Nik

This is another “Oh noes, I haz eated mah tea!” Della Terra Teas blend, by which I mean that you open the packet and you want to eat the tea. It smells like lemon cookies, maybe even lemon sandwich cookies, with the vanilla notes ‘n’ all. I don’t even know how I didn’t eat this one. Cookie Monster’s sitting in a corner, sulking.

[Edit] I forgot to mention that this tea is really pretty! I didn’t remember the photo, which showcases its beauty quite well, so I was surprised when I opened the packet and got a good look. Black tea with these blue highlights and flecks of gold. I rarely notice how a tea looks, so it basically has to bat its eyelashes at me and be all, hey, look at me, I’m pretty! Such a little tart, this one.

I wasn’t able to coax the flavour I wanted out of the blend, sadly. It was so frustrating, like dropping your keys in the car, between the center console and the bucket seat, and then being able to almost-but-not-quite reach them. The flavour I got out was that of a nice black tea, good but not great. The bergamot was present but really not bold enough, especially given the heady fragrance. I steeped three minutes because I recently got schooled on the dangers of over-steeping black tea, but I think maybe the DT black tea base is more forgiving than the 52T one…? Next time, I’m going to try my usual five minutes for this one and see how it works out, because I really, I really want to taste the taste that the fragrance promises.

[Edit again] Sorry, I also forgot to mention that, like 52t’s Gingerbread Chai (which I also had today), the aftertaste is perfect. Perfect lemon cookie! I would love to get the formula right for getting the taste to be just as perfect. I mean, who wants to sit there, aggressively exhaling, just to get the perfect aftertaste, ya? Even living alone I feel silly doing it.

Tea amount: 1 level tsp/~4.75g
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: About ¾ tsp Demerara sugar

This is my first 52Teas blend! Thumper taught me not to say anything if I can’t say anything nice, so I’m having a bit of a tough time getting the words to flow, here. It’s especially tough given how beloved 52T are to the Steepster family. I’m going to go ahead and leave off the rating, for now, and take the blame for this poor first impression.

My little sample bag says to steep in boiling water for 3-5 minutes. 3-5 or 2-5, I forget which. But I always pick the longest steep time, because I always want the strongest, most robust flavour possible. This time, doing so resulted in an undrinkable brew.

The dry leaf’s fragrance is sweet in kind of a generic way. If you’d blindfolded me and waved the bag under my nose, I would’ve said “sweet,” and I probably would’ve said “black tea.” I wouldn’t have said “gingerbread” or “chai.” The brew smelled more like I expected: now I could definitely smell chai, and as the tea cooled I could smell gingerbread more and more.

My first sip of unsweetened tea caught me a little off-guard. It tasted like black tea with cardamom. Not chai, and not gingerbread. It was a little bitter, too. So I added honey, and that made it palatable, but it still tasted like black tea with cardamom. I’m sad to say that now that the tea’s cooled a bit, it’s become unbearably bitter, and I’m going to have to pour it down the drain. Really sad. (On the other hand, the Universe is probably doing me a favour: I’ve already drunk some black tea today and shouldn’t be having any more.)

I shan’t rate this until I’ve tried the stovetop method. Crossing my fingers that I can get the same great taste out of this as most of the others who’ve reviewed it!

No rating for this yet, because this isn’t an “out of the box” tasting note. My father, who’s visiting from Florida and underestimated how cold it’d be here and is now miserable, wanted something hot to drink. I wanted to limit his caffeine intake, but I’m reluctant to give him something I haven’t tried yet myself, so it was with a bit of trepidation that I made this tea. Meh, I thought, how bad can it be, right?

So here’s what I did: brought the tea, some sugar, and some water to a boil, then added some vanilla soy milk and grated some fresh ginger into the mix. Kept that going for “a while,” basically until I thought the colour looked good. Poured the whole thing through a strainer (which I didn’t used to own, by the way—thank you, Steepster Select! (RIP)) and divvied it up for us.

If I were to rate this concoction, I’d probably rate it somewhere in the 90s. Maybe even that elusive 100. I couldn’t taste any coconut, but the vanilla soy milk and the ginger+chili and orange and the cinnamon (and I don’t even like cinnamon)…[incoherent babbling]

Sorry, I’m back now. What I was trying to say was that the orange hit my tastebuds and made my mouth happy; the cinnamon hit my nose and gave it a pleasant little tickle and a lovely fragrance; and the ginger+chili hit the back of my throat and made me feel warm all over. So, so, so good.

