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I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, so I’ve lowered my caffeine intake to before 6PM, meaning I have to drastically expand my caffeine-free stash. This was a one-off teabag I took from a hotel room, as I thought it was worth a try but don’t really drink chamomile often enough to buy it. It just doesn’t do it for me, if I’m having a caffeine free tea, I’ll usually go for a rooibos. As it was free, there’s not harm in trying it!

The bag itself smelled kinda funky, nearly like feet, so I wasn’t exactly excited about it. However when brewed, the feet smell dissipates (thank heavens!) and leaves a kind of honeyed floral smell instead, which is SO much more pleasant.

I’m still not a huge fan of chamomile, but this is a lot nicer than others I’ve tried, and a lot nicer than I was expecting. It’s a more rounded flavour than I’m used to in chamomiles, and the flower somehow tastes more mature (?). I’m not even sure what I mean by that, but it’s less sharp and more ‘friendly’ than your average chamomile. Very calming. I added a teaspoon of honey and it added a smoothness as well as sweetness to the taste, and made it a drink which I would happily turn to as a nightcap.

I should also mention that the sachet this came in read ‘calming chamomile’. Since I could not find any information about that one, and it is by the same company as this one and contains exactly the same things, I assumed they’d just changed the product name, maybe to fit in as part of a set? It seems to be the same thing, anyway.

I’m actually really surprised that I haven’t reviewed this tea already. I got this as a sample with an adagio order just because I wanted the free shipping, and it seems that all of y favourite teas are acquired that way. In the bag, this tea smells very much like fresh coconut, not artificial in the slightest and reminds me of playing coconut shys at fairs when I was younger, and then getting my dad to smash open the coconut prizes. I would drink the coconut water from the middle, little hairs and all, and I almost expected this tea to taste like that water. It doesn’t, however, but that’s not a bad thing!

Brewed, the Ceylon comes up behind the coconut scent and somehow makes it all toasty smelling, so that it now reminds me of coconut macaroons, a sweet that I absolutely love. I really want macaroons now. Mmmmm

Plain – partly because I overbrew ALL the time, and partly because I find the Adagio black tea base to be pretty astringent, this tea plain is sadly just so, so bitter. I mean, I just can’t drink it at all. There is no coconut taste, and I’m really searching for it, but all I can taste is bitter black tea.

With sugar – ah, there’s the coconut! The bitterness is still there, but the coconut comes through and holds its own pretty well. The astringency is still too much for me, though, so milk is a must. You can definitely tell that the taste is fresh coconut, though.

With sugar and milk – I added just a dash of skimmed milk, and it was enough to completely take away the astringency. And oh, the difference it makes! Sweet, creamy and exactly like fresh coconut. The tea is really thick tasting, adding to the creaminess, and is really satisfying and almost filling. The warm fuzzies it gave me are still sitting in my stomach comfortably, making it a perfect warm-up drink for a cold day.

With milk and sugar, this is the perfect coconut tea for me, fresh and still creamy and sweet. I have had four cups of this just today, and this will probably be a re-order once my sample is gone.

Sipdown!

Had the last bag of this hot, and I regret it already. It was just fine, but every single mouthful had me wishing it was iced. Minty herbals are just meant to be iced, in my opinion.

Can’t say I’m sad to see this go – I will look for a mint herbal to fill my gap for the summer, but this will most probably not be it.

Sorry I’ve been kinda absent for a couple of days! It’s been a little hectic around here, and I’ve been visiting Frankie’s family in Sheffield for a couple of days so have been away from my tea stash. On the plus side, we got to babysit his little brother, who is super cute.

I actually took my Sherlock fandom sampler away with me, and had a few of those that I hadn’t had in a while, but I thought I should review this before I forget as it isn’t mine, and I want to try to log all of the teas that I try, so my own can wait til later.

