Tea Sipper

Thanks again to Will Work For Tea for the awesome package of tea you sent me to try. ALL of them have been delicious so far. Vanilla teas are my favooorriittee. This one is so silky smooth good! The vanilla flavor is consistent throughout the entire cup. The black tea base isn’t too strong so it really lets the vanilla shine. It’s a pretty tough vanilla: I could hardly taste the black tea at all. And really, it’s all this blend needs: vanilla vanilla vanilla. Unlike a couple other Harney teas I’ve tried lately, this one doesn’t get more astringent as it cools. That vanilla flavor just keeps going. I might have to buy more of this whenever my tea stash decreases a bit. I just noticed my tea this morning was chocolate – it’s fitting the tea I had tonight was vanilla!

The smell of this tea upon opening my sample was chocolatey
scumptiousness! So so good. Fusion has my favorite blends. An amazing
list of ingredients for this one, as usual. Fusion is so inventive! I
think this is my first roasted mate, though I’ve had Fusion’s Pistachio
Lime Mate and it is my FAVORITE (the mix of ingredients is perfect!) I
will definitely be buying some of that at some point. I actually requested
some more samples from Fusion to get an idea of what I should buy along
with that one. (Seriously, go request some samples from Fusion — you won’t
be able to resist!) The flavor of this one reminds me slightly of barbeque
sauce. I have no idea why – don’t be scared, it doesn’t actually taste like
barbeque sauce…just reminded me of it somehow. It tastes like a mild
coffee with a LITTLE bit of a chocolate flavor. Very roasty and earthy.
The temp said 180, so I waited a while for the water to cool, but for my
second steep, I’m going to go full boil to try to get more flavor. The
second steep is much like the first. I just wish there was more flavor, but
it is still very very good. Try Fusion!

Thank you Nicole for sending this along! I want to try any Harney I can! This one is wonderful while it is HOT but I really don’t like the flavor while it cools. It turns very bitter and astringent. But while it’s hot, it’s fine! It has a great silky black tea flavor. And MUCH different from the green darjeeling I had yesterday, which was more like oolong. This was probably my least favorite Harney tea, but I haven’t had many and probably tried the best (Hot Cinnamon Sunset & Paris).

Thank you, TeaEqualsBliss for including this in our trade! This is one of the few green teas I have in my cupboard. I guess I just don’t find them as interesting as other types of teas. But this green tea is GOOD. First of all, I wonder why it is called darjeeling? I thought that was associated with black tea. The flavor of this one is almost like a buttery, nutty oolong. The description calls it simple, but I’d call it complex. Definitely much less simple than a typical green tea! It actually reminds me of my favorite tea that I’ve tried: SpecialTeas Vienna Winter Green. The Vienna blend has a ton of awesome ingredients I thought was enhancing the plain green tea, like roman chamomile and pistachio. BUT it seems like this could be the base for that one. Some of the flavors that I associated with the Vienna ingredients could have just been the green tea by itself! (Meaning the base for the Vienna is much less plainer than I thought.) This is one of the best green teas I’ve tried (though that ain’t many!) Also, I was just looking at some of Shanti’s other teas on Steepster and some of them are interesting… I’m going to have to search for their site right now!

There are a few companies called Tea Licious after a search, but I found the site again: http://www.tealiciousllc.com/

I wanted to make a few more notes since this is the last cup of my sample.

First cup: The black flavor is less strong than I remember it. It could be due to how old the tea is OR because it took me a while to decide what tea I wanted, so the water cooled! The color is a nice amber. The flavor is full but sweet. It’s kind of like an assam. I still couldn’t tell that it’s an oolong, if I didn’t know it already.

Second cup: I poured boiling water and let it steep a while and the second cup is the same as the first. Not much of an oolong flavor! It doesn’t really change flavor with the number of steeps like other oolongs would! It’s still good though.

