Can’t go wrong with coconut milk and far too much sugar.
15 Tasting Notes
Got tis from the store, mized with Rooibos Tropica, and it gives a nice, fragrant, floral and fruity cup. The actual black tea counters some of the herbal weirdness I always get from red tea, and the fruit mixes well with the flowers. Lovely.
One of those semi-generic fancy teas you can get if you have access to restaurant food distributers. Strong, black, tends toward bitter if you leave it too long, but that makes it a really good iced tea, and means it holds up to milk and sugar if you drink it hot. Like a lot of these flavored teas, the cherry is more of a scent than a taste, but it’s a really nice scent.
Just enough blueberry to be interesting, but more of a scent than a taste. Still, it’s compelling enough that I keep coming back to it, and I’m growing pretty fond of it.
I generally prefer my apple-spice teas to be more apple and less spice, but if you drink Celestial Seasonings, you should know that they’re super-fond of cinnamon, so it’s not a big surprise that this one is heavy on that particular spice. The apple is more of a scent than a taste, really. But it’s really good mixed with a basic black tea (today I’m using Yorkshire Tea because it’s strong enough to stand up to it), and it’s strong enough to take to milk and sugar well.
This tea is not that good for you since it’s a mix, but it’s also not that bad, and it tastes great! Not too sweet, a little bit of body from the milk (especially if you mix it with less water than it says to, like I do), and a good strong almost-real tea taste— not like the Lipton instant teas that all sort of taste harsh or sour at all.
Brew it really strong, sweeten it when it’s hot, and drink it over ice. Delicious!
Any Lapsang is one of those things you either love or hate. It smells like leather, or a bonfire, or meat— or all of the above— and that’s kind of a turn off for a lot of people, but when you brew it up, it’s no smokier than a Russian Caravan tea most of the time. It’s great for winter. Good with sugar and milk. If you’re eating with it, don’t do anything too delicate— this is a tea for a fried breakfast, not for tea cakes (unless you have one hearty enough to dip without it falling apart; it’s good on a good buttery-sweet sort of cake).
Twinnings has a gentler one to start with. Stash has a bolder one to move on to. The ones direct from China are bolder still, and higher-quality tea makes them more complex.
A little sharp for everyday drinking, but the best thing in the world if you have a bad cold coming on, especially if you add enough honey to soothe a sore throat along the way. I’ve fought off strep throat with this. It’s that good.
The smell of blackberries and the fresh, slightly astringent taste of sage. Tasty, refreshing as an iced tea, and if you don’t sweeten it, it’s really good for when you have canker sores or bad teeth.
At the coffee shop I worked at, we used to call this “Tea of Iniquity”. Because it sounds funny. There are better brown-rice / genmaichas out there, but this is the perfect one for a starter or an entry-level: to get used to the flavor and the idea. And it’s a good fall-back, too, for when you want genmai, but you can’t afford the really expensive stuff from Japan.
Very strong. This is tea for coffee drinkers. But if you like strong teas, this is a good one!
I like that this is an all-purpose tea, but it’s in the British tradition: that means it’s intended to be drunk with milk and sugar, and THAT means that if you aren’t a milk-and-sugar-er, it’s probably going to be too strong and too bitter very quickly. Here’s a solve: brew it over and over again for only a minute or so to drink it straight, and take out the tea bag between brewings. Otherwise, it really is good British-style, and develop a taste for the ol’ milk and sugar. It’s also good as a London Fog— brew it directly into a cup of really hot or even coffee-shop-steamed milk, with some sugar or vanilla syrup to sweeten it just a little.
The most basic green tea at the Asian Market— only a few dollars for a huge box— but decent. Never bitter, blends well with other teas, has a real green-tea taste without being grassy or overly heavy, and lends itself well to being left in the teapot without getting bitter. A good every-day tea, for when you want to drink lots and don’t want to pay lots.
I love all things roses and this is one of my favorites— it tastes the way roses smell, even if you don’t sweeten it (although it also goes well with milk and sugar). The black tea is pretty mellow; even if you let it sit, like I usually do, it never gets too bitter to drink, and when it’s really strong, it’s good iced. I’m almost out of my beloved box; I’ll have to get more!