Jillian

This is my first time trying guayusa and I’m both curious and a bit leery of the caffeine content. It smells like wet cut grass, which isn’t the most auspicious beginning, but what the heck. The flavour is also reminiscent of wet grass…at least at first. It then turns into something that manages to be slightly savory and slightly spicy and something I really can’t put a description to. There’s a nice hint of vanilla tucked in there and some bright citrus note. I finished about half the cup and put it down to do some laundry and promptly forgot about it. That half cup was still enough to give me a mega jolt of energy – luckily I had lots of stuff that needed doing, otherwise I would have been bouncing off the walls!

Thank you, Rachel, for giving me a sample of this tea – it took awhile but I’ve finally got around to trying it!

This turned out to be a fairly average-tasting green tea. I am getting a bit of the sencha grassiness but other than that it really could be any generic green tea for all I can tell.

This tea isn’t as bad as another Steepsterite made it out to be, in my opinion, but it is a rather whimpy chai. It mainly seems to be cardamom flavoured but the base needs to be more robust as this one is too weak and makes the chai seems a bit watery.

It’s unusual to see apple flavours paired with a black tea – usually it’s with a green or white tea base, I’ve found. It smells quite fragrant like a sweet ripe, freshly cut apple. The flavour is interesting, starting and finishing with apple notes and in between is the black tea which is a tad astringent. Pretty tasty all told.

Perhaps my sense of smell and taste aren’t keen enough, but I’m not picking up the magnolia or anything else flowery really. It’s basically like a plain pu-erh although it is on the lighter side and quite smooth. The flavour is earthy/peaty though unlike some it doesn’t bring to mind eating dirt, and it also has some sweet hay-like notes. It’s pleasent enough as far as pu-erhs go, particularly a bagged one, but the name feels like false advertising.

I haven’t tried many flavoured oolongs so this is something of a novelty. The base appears to be a standard rolled green oolong mixed with what looks like dried cherry (?) blossoms. I was rather cautious about this tea at first, but as it turns out it wasn’t necessary. The strawberry flavours were just right for this oolong and the end result was slightly sweet and deliciously fruity without tasting artifical. Damn, what a good tea.

The second steep (@ 5 min) held onto its flavour fairly well too, although I got more oolong than I did strawberry. This is another tea I would totally order again given the chance.

I’d love to try steeping this tea gong-fu style one of these days but since I don’t have a scale sensitive enough to weight out 5 grams nor an appropriate teapot/gaiwan, this time I had to do my usual method of 1 teaspoon in my strainer mug. I did follow the directions that recommended a quick initial rinse and short, high temperature infusions.

I have a soft spot for Tie Guan Yins and in my opinion when they’re good they’re really good.

This is a really good oolong.

It starts off sweet and floral before changing into a richer roasted or baked flavour with some nice fruity notes. I’m not tasting the smoke that other people seem to be, or maybe I’m just interpreting it differently, but given how good this tea is I’m not fussed. It has good staying power too – I did three infusions and could have done more if it wasn’t getting so late. It’s quite good at keep its flavour, though I noticed that the second steep was a bit more floral and the third one was a bit more fruity.

A+ for this one.

I’ve drank a lot of earl grey blends, but never an oolong-based one before. The dry tea just by itself is interesting to look at with loosely-rolled green oolong tea leaves, bits of orange peel, jasmine flower buds and what I at first thought were juniper berries but later I realized were actually schizandra berries (thankfully).

The first steep brewed up quite a light gold colour with a delicate citrus-floral odor. The flavour was quite smooth though tangy with a subtle floral finish that isn’t too perfumy. I’ve never tried schizandra berries before so I have no idea how they tastes and I really couldn’t say if they’re influencing the flavour at all.

The second steep wasn’t any darker in appearance and there was an odd sour note (from the citrus maybe?) that made it not as palatable as the first steeping. I’m also not getting the usual sweet flavour I tend to taste in green oolongs as they cool off. So not a good re-steeper in my opinion but an intriguing novelty over all.

