Harney & Sons

Just a quick note… this is my first tea of the morning and it’s a bit of an experiment. I decided I would try making a blend with the herbal chai masala I got from Simpson and vail and it’s a pretty good combination. The chai definitely overpowers the Florence but there is a bit of hazelnut/cocoa peeking out in the finish.

I’ve been trying to finish off an 8 oz. tin of this for ages and I just haven’t been making much progress. Anyway I discovered this morning that this is one tea that seems to taste better if you add a bit of extra leaf to the mix, I think the flavor becomes more pronounced. At least it isn’t going stale on me, I think the long shelf life is one reason that I have come to prefer black teas most of all!

Tea of the morning here Steepster. I’ve had this tea since 2011 but to me it still tastes the same. I’m not a huge fan of it, but overall it’s okay. The chocolate notes still seem very light to me. Somehow it’s fun to have this for breakfast.

Tea of the morning here…
I haven’t had this in quite a while but I still have about 1/2 of a 7 oz. tin so I decided to brew some up this morning in my Bee house teapot. It still seems good to me, I suspect black tea doesn’t really get stale like green tea can, but what about flavored tea? This is a nice breakfast treat but not one of my absolute faves from Harney.

By accident I probably let this steep for 7 minutes or so this afternoon. Actually I think it might be a bit better this way! This tea isn’t bad, I just have soooooo much of it. I’ll never buy 8 oz. of the same tea again! :)

This is my afternoon cuppa. I have to admit – chocolate tea and I do not really get along. I haven’t really found any that I like too much. This one comes close but I have lost some affection for it over the past few months, I am not sure why.

I added a bit of my mandarin pu-erh to it this afternoon and am liking it better. :)

This is not as good as I remember it somehow. perhaps it needs some pu-erh in it… lol

I have been daydreaming about this tea ever since the lovely Jenn sent me a sample a little while ago. Thank you, Jenn for fueling my addiction, hee hee. I had to buy a tin of it.

This is a yummy flavored tea. I am not usually much of a fan of chocolate in tea but here it works somehow. The hazelnut is definitely there as well, perhaps it’s the combination of the two that works for me. I see a lot of tea that claims to be nut flavored but the nut hardly comes through at all. I have no idea if people drink this kind of tea in Italy but who cares! ha! It is lovely here in San Francisco and taking the chill out of my November morning.

This tea also need to be tried with rum in it or maybe brandy! woo!

Another sample from Harney to try this morning. Oh, the life! Steeped for a full 4 minutes with boiling water.

This is a pretty nice flavored tea from H & S. I am not sure what base they are using here as the black tea but it is very smooth and rich. Definitely smells and tastes apricot-y without being artificial or overpowering. The flavor seems to open up a bit more for me after adding soymilk. Creamy apricot, definitely very nice.

Although I enjoyed drinking this tea very much I’m not sure I will need to buy a larger size of it in the future. It is pretty yummy though. It would most likely grow on me if I were to drink more of it. You should check this out if you’re into apricot and peach flavors.

This tea smells amazing, you can smell the cranberry and the orange subtly again the lovely red leaf tea. I have now tried this tea both hot and iced – it is fantastic either way. It only needs a bit of sugar when it’s iced, when it is hot it is fine without sweeteners of any sort. I recommend this for rooibos tea lovers as well as those who love the fruitier teas.

I got this as a sample from Harney & Sons. I think this Tilleul must be an acquired taste or something. I was looking for something to use as a nighttime bev in addition to my chamomile and verbena. This smells like a chlorinated swimming pool and tastes bitter to me. I am not one to sweeten any tea but I needed some sugar to help it along.

Recently I read this is a very popular cold remedy in Europe. I dunno… For sure not a favorite but I doubt this has anything to do with Harney. More likely it’s the nature of the beast.

I followed a cup of H&S Irish Breakfast with this CTC Assam as a comparison to see which I liked better. They are very different creatures; the Irish Breakfast is gentle where this is a strong black tea. I like them both, but having been in search of a basic, strong, perfect black tea this one comes out ahead.

It’s strong black tea. It’s not bitter, it’s not flavored, not overly complex. I love black tea and I love strong tea that can play well with milk and sugar. This is it! I’ll be ordering a tin once I run out of the sample, for all those times I simply want a cup of delicious, tasty, strong black tea.

I drank this with 4 cubes of raw sugar, 7 drops of stevia, and a large dash of evaporated milk. Heaven! It’s strong enough to stand alongside Chai as a “food” tea: a tea rich and full enough to feel like food rather than a beverage.

After an unpleasant confrontation with Citrus Blend, I wanted something to soothe my palate and reassure my stomach that everything was going to be okay. This gentle Irish Breakfast with the addition of milk and sugar was just the right solution.

Mild but still flavorful, this is a soothing Irish Breakfast. For a bracing, strong cup, I prefer CTC Assam and that will probably be the Assam I end up ordering a full tin of. This remains a beautiful tea and one I’m happy to enjoy. Refined and peaceful, gentle but not weak.

Citrus blend smells harsh and awkward in dry form, but I hoped that would change when brewed. Unfortunately, the brewed cup tastes bitter, unbalanced, and not at all citrus-y. If anything this is an embellished Earl Gray, without any of the refinement of a good Earl Gray.

It’s strong, which is always a positive in my book….or cup as it were. The citrus notes are an unpleasantly spicy assault on the tongue, and I cannot discern grapefruit or orange. I had it sweetened with raw sugar cubes and liquid stevia.