Next time, I suppose I’ll try the blend on its own to see what it’s like.

G’morning! My blind tea grab today got me this sample, courtesy of The LiberTEAS Sample Box that I purchased a little while ago.

The dry leaf’s aroma is sort of a generic “sweet,” maybe a hint of caramel. I didn’t get any nuttiness or chocolate. Brewed, the chocolate made its appearance in the fragrance, but I still didn’t really get any nuttiness.

Chocolate is the strongest flavour I got from my unsweetened cup, followed by a bit of caramel complaining about how I couldn’t expect it to play its role well if I wouldn’t give it any sugar (it had a point). The nuts apparently called in sick, or quit or something. After sweetening my tea, I finally got the caramel I really wanted, but honestly, I think that’s more because I used dulce de leche as my sweetener than that the tea did its job.

In the end, I just had to work too hard for this, and even then it was only mediocre. After being blown away recently by some Della Terra Teas blends, I’m just not willing to put in so much effort to get a cup with lackluster flavour.

Tea amount: 1 level tsp/~4.75g
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: 1 tsp dulce de leche (http://amzn.com/B000WMPGDW) (a lot cheaper in my supermarket than on Amazon)

I closed my eyes and pointed and ended up with another Della Terra Teas blend. I gotta say, I’m getting really spoiled here. I also kind of feel like I’m starting to sound like a broken record with my unbridled glee. Every time I feel like a blend couldn’t be better, couldn’t be more accurate, I get one that is. This is such a blend.

For the third time in two days, I wanted to eat the tea. It just smells so much like those chocolate oranges that it’s hard to resist the temptation. I haven’t had one of those chocolate oranges in years, either, which makes it even harder! But I resisted and patiently brewed my tea. The balance was way off in the blend’s fragrance, and this worried me: where the dry tea smelled just like a chocolate orange, the brew smelled mostly (maybe entirely, now that I think about it) like chocolate. I was worried that the orange would be absent from the flavour, as well.

My experience is that DT blends don’t re-steep well. At least, the past two black tea blends that I’ve tried to steep for a second time (Oatmeal Raisin Cookie¹ and Dubbele Chocolade²) were both really weak, even after steeping for 10 minutes. My experience is also that the recommended 3-minute steep time really doesn’t pack the flavourful punch I expect. Therefore, I’ve decided to steep just once for about 5 minutes and call it a day.

The chocolate-orange balance was restored in the flavour (and actually appeared in the brew’s fragrance, too, after it’d cooled a bit). It’s quite good unsweetened (my sweet tooth prevents me from thinking any tea can be “amazing” unsweetened, but this is really pretty good), but it’s delicious after being sweetened a bit. I’m going to be thinking about it until tomorrow, when I can next have more caffeinated tea.

Tea amount: 1 level tsp/~4.75g
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: ¾ tsp demerara sugar

¹ http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/137359

² http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/137472

This tea’s name always gets “Creole Lady Marmalaaaaaaaaaaade ♬” stuck in my head. I’m not a connoisseur of chocolate teas. I think I may have had one, once, but I’m not sure. It’s possible that drinking a few other chocolate blends will ground me, but for now I’m blown away, flying high on cocoa clouds. Like yesterday with the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie¹ blend, I again almost ate this tea. Dear, dear Della Terra, if you keep on like this, I assure you, some such accident will occur at some point. =)

Dubbele Chocolade smells so, so, so good. You know how no one laughs quite like babies? If someone doesn’t understand what I mean by “squee,” just go look at a baby laugh. They all squee. There is so much joy to express that they simply can’t contain it in their little bodies. They laugh like they will burst at the seams if they don’t. Joy is to baby as chocolate is to Dubbele Chocolade: it’s like the packet will start dancing in your hands if you don’t open it and let the chocolate out.

