American Beauty

I’m not completely sure who sent this to me but thank you! I decided to get back to working on some of my samples from swaps. They’ve been sitting around for a while.
This one is beautiful. It’s very soft and delicate. The first thing I can taste is the rose which turns into lavender and ends in a minty sweetness. I can tell that there is jasmine in this blend but it kind of blends in between the lavender and rose. The white tea is behind the floral flavors but I think it lends a soft peachy-like sweetness to it. Very soothing.

Interesting mix of mint and floral, notably rose and lavender. Honestly I could have done without the mint but I’m not complaining too much, it works well together. Maybe if the mint were a bit more tempered this would have been perfect, but as it stands, it is acceptable.

Saved a sample of this from the tea box. I admit, I was expecting to dislike this since I haven’t loved other teas from this brand. However, lavender saved the day! I love lavender, and I enjoy its tasty presence in this tea. The other flavor I detect is mint, which is another favorite of mine. I would rather have non-caffeinated versions of these ingredients, but I’m enjoying this cup. The flavors combine nicely, with a little hint of rose at the end. I drank this cold, and it was pretty refreshing!

Merry Christmas! It’s the last day of Advent, and the end of my calendar from Sara.

This is a very minty tea, and the lavender is strong too. There are other floral notes too.

I do like lavender a lot, but I think it’s a little strong for my taste in this tea. It tastes a bit too… astringent? Like when jasmine tea has too much jasmine and seems like perfume. But not as bad as that.

I could see this tea growing on me though.

Edit: Okay, four minutes was way too long. I retried with two minutes, and now it’s minty with a hint of lavender and rose, and that astringency is gone. It would be great iced too.

This is one of the teas I picked up during American Tea Room’s big going-out-of-business discount sale. I’ve never had any of their teas before, but can’t resist a big discount, and I admittedly grabbed a lot of floral flavors since I really enjoy those. While I’m always a little hesitant when teas include jasmine after my experience with jasmine pearls, overall this blend had me curious, with its mix of florals, mint, and white tea base.

Opening the bag, the scent was heavily that of rose and mint, and honestly if those are the only two flavors I end up getting from the brewed cup I know I’ll be satisfied, because that is a flavor combination that I really enjoy. The brewed cup was a lovely yellow color, that didn’t have such a strong minty scent, though it was still noticeable. There was definitely still a lovely rose aroma wafting up from the cup, with another more subtle floral scent in the background. Jasmine? If so, it’s certainly light, which is exactly how I like it in my floral teas, which bodes well. Oddly enough, I didn’t notice any hint of lavender at all.

The flavor of the tea was very much like a rose mint tea. The base was minty, leaving that cool, freshing feeling in the mouth, but it wasn’t overwhelming or overpowering. A strong rose note sweetens the mint and leaves a strong presense in the finish of the sip. There seems to be a softer background note of jasmine, but it is very subtle beneath the mint and rose flavors. The lavender seems to be lost beneath the other more dominant flavor notes; since lavender has a floral-minty note, paired with the stronger floral rose flavor and peppermint, I can’t make out a lavender flavor in my cup. The tea is very smooth, and the aftertaste is sweet, floral, refreshing, and leaves a slight peppery, tingly note.

While I wish the lavender had been a touch more pronounced in the final cup, I absolutely love the mint rose flavor, which is refreshing and relaxing. I think this is going to be a favorite nighttime warm cuppa, but I also can’t wait to also try this iced.

Backlog

Okay…Read this description:
“As much a tribute to the classic rose as well as the award winning movie, American Beauty is a beguiling and intoxicating organic melange of premium white tea, roses, peppermint, and jasmine. The organic white tea makes an ideal base allowing the mint and the rose to take center stage complimenting each others heady notes that are heightened by the light sweet fragrance of jasmine. A new American Classic.”

That tea sounds pretty great, right? Well least for me. I like roses, peppermint, and jasmine. The guy let me smell the tea a couple different times because at first I didn’t know what to think but holy shanghai! I ended up so intrigued by the mix of those flavors. And it did smell quite light and delicious. Something I’d like.
But later when I opened the bag at home I was hit by a wave of flowers. Strong flowers. Overpowering flowers. Not the nice kind.
But I ignored the dry leaf smell and brewed up a cup of this one.
Much to my surprise I didn’t taste any peppermint or roses, or even really flowers.
All I tasted was lavender, which is pretty much my nemesis when it comes to floral flavors. It had a very very faint hint of jasmine, but not enough to make up for that lavender. Ohhh I drank half a cup. Can’t believe I got that far. But I really wanted to see if I could taste any more flavors at all. I couldn’t though. :( Not at all. It was just awful.
I was gonna put the other samples I don’t like on my sale list for like 25 cents each, but I just threw this one away. I can’t handle it being in my room, it was just overpowering. Wow.
I do not recommend this one unless you are a huge lavender fan! This one was even more disappointing than the lemon one actually :( I don’t think I’ll be getting more of their teas any time soon..other than Oh Canada. :S

I think this came to me in a travelling Teabox – but I can’t recall which one. The tea appears to be mostly rose petals but I can spot some white tea leaves and lavender flowers in the mix too. Individually I love the scents of all the ingredients involved – but blended together the end result is rather odd and somehow reminds me a bit of dill pickles. Thankfully it doesn’t also taste like dill pickles so we’re all good. ;) The white tea get s a bit lost in the middle of the other ingredients – sweet rose, soothing lavender and cool mint, but the ingredients combine surprisingly well together.