Trader Nicks Tea Company

Last single serve! (although I did order more, oops?)

This is fine, but mostly just tastes like a generic peach-flavored black tea to me. Which makes sense given peach is the only flavoring, even though it’s described as peach, mango, and vanilla. There are mango chunks, but not sure where vanilla is supposedly coming from… Anyway, it’s a peach black tea. The base is smooth but doesn’t have a ton of flavor – I get a slight minerality/earthiness but not much else. Peach flavor isn’t quite fully peach gummy ring but somewhere between that and dried apricots.

Fine but forgettable.

Single serving.

This one is a bit odd. The blueberry flavor is fine, but the cinnamon makes it taste more like a coffee cake than a muffin to me. And then there’s some odd herbal/savory note happening? I remember tasting a similar herbal-y thing in their True Love’s Kiss green tea, it’s almost like sage or something?

Single serving.

Oof, this one is not for me. The puerh is very strong and does have a bit of a funk to my palate. I can taste some orange and buttery cookie in the background, but those flavors don’t really make sense with the very earthy puerh base. Nope, nope, nope!

Need to get back to trying my Trader Nicks haul! I’ve been on a tea buying spree lately for some reason, usually that happens in the fall but apparently it came early this year. XD

Anyway, this is described as a mango pear Earl grey and has a black and white base. To me, it’s somewhat accurate. I definitely taste the bergamot, and there is a crispness that could be pear. I don’t specifically get mango, but there is a fruitiness to it. The white tea definitely dominates as far as the base goes, so it’s quite light and soft, but perhaps with a bit more heft from the black tea.

I quite like it, but I do enjoy white Earls, so not surprising. I do think the mango needs to be stronger as, to me, it’s more Earl than it is fruity. Otherwise, an enjoyable cup for the afternoon.

Single serving.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to try this one since it lists almond in the tasting notes. But I’m glad I got it, because there is no almond flavoring, so I’m not sure why it’s presented as one of the predominant flavors.

The green apple is crisp and refreshing, but not overtly sour. It reminds me a bit of Lupicia’s Tsugaru, which I enjoy. The spices are somewhat mild, just enough to give it a cozy fall feeling but still letting the apple shine. Apparently there’s coconut flavor, but I don’t detect it at all. There’s a hint of mint in the finish, which I thought I was imagining, but it is there at the end of the ingredients.

I quite enjoyed this one, and I thought the green base was perfect for it. I’m not sure I would order the full size, only because I have other apple and spiced apple teas in my cupboard already. But it’s definitely one of the more successful blends from my order so far.

This is described as a cake tea with pineapple and orange, which sounded delightful to me and made me think of hummingbird cake or ambrosia.

However, even though pineapple flavor is listed in the ingredients, I can’t taste any fruity notes at all here, not even a hint. It has a long list of ingredients, but ends up tasting like a buttery cake flavored black tea. It almost has a bit of a pancake-like flavor, with decadent butter and syrup notes. Which is fine, but not what I was expecting given the tasting notes and description.

It’s actually a bit much for me, since I’m not really a dessert tea person these days, so I’ll probably put this one into my rehoming box.

Single serving sample.

This one smelled really good dry, but the steeped cup is decidedly meh. It’s extremely mild, but there’s also a floral perfumey quality to it that I don’t love. Otherwise it’s vaguely fruity, thankfully I don’t taste the pea flower.

Single serving.

There was a lot of blackberry leaf dust in my teabag, and unfortunately the resulting cup is undrinkable. So cloyingly sweet and musty, and doesn’t taste like caramel or popcorn. It almost tastes like pure stevia.

I think I must’ve chosen this tea based on the cute packaging, as I tend to avoid teas with actual chocolate in them. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be much, and I don’t notice the steeped cup being oily or cloudy.

I’m surprised that I taste so much strawberry here, as the ingredients list claims there is no strawberry flavoring, only “bits”. Seems unlikely to me that a few sparse dried strawberry pieces would contribute this much flavor, but who knows. It ends up tasting like a mild milk chocolate and strawberry tea, and I don’t really notice the vanilla or specifically ice cream notes.

I’m not really a chocolate tea person, but this one is pleasant enough for me to have no trouble finishing the sample pouch.

Single teabag.

This came out very weak, which honestly doesn’t surprise me since it seems to be Darjeeling mixed with an orange fruit infusion. Fruit infusions tend to require a lot more volume per cup, which I don’t think they accounted for in the sample size. And since it’s a blend, there’s not enough Darjeeling either.

I do taste a bit of the Darjeeling, and then the orange part is very artificial and tangy, similar to Tang or Emergen-C powder. I’m not sure they go together, but it’s difficult to tell since the overall flavor is so light.

This was a free sample with my order, thank you!

It’s a nice enough blend. I taste mostly the jasmine and peach flavor, with only a hint of bergamot. I definitely don’t notice the lavender. There is a touch of a powdery something, not sure if that’s just the rose petals or something in the flavoring.

Pleasant, and definitely makes sense for a whimsical tea party, but it’s just nothing special in my opinion. I would rather have plain jasmine pearls, or the peach ones from Teavivre.

Another single serving.

This one smelled good in the package, but it’s just not working for me. For some reason it came out quite bland, even though I only made an 8-ounce cup and there were about two teaspoons of leaf. I can smell the apple, but it’s not showing up well in the flavor, and the black base is coming off as unpleasantly musty. Then the hibiscus comes in at the end and leaves an unpleasant dryness on my tongue (in combination with the black tea tannins, I assume). There’s also a weird powdery finish, and a hint of soap?

Just no on all accounts ha ha, oh well!

