737 Tasting Notes
Purchased a cheap electric kettle for my desk at work because my hot water options up until this point were a dirty microwave or a Keurig, God help me.
This one tastes better when made with fresh, properly boiled water and steeped for a longer period of time. Imagine that! Bumping up the rating.
The Froot Loops taste went away and it actually resembles an EG now. Still not a fantastic one, but an acceptable work cuppa. Double-bagged it to increase flavor.
Must remember to bring my tea ball infuser for my loose-leaf Twinings EG tomorrow.
Flavors: Bergamot, Orange
Haven’t had this one in ages… I have this weird on-again, off-again relationship with coffee, but in the end, I always return to tea.
This is a green tea that I can get behind. It’s just so tasty! The coconut and vanilla flavoring smooths out any astringency that might occur from oversteeping and the ginger adds some depth to the overall flavor profile.
Love it. 10/10 stars!
Flavors: Coconut, Flowers, Ginger, Vanilla
Preparation
I don’t know why I’m giving this one a second chance.
This tea… tastes like Froot Loops. I taste a fake orange flavor, but it certainly isn’t bergamot orange. And why on earth would they put marigold buds in an EG?
It’s fine if Lipton wants to make a black orangey-marigold blend. They just really shouldn’t bait and switch people by labeling it as something that it clearly is not.
Flavors: Artificial, Orange
Preparation
Absolutely devastated that both David Bowie and Alan Rickman have passed… Same age, same cause, within days of one another.
Opted to have tea this morning instead of coffee in honor of these fine British gents. Made it with skim milk and tried not to cry. :(
It’s a perfectly serviceable bagged EG.
This is a flavored black tea blend, which is appropriately named. I taste pumpkin and cinnamon initially, and then clove and sugarcane, and then oddly, banana. I can smell the banana in the liquor too. The tea leaves the same kind of creamy coating in your mouth that pumpkin pie does. It’s very rich in umami.
Weirdly enjoyable blend.
Flavors: Cinnamon, Cloves, Pumpkin, Spices, Sugarcane
Preparation
Double-sacheted this one and poured way too much milk in it, but it still manages to be very tasty. It’s definitely genuine vanilla bean— has a bit of a bitter earthy edge to it. It actually kind of smells like a pu-erh, even though I know it’s not. I added some honey to play up the sweeter side of the vanilla and it worked out nicely. Very nice mid-afternoon sweet treat.
Mighty Leaf teas don’t tend to get great reviews on Steepster, and I think it’s because they are VERY pricey bagged teas. I understand why they cost a lot though; they use plastic silken sachets instead of paper, and they weave the string and tag into the sachet instead of cheaply gluing it (looking at YOU, Lipton and H & S), so there is a lot of materials, time, and labor involved. It’s also whole-leaf loose tea inside the sachets, not CTC dust. But when you’re paying $9-$12 for a box of 14 sachets, you expect pleasant surprises and perfect artistry. Or at the very least, multiple steeps per sachet. To be completely honest, these teas are not surprising or overly finely crafted, and they don’t lend themselves well to multiple steepings. I was lucky enough to get this box for half-price (liquidation sale; Shaw’s is not stocking this tea on their shelves anymore), so I am able to review it without the price point affecting my experience too much.
Vanilla is one of my very favorite things in the world; in addition to conserving my supply of this tea treat, I’m currently mourning the discontinuation of my favorite scent from Bath & Body Works, Wild Madagascar Vanilla. I’ve stocked up on the full line of products before they start stocking it in body lotion and fragrance mist only, and relegate them to the “online exclusive” group.
Why do all my favorite vanilla things leave me??
Flavors: Vanilla, Wet Earth
Aww, it sucks when companies discontinue awesome products. I haven’t tried Wild Madagascar Vanilla. Weird since I love vanilla. Maybe it’s best I never experienced it!
I’m still angry at them for discontinuing their creamy moisturizing hand soaps, and also their Twilight Woods hand soaps. Ugh!
The guy who created these blends did a crappy job matching the name of the potion to the personalities of the tea. The Draught of Peace should be a bedtime blend, not a caffeinated blend; the Butterbeer one should have a rooibos base; Felix Felicis should be caffeinated (to make the drinker feel like (s)he is ready to take on the world); and there shouldn’t be one named Veritaserum because Veritaserum is supposed to be clear and flavorless. It’s almost like he just made a bunch of awesome blends and then assigned them potion and beverage names from the Wizarding World at random.
I mean, they’re all delicious. Especially this one, which is a black tea with raspberry, dark chocolate, and hazelnut flavoring. I gotta say, this is one very nice tea. I love how the cocoa is bitter, not sweet. The raspberry is naturally sweet enough to balance it in a very organic way. The hazelnut is a nice touch, too— it’s almost like drinking deconstructed Nutella. Stripped of all refined sugar and calorie- free. Perfect for First-Half-of-January Resolutions. ;)
It was apparently inspired by the large ice cream that Hagrid buys for Harry in Diagon Alley in The Sorcerer’s Stone. Which has absolutely zilch to do with Veritaserum, because that potion doesn’t even get mentioned until The Goblet of Fire. Maybe he should have named the blends after the books instead?
Flavors: Bitter, Cocoa, Dark Chocolate, Hazelnut, Raspberry
Preparation
I like that this one has a bit of an edge to it… Matches my mood this week. Coming back to work from a 2-week vacation is the worst thing ever, especially if your job is in customer service, which mine is…
I will preface this note by saying that I heated my water in the microwave because that is my only option at work, besides using the Keurig, which is even more abominable in my books. So the flavor profile of this cuppa is probably off, due to my improperly heated water of indeterminate temp. And use of a stoneware mug that was merely rinsed after I used it to drink instant coffee with sugar. I also oversteeped it, to add insult to injury, so I can taste paper from the bag.
I taste something else that is pleasantly sour, like a faint hint of genuine, unsweetened lemon. Also nutty notes and the smell of wet, decaying maple leaves. Lots of earthiness. Calls to mind the rainy, gray hills of Ireland for sure. It has a bite of astringency in the aftertaste.
Despite all of its handicaps, it still proves to be a hearty, uplifting, fairly tasty experience. Not bad as a bagged cuppa, but I bet the loose version is even better with properly boiled water in a fine china cup.
Flavors: Lemon, Nutty, Pleasantly Sour, Wet Earth
Oooooooooo….. This one is lovely! It smells strongly of maple and walnuts and it tastes like maple Mini-Wheat cereal. Yummmmmm. I get notes of sweet caramel too.
The liquor is the typical deep red characteristic of rooibos. Very very nice. Easily the yummiest Adagio blend that I have tried to date.
Flavors: Caramel, Maple, Sweet, Wheat
Preparation
This one was yummy! It tasted like a creamy black tea. Lots of vanilla and some kind of nondescript tart fruit taste. Not like a masterpiece or anything, but definitely drinkable and accessible.
Found it kind of odd that this was a black tea; I would think that the Draught of Peace would be a chamomile base… Just my opinion.