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I was afraid of this one after reading Kristin’s review, but she sent some for me to try and I do love a new tea. I’d also been considering picking this one up at a local shop… hmmmm. You know, it’s not as bad as I feared, but I don’t like it. It reminds me of pomegranate and cherry fruit tisanes, which I almost universally dislike. It’s the whole “warm jello mix” effect. I wonder if this tea would be good to make a dessert with though- I think a sauce based on this with a dark chocolate cake would just be amazing. It’s very “dark cherry”.

I got this, like so many other folks, in part to try to recreate a Starbucks tea latte at home (when I use up my current stash of earl grey I’ll try the Tazo earl grey too). For me, the vanilla syrup seems to just make the beverage, so I am trying to compensate at home. Next time, for example, I am going to try vanilla sweetened soy milk rather than my unsweetened vanilla almond milk+ honey. (The almond milk otherwise did a good job).
The trick for me is to just leave the teabag in the cup, and use no water. Steep the thing in the milk directly. Do you get a better result from steeping it in water for a long time first? Curious.

Anyway, I like this one plain as well. It’s a nice sweet vanilla-apple pie type of aroma. Well done on Tazo’s part, as I usually cannot stand apple.

What is up with this tea? Older (lower income) women keep offering me free samples of this and asking me to let them know if I want to buy a box. Is this the Avon cosmetics of the tea world? Anyway, fresh with new free samples I thought I’d give the earl grey a try with a splash of vanilla almond milk.
Nothing much to say about it- it’s a perfectly good run-of the mill cup of bagged earl grey. I like that it’s organic though.

Gahhhhh I ordered too much of this tea and even though I still LIKE it, I’m pretty sick of it. I grit my teeth and drink it regularly to try to get through it. Maybe I should start turning it into tea lattes.

Okay, I’m going to have to fill in the gaps on this tea listing later, because SpecialTeas site is strangely depleted of tea right now. They have no earl grey in stock, and almost no decaf. I actually purchased this and mixed it with their Decaf Vanilla (also M.I.A.) because I wanted to try to fudge a decaf version of their delicious Earl Grey de la Creme. But to no avail. This makes for a strangely artificial tasting earl grey. The vanilla is very plasticky and the earl grey decaf version fairly weak. Oh well. So much for my ingenuity.

What an adorable tin! I’m just going by the picture of course, as I am lucky enough to try this in sample form thanks to Kristin’s kindness. Steepster’s been on a Harney’s kick for a while, eh? I like that, because there’s a shop with a big Harney’s selection near my house.

I totally brutalized this poor tea, because I wasn’t paying attention and failed to note that it’s a white tea. So it got boiling water. I did realize my error three minutes into steeping it, and took out the leaves, though. I really like this one, but I’m going to have to give it another shot with the proper water temp because the oversteeped leaves are overshadowing the delicious flavors.

Oh this IS a great holiday tea. I can imagine that I’d have enjoyed this one while devouring Christmas cookies. I didn’t sweeten this at all, so the black tea could come through… hmm I think this one at least a partial relation to chai (cousins?). I also will add that I don’t think it’s particularly novel. I’ve had this taste before from other tea vendors. But, y’know, I LIKE it so that’s not a bad thing. I find this one soothing. My tummy is a mess today and this is helping. It’s also a dreary rainy day (if I weren’t in southern TX it’d be snow) so this was a good choice. Whine, whine.

What the? I am giving this a pretty high rating because it really tastes like bacon plus black tea. I often HATE maple, but I really just tasted the bacon so I didn’t need to stab myself a fork to end the pain.

I hated this so very much. I couldn’t even finish a single cup. But it is exactly what it claims to be, so it deserves a high rating. My J tried it and just thought it tasted like a smokey black tea, so it may even be tolerable to folks who enjoy, say, lapsang souchong. Scary. Truly, truly scary. A great present for that bacon lover in your life. Me, I’m a vegetarian.

It’s a cup full of red-hots! I had a ridiculous headache when I brewed this cup, and no ibuprofen seemed to make a dent in it. I feel like drinking a cup of this on Valentines’ Day would make me smile, and get a bit nostalgic for classroom V-day parties from childhood. That said, (Kristin, brace yourself)- I’m not sure I like it. On one hand, it reminds me a bit of Teavana’s Ayurvedic chai. On the other hand, it lacks the tempering lemongrass notes. I think it may be a bit too sweet, really. I’m having it as a dessert tea with a chocolate cupcake and I’m still going ‘argh the sweetness’. Am going to keep trying this until I like it as much as Kristin does :)

(In other news, the husband and I are watching a Deep Sea nature film and Johnny Depp narrated it, and it’s pretty weird.)

I am doing terrible things to this tea right now. I brought it to school and thus filled it up with water cooler water. Too hot for this delicate tea. But it’s still delicious. I have had silver tips many a time in the past, and this seems to be a quite good one. (By the standards of my blunt palette anyway). It’s delicate and slightly sweet with an undertone that almost reminds me of pu-ehr. I can’t wait to try it in my new tea travel mug:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003FGW720?ie=UTF8&tag=lizmarks-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B003FGW720