Here’s a surprise: I sipped my tea, unsweetened, and it was…good! (The good wasn’t the surprise, the good unsweetened was the surprise.) Not good enough for me to finish it that way, but hey, ♬ it’s my teeeeacup and I’ll brew how I waaant to… ♬ I added some sugar and sipped again, and again it was good. In a pinch, I could drink this as-is, which wins it some major points (and earns it a slightly higher rating than Oatmeal Raisin Cookie). But since I didn’t have to, I didn’t…

It’s that time of year again, when the seasonal stuff appears in supermarkets that the mean people don’t let me have year-round. One such thing is Silk’s line of specialty soy milk. Since my tea was still “just” good and not zomg-amazing, I added some mint chocolate soy milk. I really had no idea what sort of concoction would result from this experiment. I’m happy to report that it was incredible. So incredible, in fact, that I’d drunk half the cup before I sat down to write this, so now I have to turn around and go right back to try for a second steep. Thank you, Della Terra Teas! Dubbele Chocolade joins Oatmeal Raisin Cookie as a citizen of my Happy Place.

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll try a cup plain or with just sugar at some point. But right now, I am having waaaay too much fun experimenting in my beverage lab. I still have a few finishing touches to put on it, but soon I’ll be able to take some photos and share my pride ‘n’ joy with you all. =)

Tea amount: 1 level tsp/~4.75g
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: A splash of mint chocolate soy milk and ½ tsp demerara sugar

¹ http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/137359

So, now I know what it’s like to just sort of dissolve into a big puddle of yum. My people, if you like-a the oatmeal raisin cookie, and if you like-a the tea, and if you like-a the yum, you will lub this blend.

The fun began as soon as I opened the packet. I would’ve been able to identify this tea blindfolded. It pretty much screamed, COOOOOOKIEEEEE, causing me to immediately morph into my natural Cookie Monster state. I almost upended the packet right into my mouth, but then remembered that it was tea, and that it probably wouldn’t be as good an idea as Cookie Monster was thinking. There was absolutely no mistaking the oatmeal raisin cookieness in the aroma. Steeped, the tea smelled equally good, only very slightly muted since, well, I no longer had my nose stuck right in the packet.

Sip, sip… [frown] sip, sip… [frown some more] I don’t even know why I bothered trying this unsweetened, except that it’s my habit to at least take a sip or two before I mess with it. But I mean, c’mon, cookie. So I added some milk and sweetener, and it was much better. Cookie Monster smiled. Liquid coooookieeeee! It smells better than it tastes. Not that it tastes bad, it’s just really hard, I think, to capture the in-your-faceness of the fragrance in the flavour. Maybe if I’d steeped longer? I dunno, I’ll try that next time. For now I’d say, “excellent, with some room for improvement.” I award this blend citizenship of my Happy Place.

[Edit] NOMNOMNOMNOM

Tea amount: 1 level tsp
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: A splash of vanilla soy milk and about ½ tsp cane syrup. Cane syrup is new to me. I saw it in the supermarket the other day and thought it would be interesting to try. The jar says it’s great for baking and on pancakes and waffles, so I figured oatmeal raisin cookie tea would be perfect for it. That was a good call. =)

Second steep. Longer steep time, plus milk and agave. Verdict?

Aroma: The steeped tea has a much fuller, mellower fragrance with the addition of (vanilla soy) milk. It’s still mostly pumpkin pie spice, but now I think I might be able to guess that it’s supposed to be pumpkin pie, if I didn’t already know.

Flavour: Milk + sweetener definitely made a huge difference for me. The improvements in the fragrance translated to the flavour, as well: the end result was a much creamier concoction. Surprising to me was the fact that agave somehow worked much better than sugar. I added it on a whim because the box of agave straw things was getting in my way and I wanted to (start to) finish them.

Aftertaste: Out of nowhere, coconut. There’s no coconut anywhere. I don’t have coconut milk, there’s no coconut in the tea, but there you have it. Coconut. So weird! Good weird, but weird.

It’s a pretty weak second steep, so I’m glad I took the time to play around with it. Now that I know milk and sweetener improve the blend, I’ll give it a proper go with fresh leaves next time. In the meantime, I’m increasing the rating a bit to account for the improvements I was able to discover during this experiment.

Tea amount: 1 level tsp
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: 2 agave straw thingies and some vanilla soy milk
Dry mouth factor: 0/10 (because milk)

Maple and rooibos are two of my favourite flavours, so I expected this blend to transport me immediately to my happy place. My first impression, unfortunately, is that something is a little off in both its fragrance and flavour.

Upon opening the little ziplock baggie, I detected something vaguely medicinal photobombing the maple. The brew also had the same smell. I’m now sitting here with a cold, empty teacup, sniffing madly and trying to figure out what’s bugging me. My current theory is that maple is sweet and rooibos has its own sweetness, and possibly the two sweets aren’t meshing together very well for me. I really thought this was the perfect blend, but my nose and tastebuds are telling me I might be wrong.

