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This was one of my picks for Nina’s samples. I tried the other two quickly, but saved this one until now. I don’t remember what the description of it was, so it will be interesting to see what I detect. I think I’m smelling a little chocolate in the tea when dry. Not getting much while it’s brewing, but my nose is a bit stuffy. First thing I taste is orange. Strong orange, but not puckering, overpowering or bitter. Adding a little sugar makes each sip juicy and taste like the chocolate oranges that you smack to break up. This tea is balanced well. The black base is almost undetectable leaving the chocolate orange to take the lead. On it’s own, it’s really good, but when compared to the other two Nina’s teas I tried, it is my least favorite.

My sister and I went tea shopping in San Francisco. Our last stop was the Aroma tea shop. The other tea shops we stopped at in Chinatown had only a few flavored teas which was a bit of a let down, but then we stepped into Aroma which had a ton of flavored teas. I chose a coconut green tea and as the gal was weighing it out she offered us a tasting of another tea. She peeked into a few gaiwans she had on the counter with wet leaves in them, choose one and poured. I sipped and at first it seemed plain and run of the mill. Then on the back part of the sip, the magic happened! A wave of sweet licorice and herbs washed over my mouth getting more powerful on the aftertaste and lingered a while. I was a little floored! The gal said it didn’t have any sweetener, it was all the licorice root that added the sweetness. Then she told me it was $39/4oz! It is good for up to six steepings and our tasting was the fourth. I must have sat staring at the wall of tea for a minute or so holding onto the last shred of my willpower before I caved and bought two ounces. On the way back to my car, I could still taste that tea and wanted more.

At home I’m discovering that to get it as strong as it was made at the shop, I have to use more tea than I am accustomed to. The gal at the shop said to use a tablespoon worth! The smell of the tea also reminds me of a medicinal chinese shop and I have always been fascinated with those stores. It’s that mixture of dried ginseng, ginger, licorice root and a bunch of other herbs. This tea is so strange and I like it! I’ll have to play around with it some more to get it to taste like the sample.

Thank you Barbara for sending me this sample!
It’s fruity, it’s floral, it’s something I can’t quite put my finger on. The smell of this tea brewed didn’t really stand out as anything unique, but the taste has much more depth to it. At first I thought I was tasting peaches, but now as I taste a slight perfume like freshness on the sides of my tongue, I’m thinking roses. Not the overdone synthetic perfume rose flavor, but a true fresh rose petal flavor. The more sips I take, the stronger it tastes. My mouth feels a little dry after each sip with inviting me to drink more.

Now I’m reading the description of the tea to see what the flavors were… fig and lotus! Fig?! I mistook fig for roses? Now that I know what that flavor was, I can clearly taste how it is fresh fig off the tree, reminding me of how much of my childhood I spent up a fig tree. It amuses me that fig and rose have similar taste qualities, something I had never linked in my head before and I wonder how well they would pair.

A big thank you to teapot1 for sending me this tea! I am really enjoying it!
This tea smells like cloves and toasted rice. Never thought to put the two together, but it seems to work! For most of the cup the flavors of chai vs. genmaicha is pretty even, but as I get to the bottom, the cardamom and clove start to dominate and the rice is less noticeable. I hesitate to add milk for fear of ruining something that is already quite nice, but I’ll have to give it a go one of these cups.
What a strange and beautiful creature this tea is!

This tea smells SUPER over the top amaretto-y. It still holds a ton of that scent when brewed and the taste is pretty strong too. I’m not a fan of it plain, but it’s pretty yummy with a bit of sugar. I tried one cup with sugar and cream which was quite delicious as well. No other words to describe it except yup, amaretto! Unfortunately, this tea gives you all it’s got on the first steeping. The second steeping is just a shadow of it’s former self, which knocks it down a couple points in my book these days. The second steeping has a faint paper taste to it too. Oh, and word to the wise… those almonds mixed in with the tea are not for consumption. Imagine putting 1/4tsp of almond extract in your mouth and that is pretty much what they taste like. Very bitter!.

Aside from the unpleasant almond chewing experience and the fact that it is good for only one cup, I did enjoy it and will be buying it again.

Eh. This tea smelled nice dry, but I’m not getting much flavor at all. A little bit of green, a little bit of vanilla and absolutely no wow. Adding sugar just made it sweeter and did nothing to bring out any flavor. Pity.

Dry, this tea definitely smells like rich honeydew. It is a smell that carries over when brewed, but it exchanges some of the richness for juiciness. The honeydew flavor is strong when the tea is hot, but mellows out letting the sencha come through as it cools with the honeydew hanging on for the aftertaste as if I just had a bite of melon. I love sugar in my tea and adding it did perk up the flavors a little, but somehow didn’t do much to make the tea better.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this tea overall. It is well done and the flavors are good, but it’s not knocking me off my feet. Maybe in time…

When I got a whiff of this tea dry in the store, I was greeted by a deep smell of caramel with something salty, almost like dried seaweed. When brewed, it took a few sips and a little sugar to taste much. It has a deep caramel flavor that is strangely subtle. It reminds me of the tea I’m used to getting in Japanese restaurants but with a touch of caramel. Not sure how to describe the base of the tea other than that comparison. The caramel hangs on and lingers after each sip. If I could get used to drinking tea with more subtle flavors, I’m sure I’d love this, but as it stands I’m still a fan of bold bossy flavors. I’ll give it some time to grow on me.