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A tea I got in a trade with Ricky (who’s still trying to mooch more tea off of me ;P).

This is a lovely smelling tea from the get-go. At my aunt’s old house there was a sour-cherry tree and in the summer my mother and I would go and pick huge ice cream buckets full of them. We’d freeze them and make them into the most delicious sauces. Well this tea smells like those cherries tasted, which may sound a bit odd, but taste and sense of smell are supposed to be closely linked.

There are little, red, round things in the tea that look like red peppercorns but they smell like cherries. There’s also some light green needle-like things that look like rosemary possibly.

The taste is quite authentic too; not much like the traditional Bing Cherry flavour, so if you’re looking for that then this might not be the tea for you. All the flavour seems to hit me right at the start of each sip: fruity, fresh, and even slightly acrid it’s a very clean, but yummy taste. It seems to quickly tapper off into a rather sour sort of tea flavour, which is a bit disapointing; but other than that, this is rockin’ tea.

Another tea from Samovar-pusher Takgoti. ;P

So this is the first genuine pu-erh tea I’ve had the chance to try (Numi’s Chocolate Pu-erh was nice but not really the same thing) and I was really excited about it. I heated the mug and I gave the leaves a rinse with boiling water before steeping it. At first it smelled like fish, and not fresh fish either, but several weeks old rotting fish. Yeah, ew. Thankfully as the tea steeped the scent slowly changed to something earthy-smelling.

The taste is quite earthy too, but not like just regular dirt – it’s a rich, loamy dirt full of decaying plant matter…I made it sound gross didn’t I? Sorry, it’s the ecology student in me talking. It’s a powerfully strong, ‘dark’ tea that I find I can’t drink quickly, but small sips seem to work – problem is, it’s getting cold. I am noticing that as the tea cools a bit of a sweetness creeps in aswell.

This is a fascinating tea and I’m glad I got the chance to try it. Do I like it? I’m not sure to be honest. I think pu-erh might be an acquired taste, though I’ll certainly strive to acquire it! ;)

The teabags smell like an odd but inviting combination of mint, spice and fruitiness. The flavour is light and surpringly I’m picking up a bit of a licorice tang, or at least it atstes that way to me. The woody/vegetale flavour of the mate is only in the background, though I wouldn’t mind if it were a little bit stronger – maybe I’ll steep it a bit longer next time, though I’m hesitant to up the steeping temperature as mate can scald just like green tea.

I lied – apparently I do have one more bag of this tea left. :D

The tea looks quite similar to the Ti Kwan Yin I got from the same company, although these leaves are rolled up a bit smaller. The dry leaves of both also have a sort of spinachy scent to them, although I think the Tung Ting’s is a bit lighter (it’s hard to compare, I just sent away the last of my Ti Kwan Yin so I’m going by memory and my old tasting notes).

The first steep (1 min) is really only enough to get the leaves wet and to encourage them to unfurl. So the resulting liquid is quite thin and light; floral in flavour with a hint of sweet bakeyness on the end.

With the 2nd steep (2 mins) we get into the real deal. The tea starts off delicately floral, and then a warm, fruity flavour takes over, finished off by very light bakey notes. The aftertaste is somewhat floral too, I think.

I think I’ll go for third steep after this. :)

I steeped this a touch longer this time and it brought out the black tea a bit more, especially when it was quite hot. It’s not a bad black though, the green tea leavens the astringency and bitterness, and what you get is a nice, light, smooth tea with a hint of sweet jasmine to it. And no notes of jasmine soap, thank you very much! This is a tea that would be spoiled by milk in my opinion, it’s perfectly fine without!

I’m seeing little bits of leaves (strawberry leaves?) mixed in with this tea, but nothing that I could readily identify as pieces of strawberry. I was worried when, as I was steeping the tea I mostly smelled the Ceylon base, not anything I’d call strawberry. As it turns out, I was right to be worried. The tea is okay, but the strawberry flavors are quite weak and I really have to look for them in each sip to find them.

I think I like this tea better with a ton of milk poured in it. I’m almost done this one – I might have one or two loose teabags kicking around somewhere, but the box itself is empty.

This tea was a gift from my mother about a year ago – before I told her that I’m not a huge fan of rooibos teas.

I’ve never tried this brand before so I don’t know what to expect and what their other teas might be like quality-wise. Looking at the dry tea I can see little raspberry druplets mixed in with the rooibos, which is a point in the tea’s favor. There’s a distinct raspberry tang to the smell of the tea while it was brewing aswell, though not anything I would call ‘creamy’.

The flavour, unfortunately, is pretty blah. There’s a bit of sweet raspberry flavouring to it, but mostly it’s just a light rooibos tea.

I fell asleep quite early which, instead of translating to more rest, means that I’m awake at this ungodly hour. Ah well, I’m drinking herbals in hopes that they’ll help me get back to sleep.