cheetah_pita

Hmmm, so my taste buds must be dead because I don’t get any chocolate or orange from this one. Or cream. All I get is a heavy black base, which is kind of nice actually, but not at all what I was expecting. I can smell the chocolate in my cup, but I don’t taste it at all! And I have no idea where the orange went.

This tea smells amazing. In the bag it’s all coffee bean with a hint of spices and in the cup it smells even better – brewed coffee and cinnamon. I personally love my coffee with spices (a side effect of growing up with masala chai) and make cafe de olla as often as I can, so I had pretty high expectations for this tea. Unfortunately it’s more chai than it is coffee, though you do get a hint of coffee flavor every now and then. Mostly it’s spices like cinnamon and cardamom. In fact, the cardamom is really heavy in this tea, I’d almost say it’s the dominant flavor in the tea rather than the coffee. The base is not as weak as the one in Chocolate Chili Chai, which is great. I noticed stevia was one of the ingredients as I was steeping my tea and got a bit worried – I’m not a fan of artificial sweeteners – but if I can’t taste it, no big deal!

I added a splash of milk to see how it would change the taste (and because I typically drink chai with milk) and it really becomes a completely different tea. The coffee is a little more apparent, the cinnamon comes out on top, and the cardamom fades to the background a little. It’s not as good as coffee flavored milk, but it’s really nice as a spiced milk with some coffee. Overall, I actually really like this one. It’s not what I expected, but it’s still good!

This tea smells lemony, and slightly like cake. It tastes like lemon, both the sweet lemon and the slightly bitter peel. I like the honeybrush undertones, I think it balances out the tea well (and gives it a beautiful color). The tea isn’t over the top lemon, but the flavor is definitely there, and it’s not overly sweet – more like a hint of sweetness or the suggestion of cake. Overall I really like it! Unfortunately I don’t have enough of this one to see if it tastes good iced, but I bet it would be great in summer.

Thanks go to Stephanie for sending me this sample!

I love chocolate oranges (the Terry ones you smash to break into pieces!) and chocolate covered orange peels, so I figured this tea might be good even though pu’ers and I have an iffy relationship. I like the taste, don’t like the smell. Here, the scent of the tea is mostly pu’er (the fishy kind) with a hint of sweetness. I really wish the chocolate was more prominent in the scent. But you do get the chocolate taste in the tea, so it’s not completely missing. Unfortunately there’s not much orange (ok, I didn’t taste any orange at all), it’s basically a chocolate pu’er, which I don’t really mind… but I wanted orange!

I only have a little bit of this one so it was difficult to get the scent of the dry leaves, but the tea itself smells delicious, a bit like mulled cider spices. This tea gets quite dark quickly, and I worried about leaving it steeping for the recommended four minutes, but though the color is dark the tea does not become bitter/astringent. I taste the spices in this tea, but mostly the tea itself. It’s a nice oolong, full of flavor. I expected this tea to be sweet, and it’s not at all. I added a bit of sugar and it works well, but I suspect a tiny spoonful of condensed milk would be wonderful. All in all a great tea, my first Butiki tea, but definitely not my last!

Thanks go to Stephanie for this sample!

Chocolate and roses sound like a delicious combination so I was excited to try this tea. It smells like chocolate and something else (maybe florals?) in the tea sachet, but in the cup the aroma is all chocolate. And oddly, I’m picking up hints that remind me of pu’er, though there isn’t any in this tea – it’s just a black tea. I don’t smell the roses, and I can’t taste them either. It tastes just like chocolate tea – similar to H&S Florence, but not quite (that one has hazelnut). It definitely has the same chocolate base. There is a little bit of an undertone in this tea but I can’t figure out what it’s supposed to be. Overall, it’s good, but not enough for me to buy a box. I wish the roses made more of an appearance.

Thanks go to Stella for sending me a sample of this one!

Mmm, cookie dough. I love the real stuff, so I figured this tea would be awesome. The tea leaves don’t smell exactly like cookie dough, it’s more like coffee and chocolate and a hint of alcohol (vanilla extract, anyone?). This one’s a white tea so I’m not sure why the instructions say to brew it so hot (208F) but I’m following them anyway. At about the two minute mark the scent wafting from this tea changes from meh to omg cookie dough where? It smells incredible. Have to wait a few minutes for it to cool down to a manageable drinking temperature, and unfortunately it doesn’t taste much like cookie dough. Slightly chocolatey, slightly vanilla-y, but not really cookie-like. I steeped it for a bit longer to see if that helps, but there isn’t much change except for a growing brown sugar undertone. Interesting tea, but not quite cookie dough.

