cheetah_pita

This smells amazing. Sweet and fruity, though if you didn’t mention it was supposed to be peach I probably wouldn’t have known. I think I’ll simply sniff the teabags the next time I need a pick-me-up.

In the cup this tea is very light and not as sweet as it smells (probably a good thing). The scent is still there, and it does remind me of the peach gummies someone else mentioned. The tea itself tastes slightly sweet, but other than that it doesn’t taste like much of anything at all, except for a slight bitterness at the end (and I swear I didn’t oversteep it!). Most of the “taste” comes from the scent of the tea. All in all a good one for spring.

Thanks go to Toi Toi for sending me a sample to try!

This loose leaf tea smells amazing, a sort of fruity tropical blend with a heavy base and perhaps even a faint fizzyness (or maybe that’s just my imagination, thinking of kombucha). Unfortunately my cup of tea doesn’t have all these flavors. All I get is a bit of pineapple in a very light oolong base. It has a sort of heavy thickness to it, it’s definitely not a thin fruit tea, and it has a little bit of the kombucha aftertaste. I’d really like more of an oolong flavor and less fruit, maybe I should steep it longer next time. It’s not bad, and I suppose it might be good iced, but it’s not as amazing as it smells in the bag.

Hmmm, I’m surprised by all the mentions of heavy cinnamon as I get more of a cardamom/ginger/pepper flavor from this. Also mine looks nothing like the picture – it’s all green cardamom pods with bright red peppercorns and long leaves. Interesting.

This is actually one of my favorite chais, I really like the flavor of it. Somehow the peppery cardamom blend just really pushes my buttons. It does taste better if you steep it a bit (maybe 3-4 minutes?), and it tastes great on the second steeping as well.

I love Earl Grey tea and most assorted variations of it. Something about the citrusy bergamot serves to wake me up in the morning and soothe me in the evening after a day of work. This is the first green tea Earl Grey that I have tried, and I have to say I like it!

The scent of this tea from the bag is very strong and it’s all ORANGE orange ORANGE. You can smell the orange peel and orange fruit and maybe a slight hint of muskiness from the green tea leaves. After brewing the scent tones down a bit, making it more similar to typical Earl Greys. The color from this tea is not very strong, it looks like any old green tea (pardon me while green tea enthusiasts cough and beg to differ). The taste of the tea is amazingly like Earl Grey. If someone handed me a cup blind, I would proclaim it delicious and request they steep it slightly longer because it is missing the black tea undertones. The green tea leaves act as a carrier for all the orangey bergamot, you cannot taste the green tea at all – and yet the taste is different than if one had simply stuck a couple orange peels or drops of bergamot oil into a teapot of water. The green tea gives it body, but goes completely undetected. The ingredient list mentions cornflowers, which you can kind of see in the loose tea, but I don’t taste them at all. Granted, I don’t really know what they’re supposed to taste like.

The second steeping was just as good as the first, but by the third it started to lose flavor. All in all, delicious! It won’t replace my staple black tea Earl Greys, but it’s a nice addition to my collection. I believe it has less caffeine than my black teas, which could come in handy.

I really like this one! Much more than I expected. I received a sample from Davids Tea with my order, and I’m so glad I did. When I first opened it, I thought all the nuts and blue leaves were strange, and there was no way the sliced almonds could give flavor to a tea by just hanging out in the water as it steeped. The tea smells faintly of chocolate and not much else – definitely a hint as to how light this tea is. It’s a white tea, and feels perfect for spring or any time you need a tea that’s not too loud or bold. This tea tastes like chocolate hazelnut wafer sandwiches I used to eat as a kid (kind of like Kit Kat bars, but not covered in chocolate), and the aroma of the tea is stronger than the tea itself. Brings back good memories and tastes great. Oh, and I think you definitely need to steep this one for the recommended 4-5 minutes to get the full flavor.

Looking at the ingredients I can’t taste berries or licorice or orange peel, but I don’t mind. As for magical immunity increasing powers, I think I’d need to drink more than three cups to see any effect ;)

The scent of this tea is woodsy, in a smokey campfire kind of way. I expected the coffee and maybe the almonds to be stronger, but the whole roots and bark thing comes off very strong instead. The mate and coffee perked me up a bit, but not enough to get me to jumping monkey status – just a little more energy. It’s not a substitute for your morning cup of joe if that’s what you need to get started. Taste-wise, the woodsy base complements the almonds and mate quite well. It’s a pretty good balance of flavors, but not necessarily something I’ll crave or reach for. I can’t taste the coffee at all, but I can smell it in the tea leaves, so I assume it’s in there. Definitely steep this one the full 4-5 minutes, otherwise you’ll end up with weak, watery tea. Works for a second steep, but you’ll need 5-7 minutes.

