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My cups of this have been a bit hit or miss… it’s hard for me to get consistent cups with a good amount of both black tea and chunky fruit, so some cups have been very underwhelming while others have been quite nice.

The steeped aroma is very pleasant. It’s sort of a sweet cream with some fruity undertones on the nose. I steep this on the longer side for me with blacks, due to wanting to let the fruit have a chance, so the black tea has been coming out a bit more metallic/tannic than I personally prefer, but it isn’t bad. A little malty, a little coppery, and a little more autumn leaf. The fruitiness is there, but mostly comes out as a generic and very sweet “fruit flavor” than distinct fruits — I’ve had a few cups where a pear note popped a little more for me, and I could almost make out cranberry in the aftertaste (cranberry being a notoriously hard flavor for me to ever taste in tea). Most of the time I just get a sweet “pear mascarading as bubblegum” vibe.

Enjoyable, but not something I think I’ll miss once I’ve finished off the last few cups remaining in the bag.

I grabbed this tea at the grocery looking for what I hoped would be a cheap and easily accessible alternative for “cinnamon candy” tea… and while this is okay and scratches some of that itch, it isn’t quite up to par with, say, Harney’s or Market Spice’s rooibos versions. It does have that sweet cinnamon flavor, and I actually like that it isn’t quite as aggressive as the others, but my main issue is the inclusion of mint… like, why? It is subtle, and I definitely notice it more in some cups than others so it is a little inconsistent from teabag to teabag, but it just leaves this weird aftertaste. I’d be far more favorable of this if that one ingredient were missing. I don’t hate it so much that I wouldn’t ever buy this again when I can grab it off a grocery shelf and not have to pay shipping to get something objectively better from elsewhere, but it sure was a disappointment over what I was hoping to get from it.

I was gifted this tea from a coworker after it gave her heartburn. And ya… I can see how she could have that problem with it. The spices in it come off a bit muddled for me and present as more of a general “peppery” taste. Maybe I’m being hard on it because I’ve had some really great loose leaf rooibos chais (Rishi’s being my favorite). It’s actually fine for a cheap bagged option, but I’ll probably try some other brands next time. As a free gifted tea, this was perfectly servicable in the evenings, and I actually quite enjoyed it steeped in sweet apple cider.

This is the last of the three flavors of Teeccino available in my local grocery store (as grounds). I’ve had it hot a handful of times, but mostly I throw two scoops of grounds into a fillable teabag and cold steep it overnight for coldbrew “coffee.”

I’m having a hard time finding this one any different than the Hazelnut I tried last time. Maybe that is due to my brain having a strong hazelnut-to-chocolate association because I’m an eat-Nutella-straight-from-the-jar sort of person, but I’m getting the same roasted coffee flavor, nuttiness, and really dark and bittersweet chocolate. If I had them side-by-side, maybe one leans stronger on the nuttiness and the other on the bittersweet chocolate, but all-in-all they taste “samey” enough to me to not really have a preference of one over the other.

I used to have an entire cube in my tea-cube-shelf-storage just for Bird & Blend Tea, and now, this is the last package from this vendor left, with maybe 1-2 more servings left. I had to stop ordering from Bird & Blend due to the high shipping fees and no more “free shipping threshold” and there are definitely many of their blends I miss. This one will be added to that list, because I loooooove it!

This is basically a hibiscus “mulled wine” type tea except it leans into a fruity flavor rather than a spicy one. The sumac berries give it this sort of piney overtone I love, and somehow the combination of the sweet apple with the tart sumac berries and hibiscus tastes more like cranberry to me than any tea I’ve ever had that has “cranberry” in the name. There is apple and cinnamon here, but neither is as strong as one might think from the name, and I wouldn’t really recommend it on those grounds alone. But it definitely has a nice “cold weather” vibe with the mix of mulled wine/pine/cranberry/apple notes.

