Mastress Alita Send Message

I only have two more old reviews to move in my cupboard! Then things will be back to regularly scheduled programming… sorry for the mess (I wish Steepster had an easier way to move entries than deleting and reposting, but alas). This is a sampler I had from Fusion Teas (called “Pineapple Paradse”) but it is sourced from Dethlefsen and Balk.

Today we got a flash snowstorm, so all things considered, a tropical blend didn’t exactly go with our sudden winter weather motif! But it is what I grabbed when I left the house this morning, so it’s what I had to make for my daily cuppa at work today, so I had a lovely bright, pineapple-yellow cuppa tea with sweet tropical scents wafting from my cup as fat fluffy snowflakes fell for several hours straight outside the library windows. Umm… aloha? So I prepared this tea warm today; I’ll admit I normally prepare fruity green teas of this sort as cold brews.

This tea is very sweet, with a strong pineapple flavor. I normally like my fruity green teas to be a bit on the delicate side, but since I really love pineapple (yes, I’m a pineapple-on-pizza person, and no, I won’t apologize for it) I actually don’t mind this. There is a somewhat subtle hint of a floral touch at the end of the sip which is nice, too.

I’m not getting much else out of this, though. I am not picking out any of the underlying sencha flavor (which may be a good thing if you aren’t necessarily a fan of green teas, so take that or leave that as you will; I personally would’ve preferred a bit more of the base to shine through, myself) and I’m not really getting any of the mango notes, either. I love pineapple, but as far as pineapple green teas go, I think I prefer Bluebird Tea Co.’s Pineapple Sorbet which was a little more complex, as it had some nice citrus notes thrown in as well. But then, this tea is readily available and Pineapple Sorbet has been discontinued, so there is that.

I don’t have many reviews left to move now… here is a Fusion Tea sampler I tried some time ago that they called “Lemon Rose Bud” that they are no longer carrying, but since it is an ITI blend (International Tea Importers) it is available from many other sources.

I really enjoy floral blends at this time of the year (well, to be fair, I enjoy them year-round, but at least they seem especially appropriate right now!) so I decided to use the majority of the sampler to make a quart of this iced, and then use of the remaining bit of leaf to have a nice warm evening cuppa.

The warm cuppa is very relaxing. The base oolong reminds me of the orange ginger oolong in my collection, and I almost wonder if that’s the very oolong used as the base, because I swear I’m getting a bit of a mandarin flavor mixed with the lemon zest citrus notes in the background, with some subtle earthy notes and just a hint of ginger. The dominant flavor is a very sweet rose flavor; often I get a slight peppery note from rose, but here it is all sweet and floral.

The iced tea is also very nice! It’s very smooth, with a bit of a creamy mouthfeel, and very refreshing. The flavor is very close to the warm cuppa, though I’d say the earthy and orangy base flavors are a little more subdued, with the lemon zest and rose notes really coming to the forefront.

Overall I really like this flavor combination, and am a little sad this oolong was discontinued. It was a really enjoyable cuppa with a lot of natural sweetness, a really strong rosey flavor, and a nice lemony-orange citrus background note.

Decided to try another of my old Fusion Tea samplers (which, after a little digging, happens to be a blend sourced by Tea Guys). After finding another soured coconut tea that I had to throw out, I picked this one since it was older, and had coconut in it. Surprisingly, this one was fine. (I may never understand which of my teas are spared the coconut curse and which ones aren’t!)

Opening the bag, this stuff smells great. It has a lovely spicy scent, but with a nice sweetness. The brewed up smells lovely as well, with a sweet spiciness that really reminds me of the dessert. The flavor of the tea is great; the rooibos/honeybush base is really smooth, and I get really nice notes of cinnamon, clove, honey roasted nuts, and a slight maple sweetness. It all comes together nicely and really reminds me of a spiced slice of carrot cake. This is definitely a great sweet-tooth tea for the evenings!

I bought this tea as “Lavender Earl Grey” from The Angry Tea Room some time ago. This is one of my favorite Earl Grey blends. I used to hate bergamot, but once I adapted my palate to its flavor, I initially was most interested in EG blends, that would take the edge off it slightly by including a few other flavors to play with, and since I love lavender, this seemed a good fit for me. Even better, this blend also incorporated the typical “Earl Grey Creme” vanilla and creme flavorings.