The flavour is more harmonious than the fragrance, but still not quite amazing. Next time, I want to try sweetening my cup with a bit of maple syrup.

Tea amount: 1 level tsp
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: None at first, then about ¾ tsp demerara sugar.
Dry mouth factor: 1/10

In the aftermath of tropical cyclone Sandy (no problems here, thank you for all your kind thoughts and prayers), what could be more comforting than Grandma’s pumpkin pie? Okay so my grandmother never made pumpkin pie, but it sure sounds good. =)

The little pumpkin candies in this tea are very cute. I was tempted to try one, but then I forgot about it. It smells very, very autumnal, a combination of all the warmth and spices that generally go into pumpkin pie and other seasonal desserts. I didn’t get a pumpkin feel from it, but to be honest, I’d have to open a can of pumpkin pie filling and stick my nose in it to remember the fragrance. The brew is a little lighter in colour than I anticipated for a black tea, but it does kind of look like liquified pumpkin pie.

I’m torn on the taste (and therefore the rating). This is a really nice pumpkin pie spice tea. A pumpkin pie tea, not so much. It’s warm and yummy and comforting and smells really great, but I’m still not getting any pumpkin from it. Next time, I think I’m going to try sweetening it with just a touch of condensed milk.

Tea amount: 1 level tsp
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: None at first, then about ½ tsp demerara sugar.
Dry mouth factor: 2/10 (really low for a black tea, in my experience—awesome)

This is the sample I chose for virtual teasting #2¹. My experience with sTEAp Shoppe thus far has been that the blends are not flavourful enough for me, and I have to work to discern the flavours that are supposed to be present. Thus, I thought that choosing naturally strong flavours like lemon and ginger would work better for me. It turns out, I was half right.

This blend’s fragrance is very lemony. I could not really detect any ginger. To be fair, I didn’t smell the entire sample packet, just the bit that I spooned into my infuser. I have to remember not to smell the tea at the beginning of the steep: there’s the lemon scent, but there’s also something else, something a bit acrid. At the end of the steep, this unpleasantness was gone, and the tea smelled like hot lemonade.

I found the taste true to the fragrance: a perfectly balanced lemon herbal blend. Except it’s supposed to be a ginger blend, and I couldn’t taste any ginger at all. No bite, no mild burn at the back of my throat, no tickle in my nose, nothing. My relatively low rating is purely because I didn’t feel that the flavour was true to the tea’s name. If its name were something like “Lemon Fresh,” my rating would’ve been somewhere in the mid- to high 70s.

Tea amount: 1 slightly-above-level tsp
Water amount: 6ish oz
Additives: None, at first, then about ½ tsp demerara sugar. The sugar really went well with the lemon, making the tea taste like candy. Yummy.

¹ http://steepster.com/discuss/3620-new-virtual-tea-tastings-free-number-2

It was suggested that I might be able to pull more flavour out of this blend with a second steep, so I figured I’d give it a try. (Giving it a try on the same day was a terrible idea, when the first steep’s caffeine nearly did me in, but that’s a different story.)

Aroma: Much like the first steep, there’s a nice caramel fragrance, but I’m still not getting any chocolate at all.

Visuals: In spite of the longer steep, the tea was lighter in colour than after the first steep. Although this makes sense, it still worried me a bit: how could I get more flavour out of what appeared to be a weaker tea?

Taste: I needn’t have worried. The tea tasted much like the first steep, but yes, the caramel was very slightly more prominent. I then added some milk and honey, and quickly decided that it’s my preferred preparation. The milk made the tea creamier and brought it closer to justifying its name, and the honey brought forth the caramel like a blue shirt can deepen the blue of its wearer’s eyes. Still no chocolate, though.

Because I found a preparation method that lets me enjoy this tea without working for it, I have raised its rating a bit. Because I had to work this hard to find a preparation method that works for me, I lowered the rating a bit (but it’s still higher than it was before). =) Since I still have the rest of the sample, I’m thinking I might try this cold at some point and see how I like that.

Tea amount: 1 level tsp
Water amount: 5ish oz
Additives: A dash of vanilla soy milk and a smidgen (⅓ tsp, maybe) of orange blossom honey

Thank you, steapshoppe for this sample, and for including me in your virtual taste testing (teasting)¹. I really love participating in these events and hope that I get the opportunity to do so again in the future.

