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This tea is much smokier than the Keemun I have from the Granville Island Tea Co – it’s almost more like a Russian Caravan tea than a plain black. It’s vaguely bakey and mildly tannic with a hint of bitterness. I’m not really picking out the fruity notes the description touts, maybe I should reduce the steeping time to see if I can pick up more of the subtleties.

Adding some agave nectar to this tea along with some skim milk actually brought out the strawberry flavour, much to my surprise. It still isn’t “chocolate-covered strawberries” but it’s better than the previous cups were.

I picked up this tea at a little shop in Jasper during a break in the epic 10-hour road trip to go see the Edmonton Indy. I seem to have this thing that no matter where I go I always end up bringing back tea; sort of like a souvenir. (I’m not doing it on purpose – I swear!)

Aaaaanyways, the steeping tea smells quite nice and interesting – a cross between strawberries and something tropicalish, accented with a bit of floral rose.

Unfortunately the tea tastes pretty weak with only a vague green-and-fruity flavour. I think that’s partially due to my steeping parameters – the ones of the packages were pretty vague and I guesstimated – which is why I haven’t rated the tea yet. I need to try steeping this tea longer/hotter before making up my mind.

Another sample I’ve come to the end of. My last cup was quite murky and slightly bitter from all the tiny broken bits and leaf dust that were at the bottom of the package. It’s not that bad (even though it looked like I was drinking literal swamp water). Many of the dried blueberries had also collected at the bottom of the bag and I fished several of them out after I was done steeping and ate them. :D

Reducing the steeping time a bit lessens the smokey flavour of the yunnan and helps the spicy taste stand out – though it’s still not what I’m able identify distinctly as pepper.

The resteep (@ 3:30) is okay, but most of the flavour was in the first steeping – this one just tastes plain and tea-like for the most part. Yunnan teas on the whole don’t seem to be very good for multiple steeps in my (admittedly limited) experience.

My order from Wiseman Tea Co. just came in a couple day ago and I couldn’t wait to crack open the tins and try my new teas out.

When I open the lid the scent that wafted out was sweet, fruity and tropical, with just the barest hint of rose. The tea itself is quite lovely to look at with a generous helping of colourful blue cornflowers, yellow sunflower petals, and rose petals. Apart from the rose I doubt these add much to the taste, but I think it adds a little extra ‘something’ to a tea when it’s visually appealing as well as tasty.

I brewed this cup quite lightly (the site recommends 4-6 min) because it’s getting late and I actually want to be able to sleep tonight. The tea tastes light and sweet and it’s just as fruity and tropical-y as it smells – the papaya flavour in particular tastes quite distinct to me. The base of the tea is nice and smooth without any astringency at all that my tongue can pick up. Too many tea companies try to get away with using a godawful base thinking it’ll get covered up by the flavourings. Not so here. The hint of floral rose is present as well but it’s very unobtrusive, which is a nice change – in most blends I’ve found that it tries to stage a hostile takeover on my tastebuds.

This is an exotic and summer-y-tasting drink and I’m thinking it would be great iced as well, or even in some kind of tea cocktail.

Wow, this is a really dark-looking, dense tea – almost like pu-erh in some respects. It tastes quick ‘thick’ if that makes any sense. It has quite a strong flavour that verges of being bitter, but I can distinctly taste the slightly smokey, tannic (leathery? malty?) flavour that all Yunnan teas seen to have. It’s quite smooth- tasting initially, but it’s at the end and a bit in the aftertaste where the bitterness comes in. It doesn’t have those sweet, cocoa notes that some Yunnans have, but it’s likeable despite its rough edges.

I can already tell that this is a good, morning kick in the arse tea. Lord knows I’m going to need it today.

Another tea from my box of assorted Numi teas. It smells mildly tea-ish with an undertone of…raspberry? Hibiscus? I dunno.

When I added the water the tea instantly turned bright red – Y halo thar hibiscus. >.<

Unfortunately the hibiscus managed to dominate the tea with its tartness – I get the Darjeeling in the aftertaste and to be fair its wine-like astringency actually meshes quite well with the ‘berry’ flavour. The raspberry and strawberry flavours are there but the whole thing is just so frickin’ sour that I can’t really enjoy the tea at all. I drank it all, but it’s definitely NOT going to be on my Shopping List any day soon.

Well, if nothing else this tea succeeded in reminding me why I hate hibiscus.

I mostly bought this tea for the novelty factor – because lets face it, who makes root beer flavoured tea?

I was a bit dubious about some of the ingredients – lavender and jasmine blossoms? To my surprise this turned out to be really good.

The smell was very much like A&W root beer mixed with the honeyed, sweet smell of the honeybush. The taste is remarkably authentic as well; I was bracing myself for something artificial-tasting, but in fact it tastes quite ‘real’ to my tongue. It’s root beer with a smooth, almost creamy sweetness – not quite vanilla ice cream, but it’s reminiscent of it. I think it might actually be the lavender that makes this tea – it’s very subtle for something normally so strongly-scented, but it gives the tea a bit of a spicy ‘bite’ that makes it so like the real thing.

I decided to have the last bag of this tea iced to see if made a difference. Turns out I do taste more of the white tea’s flavour when it’s cold, though the goji berry flavour seems to make the tea almost a bit smokey. It might be improved with some sweetener, but honestly I don’t really care about this tea enough to want to bother trying.