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My friend put through a H&S order recently and gave me a one cup sample of this, I’m not sure if she bought some or just got a sample from them herself.

After a few mugs of light oolongs and green teas I was definitely in the mood for something substantial as my last tea of the night. I figured an Assam would do the trick. I didn’t read any reviews first so I wasn’t expecting this to brew up so light compared to other dark and stormy assams I’ve tried, but when I took a sip I was pleasantly surprised at the nice taste.

Actually I was pretty pleased with myself in general because I immediately pulled a dominant sweet potato note out of my cup….Bready and mildly roasty and quite unique.

I tasted it straight but did end up adding a splash of milk, as I am usually wont to do.

So, it wasn’t quite the dark and “substantial” cup of tea I set out looking for, but I enjoyed it and will try the resteep tomorrow!

Sipdown! Well, sort of. I think I still have some sealed bags somewhere. But this was a swap sample. An oldish one.

This was buttery and green tasting and milky and vegetal but not overly so.
I resteeped it once, which honestly is about as many times as I ever want to resteep…. Must drink all the teas!

Wow, given the amazing reviews of this I was hoping to love it… Buuuut the sample I had is likely pretty old and I didn’t find it flavorful at all.
It tasted almost like an oolong to me, it was buttery and green and a pretty good tea, for a straight tea, which it wasn’t.

I didn’t get any almond or cookie taste whatsoever. I even tried to make a small cup of tea with this, using more leaves than normal to ensure I wasn’t underleafing.

Sooooo I’m disappointed. But I won’t rate this on account of it likely being old.

Yummy.

After drinking the Dammann Freres Caramel Toffee tea , I decided I wanted some of this.

I sit here sipping it as I watch House of Cards, which admittedly is a little bit over my head because I’ve never been overly politically minded (or at all, hah)

This tea is great. The base is so tasty and the flavoring is perfectly complimentary.

As additional proof of how yum this is, I paused my show on netflix and went down to the rec room in the basement for a minute, it’s my husband’s man cave and when I was down there I found the big tub of sour soother candies he has, and couldn’t resist taking one. (These: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-crHysvrKvOo/T224pqUdYzI/AAAAAAAACSw/Yl5MQ0Y2ZzI/s1600/sour+soothers.jpg)

So I came back up, eating that, and once I was done I saw I still had a bit of tea left, so I finished it. You’d think after super sweet/sour candy, something like a mellow flavored tea would taste like nothing much, but I was shocked that it tasted extra buttery and delicious. Butter! I hadn’t noticed that before! Candy is so helpful!

This one brews up a light brown but actually has lots of flavor.

I will definitely restock this bad boy once I run out. Or before that, so I don’t run out.

I wonder how a resteep would do… I want more now.

Received a sample of this from Shmiracles last year, (thank you!!) – one of the “fancy French teas” (that’s how I think of them) I had been really excited about, I’m glad I waited until I got back on the tea wagon to try it.

It was a very pleasant, mellow, caramel black tea. It didn’t brew up to a very deep color, I wonder why I always want that to happen lately? Like, I’m always disappointed when I take out the little basket of leaves to find the liquor is a see through chestnut color vs a rich opaque’ish brown?

Maybe because I’ve been drinking coffee like a crazy person and it’s making me want to drink something substantial.

This was a bit less substantial than I’d hoped, though it had a nice flavor to it, nothing super strong, and I think I could taste the base underneath.

I guess I always expect black tea to brew up stronger…heartier. Mayyyybe I am just never using enough leaves. I am really stingy with the samples I value, but I guess that is counter productive if it means I’m serving myself up inadequate cups of tea. Probably 1-2 super potent amazing cups would be better than 2-3 ok cups!

After I was done this I decided I wanted some Butiki Caramel Vanilla Assam, take from that what you will….perhaps it is a bit more flavorful…

Drinking this now, I admit to reading the description of it to see what notes I was being told I should be tasting.