Yum. Probably one of the better Earl Grey’s I’ve had (that’s not saying much, I’m a tea newbie!). It has a rich black base and can become quite strong without being bitter if steeped for longer than 2 minutes. Adding a bit of milk adds to the flavor without drowning it out, and I’ve re-steeped these tea bags several times with good results.

No notes yet.

Steeping for three minutes got me a dark brownish liquid with a greenish hue that made me hesitant to try this blend. Over-steeped tea and I don’t get along – in fact, I chronically under-steep most teas out of fear of drinking bitter tea. But this tea wasn’t over-steeped, it just looked a bit darker than I was used to. The flavor is slightly woodsy, but no where near as woodsy as a roobois. It has some depth to it, not as strong as a black tea but definitely not as light as a white, maybe more on the level of a green tea without the green tea taste. After it cooled a bit I started to get a hint of the lemon. Second steeping proved to be identical to the first, which was nice. Overall an interesting flavor, but not something I’d reach for on a regular basis.

Thanks to LiberTea for passing on a sample!

Wow! I really like this one. It’s a dessert tea, sweet, with a base of black tea and a thread of caramel. I don’t really get a nutty flavor to this, but the overall idea of a chocolate turtle is definitely there. I’ll be trying milk with this soon to see how it tastes.

Thanks to LiberTea for passing on a sample!

Full Disclosure: I hate bananas. I hate how they smell, I hate how they taste, I hate how they’re squishy… the list goes on and on. Occasionally, they’re pretty good caramelized in brown sugar… with lots of other stuff (like oatmeal) involved. I’m not sure why I “forgot” that this tea had banana in it… perhaps because I was really looking forward to the “hot” “buttered” and “bread” part of it. Which is really too bad, because i didn’t get anything out of this tea except banana.

The banana reminds me of the flavored fruit shaped candy you could get from 25 cents out of a machine at the grocery store and various other places. I wasn’t a fan of the banana ones, and I’m really not a fan of the flavor in this tea. I don’t get anything buttery or bread-y about it, and there isn’t even a strong black tea base (ok, I didn’t exactly expect to find one, but when I drank the tea, that was probably the first thing I noticed). I’m going to try it with milk, maybe some sugar, to see if it changes my opinion of this tea.

Thanks to LiberTea for passing on a sample!

So, as you may or may not know, I grew up drinking chai. Specifically, I grew up drinking my mother’s masala chai, and because of this, very few chais ever taste right to me. Why I bother trying them rather than hauling out the stovetop pot+ tea+masala, I’m not sure (convenience, maybe?), but they tend to fall short. This one gets an A for effort. It’s strong, you can taste the spices, and it gently warms your throat as you drink it. But the combination of spices is not my favorite (it’s really heavy on the cloves) and actually reminds me more of mulled cider than masala chai. There is a hint of sugar (which might also be contributing to the thoughts of cider). The thing I like best about this tea is the black tea base – it’s a very good, strong Assam that I would love to use in my chai. All in all, pretty decent but not something I’m planning on hunting down. Which is good, because I have a feeling it would be hard to find, like the majority of 52teas limited tea blends.

Thanks to LiberTea for passing on a sample!

This was oddly sweet, and not as woodsy as I’d expect a rooibos to be. Maybe I didn’t steep it long enough (I’m a chronic shaver of steeping times because I just hate the bitterness that comes from oversteeped tea). The smell of the spices was nice, but didn’t particularly remind me of autumn.

Thanks to LiberTea for passing on a sample!

Sniffing the tea leaves reminded me of freeze-dried blueberries, which are not particularly appealing. Drinking the tea, I can’t really taste the blueberry or the danish… and yet, it’s definitely not just a plain black tea. I can smell blueberries, and perhaps taste a hint of something reminiscent of a danish, but if someone handed me this tea blind, I would have no clue what it was supposed to be. Tastes pretty good, though!

Thanks to LiberTea for passing on a sample!

I was a bit hesitant about trying this tea because of the pear. Pear is such an elusive fruit when it comes to flavor – easily overwhelmed and lost in the mix. But you can definitely taste (and smell!) it in this cup of tea. There a hint of woodsyness from the rooibos, but it’s not very overpowering and the pear definitely shines through in this tea. It’s slightly sweet and very delicious, perfect for autumn. On the second brew, the rooibos flavor comes out much more, and the pear is almost gone.

Thanks to LiberTeas for passing on a sample!