Tea Sipper

NO tasting notes for this one yet? How is that possible? I decided to try this one before the warmer weather hits, this being called ‘Winter Solstice’. (It’s apparently going to be 70 degrees tomorrow.) The steep was a light pink color. The flavor was different than any other tea I’ve tried, but there are many ingredients here I’ve never had in tea. It’s a bit tangy like a creamsicle flavor. Obviously, creamsicle is not something you’d usually associate with winter, but I guess it’s my best description. It has its own flavor! With herbal teas, I think they need a nice base to really bring out a strong flavor, but this tea couldn’t possibly be more crammed with delicious ingredients. Look at the list! Almonds! Rose petals! Even carrots! There was a WHOLE anise star seed in my steep fercrisakes. Those are bigger than a quarter!

Looking at the website (http://www.fusiontearoom.com/), every single tea there has an AMAZING list of ingredients (and picture!). They definitely get points for being inventive and going further than many other tea companies might go. They put their heart into this tea. This is the first I’ve tried from Fusion. I would love to try them all.

This was my last bag of this one. I really like this, though I don’t usually like peppermint. There is something creamy about it, as it is supposed to be vanilla. And I love anything vanilla. It does taste like a candy cane. This is one of the better Celestial Seasonings that I’ve tried. Nutcracker Suite is my favorite though.

Be warned: This tea does not steep purple. My steep color was more of a olive green (I don’t know how the official picture above is more of a red.) There is a definite blueberry flavor here (which I know is hard to do in most teas unless it’s artificial), though in my steep I didn’t spot a single blueberry. The tea seems dry, if that makes sense, which I attribute more to a white tea. The flavor is a bit bitter, though I don’t think I over steeped it or used water that was too hot. I love the look of the blue cornflowers, though I have no idea how it affects the flavor. I’m not sure if this has caffiene though. Another great tea from Butiki! Seriously, try any of them. Trying so many samples from them, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy any of Butiki’s teas, since they have all been amazing.

Wow, was this one orange. But I don’t see the “sweet” in the name. It was ridiculously tart. I didn’t think it was as bad as other steepsters. I had the urge to add sugar to it. I never add sugar to teas. I eat enough sugar elsewhere anyway. This had a ton of orange flavor, but I’m not sure how artificial it was.

Black teas are my favorite. This one is delicious. A nice smooth, slightly sweet flavor. The leaves are sweet scented too. This decaf will come in handy when I want a great black tea, but not the caffiene! It could also work as a nice base for another tea. But it works great by itself too!

I’ve already reviewed this one, but I was searching for some on the trade thread and Mercuryhime was kind enough to see my post and send me some! Believe me, I really appreciate it, since it is possibly my favorite tea!

The bag says to steep for a minute, but I think a longer time than that brings out the special nutty creamy flavor it has. It’s such a shame that SpecialTeas was bought out by Teavana, as I’ve had a few horrible Teavana teas lately. If Vienna Winter Green is any indication, the tea world had a huge loss.

How sad. This was included free with my Teavana order. And it’s the best of the bunch of six teas. But it still isn’t that great. First of all, the package said to steep the entire one ounce of tea in two cups! That is ridiculous. I filled up my infuser, so it was probably a teaspoon and a half. This is an AMAZING list of ingredients, but there still wasn’t much flavor (but again, I was supposed to use the entire one ounce package.) The color of the tea is a medium pink. The flavor is mostly an orange (probably from the two orange slices) but also a mild fruit punch taste. The flavor was okay, definitely more than the other white tea with fruit, Scarlet Cloud. There was really no white tea leaves at all. The rock sugar made the tea less tart. I appreciate the free sample of this okay tea, but it’s really disappointing when the free tea in an order is the best one.

I have no idea where the “scarlet” in Scarlet Cloud comes from. The color of the tea is a white peach. The raspberries in the tea offer no flavor at all. Neither does the blackberries or peach. It’s very sad to have a tea filled with fruit be so tasteless (I tried getting more of the tea leaves in the infuser, but it was still a ton of fruit.) I think the mint is included only to mask the fact that the only flavor is an odd vegetal taste. Which is fine if that is what you are expecting. Also, I love the “downy” in the description. There was a lot of floaty suspended particles in the water, making it cloudy. Hey, maybe THAT is where the name was thought up! I don’t know why I bought this. It seems like Teavana’s prices are so high to get people to think their teas are good. Then if they have a sale, I think it backfires on Teavana when people who usually aren’t customers buy their teas, that are on sale for a reason (and I think these sale prices should be their not-on-sale prices). The customers might not come back. I think I would much rather save up my money on an indie tea company that has teas that never fail. I’ve learned my lesson! I’ll be doing that in the future.

I love a strong black tea. I don’t drink coffee, so black teas kind of stand in for them. This one is delicious. It has a strong smoky, roasted flavor, but also silky. One sip even tasted slightly perfumey, but in a good way. The best tea I’ve tried of its kind. The color in the cup is a medium brown. If I had the money to spare, I’d probably buy every tea Butiki has! You can not go wrong with Butikiteas.com.

