658 Tasting Notes
This was quite nice! It has a light but tasty and natural strawberry flavour. It tended towards bitterness, though. 2.5 minutes at 175 made it a little unpleasant, though a second steep at 3 minutes was perfect. This is another one that is nice but not particularly memorable. A good stand-by, though. I don’t find strawberry flavours are usually done very well so I appreciate this one.
I’ve had this the past two mornings. It’s utterly drinkable, but that’s about it. I find it quite bland. I don’t like the sensation stevia gives me in tea, which is odd as I use stevia plenty in food and have come to like it. I’m also a bit biased against carob. I don’t really mind carob by its own merits, but I don’t like it when it masquerades as chocolate. It doesn’t work as chocolate for me. Too bitter.
I also don’t like the copious amounts of carob powder that end up in the bottom of my cup. I’ve ended up leaving about 1/5th of both cups as it makes it too gritty and bitter.
Anyway, not awful but nothing to make me want to finish what I have let alone buy more. I will say it smells awesome, though! I get chocolate cake from the scent, and muddy, watery carob from the taste.
Finally got my hands on the cake teas! This is nice, though it doesn’t shout cake to me. It is very sweet (though I don’t have an issue with it being sickly-sweet like some other reviewers), and nicely creamy. I would have guessed it was a vanilla rooibos, and I can also see where others are getting maple. You probably could have told me this was the Oh Canada rooibos and, especially in my present sleepy state, I wouldn’t have questioned it.
It’s funny; when I take a couple-minute break and come back to my cup, I get BUTTERCREAM ICING at the very top of the very first sip. And then, bam, red rooibos. It’s sweet enough that I can tolerate the rooibos, but it has me wishing this were more honeybush or green rooibos-heavy than red rooibos. Very tasty vanilla rooibos is what I’m coming away with, basically.
Okay, I give. What is up with the names? I’ve seen several people do that. Tina S further up in these very comments for example. What’s going on?
I am just a little bit surprised by my reaction to this tea. In my quest to drink every coconut Oolong I can get my hands on, I ordered some of this from iHeartTeas. I expected to be madly in love with it, and heartbroken that Golden Moon for some reason can’t arrange shipping to Canada (I’ve emailed them about it and they are very nice and helpful, but say it’s not a possibility at this point).
Anyway, I’m not in love! What! This isn’t to undermine this tea. It’s good. It’s really good! But, my mind is not blown. And I’ve been finding coconut Oolongs pretty mindblowing 3/3 up to this one. It has the same light Oolong crispness, the coconut sweetness. But I’ve had it twice now and it’s just not quite matching up. It’s going to be a pleasure to finish it, but I am (thankfully) not going to be in mourning when it’s finished. I’m enjoying it but it’s not the first tea I want to reach for like Tealish’s Coconut Bongo was while my 50 g lasted. I think the Spice and Tea Exchange and Tao Tea Leaf versions have been my favourite, but the price of the Tao one sets it back. Tealish’s is a close third, but its accessibility boosts its rating. This one comes in fourth, as a solid contender but lacking the star power of the others.
You are on a coconut oolong quest? Excellent! I’ll be looking for your reviews :D Although I haven’t tried one yet, it just sounds like such an amazing combo that I’m sure there’s a perfect coconut oolong out there.
It is an amazing combo! A couple have come close to perfect so far. This is my fourth, if you’re interested in the others (over the past month or so).
Okay, I should have given this a shot earlier. It took me a long time to get around to it, as I “don’t like” Dragon Well. But this is really quite nice. It’s sweet, warm, nutty, and very smooth. Definitely the best Dragon Well I’ve tried, though my experience hasn’t been extensive since for some reason most turn me off. Thanks to Teavivre for the sample and opening me up to trying more Dragon Well!
We just got a second round of samples from TeaVivre and I believe this was in it…I’m excited for De to try it, maybe we’ll share a pot tonight!
Oh, I adore getting Verdant’s blends in the tea of the month package. They are always so much fun to try.
This is the second one I’ve been quite frightened of, however. I haven’t had good experiences with the holy basil I’ve tried, and I’m not a huge supporter of minty teas. And this is quite minty and spicy. But, I think I’m coming around to the mint. I thoroughly enjoyed this! It was very minty, but had enough body that it wasn’t biting. It was sweet and earthy. I actually didn’t detect the licorice root, so it was pretty harmoniously blended with the other flavours. It was really remarkably refreshing, and the suggestion of mixing it with sparking water sounds mighty fine, maybe with some cucumber.
Yum! Definitely sweet, definitely bakey, but melded nicely with a smooth black base. I didn’t add milk, though I think it would definitely be an excellent addition. This is the kind of tea I always want in the morning. I always reach for dessert teas first thing out of bed.
This was better than I’d been expecting! Not as gingery as I’d feared, more just a refreshing gingery kick. Upon first sip, I did think it tasted downright bizarre and was worried. Then it grew on me, though not enough to buy more.
In a total lapse of judgement, I agreed to share a really decadent piece of carrot cake with a friend this afternoon. Clearly I needed tea to go along with it. I was worried by the big glass jars with hand-drawn signs saying things like “green tea”, and my panic mode usually has me ordering Earl Grey in such situations. Not because it’s a safe bet; actually, I usually find myself not able to finish the cup because Earl Grey can be and is done really badly. But because Earl Grey was my first tea infatuation. More specifically, this Earl Grey was. So when I saw the little Twinings tag on the tea bag in my cup, I felt at ease. I’ve had a lot of new and wonderful teas since this tea and I last met. But, you know what? It didn’t let me down in the least. It was a really solid, delicious cup of Earl Grey, and it’s got me kind of itching to revisit all my old Twinings faves.