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I decided to give this Banana tea a try since it got decent reviews on Steepster. It is not normally a tea I’d try.

Banana – I like banana but I’m picky about it. Fresh bananas has to be yellow for me to eat. Not green, not brown. Minor brown spots are acceptable. Artificial banana flavour is gross to me. If the flavour tastes like brown banana I find it icky (with exception to Banana Bread, bananas can be ultra ripe).

So.. I was terrified this tea was banana chips or nasty overripe banana hunks in it. The dry leaves are curled up oolong with hunks of white bananas, freeze dried. Ok, so far so good. Smell.. well… banana and oolong tea.

Steeped… well… banana and oolong scent. LOL. Steeps a pale clear white-yellow.

Taste wise – sweetness that you only get from a banana. The kind of banana I like, not the sticky pungent brown ripe banana. Then at the end a hit of the oolong tea. The combination goes surprisingly quite well together. I can taste the swirls of banana and the delicious oolong tea melding, relaxing and sweet.

What I admire about this tea is how they paired it with the oolong, instead of what I see a lot – green sencha tea – for fruit tea blends. Since the oolong is mild and on the same wave-length of banana, it works. If they did it with sencha, the after taste would be too bitter and overpower the sweetness of the banana. Very pro DAVIDsTea!

I dunno who I’d recommend this tea too… maybe for oolong lovers who want a little twist. Banana lovers, Banana haters (like picky me).

Maybe I’m giving this a high rating as I was surprised, but I like oolong teas quite a bit, and the sweetness of the banana is a great add-in. I might buy more and this would be a fun tea to show others.

I ordered this tea as I’ve never seen figs in tea and I do have a slight love affair with figs. Ahh the fig jam in this sandwich I had at the Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles..yum. At least I think it was the getty? Whatever.

Smell of dry leaves – tarty fruity. Lots of figs and lumps of berries.
Brews up to a light peachy gold cup of tea

Taste – mmmm lumps of figs! Nice refreshing taste of figs, strawberries, the seedy bits of the blackberries with the sencha taste at the end. A nice twist to those typical fruity blends of sencha. Kind of a sophisticated taste with the fig – and it looks impressive floating in a travel mug that is glass and clear.

If you like sencha tea with fruit – and something a little different, give this one a shot. Out of all the sencha fruit teas from ESP Emporium, this one was unique (next to the Apple Kiwi one I snagged)

Me? I think I won’t buy more of this tea. It’s good – but it’s sencha… getting tired of so many fruity tea blends being all sencha. They all taste similar, but with a different smell or fruit. I could probably mix all my fruity sencha teas up and it wouldn’t matter.

What the heck!

My first review I gave this tea a great review. Now it is a total “ICK”

I’m not sure what happened, but maybe the humidity killed the tea leaves. After a couple weeks I made a few cups and right out of the bag I just smell rosey vinegar! When I made the tea the first few times the smell was fine.

Then steeped, that vinegary smell would just whaft around and it was pretty bad. I couldn’t even sip it, I had to do pour outs. I don’t want to open this tea again in case I get sick. I don’t want to return it either in threat of them opening the bag.

Cry, sucks. This tea looked cool, tasted neat. What the heck?!?!?!

This tea keeps popping on my list to try, but for a couple trips it never made it home – as I went with something more “spur of the moment”.
But I always wanted to try it as it is up my alley on fruity, floral teas I like. But I’d chicken out on it because of the rooibos and lavender.

Dry leaves – fruity smell with something not fruity.. lavender? Not soapy, I dunno what the smell is. Looks like I didn’t get much in rose petals, poooooo!

The tea steeps a brillant amber red orange, very nice. The smell is fruity and floral. I love the smell!

Taste – mild hit of lavender, more of an essence of it verses the sleepy-time essential oil. A bit of sweetness. Theres a taste of tartness on the throat, I’m thinking its the rosehips or the currants. The rooibos goes well with the lavender and fruit rounding out the flavour. I find I can taste the blueberry and how well it goes with the lavender! There is a lot of things going on with this tea – I agree it is sophisticated! Slight floral notes in this cup, but it didn’t look like I got much in rose petals.

So, I find the lavender in this tea much more mild that DAVIDsTea’s “Jessies Tea”. There is alot of flavours and smells going on that the lavender is a blended role. I would try this over Jessie’s Tea if you want to venture into lavender territory. If you like unique and sophisticated teas don’t miss out!

For me – I’m undecided whether the tartness is being a deal breaker, but I really like that blueberry fruity mix with lavender. I could see this cup being more wicked with some more rose in it. I think I need to drink more of it to see if I would buy more or not. Either way, it’s interesting and a good rooibos tea.

I had to get some of this tea – I love spicy food! This tea seemed pretty cool idea.