So it may be an exaggeration but I almost feel like I can taste key lime, like a sweet tanginess.

Or it might be my imagination. :)

It is a nice cuppa, though!

I think I’m getting excited about tea again….

I had a sample of this from a local fancy tea shop last spring which has since closed down, I decided to brew some up to take to the movies with me this afternoon (hubster and I went to see the new Captain America flick)

I brewed it close to boiling and for about 3 minutes, and sealed it in my Contigo mug hoping it would remain hot, it did.

So I brought a few snacks to the movie, I’m trying to eat healthier and avoid popcorn….but I got a date cookie and was eating that and when I went for the first sip of tea I was like “WHOA!!” This tea is so delicious, you guys! (For the record, I had added a splash of milk)

I don’t know what it is, there’s something besides the vanilla, maybe just that the black base is tasty and adds to the whole thing. But everytime I took a sip I couldn’t believe how yummy it was.

There really is something to be said for a quality flavored tea vs the cheap, synthetic tasting blends, this isn’t that, not at all. It’s delicate but tasty and not overly sweet, so it’s easy to drink while eating sweets.

Remember I said I was eating a date cookie? Well you’d think that compared to a cookie, a subtly flavored tea wouldn’t taste like much, but you would be wrong! It was very complimentary and still managed to be sweet enough and flavorful enough to hold its own beside a cookie. But subtly. I wish I could figure out what else I was picking up besides vanilla.

I was looking forward to coming home to log this.

I’m actually drinking my second steep now, but it doesn’t quite hold up, it’s much weaker, especially with the milk. But in trying to stretch out my stash I probably under leafed this, good enough for one steep but obviously not two.

MF why you gotta be so hard to get?!

After my pecan pie tea disaster (tea-saster) I decided I’d rather drink something simple and unflavored, since lately I’ve been disappointed by flavored teas.

Found this one in my sample basket, in retrospect I can now remember requesting it from Stacey as a sample so I could try the base of the Creamy Eggnog tea to see what I’d get out of it.
However, when I pulled this sample out of my basket 10 minutes ago I had not yet recalled that, so I thought to myself “this should be interesting”… Brewed as per the directions on the bag and when I took my first sip I was really impressed with myself because i immediately identified it as the base of Butiki’s eggnog tea which is not something I remembered after almost a year of being Tea Free.

I used to walk around thinking I hated green tea, because I was drinking grocery store tea and no one told me to not use boiling water, therefore to me, green tea was this super gross bitter thing that people OBVIOUSLY only forced themselves to drink because they were told it was some kind of miracle health product.

Now I know better!

This has a mild natural flavor, that I am able to pinpoint as being buttery and light, and not super vegetal, which works for me.

I’m rating it as 76 because I don’t have a lot of plain green teas to compare it to, and I think I prefer a bit more richness to my tea. I definitely see why this was used as the base of my favorite eggnog tea. At the end of the day I still prefer this with a bit of flavor added (in the delicate, natural way that only Butiki seems to be able to pull off)… But one day I will revisit this, after I drink a bunch more green teas so that I have a basis for comparison.

Very glad I got to try this though!

Received a sample of this last year from the awesome TastyBrew.

In my cup it smells very faintly dessert like, but not really. And I don’t taste any pie at all. I guess I’ve been spoiled by Della Terra’s flavored teas because these ones that merely suggest some sort of vague non-specific dessert just don’t do it for me.

I’m debating not finishing it and going to make something else. Something…GASP…unflavored.

I do appreciate getting to try this because the name sure sounded promising, but if I had to compare the taste to something I would say it’s a flavour akin to if I was chewing on a brown paper bag. Yeah. So that is to say a complete lack of flavour.

I put a little splash of milk in here for an after supper treat and it’s totally weak.

I know it’s probably at least a bit affected by the age of the tea but there’s no way it was delicious to start with. I can tell.