I visted the Tea Desire store in Vernon last week and I picked up a bunch of little two-cup samples that they were selling quite cheaply. This one smells like an Italian spice mix – appropriate since tulsi is in the same genus as the sweet basil many of us cook with. It has that same basil flavour but mixed with some peppery notes. I’m not sure the "lemon’ part of the name is entire deserved as it isn’t very noticable, though what’s there meshes well with the basil. Very interesting – it makes me curious about trying other tulsi teas.

I’m afraid I forgot who sent me this tea – I’ve got so many little samples kicking around that it’s near impossible to keep track of them.

This tea has a very dark, mocha-like scent with a bit of spice. I didn’t realize it until I read the package but aparently this is flavoured with coffee so I’m really hoping it doesn’t upset my stomach.

I’ve not getting ‘cinnamon cookie’ so much as I’m getting ‘mocha with cinnamon sprinkled on top’ from the flavour. The pu-erh is an interesting choice of base and I think it works quite well with the flavours, though I’m tempted to add milk to this tea to see if I can coax more of a cookie flavour out. Maybe next time.

I picked this tea up when I was visiting an Iranian friend in Victoria – apparently this is one of his favorite teas. For a bagged tea it’s not bad at all. The addition of the bergamot gives the tea a subtle earl grey flavour, though this is more apparent when the tea is taken plain rather than with milk. It has a hearty, robust kick to it but at the same time it’s smooth enough that it can be drunk without milk if you prefer your tea with no additives.

I think Friday the 13th decided to come early for me so I was glad to finally get the chance to sit down and veg with a cup of tea this evening.

This is nice green blend that smoothly incorporated the ginseng without making it to too strong or seem too out of place. Adding the ginger helped in that regard I think. Not to herbal or too bitter, it’s a pleasent little cuppa to (finally!) relax with.

I’ve had repeated failiures at getting a good iced tea out of this blend. Finally with the last little bit I had left I think I’ve suceeded in making it somewhat decent.

The recipe I used was 8 tsp of tea in two cups boiling water, steeped for 5 minutes. Then I strained it and poured it over some ice in a 2L jug to quickly halt the steeping process, and topped up the jug with cold tap water. I sweetened it with about 1.5 tblsp of agave nectar.

There’s still a tannic astringency that I can’t get rid of no matter how I steep this tea. I think it might be a character of the tea base itself rather than the steeping process. I wish that they’d chosen to use a different black tea because the lemon flavour seems to only exacerbate the astringency.

So in summary, this works in a pince for iced tea, but I’ve had better and I didn’t care for it hot either. I don’t think I would buy this tea again.

I’m glad I finally got the chance to try out my Bodum double-walled glasses that I got for Christmas. The blossom was quite well-formed and lovely, though I think the glass was slightly too shallow for it to expand to its fullest height.

Flavour-wise the tea doesn’t taste any different from your basic – if good quality – green tea. The flavour is grassy and lightly astringent with some nutty notes that are more notceable on the re-steep. It holds its flavour nicely through several steeps and it almost seems a shame to throw the spent tea blossom out because it’s so pretty. Ah well, all good things must come to an end, I suppose. The Bodum glasses worked out great by the way – they were comfortable to hold and displayed the flowering tea very nicely.

This is the second of two Ayurvedic teas I purchased in my most recent Davids Tea order. This one is distinctly more herbal in character than the Kapha blend I tried a few days ago. It smells like peppermint and miscellaneous herbs with a touch of citrus – not an off-putting scent but not terribly compelling either. The hibiscus in the ingredient list had me worried, but in this case it was so subtle I could barely taste it beyond a faint sourness. The flavour is rather minty with unidentifiable herbal notes. It’s not objectionable, though I don’t find it particularly remarkable either.

This oolong has quite a unique appearance – instead of loose or rolled leaves it looks very much like hard, little pebbles. I gave the tea a quick rinse of a few seconds then steeped it for 4 minutes. I could smell the herbaly ginseng as well as a lightly roasted oolong scent. The flavour is smooth and slightly sweet with the herbal, slightly bitter ginseng notes coming in at the end of each sip. Oddly this tea seems to leave my mouth a little bit dry afterwards, but other than that it’s quite nice.