Dry, this tea is 100% smell of those cinnamon heart candies sold during Valentines day. I was tempted to just reach in and chomp on the leaves (I had a hard time finding those cinnamon heart candies in stores this year).
Seeing the little peppercorns floating the in the steeper was a sign of spicy things to come!

Taste wise – well… cinnamon! As it goes down, you can feel the heat going down. For a 3 minute steep, you get a warm blast of cinnamon and heat. The more I drink this cup, the more cinnamon I taste.

For you cinnamon/spicy masochistic folk try steeping the tea longer, or what I did at work, just add the leaves to a travel tea glass and leave them there. As time went on, the cinnamon came out a bit more and the heat came out TONS more! By the end it was like my mouth and throat were on fire! HELL YEAH – I was awake all day at work, not sure from the green tea caffeine or the heat of this tea. It scared my coworkers.

So – if you love cinnamon and those cinnamon hearts, give this one a try.

Me? I find this tea not really multi-dimensional. It’s just cinnamon and heat. It’s cool, but I wish there was more to it. I don’t think I’ll buy more – but I will try it as a latte or boil it down for awhile to make concentrated chai syrup and see how that goes (I’ll review it again if I do).
I’m thinking this tea would make a crazy Spicy chai latte.

This tea sounds soooo fancy! I kept mixing up which one this was, as it just smells like chocolatey tea to me!

Praline De Champagne as dried tea leaves looks impressive and Valentinesy. Sexy black leaves, heart shaped chocolate, chunks of strawberry – YUM! And pralines in it? Oh man – I can pig out on this tea without the calories.
Interestingly the sales guy mentioned that this tea has more calories as well as the act of drinking tea burns more calories (concept I know of called negative calories).

There is a rooibos version, which they had a sample at the store – but I found it too rooibosy overpowering, thus I went with the black tea one. That and I like my caffeine… and black tea.

So, I’m home making a cup of this tea. I try to get a nice scoop to get a bit of everything – this proves difficult as the strawberries are HUGE slices so I can see additional cups I make might lack the strawberry flavour. There is a fair amount of chocolate bits and pralines, but alas, I could see at the end I’ll just be drinking black tea. I think it would be nicer to have smaller chocolates and strawberries for flavour spread, but visually what they did here is nice.

Leaves steeped – very strawberry smell, hint of chocolate and a sweet sting of candy sweet like praline. 65% of the chocolates has melted down. Hot damn I’m ready to chug this beast (hopefully not burn my face off)

Taste wise – smooth caramelly, tart strawberries – not too sweet. Nice aftertaste of black tea and tart strawberry. Not so much chocolate taste, it’s more in the smell. Pretty simple yet effective.

Valentines tea? Check. This be a great tea to buy to impress that special someone that likes tea. Or make a pot in a clear teapot, making sure to show them the leaves first.

Me? I’m still sad over the huge chunks of chocolate and strawberries being gone when I’m at the end of this tea and I’m stuck drinking black tea with praline stumps. With that said, I think this tea would go over great steeped for bigger batches (heh, to share with someone).

Since I drink quite a bit of DAVIDsTeas.. lets compare this to “Love Tea #7” another strawberry choco tea. Praline De Champagne is more smoother with the pralines and stronger strawberry taste (pending, as I made sure I had a chunk of strawberry in this cup) and a stronger after taste of tartness. Love Tea #7 has MUCH more chocolately flavour and a floral punch with the rose reducing tart a bit.
Presentation wise, Praline De Champagne wins… but that I think taste should win.

So – not bad of a tea. Simple, strawberrly, praliney without the crazy sweet. I think this tea is ment to be shared to ensure optimal flavor spread vs for a single person. For me, since my fiance hates tea, sinful teas like this is like curling up with a bucket of ice cream, without the guilt. I don’t think I’ll buy more once my 50 grams is gone.

This tea might make a good latte though… mmmmm

Tea Desire… I got frightened off after the first tea I got from them sucked. It was beet-juice tea instead of blueberry cream.

They have a Valentines sale going on and I love sales. I pick up this Green Tea Choco Cinnamon tea with the help of the very knowledgeable sales dude.

Smell of dry leaves… kinda mouth watering sweet (white chocolate?) and cinnamon. Very cute white chocolate stars!

Steeped, the white chocolate dissolves easy and turns the tea kinda speckled white. First taste.. I swore it was pudding – creamy, sweet, and mellow. The white chocolate adds cream to the tea as well as sweet with the cinnamon sugar helping out too. The sweetness isn’t overpowering and mild. Very slight taste on the cinnamon as the white chocolate has more pull here. I cannot detect the rose, but it might be mixed with the strong aftertaste of the green tea. I don’t taste the orange (I’ve ranted before that orange peels never really come out) and the cloves.

This tea isn’t bad and raised the bar for Tea Desire for me. I still got another tea to try that I purchased today.

If you like green tea blends, this is fab! This would be a great tea for those types who add sugar to their green tea (I scratch my head on those types) as the sweetness is already there.

