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Ah, I knew I could count on 52teas to get me all excited about tea again after tasting several duds. I think that any tea with the “natural essence of cake” as an ingredient is an instant winner, don’t you agree? Pineapple cake on the nose, with the cherry flavour coming through and lingering delightfully after each mouthful. Ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb!

The aroma of this tea in both the dry leaves and resulting brew is a rich berry one, but it turns out this is just a disappointingly mild strawberry-flavoured black tea. Best drunk plain really. Meh.

A palatable white tea, but where is the pear? I ended up ripping open 3 bags and infusing them in a 400ml pot and still there wasn’t a pear in sight. Perhaps my expectations were too high after the bar set by the delightfully juicey and full-flavoured White Peach? Either way, a sad and disappointing tea experience on a dreary and cold Saturday afternoon.

Who would have thought that plain old lemongrass would deliver a kick-ass lemon flavour? Sweet, rich and almost buttery in taste – surely there is a skilled tea blender out there who can unite black tea and lemongrass in perfect harmony without adding other ingredients to make it taste medicinal and awful? No? Time to experiment then!

I seem to have been quite adventurous in the herbal department and have tried some truly frightening teas lately. Nettle leaves. Both the wet leaves and resulting infusion have a revolting earthy, wet grass aroma – which tell you that what you are about to drink must be incredibly good for you. The flavour itself is surprisngly mild and slightly astringent. The real kicker is the aftertaste though, which I had to get rid of by gargling some ginger root. The note I jotted down about this tea simply says “Bad. So bad”.
I’d consume this for health reasons only, but how badly do you want the so-called health benefits from this? Blergh!

I knew this was going to be tasty as soon as I started to brew a pot. Comfortingly cloudy, this manages to have just the right amount of zing to be drunk without sweetener. It also packs enough flavour to be my new evening tea for these colder nights. Squeeze of lemon, touch of honey… perfection!

Not being a fan of either chamomile or lavender tea, this was a surprisingly nice blend! The chamomile helps mellow out the lavender’s assault on your senses, while still maintaining that “I’m drinking flower water” flavour. This wouldn’t be my first choice to drink, but I did manage to finish the entire cup.

I love the smell of lavender, but drinking it is an entirely different matter. Surprisingly bitter and incredibly strong, I couldn’t even finish my tiny cup of it. The recommended brewing time of 7-10 minutes couldn’t be more wrong, but I’m in no mood to try rebrewing (plus the instructions shouldn’t be that off).
Lavender is an incredibly handy thing to keep around to add to and blend with other teas, but on its own? No thank you.

Huh. Having never needed to have a toned uterus, I’ve never tried raspberry leaf before but I thought I’d give it a go. The leaves are scary as hell, they look like dusty moss collected from the bathroom in an old abandoned house that was the scene of a brutal murder 50 years ago and is now said to be haunted.
Thankfully the taste is more reminscent to a weak green tea than haunted moss. Mild, slightly offensive tasting, thin bodied, but palatable. I’d only drink this for its health benefits really, it seems pretty pointless otherwise.

Normally its quite exciting when I get to try teas before they hit the shelves, but I can’t say I was impressed by this blend. With a name like “Imperial Breakfast” I was dreaming up a fantastic smokey Chinese blend, something to really knock my socks off. Unfortunately my socks stayed firmly on my feet. Don’t get me wrong, its a “nice” tea – but when you combine two fairly bland teas (Golden Monkey & Mangalam assam) the result is yet another fairly bland tea. Light bodied with a hint of malt, drink this one plain and keep your socks on.