A pretty basic green tea. Nothing spectacular. Grassy with a hint of a roasted flavor underneath. It can be re-steeped several times, which is nice (especially for a green tea). I don’t have a thermometer so I approximated the water temperature – it’s better to err on the cooler side. If the water is too hot the flavor of the tea is nonexistant. Oversteeping will yield bitterness, stay in the 2-3 minute range.

No notes yet.

Got a cup of this at David’s Tea the other day. It was so much more than I expected – this might be my favorite herbal tea. It’s fruity with a nice tart bite to it and a hint of granola or yogurt or something that makes the “parfait” in the name very apt. It smells of strawberry and granola, but the tart side of strawberry instead of the artificial sweet side. It tastes just like it smells, and a little bit of brown sugar helps bring out the sweet side. The color of this tea starts off a pretty red and develops into is a deep magenta. I was worried about oversteeping when I walked out the door with the t-sac still in my cup but this tea seems to get better over time and it didn’t become bitter or unpalatable. Only thing I didn’t like is that I couldn’t get a second steep out of it!

I love mint chocolate but I haven’t found the perfect mint chocolate tea yet. Lately I’ve been adding mint teas to H&S Florence and enjoying the mix, but I would like to find one that doesn’t require the diy method. This one smelled promising in the bag – I can smell lots of mint and lots of chocolate. After brewing, the scent in the cup was not as appetizing, it smells more like dry, stale chocolate. No mint at all. Taking my first sip I was surprised to find it tasted minty, and not very chocolatey at all. What a paradox. If I closed my nose, this could easily be an oversteeped herbal peppermint tea. Minty, slightly bitter, with the peppermint lingering on my tongue after. There is a sort of deep undertone to it, but nothing that says chocolate.

I added a bit of brown sugar because the reviews mentioned a little sweetener helps bring out the chocolate flavor, and it totally changed the tea. Now the thick, heavy, sort of malty undertones are prominent, and I don’t taste the mint at all. I still get a bit of a tingle on my tongue after each sip, but it doesn’t taste minty. Or chocolatey.

I think I’m going to play around a little with steeping times and see if that helps. This tea has so much potential!

I like this tea. A lot. Possibly a lot more than I should. Sometimes I feel myself becoming a bit of a tea snob, turning my nose up at bagged tea and stores like Teavana. But every now and then a teabag is just so delicious I can’t possibly give them up altogether. This is one of those times.

This tea is so deliciously minty, slightly sweet, tastes good hot or cold, and can be re-steeped so many times I lose count. It’s great.

No notes yet.

This tea smells amazing in the cup. Refreshing mint with green tea. The two come together well, and make a pretty good cup of tea. It tastes a little more basic than I would have expected. I can see a bit of lemon peel mixed in with the tea but it doesn’t come out til the end, and even then it’s just a hint. The green tea tastes delicious, high quality with a lightly grassy taste. The more I drink this one the more I like it – the mint, lemon, and green tea blend together seamlessly and make a cup of tea that’s even better as it cools. I’m tempted to try this one iced as well.

Thanks go to Nina’s Paris Teas for sending me a sample of this delicious tea!

This is the least pu’er-tasting pu’er blend that I’ve tried (granted I haven’t had very many). I suppose I should start at the beginning! Trying to get all of the elements of this tea into my infuser was a bit of a challenge. The dried chrysanthemum kept tumbling in, followed by some stick like things and juniper berries, leaving behind the poor crumbly pu’er. Finally I just poured the contents of the sample packet into a bowl and picked each individual ingredient with a spoon. Not the easiest tea to brew, but I didn’t really mind. There is kind of an earthy scent to the dry tea, that blooms more as it brews. The chrysanthemum floral and juniper berries really are the star here, both in the scent of the brewed tea and in the taste. I can smell a hint of the earthy pu’er from the cup, and I definitely taste the undertones, but it’s not overpowering at all. In fact, I think the tea is quite balanced between all the elements. Second steeping was just as good as the first, and as I continued to re-steep it the chrysanthemum flavor was the first to dissipate but everything else remained for several steepings.

I only got a sample of this one, and I wish I had more! I tried it twice and it tasted completely different both times. I’m not sure if that’s because I didn’t get a good distribution of the blend in each cup, or my mind is playing tricks on me.

The first time I made a big pot of this tea and it smelled amazing. Ginger and sage and a hint of flowers and citrus. The tea had a strong ginger kick and a background of sage. I can see how it’s used for when people have a cold, but it doesn’t taste medicinal at all, just soothing. The second time I tried it (new tea, not re-steeped) I couldn’t taste ginger at all. It smelled and tasted of paan, a betel leaf, slightly sweet and woodsy. Might have been a little bit of sage in the background. I liked both versions, but definitely prefer the first.

