Jillian

Yum, this tea smells like blueberry pie filling, and all those huge blueberries that are mixed in with the tea are a great touch. It’s a very fruity, blueberry-ish tasting tea as well; the cream cheese is a bit hard to find but I’m tasting in in the back of my mouth particularly after the tea has had time to cool off a little bit. I bet adding milk would bring it out more, so I’ll have to try it that way next time. But I’m really liking this tea even as is, I’m glad I was able to finally get my hands on it thanks to Rachel.

Eh, it’s not too bad, but based on the smell I was expecting something a little bit chocolatier than it actually was. There was a bit too much red rooibos flavour and not enough of the cocoa nibs and chocolate chips present in the flavour profile for my preferences. I’ll try adjusting the steeping time to see if that makes a difference.

De-cupboading this tea. It’s nice, but not good enough that I’d buy a whole big container of it, IMO.

This tea is intereting to say the least. While I can taste the smokey bacon flavour it’s more subdued than it was in the Maple Bacon tea, though the taste lingers in the mouth for quite awhile. The chocolate is subtle, present more in the smell and as cocoa-y hints on the back on my tongue at the end of each sip. I’ll have to try the trick of adding a touch of salt, though I feel weird adding something like that to tea!

The smell of this tea makes me think of Christmas morning when I go over to my parents’ place for breakfast and my dad cooks up bacon, eggs, and pancakes with berries and lots of maple syrup.

The maple notes aren’t as strong in the flavour unfortunately, or maybe that’s just because the smokey, meaty flavour is so strong it’s drowning it out a bit. But the bacon part is definitely there, no questions asked. It’s not a tea that I love per se, but I find drinking it a fun and interesting experience.

This tea is as bright and cheerful as its name suggests. The vegetale green tea mixes with spicy cinnamon and the flavour of citrus peel, creating a warming cuppa that’s quite different from the usual flavoured green teas I’ve tried. The citrus peel is maybe a tad too strong, but I suspect reducing the steeping time a bit would help that. I like!

Damn this tea smells exactly like the real thing. I can just close my eyes and imagine that I’m about to take a bite of my mother’s strawberry rhubarb crumble. The taste is surprisingly authentic as well, as I can clearly taste the sweet strawberries and the tart rhubarb on my tongue, although I keep thinking it should be sweeter. There’s even a slightly spicy hint of the ‘crumble’ part of the dessert though it’s pretty mild compared to the fruit flavours. I agree with the other people who said that this tea would be improved with a different base though, as I’m not sure the white tea really does much for this blend.

EDIT: Not bad on the resteep (@5:30) either though the cinnamon-y/bakey notes are stronger with the fruit flavours playing a lesser role.

I can clearly smell the cocao nibs when I opened the pouch along with the spices of the chai. Taste-wise it’s more chai than chocolate, but I get the occaisional ‘pop’ of cocoa flavour that keep things interesting.

Six and a half minutes seems like an optimal steeping temp for this tea – it’s long enough to allow the flavours to develop but short enough that the honeybush doesn’t overwhelm the rest of the tea. Adding a drizzle of agave nectar also really brought out the marachino cherry flavour – yummy!

Like the last one I made this up with half milk and half hot water to give the tea a creamier flavour. It’s surprisingly mild for a “spiced” chai, I think on the whole I might prefer something with a little bit more of a bite to it. On the other hand it’s not too obnoxiously sweet either. So not bad all around – their one might make a nice iced chai latte if I had another pouch to experiment with (which sadly I don’t).

I got this tea from the Travelling Teabox when it was staying with me. There’s only a few spoonfuls left in the bag and I think whoever tried it before me took most of the fruit bits. :D

It tastes a little weak so I’ll probably steep the remainder for slightly longer. It reminds me somewhat of a chai without the black tea – a chai-less chai. ;) What I noticed most is the flavour of the ginger and the cloves, though neither is horribly strong, thankfully. The tea is sweet and slightly fruity, particularly as it cools, but I can’t really pick out any really distinct fruit flavours. Maaaybe a bit of apple.

This tea wasn’t anything special hot so I gave it a shot iced. Unfortunately the same steeping time/temp was too much for it and the result was too strong and ‘green’ tasting without much mango flavour. I’ll give it a do over and dial things down to see if that improves matters.

