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Not much has changed from my first tasting note’s opinion on this. It’s still a nice solid black tea to drink. Kinda reminds me of the black dragon pearls I get from Adagio, but without the resteepability. (I think I just made a new word there. Lol!)
I get a cedar-y, malty smell from the brew. And a nicely malty taste from the sip. I’ll finish this off, maybe consider reordering if there’s a good deal on it. /shrug/

2nd steep as per website’s instructions – 5 min/208* – Pretty much tasted like a watered down cup of the first brew. I’m not sure it’s really worth the effort. Maybe if I was making a batch of tea to chill I might, but otherwise I think I’d rather just dump the leaves and brew a fresh batch.

Another retry.
Pleasantly vague smokyness that’s thankfully not in your face, just background. Mildly fruity, but has a strange, almost sour, note to it. No idea where that’s coming from, but it just came to mind as I was drinking. It’s not malty, or there’s so little malty-ness that it’s unmentionable. (maybe that’s just me?) Strange to drink a black tea and have no malty note to it whatsoever. Not bad strange, just strange strange.
I’ll keep this one in my ‘Finish off’ bin, but I can’t see myself reordering it unless there’s a crazy good deal on it.

Another retry here.
Going to measure this out, I was pretty surprised at the amount of twigs/sticks I see mixed in with this tea. I don’t think I noticed this when I first got it because I was pretty new to loose leaf tea and figured that’s how some teas were. But looking at it now, I’d kinda surprising.
The brew smells kinda like burnt coffee, but I’m wondering if that’s how it’s supposed to taste, or if it was just because my water was too hot. I followed the instructions on the front, actually used slightly cooler water than they recommended but only by a few degrees.
Thankfully the tea doesn’t taste like burnt coffee. It’s vaguely fruity? And kinda woodsy maybe? Hard to pin down actually. It’s just a sort of generic tasting tea.
Maybe my taste is all wonky or something, because it’s very strange to me that all of these teas I’ve been trying from them are just so overall vague and meh. Maybe I’ll go back in another few months and give them all a shot again to see if anything has changed again.
Unfortunately this one is getting tossed in the swap bin for now, and rated accordingly.

Backlog tasting from a few nights ago that I totally forgot to put down here. Lol.
Continuing on the re-tasting on all my Pines teas, this was next up. I had originally tossed this in my ‘Possible reorder’ bin, but on re-tasting it, I’ve since moved it to my swap bin unfortunately.
It’s just a very unremarkable tea to me now. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve tasted so many other teas that I’d rather prefer since first tasting this, or what, but now I’m kinda just ‘Meh’ with this.
It’s got a pleasant, woody smell to the brew that comes over in the actual drinking of this tea, but not overpowering, just subtle and easy like. First sip is strange, like tart/sharp/something odd to it, but really only on the first sip or two. No, or very little, astringency to note which is always nice to find in a tea. It’s also got a very very faint smokey (?) taste to it, but I’m entirely unsure on this one. Maybe that’s the sharpness I taste just starting to drink it.
Overall, I’d rather have other teas in my cupboard. Or if I was choosing from this company, I’d take the Yunnan Gold (which I know is a different type of tea, but whatever. XD)

I’m going through all my Whispering Pines teas again because all the black teas I’ve gotten from them seem to be blurring together. I can’t really remember distinctions or what I really liked and what was just alright. It’s probly my head since I’ve tried so many teas since I got these. But it’s a good excuse to drink them all again I guess. Lol.
This one wasn’t too bad, though it’s a lot more ‘meh’ than I remember it being. Cedary smell to the brew, though it tastes completely different. Malty and slightly fruity. I like it better with a bit of Truvia added, but not too much or it’d overpower the rest of the tea I’d think.
But again, this one I find unremarkable. I’ll finish what I have, but I probly won’t be reordering.

I could’ve sworn I tried this before. I guess I just didn’t remember to write a note for it.
It’s got a nice scent to the brew. Kinda malty. Mild woody taste. Also vaguely sweet & kinda fruity maybe?
Overall this is pretty unremarkable to me. I enjoyed trying it, and I’ll finish what I have, but I’ll probly not be ordering any more.

Tea #2 for the night.
So I’ve had this sitting around in my ‘to try’ bin since I ordered it my first Della Terra order once upon a time. /hangs head/ To be honest, I’m not sure why I bought it in the first place since I’m not particularly fond of oranges, though I do like them/juice/etc occasionally. I guess it was because I was still new to tea and didn’t really know that orange in tea was so, well, unpleasant for me. But I like to at least try a tea before putting it in the swap bin, because I’ve been surprised (not often) before, so I gave this a shot.
The dry leaf smells very strongly of candied oranges, those sugared gummy oranges you can get in the 2 for $5 bags on the checkout aisles of the grocery. The taste, unfortunately, is very like eating those same gummy oranges. Very artificial. No discernible caramel taste to this, but then, I wasn’t really expecting much. And I can’t really tell the base tea under all this fake orange. Tried this with a bit of Truvia and it didn’t do much more than make the orange taste more artificial.
I probly should’ve tried a second brew, but I didn’t even finish my first cup, so I certainly wasn’t going to give a second one a shot.

