LiberTEAS

YUM! This is a fruity, sweet, delicious treat!

The pear flavor is pleasant and sweet – and just a hint of sharpness from the sunflower comes through – just enough to cut through some of the sweetness of the pear. Making this sweet, but not too tremendously sweet.

Another tea that I received in the clearance mystery box! I brewed it last night so that I could enjoy it today as iced tea… and it is really nice. Smooth and sweet and citrus-y. Delish!

There is a lot of coconut flake in this blend!

Toasty and delicious! The coconut is sweet and toasty… and the Wen Shan Bao Zhong is smooth, rich and slightly roasted which lends itself very well to the flavor of the coconut. Very pleasant!

A nice mouthfeel – not as heavy as an Ali Shan, but very silky. The coconut and Wen Shan seem to be made for each other!

For those of you who are considering purchasing this particular tea, I would recommend purchasing more than just an ounce – which is what I purchased! The steeping parameters call for 3 tsp per cup, and you really need it because there is a LOT of coconut flake in the blend, and I believe that you’ll be sacrificing flavor if you use less leaf. I used about 1/2 of the ounce for this infusion in my smart brewing device! Fortunately, however, it IS an Oolong and will be subjected to many infusions!

This must be a new tea from Indonique, because I can’t even find it on the website.

It is one that I will be trying again before I include a numeric rating, because I want to play around with the steeping parameters of this tea. The cut is quite fine on the Assam leaves so a teaspoon of the leaves is probably equal to two or more teaspoons of another tea leaf… and because the cut is so fine there is more surface area exposed, and therefore it brews faster than a typical Assam would.

That is not to say that my current cuppa tastes off, because it is actually quite good. The flavor is rich and sweet … very honey-like! But, with my Assam I do like a little deeper flavor and I feel like I used too little leaf this time for fear of overdoing it. This tea is reminding me more of an outstanding Ceylon rather than an Assam. I am getting a little bit of a malty note, but, not as much as I’d expect from Assam.

So, as I say, I shall play with this one a bit before I rate it. It is good, but I think it could be even better.

This is yummy!

The vanilla is enhanced with licorice, ginger, cinnamon and cloves, making what I thought would be an ordinary vanilla rooibos blend something quite extraordinary. I am really enjoying it. The flavors are seamless. YUM!

This is one of the most unusual tasting chai teas that I’ve ever encountered… unusual but very tasty!

Before reading anything about it, I tasted it, and noticed a chocolate-y note, and something else… but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It tasted a bit like… cherry! But I thought that my taste buds must be off or something, because, I’ve never come across a cherry flavored chai before.

Then I went to the website and saw that this is … in fact, a chocolate cherry flavored chai. Weird! But GOOD!

The cherry is not an IN YOUR FACE kind of cherry flavor – it’s subtle and tastes a bit like a cross between a candied cherry and a bing cherry. The chocolate is smooth and rich tasting. And the chai is not a spicy chai – there aren’t any real strong ginger notes or spicy hot cinnamon… it’s a smoother, sweeter kind of chai, with notes of warmth to accent the mocha like flavors.

I like it!

The aroma is quite like chestnuts – nutty and sweet, with just a hint of vegetation.

Smooth and light, fresh with notes of vegetables, nuts and butter. YUM!

OK… I am totally LOVING this tea.

The black tea, the mate, the masala spice, and the pineapple are all in fantastic harmony with one another, and the vanilla offers a smooth presence but not an overwhelming presence of flavor.

Yum… Yum… YUM!!!

Waking up to a cup of Earl Grey this morning. It’s been at least a couple of weeks since I’ve had A&D’s Earl Grey, and I could hear it calling out to me this morning. (Yes, it’s still morning – only officially 9 minutes left to the morning)

Lovely – I like the bergamot in this blend. Pleasantly citrus-y, only hints of floral. Smooth. Rich. Delicious.

Thank you to Rachel for sending me a sampling of this one. This is one that I’m sad to see has been discontinued… I like it. The almond flavor is a little “fake” – but it’s not really a bad fake – I guess the best way I can describe it is that it reminds me a bit of almond extract rather than actual almonds. But… I like almond extract, so I’m liking this.

I taste the “toasted” the “almonds” and the “creme” in this blend, and what I think I might like best about it is that I can’t really taste the funky black tea base. I can taste black tea, but not the Adagio black tea which tastes really off to me.

This is really quite yummy!

With my lunch I decided to enjoy a glass of what I brewed last night for iced tea.

Nice, sweet, and refreshing.

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss, my SororiTEA Sister, for sending me this sampling.

The liquor is very fragrant – and smells delightful.

The taste: toasty and with spicy notes. I am getting the hints of vanilla that the description suggests right at the beginning of the sip, in the middle I get a toasty malty taste, and the tea finishes sweet. Nice and complex. Beautiful!