The leaf smells heavenly; the bergamot and vanilla remind me of a lemon meringue or key lime pie, because it is so citrusy but desserty at the same time, and there is a sweet, slightly minty lavender aroma that mixes beautifully with that sweet citrus scent.

The warm cup is lovely; a lot of lavender teas I try are either too heavy-handed on the lavender, so it comes out with a sort of floral-bitterness, or way too light on the lavender, so you don’t really taste its flavor at all. This one has just the right balance. The base tea is nice and dark but the astringency is quite mild compared to most Earl Greys I’ve tried (which I appreciate!), and there is this nice blend of bergamot and lavender flavors that hit the tongue mid-sip, with the lavender lingering a touch in the aftertaste. Occassionally the creme notes come through on the roof of my mouth; it’s a subtle note, and I think it mostly pulls back the base from having that strong bite that I often get in Earl Greys; this one is much more smooth.

I enjoy this plain, but the flavor is just perfect to take London Fog style as a latte with vanilla almond milk. It adds a delightful creaminess and the vanilla almond milk pushes the vanilla and creme notes to the forefront a bit.

This tea makes a fantastic iced Arnold Palmer, which is how I’ve prepared it today. I made a strong brew of four tsp. to two cups water, hot brewed, which I mixed with two cups lemonade, and then let the tea chill in the fridge overnight before drinking. It is divine! The sweet vanilla/creme note still comes through as a sort of natural sweetness to the iced tea, and the lavender and bergamot are such complimentary flavors to the citrus of the lemonade. I could drink this stuff all summer! Easily one of the best iced teas I’ve had yet.

This is just such a versatile tea that can be enjoyed so many ways in many different weather conditions. I plan to always keep it in my cupboard.

I love this tea. When I first tasted this tea, it brought be back to a time, long ago, when I used to sip chilled white wine kept cold using frozen fruit; my sister used to make us each a glass and we’d watch movies together or play video games together while sipping on her apartment couch. Then I discovered alcohol was one of my main migraine triggers, and I couldn’t so much as even have a sip of wine anymore (I actually got into tea-tasting when I discovered it “brought back” many of the same feelings when I had to give up wine-tasting as a hobby!) And my sister has been moved away now for several years. So for a tea to simply bring back that moment really struck a chord with me.

I prefer this tea iced (to get that chilled wine effect!), and find the flavor has this white wine or champagne-like peppery tingle on the back of the tongue, while the flavor has these nice fruity hints. The tea is very sweet, with notes of apple, pineapple, and melon. The tea brews a beautiful, incredibly pale yellow, that even looks like a white wine, has a very silky smooth mouthfeel, and is very refreshing. This is the first tea I’ve ever bought in a bulk size, and I like to keep a nice cold mason jar of it on hand in my fridge to sip on in the evenings — it brings back the feelings of getting to have a glass of wine, but it’s alcohol free, so I can enjoy it even with my chronic migraine condition, and it’s caffeine-free too, so I can drink it right before bed while winding down.

Another review I’m moving now that I’ve found the wholesale source; I tried this tea as “Spicy Chocolate Rooibos” by Angry Tea Room (they no longer carry it). It is still available as “Mexican Hot Chocolate” by Par Avion Tea.

This sampler came from the Here’s Hoping Teabox, so thank you to tea-sipper for organizing and all teabox contributers! I prepared this as a small pot of tea in the evening, to hit that evening sweet-tooth craving while not having to worry about caffeine.

The dry leaf had a very sweet chocolately scent, a bit like cinnamon and nutmeg mixed with powdered cocoa, and it also came off as just slightly floral to me. The steeped cup has a very nice cinnamon spice aroma with a hint of cocoa in the background, but I’m a bit of a spice-wuss, so I’m a bit scared of the amount of chili in the blend… But it honestly did not have the kick I was worried about. Really, the tea just has a warmth to it that ends up feeling quite cozy. The rooibos/honeybush base has more of a sweet chocolately note than tasting much like either of the base teas, though I wouldn’t say the chocolate is extremely strong, either; present and noticable, sweet, but not rich or overpowering. The cinnamon is the dominant flavor, and it starts off quite sweet on the tongue, but then the warmth of the spicy chiles settles on the back of the tongue, leaving the finish of the sip slightly spicy, and with a warm, satisfying feeling down the throat and in the stomach. The spiciness doesn’t unpleasantly linger, but I’m sure the tea would also take a bit of milk well to taste, for those even more spice sensitive than myself (and I consider myself pretty sensitive!)

