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Pear pear pear. Unlike the Doctor (both the Tenth and the Seventh), I like pear. Love it, actually. Especially canned (although I find that many people dislike canned fruit due to the sugary syrupness); it goes well with vanilla icecream. And I needn’t bother with the skins when they’re canned. Plus, the brine is delicious to drink.

The smell of the dry leaves was faint but pleasant. The wet leaves and the tea itself hold a much stronger pear flavour, although it is slighty sugary (that is to say, more similar to canned pears than fresh pears).

Although if you really stick your nose in close, it smells more ‘fresh pear’.

This is another tea from Jillian (how did she know I loved pears!), and I got two teabags instead of one, so at least I have one more to try after this before I have to remove it from my cupboard.

The colour is darker than I expected it to be (I haven’t much experience with white teas except in Numi’s flowering white teas, which brew quite light), sort of a pale black tea colour. The pear smell is delicious, and I think I get a tea smell in there too, but fainter.

Don’t know what to say in terms of taste. Again, I barely remember my last experience with white tea, but this is light, like a very light black. Not vegetable and green (luckily!). There’s pear in there, and it’s pleasant and not artificial and too sweet. I’ve heard that whites can get quite bitter. The pear taste isn’t confined to an aftertaste, it’s there during the sip, but it’s very pleasantly light.

Daaaamn, I quite like this and I only have one teabag left. I wonder how many times you can resteep a white. Hmmm.

Strong and pungent and GINGER. It helps with my crappy digestive system, takes away my stomach aches, and warms me up. And actually, I’m a little fond of ginger. Although a thick dust comes from the bag and settles to the bottom (making it spicier the more you drink).

I’m sipping this through astronomy lecture because I had a stomach ache earlier. Effectively cured.

Finishing up the last of my sample. I still maintain that it tastes rather… gingeraleish. Plus, it went right through my infuser. Again. The Libre is simply no match for it. I’m makin’ a mess everywhere aaaah.

I feel bad that this one just isn’t too good, because it makes Tealicious look bad, since only two other teas from her have been reviewed on this site (both by me, hahah) and so although I really liked those ones, the ratio of tea I liked to tea I didn’t like is quite small. This will have to be rectified by buying more Tealicious tea.

In the tea’s defence, the sample did come from the big, huge tea tin, that has probably been opened quite a few times (Air! Light! Moisture!). So the tightly sealed, packaged-to-buy ginger tea could taste FABULOUS for all I know. And I will maintain that until proven otherwise.

I stored this in the little kitty tin I bought from Tealicious (I broke down and bought a few of the tiny tea tins for travel-tea purposes), and now that it’s empty, I’m to bring it home, descent it, and fill it with another tea to drink on the go. But what, I wonder… Hmm… Maple?

On a different note, I seriously oversteeped this (eight minutes, near ten? I’m not sure), but it didn’t get bitter at all.

Another tea from Jillian (or rather THE tea from Jillian). The dry leaves didn’t have much of a strong smell, and it steeped to a sort of pale red-orange (not the “rich red” the description led me to believe it would be). The smell is faintly ‘tea’ like, with a sweet smell overtop. Kind of reminds me of keemun.

It’s got a somewhat green taste. It’s light, and I think it has a faintly wine-like quality to it; I’m not getting any nuttyness. Nor any real fruitiness, but it is still sort of wine like taste.

I’m getting bits of sweetness and bits of astringency. When I breath out I am getting a sort of nutty taste now, actually. Yes, definitely getting a nuttyness now. It’s part mouth-feel part aftertaste. Sort of walnutty. That sweet bitterness. Very nice.

Chapters (Canadian bookstore for those who don’t know), I found, carries a LOT of loose-leaf tea accessories (to which I mean pots with infusers, mugs with infusers, infusers by themselves, travel tea tumblers with the removable infusers…), but NO actual loose-leaf teas. All of the teas they have are bagged. Whoops. Although there were still some good teas there (“full leaf sachets”). Harney and Sons being one of them. And I had remembered seeing a tin of Paris sachets the last time I’d visited, and thus I returned today to purchase it—only to see that there didn’t seem to be any (and I don’t say ‘any left’ because I remember, distinctly, that they had four Harney and Sons teas out, and they still did, but none were Paris; maybe I was mistaken?). But I’m sure they had had some! I noticed in their giant variety sample pack for thirty dollars that Paris was included, but I didn’t really want to buy the whole giant chest of teas. Curses!

So I opted for this one, because I always enjoy a good morning tea. Opening the tin the smell is strong and divine. Very tea. It brewed quite light, and the smell of the wet teabag and the tea itself is very faint, and… different.

