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Additional notes: Sipdown! Had one more of cup of this one, before sending to someone else. I hope they like it more than I did! It’s a very odd blend… not terrible… but different. But those darn marshmallows don’t melt!! They should have called it ‘unmeltable marshmallow’ not ‘toasted marshmallow’. :D

Definitely wanted to try this one! Thanks so much CharlotteZero! I went with two teaspoons (I tried to follow Teavivre’s Dian Hong instructions!)

Steep #1 // few minutes after boiling // 2 min
The fragrance is lovely! The flavor seems to be between Teavivre’s Golden & Full Leaf Dian Hong’s. It’s neither sweet potato or chocolate… somewhere in the middle! This is very nice, but I feel like both of Teavivre’s are better because they aren’t in the middle. One is super chocolate, one is a ton of sweet potato. This blend also has some fuzzies that are usually on white tea that likes to bother my throat.

Steep #2 // just boiled // 4-5 mins
I might have let this one steep too long, but the flavor isn’t bad. This cup is very similar to the last cup. Very nice, just not as nice as Teavivre! They don’t have tiny fuzzies. The flavor isn’t as full as I’d love it to be. I will gladly drink the rest of my sample though!

thanks so much Janelle for a bit of this one! Always happy to try ANY tea. Unfortunately, I’ve tried enough of these 52Teas blends with this base.. and with this one I’m just getting the base I really don’t like. No other flavors. Caramel butter toffee popcorn? Nope. So I’m just going to now reveal what this particular base tastes like to me (since maybe they will stop using it): cardboard. I think someone else said construction paper and I nodded my head in agreement. 52Teas puts amazing work in their teas, and I wish they wouldn’t waste it on this black tea base. I think I’m going to stop trying with this particular base, BUT there are some other black tea bases that 52 uses, like their assam that I still love. I don’t even feel nice posting this tasting note, since maybe it tastes better to everyone else and just not my tastebuds. When it’s the nice flavors and the black tea base I don’t like, it’s manageable, but not if it’s just the black tea base I can taste.

thank you for this sample Marcel Duchamp! I didn’t remember this was smoky until I brewed it, so I’m glad I separated this sample from the others! I needed something brisk this morning. A Scottish inspired tea should probably be brisk, so I went with this one… Scotland probably gets the same amount of sun as NY… this better be the last week of this snow! I’m so sun deprived! I steeped up the teaspoon and a half for this cup. It’s gone now! Both steeps are pretty much the same — surprisingly smoky but it seems like it’s on an assam type base, so that seems different. It is brisk, as I expected, slightly malty. Smoky smoky! I wish had more to say about this one… but their description is definitely accurate. But it’s another good one from S&V. I’ve tried a few from them now and they are always good!

Thank you for this one, Dexter3657! This sounded delightful! Very happy you sent it over. I certainly don’t have enough keemuns “the less smoky lapsang”. Plenty of orange (lemon?) peels and two big blueberries in my infuser… that must be why when it’s brewed, the tea itself is very light colored. So I put the infuser back in for a WHILE. At least 10-15 minutes. It didn’t seem to have an affect on the tea itself, but the orange peels certainly got PEELIER. Not really a good thing… it tasted like peels, not orange. I didn’t really taste any blueberry. But I love this sort of keemun – slightly smoky and sweet. I just wish it was a stronger black tea. Maybe I should have used more leaves. A nice idea for a blend though, Handmade!

A sample from Fusion! I tried Adagio’s Thai Chai, and it seemed to be one of my least favorite Adagio blends. This one COULD be the exact same blend… it looks like the same ingredients. A BIG piece of coconut and a BIG entire anise star went into the infuser. The look of the dry blend sure looks like something anyway! There seems to be more actual ingredients than black tea. The brew on this one is very light even after five minutes. I may have let the water cool too long, but to be fair, the instructions say to boil at 203 degrees and not 212 degrees. The flavor is okay, but I think I’m just not a fan of lemongrass in my chai, though I like lemongrass in general. But that doesn’t make sense… I loved Adagio’s other chai (The Colonel) with lemongrass in it. Otherwise, not enough black tea. I need more flavor though and less lemongrass! What’s with the black teas today being so weak tasting?

