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Cold brewed this one in my French press. I love how this device nets me tea with no debris! (Way more excited about that then I should be…) I also love how fast this tea cold brews.

It’s tart and light, even without the egregious over-leafing from my last attempt at making this.

I received this as part of a Tazo sampler pack my best friend got me for Christmas. It’s a nice breakfast tea to have with milk and sugar. Steeped up (read: the tea got dark) in my mug fairly quickly today at work and you can’t beat the convenience of a tea bag. I still think I like the Tazo Earl Grey better, though, but I’ve been on an Earl-Grey-For-Breakfast kick lately, so that’s kind of to be expected.

(1 teabag, 8oz, Boiling water)

I’ve tried this tea plain before and got smooth/sweet rooibos but I didn’t get caramel in the taste; I did get some burnt sugar-caramel scent from the tea, however. Today is much the same — caramelly scent from the brewed tea, but I’m not tasting anything beyond rooibos in the tea itself. I added milk and a tiny bit of sugar hoping to bring out this tea’s dessert qualities, but no luck.

I’m starting to wonder if my tea’s gone stale or if there’s something wrong with me that I can’t taste the flavor my tea is supposed to have.

Edit: YESSSS! I’m finally getting something creamy and rich and sweet on the second steep! This one has milk and sugar again, but this steep feels more true to the name of the tea. Yummy!

I used up the rest of this sample today — yay for making room in the (overflowing) tea cabinet (that I keep adding to, despite my best attempts at whittling it down some). This isn’t a bad tea … just forgettable. Reading the reviews, I was expecting something sweeter and fruiter and I taste something bland. Not bad, but not restocking.

After reading the reviews here, I used the rest of my sample to cold brew this tea. And it was … vile. Like drinking cheap perfume with a bitter fruit undertone. Yuck! There’s no hope for this one.

Edit: I dropped my rating because the cold brewed version of this was just so awful.

There’s a tea shop near my house!

I’m so excited to have found this, especially considering the tea shop I usually frequent is an hours’ drive away from me and I only get there once or twice a month. This tea was the sample of the day at the local tea shop, and it is amazing! It reminds me of a cinnamon tea my mom and I had years ago, and haven’t been able to find since. This tea is like liquid Fireballs candies and sweet enough to not require sugar. My only complaint is that the flavor lasts through half the sip before dropping into nothingness. Otherwise, this tea is cinnamony perfection.

I was craving fruit juice and found this sample in the cupboard. It smelled SO fruity and sweet in the bag that it seemed like it’d be an acceptable substitute. This brews up to a very light green and retains precious little of the strong fruit flavor present in the dry leaves. The taste is … flat. No fruit, just green tea. While it’s hot it’s not bitter, but as soon as it cools it becomes incredibly bitter. (1.25tsp, 200F, 5 minutes)

The second steep reminds me of the Lipton green tea and melon teabags I’ve had — I get some light melon flavor underlying the green tea flavor. Still had to gulp this cup down to get flavor and avoid bitterness, though. (1.25tsp, 180F, 3 minutes)

I’m amazed by how far this blend falls short of the taste the aroma promsies.

Snowmageddon continues!

Well, kind of. Last night, after the snow finally stopped, my fiance and I dug our cars out and cleared them of all snow. We went to bed secure in the knowledge that our cars would be ready for us in the morning when we left for work — no half-asleep car cleaning for us! Unfortunately for us, we got almost a foot of snow overnight so all the work was completely wasted. On top of that, the plow guy for our building didn’t show up until ten minutes ago, and we’ve been stuck at home. I took the day off of work when it looked like the plow guy was going to be a no-show and my fiance is going to attempt going in late.

We’ve been getting quite a lot of snow days lately and they’re starting to get frustrating — neither of our workplaces actually cancels work due to weather and whatever time we take off comes out of vacation time or has to be made up. Grr. Luckily for me, I brought my work laptop home and can try to play catchup on some things while drinking massive amounts of tea!

Because it’s super snowy once again and I’m annoyed about missing work, I chose Read My Lips for this morning. It’s got chocolate! And I’m dying to see how it is with some of the mudslide creamer I picked up.

It’s soooo chocolatey with the creamer! Mint is present, but light, throughout the sip. Yum! Hot chocolate in tea form!

I’m reminded why I love this tea so much — it’s okay plain, but not mind-blowing; it’s amazing with milk/sugar or sweetened creamer — it’s versatile and I rarely have a cup of it I don’t like.

We’re getting pummeled by an epic snow storm … again. This is probably the fourth big, bad, world-ending snow storm we’ve had in two months and, once again, my fiance and I are at home to ride out the storm. (Little cars + long commutes + blizzard = snow day to avoid commuter-death)

The bright side to this snow day is that I have access to all my teas! I’ve been happily sipping down all day long! I used the last of this to make a pot of tea.

I added some sugar to this just to see if made the chocolate pop more. Sadly it doesn’t. The mint just overpowers everything else with the chocolate relegated to the background — providing a lovely creamy finish. The sugar kind of mucks everything up here, this is one I like so much better plain.

Resteeped this one and had it with milk and sugar (again). I’m getting more of the cookie flavor my fiance picked up in the smell of the dry leaves this time. I get a lot of bready/pastry flavor mixed with the coconut. Both flavors are light, but this isn’t bad.