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One of my friends kindly gave me a teabag of this because everytime I try to get to the Lupicia in the mall, they’re closed.

The website describes it as a green tea with sweet berry flavoring. That’s definitely accurate to me. It reminds me of the sweet berry sauce you find mixed into alot of ice creams- berries, but very generic. Also a bit creamy and too sweet for me at the moment. The green tea flavor isn’t coming through very strongly with the two minute steep, even though the berries are quite strong. I’ll probably do a second steep longer to see if I can bring it out more.

I’ve been all achey and my mom thinks I have the flu. Strangely the ‘flu’ is making very sensitive to scents and flavors. I’m not sure thats a good thing.

I got distracted and steeped for almost 4 minutes! Don’t do that! It makes the first note a little bitter. BUT I still get the mango and the peach from it. It’s not an overly strong flavor additive, in fact, I could go for it being a little stronger, but it’s still great because it didn’t overwhelm or greatly distract from the base at all- rather it’s like I brewed good black iced tea and then let peaches and mangos infuse in. So this steep was 4 min in 1 quart of boiling water, and added enough ice to make two quarts, no sugar. I wish I had grabbed some more last time I ordered, but it was my very first SBT so I didn’t go overboard (for once!)

Unfortunately I can’t try again because apparently my fridge only makes enough ice to be 1 quart. Cold steeping the rest!

The flavoring is not so much cream as it is vanilla. I had this one just as a woke up, which I’m trying not to let become a habit, because I’d hate to be dependent on something to wake up. The liquor is smooth as it goes down, but it leaves the mouth feeling terribly dry.

Evening reprise: The dryness isn’t as prominent on the second steep, but that may be because I sweetened it with a Peep. I know I’m crazy, but it’s just past Easter, and I used to do this all the time into my coffee/hot chocolate. With the tinge of sweetness, the base really rounds itself out. The Bermagot is gone gone gone though. I can’t remember if it was there this morning because I was seriously half asleep when I posted the first half of this tasting note.

I was expecting something completely different from what I got, but I wasn’t disappointed!

I’m usually only OK with chai teas, with the exception of a few chais tend to be a bit overwhelming for me. I was making an order already at DesignATea and this is one of their signature blends. So I’m thinking ‘hmm… not as strong, green tea probably means subtly sweet and light… YES!’

The small sachet is SMALL, only 1.1oz, but a few teaspoons was all I needed. The presentation is plain, and purely functional. It’s a transparent plastic baggie with a cardstock sleeve printed with the label. After receiving most if not all my teas from online vendors in those nice foil lined ziplocks, I was a little surprised. I’ll have to keep these in a box or in the cabinet to keep away from light.

The green tea was rolled/curled in dry form, and unfurled in just one steep. The leaves were chopped, but tinged brown on the edges? Roasted perhaps? I don’t know. All the chai spices had settled to the bottom of the baggie. I had heard of other teas settling, but I could actually see the effects of it here with the transparent bag. I shook it up, but the bag is small, and doesn’t leave much room for shaking. I don’t know if I got an even distribution.

The flavor and mouthfeel is so different from what I expected. I expected a nice smooth sweet green with a small hit of chai aroma. What I got was… even made with water! it tasted/felt like a milk-based chai, but made with matcha! I can’t even express how awesome that is because it is entirely unexpected. It reminded me of when I was in college and I got chai lattes from the library cafe all the time. Creamy, lightly heavy mouth texture, with a chai spice. The green wasn’t bright as I was expecting, but a little smokey.

I completely oversteeped the second steeping. I put the water in…. and forgot about it. I found it this morning. Even cold it has that slightly heavy feel in the mouth I usually get from dairy. It was only a touch bitter, but nothing that detracts too much away from how much I like it. I wouldn’t cold steep this, there’s not that much of it, but I don’t mind it cold.

I really do like it. Too bad I don’t drink chai teas as much nowadays, if I did, I could see this being brewed daily.

Yum. Yay for getting more bedtime teas for me. I’m kind of backwards in that most of my tea drinking happens in the later hours of the day, but I didn’t have many non-caffeinated options.

Brian was soo nice and agreed to substitute honeybush for roobios in the things that I ordered. Even though the company specializes in custom blends, it made me feel extra special. This is one of their signature blends, but they were still able to substitute the base for me, talk about freshly blended!

This tea is lovely. The dry ‘leaf’ is honeybush (which looks like tiny wood chips) and what looks like very finely chopped mint. The green stuff is very vibrant either way and makes the blend look cheerful. The scent of the dry stuff is very warm and not too minty.

The first brew IS kind of minty, but I let it brew for a long time. The pecan flavor was a little like whole roasted pecans with the mintyness and the honeybush was there but it wasn’t overbearing or annoying or medicinal like rooibos.

The second steep is awesome. The mint is tamed a bit, and the pecan is just right, it makes the tea just lovely and warm and soft. Which sounds like a blanket, but it was just a really comforting tea. The mouthfeel was great too, but if you let it cool the after feel is a little bit dry/tight.

I cold brewed this one – about four heaping tablespoons to 2L pitcher overnight. That’s already a good hunk of the tin I got, hopefully this tea is stronger hot brewed.