Granted, I’ve never really tried Keemun (that I know of), thus excuse my naivety. The tea is nice, light, and slightly (but noticeably) sweet. The ‘tea’ taste that I’m more used to IS in there, but it’s mixed with other tastes. Almost a sort of greeny taste (if you removed the vegetable). There’s something stronger in the aftertaste. Robust. Not sure. I really rather like this. I don’ts think it needs anything (certainly not any sugar), but if made a bit stronger it would probably be good with a splash of milk.

Edit: …And also mildly, faintly peppery but in a good way, and I like this very much. And did I mention that I liked this?

Just got the package from Jillian. I think I’m psychic (or have impossibly discerning hearing) because I heard the mail come in through the slot and thought, ‘PACKAGE!?’ And I had been about to head out the door to get tea at Murchie’s too.

I added all of the teas to my cupboard, even though most are just a single teabag (and I certainly don’t afford that luxury to the many of OTHER single teabags that I have) and thus will end up removing them after that single use (minus this one, because I’m using it up RIGHT NOW so I didn’t add it).

At any rate, I dubbed this the ‘Mystery Tea’. It wasn’t in a bag and it wasn’t labelled. I looked up the company on steepster under the assumption that it was one of the three that we have listed. I eliminated the rooibos easily enough, because even though I couldn’t smell anything really, it definitely had some green tea in there.

Steeped it as a green, and I could smell it STRONG for a few minutes (not very pleasant, but luckily that seems to have dissipated). If I stick my nose in the cup, it smells minty. Whaddya know, I think I know which one it is. Every so often I get a whiff of something REALLY weird (and not in a likable way) smelling, but then it’s gone.

Going to sip this. I’m afraid. Mint! But black AND green tea, and I usually like blackgreen tea blends. I can do this.

Don’t taste really any green. I got a slight black tea flavour and then a stronger mint that trailed into the aftertaste. There’s a fruityness in there too, but I don’t know of what. This almost just tastes like a herbal tea. A slightly fruity mintness. I’m basically just assuming it’s Bora Bora now. Too obviously mint. I don’t have much experience with any of the other ingredients listed, so I can’t pick them out, but maybe those are that weird smell I keep getting but can’t seem to taste.

It’s not bad. It’s actually kind of nice and refreshing. The mint isn’t overpowering (it usually is for me, but that’s probably just my bias against mint), but I still don’t get really any other flavours. Actually, there’s an earthy turmeric aftertaste to the mint. Huh.

Drinking this with my very late-night dinner (two hours ‘til midnight) of baked potato, perogies, and yorkshire pudding sans the gravy. Very starchy indeed. But I love my starchy foods. Maybe I’ll try to down a few strawberries and a banana afterwards to even it out.

I wanted something savoury and dinnery to go with it. I didn’t go for the lapsang because although I was craving good smokyness, I also wanted a good strong black tea taste as well. This isn’t filling that spot as well as I thought it would, I don’t think (maybe I should have mixed it with some Assam), but it is still quite good, and definitely fits in with starchy foods (and the mysterious, unknown spices on my potato).

Also, there seems to be something wrong with my NEW kettle. Although the water was CLEARLY BOILING (and had been for SOME TIME—I know, I sat and watched it do so for a while), the kettle itself refused to whistle.

I called it Operation Murchie’s.

I was faced with a unique opportunity. My geomorphology teacher was feeling fairly under the weather, but forced herself to come into class long enough to answer questions concerning our next lab, as well as give out the compiled Class Stats before leaving to head home and rest.

Thus I found myself with three and a half hours to spare before my statistics class began. My first thought, logically, was “I should go to Murchie’s!” it’s usually a forty minute skytrain trip to get there from home, and only a slightly shorter one from my campus. Thus I’m usually unable to make the trip between classes (unless I fully intended to run to and from stops, and only spend a maximum of about ten minutes in the shop itself). I worked out how much time I should be able to spend, and then headed off.

The trip took barely thirty minutes (less time than it should have!), and here I am. I’d been planning to try the Library Blend for a while (it just SOUNDS deep, earthy and relaxing). I’ve sipped a few of Murchie’s black/green tea blends, but most I found I could only taste the black tea in.

This one is definitely green, although the colour is only slightly paler than the usual black. It’s okay, but I think I like their Queen Victoria better (a green black blend with a bit of lapsang; it tastes mostly black, but you do get hints).

The initial taste is black, but then very green, but it’s got a bold, taste—the black grounds it and keeps it from being TOO vegetable tasting. It smells green too. Overall it’s nice, and I think the name is very fitting (I could see myself sipping this in a library while reading), the taste is lovely (although not overall ‘for me’), and I might just get it again some time.

Murchie’s doesn’t have a wifi connection, so this was typed up in Word while I was there with the intention of posting once I returned to my campus.

I don’t know how hot the water is that they give you, but I think I steeped it roughly around five minutes before removing the teabags.