This is an interesting take on the traditional earl grey tea. The orange and lemon flavours give the tea a tangy zip without the added pungency of bergamot. It goes surprisingly well with milk – though the result is a bit lighter than the traditional cuppa of earl grey in my opinion. It’s a nice tea to drink on a gorgeous, sunny morning like this one. ^_

I give this tea a ‘meh’. It’s not bad for a red rooibos-based tea but it’s not spectacularly good either. I can sorta taste the coconut and a creaminess that that might or might not the be the macadamia nut, but none of the flavours really shout out to me; they’re there but at a background level.

Okay so I steeped it a little less and this time the juniper berries came across a lot less pungently and I can taste the other spices as well this time now that they aren’t being drowned out. There are also some fruity hints – not just the citrus peel but of berries aswell.

Huh, I guess I never did rate this tea. Well this is my last cup before I send the rest off in a swap. It’s not a bad tea, but since I first tried it I’ve had the chance to sample other silver needle teas and found them to be superior to this one. Wegman’s Silver Needle in particular I found to be sweeter and less vegetale with more of a nuanced flavour than this one has.

This tea smells exactly like the Butterscotch Lifesavers I used to love to eat when I was a kid. The buttered rum flavour isn’t weak but it blends naturally with the flavour of the black tea. It’s sweet but not too sweet – though I imagine adding some honey or agave nectar would really make the flavour pop.

I was attracted to this tea by how unusual it is – saffron is an expensive substance and rarely used in teas. Regardless of how much was actually in there, I was curious enough to give this a try. It has a nice fruity smell and if the tea doesn’t taste as fruity at least it doesn’t have that generic tropical fruit flavour either. There’s a hint of sweetness from the mango and a slightly bitter herbal flavour which might or might not be the saffron mixed with the green tea. It’s a pleasent combination that manages to be something other than the usual bagged fare.

It might only be so-so as a matcha, but I’ve found that it’s actually quite nice mixed in with a fruit smoothie.

Has it really been twenty days since I last made a tasing note? 0_o The usual end of semester stuff has been causing me a lot of stress and I haven’t really been trying any new teas. This is another sample I got from Meghann I believe. I don’t get to try many Rishi teas as they charge an arm and leg for shipping to Canada so it was a nice surprise when I was rummaging around for a random tea to try and dug this out of my Cupboard.

Despite the hibiscus pauses to shudder it really isn’t all that tart – or at least not beyond what I’d expect out of a fruity-tasting tea like this. And TeaEqualsBliss is right, it does sort of taste like (warm) KoolAid although the white tea also manages to impart an interesting light, floral aftertaste. This is another tea I’d like to experiment with having iced I think.

Trying it again iced, this time with a longer initial steeping time. This round I can taste much less of the tangy hibiscus and more of the white tea and the exotic fruit flavours so I think these parameters are a good way to go for iced tea.

Well uping the steeping temperature/time made the sour cherry flavour a bit stronger, but this tea is still a long way from being black forest cake. It needs a sweeter, creamy element to it for it to work, I think. And chocolate – you can’t have black forest cake without the chocolate cake layers and chocolate shavings, yum!

I opened the little sample pouch of this tea I got as part of the Valentine’s Swee-tea exchange (thanks AmazonV!). At least I think this tea is what the ‘Neapalitain’ lable is refering to… ⌐_⌐

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I love how Frank uses real flavouring that you can see right in the tea. I’m finding big cocoa nibs, pieces of vanilla bean, and bits of dried strawberry all mixed in with the honeybush – it’s great. The result does smell very much like Neapolitan ice cream which makes me a feel a bit nostalgic as I haven’t had that particular type of ice cream in years but it was a pretty common treat at my house when I was a kid.

The flavour doesn’t quite get there in terms of authenticity, although it certainly makes a game effort. The chocolate flavour seems to dominate everything else to some extent and I wish the strawberry in particular made up more of the flavour profile. Despite that, I’d still count this as another awesome blend from 52Teas. :)

The owner of the Granville Island Tea Co. told me that this is one of their most popular blends, though I do wonder if that has partially to do with the fact that Granville Island is a popular tourist destination and ice wine is becoming known as a rather Canadian sort of thing – like maple syrup.

I found the smell of this tea to be richly sweet and quite fruity\grapey. It doesn’t smell fermented or yeasty like actual wine might, which I’m thankful for as I think that would be rather off-putting. The flavour is quite strong and authentic as if I’d actually mixed ice wine with the black tea in my cup. The flavour is very wine-like but sweeter and with a hint of something a bit floral on the aftertaste.

I really enjoyed this blend; maybe next time I’m in Vancouver I’ll buy a full pouch rather than the little sample of it got on my last visit.