Jillian

These cookies are more crumbly than the rooibos ones – I keep having to brush crumbs off my keyboard as I type this, lol. These cookies taste more like sugar cookies (though not quite as sweet) rather than shortbread, and the bits of dried cherries baked in are a nice touch too (I looooove cherries). I’m not getting anything that really says ‘white tea’ to my tastebuds though. Personally I think white tea is too mild to be used in something like this – maybe they should have used one of the bolder green teas instead(?)

Hmm, this is nice but not as creamy as some of the other cream earl grey’s I’ve tried – the now defunct SpecialTeas for instance. It’s a smooth, light tea and the vanilla-cream takes the edge of the bergamot, but it’s striking me as rather ordinary and unremarkable.

My order from Adagio came in and it may well be my last order from that company because they’ve jacked up their international shipping prices to ridiculous levels. I am glad I finally got to try the fabled tea cookies though; I couldn’t resist buying a bag of each kind so I’ll be reviewing them all here.

The honey rooibos cookies have a fragrant vanilla smell that makes my mouth water. Their taste reminds me a lot of the British shortbred cookies my grandmother used to serve with tea, with the added flavours of richly sweet honey and a hint of of citrus. The flavours of the rooibos don’t make themselves known too much, which is fine by me, as anyone who knows me knows I’m not a big fan of red rooibos. But the little bits of rooibos leaves that were baked into cookies were a bit annoying as they kept getting caught in my teeth.

Not much to say about this tea yet, I found it to be quite a mild green tea, with some faint grassy notes and a hint of sweetness as the tea cools off.

The first thing I noticed was that the leaves are in very small pieces. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting a whole leaf tea or anything, but with the pieces so small you get more of the tannins leeching into the tea and a very strong black tea flavour. Which wouldn’t be as big an issue if the spices were stronger, but apart from the mint they’re pretty tame and get overwhelmed by the rest of the tea. Mind you, the mint was a nice addition, it wasn’t too strong, just a hint that lingers on the tongue.

Taken as a whole though, I’d only consider this chai to be okay rather than great. They’ve got a good thing going with the mint, but they need to work on the rest of the tea.

I received a free sample of this tea with a Den’s Tea order – it’s always great when a company does stuff like this because it allows me to try new teas without having to spend money on a larger quantity of a tea that I might potentially not even like.

This one has a flavour I’m more used to tasting in Chinese green teas rather than Japanese greens. It has a full-bodied, savory flavour rather than the grassy notes I’m used to tasting in sencha and gyokuros. The resteep also produces a nice, flavourful cup even though I followed the directions and only steeped it for 15 seconds.

Bleh, it’s way too sour. Tone down the cranberry or add more honey and then we’ll talk. :/

I like this one – the roses aren’t overpowering the rest of the tea and the black tea base is nice and smooth and mellow with very little bitterness or astringency despite my not adding milk to this tea as I usually do with black teas. It has a nice, subtly sweet tone to it that I enjoyed – though I have to admit it seems like quite a girly tea.

This tea smells quite delicious and unlike many blends it actually manages to replicate the flavour of real raspberries to a good extent. Unfortunately there’s just something a little ‘off’ about the flavour that I’m not liking. Maybe it’s the oddly herbal undertone it has or maybe it’s the fact that it could stand to be a bit sweeter and more chocolaty than it is. Whatever the reason it’s just not working for me. I’m glad I just got a little sample of this tea rather than a full 50g bag which is the amount I usually buy teas in.

I’ve discovered that this tea is lovely with a teaspoon or so of honey stirred into it, which turned the tea into a sweet, fruity treat that could easily take the place of dessert. Apples and honey – so very Turkish. ;)

Normally adding milk to a rooibos tea is a recipe for disaster but in this case it actually works quite well, letting more of the sweet, chocolatey flavour come through without the rooibos base interfering as much. I also made sure the chocolate chips were fully dissolved before I took the leaves out. Still not rave-worthy, but it’s an improvement over taking this blend plain.

Adding milk does bring out more of the tangy flavour of the cream cheeese than when I was just drinking the tea plain. Interestingly I’m also picking up a flavour reminiscent of baked pastries and I’m impressed that Frank managed to incorporate something like that in his tea. Blueberry might still be the dominant flavour of this tea but it isn’t just blueberry, there’s much more to it than that.

