Magic Hour

Sadly this tea was a bit of a miss for me, but I don’t know if that was exactly the tea teas’ fault. I’ve been slowly seeing chocolate and passion fruit paired together more commonly – especially with more “avant garde” or experimental companies that kind of lead/push that trend curve. I remember one of the first instances was when we were in LA and visited a company who were selling a passionfruit and dark chocolate ice cream. With one exception (a cheesecake), it’s just never been a combination I’ve personally enjoyed. I was hopeful I would in this application, but I just don’t find these two flavours click together harmoniously. It’s a bit cacophonous. Add to that the extra element of floral rose, and this was just a little too busy for me.

I do think, of all the flavours, passionfruit was the strongest – so at least something was “leading the pack” so to speak. I just didn’t really love this particular passionfruit flavouring either though, so that added to the whole “not my jam” of it all.

Ordered this one because it sounded good and I’d heard good things about it.

Sadly, not loving it. I guess I was hoping for more fruit notes, mostly I just taste the earthy puerh paired with woody bourbon vanilla. I’m not generally a vanilla tea lover. I like vanilla in general, but plain vanilla-flavored teas aren’t really my jam. And to me, this sort of falls into that category because I’m just not tasting much of the pomegranate.

Putting the rest of the sampler pouch into my rehoming box!

Sipped on this one earlier in the week. It essentially had the flavour I’d want out of a caramel oolong though it was erring a little bit noticeably fruity in its undertones. However, the mouthfeel felt all wrong to me for the profile. Very, very thin despite the sweet, intense taste. It was causing a bit of a mental disconnect for me because I just really kept going for the next sip and expecting something a little more thick and rich…

Was nervous about this one after seeing Cameron B’s review, but I actually didn’t mind it. I definitely have had better caramel teas (and even better caramel oolongs), but to me there wasn’t really anything super offensive about this one.

It was certainly a sweet tea, but personally I’m of the opinion that anything calling itself a caramel tea blend probably should be sweet since, well, caramel is sweet and that’s a key component to the flavour. I know monk fruit is definitely not for everyone, but I actually appreciated its usage here. Monk fruit has a very naturally “brown tasting” sweetness that makes it a much more complimentary sweetener addition for anything spiced (like this blend is) or with more of those ‘brown type flavours’ such as baked goods, maple, or in this case caramel. In fact, because Magic Hour doesn’t use things like caramel pieces in their blends, I imagine that the monk fruit in this tea is probably actually doing a lot of the heavy lifting with conveying the taste of caramel. Sure, there’s probably a caramel flavour mixed in with the natural flavour extracts but I don’t think that alone would have been enough to convey as much “richness” as I think Magic Hour was probably aiming for – especially because natural caramel flavours are already sort of “thin” tasting compared to their artificial counterparts and Magic Hour is all organic blends so they would have been restricted in the total percentage of flavouring that could have gone into the blend which maintaining that organic status…

That’s a roundabout way of saying I didn’t personally find the monk fruit cloying in this cup and thought the overall caramel profile was decently solid. What I did kind of mind was the “pumpkin spice”. The cinnamon was fine, but everything else felt like a distraction that was kind of muddying up the clarity of flavours. Also the black currants; I felt like they added a bit too much of a noticeable fruity undertone.

Wanderlust from September. This one is not fully a masala chai, but the nutmeg and cinnamon give it a chai character. The flavor is pretty strong, but not overly as cakey as I’d imagine. It’s more bready than anything else underneath a healthy serving of floral tannin and light astringency of sweet spices. The black tea and green tea make it medium bodied like an oolong, but has the touch of malt and green astringency to make it more on the medium side, or first flush side. Shorter brew times makes the green tea more apparent, and the longer steeps makes the black tea more apparent.

I liked this one because it was different from most other blends, and I honestly liked it better than some, but not all of the pumpkin spice blends. Definitely a good fall option. My girlfriend loooooves it, and some of my students that saw it at work were really into the smell. I personally would still add sugar to sweeten it to make it more palatable, which is the big thing against this tea for my preferences other than the astringency. It is also more pastry/candle bordering than potpouri like the other blends. If you really like rose and cardamom though, you might really like this.

Happy to report that I loved this tea just as much the second time! Lovely notes of bright, sweet lemon curd and creamy meringue with a smooth, grounding and slightly earthy pu’erh base. It all clicks together in a super satisfying way. Probably my favourite Magic Hour blend???

I don’t wanna jump the gun here, but this might be my favourite Magic Hour blend yet – which actually sort of sucks since I think this was limited edition. I was nervous that the earthy pu’erh might be unpleasant with the lemon and cream notes, but this was so smooth with a really bright, sweet lemony top note and a pleasantly creamy finish. It hit all the notes I’d want in a lemon meringue profile and was just overall so well balanced and flavourful.

Really liked this one. I dig the flavor combo. Too expensive to own other than the sample, but it kept changing on each rebrew and it lasted very long western and tumbler style. The cardamom would actually be more prominent in the later steeps with the almond and pumpkin flavors giving off nice balanced natural sweetness with the persimmon. Really dug the persimmon almond combo personally. I feel lame, but I agree it is a bit too pricy. It’s easily a winner compared to the other fall blends. I had the highest hopes for the Pumpkin Caramel Oolong, but it was too dominated by the cinnamon to be distinct. The other two were also overpowered by cinnamon. This one was balanced.

