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De-cupboarding this tea. It was a quite a unique tea when I first purchased it, but now it looks like all the tea companies are jumping on the bandwagon and offering it. I liked ginseng oolong before it was cool. /hipster post ;D

Backing off the steeping time a bit seems to bring out a bit more of the oolong’s sweetness with the herbal ginseng notes a nice undertone to each sip. The tea keeps its flavour nicely through multiple steep too, although the ginseng fades after the first couple.

The dry teabag smells more like cinnamon candy hearts than gingerbread I’ve gotta say. It’s better flavour-wise though it doesn’t quite hit the mark. It’s the chicory root that partially to blame I think as that seems to come out most prominently. It’s actually a fairly nice blend of flavours in my opinion but they should have called it ‘Holiday Spice’ or something, rather than trying and failing to get their customers to believe that the tea is supposed to taste like gingerbread.

I’m normally a huge mango fan but mango seems like one of those flavours that’s difficult for a tea company to get right. This one is…okay, though it doesn’t quite meet the mark. This one at least actually tastes like mango, although it’s a bit too tart for my liking. I was a bit surprised to see that there isn’t any hibiscus in the ingredients – it almost tastes like there is. I don’t normally sweetened white teas but I might try it with some honey or agave nectar next time to balance out the sourness.

Tea Desire opened a new store in Kelowna which I’m glad of as it’s close to me and I visit there a fair bit. It’s in the same mall as the Teavana *shudder * store and I’m not sure how they’ll fare in such direct competition with such a big chain but I’m happy to have an alternative.

I picked up a bunch of one-cup samples to try and this is the one I got when I picked one out at random to try today. It’s essentially a spice tea with added cocoa nibs and orange peel, but it has a nicely-balanced simplicity to it and despite being all spice it doesn’t taste harsh or overwhelming at all. The cocoa notes stand out the most as well as the licorice flavour of the star anise – although the latter might just be because my sample had a whole big ‘star’ in it. It also re-steeps very nicely too without losing much of its flavour.

While I do find that I’m missing the body that a black tea base gives a chai, I’m still pretty happy with this one.

I tried adding milk to see if it would improve the flavour at all – sadly, it didn’t seem to make much of a difference.

I’m honestly at a bit of a loss as to why this blend seems like such a hard sell, as I think that it’s quite enjoyable. Kiwi isn’t a flavour I’ve had the opportunity to try in a tea very often. And the last experience I had with Tea Forte’s kiwi tisane reminded me ore of Buckley’s cough syrup than of the fruit. This, on the other hand, is quite good. For one thing it manages to actually taste like real kiwifruit and the natural sweetness of the honeybush seems to soften its tanginess just the right amount. It has a pleasant fresh, clean tone to it that would probably make a good iced tea as well.

Steapdown. Saying goodbye to a lovely chai. ;)

It’s unusual to see a green oolong that doesn’t have rolled up leaves. These are more like little loose twists. The tea has a smooth, cooked-fruit (peaches or apricots maybe?) flavour and a sweet scent that remind me of lilacs. It has quite a few similarities to the Aged Wuyi Variety oolong that I tried from this company earlier, but it’s a bit sweeter and fruitier and lacks those bakey notes and roasted scent that the former had.

EDIT: Apologies for leaving the note unfinished last night – I got distracted. :D

This tea is excellent with milk as well as plain, I’ve discovered today. I keep expecting this tea to be more smokey-tasting than it is because the scent is full-on BBQ à la lapsang souchong. Luckily the other teas in this blend seem to dampen it down a little.