These dry leaves have a really nice aroma. I didn’t really get “chocolate” from them, but the milk and the caramel were definitely there. The wet leaves didn’t retain the layered, complex fragrance, however; I’m afraid I didn’t really smell much of anything at all, except for kind of a wet mulchyness.

I have a lot of respect for sTEAp Shoppe. They are really strict about the ingredients they use and flavour their teas naturally. Sadly, I think that this approach, while most admirable, doesn’t work well for those of us who like our teas really bold and flavourful. I mostly tasted black tea in this blend, and had to work really hard to get the caramel notes from it. Don’t get me wrong, they are there, they’re just not in your face, like I like my flavoured teas. There was a bit of astringency at the end of the sip, a very slight bitterness hitting the back of my throat, and a bit of sediment in my teacup. I added some sugar, thinking that would pull the caramel flavour out more easily, but it actually made things worse in that regard (a new experience for me). It did, however, eliminate the slight bitterness I tasted, which was nice.

[Edit] Azzrian said in the virtual teasting thread that she finds that the caramel notes come out more in the aftertaste, and I’m finding this to be true as well. It’s really interesting: while drinking my little cup of tea, I tasted mostly black tea, but after having finished it it (and it’s now several minutes later), I’m still getting a bit of the caramel taste, even more so than the black tea. I actually really like this aspect and am raising my rating a little bit in appreciation.

Because of the tea’s caffeine content, I only had a little bit, so I still have some of the sample left. This means I get to play with it for another small cup or so. I love being able to try different things to see if I can improve the experience for myself, and I look forward to giving this another shot (on another day, as I’m already buzzed and any more caffeine will make me ill).

Tea amount: 1 level tsp
Water amount: 5-6oz
Additives: None for a few sips, and then about ½ tsp demerara sugar
Dry mouth factor: 7/10

¹ http://steepster.com/discuss/3620-new-virtual-tea-tastings-free-number-2

By the gods, I love this stuff¹. Yesterday, I had to collect Mum from JFK at around 7:30 in the morning. That’s around the time I usually go to sleep, so I ended up staying up the night before, afraid I’d sleep through. So there I am, 4:30 in the morning, slightly bleary-eyed and more than slightly frazzled, packing a bottle of water and a fuzzy throw for Mum. All that remained was the tea.

Once upon a time, I had only one loose tea—Ocean of Wisdom—and that’s the tea I would’ve made and taken with me. Now I have so many loose teas to consider, so many yummy (and untried) options, and the very thought of having to guess (at that hour) what Mum might like and what I should try was doing my head in, so I ended up selecting the same one: Ocean of Wisdom. It’s just so good. And the fragrance is just so heavenly.

This note, though, is about the second infusion I prepared when I got home. I have to admit that I rarely bother with second steeps, never mind multiple ones. I’d be a horrible oolong taster, given that many times, the best flavour of an oolong emerges in the third steep (and beyond). That said, I gave the second steep a try because this tea can get really expensive, compared to the others in my cupboard: my 4.4oz packet was USD$19, and Samovar recommend using 2-3 tbsp per 16oz/473mL. That’s only about 8 servings! Since it’s rooibos (and therefore naturally caffeine-free) and my favourite blend, I could go through that in a couple of days. Eep! So I was thinking I’d try and stretch it out a bit by steeping again or using less tea next time.

Anyway. The interesting thing about this is that the second steep is a completely different tea. Gone was the warm, sweet, woodsy rooibos flavour I love, and I couldn’t detect most of the other ingredients, either. Really, it just tasted like cloves and ginger. And it was awesome. It was this potent, spicy brew that felt so great hitting my throat, which is a bit vexed with me for taking it to the petri dish we call an airport. I was really surprised by the level of gingery spice, a level that I hope for in my ginger tea blends but rarely get. (To be clear, it’s surprising because the first steep isn’t at all piquant.) The second steep is also slightly astringent, but only on occasion, not throughout the cup.

From now on, this will be a two-steep tea for me.

Tea amount: 2.5 tbsp
Water amount: 16oz/~475mL
Additives: 2 tsp demerara sugar
Dry mouth factor: 4/10 (second steep only, first steep is 1/10)

¹ http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/57991

It’s a bagged tea and I love it. There, I said it. =)

I also have to say that the dry leaves don’t have the most pleasant fragrance. I don’t know what it is, maybe a bit chemical in nature(?), but it’s pretty off-putting. Thankfully, the brew itself has the most lovely, warm, woodsy fragrance I associate with rooibos (I don’t really know the difference between honeybush and rooibos; I’ll have to look it up at some point). Reading Steepster reviews, it seems like that’s a fragrance people either love or hate, and I love it.