Drank with sugar and milk as a breakfast drink, and made for me by my non-tea-drinking flatmate. This was a very pleasant morning earl grey, and one which I would happily drink again, although I wouldn’t actively seek it out. It tastes pretty much as described – a black tea, with a light bergamot aroma. The bergamot is definitely light, and actually maybe even a little too light for my tastes/expectations (last time I was there I had Clippers Earl Grey, which was WAY better than I expect from a basic bagged earl grey) but overall a good way to start the day.

Sipdown. Finally!

There’s not too much that can be said about this – a pretty decent English brew. Drank with green milk and a sugar, and chosen because of it’s plainness as my last cup of caffeinated tea for the day. This was the last bag from a box of 160, and has been the last bag for a while – the box went down a lot quicker initially than it did towards the end, as I expanded my range of loose-leaf teas. Actually, by the end of it, I think my partner drank more of it than I did.

Probably won’t purchase again, unless I’m in a pinch money-wise, because I have (in my opinion) some better teabags courtesy of Rington’s which I choose over these if I want a plain cup of bog-standard builder’s brew.

This particular cup was more earthy than I remembered from plain old PG tips, with a tiny bit of a fishy taste at the end of the sip that I don’t much care for. An average cuppa for an average night, and not a sipdown that I’m sad about.

So basically I love this tea. I have a lot of little candy hearts in mine, as well as rose petals, which just make it really really pretty. I have mentioned this before in another review, but Bluebird teas always seem to be beautiful. It also smells amazing, like fragrant perfume-y chocolate fruitiness. Which is pretty much what it is…
In the cup, the smell mellows out a little but stays mostly the same, only with black tea scent underneath.

What I really love about Bluebird’s black tea base is that it doesn’t seem to get bitter, no matter how much you forget about it. I left the leaves in my cup for over 10 minutes, and there wasn’t even the slightest hint of bitterness, and the oversteep just allowed the other flavours to develop more fully.

Plain – it tastes exactly as it smells, and I mean exactly. Even my flatmate pointed this out, and he hardly ever even agrees to taste a tea after smelling it. At first, the tea tastes like a strawberry dipped in dark chocolate, and the black tea base just seems to make the whole thing more smooth. The rose flavour really comes through in the aftertaste, and possibly because of the sweetness from the candy hearts, reminded me of powdered Turkish delight. Great for me, as I love dessert teas.

With milk – after adding milk, the flavours became more muted and subtle, but still very definitely present. I think I might prefer it this way, as although I love the flavours, I think they might become a bit cloying after a whole mug of it plain. The chocolate taste is probably the most subdued by the addition of milk, but there’s still a hint of it there.

With milk and sugar – the taste does not change at all by the addition of sugar, it just becomes much much sweeter. In my opinion, the candy hearts make this tea sweet enough to begin with, and adding sugar just made it too sweet for me. I still finished the mug, though, because even over-sweetened, this tea is just so good.

This is definitely a tea that I will be repurchasing from Bluebird, and I might have to make room for it in my next order.

I have came across so many ‘pumpkin pie’ etc. teas that have no pumpkin in them whatsoever and are actually just a blend of spices. I am soo happy that this one has real pumpkin flavour in it! Dry, the tea smells good. Spicy, but not particularly pumpkin-y. After steeping for three minutes as per recommendations, this tea actually smells exactly like warm pumpkin punch! Absolutely no bitterness, just a smooth, buttery spices pumpkin taste which is just beautiful. Seriously. I didn’t think I would like this as much as I do, but I am definitely a fan! This is a bit of a late note, and I can’t quite remember exactly what it tasted like with different additives, but that just means I have an excuse to sit and drink it all day tomorrow in the name of a better review.
hehehe

This is my saddest sipdown yet, and actually the only sipdown which has been of a tea that I’ve had more than a one or two cup sample of. I bought this from Adagio mainly to take me over the £30 window for free shipping, and because it was one of the ingredients of a Sherlock fandom tea which I wanted to try and was unavailable in the UK, so I planned on maybe making my own substitute. As it turned out, I never did that, as it was just too good to blend with other teas.

