Anyanka

I’ve started coldbrewing this sack of hibiscus and drinking it iced with sugar, and I dare say, it’s almost good.

So I’ve discovered I can enjoy this tea two ways:
1. When I have the flu.
2. Cold brewed and sweetened.

Since I get a flu shot, this is kind of a revelation. Now, when I accidentally get some hibiscus masquerading as a consumable drink, I can cold brew it and almost like it.

Tastes like I tossed an old orange rind I found somewhere in a cup of water.

I’m seriously fed up with my Chado order. I’m throwing most of these samples out after one cup. I was so excited when I ordered – I chose many teas I thought I would like. When they came, they were attractively packaged and the samples were all well over an ounce. Now I wonder if the generosity wasn’t to make up for the tea. (Full disclosure, I like the over-cinnamoned christmas tea and the banana tea so far, but by comparison to the rest of my Chado order, not by comparison to the rest of, well, tea.)

This tea is tasteless. So tasteless I actually chewed a few leaves to see if they had any taste. They did, but only barely. Also, it had very little tea aroma dry and no aroma (or flavor) once brewed. I’m guessing it is stale.

I don’t care for being so universally negative, but this tea is just not working out for me.

Yum. This is a nice hearty blend. Not too astringent, no weird flavors, just smooth quality tea. This could become a favorite.

This is growing on me. The more of it I drink, the less overwhelming the smoke. I chose it this evening because I was watching Elementary.

Too sweet for me and tastes of wet cigar and mystery fruit.

Simply awesome.

I had a Chatsford infuser for my teapot and a ForLife infuser for brewing in a mug. The ForLife has been difficult to clean and a little hard to balance in a bigger mug, but nice otherwise. The teapot infuser is much easier to clean but not designed to rest in a mug at all. As the Finum looks a lot like my Chatsford, only mug-friendly, I thought I’d give it a shot.

It is great. Easy to use, easy to rest on the rim of bigger mugs, doesn’t leave behind a lot of flotsam and jetsam, and easy to clean.

100,000/100,000 stars!

This is one of those teas I want all the time. I’m new to greens and this one was a fast favorite. It’s kind of dark and dirty for a green. Bright and fresh smelling, but it tastes like army green looks. Om nom nom.

I bought a big old bag of this one after trying the sample.

I’ve been mad dashing around lately and not brewing any tea. But I do have a cup of something bagged in the morning, lately Yorkshire Tea. This morning, I went back to my old pre-steepster, pre-looseleaf, pre-tea-snobbery tea. PG Tips. And I still like it!

Sometimes this comes off mineral-tasting to me, but today I hit the sweet spot and it was just right. One travel cup, one tea bag, 4 minutes steeping with water just boiled, 2 tsp whatever creamer thing I have, and 1 tsp sugar.

I never drank tea with milk- always plain or with sugar because when I tried it with milk, it was disgusting. (Once as a child I added milk and lemon and that worked out as well as can be expected.) Then I realized I’d been overdoing it. I drink my coffee unsweetened with a lot of cream, and would prepare tea exactly the same way. And overpower the tea and basically make hotwatermilk, never a delicious beverage.

This tea isn’t subtle or nuanced and you probably don’t want to sip it and try to savor its delicate flavors, but it’s nice in the early morning when you’re shaking off the cobwebs.

This is quite nice (if you like cinnamon). I don’t taste all of the things listed in the description, for me it’s mostly orange and cinnamon. Maybe I need to mix up next time.

It smells delicious, dry, steeping, and brewed. I tried it first with no sweetener, and it was good, but a small amount of sugar really brightened it up and brought out the flavors. Even though this is supposed to be a holiday flavor, it doesn’t seem wintery at all, maybe because the green tea is so bright tasting.

Perhaps I only like fresh lychee, in cocktails, because that’s the only way I had it before this tea. And I don’t love this tea.

Very mild scent, relatively mild flavor. It tastes kind of like chapstick. More perfumey than fruity. I don’t like it, but it isn’t gross. Just not my thing.

Edited to add: this improves as it cools.

This tea smells so alcoholic it should have a proof on the bag. Or a warning label.

It tastes like alcohol too, but isn’t bad otherwise. Butterscotch schnapps maybe? It smells good, but potent. Leaves are very dark, clearly soaked in something, and chopped/broken up.

I can’t recommend it. It really tastes like a tea cocktail. I probably could have sold this to my classmates in high school.

(I’m airing out the rest of it in a paper bag in the hopes that the alcohol will dissipate.)

I like this tea. It screams BREAKFAST!

Assams are my favorite, and this is a decent one. It doesn’t knock my socks off, but it is nice. No major flavor notes jump out. It smells good. It gets tart as it cools and didn’t resteep worth a damn. I’ve had equally good ones at a lower price from upton, so I don’t think I’ll reorder (unless it grows on me which happens), but I will enjoy this big purty can of nice dark tea.

I know everyone pretty much loves this tea, but to me, it smells like a very high quality potting soil. I’m having a lot of trouble with the smell. It tastes nice enough, though more earthy than I like.

