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I drank this tea right after a particularly good Chinese black tea from Yunnan, which may be influencing my feelings right now, but I think I prefer Chinese black tea to Indian as a general rule.

Anyway, about the tea: the tea leaves are in interesting tiny nuggets. The first steeping was bitter but I believe that was simply because I oversteeped it. Second and third steepings were not bitter. However, the third steeping (although still dark golden brown in color) seems to be waning on the flavor scale. Not that it tastes watery, it just doesn’t taste as much like tea. Except for the astringency, which is still out in full force.

I realize I didn’t say much about what the flavor of the tea actually was. Well, aside from the transient bitterness and rather a lot of astringency (more than I like in my blacks teas, if I’m perfectly honest) it seemed an unexceptionable tea. I didn’t find much of the delicate floral taste that I enjoy in Darjeelings (am not sure if it is normal for Assam or not). So that was unfortunate. But overall it was an okay-to-good tea.

This is my first review from the Here’s Hoping TTB! I don’t think I’ve had a cinnamon-fruit flavored black tea before (the closest thing I’ve had would be chai, I guess) but I expected to like it and I did, so no disappointment here.

The leaves have a cinnamon smell and a mellow fruity smell, which is just as expected. The tea tastes mostly of cinnamon, but not overpoweringly so. I drank a few sips and wondered where the black tea flavor was and then discovered that I could still detect it under the cinnamon if I tried. The pear flavor was very pleasant but it kind of hid under the cinnamon at first, until I added sugar and milk. The milk muted the cinnamon flavor considerably and complemented the pear flavor, but I also discovered that adding sugar and milk to this flavor combination creates a tea that reminds me of nothing so much as a really good apple-cinnamon oatmeal. :) But if you don’t object to that mental association, it’s a very enjoyable tea. I could see myself drinking this on a semi-regular basis (although I couldn’t find it listed on the 52 teas website, so I’m not sure if it’s actually available or not).

This is a lovely black tea with a lovely dark color and pleasant flavor. I probably wouldn’t have been able to figure out that it was chocolate hazelnut flavor if I hadn’t read the product description, but I’m not very good at identifying and comparing smells/tastes so maybe it’s just me. And it definitely did have a sophisticated nutty aspect to it. After tasting it straight, I put milk and sugar in it because I’m hungry and that’s what I do when I’m hungry for some reason. The milk and sugar really enhanced the flavor, I think, instead of obscuring or muddying it. Anyway, I’m really enjoying it and I might even consider buying some for a repeat experience because the sample I have (BTW, thanks for the sample, JK7ray!) turned out to be enough for just one enormous mug/small-to-medium-sized pot. (Hopefully it’ll re-steep well, too. I feel kind of irresponsible for writing my reviews while I’m drinking the tea rather than after I’ve tried re-steeping, but I’m afraid I’ll forget how the tea tasted if I wait.)

Sooo I think this is the right tea. It has such a long name, lol. Anyway, I haven’t been doing many reviews lately because I feel kind of intimidated by everyone else’s eloquent reviews and kind of powerless to articulate what it is that I’m tasting in the tea. But I guess I’ll never get better without practicing . . .

I think this is the first real high-quality Darjeeling I’ve tried (most of the samples I’ve gotten over the past months have been Chinese tea) and I was worried I wouldn’t like the difference in flavor but apparently I really do. It somehow manages to be floral without being too astringent, and it’s great on its own or with milk and sugar. I didn’t steep it as long as recommended because it reached desired strength before that, which means it’ll probably be great for several steepings (though I haven’t got there yet). Of course, I don’t know how representative this is of other Darjeelings, so I guess I’ll have to look around for some more samples so I can compare them all. Thanks for sharing, JK7ray! :)

Now I just wish my neighbors would stop singing “eeeee” in such a pained tone of voice. I mean, what possible purpose can that serve? If it’s so important to sing “eeeee,” at least try to sound happy about it. Maybe I should go ahead and do some opera singing today just to make things even.

I haven’t had a lot of chocolate teas but this is one of my favorites so far. I can definitely taste the chocolate in it, and it’s good with milk, making it a possible candidate for frequent drinking (there are some teas I drink without milk, such as oolongs, but I find that just a little milk with my tea helps stabilise my blood sugar, which is important for me because otherwise I tend to crash between meals). I steeped it for barely over five minutes and it’s not bitter at all. I’ll log this tea in the “evidence in favor of ordering from Harney” column. Thanks JK7ray for sharing! :)

The first time I tried this it came out bitter. I gave it the benefit of the doubt by assuming that was probably because I had followed Adagio’s deficient brewing instructions, which say to use boiling water. The next time I tried it I used pre-boiling water (probably 180-190F; I’m really just guessing though) and it’s pretty heavenly and not bitter at all. It tastes a lot more like it smells, too, like sunshine on fields and fresh sweet grass hay and all the best hints of wonderfully oxidized tea leaves.

I haven’t had matcha before so I’m not sure what rating to give this tea. I sifted two teaspoons into a few ounces of not-quite-boiling water, then whisked as instructed (although I don’t have a bamboo whisk so I used a metal one, and I couldn’t figure out how long I was supposed to whisk it for). It was a really dark green and when I tasted it with a spoon it was the bitterest thing I’ve tasted in years (or ever?). I dumped the rest of a bag of sugar into it (okay, so the bag was mostly empty already) and thinned it down with a LOT more water. Like maybe two cups more. Then I tried it again and decided the flavor would be bearable if only it were cold, so I poured a little of it over a glassful of ice and now I have way more iced matcha than I know what to do with. I’m going to be drinking this batch for the rest of the day.

Like I say, I’ve never had matcha before so I don’t know if I’m just not used to the flavor yet or if this was a bad sample or if I prepared it wrong or what. I also got some cheesecake matcha in the same order so maybe I’ll try that tomorrow and see if it has a pleasanter flavor. Maybe after I learn what normal is for matcha I can come back and give this one a rating.

Very lovely. It didn’t really have a honey flavor to me, but it was very sweet to be sure. The flavor reminded me of raspberry leaf tea a little. I definitely prefer it to Roobios.

I liked this tea a lot, but it doesn’t seem to hold up well to more than one or two steeps. It grows increasingly bitter and the other flavors seem to disappear.