The brew is so good. It’s a totally unassuming, straight-up, woodsy tea. It’s honeybush, like it says on the packet. It’s exactly the kind of “comfort food” cuppa I needed on this lovely autumn day. There’s nothing complex or fancy about it, but it’s an accessible bagged tea that doesn’t disappoint, which is no small feat now that I’m used to loose tea blends.

Tea amount: 1 bag
Water amount: 8oz/~237mL
Additives: 1 rounded tsp Demerara sugar
Dry mouth factor: 0/10

There’s a thread floating around the discussion forums here about how many cups of tea people drink in a day¹. It surprises me to read that some folks get through 10+ glorious cups a day, when I drink maybe 1-2. I have this travel mug² that I use all the time. It keeps my tea hot for several hours, drinkably warm for over 12. I happily sip away throughout the day, but since I’m not in a rush to finish it before it goes cold, I don’t go through it very quickly. Well, my mug’s in the sink and I wanted tea now, so I used a regular teacup. Okay, so now I get it! By the time the steep timer rang, the tea was cool enough to sip. By the time I got to the couch from the kitchen, it was half gone. By the time I sat down and got comfortable, it was all gone. I had to get right up again to make another cup! I’d be hopping up and down like a jack-in-the-box if I had to keep this up all day, and get nothing else done. I’d better get that mug washed. =)

Oh, by the way, in case you were wondering… I tried getting a second steep out of the bag (only because I was feeling extra lazy) and that’s as much of a “silly rabbit, Trix are for kids” thing as you’d think it’d be: the second cup was basically sweetened hot water, with a bit of colour and a very light tea flavour to it. =)

¹ http://steepster.com/discuss/3583-how-many-cups-of-tea-do-you-drink-a-day

² http://amzn.com/B002PY7AYS

In spite of the “limited edition” claim on the tin, I was surprised when I couldn’t find this on the TCB&TL web site. I guess it really is gone. Hunh, go figure.

Upon opening the tin for the first time, I was naturally knocked out by the powerful cherry fragrance. It smelled natural, for the most part, like smelling a bottle of cherry extract/concentrate/whatever, but there was still a very slight medicinal tinge to it. I’m learning, with experience, that I shouldn’t judge fragrance and flavour immediately, especially fragrance. It’s concentrated and not true to reality. So I gave it a minute, and slowly the strong cherry started to subside and the black tea fragrance began to come through, until the two struck a decent balance. I didn’t smell any mango or lily blossom, but I did discern a vaguely floral aspect to the black tea part of the fragrance, which I don’t usually associate with black tea (and which actually reminded me a bit of green tea).

I haven’t drunk tea in a while, and it’s because my new tea tasting adventures have been more unsuccessful than not. I was thinking about it, and I was thinking that possibly, irrationally, my disappointment with specific teas turned me off to tea in general. I’m sure you’ve all experienced this disappointment: you look forward to holding that warm cup or mug in your hands, inhaling the fragrance, sipping the yumminess, immersing yourself in the ritual and experience, only to be betrayed by a tea that’s not really up your alley. I’ve had too many of those, lately. One of the things that I’ve begun doing is drinking 8oz at a time¹ instead of my usual 16oz, so that if I’m sipping a tea I don’t love, at least it’s not 16oz of it. Another thing I realise I need to do start doing is having a cup of one of my favourite teas after every few new tastings so that when I think of drinking tea, I think of my favourites and not the disappointments.

This tea isn’t wonderful, but it’s not terrible. To its credit, the tin does not say “naturally and artificially flavored,” just “naturally.” To its credit, the tea does not taste like cough syrup or maraschino cherries, but more like cherry Jolly Rancher and black tea. Given this, in theory I should love this tea. But I dunno, there’s something about it that—sweetened or unsweetened—misses the spot.

For now, this is the type of tea that I’d stick in the back of the cupboard, the type I’d pretend didn’t win the “eenie meenie minie moe” lottery. But like many of the fruity blends I’ve tried in recent weeks, I’d really like to try this one iced, and possibly that will improve its rating. In the meantime, I need one of my security blanket teas to make me feel better.

