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Arrived in my teapro box this week and I’ve kind of fallen in love with it.

Dry, the aroma is super fresh. Reminds me of freshly cut flowers and foliage, very green but not at all grassy.

It brews into a really pale, welcoming yellow colour. Now the aroma is just so unggh. Sweet, sweet stewed pears in liqueur with jasmine and lilies creating this floral perfume over the top. There’s a slight hint of minerals too but not enough to put me off (I’m not a fan of that mineral flavour).

Tastes just like it smells; sweet and subtle with jasmine floral notes and pears.

Really impressed with this oolong. It’s fast becoming an all-time favourite.

Full review of the whole tea box: https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/teapro-subscription-box-review-oolong/

This was a good masala chai with the right balance of spice (for my palate, anyway). I had a bad experience with Whittard Spice Imperial a few years back that really put me off any tea with cloves in it. This one has made me rethink that.

The Ceylon black tea base works with and without milk. It’s bitter-free, smooth and strong enough to stand up to the spices, without milk. With milk, the creaminess makes the black tea notes richer and softer, yet the spices still don’t overpower it. There’s a natural sweetness to it that lets me forgo sugar happily.

Notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and black peppercorns peak through, with a dried orange zest edge to the aroma. The overall feel is soothing. A relaxing sensation for the mind and body just from breathing in the fragrance.

It’s forgiving with longer steep times. One cup I brewed last week sat on the counter for about 7 or 8 minutes and was still smooth (although strong) when I finally drank it.

I’d describe it as between good and great. It’s not excellent or winning any awards, but it’s definitely more than just a “nice cup of tea”.

https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/basilur-masala-chai-tea-review/

Hanging onto summer to post my final summery tea blend reviews. It’s currently in that in-between stage – sunny and bright like summer, but slightly too cool for shorts and tshirts.

Anyway, about the tea. It’s quite good but very light, unlike limoncello. It’s sweet and gentle with a lemongrass dominant flavour. Little notes of woody herbs pop up too, with a lingering sweetness in the aftertaste from the apple. It’s really pleasant and soothing… I just feel like maybe it’s missing that final ingredient to make it pop.

Speaking of apples, they’re popping up all over the place this week like a theme. The cooking apple tree by my house is starting to drop apples as they ripen – faster than we can eat them. They’re slowly rotting and creating this slightly sweet smell in the air that weirdly I love. It’s one of the first signs of autumn. I’ll collect them later this week for the compost heap.

https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/whittard-limoncello-tea-review/

First tea from my Eloments stash. A new tea company discovery this month. Tea bags, yes, but also the most thorough attention to sustainable sourcing, organic farming and fairtrade practices that I’ve found from any tea company.

This was tasty although not as tasty as the description sounds. It’s sweet and light and herbaceous which takes a while to get used to because this is an Assam based tea. It works though. There’s a creamyness that reminds me of milk chocolate with rich vanilla and malt notes.

It’s just the texture and body is so light. The contrast of rich and light is notable.

That herby flavour comes from the plant extracts added. Because this is a vitamin tea that provides 40% of your daily intake of 9 vitamins. It’s an interesting concept, having vitamin enriched teas. I’m sure the tea purists are shuddering at the thought. I quite like it though. I just wish you couldn’t taste the herbs.

Nonetheless, a good tea. A reputable company. Health benefits… maybe. For someone with no known deficiencies and a fairly balanced diet, like me, I’m not sure the vitamin tea has much impact. Promising concept though. If I ever did need to take vitamins I’d rather drink a cup of herbaceous tea than swallow a pill.

https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/eloments-bourbon-vanilla-tea-review/

Tasted and reviewed this one a few weeks ago, but I’ve only just got around to logging it on Steepster.

I read Derk’s tasting note before trying it. Got to admit, it really got my hopes up for delicious stone fruits and brown sugar. But I didn’t get that at all. I’m mostly putting it down to inexperience (my first puerh), which is why I’m not rating it either.

I got a mix of steamed green vegetables, mostly.