I only have a small sample of this one so it’s hard to smell the tea leaves. They smell faintly of buttercream frosting, and the tiny sprinkles and marshmallows are so cute! The tea itself smells like marshmallows, with a faint hint of burnt sugar. It tastes pretty much the same, and though I like marshmallows, I didn’t like my first sip of this tea. It was cloyingly sweet, and yet it didn’t really taste like sugar. After letting it cool for a few minutes the flavor seems to change, bringing in the caramel and burnt sugar to give it more depth. I definitely enjoyed that quite a bit more than the first sip, but probably not enough to buy more.

Thanks to Jackie T for this sample!

Not sure if I didn’t steep this one long enough (I hate teas without steeping instructions!) but I think I’ll call a re-try. Otherwise this was very disappointing. Slight hint of mint at the end and really that was about it.

Wow! Straight out of the bag this smells like fizzy lime soda. Not the Sprite sort of generic we’re-calling-it-lemon-lime-so-pretend-that’s-what-it-tastes-like, an actual lime scent. A flashback to lime-flavored Eno if there ever was such a thing. I brewed it up and it smells exactly the same. Flavor-wise this is heavy on the lime and it’s obviously not bubbly like soda nor does it have the sweetness of flat soda. I taste pineapple in the tea, which I didn’t smell at all before, and something that I think is the marshmallow. I don’t taste lime very much either, which is slightly disappointing. The green tea exists, I see it in my steeper, but I don’t taste it at all – this tea is quite baseless, and I wouldn’t have batted an eye if told it was a fruit tea or a white. Ah well. 10 points for smell, maybe 6 points for actual flavor. Looking forward to trying this iced.

I went into this expecting an Earl Grey sort of flavor profile, even with the Tieguanyin base, but it doesn’t taste much like Earl Grey at all. You can smell the hint of citrus in the loose leaves of the tea, but it is completely overpowered by everything else after you brew it. The scent of this tea in my cup is very floral, it doesn’t seem like just jasmine but perhaps the frankincense is altering my impression. The taste is a floral oolong, with a heavier almost musty background that I’m guessing is the frankincense. I’m not getting any goji berry or the citrus/bergamot that I was expecting, though in general the tea is a very nice blend. Everything feels balanced (maybe a bit floral heavy) and it tastes like quality tea, just not what I was expecting. The flavors are interesting but probably not something I will reach for often – luckily I just got a sample and don’t have much left anyway!

Wow. This is so minty, the kind of burn-your-throat-going-down minty. I really can’t taste anything else, and I’m not sure I would say it tastes like a candy cane. It’s definitely a sweet sort of mint, but wow. Even on the second and third steeping it is strong!

Pretty robust for an herbal tea. It smells of cinnamon and fruity berries/hibiscus with a hint of popcorn. The color is a bright fuschia, which made me laugh when I saw it. The taste is mostly hibiscus, but it is balanced by the other flavors (other fruits and spice). You can’t pick out the papaya or fruits lower down on the list, but it’s nice to see pieces of them in the loose leaf tea. A basic fruity holiday tea, but not one I will be sad to see gone when the season passes.

This is only the second jasmine tea I’ve ever tasted, and I’m beginning to realize I don’t think I like them very much. The confusion between the floral scent and the green tea taste is too much for my brain, it does not understand. This tea smells strongly of jasmine in the bag, and a little less strong after steeping. The taste is all green tea, and a mediocre one at that. This tea isn’t calling out to me to try again, and will probably be passed on to someone else. It can be steeped again, and tastes similar on the second and third steeping, which is interesting for a green tea.

Oh pu’er, what am I to do with you? Hold my nose and drink, apparently.

One whiff of this tea in my cup and I’m reminded of why I don’t like pu’ers. I smell the notorious earthy scent of the pu’er, along with a decent amount of sweetness. I can almost smell the chocolate, but not quite, and I don’t think I can get any strawberry or fruitiness at all. It all mixes to a generic sweet attempting to balance out the pu’er. But the taste, the taste is all strawberry! chocolate covered strawberries! in a heavy, earthy base. Pu’er tea never really tastes as bad as it smells (in my opinion, obviously). In fact, this tastes quite good. I like the strawberry and chocolate, and I like the way the flavor lingers in your mouth after you take a sip. The strawberry isn’t the candied sweet variety, it’s a slightly tart real strawberry flavor, which I really like. That in itself might having me reaching for this tea more often.

Thanks go to Crystal for this sample! ETA: The undertones come out a lot more on the second and third steeping, changing the flavor quite a bit. It’s less fruity, more earthy.