Tea amount: 1 sachet
Water amount: 8oz/~237mL
Additives: 2 tsp Demerara sugar (note to future Nik: um…that was too much)
Dry mouth factor: 6/10

¹ Halp. I use a 16oz travel mug that is awesome. It keeps my tea hot for like 12 hours. Now that I want to drink 8oz at a time, though, I haven’t been successful in finding something like it in that size. I don’t like teacups or mugs because I tend to drink my tea slowly and it just gets cold way too quickly. So basically I want an 8oz sippy cup for hot beverages. If you have any suggestions or recommendations, I’m all ears. Thanks!

I gave this one another try, but now I’m giving up on it. It smells like potpourri and tastes like cinnamon something. There are soooo many amazing teas out there for me to try and love, that I’m not going to waste any more time working to like something I just don’t. At some point, I’ll put together a swap list, and at that time I’ll add this to it. I think someone who likes cinnamon and rooibos might actually like this, and every tea deserves to be adopted by someone who will appreciate it.

Tea amount: 2 sachets
Water amount: 16oz./~475mL
Additives: omglotsofsugar. In reality, about 1 tbsp Demerara sugar.
Dry mouth factor: 0/10 (The only good thing I can say about it, really.)

Okay, I tried. I really tried. I tried every which way I know how to get some flavour other than “veggie juice” out of this blend. I just cannot taste anything else, unfortunately. In addition, after the tea cooled a bit, it got really, really bitter and astringent. Also, in spite of my infuser’s fine mesh, there was quite a bit of sediment in my teacup.

The nice thing about big companies like Teavana and Adagio is that they don’t participate on Steepster, they don’t go the extra mile to establish a rapport with customers and use wonderful incentives to drum up business and introduce themselves to us. Consequently, I have no qualms at all about calling it like I see it and being critical of a blend I don’t like.

It’s different with the little guys. These little companies are either just getting started or intentionally staying small and catering to a niche within the tea market. They make such a huge effort to procure our business, our trust, and our loyalty. They participate in random discussions, give us the benefit of their expertise, and are responsive to our feedback. They become our friends.

Don’t get me wrong, this is awesome. But it also means that I feel obligated to like their teas, especially if I get them as free samples. I feel guilty when things don’t work out, even though well-intentioned criticism can be more helpful than a glowing review. So here we are, my first free sample that I didn’t love, and I’m feeling terribly guilty about it. Sorry, sTEAp Shoppe, better luck next time.

Tea amount: 2 tsp
Water amount: 8oz./~237mL
Additives: 1 tsp Demerara sugar
Dry mouth factor: 3/10 hot, 7/10 after cooling

I’m not sure about this one. I might have to give it a little time, maybe a few tastes. My initial impression is a whole lot of meh.

Fragrance, dry leaves: Coffee. Okay, I’m beginning to think that all nutty rooibos blends smell like coffee to me. There’s coffee and there’s a sort of generally tropical thing going on, but I don’t know that I can actually smell coconut and mango. I’m just a teensy bit on the irked side that the list of ingredients doesn’t actually contain the word mango anywhere, just “flavoring.”

Fragrance, brewed tea: Coffee. Generally tropical something or other. Also, something nutty. But not specifically coconut-ty.

Flavour: There’s the coconut! And even the mango, sort of. It’s not really evident, but because I know it’s there, I can search for it and find the flavour.

In the end, it may just be that I’m not a fan of these tropical flavours. It may be that I should try this iced. It may be that I wasn’t paying enough attention and didn’t steep it properly. For the time being, what I’m feeling is that something is missing here. I’ll try it again at a later time and hopefully improve my rating.

A quick tasting note for the sTEAp Shopping virtual tea tasting. First impressions:

The dry leaves smell pretty vegetal. There are lots (and I mean lots) of apple chunks, but oddly, I can’t smell apples at all. I never quite understood what rose hips are or whether they’re related to roses in any way. Are they supposed to smell rosy? Do they smell like anything at all? I’ll have to Google it later.

The brew smells like freshly cut grass, but that’s it. I’m not getting anything else at all in the fragrance.

Sadly, the taste didn’t make a good first impression on me. It tastes like green veggie juice. I was going to say “spinach juice,” but that’s not quite right. It’s more of a generic green veggie juice than the juice of a particular green veggie. I was really, really shocked that with sooooo many apple chunks, I couldn’t taste apple at all.

