2955 Tasting Notes
Coldbrew 1 tsp, 500 mL cold water, about 1 hour
This is a fairly mild chocolate flavour. I am getting hints of that milk chocolaty coating. Lightly tannic base, some spices (cinnamon). It isn’t a rich desserty tea. It is a black that is lightly flavoured. It is a pretty general base. Nothing exciting or indicating exceptional quality. It might be worth trying if you like flavoured black teas brewed western style.
Flavors: Chocolate, Spices, Tannic
Preparation
The base is a pretty high quality black. Malty, honey, cocoa, delicious tannins typical in blacks. No bitterness at all, even in a longer steep (6 min, boiling water).
A hint of vanilla, lots of rich cocoa/dark chocolate. I was hoping for more vanilla, but this is still tasty. The sunflower seeds are nutty, but I find their flavour a bit musty (although allergen free). It wasn’t the marshmallow treat I hoped, but I did enjoy my cup this morning.
Flavors: Chocolate, Cocoa, Dark Chocolate, Malt, Tannin, Vanilla
Preparation
Review for the bagged version of this
Surprisingly, the primary flavour here is a really aromatic and flavourful white tea.Not vegetal like bai mu dan, but distinctly a white tea. A little bit fruity, I think that might be the sprinkle of darjeeling they added in. The fruit flavour is perfect—-present but not tart or overpowering. Slight natural sweetness of huckleberries, blueberries. Distinctly those two. No artificial generic berry flavour, no citric acid, no stevia or hibiscus. Just the perfect lightly flavoured white tea. I brewed two pots of iced tea (550 mL per pitcher) and the flavour really held up. This is a great iced tea.
Flavors: Berry, Blueberry, Fruity
Preparation
Citrus? check
Anise? check
Lemony chamomile? check
Yup, exactly as I hoped. The anise is fantastic for licorice lovers like me who don’t like metallic, sickly sweet licorice root in teas. I maybe could have gone for a touch more sweetness, but I did coldbrew it. Honeybush really doesn’t shine unless it gets brewed near-boiling.
Flavors: Anise, Citrus, Dry Grass, Lemon, Licorice, Orange, Spicy, Vegetal
My 52Teas order finally came in. Turns out, the reason it took so long to get delivered is because customs held it, openeed the package, and then proceeded to fine me $12.34 in import fees for the package containing undeclared spices. lol whatever you say CBSA…pretty sure it is clearly tea (consider the fact that the labels list teas as ingredients, the exporter is called 52Teas, and if you open the package it is obviously tea.)
Anyway, I tried the two herbals I ordered, one of which is this. The honeybush is somewhat sweet and tastes like typical honeybush, although I personally thing some oatmeal flavouring or rooibos would have improved it. There were some interesting fruits. The mango was distinct, although a bit tart. I couldn’t make out a ton of blueberry, but it was there. Overall, it wasn’t as good as I hoped, however it wasn’t bad either. I was hoping for something more desserty (oatmeal, brown sugar, maple syrup, that kind of thing).
Flavors: Berry, Fruity, Mango
Preparation
Oh – wow! I’m so sorry that customs did that to you! I wouldn’t even have thought to declare it as “spices” since it is, in fact, tea and meant to be consumed as such.
that’s stupid. I think that’s the first time i’ve ever head of that happening! Sorry that happened :( Stupid CBSA.
I haven’t had customs intercept any of my 52Teas orders. However, they did nab, intercept, and fine me rather steeply for an August Uncommon order. Gah! So yeah, it does happen. Thankfully, your fine was relatively minimal. But annoying, of course, and yet one more thing to add to an already onerous list of concerns where ordering from the States.
I think it was a mistake on the CBSA’s part, but I wasn’t about to send it back for an appeal when I had tasty teas I wanted to brew.
I did have customs open some straight tea I ordered from an ebay seller. They didn’t open all the packages but the ones they did, they put a big slash in the side and taped it up. I had to put those teas in a tin. I didn’t get charged any extra fees though but it was annoying enough how they opened the teas.