Me? I like the creamyness of the tea. I was thinking it needs MORE CHOCOLATE.. but everything needs more chocolate (lol). I had to keep in mind this is white chocolate, which is a little different. I like how the chocolate meltedly steeped into the tea well verses yogurt drops I’ve seen in other teas that add that creamy goodness. The cinnamon and spice could be more pronounced. However at that point it be more chai-like. Not bad, not sure if I’ll buy more. They wouldn’t sell me less than 50 grams, so I got a lot of this tea

Early grey is a classic for me. That Jean-Luc Picard classic cool.
I never seen my dad drink tea until Jean-Luc Picard did. Yeah…

I never had loose leaf Earl Grey before, and I purchased this about 2 years back with a big Adagio Tea order.

Smell wise, your typical Earl Grey tea – bergamonty orange and black tea. Very Yum.

Taste…. ugggg… tastes just like black tea with bitter aftertaste, didn’t taste like strong earl grey to me. Shaking the can of tea, I got only a few chunks of orange and barely any blue flowers. I’ve been trying to polish away at the tin, but I think I’m going to give up and give it away to my Dad. Maybe he won’t notice it’s kinda plain?

In effort to use more of it, I tried it as “Early Grey Shortbread” cookie recipe off a Foodtv website. UGGG! Was like ground up black tea chewy bits in cookie.

I felt pretty short-changed with this tea.

Sparkley tea? Hell yeah!

Smell of dry leaves is a strong hit of vanilla. I bought this tea before work and my coworkers smelled it and loved it for the vanilla. Also a subtle spice smell. Looks very fun with gold balls and sugar crystals.

Steeped… I tried 3 times to get it to sparkle! First time was at work, in my travel tea glass. No sparkle. I even screwed on the cap and shook it (a little dangerous) and I didn’t see anything on the glass walls of the tea glass. Boooo!
Next attempt I used my DAVIDsTea steeper. I didn’t see any sparkle while in the steeper and none when I poured it into my cup.
Third time, I saw a link off DAVIDsTea’s twitter showing video of their tea sparkling and I was like “WTH” – the sparkle is at the top of the cup, not the sides. So I tried again today – steeping just with a tea cup and a metal tea strainer. I cheated a bit, bobbling the strainer around a few times – but as the steep went on, the more sparkle happened, stopping a few minutes after the 5 minute steeped finish and I was drinking it.

It’s a fine glitter sparkle in dark amber tea, it’s like flying in an amber star field.

Taste, warm cinnamon mixed with a bit of sweetness. I’d say a perfect level of sweetness to notice and find it pleasant, but not freaking out on the calories of this tea sweet. Hit of vanilla taste and of course, balanced with black tea. I think I can taste the cloves, but it’s very muted. I don’t detect the orange peel, but I find since I like to cook, orange peel doesn’t come off strong compared to lemon. It could also be the luck of the scoop of dried tea not having much orange. This is also me reviewing the taste using a metal tea strainer that doesn’t have as much movement compared to a Steeper device.

So, will I buy this again? Maybe. I’d say if you want a nice black tea on shelf, but not the standard black tea it would be a great addition to have. I’d show this tea to guests, especially the kind who just drink black teas like Earl Greys and Pekoes. Thus, I might buy another 30-50 grams. A staple black tea? Ehhh, my staple is Adagio Tea’s “Black Dragon Pearls”.

I think baking with this tea might be interesting though……. mmmmmmm!

MMMEERRRROOOOWWWW!

I shyed away from this tea at first – simple fruit teas with blueberry and pomegrante got RUINED for me after trying the bagged tea of popular tea brands sold in grocery stores which taste horribly tart, mulchy, grassy, and synthetic “red” fruit taste.

I dunno what made me try it – I guess a combination of my love for DAVIDsTea and decent reviews here and I quite like Bai Mu Dan tea.

First off – this tea is light! I got 20 grams and that was 2/3 of the silver bag. I could of gotten away with 10-16grams of tea to have a good sample. The price is a little ouch, but you get quite a bit of tea. Smell is good – that fresh blueberry scent.

Appearance wise, the tea steeps your classic white tea colour, with some blueberries and those pretty clear flowers (cornflowers) dancing around.
Taste wise, I tried this in my tea glass at work, leaving the leaves in without taking them out. Very delicate taste of the white tea (damn I love bai mu dan) with a great fruity natural sweetness from the blueberries. Tasted a little pomegrante at the end. It’s light, it’s simple but deadly. Like a tiger.. mostly the deadly part.
I shared this tea with a coworker (more of a herbal tea drinker) who enjoyed it as it was light.

Will I buy more? I think so – I could see this being a staple for my white tea collection and a great tea to share. I think I’d go with 50 grams at most.
White teas with fruit is popular (in those mulchy nasty tarty tea bags) and this be a great tea to TIGER PUNCH those fans in the face to show them real high quality tea.