Harney & Sons

Love this tea. It is super cinnamon-ey and sweet! Don’t even need any sugar and I always want to put sugar in everything.

Assam, nice. Finishing off my tea biscuits. Wish I was going to a yoga retreat instead of spending all weekend in the house, but it’s definitely nice to have heat at home this year, and I can run, and read in my room, and go to the free museum, and do other people avoidance things. Plus, more Sherlock!

Meh. I don’t know if its my taste buds or this tea is not flavorful enough for me. I cannot taste lemongrass at all. As it cools I find coconut and some faint ginger. Smell is coconut. Very weak. I tried to sweeten it w/ sugar. then added some milk . just didnt work for me. This was a free sample with the purchase

This tastes pretty much like a standard earl grey. Maybe slightly less bitter than usual, but it’s not floral at all. Which is very disappointing to me because rose tea is one of my absolute favorites.

It smells fresh and floral in the bag, and tastes like a standard earl grey brewed. There’s a tiny bit of a rose aftertaste, but it’s so slight it might as well not even be there. I think I’ll try popping a few good rosebuds in with an earl grey next time, because it’ll probably get a better effect than this.

I can’t believe I drank all of this (today is a sipdown) without ever actually reviewing it. I am the worst Steepster person ever considering how much I like this tea.

Now that we’ve established that, on to an actual review. :)

Dry: Tiny leaf pieces and CTC balls in a blend of Ceylon, Assam, and Scottish magic. That’s not an ingredient? I am pretty sure it is. The dry tea smells like a pleasantly strong breakfast blend.

Steeped: Dark brown clear liquor. Some of the dry bits are so small that they fit through the teeny holes in the infuser, so there is a dark swirl at the bottom of the teacup. Smells robust.

Taste: My favorite strong straight black morning tea. It is just perfect. I’ve tried a number of breakfast teas, but I always come back to this one. Smooth, rich, full-bodied. I normally drink it with milk and it does great with honey and other additives as well, but today I am drinking it straight and it is wonderful, with just the tiniest hint of astringency at the end of each sip. I could (and sometimes do) drink it every morning.

Must. Order. More!

With a little milk and sugar, this is a warm toasty hug in a cup.

THIS IS IT!

this is the tea i chose.

tea taste number 600!

and it was a good choice. i drank it at midnight on new years eve. along side a 15% stout. go big or go home!
this tea is delicious. simple and bold. i will definitely consider ordering a tin of this in the future. and for me, the sample queen, that’s pretty high praise :)

hello 2014! hello hello hello!

Ok, epic fail here. and I don’t even think it’s the tea, necessarily.

Last night, I decided to go buck wild and do a cold-brew of this. First attempt at a cold brew ever. No one was going to stop me!
So I put a few tsp of leaf into a mug, popped it into the fridge, and pulled it out about eighteen hours later. It didn’t taste bad, but it didn’t taste good, either. Here were my problems.
1) I don’t like cold drinks. Like ever. If I could have all my drinks (other than those that are meant to be hot) at room temperature, I would. This includes pop and juice, and also includes all four seasons—I don’t like ice-cold drinks ever. So that was like a million percent of the problem.
2) I couldn’t get out of my mind that this was a hot tea, and that tea isn’t supposed to taste cold ever. I didn’t grow up drinking iced tea, so just the whole concept felt really strange. besides, this tasted like little more than slightly flavoured sugary water, and I just couldn’t get behind it. so I dropped it like it was cold and that was the end of that. A few of you are getting samples of this, and that’s how I’ll finish the tin! woohoo!

Bah, I’m feeling a bit conflicted about this tea. It does taste delicious, like a combination of random fruits that I can’t seem to separate, although that isn’t entirely accurate as it’s fairly obvious which fruits are not a part of this blend: strawberries, blueberries, bananas, and other typically sweet fruits.
No, this tastes fine. But it doesn’t blow me away, and I find that there’s something a bit hollow about it—kind of like a trailer that gets you all excited to see a movie, only it showcases all the good things about the movie and you’re left disappointed. I enjoy this momentarily as I sip, but it doesn’t leave an impression, either on my mouth or in my memory, and there’s barely an aftertaste to speak of.
So I’ll be willing to share what I have left, and there’s nothing even remotely offensive about this tea-I just don’t think I’ll be reordering it, although my tastes have been known to change. I may also have been a bit too heavy-handed with the cream, which may have served to mute some of the flavours, although I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the fruits in this tea to begin with, so perhaps muting the flavours was my secret purpose. Anyway, decent tea, but it definitely lives in the shadow of Parris, hot cinnamon spice, The Queen, etc.

I’m sorry I waited so long to try this tea, but after having hastily downed a cup, I know that it’s by its nature a fairly forgiving tea. I got a huge fruit chunk in my steeping basket which was wonderful, although there don’t seem to be too many of those left in the tin, which is also just fine.