I had my reservations, but this turned out really nice. I’m glad I decided to try this despite the scary “spicy” word and two types of chiles in the ingredients. It reminds me of Mexican cocoa, if the chocolate notes were toned down a bit.

I hunted down the source of this tea that I sampled from The Angry Tea Room (called “Caramel Popcorn Movie Night”) back in February 2018. Expect a “work in progress” sign up as I shift around a few more reviews to their wholesale source listings… at least they are fairly old ones?

I decided to have a late night first time watch of Deadpool tonight, so I pulled this sample out from my Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox samples to sipdown since it went so well with the mood! (Thanks so much to tea-sipper for organizing and all contributors of the box!) The brewed tea had a very sweet, caramely scent, with almost a maple syrup sort of sweetness to the aroma. Mmmm! I found the flavor very nice… it was a very rich, full caramel flavor, rather than being overly sweet-syrupy like some caramel-flavored teas I’ve tried. I think the base of the tea is what really balances out the flavor so nicely; the roasted mate gives it a toasty depth, and I’ve found that black/rooibos blends tend to create this nice combination of sweet malt. The tea is very smooth with no astringencies. This is a fantastic dessert tea!

This was done in 190 degree F water with a three minute steep, and the resulting brew had a nice caramely color, but had a musky, earthy, roasted aroma. The flavor of the tea reminded me of roasted nuts (I was actually reminded a lot of TeaSource’s Roasted Chestnut tea), and the liquor was very smooth with a sort of sweetness that left a somewhat honey-like aftertaste on my tongue. The tea had subtle notes of deep, rich, earthy minerals beneath the sweeter, toasty, roasted nutty flavors. I found the tea very enjoyable! Smooth and nutty, with many of the appeals of a darker tea without the astringencies or bitterness. I think this would appeal to fans of nutty, earthy flavors that don’t like flavored blends.

This tea has a suprisingly smooth base; I was expecting a lot more astringency with this one, but it is very sweet and the flavor is fantastic! While I’m not much of a fan of the texture of lychee fruit, I love the flavor, and this tea has a great, rich lychee taste, with a softer peach note in the finish. I also notice this slight floral note which just rounds out the fruity flavors nicely. This is one of my favorite black teas to prepare iced as well, since it has a nice strong flavor and I find the stonefruit notes really refreshing and naturally sweet enough to hold well as a cold tea, as long as it is prepared as a hot steep first and then chilled.

Moving this review I made in January of 2018 under Fusion Teas over to the wholesaler, Dethlefsen & Balk, since I prefer my own cupboard to be organized that way and this tea is definitely from D&B. Feel free to ignore this old review… I may be moving some other stuff around as I come across them.

The tisane smelled strongly of orange-vanilla creamsicle, and it wasn’t the first time I had a holiday blend this winter with that flavor profile (which I found a bit odd, as creamsicle always makes me think of the ice cream pops, a very summer association in my mind). Despite the large amount of ingredients in the blend, from the two cups I got from the sampler, my impression of the flavor was a sweet orange-vanilla creamsicle base with a lot of tart hibiscus and cranberry notes, something which I recall being quite unique compared to the other creamsicle teas I’ve tried. The tea also had a slightly savory note from the carrot, but it was quite hard to pick up on unless you happen to drink a lot of carrot juice (which happens to be one of my favorite juices). It was very subtle. The tea was quite sweet with a very smooth, somewhat creamy mouthfeel, and despite all the spice in the blend, it left very little impression on the taste; the cinnamon notes were also quite subtle. The tea felt like a blend of a Cinnamon Plum fruit cider tea and an Orange Vanilla Rooibos creamsicle tea. It was a bit of an odd combination, but not unpleasant, either. I wish that for all the ingredients in the blend, more flavor notes stood out. There seems little reason to me to have so many ingredients in an herbal mix if they don’t really add anything because other flavors dominate the cup so thoroughly. Perhaps it was just the luck of the draw of what ended up in my sampler pouch, though.