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This tea sounded so intriguingly unique, so I couldn’t help myself from begging TeaEqualsBliss to give me a little bit during out last swap.

It’s an interesting-looking tea – bits of miscellaneous dried fruits, bright-orange dried carrot bits, and what looks like stems of grass but is probably actually the “bamboo” part of the tea. The tea smells a lot like those V-8 Fusion drinks – you know the ones that are a mix of fruit and vegetables juices. My nose can pick up apple and something citrus-y aswell as the scent of carrots. The steeped tea is a BRIGHT pinky-orange that bears an unfortunate resemblance to orange Kool-Aid. 0_o

The taste of the tea is fruity and mildly tart – like some sort of juice without the added sugar. I can taste the apples in the mix and something tropical-ish that’s probably the papaya and a bit of the carrot. Nothing that I’d identify as bamboo specifically, but whatever.

I still have enough left to try this iced which I’m eager to do – from the product description it seems to be the way this tea was ‘meant’ to be drunk (not that it’s bad hot either).

Given this tea’s superficial similarity to a Darjeeling I was a bit leery about adding milk to it. Actually it turned out to be not too bad. It gives the tea some toasty-ish notes at the start of each sip and then works its way into that sort of muscatel-like flavour as it moves across my tongue. The milk colours the tea nicely too and makes it looks like an English Breakfast of some sort. It doesn’t get that cloudy, greyish colour some teas get if they don’t mesh well with milk.

This white tea blend has an intriguing scent – slightly floral, though not perfumy, and fruity, almost like stewed apricots. The flavour has a natural sweetness to it – particularly as the tea cools – this is one that would be very nice iced I think. I can picked up apricots in the taste too. Altogther it’s a nice, clean, refreshing drink.

I’ve been raised to believe that adding anything to green tea is utter blasphemy, but today, out of curiosity, I decided to experiment a little in an attempt to do something new with a familiar tea. I added some honey to my mug and I was pleasently surprised by the results. The honey smoothes out both the tang of the lemongrass and the pungency of the gingerroot and meshes very nicely with the tea as a whole.

TeaEqualsBliss was kind enough to lend me some of this from her prodigious tea stash.

It tastes to me like a more sophisticated version of Celestial Seasonings’ Candy Cane Lane. The peppermint is nice and refreshing, but it doesn’t cover up the flavours of the other components of the tea. I can actually taste and identify the vegetale green tea and the touch of sweet vanilla that were added to this blend. There’s a also a hint of spiciness – but just a hint. A chai this ain’t, but it gives the tea a bit of a zing and makes it taste like some sort of X-mas goody.

I feel rather guilty about drinking this in the middle of June. ;)

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever drank a first flush Darjeeling before, so this will be a first for me.

The scent of the tea was quite unusual, very green and vegetale and not as much of the basic ‘tea’ scent as I was expecting. The leaves are surprisingly green-looking too and after I steeped them they looked more like the leaves of a green tea – brightly green and vibrant-looking. The liquor is a warm, amber-gold shade and very clear-looking, unlike some teas that have a cloudy appearance.

There’s definitely a buttered cooked-greens sort of flavour to this cup, though it also has a slightly sweetness that makes the flavour quite appealing. It’s not very astringent, just a hint of dryness on the tongue as I sip, though it’s still a very ‘clean’-tasting tea. The traditional muscatel flavour isn’t very strong and I get it near the end of each sip and it lingers more on the tongue as an aftertaste.

Admittedly my experience is hardly vast, but this tastes like a good tea. The sort of drink that might not be amiss at the tables of the world’s finest tea conoisseurs.

This was quite yummy with a splash of skim milk this morning. The lavender is less pungent but it gives the tea an intriguing herbal flavour to it. I could readily see this tea taking over as one of my default morning bagged tea.

Most of you know that I haet red rooibos almost as much as hibiscus, so it galls me just a little to say how freakin’ good this tea is. ;)

It smells absolutely wonderfuly for one thing – cloves and cinnamon primarily, with hints of ginger and cardamom. The spices are balanced very well in the flavour of the tea – nothing is too overpowering and it all meshes nicely. I can’t barely taste the tart rooibos flavour – which suits me just fine.

Polishing off another sample but this is one I’m sad to see go -particuarly since Lupicia teas aren’t readily available here (though I did get some very kind offers from people).

There’s a rather spinach-like taste that seems to develop when this tea is steeped longer along with the bakey flavour. I’m still not sure what exactly osmanthus tastes like and what part of what I’m tasting is made up by it, but I do know that this is a tea I’d like to drink again sometime in the future.

I gave it a bit of a longer steeping, but instead of the orange/citrus flavour becomming more intense (which was what I had been expecting), the tea as a whole seems to have developped more body and substance. There are also slightly more floral notes present – likely from the jasmine blossoms.