My oolong flavor rating where one would be a light & floral flavor and five would be the strongest flavor, this one is a five.

I’m just happy to actually remove something from my cupboard for once! :D

thank you for including this one in your sale, iHeartTeas! Now this is one of the few Teavana teas (from the few I’ve tried) that I actually like! The safflower looks pretty in this blend. I didn’t know what some of these chunks in the blend are. I looked at the ingredient list and they are cinnamon pieces. There isn’t too much cinnamon flavor and I probably couldn’t have even guessed there was cinnamon without looking at the ingredients, but I wouldn’t want too much cinnamon flavor to drown out the almond. The almond flavor is definitely present — very yummy. There were some almond slices in my infuser, so that helped! The black tea base is decent. It isn’t too strong, so you can still taste the flavor. This does taste like a cookie! But I think I like Joy’s Teaspoon’s Almond Cookie better. (That one isn’t a black tea but it has a gorgeous pink color and more room for the almonds!)

Thanks for this one TeaEqualsBliss! I like this one. One of my other favorites is Zhena’s Lavender Rooibos, so this one compares. The lavender in the Zhena’s is a lot stronger to me, but this one has other flavors that make it great. I don’t think any of the flavors stand out so any of the others disappear. They seem equally balanced to support each other – the lavender, the rose petals, and the fruits… even the rooibos. This is a delicious blend!

I definitely have to thank Will Work For Tea for sending a sample of this one. I was looking on Mightly Leaf’s site for steeping instructions and I saw the price! Ouch! So THANK YOU for letting me try this tea! Also… no steep instructions. I included ten of the pearls in my infuser. But I knew not to steep for too long or at too hot a temp.

First steep: The steep color is so pale it almost looks like plain water! But the taste is there. The green tea really lets the jasmine shine. The jasmine has that beautiful scent. The taste reminded me of bubble gum a little bit — I guess it has a sweetness to it. Very tasty.

Second steep: I was tasting this and when I looked down I realized I had already finished most of the full mug. The flavor is more full this time, less like that bubblegum flavor, more like a traditional jasmine. Even tastier! I peeked at the pearls and they are slowly unraveling.

Third steep: This one is more vegetal but still good. I’d say the second cup was the best. I definitely got three big mugs of tea out of ten pearls, especially if you time & temp it right! The others I have left will be savored!

Thanks for including this in our swap, TeaEqualsBliss! I had to steep this one a while to get any steep color at all in the tea. The flavor isn’t bad, and obviously cran and cherry would work well together. The cherry seems more like a mild sour cherry. It just seems like many of the Zoomdweebie’s I’ve had have cranberry in them! Also, the black tea flavor barely exists which I guess will showcase the other flavors better.

I made the mistake of not realizing this had actual black tea in the blend instead of just the usual chai spices… because I steeped it late at night. Hopefully I can get some sleep tonight! The black tea isn’t the typical “leaves” which is why I guess it is called indian black tea. It looks like little stones or small chunks rather than leaves. My two ounce bag has mostly black tea — not much spice! But somehow the flavor is spicy. Not too spicy, but pretty good. I actually wonder where all the flavor came from. There is also a nice slight vanilla flavor. The steep color is a gorgeous dark reddish brown.

I only have a few cups of this left and I checked the site and they don’t have it anymore. I really love it. I’m going to up the rating a bit. I wanted a strong black tea today and thought of this one. The flavor is a nice hearty black tea. It’s a triple threat of darjeeling, assam and ceylon. I think the ceylon must give it that stronger flavor while the assam adds a sweetness to it. So good. It’s a flavor that really lingers on the tongue. I received this in a non-Steepster tea box a while ago. I wonder if this is an older tea since no one else has reviewed it and it’s not on the Ridgways site (let’s hope it isn’t as old as Queen Victoria’s time). But it tastes so fresh and delicious, it can’t be that old! I think Queen Victoria would have wrote a nice tasting note on Steepster for this one. I’m going to miss this tea when I’ve finished my last cup!

