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This morning I spent 2 hours sitting while my granddaughter used my car to take her drivers test. She passed (joy),I went home cold and ready for tea! Decided on Hot Cinnamon Spice for a proper lift. First impression was red hot candy but so soon the flavor went flat. Also did not get orange at all. Disappointed!

Read my mind…endorphines are dancing like sprites with this sparkling almost tingley minty chocolatey yyyyy brew. I sound like a pre-teen with a crush on a new star on American Idol! This is tea…get a grip. Ah…on second thought…I’m old enough not to give a rip…this is dang good tea! Sexy, minty with little lips…and mini chocolate chips. First I just sweetened a tiny bit…was good…then added some cream…better..and then…well I remembered what the Russians do for dessert with tea…and had a piece of chocolate alongside while sipping…hee hee…really great! Will need a nap!

What an interesting flavor. It tastes a bit like the blond colored jujube candies…ya know…the ones that stick to your teeth and almost pull them out. A one-of-a-kind memory. Even the color is right. Smells just a tad soapy like shampoo but not enough to put you off so you gag. I went further on the steeping and sweetening and it was better for me. This may be a “healthy tea drink” but sweethearts, it needs more HONEY to put it where it needs to be. Rework it please Tea Forte! Could be so much better. Flavor is weak.

Today 2 things happened to make me happy. My 16 year old granddaughter Megan came over to spend time with me and drink tea, and my custom blended Adagio Frontrange Winter tea arrived. I had uploaded a photo of the Rocky Mountains taken from Douglas Lake which was printed as the label (see it on the left). Looked nice. Big bag of my blend of Pu erh, chocolate and orange. Now, I was not expecting a fantastic brew…like my Davids tea Chocolate Orange, but what I got was a nice mellow Pu erh with a light chocolate and a hint of orange that I can live with. The whole idea is fantastic. I can find out what tea flavors my little grandsons love, berry….vanilla…etc…and upload their picture to go on the front and call the blend Micah’s Mud or Ian’s lizzard Lips if I want to. Nice gift for their tea stash. My granddaughter thought the tea tasted fine and earthy without being unpleasant. She had a pot of my DT Cream of Earl Gray going. We watched Midnight in Paris on my big screen and talked about boys. Then she tried on a nice evening dress and heels from my closet (I’ve got a lot of stuff). She’s conducting a choral piece in Latin about the death of Caesar that she composed and is pretty excited about it. Previous pieces have been orchestral. Nothing better when you’re old than family or friends that you can help mentor…encourage…and sip some tea with. Not fishy!

I added this tea to steepster after a jaunt to Happy Lucky’s in downtown Fort Collins. The tea masters are good fellows. They brewed up a hefty clay pot of this Velour ( great name) Pu erh and we talked and I sipped a 3 minute steeped brew with hot milk. So nice to have a tea bar with stools so high I can’t touch the floor and I’m tall! I got to put my big nose WAY into the big tin of Pu erh to get the bang of scent dry…and I could pinpoint where I smelled that scent before…in the barrel room at the winery! Old damp and cool barrels with dust in the corner and humid. The soury good smell. The dirt smell. Wow. The smell is something soily. The 3 minute steep with hot milk created a mocha cup that was not too bold, a bit smoky and not too weak either. Liked it. If this had been wine I would have been drunk! It was a big pot!

Second review. It’s been awhile since I drank this and just in case anyone thinks Mulberry has anything whatever to do with “berry”…ah…NO…and I’m glad of it. This is soooo different. I was writing down words as I sipped away…hot brick, dry straw, vanilla, slight honey, tiny hint of smoke….ok ok macadamia nut… as if I have them every day (don’t eat bricks or straw either but know what they smell like on a hot day). There is a round full- bodied flavor to this tea. Some tea is weak or the taste is gone before you can catch it. This is lasting. My preference is to add creme to this tea and some sweetness, it does not spoil the taste of the tea but elevates it. I would not consider this dessert but something entirely on it’s own. Steeped 4 minutes then 6 without bitterness.
Smooth equal to slipping between new 600 thread count Egyption cotton sheets (well, almost).

Second tasting note…a brew for St. Valentine’s Day while listening to Tony Bennett and waiting for some more snow to arrive…(snowkeling right now). My son in San Francisco put me up to Tony Bennett since he’s singing there tonight (heard him at the 50th anniv. of the Golden Gate Bridge years ago…"I left my Heart in San Francisco…ah) anyway…I’m not that sad to be alone today…better than with someone creepy or abusive! So, this strong and muscular Pu-erh swept me off my feet (my daughter says blek tastes like socks but she has 5 little boys at home and 3 girls so everything is socks!). I love Pu-erhs! Smelly good like History and Earth and Culture and Wine Caves (you should smell Winery Caves if you want SMELL! all wet and dark soury and wonderful). The smokiness could cure sausages…and the caramel is just enough…not too sweet and not too strong. Toasty. I could add this when making gravy like people do with coffee ( if you never did this it’s the way to make rich gravy!). The mind is boggling. My husband divorced me when I became disabled a couple of years ago…so sad? Nah…I get to go to Coldstone Creamery tonight and meet up with my grandkids for Ice Cream with it snowing outside…is that great or what! Happy Heart!

UNCLE! I gave in and bought this tea! Read the reviews but was suspicious…pancakes indeed. Well….drumroll…I guess it does taste like pancakes with syrup if you add sweetening and a bit of cream for sure. The flavor is a slight bit caramelo. Ah some buttery tone at the end and no black tea tannin. Let steep 4 minutes before removing the basket. Perfect. I bought an extra pouch as a gift for my 3 grandsons 11,9,7. The munchkins love tea and I search for great names…Monkey Fart was first, Pancake Breakfast fits fine. Need a Boogie Board or Lizards Tongue to round out the titles…

I bought this some time ago at the Valley Fair store in California. This was the first large TEA store I had ever been in and it was so amazing…set up with hundreds of tea sample jars set in a U shaped formation on angled holders…so you just walked around sniffing to your heart’s content. Well, one of the tea’s I purchased was this Decaf Muscat. I had worked for a Winery and enjoyed dessert wines from some of the older grape growers who often made flavored muscat’s. This tea does have the very sweet muscat grape flavor. If you eat fresh muscat grapes (they are small clusters and can be a blush color or almost a pink yellow) they are very sweet and sticky. The aftertaste is like honey wine. You could not get a closer flavor to the grape than this tea. Because of the black tea you get tannin so don’t oversteep. You should have sweetener in this but milk…I wouldn’t. Iced with some orange soda in the Summer could be good.

I’ve entered a dark room where I’m stripped of everything I know up until now about tea (which I must admit is fair to midlin little). Diving into the world of tea,tea…(that was done on purpose) I set to brew my first 20z pot of tea and began checking the brew at 1 min, 2 min and finally at about 4 minutes where I stopped the steeping and felt it had reached a perfect brewing. Still added some sugar then some cream. Wow is this malty with a slight smokiness and slight furry tannin in the far back of the tongue. I can see why this is loved. Next year on St. Andrews day when my Priest blesses the Tartans and I’m decked out…I’ll bring this tea to the Church to serve with scones after the Liturgy. It is worthy of a Highlander! Beautiful whiskey color and a bit of a vegital greenbean nose but so slight. Really good this malty tea. I’m thinking about using this with some buckwheat honey, caramelized onions and garlic on a bit of beef (used wheat beer before). See what it tastes like. You could serve this tea in a bar because a beer drinker could dig this. I dig this!