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Well, I’ve found the first tea that I don’t plan on ever running out of…

There is something so wonderful about this combination of flavors. A little cinnamony, a little oaty, a little nuttiness, a little raisiny sweetness….I love it so much. And Tealux makes it even easier to love by charging such a reasonable price! It is so right up my alley :) Hot, cold…I’ll take it any way I can get it.

This was the other tea I purchased on my first trip to Lupicia. The bag of 10 tea bags was on sale and ended up costing $5.25. It smelled good, so I thought it was worth a shot. I like it but in a very general way. It tastes like a very slightly fruity black tea with a bit of honey added. It was nice as the first tea of the day and I was able to get three steeps out of the bag. Although the third was noticeably weaker, it was still a good cup. This made me more optimistic about trying their other flavors in bags if I ever see them on sale. I probably wouldn’t feel the need to grab this one again, though.

I had this cold the other day and found that I liked it just as much that way. It was even a second steep and it was still very good. This is one I am definitely going to order in my first DAVIDsTEA order for sure now.

This is one of the two teas I decided to buy at Lupicia today, with the other being Neptune (tasting note to come). I asked the employee for a hot sample of this because it smelled phenomenal to me and I had remembered reading good things in others’ notes. After tasting it, I was so glad that I remembered. I am very fond, at least as of late, of oolongs and find myself gravitating towards them anyway. But, this one is setting the bar for fruit-flavored oolongs right now. I took one sip and was like…“Yeeeeeeesssssss. This is happening.” I feel this will be good cold, too. I definitely tasted plum alongside a very light peach flavor. So good. This is one I think I will need to keep around.

I was 100% looking forward to trying this tea, but I found out today that it is most definitely not for me. So, I won’t rate it. I sampled this cold. I’ve never had a tea that included sweet potato or chestnut as flavors, so I’m not totally sure which one was throwing me off. All I know is that the dry leaf smelled fantastic and promising, while the liquor smelled…not as fantastic or promising. And, most importantly, the first sip made my boyfriend and I look at each other like…“Huh? What is THAT?” When I read the ingredients he said he thinks it’s the chestnut. I don’t recall having eaten chestnuts before, which quite possibly means that this tea would just take some getting used to. But, I’ve got enough tea right now that I think this one will be pretty far down on the “to try again” list. Oh well. It was a learning experience.

So, what does The Cookie Lady giver herself as a birthday present, you ask? Well, a 10-mile beach run and a shopping trip at a local Japanese marketplace (that is also home to a Lupicia store), of course! It was the Mitsuwa Marketplace in Costa Mesa, to be exact. This is the first time I’ve been to a Lupicia store and was happy to find a very sweet, helpful employee working there, since I’ve heard that the Los Angeles location doesn’t have the friendliest staff.

So, the tea! I sampled this tea iced and was surprised to find that it tasted exactly the way I would imagine an unsweet/unsour version of lemonade to taste like. It was as though you were getting the complete taste of a lemon (including the peel/zest flavor) without any of the bitterness I would have expected. It was light and quite refreshing. My boyfriend tried it and said that the taste reminded him of when his mother used to add leaves from their lemon tree to boiling water and serve it on cold nights. He quite liked it, which is really saying something for him!

I didn’t pick this one up today because I got so overwhelmed that I decided to only get 2 teas now that I know how close they are to me and that they will literally (and happily) let you try a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g in the store. Very exciting!

For the record, I had so much fun choosing candies and snacks from the actual market part of the marketplace, most of which I could not actually read the packages for….the one English word listed on the backs of most of these candies just says “candy” or “soft candy” and the bag of very-not-normal Cheetos that had a picture of delicious-looking roasted corn on the front just said “corn snack” on the back.

Mission DrinkAllTheBirthdayTeas is coming to a close and boy…I really did this backwards, didn’t I? Herbals first and blacks last? No, no, no. I guess I’ll just have to do this all over again the right way next year! I saved this one for last because it was the first sample I received of a birthday-themed blend. It came from carol who. Since I am such a fan of Harney & Sons in general, I figured this one ought to go over well. I’m actually drinking it side-by-side with the last half of my Della Terra Birthday Cupcake cuppa. Not loving it.

First of all, let me make clear the fact that I was aware this was NOT going to be cake flavored. However, I can’t say there is anything particular birthday feeling about it at all.

Secondly, let me say that I don’t hold a vendetta against hibiscus the way many of you steepsterites do. With that being said, I somehow forget each time I brew a hibiscus tea hot that I really only like them cold. I’m thinking the rest of this cup is going in the refrigerator to chill over night. It’s too intense hot. But, to be honest, I’m still not convinced I’m going to like it any more in the morning because all I taste is hibiscus and a generic fruity sweetness.

So glad I got to try this one, though. I had really been wanting to ever since I saw it on the Harney & Sons website for the first time.

A third birthday tea came just in time for my birthday, thanks to the package I received today from Ost! This one was a little different than the other two so far in that it is the only one to actually contain tea. I wish I would have started with this one for my first cup because I’m sad that I can’t resteep it more than once since it’s getting late. Oh well. This is one I’d consider buying, for sure. I don’t get much in the way of chocolate, but I again can taste a vanilla buttercream flavor. It smells quite sweet but isn’t really. I’ll be looking for this next time I place a Della Terra order!

I had a cup of this amongst my birthday teas today because I was teaching a student that I can’t stand (he ‘s the most disrespectful young man I’ve met in my life) and really needed the caffeine to get through it alive. This hit the spot, flavor-wise, and perked me up perfectly. As a result, I kept my freak-out in check and remembered to use my “polite teacher” voice the whole time :) Nothing is bringing me down today! Especially not now that I’ve got another cup of this brewing and a box of 4 beautiful cupcakes sitting beside me (courtesy of my co-worker). Bumped my rating. I think I like this more than Tower of London, by the way.