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I have not had a tea that I was so appalled by in ages. When I opened the bag I was hit by the smell of acetone. Strong acetone. It came through in the flavor of the tea as well. Now that I have that association with it I can’t taste past it or pay any attention to the other flavors. Cinnamon is present in the finish after the acetone dissipates.
David’s Tea has a lot of winners with me, this one is the opposite side of the scale.

Been super busy lately and it’s been a while since I’ve logged a tea. I’m not even busy with cool stuff, it’s just dumb life stuff and stress. I did get to go meet up with some friends in Vegas just before the Delta variant reared up, which was nice. Had breakfast at the fancy looking French place at Paris and was really disappointed that they didn’t have any actual French tea, just like Mighty Leaf or Tazo something along those lines. SMH.

I feel really dumb. I was at a store in Berkeley intending to grab a bag of French Breakfast and because of corona fears or whatever of not wanting to take home the bag in the front of the shelf I grabbed one a few behind it. I didn’t check until I was at home wondering why it smelled so bergy and that’s when I noticed it was not FB, but EG. Facepalm. It’s really expensive tea and I can’t justify going back for the FB until I drink down more of my current teas. Fortunately this is a really good EG that I enjoyed a few cups of today and yesterday.

I guess it took seven years to learn to like this tea? Maybe the flavors settled down? Or now that I’m adding sugar I’m more open to it? I’ve been drinking this for three days straight now. Steep in concentrated in a gravity steeper and pour it over ice. It’s been really nice on hot days. The flavors are translating more to a rose almond flavor over the previous mentioned powder flavor. I can see the end of this bag happening soon at the rate I’m drinking it. Even though I’m enjoying it now, I’m not likely to buy it again since most of our relationship was spent with me resenting it.

Poured the rest of this years old sample (from 2013… one of the oldest teas in my cupboard) into a pitcher and steeped it in the fridge. It’s very light and crisp with a strong jasmine flavor. It’s really nice. The finish leaves my mouth with that feeling you get after a shot of wheat grass juice. Not quite a mouth water, but something else. I do like this tea. Not sure that I’d go through the trouble of getting more, but would happily have more if I were to come across it again.

Working on sipping this down yesterday and today. This is my last cup! It’s been a nice ride with this tea. It’s a little sweetened and has some cinnamon notes. When my cup was empty and sitting next to me while I worked I kept smelling horchata. I slightly overleafed this last cup and in combo of it being the last bits in the bag, I think it made for a slightly less than optimal cup. There is a hint of bitter that I wasn’t getting yesterday. User error. All the cups I had yesterday were delightful. I’d consider getting another bag of this next time it come around, but it’s not at the level where I’d want it as a staple in my cupboard.

I’ve had this hot a couple of times and don’t recall being taken by it. It seemed okay, but not super exciting. I decided to sip this down by way of cold steeping, so I dumped the rest of the bag into my pitcher and let it steep in the fridge overnight. At first it tasted bitter, maybe the walnuts were the culprit. I put some soy milk in with it and it was much more enjoyable. I get a hint of banana with some nuttiness to it. Like faint banana bread. It’s not incredible, but it is drinkable and between me and the other people in the house it’s getting drunk down. Would not buy again, however.

I can’t believe it’s been 8 months since VariaTea send me these samples! How has that much time slipped past me?!
Sipped this one down yesterday. The strange ginger/ginseng taste I mentioned in my previous post kind of grew on me as I sipped cup after cup. I had maybe 4 cups of this yesterday far too late into the day which kept me up past 1am. :/ Fool of a took. Someday I’ll learn. As much as I enjoyed this cup, it didn’t quite pass the threshold into must buy territory.

No idea what a cherry bakewell is. I’m imagining a pastry of some sort. I could google it, but imagining is more interesting. It seemed a little bland once steeped, so I added a little sugar to round out the cherry flavor. It’s definitely cherry flavored, but a baked, not bright and fresh. There is also something slightly savory or herb like to it, but it only hints at it. This tea seems okay, but isn’t knocking me off my feet. I’d like to try it cold steeped as well to see what that brings out of it.

I don’t know what it is about this tea, but I’ve never fully warmed up to it. I love banana and smoke and this tea has both, but there is something else that isn’t sitting right. It has a very truffley depth to it that is intriguing, but I’m pushing back from something. I’ve tried for two years and I’m now giving up on this and tossing it in my get rid of bin.

Having a cup of this as a cold oat milk latte. It’s okay. I’m not really getting any strawberry and there is a bitter finish that lingers. I have one serving left and I’m probably going to toss it because I’m done with mediocre tea.