150 Tasting Notes

40
drank Earl Grey Creme by Teavana
150 tasting notes

This review is for the newer version of this tea – my bag has yellow flower petals instead of blue cornflowers, and I have a feeling they’ve changed the flavoring, too. This one really isn’t for me, despite my general positivity toward citrus/bergamot flavors.

I really can’t explain what I didn’t like, but I’ll try. I had a cup of this every morning for about a week. The first time it was alright – a very, very light, almost weak earl grey, with a pretty obvious vanilla flavoring. It was pretty smooth, but any “creaminess” was due more to a lack of body than a real texture. So I thought maybe I needed to change my steeping parameters.

I steeped the next few cups a bit longer, but that increased the vanilla flavor, and even made it taste and smell artificial. Adding more tea leaves just made it bitter. At that point, I couldn’t even bring myself to drink a version of this made with my original amount and steeping parameters. It’s a huge shame since I have a full ounce left. The sales people always make it sound like 25 cups of tea is nothing! But that’s really not true if you don’t like the tea…

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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64
drank Dosha Chai Rooibos by Teavana
150 tasting notes

I’m beginning to think that I will compare all cinnamon blend rooibos teas to Good Earth’s Sweet and Spicy. Don’t get me wrong, I grew up with Sweet and Spicy and still have some on hand and like it. The problem occurs when these loose blends are shown up by it.

Reading the description of this, I was expecting a spicy, coconut cinnamon rooibos, maybe a little bit like Davids’ Coco Chai Rooibos, which I loved. Wrong! I didn’t find this spicy at all, no matter how long I infused it. The coconut is very faint – the real star is the vanilla and cinnamon. But it’s not a spicy cinnamon. This is pleasant enough, but just not a wow.

And I think that is because it basically tastes like a very weak steep of Sweet and Spicy, making it super difficult for me to get over the price differential.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec
becksyoungyo

Have you tried the Cha Yen Thai Tea from teavana? Somewhat similar to the dosha chai but stronger in the sweet and spicy criteria.

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76
drank English Blend by Lupicia
150 tasting notes

A tea from my Lucky Bag.

I’m not a huge fan of unflavored black tea, preferring greens in general, but this is pretty darn good. I never found a need to add milk to cut any bitterness; I did try it once and it just adds a little creaminess to a sip. The aroma of this tea is sweet and fruity, and that sweetness transforms into a honey taste when I drink. I never found a need to add extra sweetness to this.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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50
drank Forever Nuts by DAVIDsTEA
150 tasting notes

Forever Nuts came in both the Sweet Indulgences and Caffeine Free sampler sets, so I had plenty to try.

Honestly, I think I preferred Sleigh Ride to this. The slight hint of tart to the apple and cinnamon gave the drink a bit of a kick. Though Forever Nuts certainly brews up to a beautiful coral pink color, I found it mostly a bland and weak baked apple flavor. I’m not big on baked apple goods (blasphemy, I know), so it just didn’t appeal. I tried 1.5 tsp at various steeping times to see if that helped, but a full tablespoon and a good long time resulted in a stronger drink that still didn’t have a ton of flavor to it.

Preparation
Boiling 7 min, 0 sec

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55

When I look at this tea, I see a lot of fruit pieces. Quite a few apple pieces, some obvious pineapple pieces, and the odd dehydrated raspberry. It smells really strongly of fruit, too, though not necessarily berries when dry. The tea leaves themselves are dark slivers in this fruit blend.

I couldn’t imagine having this hot, so I cold-brewed this for about 5 hours. Maybe if you have this hot, the tea is more apparent, but I honestly think it could have been left out. The fruit is front and center: the raspberry flavor builds up as you continue to sip, and it’s tart, as though the raspberries are just the slightest bit unripe. It’s a nice iced tea, sort of like a watered down fruit juice with no added sugar. But I doubt I’d buy this again – I wanted a little bit of tea flavor in there!