This tea smelled quite biscuity when I opened the bag, with a hint of nuts and spice in the background. It reminds me of SpecialTeas’ Almond Cookie actually. There’s not a lot in the scent or flavour that makes me think of butter OR truffles so I’m not sure why they gave it that name. The flavour is like baked cookies with a distinctly nutty flavour. It’s quite smooth in the mouth and would make a nice dessert tea I’m thinking. A little bit of milk and sweetener might really make the flavour pop.

Thanks to Dinosara for giving me this tea to try.

I steeped the tea towards the lower end of the recommended steeping range but four minutes is still a bit too much as the base is pretty astringent and bitter. I think with a bit of tweaking this could be a good tea though. I like the bright lemony notes and I bet this would make a good iced tea as well – a good change from the sugary Lipton bottled lemon iced tea. We’ll see, I guess.

Reducing the steeping time slightly gave this tea less body, but at the same time I found it tasted sweeter with a hint of fruitiness.

This tea just isn’t doing it for me I’m afraid. I wish it had more vanilla and less rose in the flavour profile because as it is now it tastes far too sweet and perfumed for my tastes. The white tea base doesn’t look like it’s the best quality either, as the leaves are distinctly brown rather than any shade of white or green like I would expect. Eh, so I’ve turned into a bit of a tea-snob – so sue me. ;)

This tea will join the others ones I’ve set aside to trade/give away. If anyone wants it, please pm me.

Of the three flavoured matchas from 52Teas that I’ve had the chance to try, I think this one is my favorite. It really does smell like Banana Runts for one thing and it carries over to the flavour more than the other matchas. I’d liken it more to banana-flavoured candies (minus the sweetness) than I would to the actual banana fruit. The matcha base is a bit too grassy for me to love this tea but I certainly like it.

Another offering that came to me from the Travelling Teabox (has it made it back to Angrboda yet?). There’s obviously bits of cinnamon bark in this tea even though it isn’t listed as one of the ingredients. It seems like a pretty standard chai in most respects so I’m not sure what’s ‘voudou’ about it (I couldn’t find any pins stabbed into it). ;)

For an ingredient the company didn’t even bother listing the cinnamon is quite prominent in the taste and smell of this tea. I find I’m missing the cardamom which is an essential part of any chai in my opinion. It tastes nice enough with some milk, but altogether I found it to be a fairly average chai.

It tastes quite like a mild Yunnan black, it has that same malty characteristic, though it lacks the smokey, tannic undertones a Yunnan usually has. The aftertaste has a touch of fruity sweetness and there are also hints of cocoa here and there. It’s an interesting, complex tea that’s expressed in nuances rather than bold, out-there flavours.

Oooh man, I was right – this blend makes an absolutely awesome traditional-style chai tea. I followed this recipe on Chai Wallah’s website (halved to make only one cup of chai): http://www.chai-wallah.com/makingchai.html

The result was creamy, delicately spiced, with just the right amount of sweetness. I found that it also really brought out the vanilla flavour. I really should make chai like this more often as it’s totally worth the extra effort.

I followed the advice from my last cuppa and tried the tea with with a touch a maple syrup which I found really did bring out the maple flavour. I also added a pinch of salt to see if that would enhance the bacon flavour at all, but found it didn’t really make much of a difference to my tastebuds. So yeah, maple and bacon. :D

I tried to make my bag of this last as long as I could, but the problem with tea is that it doesn’t keep very well for a longer period of time. I really enjoyed this blend and found that it makes a nice iced tea aswell as being absolutely mouth-watering hot with a bit of agave nectar and milk (yes milk!). I can only hope that Frank chooses to reblend this one at some time in the future because I’ll miss it.

I steeped the tea a bit longer this time and now I’m getting the flavour of the spices more strongly, especially the ginger and cardamom aswell as a hint of spicy black pepper. This is definitely NOT a chai I’d add milk to as it’s far too light and would only be ruined by it I suspect. Maybe a little bit of honey might enhance the fruit flavours though – something to try next time.

I’ve noticed that this matcha blend has lots of lumps in it – hard lumps too, I had to apply a considerable amount of pressure with my fingers to break them up. I wonder if that’s the blending process or if that’s the fault of the matcha base itself?

Anyways, I used approximately 1 tsp of matcha in 8oz of hot water. It’s a touch on the watery side still, but managed to get good matcha flavour. However the apple is harder to find and honestly, if I didn’t know that it was supposed to be apple-flavoured I would have taken it for plain matcha. There’s a little bit of flavour in the aftertaste, but it’s faint. Maybe next time I’ll try with less water and maybe a lower temperature.