Having also tasted the apple pie a la mode from 52Teas, I can state that the 52Teas IS better… but this one is not bad. I can taste the apple and cinnamon, and the black tea base gives it a bit of a baked flavor, lending itself to the apple pie concept well. I do miss the crust though, but, I’m thinking I can remedy that myself with a couple of shortbread cookies.

Ahh… pecan shortbread cookies from McTavish (a local company that makes to-die-for cookies!) to the rescue.

Yep. That did the trick. Now, I’ve got my crust and my apple pie in a teacup. Yeah, I like this.

Drinking the last that I have of this tea… it’s a decent Earl Grey. I found that by brewing it less time, the flavor is a bit smoother, it’s less astringent, and there is an interesting citrusy tart note in the finish that I don’t remember previously.

The dry leaf has a strong vegetative scent with a subtle hint of flower. The brewed liquor is much softer.

Very light in flavor – fruit-like, sweet, and very yummy. Even though it smells strongly of vegetable, there is very little suggestion of it in the flavor… it’s there… but it hits just at the start of the sip and is quickly washed away by the sweet fruity notes. Astringency is faint but the palate feels very fresh and clean in the finish.

I like this one a lot.

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me an envelope of this tea.

This is a very interesting spice blend – The chili offers some spice but the chocolate and anise counteract it just enough to make it not spicy – it is actually SWEET. A nice, licorice-y flavor to it, but I think that the licorice flavor sort of overwhelms the cup just a little bit, making this a licorice tasting tea, not a chocolate-y spice flavored tea that I anticipated it to be… not that it’s bad, just not quite what I expected it to be, and I am a little disappointed there.

But I am really glad I got to try it.

I used the last that I had of this to make iced tea last night, and it is so refreshing! Light and bright in flavor.

YUM! Just right to enjoy with supper.

This is one that I’ve really looked forward to trying since I got my box from Zoomdweebies… and I couldn’t stand it any longer – I just had to try it (even though it is a little late for me to be drinking black teas, I usually stop by around 5 pm and start drinking green, whites and Oolongs instead).

The smell is YUM. It reminds me a bit of the watermelon bubble gum I used to buy when I was young for the sole purpose of annoying my step-mom (who hated the smell of it) – well, it was ALMOST the only reason I would buy it… I also quite enjoyed the gum. :)

The flavor is surprisingly good – I say surprisingly (although I shouldn’t be surprised as Frank knows his stuff) because I just don’t picture watermelon and black tea working well together … I’d have imagined watermelon to be a bit on the delicate side and would be overwhelmed by the strength of the black tea base. But it didn’t happen here.

I can taste the watermelon! I can taste the black tea. I guess my only complaint would be that the watermelon tastes a bit more like watermelon candy (or gum) than it does the watermelon fruit – it is sweet – candy-ish rather than sweet – fruity-ish. But, that’s not really a valid complaint because I love watermelon candy/gum.

Yummy. I think I will use what I have left of this and make iced tea for tomorrow!

The subsequent infusions are just as lovely as the first, if not even more so – I am finding the flavor smoother and possibly even more refreshingly delicious. I am getting a little more of the fruity notes coming through with the second infusion. I will be brewing these leaves again (and probably again!)

I purchased this tea some time ago, but, as I’ve often said – I have so many teas in my possession that I haven’t yet tried! No time like the present to give this one a try.

The leaves are beautifully golden… and they brew a deep gold/brown liquor that is absolutely delightful to the tongue. Everything I love about a Yunnan is in this tea – Sweet with a hint of peppery spice, smooth… and absolutely delicious.

Oh so pleasant.

This Matcha is a bit sweeter than the Izu Matcha I tasted a couple of days ago. This one has a nice amount of froth, but not quite as frothy as the Izu.

Sweet, vegetative with a nice, full flavor. It coats the palate deliciously.

It also disappears from the chawan rather quickly.

Since my last cuppa was a darjeeling, I decided that I needed some GUSTO – and this tea definitely is full of IT (err… a GUSTO, I mean, of course).

Seriously, though, this is one very good Assam blend. It has everything that I look for in an Assam – it has a baked, malty, flavorful quality. Chewiness. Lots of depth. Very nice.

I am enjoying mine with a drop of milk – because it goes so well with the chewy – baked qualities… mmmmmm….

The bergamot is strong, but, I can also taste the Darjeeling tea here. I have usually always liked the Darjeeling Earl Grey teas, if for no other reason than they are a bit different from the usual blends… so I am also quite fond of this one.

The Darjeeling seems to glisten on the tongue – I can taste hints of muscatel as they mingle with the bergamot. A very pleasant blend.

I’m not sure why I reached for this tonight, but, I’m glad I did, because it’s so good. Even better than I’m remembering from the last time I had it. I guess if I were to change anything about it, I’d want more chocolate… perhaps? But then, I always want more chocolate. haha!

The cheesecake flavor offers a nice smoothness to the spice. Very high on the YUM factor tonight! I think I might even give it a couple more points on the rating!