Preparation
Iced 8 min or more

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82
drank Grapefruit Green by Lupicia
150 tasting notes

This tea came in my Happy Bag, and as the weather turns warmer, I reach for the fruitier teas. The bright green leaves smell delicious and like refreshing grapefruit. The aroma is spot-on.

The aroma holds up pretty well when it is brewed hot, and is a nice bright green-yellow color. The tea itself tastes like a mild green with an assertive grapefruit aftertaste. It’s not a sweet grapefruit, but the mouth-puckering version. If you like that citrus tang, then you will probably love this tea.

I also tried this cold-brewed, at 1.5 tsp/8oz for about 4 hours. While not a very green color, the flavor had certainly seeped out into the water, as it was really tasty. The fruit flavor really came out this way, and it’s definitely my favorite fruity tea from Lupicia so far. If I bought this again, I would tend to make it iced or cold-brewed. Really refreshing!

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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83
drank The Earl's Garden by DAVIDsTEA
150 tasting notes

My breakthrough with this tea happened when I discovered 1 teaspoon is definitely not enough for 8 oz, no matter what the brewing instructions recommend. When I did follow instructions, I was left with a tea that had very little taste and a mild aroma.

Adding that extra 1/2 tsp made a huge difference. At that strength, there’s a pleasant body to the tea, and the taste of strawberries and currants is more obvious. I actually like Earl’s Garden better than the last strawberry tea I tried, though the bergamot unmistakably present. The brew does have an edge of bitterness to it, but I think it’s more like that actual odd tang of bitter you sometimes get off a strawberry’s skin, so it doesn’t bother me as much as it usually would. A nice twist on earl grey.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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71

This was my go-to travel tea for a while, as it held up really well under odd water temperatures. Sometimes the hot water spigot is 160, sometimes it’s 190, sometimes it’s a mystery. Anyhow, the addition of pumpkin spice and caramel to Adagio’s regular masala chai tempered the extremely aggressive cloves in that tea. The caramel adds a hint of sweetness, resulting in a tea that makes me think of a slightly spicy pumpkin pie.

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 3 min, 30 sec

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79
drank Pink Flamingo by DAVIDsTEA
150 tasting notes

From the Caffeine Free sampler set!

I originally thought this was going to be a lot like Tazo’s Passion, since it’s a hibiscus heavy blend. I happened to have some Passion already brewed up in the fridge, so I did a quick comparison. Where Passion is a bit more of a straightforward tartness, Pink Flamingo has a hint of sweetness to it tasted surprisingly like a grapefruit lemonade. I decided to see how Pink Flamingo would do cold, so I brewed another cup and left it in the fridge overnight. When super cold, the lemongrass really stands out and it almost has a little peppery kick to it. I prefer the fruity notes of the warm version.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec

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96

My dad picked up an ounce of this at an unidentified specialty food store, and I’m just going to have to make him identify it, because wow. This is some luxurious tea.

The dry leaves smell really sweet, sort of like vanilla caramel. I saw that people were having issues with bitterness, so I kept my steep time at 3 minutes (per usual) and used a bare teaspoon of leaf and never had a problem at all. In fact, this is the creamiest tea I’ve had to date. It feels amazing in my mouth and really does taste like milk chocolate caramel. I think the assam is present enough to keep it from being too sweet, but I can see this being classified as a decadent dessert tea. (My dad says it had better be fantastic at the price he paid, so I am definitely not going to ask him, haha.)

Truly sad to see the bottom of the bag on this one.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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Bio

I’ve just recently discovered the world of loose tea and am really enjoying myself. I’m still in SAMPLE EVERYTHING mode, and likely always will be.

I love green teas, chai, and citrus flavors. I don’t mind hibiscus. I will drink a bitter green tea, but won’t drink bitter black tea. I’m working on figuring out which black teas work for me.

I tend to drink my tea without milk or sugar.

I’m using Steepster’s Cupboard function to actually reflect my current tea stock, otherwise I’d never be able to remember what I already have.

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