Thank you MissB for this surprise sample with my other samples! I’m definitely up for trying any Bluebird teas, even if this one looks like hibiscus overload. I used the entire sample which is wayyy more than two teaspoons. Hopefully it doesn’t kill me! I ran downstairs so this one steeped for four minutes at boiling too. Yikes. I think I just realized… what if I steeped hibiscus teas at a lower temp? I could try it anyway. The color of the cup is magenta! Or like a beet? I don’t think I’ve ever had beets before! The flavor is actually NICE for a fruity tea! Wow.. this isn’t even the first fruity tea from Bluebird I’ve actually loved. They are even good at making fruit blends! Somehow this isn’t as hibiscus as I thought it would be… just enough to give it some kick. Really, it does actually taste like beets. Then there is a sweetness from the apple. Then some citrus from the lemon/orange. This is balanced wonderfully. Really over two teaspoons wasn’t overdone after all. WOW again… I really like Bluebird’s fruit teas. I might even like the fruity teas more than the black tea base that they use, because it isn’t enough of a kick for me. If only all fruity blends could be this nice.

A surprise sample from Marcel Duchamp to go with my other samples! thanks so much! I’ve enjoyed the few Nina’s Paris teas I’ve tried before. Another nice one here. Apple with their nice black tea. Sometimes the apple seems like it’s on the verge of being fake, but there are many more worse apple teas out there. If this is Ceylon, it’s one of my favorites. But I didn’t taste much rose here. I think I may have been using too much tea with the other samples from Nina’s (the entire package). This cup seemed to have half the tiny sample package but it seemed to be the perfect amount of tea (probably because Nina’s base is usually brisk!) I feel like I ruined the other samples now! I can only imagine they would have better then. :D

This one was included in a swap with Marcel Duchamp! thanks so much! I was blindly thinking this was my beloved SpecialTeas but I guess there are a ton of tea companies by that name. I loved the few teas I have been able to try from SpecialTeas but this one is different. Luckily it is delicious anyway!

Steep #1 // 20 minutes after boiling // 3 min steep
Honestly looking at the ingredients, I didn’t expect much from this one (raisins in pecan pie?) But whatever is here works really well together… not really pecan pie exactly, but tasty anyway. I wonder if the calendula petals are supposed to give it a cream/vanilla flavor? I see those in blends like these all of the time. The yerba mate itself doesn’t taste like a BBQ (unless it is because of how long I cooled the water), so the base actually works as a dessert tea. It’s very sweet! There is something here that tastes like it could be whipped cream on a pie. But no pecans. It needs a new name but the blend is nice!

Steep #2 // just boiled // few min steep
This cup tastes much more like just a plain yerba mate. It has lost its magic! I probably oversteeped it. I loved the first cup though!I have been wondering which of guayusa, roasted yerba mate and green yerba mate has the most caffeine?

ETA: I just noticed this was my 1,003 tasting note and I thought I had been keeping an eye on it! Too many tasting notes lately…

This one is a sample from BrewTEAlly Sweet! thanks so much! I’ve wanted to try this one for ages. There is popcorn here! I woke up thinking butterscotch, and I was trying to think of a tea that might fit with that craving. This one works more than any other teas I have, I think! It’s maple, which helps. Also cinnamon. This is tasty but it brews too light for my brain to be awake to read these Tournament books! It’s sweet, it does taste like maple and cinnamon. I can’t really taste any black tea at all. A bit of flavor from the two pieces of popcorn that fell in my infuser. It’s good but it needs a stronger black tea base! It reminded me of another tea I’ve tried… and sure enough, Tealux’s Maple Splash even has the same description. ah well, I have samples of both teas then! (Which is fine since reading the tasting note for the other, it said I wouldn’t mind buying two ounces of it!)

I haven’t been reading tasting notes and I miss them! Trying to catch up on books….