I steeped for slightly longer than four minutes, and upon taking my first sip, my initial thought was that this was much like Parris, minus the bergamot and with the vanilla amped up. As with Parris, I wasn’t able to distinguish which fruits I was tasting, and I must humbly admit that I’ve never tried anything identifiably “Alsatian”, but I know what I like and I liked this a lot. I tend to be really picky about my bergamot: I definitely don’t like how sharp it can be, but can absolutely appreciate its presence in a tea, because it can likewise have an instantly comforting effect on a chilly winter morning or afternoon. This is a year-round tea, it would seem, and I can see myself finishing off the tin without any issue at all, and would likely repurchase as well. I just love how all the fruit tastes are steeped in vanilla here!

Made a very rich, colorful cup of tea that made the house smell really good. Tastes pretty tarte (which I like), a little bitter (which I don’t like), and I would prefer a bit more cinnamon and spice on there. Also not a fan of the little bits that get through my infuser, but tolerable.

yesterday i decided to lower temp. i find that i use boil water only on shou puerh. so i made it western 200F 3g 8oz 3min
it made a big difference. there was no agressive spicy and sour notes. it was smooth sweet and so satisfying on a chilly morning.

http://instagram.com/p/wMFyB_hwnB/

Great as usual. Excellent cup of tea for New Year day.

Backlog of yesterday’s sachet sipdown at work.

The more I drink this tea, the more I like it. It’s a great comfort and restorative and I will DEFINITELY be ordering some more of it in the future.

I’m working on my positive thinking. It had been going extremely well the past couple of days, then yesterday afternoon I overreacted internally to something and my mood snapped (it always happens on Tuesday afternoons!) I think I unnecessarily pissed off a customer in the wake of it. Still feeling guilty. It’s such a habit for me to think of all the stupid crap that’s going to happen today, it’s a challenge to turn that around. But I’ll keep trying!

I’ve only logged this once?!?

I had a sachet of this at work today; I would have made a second steeping, but then I absentmindedly thew away the sachet like a moron and I only have one left (CRYYYYYY!) This tea has grown on me A LOT. The more I drink it, the more its soft fruityness reminds me of H & S’s Paris. In fact, it seems like it’s somewhere between Paris and an Earl Grey; citrusy and maybe a bit floral, but with a tastefully done, rounded sweetness to the flavor. It is exactly the right balance of “wake up” and “comfort.”

Which I will need, because my boss is going to be out of state for the next 2.5 weeks – the longest I have ever been in charge of the store. Gulp.

Happy New Year!!!! May 2014 be filled with lots of good things and lots of good tea.

I can’t believe I haven’t done a tasting note on this yet. WOW I’m running behind!

I quite like this tea, but it’s not my favorite. It’s a very bright, punchy, somewhat citrusy tea. Floral, but in a pretty heavy way. It’s another “old-fashioned” tasting tea, one that feels like it comes from a different time. It’s another one that’s great for a little kick when you’re feeling groggy in the morning and can’t quite get up to speed.

Sipdown, although apparently I never put this into my cabinet to begin with! This remains one of my favorite teas, especially for first thing in the morning. It’s jammy and smooth and not tart at all, which I personally dislike in most berry teas. It reminds me a little of Harney’s Paris but with less vanilla and somehow even more addictive. I will be buying this one in bulk as soon as my cabinet is in better order!

Sipdown! (127) There wasn’t enough leaf for two cups so I dumped the rest (about 1 1/2 teaspoons) into a 12 oz. mug and hoped for the best.

This smells so delicious. It’s like jam or some sort of fruit salad with plums and berries. I’d say this and Diamond Jubilee are tied for my favorite H&S blends so far, which is a little strange because I rate them differently! Maybe next time I’ll up Diamond Jubilee’s rating again, because I do love them equally for different reasons. There are several others on my list to try (looking at you, Vanilla Comoro), but I’m very happy with these as both EGs and flavored black teas in general.

I am in love with this tea! I have trouble remembering it’s an EG because there’s so much else going on. The fruit is strong, and the honey notes in the description are also present. There is a little EG bite at the end, both from the black tea base and the bergamot. Love, love, love!

I’m definitely going to be buying this one. It reminds me of Paris, but only once Paris has cooled down and had milk added. It’s slightly fruitier and not as sweet with more of a black tea edge to it, but it’s absolutely wonderful in my opinion.

The fruit notes taste real and juicy and the tea and bergamot flavors are still there in the background. I like earl greys, but lately I haven’t wanted them to be as strong, and this is a great answer to that. This one is impossible to oversteep, not bitter at all, and just wonderful in the morning when I want something bold to wake me up. Also nice in that I get a flavor similar to Paris without having to add milk (frankly, I’m too lazy to put things in my tea and I don’t especially like milk).

This is such an easy to drink tea. It’s technically a black tea, but I actually group it in with (and prepare it like) oolongs. It’s brisk without being bitter, and edges toward sweetness.