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Oh, I’m ever so pleased to have this back in my cupboard. The smell of it is incredible – intensely tangy and citrus, with the distinctive tart-bitter of grapefruit.

There’s a lot of hibiscus tart at the beginning of the sip, and then the grapefruit notes build and last through the finish.

This is one of my favourite fruit tisanes ever. Far better than anything else I’ve tried that’s supposed to be grapefruity.

I picked this up today because it sounded different from anything I have in my cupboard.

The loose tea is very pretty. The ingredients list a vague “tropical fruits”, which is kind of annoying. It looks like tropical fruits is dried pineapple, papaya and maybe mango or guava?

It’s very tart, tangy, and a bit sweet. There’s a taste of pineapple and a bit of creaminess on the finish.

The more this cools the more I like it. There’s a distinctive flavour at the beginning of the sip that I can’t quite identify but that makes this unique, which only came out once my cup went from hot to warm. It kind of makes me think of the taste of artificial sweetener, except it’s pleasant instead of disgusting.

Definitely need to try this one iced.

Oooh this is nice. The toffee caramel notes are very strong on the nose and on the palette, but there’s still a bit of the white tea that comes through. Very delicate and subtly floral. Just a hint of vegetal on the finish. The liquor is a beautiful pale gold, and matches the flavour of this cup perfectly.

Though there’s a lot of toffee flavour in this, it doesn’t actually taste sweet to me. Very pleasant.

The tea leaves are very fluffy, so I pulled two scoops out of the bag, but there was probably more air than tea leaf in each scoop.

Hmm, not bad. I wasn’t sure what the ideal steep time for this would be, so I tried three minutes on the first go. It’s very light – nut, malt, earth and woody notes. I get the feeling that a longer steep might yield a more complex character.

Maybe I’ll resteep these leaves and see what comes out, or maybe I’ll move on to something else today and experiment with this more later.

Edit: A second steep of the same leaves for 7 minutes was unimpressive.

Oh this is very nice. Way better than DAVID’s Magic Dragon. As good as Teavana’s Dragonfruit Devotion. Mmmmm. And so pretty too.

Hmm, interesting. Steeped, the tea smells very creamy, but tastes very tart. It’s a weird mismatch.

I tried it plain first, but I was mostly getting tart an not much else. A teaspoon of sugar helps it, though I think it’s too much sugar. Sweetened, the flavour of pear and maybe vanilla comes out a bit. Still very tart, but better.

I steeped this quite a long time, so I think I will experiment with more tea and less time next cup. And sugar, but only a little.

The dry leaves don’t have a lot of fragrance but I’m charmed by how pretty they are. A tightly curled grey green, tending towards lavender tones.

First steep of two minutes in maybe 80 degree water yields a golden cup that’s light and refreshing. Grassy and vegetal, with a touch of hay and floral notes. No astringency. I drank half this cup hot and the rest cold. After the first steep the leaves had lost their lavender hue and were green and just starting to unfurl.

Second steep at 2:15 in 80ish degree water. This cup is very different. More full mouth and a lot of umami and sea weed notes. Maybe a bit of hay and vegetal still, but the fresh grass and floral notes are gone. A wee bit of astringency that builds as I drink my cup, and a hint of bitterness on the finish.

Third steep for 4:15 is very similar to the second steep, but not as complex. I’ll finish this cup, but I think these leaves are done.

Definitely a very nice green.

Now that I’m not broke, I’m realizing that I have a tea problem. I’ve been more interested in trying straight teas lately, so yesterday I went out to pick up a few small samples of straight blacks, greens and whites at Scoop N’Weight. Well, I scooped but didn’t bother weighing till I got to the till and then realized that my “small samples” were all 25-30g of each tea, which is not a sample. Oops. Still, nineish ounces of tea for under $18 is pretty excellent.

So between Scoop N’Weigh and DAVID’s, I came home with over a dozen new teas yesterday, and this one snuck in amongst them, since it just sounded so tasty.

It’s mildly astringent, with lots of grenadine sweetness and a touch of vanilla. I drank it straight but I think it would do nicely with some milk and sugar for a really easy to drink cup.

Oh my god. I got a sample of this today and I am in love. This is one of the nicest licorice flavoured teas I’ve ever had. The woodiness of the rooibos compliments and mellows the intensity of the licorice perfectly. It’s very mildly sweet, but much drier than most other licorice/anise teas.

I’m also very delighted by the new synesthetic experience from this tea. This tastes like a greyish shade of cornflower blue, which is a colour I’ve never tasted before. The synesthesia adds lots of extra dimension to the tea experience.

I will definitely be getting this for my cupboard.

When I smelled this I couldn’t resist picking some up. The dry leaf smells AMAZING. Rich and sweet and boozy, like some cream liqueur (maybe Irish Cream?)

Sadly, while the tea is nice, it just doesn’t measure up to how amazing it smells in the bag. In the cup there’s a lot of caramel and coconut notes, on the nose and tongue, but I’m not getting much of the white tea (which is pretty sparse amongst the other ingredients). I expect white teas to be light and delicate, but this is just missing something, in the same way I find a lot of white-fruit blends, which are heavy on the fruit and light on white, to be.

I’ll have to give this another try, maybe fiddle with amounts, steeping time and temperature. I have the tea and it was expensive, so maybe I can make it work better.