Maybe I need to add more tea? Maybe I need to try steeping longer? I’m not sure, but this initial experiment was not a success. Fortunately for me, there’s still plenty of the generous sample left, so I can give it another go.

Tea amount: ~.75 tsp
Water amount: ~4oz./118mL
Additives: None, for a few sips, then a pinch of Demerara sugar in an effort to improve the taste.
Dry mouth factor: 2/10

Huzzah! I have officially gone through the Golden Moon sampler box. Happily, we end things on a high note. It occurred to me that perhaps I had been unfair in many of my GM Sample ratings, for I use 16oz./~475mL water, which may be too much for the sample packets. Naturally, this thought occurs to me on my very last GM Sample. Oops. This thought was emphasised when I opened the packet and saw just how little tea is in this particular sample. =\

The dry leaves have a wonderful fragrance. It’s delicate and floral, with the chrysanthemum coming through clearly when I inhaled deeply, but very very subtle when taking just a quick sniff.

Steeped, the tea is pale and fragrant, still very delicate. I generally like bolder flavours, but this was really nice. The only sad thing is that the caffeine hit me like a freight train, so it’s unlikely I’ll be stocking this. Still, if I had more I’d happily drink it. =)

Tea amount: 1 sample packet
Water amount: 8oz./~237mL
Additives: 1 tsp Demerara sugar
Dry mouth factor: 4/10

I’m really glad I only have (had) a sample of this, because it’s not even worthy of a swap list. Had I never had green tea before, this would inspire me to try others. The reason for this is that this tea’s fragrance makes a promise on which its flavour simply doesn’t deliver. It is so bland, so utterly featureless, that it couldn’t possibly do the green tea justice.

For most of my mug, I felt like I was drinking little more than sugar water. As the tea cooled, a little bit of flavour came through, and that was pleasant enough, but still unremarkable.

Tea amount: 1 sample packet
Water amount: 8oz./~237mL
Additives: ~2tsp Demerara sugar
Dry mouth factor: 2/10

There’s a big floral presence in this tea, according to the list of ingredients, but when I smell the dry leaves, I mostly get orange peel. And yes, it’s specifically the peel: that very slightly acrid tinge to the strongly citrus fragrance.

The flavour is tart, but not too sour. It tastes mostly orangey, but as the tea cools, the flowers definitely make themselves known. It’s nice as a hot beverage, especially if you’re not feeling all that great, but I think it’d be even nicer iced.

I’m not crazy about this tea, but it’s nice to have around…y’know?

Tea amount: 1 tbsp
Water amount: 16oz./~475mL
Additives: None
Caffeine: None
Dry mouth factor: 6.5/10

This is another one of those blends that taste good as long as you don’t know what they’re supposed to be. The description messes with your head, creating a pre-conceived notion of what to expect from the flavour, and that’s where things go a bit pear-shaped.

So let’s pretend that I received this blend in an unmarked tin. No name, no description. My nose tells me that this is likely a rooibos blend with almonds in it. The rooibos isn’t front and center, it mostly provides a foundation on which the tea’s flavour is built. There is a very clear amaretto fragrance, and since that fragrance isn’t exactly subtle, it is the one that really stands out. Without knowing otherwise, I probably couldn’t tell you what else is in here. I might guess at ginger, if my nose were feeling particularly on point that day.

Steeped, the tea tastes like amaretto rooibos. It’s got a little bit of heft to it and makes a nice dessert tea. But wait! What’s this? The tail end of the sip has a bit of a bite to it! And, wait for it, when it hits your stomach, a delicious warmth spreads outward from the point of contact. But…how? I don’t understand. Almonds alone wouldn’t have this effect.

At this point, let’s put an end to our little flight of fantasy and have a look at the ingredients. Why, look! There’s ginger in here, and coconut, and black pepper, and all sorts! The ginger and black pepper would explain that bit of kick and the warmth. It’s interesting that I can’t actually taste them, but I can feel the effect they have and appreciate their contribution to the blend. Noticeably absent, though, to my nose and tastebuds, is the coconut. I think I’d like to add some coconut flakes and grated ginger to my next steep, just to see if it helps this blend realise its full potential or if it just messes everything up. =)

Tea amount: 1 level tbsp
Water amount: 16oz./~475mL
Additives: ~1 level tbsp Demerara sugar
Caffeine: None
Dry mouth factor: 0/10