Novi

This tea loose smelled like overly sweetened pink bubblegum… I think they were going for a honeydew melon, and missed just slightly.

Sadly, the smell was the best thing about this tea. It doesn’t taste like plain tea, but doesn’t necessarily have a flavor, either. It tastes mostly of bitterness and liquid sugar. I had high hopes for this one, but sadly don’t see myself finishing the packet.

This rooibos smelled delicious in leaf form – not medicinal at all, with bright orange notes that seemed very fresh! The look of the loose tea was, as is usual with ESP Emporium teas, disappointing when compared to the picture. There were fewer oranges than pictured, and the ones that were there were 2-3 times the size of the pictured ones… the size makes it difficult to scoop, and unless you break them into smaller bits yourself, its unlikely that you’ll get an orange piece in each cup. Can’t complain about the carrots, though – they were numerous and seemed well dispersed among the bagged leaves.

The taste is okay, for a rooibos. A little overly sweet, even at one Stevia packet per liter, but the floral rooibos flavor is pretty muted. The orange tastes pretty artifical, but its not a deal breaker for me. I’m not sure what the carrots add outside of making the spent tea leaves look like they’ve been sprinkled with cheddar shreds, but they’re certainly not a detriment. This is one of the better rooibos teas I’ve had.

I enjoy this tea hot, usually… Sadly, for me, it doesn’t translate well to iced. Chilling the tea made the hint of cherry almost disappear, and the tea got a little bitter. A shame… The high rating is only for a hot cuppa.

When I first opened the bag and smelled the loose leaf, I was disappointed – that harsh, red cough syrup smell was very strong. It smelled much better when the boiling water hit, with a strong and sweet vanilla.

Sadly, the brewed tea tasted only of cough syrup. I could taste the rose and raspberry, so it was strange. Is all red cough syrup rose raspberry flavored? Oh well. It wasn’t sickening to choke down, and I’ll finish the 50g package, but I hope to remember not to buy again.

In personal news, the garden is coming up beautifully, for what I’ve been able to start up. The daylillies and rosebushes are blooming, the snap peas and chard are green and healthy, and its only a matter of time before I can start up the rest of the plants!

This tea is great, provided that you don’t oversteep…

The dry mix smells of apricots, and it mouth-watering. When brewed, the apricot flavor is pretty subtle… Its mostly like peach flavored… specifically, the dark part in the center of the peach right against the pit. When lightly brewed, the bitterness of the black tea tastes tangy with the peach flavor… Great for iced!

This is one of the best rooibos teas I’ve gotten to try… Usually, rooibos has a strange botanical flavor to it… This tea is no exception, but for once, it actually works! This tea was nice and sweet, a good before bedtime drink. I’d consider buying.

This tea is pretty incredible… First off, it smells amazing! More like dried apricot and dark sugar than plum, but still mouth-wateringly good. Some teas skimp on dried fruit, but I got a piece in every spoonful!

When brewed, this tasted like sugarplum, with the slightest bit of cinnamon… The tea base wasn’t too strong, and went well with the tartness of the plum. A definite re-order!

No notes yet.

Love this tea iced… just sweet enough, but not overpowering, and the black tea base doesn’t overpower the flavors! This is also one of the best smelling loose teas I’ve ever had… The vanilla smells artificial, but the berry is one of the least artificial-smelling artificial blueberries I’ve ever smelled. Love this one.

Had this tea rated at 82, but had to lower it. It just isn’t sweet enough… Drank it iced today, with extra sweetener, but the orange flavor was very faint… the tea completely overpowered it, and made even the slight hint of orange taste burnt and completely unappealing. Finished for the caffeine, but didn’t enjoy a sip.

This tastes better iced than I remember, but it still looks gross – there’s the odd oily layer on top, and the watered-down chocolate milk color of the actual tea. Luckily, tastes way better than it looks, and would make wonerful tea popsicles for summer.

No notes yet.

Still the best iced tea I’ve ever had… only needs a little bit of sweetener to shine. The flavor doesn’t come off as overly artificial, even though it obviously is.

