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Finally finally finally, I’ve found a glass pitcher with a lid for iced tea. It’s a Labour Day Weekend MIRACLE.

I’ve had this cold-steeping for over three hours and it’s already quite strong. I just poured my second class, and after each one, would just refill the jug again, and it just keeps on going. The liquor is such a rich, dark amber.

As soon as I ripped open the packet to get out the tea bag, I was hit with a cloud of neapolitan ice cream. The taste is very heavy on the black tea though, kind of the same I got with the cotton candy loose leaf. But it’s heavy in a good way. It means business.

Can’t pick out any chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry. Just that same sugary undertone, again, from Cotton Candy, which gives me the impression that the strawberry is the strongest flavour of the three, seeing that pink cotton candy tends to be slightly berryish.

This tea bag is an iced tea making machine. I’m going to keep on going until the colour of the liquor turns substantially paler.

Finally getting off my lazy butt to review this. There are only a few more days left before starting my new grad program, so better do this now just in case!

The first couple times I had this, I steeped it for five minutes. The blueberry was there. Very jammy indeed, and the base wasn’t astringent, but the slightest bit of soy milk killed all the other flavours. And without any additives, the blueberry wasn’t as prevalent, especially considering how many blueberries you get. So today I tried six minutes and adding a bit of soy again. The first few sips are bursts of blueberry, truly like blueberry jam.

But after a few more sips, the dreaded stevia shows up. This is the first time trying anything with stevia, I think, but the sensation I’m now getting must be from it because it’s a lot like an aspartame attack. Maybe not as annoying as aspartame, but this is getting too much in the way of the blueberries!

Better than most blueberry blacks I’ve had (whose base is always so astringent, or the blueberry is very artificial, etc). Not my favourite blueberry tea though!

Roses, pistachio, and Persia. This tea makes me think of halva more than anything else, and how wonderful it would be if someone created a chocolate and/or pistachio halva tea.

But back to reality. The dry leaf doesn’t have that many tea leaves in it, but there are a lot of pistachios. Scent-wise, it’s very heavy on the apple, like a sour apple Jolly Rancher. This conjures up images of pucker-inducing tea.

At first, I let this steep for three minutes, and there was hardly any flavour. It was so incredibly subtle. Maybe there was a faint fruitiness from the beginning, and the pistachio was an afterthought, a very distant one. So I cheated and stuck my Tea Stick back into my mug for another minute.

Now it’s much better. Very apple-y. Of course not as pucker-inducing as anticipated, but it’s like Granny Smith apple. The rose is there but not overpowering. And pistachios are still an afterthought.

It’s not stock-up-freakout-worthy, but definitely not a regrettable purchase either. I can see this being ultra refreshing iced. A very youthful, low caffeine treat.

Since this came back in stores this year, I thought I’d celebrate with some I ordered online a few months ago.

I decided to try steep this for six minutes since I was planning on adding soy milk and brown sugar, something I normally don’t do, and I wanted a stronger brew. Letting it steep for this long really brings out the pumpkin. The steeped tea actually smells like the butternut squash I usually bake in the oven with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

And the taste is exquisite too. I feel guilty adding the sugar, but this is creamy pumpkin liquid candy, something that should be served on Thanksgiving. I’ve had a cruddy day involving flakey people and this tea is washing the negativity away.

Classic impulse buy. I don’t even like banana-flavoured stuff that much, but come on, this has dates!

The dry mixture smells good, mostly like banana chips. Steeped, the tea smells like roasted mate. I’m one of those freaks who gets banana out of roasted mate. To my nose, this is a stronger, more obviously banana aroma.

The taste reminds me of roasted mate too. I should conduct an experiment sometime involving brewing this and Chocolate Rocket side-by-side, and see how similar these banana-like flavours truly are to me. This is also quite sweet. I can’t imagine adding anything to this. There is a hint of nuts but it’s not as strong as I had hoped.

Not bad, but I’d rather just eat some banana chips.

