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Another sampler from the Secret Santa variety sent to me by Alana – thank you! This one has a great fresh strawberry smell to the dry leaf, which also features small bits of dried strawberries. It steeps up dark fairly quickly, so I stopped it at three minutes this first time around. The smell is clearly strawberry without being artificial or cloying – very promising!

Taste is excellent – the fruit flavor is clearly there, not at all fake, and blends nicely with the strong black tea base adding just enough astringency. With half/half and sugar, the astringency is evened out and the strawberry is turned creamier. This is a very nice fruit flavored tea – delivers just as expected.

Being a huge Beatles fan, how could I not think of this song when sipping a strawberry-flavored English tea?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A4r2RU1u3g

This is one of the samples I received from Jessica as the winner of the herbal tea portion of her recent giveaway – thank you very much! The packaging is very cute – a little cardboard cylinder with a slide off top and nice graphics too. This particular one has a green tea base with lots of other ingredients, including ginger, orange, peach, chilies, acai, and cloves, plus some bright safflower petals which make it look very festive. It’s got a nice fresh and fruity aroma, strong on the peach.

I gave it about 2.5 minutes at 180 degrees, and ended up with a deep greenish-yellow liquor, just a little cloudy. The fruit and spice aromas are very noticeable and pleasant. On sipping it – WOW! – this is spicy! The chili and ginger work together to really give it a burn. Don’t get me wrong, I really like very spicy food, and have occasionally had some chili in teas and tisanes, but this is by far the strongest chili-flavored tea I’ve tried. The fruit is there as well, and a nice green tea base. Next time I’ll be prepared for the heat – it was really surprising the first time around!

The first of the teas I received from my (still anonymous until they step forward or I can decipher the worn away writing on the package) Secret Santa! The leaves are very fine and curly with a nice golden hue to them. They have a light malty aroma to them and a little bit of dried fruit.

They release their color quickly on steeping, so I’m going to limit the time to about a minute and a half for this first attempt, and start the tasting without any additives. Even with this short steep time it’s got a decent amount of astringency, so I’m glad I didn’t go too much longer. It also has a pronounced malty breadiness, almost moving into the realm of a light smokiness. I’m putting in just a little sugar and half/half to round it out and see what happens. Still quite strong, not terribly complex, but a good Monday morning cup to start the day with.

This one interested me in the store because it included lemon peel among the ingredients – something I haven’t often seen compared to the much more ubiquitous orange peel. It also features a wide variety of tasty spices which I hope come out in the flavor. It certainly smells spicy and citrusy at the same time, like lemon peels coated in ginger-cinnamon dust. There are lots of spice pieces to be seen mixed in with the rooibos too, so I’m hoping this will be a strongly flavored chai. For the first time though I’ll make it tea-style rather than chai style and see how that comes out.

The two main flavors are lemon and ginger, which I think go well together. The other spices are there more as a texture than a taste – they add body and warmth to the two main elements. With milk and sugar, it’s a very tasty chai but still a bit mild – I will definitely have to try it chai-style at some point.

Finishing up the last of the variety of TeaGschwendner sampler bags I picked up recently. On this one, I think I probably should have gone beyond their steeping parameters, which call for 2 minutes at 212. At this point I’m getting hints of flavors and aromas, where I really expected something a bit more fragrant and flavorful. I do get wafts of rose, subtle reminders of the green and black tea base – but would have prefered more. I’ll hold off rating it until I get another chance someday to steep it longer.

Picked this up from an overseas hotel room – interested because I like elderblossom flavoring. Also called linden in German and tilleul in French. It steeps up to a light greenish-yellow liquor, with a mild herbal/slightly sweet and citrusy aroma. The flavor is gently musky and just a little naturally sweet – overall, very relaxing.

My last bit of this tea from the sample pack, and it’s ending up being a little more than the usual amount of leaf. It was really impressive how many different flavors I ended up getting from this, from a rice and vegetable beginning, through fruit and a mild roastiness to a grassy finish. Quite impressive when it’s all coming from one tea!

This is a super mild and buttery Darjeeling – the texture is really rich while the flavor remains on the gentle cycle. The recommended parameters are 2 minutes at 212, which yields a light orange-brown liquor with a fruity and slightly malty aroma. Gentle flavors emerge with bready, dried fruit notes, held together by a rounded creaminess.

Last bit of a sample I got from them recently – I was in the mood for something sweet and buttery but still robust to start the day. It’s a good, solid coconut flavored black tea, not overwhelming in its complexity but very enjoyable with milk and sugar.

Ah, that’s much better than the Flavia mistake earlier this morning – I needed something to cleanse my palate after that. I put a little extra half/half and sugar in it, so now it tastes like warm cherry pie a la mode with a hint of almond extract in it. Gooood….