I got this in a mystery swap with, err….Shelley_Lorraine I think? I’m not completely sure, but this wasn’t really something I would’ve swapped for on my own and she’s the only one I did a mystery box swap with. Lol.
Tea #1 for the night since I’d like to try to get through some of this pile of tea that I have yet to try before considering buying new tea. Not that it’ll stop me from buying, or considering buying, more tea, but I can tell myself this in the hope I’d one day believe it. XD
The dry tea smells nicely of caramel, with an almost dusty quality. The wet leaves have an unpleasant musky/earthy smell to them. The brew itself was very dark, looked more like coffee than tea though thankfully didn’t smell like it. It did have a pleasant caramel smell, which was nice. The taste was also nicely caramel/toffee, though it was very light. There was a vaguely spicy taste on the back of the sip and it had a weird earthy mouthfeel/aftertaste to it. Maybe that’s the puerh, but it was very strange. Very mild astringency.
Strangely enough, this is the only tea I’ve had so far that adding sugar to it actually made it worse (to me at least). It became very musky and undrinkable. And before y’all get out the tar and feathers for putting sugar in a puerh, I try all my teas with sugar after I’ve tried the first half of the cup plain. So no violence please. Lol!
Overall, I wasn’t that impressed with this. It wasn’t something I’d have bought to begin with, but it was certainly something that I’m glad I tried.

This was actually a last minute addition to my last order that Stacy was awesome enough to let me add. It just sounded too tempting and the sale didn’t hurt either. Lol.
Even though I have plenty of other teas that have been waiting longer for me to try, I grabbed this one out of the bin to have tonight. Let me say that trying to measure this tea is worse than measuring the Caramel Vanilla Assam. Stupid huge wiry leaves and all. I finally got it measured, and weighed it so that I don’t have to fuss with the spoon again, dropped it in my steeper and got to brewing.
The wet leaf has a malty, kinda sweet/fruity, kinda almost a green bean (?) smell to it. It’s very hard to describe for me because my brain apparently decided to short out on descriptive words tonight. But difficulty aside, it’s not an unpleasant smell. Very nice actually. Lol.
The brew itself is kinda roasty and malty, and very standard black tea smell, but enough to make my mouth water a bit. I almost didn’t want to wait until it cooled enough for me to drink it without burning my mouth.
The taste has an excellent strong black tea taste to it, malty and fruity and wonderful. It’s also got a sweetness to it that surprised me. And no astringency! If there’s one reason I needed to reorder this, it would be because this tea has no astringency for me at all. Combined with the taste and I’m pretty sure I’d be ordering this again. Halfway through the cup I did end up adding a bit of cane sugar (different from my normal Truvia because the cane sugar was closer), but I found that nothing really came out more to me with the addition and that I’d probly be fine without it the next time I brew it, this tea has so much going on with it already.
I did try a second brew because that’d be over the top if it was multi-brew. But unfortuantely it was a dissapointment. Brewed 5:30 min at the same temp as above (210*) and I got rather weak black tea with none of the amazing tastes of the first brew. So this is a one steep wonder for me, sad, but most black teas are like that I’m finding. No big loss since that first steep is amazing. I’m tempted to try this with a gaiwan when I start actually using my gaiwan, just to see how the flavors come out.
Overall very very nice tea. I’d definitely consider reordering this in the future.

Tea #3 from Traveling Tea Box C

This smelled delicious in the bag. Nutty and cocoa vanilla-y. Lol. Kinda like Scorpio Zodiac from Adagio, which is a good nutty, tasty comfort tea for me. So I had high hopes.

I ended up using a tsp and a smidge for this because I’ve found that any tea claiming cocoa in it tends to be weak at the recommended measure. Turns out I probly should’ve used 2 tsp, maybe a bit more.

The hazelnut comes through very nicely and makes the tea plenty nutty. But unfortunately the cocoa falls flat for me and ends up making the whole thing taste like watered down chocolate, or just cocoa water…I guess they’d be interchangeable. Kinda like the cheap instant cocoa mixes you can get that say use water for it. Tastes kinda like that. Ugh Then again, I really haven’t found a ‘chocolate’ tea that I’ve liked, though Dubbele Chocolade comes pretty close. Guess if I want warm chocolate to drink, I’ll just have to make hot cocoa. Lol!

I’m going to give this another shot later with more tea because it certainly has potential to be a good nutty chocolate tea.