Will really miss this one… I used to be fine with the cheap Stash “Apple Cinnamon Chamomile” teabags and since having this tea, now those are just not cutting it for me anymore.

I used to have a strong aversion to jasmine; my first experience was some green Jasmine Pearls that had SUCH a strong scent that all I tasted was “grandma perfume” and it gave me a headache. When I tried jasmine-scented black tea, I found the aroma more subdued from that early experience and really liked the taste on the black base. I really love these pearls; both warm and iced, it is delicious. It’s smooth, with hints of malt and smoke, a nice florality, and a lovely grape candy flavor. I think I’ve adapted to jasmine from jasmine blacks, because I’ve started to take a liking to jasmine greens now, too (as long as they aren’t too strongly aromatic). Between the two, I still prefer jasmine black tea to green tea, though!

This was gifted to me from Derk (who I believe got it from Martin), thank you both!

It has a pleasant aroma… citrus forward, leaning a bit more pithy-orange, with a fair bit of florality on the nose as well. Tried a sip and it tasted vaguely citrusy, so I decided to take Derk’s suggestion and add the second teabag to the cup to try to strengthen the flavor. That made a world of difference! It’s pleasantly tart with a nice citrusy flavor that falls somewhere between kumquat and orange for me. A subtle florality comes in towards the end of the sip, mostly of elderflower but I can get the lavender in the aftertaste. Very pleasant, and I’m happy to get the chance to try it!

This was a gift from derk, thank you so much!

Some rain has finally pushed in this morning, causing me to brew my first cup of hot tea in months. I enjoy plain mugicha, so I’ve been looking forward to this!

I’m surprised how strongly I can smell the cocoa on the nose. It’s sweet, like chocolate chip cookies on a cooling rack. It really comes through in the taste, too! I was expecting that strong, roasty, coffee-esque flavor of the barley with maybe a chocolately background hint, but instead I’m getting gooey chocolate chips and sweet dough with crispy cooked edges. There is something a little peanutty about the flavor too, reminding me of soba tea.

It’s not what my brain was expecting, but it’s delicious! Tastes more like chocolate chip cookies than any tea I’ve ever had before specifically titled as such.

I’m not sure when or why my tastebuds changed, but I went from actively disliking jasmine tea to craving it. Maybe the strong aroma is no longer triggering my migraine brain like it once did…

This is cheap, off-the-shelf grocery store jasmine, which I wouldn’t exactly recommend (I’ve always found bagged green tea a bit iffy) but it works for my purposes, which is easy coldbrewing. Plunk four teabags into a liter of cold water, stick in the fridge overnight, remove the next morning, and add two tablespoons of peach syrup. It’s soooooo good! There is something about the floral/fruity taste of jasmine (I always get a sort of “grape candy” flavor from jasmine) mixed with the sweet peach that just works for me. I’ve been downing liters of the stuff during this unending heatwave.

This was a gift from Derk, thank you so much!

I had no idea quite how to brew this beautiful tea, which looks like long twigs and pine sprigs. Camellia Sinensis’ website recommended 3g to 500ml at 194F, and I mostly followed that, except I had a little over 4 grams and just dumped it all in my 500ml teapot so I wouldn’t have a weird amount left over. Steeped for five minutes.

The dry leaf has a really fresh, pine aroma. Steeped, I have a harder time describing the aroma… still a bit of pine, a citrusy zing, and a soft florality I can only describe as the smell of cotton sheets straight out of the dryer. The taste has a wonderful pine overtone that lingers on the tongue, with a lemon citrus note and something a bit woody or earthy underneath… like a cross between oats and bark.

Definitely relaxing… I normally sleep through my weekends so I’m not going to say this tea caused drowsiness, but my nap definitely felt very restful!

I put the spent leaves in some cold water and added the remains of my now-cold-after-napping teacup and will see how that turns out for iced tea. Not sure how well the spent leaves will fare cold-infusing, but no harm in trying. I figure even slightly piney-tasting ice cold water would be okay in this heat we are having here.