I still wish the loose tea looked more like it does in the picture – the photo is beautiful, and filled with currants, but its almost like soup commercial – they put all of the currants from the whole 4oz bag in the picture to make it look better.

No notes yet.

I made this tea hot, then served it from the fridge… I’m sure that the rating would be a lot lower if hot! The black tea base is strong and a little bitter, and would’ve overpowered the peach flavor without sweetener. However, iced, with about 1 packet of stevia per liter, it tasted great! The peach was obviously artificial, and you can tell that just by smelling the loose leaves… Bad if you’re expecting an authentic, juicy peach experience, but fine for the a tea. The cream flavor is pretty much nonexistent to me, but I didn’t really miss it. Especially at the low price, I’d buy it again for iced.

Posting my first tealog in months, due in part to the heroic efforts of Best Buy to return my laptop to me in working condition! Love those guys.

Anyway, on to the tea! This tea smells divine… The pumpkin is an afterthought to the chocolate, which smells very dark and strong, but also almost cloyingly sweet. The scent actually fills up my whole room better than my scented oil warmer, and it makes me very excited to taste!

The flavoring of this drink is strong, and the black tea base is a bit weak… It gets stronger at the tea cools. The chocolate flavor is pretty strong, and the most strong flavor in the tea. The pumpkin is different than any other pumpkin tea I’ve had… It has more of a roasted pumpkin flavor, when most teas taste of raw squash. I wouldn’t order from Della Terra specifically FOR this tea, but if I were ordering already, I’d pick up some.

I absolutely HATE this tea warm… I think I just don’t like any green tea warm. The high rating is solely for this iced. It tastes sort of like watermelon jolly rancher candies with just a little salt.

No notes yet.

Thanks to the SororiTEA Sisters/Uniq Teas contest for bringing this one to me!

The dry tea is gorgeous in this one… The varieties of tea and the chunky herbal pieces make a beautiful blend! And the tin it came in was very strong and well sealed!

The brewed tea smells really sweet and floral, almost syrupy… I would love to have a fragrance oil like it! The chai spices are there, but somewhat of a background flavor, since there are two other teas blended with it. The chai itself seems heavier in cinnamon/ginger, and I think a bit more cardamom would really tie this blend together, and in the future I may add a pod or two.

Overall, I really like this blend! Its definitely a sipper, and one of the only teas I take a giant sniff of with every sip.

I feel almost wary to rate this tea right now… When I first brewed it, I hated it. There was just some aspect of the taste that didn’t work for me. So I left it sit for a while… Tepid was still not great. The only time I liked this tea was a few hours after being brewed drank alongside a bowl of curried rice noodles. Was it the cold tea? Was it that anything would taste good to cool my mouth down after the curry? I can’t be sure.

This tea is okay… The dry leaf is nice, though the cut-off rosebuds remind me of Morticia Addams cutting off the roses in the Addams Family movie. The taste is another thing. It definitely tastes tropical… More of an upscale tropical-type feeling though, not the normal “tropical punch” flavor. The sweet, red cold medicine flavor of the rooibos comes through, and its fine, but probably not a blend I’d buy again. I’ll save it for when I’m sick and can appreciate it.

This is a beautiful tea. You can’t smell the marshmallow, and at first you barely taste it… The mint is the strong flavor here, a creamy flavor, like the melt-away mint candy. Then, there’s a lovely marshmallow secondary note that is just incredible. I’ll be sad to run out of this tea!

I’m not sure how to feel about this tea… The smell is heavenly, like sweet maple cake. The taste is another story. The black tea is too strong for the delicate flavors, and the sweet flavor isn’t helped at all by the bitter notes. I wanted to love this, and I’m just not sure I can.

This tea is just an issue for me…

First time I had it, this tea was weak… It made me sad, because I wanted to love it, but couldn’t. The second time, I added a bit of extra tea… Was no longer weak, but definitely wasn’t good, either. The tea smells like liquid medicine, but in a bad way (and I usually like that smell). The brew tastes slightly of hibiscus, though there is none.