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I must have received this tea in a trade as I’ve never set foot inside a Teavana store (their reputation proceeds them). That said, this was quite a nice flowering tea that had a nice strawberry scent and looked quite attractive when it opened in the water – though it was maybe not as showy as some flowering teas I’ve seen. The white tea flavours were delicate and slightly nutty and slightly vegetable with the fruity strawberry notes woven throughout. It also re-steeped fairly well too and never got bitter or astringent no matter how long I kept the blossom in the tea.

Yay, finally a pumpkin tea that tastes like pumpkin – which seems to be a difficult flavour to recreate as plenty of good tea blenders have tried and this is one of the only ones that in my opinion to have done it sucessfully. But there’s more to this tea than just pumpkin, the rest of the tea is smooth, slightly sweet and nicely spiced. The spices aren’t being used to cover up a harsh base or the lack of pumpkin flavour – they’re just a nice accompaniment. All around a tasty treat.

Alright here’s the rest of my little sample iced in the fridge. It does improve the flavour a little bit but there is still that intital unexpected hibiscus tartness that makes my mouth pucker. I’ll pass on getting a full pouch of this tea.

Nice and smooth without being tasteless, this earl grey goes nicely either with or without milk and has enough kick to wake me up in the morning.

This tea smelled like a ripe, juicy pear as it was brewing and I was eagerly anticipating that first sip. Too bad the intial impression was that the tea tasted very tart and nothing like the scent at all. It tasted like it had a ton of hibiscus in it, but when I looked at the ingredient list there’s nothing on it that should be causing such the tartness. 0_o

After that first burst of sourness faded I could taste some actual pear flavour, but it was subtle and left behind more tartness in my mouth after I swallowed it. I’ll try icing the rest of this cup to see if that improves the taste at all. Stay tunned until tomorrow.

This blend reminds me a great deal of Adagio’s chocolate chip black tea. It’s got a great cocoa flavour that goes well with the slightly bitter Ceylon base Adagio uses. I’m not getting much caramel though which is a bit of a disapointment. I’ll try adding milk or sweetener to see if that’ll bring out the caramel at all.

I was very disapointed when I missed out on the inital VIT teas so a big thank you to Amy Oh for giving me a sample. The hojicha gave this tea a really interesting baked flavour that was still smooth and almost creamy in nature. It mixed well with the banana flavour which tasted quite genuine, and while the coconut was more of an afterthought it worked well with the whole blend too.

A sample of this tea came with my last Davids Tea order and right now it’s perfect iced tea weather (ie. blazing hot) so I gave it a try. There was only enough for a single cup, so I drank half of it hot and then stuck the rest in the fridge to get cold. I’ll be honest in that I wasn’t expecting too much (fruit teas often taste the same to me), but in the end I was pleasently surprised.

First of all – no hibiscus, yay! The flavour reminds me very closely of a pina colada (minus the rum) with just the right dash of sweetness that I didn’t need to add any agave nectar. I think I prefere it iced to hot but it’s very nice both ways. Next time I’m in Vancouver I’m going to see if I can pick up some more so I can make a jug of this stuff!

This is another high-quality roasted green oolong. This time it’s a sample that RachanaC kindly gave me in a trade awhile back. It’s essentially everything its profile said it was – first lightly roasted, followed by sweet floral notes and an aftertatse that reminds me of both nuts and maybe a bit of honey as well. Maybe not quite as rave-worthy as the Charcoal-roasted An Xi Tie Guan Yin from Life in Teacup, but it manages to be an excellent tea on its own merit.

Steep down! For such a big box there actually wasn’t very many tea bags in it which strikes me as a bit wasteful. I found that upping the steeping time does help strengthen the flavour, but it still remains a rather dull chai compared to others that I’ve tried.