I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about this particular tea as most melon flavoured drink tend to taste very synthetic to me. But this blend managed to exceed all my expectations by tasting very much like real, no-shit cantaloupe melon. The white tea base carries the flavour well and adds to the tea’s light, refreshing notes. I didn’t taste the cream at first but it became very noticable as the tea cooled off and made the blend seem very decadent.

I love this tea; I only got a one-cup sample with my Butiki order, but I’ll totally be buying a full bag of it the next time around.

The dry tea smells quite minty – spicy mint basically – but when the water was added it took on an aroma more like a chai tea. Interestingly it’s the spices – the cinnamon and the cloves that are at the forefront of this tea. I’d expected it to taste more gingery given the discription, but this blend had only a light trace. The licorice is an interesting touch – I’ve found that it often overwhelms the flavours of anything else it’s blended with but in this case the blenders seem to have gotten it right and it’s just a dash of sweet flavour.

It’s an interesting herbal blend and nice to have around when I get bored with my honeybush teas in the evenings.

The problem with green chais is that I never know whether to steep them like a green tea (ie. short and at low temps) or like a Indian chai (ie. boiling water, long steep). This time around I just followed the directions on the package which seems to have worked out reasonably well.

The dry tea smelled very chai-ish, redolent with cardamom, cloves, and a bit of cinnamon. Interestingly, when I added the water a strong black pepper note came out. The green tea base made for a lighter, greener tasting chai with a touch of bitterness (thought that might just be an indication I need to decrease the steeping time). The black pepper gave the tea a nice little bite and I thought the rest of the spices were nicely balanced.

I don’t often drink green chais so I don’t have a lot to compare this too, but on it’s own I’d say I think its quite good.

I’m a cherry fanatic so this tea was a must-have when Frank came up with it. Most of the cherry flavoured teas I’ve tried from other companies have been disapointing, either too artifical-tasting or flavourless. But I keep trying in hopes I’ll stumble across a good one.

I had to restrain myself from eating those dried cherries that were mixed in – when I lived at home I would always steal and eat the dried cherries my mom used for baking (much to her ire). ;) And low-and-behold, this tea actually tastes like cherry and real cherries too! The vanilla is detectable too, thought subtly, but I can only pick up the brandy in the scent of the dry tea.

I do wish the cherry flavour was a bit stronger, but that might just be an indication that it needs a longer steep time, so I’ll do that before I give this blend an actual rating. At this point I’m liking – but not quite loving – this tea.

I actually got this tea from Teaberry Fine Teas (http://teaberrys.ca/), a small shop in Kelowna, BC. They seem to sell both Ronnefeldt teas and their own blends (I want to try their Ogopogo blend ^_~).

It was a pleasent vanilla chai, nothing too extraordinary but nice for drinking and the vanilla flavouring was nice and natural-tasting. It also brewed up very nicely as traditional-style chai latte. Yum.

I got this tea as part of my order during the Great Cherry Blossom Hunt O’Doom on the Adagio site.

The smell of the dry leaves was very nice – citrusy earl grey with a distinctly sweet vanilla scent. The earl grey base is clearly the same one as the earl grey bravo – ie. very strong and pungent – and I’d hoped that the added vanilla would tone it down a little bit, but that doesn’t really seem to be the case. I found that even with a short brewing time it was still too strong to be drunk without milk. The milk softened things out and allowed the vanilla to come through a bit, however, it had to fight the powerful bergamot notes to do so.

I’m rather disapointed as the end result wasn’t a creamy as I thought it would be and tasted very similar to the original Earl Grey Bravo.

This isn’t a tea I’d normally try with milk as it doesn’t mix with a lot of berry-flavoured teas. But it worked surprisingly nicely with this one – perhaps because of the lemon flavours?

This is supposed to be buttered rum flavoured? LOLWUT!? It doesn’t smell like buttered rum – more like a slightly fruity/vanilla scented tea and it doesn’t really taste like anything except regular tea. Epic!Fail guys.