The hibiscus lends a pretty red color to the tea, and a touch of tartness. I’d told that it’s a little bitter and it tastes nothing like actual sangria. I wouldn’t know about the comparison to actual sangria, but the little bitterness I hardly noticed. I didn’t sweeten and certainly didn’t use carbonated water. The instructions on the tin are a bit confusing – I THINK that it’s telling me to cold brew in seltzer water or ginger ale, but with the flavor level on that LONG cold brew in normal water, I feel like the flavor might not be able to stand up against carbonation. I might try it one day though, I do have a sodastream.

An unassuming oolong with a early peach aroma. I made a cup and my friend could immediately tell I was brewing something peachy.

The dry leaf is quite pretty, with a fair amount of decoration… how much of which contributes to the taste, I don’t know, but adds to the weight. The tea didn’t TASTE peachy, just oolong, but the oolong isn’t too roasty or dark, or even too green. I did do a very short rinse, so maybe if the oolong was flavored, that got washed away, but I tend to expect a well flavored tea’s flavor to last beyond an itty bitty rinse.

Generally a nice middle-of-the-road tea, good for everyday, or serving to (non tea enthusiast)guests tea. Plus it’s organic, so if you have some of THOSE friends over, then you can serve them something without getting lectured on the horrible unnatural chemical laden tea. Not a high profile tea though – I won’t hoard it and I wouldn’t mind leaving it out on the counter for others to try (though I won’t).

The leaves didn’t expand too much during steeping, even after three steeps, and the flavor didn’t change much either. The dried fruit did rehydrate though. Definitely not a tea to forget, steep with water 195F or lower, and 2 min or less. I was using a small tea cup, and half my steeper was brewing for ~4min, which was too long: yucky. I switched to a larger mug so the brew time was short and it was fine.

The tin is rather soft and already kind of falling apart. I probably wouldn’t reuse it for tea, maybe as a pencil holder or something. The tea is heavy, I think- the tin says 4oz and the same size tin from another company is 3oz. I think TeaGuys (distributor) packs by volume though, and they pack it really full. I really don’t mind this tea for the price I paid for it, but if it was at normal price, I would be more critical. I don’t find it exceptional.

p.s.- TwoGuysTea is clearancing out stuff and Donovan’s a nice guy, really courteous and prompt CS.

Those who follow me may or may not have noticed that I tend to do a new tasting note for each time I try a tea, even if I already have notes on it. Mostly this just helps me keep up to date as well as visually seeing what teas I tend to use alot. Usually the only reason I won’t do a tasting note is because of time, or just having nothing to say.

Anyways- Today I tried this one as an iced tea. It’s hot in California today! And I tend to like having drinks at hand while I’m driving. I put two teaspoons in my IngenuiTEA (3min@ 195F) and released that over half a 24oz cold cup of ice. Whoops, even diluted I think I maybe overleafed too much. Usually I double the leaf for iced tea, but this probably would have worked out fine with the usual amount.

I second steeped the leaves again into a hot thermos with half a tsp of sugar. I can definitely tell this is overleafed (for me), even though it was a shorter brew time (~1.5min@195F).

Even as potent as it was, this is still a very nice tea. The subtleties of the tea are lost quite a bit however as the black base plays in the forefront. You get the chocolate aroma still, but don’t taste it nearly as much. It may be a tad more floral, but not overwhelming. I like that it’s still quite nice iced, yet without sugar. I didn’t care too much more the second steep with the sugar, but it was nice to have the option around during the car ride.

My first order from 52teas! Really exciting! I love oranges and I love pineapples, this sounded like a good one to me.

Once you cut open the foil packet the smell is really strong. The packet didn’t smell like anything before hand though, which I like because then there wasn’t any scent contamination with the other one I ordered. The first whiff to me wasn’t entirely appetizing though. It rather reminds me of tropical flavored carbonated water, like the ones you find at the supermarket that you buy when you’re craving something fizzy but don’t have much money. AKA entirely artificial. I didn’t get individual scents of either orange or pineapple.

I’ve only ever had honeybush in a teabag before, so the visual was mildly surprising. It looks like mini-woodchips! Actually it really reminded me of saute’d lemongrass, but that’s a different story. The bag was kinda tiny for a 2oz, but it was jam packed full. I suppose these leaves don’t exactly need room to breathe. I heard that it’s similar to rooibos, which I’ve discovered is not one I’m fond of, but honeybush isn’t nearly so offensive to me.

There aren’t any brewing instructions, and for my first time I felt kind of lost. So I filled up my cup with 195 water and took it upstairs with me. Then added the tea. I figured if the temp was a little lower, I could get away with a longer steep time, cause really I didn’t know what I was doing. Honestly I have trouble steeping things for a long time. I’m impatient so those greens and such that only take a minute or so are my best friend.

I probably brewed this for maybe 7 minutes, at least 5. The liquor was like a maple syrup color… and it still smelt artificial and meh. The smell does get better as it cools though, surprisingly, as the flavors stand they start to differentiate a little bit. Mostly though it just smells like fruit punch. Probably would be a tea that benefits from making iced or cold steeped.

The taste is mildly minty, like rooibos but not as medicine/herby, so I don’t mind it. It’s not as strong as peppermint tea though. Maybe like fruit punch, diluted alot, and garnished with mint.

I’m not sure yet if I like it, it deserves another tasting, but I still find it (right now) like the artificial flavored water, just without the fizziness.

… Can I resteep this? Does one resteep honeybush?