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My dad got a sample of this at work and generously decided to gift it to me: I actually have H&S’ herbal cinnamon blend but it’s pretty much just for the bf as the combination of rooibos and cinnamon makes me sneeze. I brewed this with milk & sugar—unusual and a little weird for a cinnamon tea, yes, but I wanted it to taste like a cinnamon bun!

I was definitely successful on that endeavor. This is smooth & creamy with a strong cinnamon taste that doesn’t make me sneeze! The clove and orange are nice and mellow in the background, and the black base definitely stands up to the strong flavors. I’m definitely going to pick up a few ounces of this next time I visit the SoHo store (along with about 10 other flavors that are on my list…. thank god they let you buy in 2oz quantities!).

I had a string of good news today and I also got to see my wonderful kitty who I have been apart from for a while, so I decided to reward myself with this tea! It is one of my absolute favorites so I try to savor it, but today was definitely a coconut day. I actually first got this in the little sampler on Golden Moon’s site—I ordered two teas and threw it in since it was free, and ended up buying all 3 of the ones they give you (though I got the Genmaicha Matcha from Den’s).

I had to brew this rather oddly as I’m at my house (my parents’ house I suppose, but it feels so odd to say that) and I have none of my tea aparattus. So this got brewed in a measuring cup and I totally messed up the ratios and steeped it for 6 minutes. Oh well, it still turned out fantastic because this tea is MAGIC. Seriously, tea of the gods here.

Pouchong/BaoZhong is by far my favorite “base” tea—it’s somewhere between a green and an oolong, and I could drink it every day and be happy. Sweet, light, floral, buttery, fragrant—everything I love! Add in the coconut flavoring that somehow tastes both creamy/raw and sweet/toasty and there’s really nothing better I can imagine.

Adagio is an odd company—they’re so inconsistent! Some of their teas are great, some are downright icky, others are middle of the road. Usually companies are consistent in terms of the actual quality and I just have different opinions on the taste according to personal preference, but with Adagio it’s like a surprise in every bag. The second I opened this, though, I knew I was in tea-love.

Thai Chai is a winner for me for sure—I only got it in sample size and am already regretting that decision. I thought mixing H&S’s Bangkok and a base chai would yield similar results but this is definitely a different thing all together. I brewed this my usual chai way—extra strong and mixed with a ton of milk & sugar. It’s less fragrant than Bangkok for sure, and has a more earthy flavor as well as a less prominent lemongrass/coconut flavor and a more even amount of ginger. (disclaimer: Bangkok is my all-time favorite tea so I really do like the more prominent coconut/lemongrass flavors) But the spices are mixed very well here, with that signature “chai” taste in the background.

This is definitely a milder chai, not that spicy but still with the “spiced” flavor you’d want. I think it would be a great bedtime chai because of how creamy it is (even before milk—I’d assume that’s the coconut), though personally tea caffeine doesn’t make me that awake so it’s probably more of personal preference.

After two pretty disappointing tea experiences in one day, it was time to fall back on something I know I love. I have a whole bunch of new teas sitting there waiting to be tried, but oh well! Sometimes you just need a familiar cup.

This is one of the teas I got with my $100 certificate. I bought a lot of teas with it that I wasn’t familiar with or even sure that I’d like, and this was definitely one of them! I’ve never tried anything osmanthus flavored, and descriptions I looked up seemed pretty vague (peachy? floral? vegetal? malty?)—but hey, it’s free tea, I might as well take a chance! Boy, am I happy I did. Osmanthus is a flower, and it’s certainly quite floral, but in a deeper way than some other floral blends (jasmine, rose, etc). It’s a rich, almost juicy taste, and underneath the floral tones is a bright, tasty citrus. I was not expecting that at all, but it’s fabulous! It’s like the love child of jasmine and mandarin orange. The green base is very nice too—not too vegetal, but with some sweet and lingering woodsy flavors.

This has quickly become a staple in my cupboard, and the fact that you can get 4+ good steeps out of it certainly helps. It seems like it would be fantastic iced, but I can never seem to wait long enough to cool it down—I just want to drink it right away whenever I take the leaves out!

This is the second of the oolongs in my sampler from Adagio, and after my excellent experience with the Dancong Aria my hopes were pretty high. I did however neglect this tea a little—I was making parsley pesto and totally forgot about it, so it was a bit cool once I drank it. I like my teas a bit cooler anyway, so no harm done! I also steeped this at less than the recommended temperature, the leaves just look far too delicate for boiling. They’re so pretty though, reminded me of a bird nest when I opened the bag!

This tea is just… okay for me. I was expecting more based on reviews, and I kind of feel like I’m missing something. There’s a definite malty/woody flavor that I am liking as well as a faint hint of muscatel, but for the most part this isn’t really an impressive oolong. There are no real floral notes which I was looking for, but there is a pleasantly surprising buttery taste as it cools. But overall it lacks the punch of a black yet doesn’t have the depth and complexity I want from an oolong.

This is certainly an… unusual tea. I was really craving a crisp white, Golden Moon’s Persian Melon to be exact, but I have a policy where I try to drink new teas before dipping into old ones and I still have several from my Adagio order to go through.