Fusion gets my vote for having the most inspired and well-thought out blends! I mean, look at that ingredient list! It’s a bunch of the things you would actually find in a carrot cake! I love a nice piece of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I tried to shake up my sample pouch, but I think I got more of the bigger things in my infuser than the actual rooibos. Infused, the color is the most orange I have ever seen a cup of tea! Of course it should be orange! The scent and flavor is JUST like carrot cake! The right amount of spicey and delicious! I think the maple brittle (!) acted as the frosting… because it even seemed like I was getting a frosting flavor there. I think I was even sort of chewing a bit while I was drinking this! Fusion is amazing, as usual!

thank you to Will Work For Tea for sending me an amazing package of tea! I had some of this this morning. This has a delicious aroma! I also love the look of the pink cornflower. It seems like there are a lot of berries here to the ratio of black tea leaves. But I think because it is organic, you really need those extra berries to have any flavor at all. I think the amount of black tea to the berries works well anyway! The black tea showcases the berries and the stevia makes it taste like jam. It’s really difficult to get a good berry flavor, so this is nice!

Thanks Darby for the trade! I like this! I’m not entirely sure it is very raspberry. I didn’t see too much raspberry in the blend. But I like the apples and the cranberries together. The steep color is a rosey pink. The smell is very sweet. The flavor is both sweet and tart. Since the hibiscus here seems to be pretty big (since it is flower petals), you could almost take out the hibiscus before steeping to make it less tart. I wanted a nice apple tea and this one is good. I must keep in mind that Adagio’s apple should be used in blends!

James R sent me some of this with the Harney’s Hot Cinnamon Sunset I bought – thanks! This is interesting! Now, I’m no coffee expert — I drank more coffee when I was four years old (with milk in it). So coffee drinkers would probably scoff at this. But I like it! It’s like a watery coffee that tastes very much like coffee, but with added tea-like things that you wouldn’t find in coffee to make it better… like dates. And I like that it doesn’t have caffiene! This is a nice change from all this tea I’ve been drinking.

How am I the first to review this? I got this as a sample with my order a while back. The unsteeped leaves have a strange but nice scent. It’s hard to describe but it is different than any other tea I’ve tried.

First steep – 4 mins
The steep color is a lighter yellow but sadly the strange scent to the unsteeped leaves isn’t in the cup. The flavor is light and really good. It doesn’t have much of a floral to it. It’s more buttery. There is a slight tangy flavor too (not in a bad way — it makes it interesting), but there is also a sweetness to it to balance it. I recently read that some oolongs have caffiene. Now how am I supposed to know when they do? Sometimes oolong is my go-to late night tea, but now I’m not so sure.

Second cup – 7 minutes
This had more of that floral oolong flavor, but still buttery. On my oolong flavor meter where one is the lightest and most floral and five is strongest and could be confused with a black tea, this is a two! I love that all oolongs are so different. This one is simple yet very interesting!

TeaEqualsBliss sent me some of this — her original blend! (Thank you!) I had an Adagio rooibos before that I didn’t think was anything spectacular before, so I was a bit worried for this one. The other didn’t have much flavor, but THIS one does! VERY good! The flavors work really well together! They blend well so you can’t taste the individual flavors.. these flavors are perfect with a rooibos base. I’ve made a few of Adagio’s custom blends, but don’t quite have the money to purchase them. (I was hoping others would buy them and review them on the site —but I think only one person bought one of them but never reviewed it.) My blends are towards the oldest in my shopping list, if you want to look. Adagio’s custom blends are such an awesome idea and it’s great they actually turn out yummy. Nice blend, Bliss!