When I first tried this tea plain, I was very surprised by the powerful flavour, as all fruit-based teas I’ve tried in the past have been disappointingly weak. Not this one. Instead of a diluted summer fruit cordial type colour like I had expected, within a minute of steeping the cup was a deep deep reddy purple, and smelled heavenly. Like blueberry tarts baking in the oven. I haven’t logged this tea before as I went on a bit of a berry blues binge and drank nearly the entire thing in less than a week, before I’d even made my steepster account. When I realised I was down to my last teaspoon, I panicked, and have been hoarding the tiniest amount since, waiting for the appropriate moment. This was not quite the perfect time for it, but I really really wanted it.

Plain, this tea is a little tart, and if you oversteep (which I tend to do a lot, as I have a really crappy concept of time), it is very tart. This is probably due to the hibiscus content, although I don’t seem to have a problem with it as many people seem to. To counteract this, I like to drink it with an added spoon of sugar. Drank this way, it tastes exactly like blueberry jam in the initial sip, but with an almost sour aftertaste that stops it from being overly sweet and balances it out perfectly.

I am currently sitting on my bed, drinking this tea and reminiscing about my childhood – when it snowed in the winter, me and my two cousins would play outside in the snow for hours, and then when we came in, my mam would make us “hot juice” which was basically a cordial drink made with not-quite-boiling water instead of cold, with a spoon of honey in it, to warm us back up. It was my favourite winter treat, and this reminds me of it so much, because even though it doesn’t taste like any of the juices we had in it, it has the same hot, sweet, fruity goodness which I just find so comforting. I am sipping this so slowly, because I know that once it’s gone, that’s it. I was planning on leaving some of it to cool, and see what this is like iced, but I don’t think I can bring myself to. I will miss this tea dearly. My post-8PM tea collection will not be the same without it.

I have already discovered how amazing it feels to click the ‘remove from wishlist’ button on a tea, followed by the ‘add to cupboard’ button, but this is the first time I have clicked them the other way round, and it is so sad :/

I will be making an Adagio order very soon, re-stocking on this and the 9th doctor, and buying myself an ingenuiTEA while I’m at it! Every cloud…

This was a free sample from Bluebird Tea Co. with my order, so thank you very much for the try! The sample came in an adorable fancy teabag, with the bluebird logo printed on.

Looking at the bag, I can’t see a whole lot of maté, it mostly seems to be lemongrass, and smells very lemony, too. Steeping, the lemon smell intensifies and kind of gets sweeter, so that after brewing the tea smells almost like a sherbet lemon sweet to me. It is a very pale infusion, even though I left if for forever.

The overall flavour is of lemongrass, and I can’t really taste the ginger at all, although there’s a nice tingly heat kick at the end which I think is down to the ginger. This was perfect for me, though, as I really do not like ginger at all. I can’t taste any smoke from the Yerba, I don’t think, but I’ve never had it before so I’m not really sure what I’m looking for exactly. I’ve just gotten to the end of the cup, and the last two or three mouthfuls had a weird fishy taste. Ew.

Overall, a nice delicate cup, but not something I would choose to wake me up as it’s just not strong enough.

I was inexplicably hot tonight, so, rather than settling down with my usual hot caffeine-free nightcap, I decided to flash ice something instead. This was pretty much my only choice, as I didn’t fancy icing a rooibos or chai, and I’ve made a pact not to imbibe caffeine after 8PM. I think it may have been my thirst/heat, but I downed this in a couple of minutes, and it was the perfect choice. Mint is naturally just so refreshing, and it wasn’t so strong it woke me up, just enough to cool me down.

I flash-iced by making a very small glass using boiling water, then topped it up with about 8x that amount in very cold water, them added a couple ice cubes. I definitely prefer it this way than hot, and it will be a perfect drink for the summer.