I was planning on just reviewing the sampler pack and rating them, but people actually tried these teas! I’m not the only one either wowed by the taste and irritable about some of the prices! YAY!

I’ve already commented my thoughts on this one for a few of you, but here’s the gist. I sipped this down the quickest out of all of them for easy transport and basic white girl vibes. For whatever reason, Pu-Erh Black tea blends are easy for me to like, so I got Clove, vanilla, nutmeg, and a wi bit of pumpkin are prominent in the flavor under the malt of the black tea and pu-erh. I personally would taste the pu-erh more with more leaves, but the black tea was more prominent, though less so than the power of the flavors.

I personally really liked the eggnog custard vibes and thought this tea was the pumpkin spice version of Thai Temple. I’m not always a huge fan of cake teas, so I’m happy with a more custardy version of one. It’s good with a little bit of cream and sugar, but I liked this one more straight. Felt good on my throat and felt good with the fall vibes. I’m not sure if I would pay for the full price for a large serving of it. I wouldn’t mind having it around since I thought it was better than a lot of other pumpkin spice teas I’ve had before, but I would probably only want another sampler portion.

Totally forgot about the (unnecissary) butterfly pea flower in this blend until I started steeping the mug and it turned an unpleasant watery blue/green colour. Really adds nothing of value to the tea. Taste wise it was nice, though! Mostly a very generic floral flavour from the many different elements in the blend that mix together into a soft, pleasant sour of potpourri vibe. The jasmine does come through maybe a little more strongly. Anyway, I was craving floral and soothing and this tea did deliver on that pretty well even if the cup was pretty light.

Upon second taste I definitely found this less aggressively floral tasting but that might be because I went into the cup with more of an idea what to expect and I was definitely in a mood for very floral leaning teas this past weekend. Mostly I thought this tasted of bergamot and rose, with a more lavender forward finish.

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0H1GnfRlGd/?img_index=3 (3rd Pic)

It’s a very beautiful looking blend.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUQhAAoSkHM

Oof, that’s a lot of florals.

I don’t know if I seem to have enjoyed this tea as much as Daylon did, but I didn’t dislike it either. My first few sips were a little like drinking liquid potpourri, but then I acclimated. It’s very floral and I can see it being an immediate turn off to anyone who has even the tiniest sensitivity to rose or lavender. Especially the lavender. The bergamot also isn’t exactly light handed, though to Magic Hour’s credit they actually did a pretty exceptional job with not actually drowning out any of these florals with another. It’s strong, but pretty equally so.

I think I’d need to be in quite a particular mind space to reach for this one again though.

Sipdown! (43 | 358)

First one to be finished off! Since this has rolled oolong and dried fruit chunks, it’s quite a heavy tea and the 1-ounce bag only made about 3 large mugs for me.

I think this is my least favorite of the collection, partially because of the monkfruit sweetness and partially because it’s just somewhat vague-tasting. Mildly spiced with a generic sweetness and not much else.

Ah well, it’s a sipdown at least! :P

Last one from the pumpkin spice collection. Unfortunately, this tea has monkfruit in it, sigh… And because of that, it’s just too sweet for me, and it’s a bit of a mouth-coating cloying sweetness.

Otherwise, it’s just okay. Very mildly spiced, mostly I taste the cinnamon. I do actually get a slight pumpkin vibe though, not sure if that’s from the apple or something in the flavoring. Something is a tad bit squashy. Not really tasting caramel specifically, more of a generic sweetness that seems closer to maple. And as for the oolong, not getting much of that either.

Needless to say, not a favorite. Overall these pumpkin spice teas were pretty disappointing to me, and the marzipan white was the only one I really liked. Not sure I would pay the premium price for it though, especially since you get less than half as much by weight compared to the other blends…

My other tasting note for this tea is gonna be much better for describing the flavours of this tea. It’s very good, though. Lighter in body but the flavours are really distinct and nuanced, and definitely not thin. So many of them though. Greener melon and ginger are probably the strongest, but also lime, cream, and coconut. Very tropical, but not in an expected way. Both light and fresh but soothing and spiced. I just think this is a special blend.

Iced!

This was such an interesting blend, and I’m actually nearly out of it already which is kind of saddening to me. I tried it iced because, looking at the ingredient list, I thought it might make me think of ginger beer or other ginger beer based cocktails – and honestly I was sort of right! It has that exact type of zesty ginger heat, but balanced by the natural sweetness and acidity of the lime addition – like a Moscow Mule, sort of.

The fun twist is the honeydew and coconut combination. The creaminess from the coconut is very subtle, but it adds so much depth to the overall profile and immediately gives this profile a tropical kind of flair. I could picture myself drinking this iced tea out of a coconut! The honeydew was interesting too. I never would have thought to try honeydew with ginger, but it was so cooling and refreshing and something about the overall composition of flavours brought out the greener and more “vegetal” notes of the melon rind without actually sacrificing on the mellow sweetness of the melon flesh itself. It also, a little bit, felt like there was fresh muddled cucumber in the drink.