The Tea Merchant! You had me at the old timey wax seal on the paper around the tea envelopes! I discovered a couple weeks ago that I love love love creamy earl greys when I thought I wouldn’t like them at all. Now I want to try any and all creme earl grey and I was happy to try some samples from The Tea Merchant. This is GOOD stuff. The french vanilla, bergamot and black tea offers a triple threat of perfection. They work so so well together. The black tea has the perfect amount of flavor to showcase the bergamot and creme. It doesn’t get better than that except for the gorgeousness of the cornflowers. The second cup was just as delicious as the first. The best of the four creme earl greys I’ve had in the last few weeks. (I’m not sure how much alike the creme and the french vanilla are, but this tastes a lot like the Element Creme Earl Grey I have so I’m guessing it is pretty similar.)Creme Earl Grey is my new favorite type of tea and The Tea Merchant is my new favorite tea company! I can not wait to try anything else they make. (I LOVED the Silk Dragon they also sent in my sample package.) I will DEFINITELY be ordering this when I run out of all my creme earl greys!

Thanks Will Work For Tea for the generous package of tea this was included in! I definitely wouldn’t call the steep color of this amber! It is a strong black tea. When I tasted it, I could tell this was a ceylon before I looked at the description here. I’m proud of myself – I just figured out the ceylon flavor a couple weeks ago! haha. To me, the ceylon has a very strong flavor, almost too strong to add any other flavors to. I couldn’t really taste any almond here. There were TWO sips that there was a bit of almond. That’s weird. Even when the tea cooled, I couldn’t taste any other almond. But it works as a black tea anyway!

Thanks to Nicole, I can now try a jasmine oolong! A few months ago I thought a jasmine oolong would be interesting… and this one is! It has a lovely and fragrant jasmine & oolong scent and flavor. And I could taste it even before it was very cooled! Usually, I have to wait a bit to get any good flavor out of a jasmine or oolong tea. Both the jasmine and the oolong have a ton of flavor, so they are both pretty much evenly matched. One doesn’t over-power the other. Delicious! It’s exactly how I imagined a jasmine oolong! On my oolong flavor meter (one is light and floral, five is strongest), this oolong gets a three! It’s floral tasting, but there is something stronger there too.

Thanks, Darby, for trading for some of this! The description says dark chocolate, but my pouch of tea definitely had white chocolate and NO dark chocolate… huh. But there was a big ol cherry in my infuser, so it’s definitely cherry. Sadly, not much of a cherry flavor or a chocolate flavor. (There was oily stuff at the top of my cup though.. I’m guessing the melted chocolate chips.) The black tea flavor is pretty good though, so it’s worth it to drink it just for that. And at LEAST it doesn’t have that terrible fake cherry-cough-syrup flavor!

Thank you Will Work For Tea for sending a ton of this! I sipped some of this last night. I love the unsteeped scent of this! Very spicy! The steeped scent is less appealing… not sure why. A chai hardly ever disappoints me. This one didn’t. However, the coconut there was non-existant. I don’t mind, as sometimes coconut in tea is a bit gross to me. This works as a regular chai for me, anyway. I can never have enough of those!

I was looking for a tin of this tea and James R was selling it as part of his tea sale! thank you! I’m sipping some now and it is even better than I remember it! So sugary and cinnamony! So so good. I can’t even taste the black tea because the other flavors are so strong. I can see orange peels in the teabag but I can’t really taste them. I hope most of the other Harney & Sons teas are this good! I look forward to trying them…

Thanks to Will Work For Tea, I was able to try this heavenly perfect blend! I love the ingredients in this blend. The leaves look great too. I just saw Amy Oh’s review that mentioned it tastes like Strawberry Quik. I forgot about Strawberry Quik! But it does really taste like it! The steep color is a cloudy light green. Cloudy from the matcha. I think this is the first loose leaf matcha I’ve tried. The strawberries are only sweet to me, not sour. The only difference I would make is a stronger vanilla flavor, but that might make the other flavors hidden. I really like this one… realy fresh and delicious. I just wanted to sit here & do nothing but slowly sip this tea for the next three hours!