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Late afternoon tea at Cheddars. I love this stuff. My favorite restaurant iced tea. This was my treat for surviving the disability test. My wife said I had no color and my lips turned blue when it was over. Tea makes everything better.

Ordered skinny, no whipped cream, and half the pumps of syrup. I like it sweet but not too sweet, this is much better. Had this on the drive to more testing for my disability claim.

Listen up, especially you UK Steepsterites. I just tried the best chocolate tea I have had to date. This is seriously good. The mint lends just light background support. Most amazing to me was the liquor did not become murky. Full review here: http://theeverdayteablog.blogspot.com/2013/07/tea-horse-chocolate-peppermint.html

Second cup with yesterday’s leaf @ 3 1/2 minutes. This is a good balance between the apple and the rose. I still can’t imagine the two flavors work together but they do and very well. This is a very nice cup of tea. Keep the time under 3 1/2 if great big gobs of green apple aren’t your thing.

Thank you Ashmanra this is just what the doctor ordered today to get rid of the lousy breakfast tea grumpies.

The sample I got from Nina’s, a while back, I steeped 3 minutes. It was a lovely lightly rose flavored black tea with a hint of apple.

Today I went by Ashmanra’s comments and steeped 4 minutes. Wow! What a difference. Now this is GREEN APPLE with a lovely rose background. It is almost like how I remember apple wine tasting.

I have more, so next time I will try it at 3 1/2 minutes, just for giggles.

I have praised this simple bagged tea many times. Today is not one of those times. The waitress brought me the little silver pitcher and I noticed the water took its time turning dark. I picked up the cup and tasted. It was lukewarm and tasted like bland nothingness. Asking for a new pitcher, thinking she had gotten distracted on the first, the second cup was no better. I started to ask for a third, telling her someone may have turned off the hot water dispenser.

“Oh, the machine is broke, that water is just hot out of the tap. I guess I should have told you.”

Do you think?

Anyway, this makes my point. Bagged tea too often gets a bad wrap it does not deserve. Is it as good as loose leaf? No, but many bagged teas are quite nice, you just have to take care in preparing them, otherwise you get bland nothingness.

Off my rant. Leaving my score from past experience.

Had this last night. Once again, I find myself at odds with the other reviews. I liked the vanilla flavoring in this. It is not overwhelming. I find it to be nicely creamy. Admittedly, I do not drink a lot of vanilla teas. The problem with this tea for me is the black tea being decaf and bagged has no real presence or definition. As a late evening vanilla-esque cup this was pleasant. I just wanted more tea flavor in it.

Not the proper way to end this one. I kind of steeped way too long because I walked off to look for a guitar cord and strap – and of course they weren’t where I thought they were. So this is a bit harsh. Still drinkable but not its best. The caramel comes off as kind of vanilla.

An Ah-Oh moment. What was I thinking. I finally hit the bottom of the seemingly bottomless tin. I can’t justify buying more until I drink down some of my other teas. Fortunately I have nearly a pound of Ahmad Green with Earl Grey to tied me over. :)

Today I used my usual amount of leaf and 6oz water from a drip coffee thingy. I only let it steep in the press until the water stopped dripping. Poured into my cup and this is very aromatic and flavorful. A worthy ending to my favorite cheap earl.

I know there isn’t strawberry in this, but that is what it smells like this morning. I even used near boiling water because I was in too big a hurry for caffeine to wait. The result – No bitterness! I do need to cut one of these sachets open before they are gone and release the bancha. It fills the bag to overfull. I like this a lot.