While I can appreciate that this is a unique and naturally richly flavored tea, it isn’t for me.

This is black tea with banana flavoring and some essentially decorative flower petals.

It is very subtle. The banana flavor is realistic and barely there. I prefer a tea that has too little flavor to one that has too much, so this is ok. I’ve only had it with cream and sugar because I was dreaming of my granny’s banana pudding (banana, nilla wafers, sugar, milk, and no pudding!) when I picked this one out for my evening cup.

I’ll probably try some other banana teas before getting more of this one, but it’s palatable and the price was right and the sample was generous.

This is my first chado tea from a dozen samples. The teas were inexpensive, the samples are generous, and shipping was reasonable and quick.

This tea is supposed to be black tea with honey, caramel, and vanilla. I don’t taste the caramel or the vanilla. It’s heavily scented with what I guess is a very floral honey. I tried to smell one of the chunks to see if it smelled like honey and ended up snorting it up my nose, gagging, then giggling. I’m one of the dumbest people I’ve ever met.

Anyway, the tea is ok, but smelly. It’s better with sweetener than without. I haven’t tried it with milk because it seems like a bad idea and I’m at my bad idea limit for the day. Not destined to be a favorite or a reorder, but drinkable. It doesn’t go bitter if oversteeped. It leaves a lot of powdery sediment in the bottom of the cup.

I’m adding another note for this one and increasing my rating because it was SO SO GOOD this morning.

I steeped it for 5 minutes in my favorite ceramic travel mug, added 1 heaping teaspoon of sugar and two teaspoons of very upscale coffeemate original liquid creamer and headed off on my hour long nightmare commute.

With my tea thus fancily prepared, I took a sip. And it was heavenly. (Heavenly the way Dunkin Donuts coffee is heavenly, but heavenly nonetheless). Thick, malty, and overly sweetened and ‘creamy’, just what I needed to go sit in bumper to bumper traffic and contemplate how much I dislike my job.

This has replaced PGTips for my strong morning cup, it brews up less minerally and I’m quite taken with the beautiful color.

Brewed 2 bags of this at once today thinking it would improve it as the flavor was weak. Instead, it made it twice as bad.

I might be angry at this tea.

Mediocre but unoffensive tea. Annoying to brew because it is dust and resists water. No pervasive flavor, nor delicious aroma. Tastes pleasant cold. Would be a good base for other teas or fruits.

Short sentences today. Finally finished taxes.

Had this again last night and it was way too fakey-fragrant and candyish this time, but was improved tremendously by adding lemon. I won’t reorder this one.

Would you like some hibiscus with that hibiscus or perhaps maybe some hibiscus? If that’s not pleasing, we also have hibiscus! No? Hmm. Did I mention we have hibiscus?!

I love this tea with ridiculous globs of honey when I have a bad cold with a sore throat. When I’m reasonably healthy though, it tastes terribad. I have it at work because I bought a heap of it the last time I was ill. I need to drink it, and it isn’t even getting finished there, where mud would be a reasonable beverage choice.

I like this one, but I’m typically a black tea lover and I think I like this tea because it’s strong and doesn’t taste like anything I’d put into a soup.

This would be a good base for blends, it would stand up against what was added to it nicely and give a noticeable straight tea flavor.

Also this is the first rolled tea I’ve tried and it’s so cute I can’t stand it.

This is a nice blend. It’s full bodied with a whisper of red wine beneath a dark tea flavor. I was nervous because it smelled like salad when dry, but the brewed tea is nothing like the dry smell and the aroma in the cup is fresh and sweet and lemony.

I keep giving bad reviews lately and I’m not sure if it is because my job is utter shite and my home life stinks or if I’m just picking the wrong teas.

I blame the tea this time. I wanted so much to like this one. It’s local, it’s adorably packaged, it’s three of my favorite flavorings all rolled into one. And it doesn’t really taste like any of them. The tea comes in individual foil bags, which keeps it fresh. Tearing one open releases the unmistakable smell of…bazooka joe bubble gum. What.

It brews a weak reddish tea. The bag is tiny so no surprise the tea is weak- it would take a few for a hefty mug. The tea is kind of innocuously artificial tasting. If this tea were a person, it would be someone who tries to please everyone by being sweet and inoffensive and agreeable, but ends up alone and wondering why. Without milk or sugar, it is a weak scented black. With it, it gets better, more desserty and reminiscent of watery hot cocoa, but still nothing like the flavors it purports to have.

I tried this more than once to see if it was my admittedly wretched mood. I wanted to love this tea and love this company and have more bagged options at work. But, no.

Last time I brewed this, I brewed a pot of it, the day after using the pot for peppermint tea. I thought this tea tasted minty, but blamed it on the sullied pot and made a mental note not to brew mint in it again.

Well, I just brewed it in an utterly mint-free infuser and it still has this little undercurrent of menthol that stays on your tongue and tingles your lips. It certainly isn’t bad, but it is unusual- for me at least, I’m an oolong newbie. (And a convert, this is a nice alternative to black or green.)

Is this normal for an oolong, unusual but not unheard of, or is my oolong contaminated?