a little sugar which actually kinda killed the cherry. I like it, but it’s not the party in my mouth level of flavor that my favorite teas have. It feels like a more mature taste. I’m not crazy about it, but I feel like I need to explore this one some more before rating it. It has me a little puzzled.

This is the first flavored matcha I have tried. The smell of pumpkin pie (predominantly nutmeg) hits me as soon as I open the bag. I have drunk it a few times already and have been playing around with the ratios and reading about people preparing it as a latte. So today I used two spoonfuls of matcha, one teaspoon of sugar and a scoop of powdered goat milk in a regular sized mug full of hot water. If you don’t mind that distinctive goaty taste (which I don’t), it’s pretty good that way! The creaminess of the milk works really well with the pie flavor. Through half the cup, each sip had a wave of bitterness on the sides of my tongue which crept close to the line of unpleasant and quickly receded back. As it cooled that bitterness was more mellow, but lingered more. I kind of liked it. With so many pumpkin pie flavored things (this tea included) I have a hard time figuring out if I’m actually tasting pumpkin or if they are relying on the nutmeg and other spices to carry the assumption of pumpkin. Looks like I won’t figure it out with this cup because I finished it already! I liked this tea, I’m intrigued with the whole flavored matcha idea, but I don’t know that this one was something that I’m crazy about. I’ll have to try it a few more times to be sure.

I am plowing through this 2oz bag I got! It smells very similar to the Tea Embassy’s Almond Cookies Green tea, which is also being drunk at record speed. Both have a powerful almond and coconut smell and that strong smell carries through to strong flavor once brewed. Both are quite delicious with this one being non caffeinated! I didn’t understand why it was called Wedding Cake until I went to a friends wedding the other day and had a slice of cake. I was floored by how similar the cake tasted to the tea! My friend said it’s vanilla cake with almond frosting. It was delicious, just like this tea. The rooibos is a bit drying as it tends to be, but the fantastic taste distracts me from that most of the time. I think I’ll make a permanent spot in my cupboard for it in the non caffeinated section.

Another tea that smells sweet to the point of sickness when dry. I might have passed this one up if I had smelled it in the store first, but I decided to take a risk during the heavenly sale. I taste lemongrass and it is very citrusy. The more I sip, the more I realize it taste like a near match of the discontinued Bangkok Lemongrass Rooibos. This one has caffeine and a rose like aftertaste. I’m not picking up on much of the coconut that was promised. It is good, but I have been wowed with this flavor before and I think I prefer the rooibos blend since I need more non caf deliciousness for the evenings.

This tea looks like trail mix when it’s dry. It’s just a bunch of dried fruit pieces with a few tea leaves found after looking really hard for them. I’m not sure if this is the correct mixture of it or if I got some of the product after it had separated. The dry tea smells almost sickeningly sweet and the first sip of it brewed was quite sweet as well. Once steeped, I noticed there had been a little more leaves hidden in there, but probably not enough to give you any caffeine fix if that’s what you are going for. I ended up not adding sugar, which is unusual for me and a testament to the sweetness this tea carries on it’s own. Mango is the main flavor I pick up on with a little pineapple. There is a sweetness that covers my tongue and a tang that hits the sides. They got the sweet mango part of the tea right, but I’m not sure where they got the chai part. There was just one lone clove and a couple peppercorns in my tea maker. It’s a nice light tea, but I’m not overly impressed. I’m guessing it would work well blended with something that has a deeper flavor, but I really don’t like the idea that I have to add another tea to make the first tea taste better or right. I expect to leave that work to the “teaologists” and to be purchasing finished tea. I’ll have to try it iced sometime.

This tea smells really good dry! I’m not sure what I’m smelling because I’m not familiar with black currant or shou mei, but it seems kind of delicious. I have smelled bergamot before, but I don’t remember exactly what is smells like aside from citrusy, so I really can’t pick out any of the flavors individually. What I can say is that it blends well together. Each sip tastes and smells very floral and I like floral! Adding a little sugar really brought out the flavors. I’m a little sad that this is the last of the sample, so I resteeped it for all it was worth. The first steep was really flavorful with the second being fairly close to the first with only a little diminished flavor. The third time still had some of the flavors but was a bit on the boring side. This one ends up being a little pricer that the other teas which is a bummer because I really want more and I’m trying to be good about a tea budget right now! I’ll just have to keep huffing the empty packaging and hope it doesn’t sell out before my tea buying ban is over.