This was kind of instantly the perfect nuanced, fresh feeling summer iced tea profile and it felt so damn fancy and high brow. Like, I could see a cocktail with the same ingredient inspirations and flavour balance easily costing like $25 as part of a Summer drink menu at a cool and trendy bar. Really unique!

This is a rather ethereal feeling blend that it somewhat challenging to put into words. I know, last time I drank it, I said it reminded me of Froot Loops but this time around I didn’t get that quite so much. Possibly because I talked less bergamot overall? It was still very citrusy though with an almost lemon curd type flavour that just evoked radiant beams of warm, bright sunlight. Fig is also a flavour that I find challenging to describe, but I thought it was present and added to the nuance of the blend while still keeping everything so light, fresh, and effervescent feeling. I really, really enjoyed this cup of tea. It felt like bottling sunshine into liquid form.

This tea kind of tasted like Fruit Loops and I sort of hate that it feels like I can sum it up so simply, because it was a really nice blend and it was so enjoyable in the moment. However, the particular lemon and bergamot oils used along with the fig in the blend and the floral undertones of the oolong itself sort of all clicked together in a way that really, really harmoniously tasted like a more sophisticated/elevated version of, well, Fruit Loops.

It’s still recommend this tea though because it was so fresh and summery, and the citrus notes when I paused and tried to isolate them on my palate were really nice. There’s almost a limoncello sort of quality to the tea, and it does feel really beautiful and in line with the Italian imagery used and overall inspiration. It’s one of my favourite teas from the Wanderlust series so far!

Cold Brew!

I did not like the dry leaf smell of this one, so I was nervous. However, the cold brew ended up more enjoyable than I expected it to be. I do appreciate that this isn’t just a generic cherry blossom flavoured sencha and that there are other layers to it, because I’ve seen that type of blend very over done for these sort of romanticized “Japanese Spring Time” type of teas.

Firstly, it was floral but definitely didn’t taste of actual sakura/cherry blossoms. More jasmine than anything else, in a fresh yet still a bit heavy and heady kind of way. Those florals were nicely balanced by subtle notes of actual cherries and just a hint of apricot. I think I expected something sweeter overall, but it was almost like these two stone fruits combined gave off more of the taste of a fruit leather/preserved fruit instead of something lush or juicy/tart. It worked with the grassier, umami of the green tea and the more mellow vibe of the tea – but it was just kind of unexpected.

I wonder if those flavours would pop a little more as a hot tea. Excited to find out.

Steeped up a few days ago because I wanted what is, essentially, a Monk’s Blend with some tropical stank on it. Note that, in this context, stank is a loving term of endearment. The balance of bold, brisk black tea with floral and fruity guava and pomegranate is delicious.

This tea is deceptively simple, but I’m into it.

I think I might be on an unintentional guava kick just in general, but I really liked the combo of tropical, dense guava with the jammier red fruit/pomegranate notes on this brisk, majority black tea base. It was like a playful, summery twist on a classic Monk’s Blend profile in a good sorta way. Also a little like Magic Hour’s Bohemian Breakfast blend but I think I like this one a little more.

#mugtober

Prompt on this day was pie/baking and since my mug was kiln themed (because you “bake” pottery) I thought there was something kind of cheeky and picking a tea that wasn’t just cake but cake batter. It was a nice enough cuppa too! Sweet and vanilla forward but with some warming spices too. It’s such a nice vanilla flavour that I almost wish there were not spices at all though so it could have more focus.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkNkwfyb19U

Really enjoyed this cup of tea that I made earlier in the week – the vanilla note is very authentic and aromatic but still has a bit of an indulgence to it. With the other spices and flavourings in the blend I feel like I get the best of both worlds with the mix of “true vanilla” (which is less sweet/creamy and more floral and fruity) and a more custard-like vanilla cream flavour. Sometimes it was a little like eggnog, because of the way the spices would interact with it. Very complex for a tea with a name like “Cake Batter Breakfast” that you’d expect to be just pure, unhinged dessert.

I’ve always hated “Birthday Cake” or “Cake Batter” as flavours because literally any type of cake has batter or could be a birthday cake – you just need to pop candles on it. Like, I have Carrot Cake for my birthday every year, but if someone released a carrot cake flavoured tea called Birthday Cake people would probably be upset. It’s dumb.

Anyway, this is clearly supposed to be the sort of generic vanilla cake flavour most birthday cake products are, and I actually do appreciate that Magic Hour has created that but without the cheap sprinkle addition. However, I agree with Cameron B that it sort of reads as eggnog instead. That’s because they’re using some type of cream flavouring with a more naturally custard note, and the cinnamon and nutmeg from the pumpkin spice are the most prominent spice notes and also happen to be the spice notes associated with eggnog…

It’s a little bit unfortunate but not too unfortunate because it is actually a pretty delicious tea. I like the balance of flavours, and the briskness of the tea base a lot.