I’m going to rip right into this one, just like how the allspice rips right into the mingling sweetness of the dry leaf. It’s allspice, all the way. The cinnamon is a little shy here. Not surprised since my pouch is filled with whole berries. This actually makes me think of my grandma’s pumpkin pie even more so than Pumpkin Chai. And as a runner-up, it reminds me of a chai latte that is heavy on the nutmeg.

The steeped tea smells like that too, but loses its sugary sweetness. Taste-wise, we’re looking at more allspice. Creamy sweet allspice. The spices in this are not at all fiery. I absolutely love how there is kukicha in this. In a toasted marshmallow tea? Genius! It really mellows out the overall flavour profile.

Although the flavour doesn’t directly resemble the taste of marshmallows, it has a similar fluffy, comforting quality. Also, this is sweet enough on its own, in my opinion. It even gets sweeter the closer you get to the bottom of the mug. Maybe I’m getting some brittle sediment.

This would be fantabulous as a latte.

I couldn’t resist. I picked up the new teas earlier today despite telling myself to pipe down on the tea spendage for a while. I tried to make a compromise by asking for only 10g of each (and a couple others, ugh), however, the SA gave me nearly twice as much on all of them, rushed me through the sale, and didn’t give me a receipt. Yeah, she was rather unpleasant and borderline rude. Oh well.

I’m going with this one first because out of the new ones, I liked the smell of the dry tea the best. This is loaded with all sorts of goodies: dried cherries, lemongrass, apples, blackberry leaves, and more, but not that many actual Bai Mu Dan leaves. It’s like Gold Rush in that same sense. And it smells like a juicy, berryish fruit leather.

The scent of the steeped tea is primarily cherries and apples. Oh noes! And I’m smelling… hibiscus.

First sip: watermelon. Like an actual slice of it, not that artificial watermelon that’s not even close to the real thing. A few more sips and the cherry is coming out. Maybe a little bit of apple but it’s subtle. And I’m glad to report that the hibiscus is virtually non-existant.

As this cools down, I can feel the hibiscus more than taste it. You know how it gives you that drying sensation in the mouth? Yeah. But otherwise it’s behaving. I was hoping to get some fig and pumpkin out of this, especially the former. Perhaps it’ll have to take a bit of tweaking.

When I used to work at the mall, the DT staff used to bring tea to our store a lot, or if we’d visit them, they’d let us pick something to drink. During the summer, this iced was my favourite. STILL haven’t found a decent iced tea jug (seriously?!) so for now, I have to settle having this hot.

First and foremost, how come there aren’t more green rooibos blends out there? I normally don’t care for the red variety, or honeybush, so why this isn’t the more popular one is beyond me. Yeah, it’s personal taste, but still. Please more green rooibos!

This is yummy hot too. When I drank it iced, it seemed more tropical in flavour. The guava and the passionfruit seemed to dominate the tea, but hot, I’m noticing now that the strawberry is much more prevalent. Both are actually very nice.

I’m itching for some iced Swampwater though!

This takes me back to dessert at a Japanese sushi bar. The dry leaf really does smell like the mango ice cream I once had for dessert after some delectable sushi. Unmistakably mango, and, well, velvety ice cream!

Steeped up, the mango is prevalent, and manages to hold up against the bold black base. I just added some soy milk, which is calming down the tea base and allowing the mango ice cream part to stand out more.

This really holds up to its name.

Exotica has a lot going on. A lot. I’ve had teas/tisanes in the past with a lot of ingredients, but were ultimately not that complex, but this. This has character.

The scent of the tea is a labyrinthine aroma of spices, sweetness, and lemongrass. At first I smell the cinnamon, but wait, then there’s the lemongrass taking over, and the coconut is flying all over the place.

Actually, that pretty much describes what goes on with every sip too. Although the only difference is that I’m experiencing the heat from the pink peppercorns. Also, the sweetness is hard to describe. Some sips are sweeter than others, and while I can tell that it’s partly due to the coconut, it’s still a little mysterious. It actually kind of reminds me of the sweetness you get from licorice. It’s that same feeling.

The aftertaste reminds me of a kind of Thai curry. And now I want Thai curry.