Lovare

Sip Down
Date: 26 February 2026

A friend gave me a box of this tea a while back, but I tend to place bagged teas deep into my stash, nearly to forget and find them again a while later…I had two bags remaining from the box and decided to finally top them off this morning. The tea’s artificial in the worst way possible; the strawberry note reminds me of the cheap overly sweet wine (Arbor Mist?) that my sister likes – yuck! I feel hung over just smelling the tea in my mug. Lol

There isn’t much flavor on the palate. I can get some notes of what “might be strawberry,” however, the tea is bland. I’d imagine adding sweetener could potentially enhance the tasting notes, but I’m not in the mood for sweet tea, even for the sake of a review.

Flavor: 50
Texture: 40
Aroma: 60
Rating: 50/100

A sipdown! (M: 1 Y: 10)
This is another office tea sipdown.

Kenyan black tea with pomegranate and bergamot? It sounded a little bit strange to me, but guess what? It works really well. There are nice sweet notes of pomegranate with a citrusy—and thus slightly pungent—twist of bergamot. The base tea was pleasant, warming, and had a high caffeine content, at least from what I noticed on the mornings I had this tea.

A sipdown! (M: 3 Y: 6) — prompt: Drink a tea whose name starts with one of your initials

Another office tea sipdown. When I have only two bags left, I prepare the first one in the office and bring the second one home to prepare it under “standard conditions.”

Honestly, I am surprised by how much I like this one. It tastes a little bit like Vanillekipferl with a refreshing citrusy note of bergamot. The base is, alas, a little boring. It can get bitter if steeped for too long and is a little metallic, as Ceylon teas usually are.

I drank it plain, but I can imagine that a little sugar or honey could make it a wonderfully flavored tea. Without it, it is tasty indeed, but something is lacking.

A sipdown! (M: 3 Y: 3)
Steepster website was funky day before yesterday; so I am writing a note for this sipdown just today.

It is a lovely black tea with fruity notes of rosehips as well as straweberries; well blended together making a tasty drink. There are also notes of floral notes, which were pleasant.

The only con I find is that tea bag != loose leaf, and this contains no wild berries itself but strawberries and loose leaf version contains also black currants, elderberries and hawthorn berries. That sound better than “natural berry flavour”. That’s why I also added that this entry is about tea bags.

yumm herbal n fruity

Came home tired from work today, so I picked the very same tea bag I had on my desk; and I’m glad I did.
It was delicate green tea, slightly grassy and jasmine level was just right. Definitely not overpowering the base tea flavours, and not so weak either. It was clearly jasmine, and considering it was just a tea bag… colour me impressed!

Food pairing: cold, unbaked blackberry-quark cake. Great pairing!

Another tea swap teabag.

This is nice – the flavoring actually reminds me of Lupicia’s Ripe Mango Oolong, which is a good thing. Quite close to actual mango, unlike most mango-flavored things in my experience. It is a bit on the strong side though, and it doesn’t help that the green tea doesn’t have much flavor. There’s a touch of grassiness, but mostly it’s the mango flavoring show. Still pleasant and fun to try, though!

Although I have steeped it as recommended, I felt it is a bit too long. When hot, all flavours were a little hidden behind the strong black tea from Ceylon; however as it cools down, at first fruit notes start to appear. A lots of raspberry (afterall, it contains 5 % of those fruits), fresh and genuine flavour. And after a few minutes when lukewarm, a vanilla flavour take its part as a lovely, creamy custard flavour.

Maybe a splash of milk (or alternative) could make it a bit creamier and maybe it would make the raspberry flavour pop. Sadly I have been expecting more (but that’s because the wonderful packaging, I am sure!)

A sipdown! (M: 17, Y: 17)
“A buttery pastry” tea as described by Courtney is top-notch description of this tea. Sadly, it smells better than it tastes, but if you are looking for some flavour profile descriptors, here are a few: buttery pastry, vanilla, brown sugar and creamy.

Prepared as a family pot tea — 2L / 2 pyramids steeped for 5 minutes.

2023 sipdown no. 113

Steeped, this has a buttery pastry scent. I would say the scent is more enticing than the flavour, but it was still a very smooth cup that I enjoyed. Thanks Martin for sharing!

Received from postcrossing from Ukraine. Sender claims it is okay tea, good for bagged, but that she prefers loose leaf one. I was so happy to hear something about the tea from another tea lover!

And I have to agree completely. It smells bit roasty, but actually it is hidden florals. Steeped for 4 minutes, 90°C water (was boiling about two minutes before I filled the mug). After steeping it brought pretty nice aroma of florals again, not sure about the lilac they claim; but it was nice. Nice taste as well, but kinda vegetal for me and slight astringency as well. Bit mood boosting as well, could be little bit on oolong side, than green – if I do a blind tasting, I would think it is another good, but not great, green tea.

Song pairing: nothing actually, but listened to few Placebo songs, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JJAXwAaA2w