If anyone wants the rest of my sample, message me and I’ll send it to you, I won’t be drinking the rest. It’s fresh and only has one teaspoon missing.

Oh. My. God. This stuff is amazing. I say this after drinking three cups in rapid succession.

My experience with Chai is limited; I like Oregon Chai Concentrate very much, but when I sampled another chai at a coffee and tea stand I hated the spicy harshness of it. With that said, this is the best Chai I’ve ever experienced. I realize that’s not saying much, but seriously, it’s heaven in a cup.

Indian Spice is composed of a perfect blend of spices and black tea which is so well balanced that I can’t point to one note that overwhelms the others. It’s not spicy, it’s not flat, and it IS delicious. Harney has come up with a tea that is strong and full bodied without assaulting the palate. Indian Spice is everything I love about Oregon Chai and more.

Some other tasting notes call this tea mild, which is certainly not how I would describe it; it seems quite strong to me. My guess is that this is less spicy than many, which makes it the perfect brew for me. Individually, I dislike many of the spices used in Chai, and if they were overwhelming or if one could be tasted individually this would not be an enjoyable drinking experience.

I prepared this in an infuser with boiling water, then added Demarra sugar cubes (5 per large mug) and stevia (about 11 drops per mug). Evaporated milk was the milk component.

This is a great, everyday tea.

Good morning Steepsterites,

This fine Saturday we are starting out with a gift from Dinosara and it’s another one of those Russian Roulette Brewings. Steep first, look it up second. Consequently my intuition landed me in a spot of trouble as it made me pick a tea which isn’t really a breakfast-suitable tea at all. At least, I would have been more likely to have it in the afternoon.

I was rescued, however, by that fact that once I tasted it, it didn’t seem quite so anachronistic at all. For some reason a tea with fruit and almonds in it manages to work quite well with our ritual weekend pancakes with apple bits in.

The aroma is largely almonds, I think, and then the cranberry underneath that adding a non-descript mahogany coloured fruity aspect to it. Bear in mind though that this is an almond aroma. It does not in any way, shape or form resemble marzipan, for which I am grateful. (I love marzipan, as well as just about any other type of confectionary (nearly) that you can think off, but I rather doubt it would have worked in this particular instance.)

This is one of those tea that does that funny switcheroo thing as it cools down, too. Now that I’m halfway through the cup and it’s heading towards Lukewarm Lane, it’s the cranberries who’s doing the driving and the almonds relocated to the backseat. I quite like it when a flavoured tea does that. It’s like you get the best of both, even if one does wish it could do so while the tea was still slightly warmer.

And that’s just the aroma.

In the flavour (which is a muddly orange, I think because of the almonds) it’s rather more even. I can find almonds and cranberries with equal ease, but I can’t really find the tea base very easily. Can’t be that interesting then, can it?

It’s very smooth and extremely well flavoured. Slightly heavy and super suitable for autumn. Thank you hugely, Dinosara! This was awesome!

There is something about conferences that just puts me to sleep in the afternoon, even if I haven’t been up really late the night before. I went on the search for a cup of tea in the vast maze that is the Paris Las Vegas hotel and found a takeaway coffee stand. The Paris seems to use Harney tea bags, because they also had them at the coffee service this morning for the conference. Normally I would be glad about Harney teas, but these are tea bags, not even sachets, and I don’t really like Harney’s Earl Greys anyway. Oh well. Like the Supreme, this is very lightly bergamotty tea that takes most of its flavor from it’s base, which in this case is pretty smooth but not my favorite blend. But it’s drinkable, and I’d still take it over the bags many other hotels provide.

Second H&S sample. I failed to realize this was green tea until I’d already added boiling water, so it wasn’t properly prepared. Still, it’s tasty! I live in the Willamette Valley, where the peppermint in this tea is grown. It’s some of the cleanest, most aromatic peppermint anywhere and I can tell that’s what is in this blend.

The tea smells overwhelmingly of the very best sort of peppermint. Brewed, the peppermint still dominates, but a nice, light, non-bitter green tea flavor also comes through. It doesn’t taste overpoweringly minty; it’s just right.

I’m enjoying this, but it feels like drinking herbal tea. Not quite what I was after. I think I will adore this tea iced, however. Something is not firing on all cylinders, and I think it’s the temperature.

This is my first tea from my first order of samples from H&S; an inaugural tea if you will. I like my tea sweet, so I automatically added my standard 12 drops of stevia and 4 sugar cubes. My first impression was that I’d over-sweetened it, and that next time I should taste it unsweetened so I can get a feeling for the base flavor.

My second impression is that it is heavenly, regardless. I steeped it for too long, and there is still not a hint of bitterness anywhere. The flavor is sweet, well rounded, almost milky. One would swear there are calories in this! I love it.

Being new to loose leaf teas, yet obsessively trying new varieties all the time, I stayed clear of any Earl Greys because of my experience with cheap tea bags in the past.
I love darjeeling blacks and I’m slowly appreciating any quality Earl Greys.
This is a great choice. Nicely smooth and light with the Bergamot flavor makes this a perfect choice for me.
I’m looking forward to trying the other choices that Harney offers, because this left a nice impression

I’m impressed that I can actually taste the Guava with every sip. This is a nice tea. I’m guessing my “tea palette” is maturing, because I actually taste the green tea & black here. Is it gunpowder? hmm tastes smokey maybe.
..anyway, it’s an actual "tropical’ tea that’s not just pineapple & coconut..the Guava makes it more refined
I’m happy