Picked up a single serving (teabag) of this one, since it sounded fun and whimsical but I couldn’t remember how I felt about their green tea. I feel like I am less tolerant of lower grade green teas than other types, maybe because it’s usually Chinese sencha and I’m so used to the real deal? Sometimes they’re fine, it just depends on the company.

Smells delightfully cotton candy dry! And I’m enjoying the steeped mug as well. The base isn’t the greatest, but it’s not offensive, just very grassy in a drying way with some haylike notes. The cotton candy is perfectly balanced, I can taste that airy, fluffy, cloudlike candy sweetness, but it doesn’t taste cloying. The raspberry is nice as well, sort of a freeze-dried raspberry note without the tang. The cotton candy lingers nicely in the finish.

I’m not sure if I would repurchase it, just because the seaweedy/marine notes of the green tea do clash a tiny bit with those sweet flavors. I think if the flavoring were a touch stronger, it would be less noticeable. But I really enjoyed trying it, and so nice to see a cotton candy tea that doesn’t have sprinkles or sugar in it, and actually tastes as promised!

Somehow, I ended up on the Trader Nicks site a few days ago. I’m not sure how, I haven’t historically been that big a fan of their teas, with some exceptions. But apparently I was in the mood for some retail therapy, because I ended up ordering six sample pouches and 11 single servings to try. (shrugs)

Anyway, this is one of their newer teas, and one that I was most interested to try. And naturally, I had to watch both of the The Princess Diaries movies after ordering it… It’s a pleasant enough tea. The base is very light, both in color and flavor, with a subtle hay-like flavor. I don’t find it brisk, as described. The pear is most apparent near the beginning of the sip and has a crisp, fresh flavor, rather than a cooked one. The end of the sip is dominated by the cinnamon and clove, with the cinnamon having a touch of an artificial candy note.

I’m not sure whether I would reorder this or not, I do think it would be supremely appropriate for fall. We’ll see how I feel at the end of the small pouch.

From CameronB! Thanks very much! The flavors are unique here, as in I don’t think I have had this particular blueberry/lemon flavoring before in another tea. It’s a bit like candy… so not really tangy fruits. The blueberry is more like a muffin sort of blueberry. Neither fruit is very distinct. The green tea base isn’t taking over at all and I didn’t even notice the rooibos. It’s an okay blend.

There was only one bag/ serving offered during the December 2024 club (?) which was too bad. There was a hint of ginger-orange-chocolate. I brewed this bag in an 12oz mug, half full of water, 212F, & 5-minute steep time. Perhaps this one needed a heavier hand with the tea to bag ratio.

Sipdown

Aroma: Rooibos, vanilla, hibiscus (not my note), & berry

Taste: Floral, nutty, and a little sour.

Additional Notes: I made a game of trying to have a friend guess the theme / main flavor. Fun fact: they never guessed pumpkin. While I enjoy a heavy rooibos blend, the goal of creating a pumpkin profile, fell flat, IMO.

Just finishing off a mug of this right now! I made it how with some caramel flavoured cold foam on top which was a very delicious addition to the otherwise smooth and warmly spice vanilla chai flavour I’m getting from the cup. A little bit more vanilla, I would say, but the cinnamon and clove is there too. I also swear I get a sort of light hint of creamy milk chocolate. Whole thing is a bit on the lighter/softer side and not too sweet either. Just smooth and silky, and definitely snuggly.

This is interesting! It’s a little spiced and a little fruity. I’m enjoying it cold. I’d say it tastes the most like spiced raspberry. It’s a little reminiscent of pastries, which is what it’s going for. Yeah, this one is definitely desserty in a baked good fashion. One of the better Trader Nick’s teas I’ve tried for sure! The rooibos is the perfect base for it.

I don’t know if I necessarily felt like there was a lot of “wow factor” to this blend but it did make for a very solid mug and I think both of the inspiration flavours were pretty apparent, though the raspberry a little more so. Medium bodied overall and the raspberry felt fairly natural though without any tartness/acidity to it. Quite mellow without being delicate/weak. There was an overall sort of airy sweetness that felt pretty cotton candy-like. Not too sugary/cloying in any way but almost like an icing sugar sort of powdery softness that just sort smoothed everything out.

Made myself a mug of this to sip on at the start of the day, as one does with Earl Grey blends… even the ones that fit that definition a bit more loosely.

I’m going to need to revisit this because I ended up fairly distracted while drinking it and I don’t think I really got a great read on the flavour profile. Definitely fruity with a nice amount of body – more than a typical white tea blend, but less than a more traditional Earl Grey on the black tea base. It feels like there’s something interesting here – it just needs more focus than I was able to give it today to really get a proper read on it.

Solid background sipping kinda tea, at the very least.

This tastes more like apple than pumpkin. I like adding soy milk to accentuate the starchiness and make it feel more like pumpkin. It certainly doesn’t taste bad, just boring. I wish it had more spices.

This was a very sweet and fruity cuppa with some really juicy candy-like cherry and kiwi notes with a lot of creaminess of the coconut. It was very, very familiar tasting to me and it took me a long time to figure out what it was making me think of but by the last few swigs I realized it was making me think of a very old discontinued DT blend called Hard Candy. Makes sense – there are some big Jolly Rancher kind of vibes to this tea.

Made myself a mug of this last night and was so impressed by it! I mean, every element just hit me in exactly the right kind of way. Smooth and nutty rooibos base with sort of oat meal or oat muffin liked bakery kind of notes balanced by a sweet, bright and very jammy and cooked down duo of raspberry and rhubarb. Definitely a home baked pastry kind of vibe. I don’t know if muffin or crumble or pie or whatever feels most apt but it was just exactly the right intensity, balance, sweetness… Just all the things.