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I’m afraid I forgot who sent me this tea – I’ve got so many little samples kicking around that it’s near impossible to keep track of them.

This tea has a very dark, mocha-like scent with a bit of spice. I didn’t realize it until I read the package but aparently this is flavoured with coffee so I’m really hoping it doesn’t upset my stomach.

I’ve not getting ‘cinnamon cookie’ so much as I’m getting ‘mocha with cinnamon sprinkled on top’ from the flavour. The pu-erh is an interesting choice of base and I think it works quite well with the flavours, though I’m tempted to add milk to this tea to see if I can coax more of a cookie flavour out. Maybe next time.

I picked this tea up when I was visiting an Iranian friend in Victoria – apparently this is one of his favorite teas. For a bagged tea it’s not bad at all. The addition of the bergamot gives the tea a subtle earl grey flavour, though this is more apparent when the tea is taken plain rather than with milk. It has a hearty, robust kick to it but at the same time it’s smooth enough that it can be drunk without milk if you prefer your tea with no additives.

I think Friday the 13th decided to come early for me so I was glad to finally get the chance to sit down and veg with a cup of tea this evening.

This is nice green blend that smoothly incorporated the ginseng without making it to too strong or seem too out of place. Adding the ginger helped in that regard I think. Not to herbal or too bitter, it’s a pleasent little cuppa to (finally!) relax with.

I’ve had repeated failiures at getting a good iced tea out of this blend. Finally with the last little bit I had left I think I’ve suceeded in making it somewhat decent.

The recipe I used was 8 tsp of tea in two cups boiling water, steeped for 5 minutes. Then I strained it and poured it over some ice in a 2L jug to quickly halt the steeping process, and topped up the jug with cold tap water. I sweetened it with about 1.5 tblsp of agave nectar.

There’s still a tannic astringency that I can’t get rid of no matter how I steep this tea. I think it might be a character of the tea base itself rather than the steeping process. I wish that they’d chosen to use a different black tea because the lemon flavour seems to only exacerbate the astringency.

So in summary, this works in a pince for iced tea, but I’ve had better and I didn’t care for it hot either. I don’t think I would buy this tea again.

I’m glad I finally got the chance to try out my Bodum double-walled glasses that I got for Christmas. The blossom was quite well-formed and lovely, though I think the glass was slightly too shallow for it to expand to its fullest height.

Flavour-wise the tea doesn’t taste any different from your basic – if good quality – green tea. The flavour is grassy and lightly astringent with some nutty notes that are more notceable on the re-steep. It holds its flavour nicely through several steeps and it almost seems a shame to throw the spent tea blossom out because it’s so pretty. Ah well, all good things must come to an end, I suppose. The Bodum glasses worked out great by the way – they were comfortable to hold and displayed the flowering tea very nicely.

This is the second of two Ayurvedic teas I purchased in my most recent Davids Tea order. This one is distinctly more herbal in character than the Kapha blend I tried a few days ago. It smells like peppermint and miscellaneous herbs with a touch of citrus – not an off-putting scent but not terribly compelling either. The hibiscus in the ingredient list had me worried, but in this case it was so subtle I could barely taste it beyond a faint sourness. The flavour is rather minty with unidentifiable herbal notes. It’s not objectionable, though I don’t find it particularly remarkable either.

This oolong has quite a unique appearance – instead of loose or rolled leaves it looks very much like hard, little pebbles. I gave the tea a quick rinse of a few seconds then steeped it for 4 minutes. I could smell the herbaly ginseng as well as a lightly roasted oolong scent. The flavour is smooth and slightly sweet with the herbal, slightly bitter ginseng notes coming in at the end of each sip. Oddly this tea seems to leave my mouth a little bit dry afterwards, but other than that it’s quite nice.

I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about this particular tea as most melon flavoured drink tend to taste very synthetic to me. But this blend managed to exceed all my expectations by tasting very much like real, no-shit cantaloupe melon. The white tea base carries the flavour well and adds to the tea’s light, refreshing notes. I didn’t taste the cream at first but it became very noticable as the tea cooled off and made the blend seem very decadent.

I love this tea; I only got a one-cup sample with my Butiki order, but I’ll totally be buying a full bag of it the next time around.

The dry tea smells quite minty – spicy mint basically – but when the water was added it took on an aroma more like a chai tea. Interestingly it’s the spices – the cinnamon and the cloves that are at the forefront of this tea. I’d expected it to taste more gingery given the discription, but this blend had only a light trace. The licorice is an interesting touch – I’ve found that it often overwhelms the flavours of anything else it’s blended with but in this case the blenders seem to have gotten it right and it’s just a dash of sweet flavour.

It’s an interesting herbal blend and nice to have around when I get bored with my honeybush teas in the evenings.

The problem with green chais is that I never know whether to steep them like a green tea (ie. short and at low temps) or like a Indian chai (ie. boiling water, long steep). This time around I just followed the directions on the package which seems to have worked out reasonably well.

The dry tea smelled very chai-ish, redolent with cardamom, cloves, and a bit of cinnamon. Interestingly, when I added the water a strong black pepper note came out. The green tea base made for a lighter, greener tasting chai with a touch of bitterness (thought that might just be an indication I need to decrease the steeping time). The black pepper gave the tea a nice little bite and I thought the rest of the spices were nicely balanced.

I don’t often drink green chais so I don’t have a lot to compare this too, but on it’s own I’d say I think its quite good.