At first I thought a whole raspberry fell into my infuser, but then I realized raspberries weren’t on the ingredients list and that this was a yumberry. Maybe yumberries have way less flavor than raspberries. The color of the steep was a light pink, but maybe just because of the whole yumberry. I love oolong teas and this is a nice floral, yet grassy. If you buy this tea for the list of fruit (kiwi! peach! all those berries!), you will be disappointed. There is barely ANY fruit flavor here, just the flavor of the oolong. The oolong doesn’t have a scent either. And I tried to get more of the oolong in the infuser than the fruits, but it still ended up mostly fruit, yet tasting like mostly oolong. Glad this was on sale, because I wouldn’t have bought it otherwise. I really wanted to like this! If you’re looking for a fantastic oolong, try Butikiteas.com ..you can’t go wrong with them.

I guess when I expect a black tea, I expect a BLACK tea. The flavor is more like a green tea to me. The color in the cup is a medium brown. And the flavor is kind of grassy. I wouldn’t pay full price for this, and I don’t think I would have bought it on sale if I had tried it first. Maybe I just don’t know much about tea.. but I didn’t love this.

I really couldn’t tell this was supposed to have “chocolate” in it. This is like a spicy mild coffee to me. Almost like a chai, but not. As a herbal tea, it doesn’t really have a base. I think it would have been much better with a black tea or something with it. I might try steeping it with some black tea at some point. I haven’t actually seen red peppercorns and green cardamom seeds in a tea before, so that was fun. I like spicy chai, so this wasn’t bad. For a tea with so many ingredients, it does seem like something is missing though.

Raspberries and chocolate is my favorite combination of flavors. As usual, you can’t beat Butiki teas. I don’t know how these teas are so different from any others that I’ve tried. I love the red color of the Kundaly leaves after they’ve been steeped. And the flavor certainly goes well with raspberry and chocolate! The chocolate is silky smooth and the raspberry flavor is sweet. The perfect Valentine’s Day tea! DELICIOUS!

This is good! The main taste and scent here is passionfruit, despite the awesome list of ingredients. A lot of the flavors aren’t very noticeable. But the passionfruit is great. It would make a perfect iced tea.

Butiki’s oolong teas are my favorite! Really, try any of their oolongs. They won’t disappoint. This has a lovely grape scent and flavor paired with the light floral of an oolong. The best kind of oolong, I think. Seriously, in the dead of winter, this tea reminded me of what flowers smell like. When is spring?

I think it’s tough to get a pumpkin tea right, but this one is amazing! The pumpkin scent (which filled the room) and creamy, spicy taste are fantastic! The spices are perfect, and the ceylon base makes it even more perfect. I could wish for a stronger black tea, but it would probably diminish the pumpkin flavor. I mean, there are LITERAL pumpkin flakes in this tea! My favorite part: the steep color is an exact pumpkin orange! I’m stunned at the magical tea powers that Butiki has. They are consistently a perfect mixture of ingredients to make the most delicious teas.

This is JUST the perfect spicy tea I’ve been looking for! While trying to decide which tea to drink this morning, I was looking at the snow falling out the window and decided this one would be appropriate. I steeped this for the perfect amount of heat. The base tea works great with these flavors. I love it because it has cinnamon and cayenne! Yum! The toasty, spicy flavor really stays with you. I haven’t tried a not-delicious tea from Butiki yet – they are PROS.

I’m never tried pistachio ice cream, but I have had delicious pistachio muffins. One of my favorite teas, Special Teas Vienna Winter Green has pistachios, so now I’d like to try any tea with pistachios. This tea is great! The pistachios are scrumptious, and pairs really well with a light green tea base. It has a silky smooth and creamy flavor, too (obviously like ice cream, so the name is accurate!) A perfect pistachio blend – I couldn’t think of a better mix of ingredients. Simple yet sophisticated.

Sadly, this is my last Butiki Teas sample.. and it isn’t disappointing! This oolong is silky smooth and delicious. It has a nice floral flavor with strawberry that isn’t tart or bitter. I’ll be resteeping this one as much as I can! I really love Butiki’s peach oolong better though (it is pretty much perfect), and it is the favorite of the many I’ve tried from Butiki. All of them were stunning teas, so that is saying something. Any tea lover should really try Butiki. They are amazing! Butikiteas.com

I knew nothing about this tea before trying it and I knew there was chamomile and cinnamon here. I looked up the ingredients (for the steepster info) and I was right. This isn’t a bad flavor. For some reason it reminds me of oatmeal cookies without raisins. I don’t usually prefer chamomile, but this tea is great.

This is really good because it is a red tea with “spices” but it isn’t clear which spices. If it were a plain rooibos, I think this one would be too plain. But the addition of the spices is great. They could have added more to my taste!

For having so many ingredients in this tea, there certainly isn’t much flavor. The Republic of Tea is always disappointing to me though. I wouldn’t invest in a tin of 50 teas without trying the flavor first. The black tea isn’t very strong. It seems like the flavors listed would work well together, if I could actually taste them. Too bad.

This was the most flavorful of the four Eastern Shore teas I’ve tried, but that isn’t saying much. I’m surprised this was a black tea, looking at the description here. It certainly didn’t seem like a black tea. There was a spice flavor but it wasn’t too strong.

This was okay. A black tea with a orangey flavor and a hint of cinnamon. I wish the black base had been a bit better though.