I’d read all the reviews before purchasing this and new it wouldn’t be exactly what I wanted, but I guess the name was just too tempting. I’ve been really, really wanting a cucumber tea recently: I picked up some cucumber lime Gatorade when I was sick (I know, it sounds disgusting, but it was the most refreshing drink I’ve ever had!) and wanted to replicate that taste with tea. Well, this isn’t exactly cucumber. When you open the bag there’s not even a trace of it—it smells just like pickling spices. Kind of gross and offputting, but a lot of Adagio’s teas either have a weird artificial smell or a bland scent that doesn’t translate to the actual brew.

It brewed up very colorless, and I was worried the tea to water ratio was wrong, but it tastes fine to me—this is just an unusually pale white, I suppose. The pickling spice smell was pretty much gone and I thankfully can’t taste it that much. What I am getting is a really overpowering sour note on the front of my palette—I have no idea from what, there’s no lemon in this blend and it honestly tastes like someone put wayyyy too much lemon juice in my mug. The cucumber is there in the middle—for a second this tea is heaven, crisp and sharp and fresh, but then at the end of the sip there’s that damn pickling spice! This tea is a real tease, so close to what I wanted at some points but the rest of it is kind of unappetizing. I think this would be much better iced and I am going to try cold brewing it to hopefully cut some of the sour notes—maybe mix it with a lime tea. It’s definitely far from perfect, but if I can get those cucumber notes to be more prominent I don’t think I’ll really regret purchasing it.

My allergies have been acting up something awful lately, so I was rummaging around in my tea cupboard for something sinus-clearing. My usual lemon & ginger just wasn’t going to cut it, so I decided to finally crack open the Around the World set I got back in April. I never want to use up samples because then the tea will be gone! My cupboard is so full I really NEED some tea to be gone, but try telling that to my hoarding tendencies.

Anyway, this tea reminds me of Moroccan Mint and chai combined in glorious harmony. There’s the fresh blast of peppermint when you first sip: I was a bit worried that it would be JUST minty, but the spices come into the background soon after. The tea is kind of lost, so I view this as more of an herbal blend. You get a teeny bit of roasted hints from the green when it cools, but the strong spice & mint combo is definitely the star of the show.

This is a great tea for when you feel sick: the stomach-soothing qualities of mint with the nose-clearing power of chai. It’s definitely not an everyday tea though, and it’s only something I will reach for when I am in a very specific mood. It’s definitely worth keeping around in small quantities though because I feel like this is something I’ll have a very specific hankering for in the future (though I suppose it would be easy enough to blend something similar from my cupboard staples).

I tend to dislike cherry flavoring in things—they remind me of all the cough syrup I had to drink as child, so I associate cherry with medicine. However, I’ve found that cherry in teas is usually pretty natural-tasting if it’s done right, and this is definitely one of those instances!

Tay is a small company in upstate NY where my aunt lives, and when she picked this up for me I was a little skeptical at first—the scent of the dry leaves is a little fake-cherry. But brewed, it’s fantastic and really not overly fruity at all. The light, airy cherry petals come through and mix perfectly with the rose. Neither is overpowering, and the green base comes through well. It’s nutty and grassy, the perfect compliment for a perfumey, lightly fruity blend. It’s also one of the few “fruit” teas I enjoy hot as much as iced.

I was pleasantly surprised by this tea. I threw the oolong sampler into my cart to meet the $50 free shipping limit, but I didn’t have very high expectations. Adagio is a solid company with some good flavored teas, but I certainly wasn’t expecting their pure teas to be so top-notch. In fact, this is a lot better than any of the blends/flavored teas I’ve had from them (except for the Thai Chai, which is heavenly).

There are definite floral notes, orchid most likely. I’m not overly familiar with orchid scented teas but that is what this seems like going off of other notes. It’s less overpowering than jasmine and it’s also got a strong, sweet honey flavor that hits you in the back of the throat. It’s perfume-y all the way through the sip too, unlike many other floral teas I’ve had where it’s just prominent when it first hits your tongue. I am also getting a mellow citrus feeling as it cools, mandarin orange or clementine. It’s a very crisp cup, though I increased the water temperature for the second steep and got more malty notes.

EDIT: That floral note is violet! It’s reminiscent of those violet candies you get in the pretty purple wrapper. There’s also a bit of “wet grass after a spring rain” taste going on in the 3rd steep…. they really need to make a perfume that smells like this tea, it’s so elegant.

I’ve been debating for a while which tea to have for my first tasting note—kind of silly, but it seems important! This one seems the most fitting, as I wouldn’t have it without Steepster. About a month ago there was a post about Culinary Teas having a $100 giveaway, and I entered and promptly forgot about it. Then two days before my birthday I got a surprise email and won! This was the first tea I added to my cart and my favorite of the 12 I got, so I shall christen my Steepster account with it.

I love earl greys, they were one of the first teas I ever had but there are so many varieties that it’s pretty hard to get tired of. It’s my go-to evening tea, but I’ve never tried a white blend and liked it… until now, of course. The cream elements elevate this tea perfectly—it’s light, sweet, creamy, with a mild hint of citrus. This is definitely a subdued and mellow tea, without that in-your-face bergamont a lot of blends have. It’s so comforting, like drinking a shortbread cookie with icing. I always put milk in my earl grey and it adds an almost overly creamy flavor here, so I take it with just sugar. Unless I’m feeling sleepy—while it has caffeine, this tea with milk puts me right to sleep!