Steep 1, 10 seconds, medicinal pak choi flavour and steamed veg aroma.
Steep 2, 15 seconds, complex cruciferous veg flavour with a hint of sweetness and strong camphor aroma.
Steep 3, 15 seconds, the same as #2 but with a gentler flavour and saltier aroma.
Steep 4, 20 seconds, no change.
Steep 5, 20 seconds, weaker but still that distinct, leafy green cruciferous vegetable flavour.
Steep 6, 50 seconds, less vegetable-like, more green tea-like and more mellow in flavour with a hint of bitterness.
Steep 7, 2 minutes 30 seconds, the vegetable flavour has turned almost grassy and astringent with an unusual sweetness that reminds me of unripe melon. It’s the flavour of the thin slither of green right at the edge of a slice of honeydew melon.
Steep 8, 6 minutes, mellower vegetable notes – predominantly green beans – with the unripe melon notes and a sweeter aroma. The texture has become quite drying.
Steep 9, 10 minutes, the same as above.
Steeps 10 through to 15 gradually weakened out and didn’t reveal anything new.

I appreciated it as a tea. I’m not sure I liked it though.

https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/king-tea-mall-yi-wu-ma-hei-sheng-puer-tea-review/

After a childhood of fresh ginger and lemon juice infusions, it was hard to imagine a tea bag living up to the rejuvenating flavour I love. But this one was quite good!

I’m still amazed at how real it tasted. It was like fresh lemon juice and zest with earthy ginger. I brewed it way too long the first time (3 minutes) and it was almost too strong to drink. 2:30 is about right to tame the acidity and fire.

It needs honey, a lot of honey.

The flavour isn’t amazing or even soothing… but it’s real. I respect that.

Also I’m noticing a huge difference in the boxes sold in the US and the UK. Not sure what acrobats with swimming hats has to do with lemon and ginger, but it’s nice to look at I guess.

https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/twinings-lemon-ginger-tea-review/

I was surprised at how romantic this blend was – it doesn’t sound it from the description. Ceylon green tea + amaranth + coconut + pineapple + rum. But it has a very heady, floral aroma that fogs up your brain, which to me is a romantic feeling. True love making you do silly things, not think clearly, and all that Disney stuff. Hopefully you know what I mean.

Lovely aroma and flavour. Tropical fruity punch notes of pineapple and mango with an alcoholic and floral air to it. It’s light and sweet and fruity. The liquor is slightly thick – juicy and syrupy at first but then drying in the sweet aftertaste. It has you reaching for another cup.

My only real issue is that the green tea flavour is undetectable, drowned under an ocean of pretty pink petals and lush fruits.

Still, I highly recommend it. The mini tea book case it came in is beautiful too. https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/basilur-love-story-volume-iii-tea-review/

I thought this one from PMD was far better than their Earl Grey. Opening the packet the peppermint aroma just slaps you straight in the face. In a good way!

I brewed it until it was a deep brown/green colour and was very aromatic. The flavour is warmer and sweeter than expected, with hints of spearmint as well as peppermint. There’s also something slightly medicinal in the aftertaste.

Peppermint is one of the few teas I can stomach drinking hot when the weather is sweltering. This is a good one.

https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/pmd-peppermint-tea-review/

This one was nice too, but I’m not so mad about strawberries. The creamy flavour is more of an aroma and an aftertaste, but it’s still there. It doesn’t taste fake.

The strawberries are good, they taste natural and there’s the right balance between tart and sweet. The other ingredients aren’t strong enough to be individually detectable, but you can tell they’re adding something to the cup because overall it has a rounded and more complex flavour than simply strawberries and cream.

Comparing it to the Raspberry Breeze blend (which only has raspberries + 2 ingredients) it has far more depth.

High rating because it was good by tisane standards… just not my favourite, personally.

https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/teapro-subscription-box-review-fruit-tisane/

Raspberry Breeze is yum. I love that it’s so real. You open the bag and you’re pulling out whole freeze-dried raspberries, whole linden flower petals and whole hibiscus flower petals. There’s something about seeing the ingredients whole that makes the resulting tea more wondrous. Maybe that’s just me.

The raspberries are super tart and just the right amount of sweet. Exactly like eating real raspberries, this tea is so fresh and juicy.

I’m not sure the linden flower brings anything to the blend, however. You could argue that this is a really simple tea. But I think that’s the charm of it.

Also, getting 1 teaspoon of this tea in your mug is a bit of a challenge considering one teaspoon can just be a single raspberry, so you have to really dig through the bag to cherry pick one piece of each ingredient. In about a week’s time I’m just going to be left with a bag full of hibiscus and linden flower when all the raspberries are gone.

https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/teapro-subscription-box-review-fruit-tisane/