Harney & Sons

Yummy. Not as good as Golden Monkey. Very good with heavy cream or Irish cream and somethign sweet – honey or sugar.

I’ve never had chamomile tea, so I thought I’d give this a shot. It was … okay? I sweetened it a bit, and it was better. I was too afraid to alter it too much, but I might be more daring next time I try it.

I love black teas, and there are few black teas I won’t drink. I … didn’t care for this one. It was just bland. Bummer.

Oh, very nice. I love to sit down with a cup of this after the kids have gone off to school. Dress it up with some cream and sugar, put on some music, grab and sketchbook, and I’m set.

I guess I keep trying green teas in the hopes I’ll find one I actually like? So far, no go. I will say, though … This one wins the contest for PRETTIEST in the container so far.

I have to put this somewhere in the middle. I don’t like green tea, and on an average day, I won’t drink this. But if I have a cold, so help me, this is the only thing I can stomach. I don’t know why!

I really wanted to like this. Coconut and chocolate? I love those things! But I didn’t like this. And that makes me sad. Like this => :(

This is my go-to White Earl Grey. I just learned white tea really isn’t lower in caffiene. In any case, its a delightful tea.

I did enjoy this. Nice and light. One of few blacks I can drink plain (though I dressed this up more times than not).

Made this the other night. I guess I forgot that I don’t really care for it. My husband drank three cups. I wound up dumping mine and making some mint chocolate instead.

Meh. I didn’t really care for this one. Just … No. Not terrible. But, not something I want to try again, either.

When I ordered this, the idea was that I probably wouldn’t like Vanilla Comoro much because it’s decaf and I thought that was weird. Of course, that wasn’t the case. I fell in love, face-first, with Vanilla Comoro. So the roles have reversed. This tea now has to live up to what I thought would be the loser.

It smells lovely as it steeps, brewing up to a pleasant reddish amber. The aroma is sweet vanilla and faintly smoky, leathery black tea. I’m a little surprised by the smokiness, as I wasn’t expecting it. This doesn’t have the buttercream, cupcakey vanilla that the Comoro had, which disappoints me a little. Oh dear, I’ve gotten spoiled.

The flavor is much more smoky than I expected, followed by the vanilla. It’s decent, yeah, but not what I was hoping for. I wanted a sort of cake or ice cream flavor, and this isn’t it. It’s a nice vanilla bean taste, but it’s too subtle for me. Sorry, Vanilla Black, but I’ll be reordering Vanilla Comoro instead. (And mixing it with French Super-Blue Lavender, oh god yes.)

So, this tea was what made me sure I wanted to place my newest order with Harney & Sons instead of the four or five other companies I had been waffling between. I love just about any tea that has lavender in it, and the idea of a pure lavender tea excited me. I’ve had plenty of blends before, but this tea is just fluffy dried lavender buds and a few pale green leaves.

Now, the official website shows the tea as brewing up to a pretty shade of purple. I can tell you right here that it does not. This stuff is a strange, kinda sickly gray. I mean, it’s sort of purple tinted, but it’s nothing like the picture. And it’s like nothing I’ve ever drank before. But the aroma is heavenly. Deeply soothing, floral, and clean. Lightly sweetened, it’s exactly what I was hoping for. A very bold and slightly buttery, tingly lavender flavor.

But I understand that this is not for everyone. If you don’t like herbals and don’t like lavender, stay far away. But I’m definitely going to re-order and blend it into stuff. Yum.

One of my favorite teas!!! I love this one. It’s naturally sweet, and is very calming to me. :)

As promised, Peaches & Ginger black tea. This was my first tea of the day yesterday. I had a bagged ginger peach black tea at my parent’s on Tuesday. I knew I had this one and that it would be better but hadn’t tried it yet. So that was my inspiration to try this tea.

The peach was like a fresh just soften real peach. Not super ripe dripping juicy peach nor still quite firm peach. But that point in between the two. A nice sweet peach. The ginger is the warming type of ginger, not the spicy type of ginger. And the two pair well. If I had to say, I’d say the ginger was slightly more predominate. But it melds right into the peach. I can tell it’s a black tea base, but the base fades right into the background.

The second steep was weaker but fine.

My initial rating is a 74 (good range is 70-80). This tea is solid and enjoyable and I happily sipped through my two mugs of it.

SIPDOWN!

I have emptied the tin. Yay! It’s all right, but not my favorite holiday-themed tea. And the tin is massive, and takes up too much tea cupboard real estate, so I am happy it can be removed. I am trying to think of a use for it, or if I should just put it in the recycling bin.

Oh, hi. Remember me? I have been seriously neglecting Steepster! D’oh!

I was at Barnes & Noble today, and found this one lonely tin of tea on their 75% off table, and having always meant to try Harney & Sons at home where I can control the water temperature (instead of the Barnes & Noble cafe who always seem to keep their water at nuclear levels) I snatched it up and brought it home. $2.74 for 30 teabags is a pretty good deal, I think, especially since, thankfully, it’s pretty darn good!

Not overwhelming, very tasty, no bitterness. I like it!

And it came in a cute metal tin. Yeah, I’m always a sucker for that!

I think I like it better than Kusmi’s holiday tea. I might have to keep an eye out for it next year.

My SO’s aunt said this is one of her favorite teas so I’ve been wanting to try it. I got a cup at Tom n Tom’s and I loved it! It has such a great flavor. It’s perfect all on its own, without cream or sugar. Its really clean, not too strong or too mild and definitely not bitter or astringent.

Not as good as Earl Grey Supreme, but it comes close. I do very much enjoy this one. It smells wonderful, it tastes wonderful. I could drink it all day. Sometimes I do!

Well, I didn’t like the Breakfast Tea. Did I think Supreme Breakfast would be any better? It wasn’t. Bummer. I’ll stick to Irish Breakfast.

Another green I wasn’t fond of. SHOCKER. The popcorn was a weird surprise, though!

No, sir, I didn’t like it! We like breakfast teas, so it made sense to try this. It was not good, no matter what we did.