I’m sure this tea has more flavors in it than orange rind, but that’s all I can pick out. Just a nice even non overpowering orange rind taste. NEXT!!!

This smells like root beer syrup in the bag. That is the only way I can describe the concentrated root beer smell which carries over to the steeped tea. The first sip was horrible. There was some root beer taste in there with an overpowering bitterness that hit the sides of my tongue. I hate bitter. I added a little sugar to it and it tasted slightly better, but still quite bitter. The next delivery of a metric ass ton of sugar seems to have tamed the bitter beast, but I’m left puzzled. Why make a drink that tastes like warm flat root beer, but isn’t root beer? Would I think to pour tea into my root beer? Nope. So why this mix of flavors? It tastes like quality old fashioned root beer at least, not that cheapy mass produced stuff, but it is probably not any better for me after balancing the balancing all the bitter with sugar. Sadly, I didn’t catch any of the creamy float part of the name. Amusement of making an apple taste like an orange aside, I really don’t get this tea and would rather just have a glass of real root beer instead.

It’s too bad there isn’t a puzzled or bewildered face to use for this rating, because that would have been perfect for me!

I have had my Aladdin tea infuser mug for at least four years and I still love it. It is a double walled plastic thermos mug with and internal fine mesh basket in the lid that sits above the water line until you lower it. You fill the basket with your tea, fill the thermos to the fill line with hot water and when you are ready to lower the basket in the water or raise it, you use the lever on the outside of the lid to move the basket. You never have to open the mug to steep your tea. I read that it is microwave safe, but I have never put mine in the microwave. The lever mechanism has metal, so it would I’d microwave only the mug part.

I first bought one for my sister as a gift and a few months later purchased my own. When comparing notes with her, she complained that the infuser basket on hers would always fall down into the water. Mine clicks when put up and stays in place. I called the company to inquire about the difference and they offered to send a replacement! The new one was just like mine with a clicking sound when the basket is raised. I have read other reviews complaining about the falling basket and I’m guessing Aladdin was paying attention to it and fixed the issue in later models.

My experience with this mug has been fantastic. I do try to keep it upright and and not just toss it in a bag and I haven’t had any leaks. The inside of the mug has etched a little over years of use and slightly discolored, but it doesn’t seem to hold onto smell much. Pouring boiling water and baking soda resolves both those issues. The basket mesh is fine enough that I haven’t had any issues of smaller particles finding their way into my tea. My only complaint is that the basket is small for teas that need lots of room for expansion, but it would make the whole mug bulkier so it’s a trade off I can live with. With the double walled design, the mug keeps tea warm for a while. I find it irritating when I want to drink my tea sooner than later, but it’s better than the opposite problem and my tea is still warm if I forget it for a while.

Someone asked me how well it holds heat so I did an experiment. I poured boiling water in the mug and took the temperature every half hour. It was sitting inside my house (kept at 70F) and I opened the part of the lid that you sip through to stick the thermometer in, then closed it again when I got a temp. Here is what I got: @0m/188F, 30m/149F, 60m/130F, 90m/120F, 120m/109F, 150m/98F It won’t keep your tea warm all day, but it will be warm for a couple hours.

Overall I’m quite satisfied with this mug and I would happily buy it again if it eventually gave out.

I first tried this tea years ago when frequenting coffee shops for their internet access. I remember really liking it. I liked it with cream. I liked it with sugar. I ordered it often. I believe it was my first rooibos. When I saw it in the store recently, I could not resist. Scooped it up, took it home, brewed it, siped it and… huh? I used to like this so much more! It still has that unique blended fruity taste, kind of bubblegum like, that I can’t quite put a good name too, but it is so much less exciting. I’m bothered by the dry feeling left in my mouth after every sip, something I have heard others mention with rooibos. It’s still good a good tea, but it is kind of like a relationship that you try again and it just doesn’t feel right. Not like the first time. Sigh