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This is old, and I definitely underleafed it. I remember this being a very strong, bergamot-heavy EG, but this time around I can taste the malty black base a lot more, and the bergamot adds nice aromatic citrus notes that meld with it nicely. I actually think it’s better balanced now than it was when it was fresh! I added the tiniest pinch of brown sugar which brought the bergamot out more, and the teeny weeniest little splash of milk to temper the astringency (even though there wasn’t much). It’s rather lovely this way! The sweetness and creaminess added by the milk and sugar really round out the tea, making it a very nice Earl Grey! It’s not a stand out, but then I tend to see EG as a cupboard staple rather than something special anyway (except for Earl Grey cremes, now that’s a different story). A nice morning sipper!

Realised the seal on this one was broken while I was going through my stash and it burst open, so scooped up all the fallen tea (it went on the table, not the ground) and used it to brew up a cup. Can’t have any precious Butiki tea going to waste! It’s probably a little bit underleafed, and I definitely used water that was a little too cool, but it’s still a nice full-bodied cup of tea to start my morning with. Smoky, woody and a little camphorous at the end of the sip. My brain keeps wanting to call this a ‘meaty’ tea for some reason, I hope that makes sense and doesn’t put anyone off! It doesn’t taste like meat, it just has a meaty body, you know? I’m sorry, I know ‘meaty body’ made it worse.

Anyway, this is nice.

Drank for Mastress Alita’s ‘favourite pie flavour’ prompt (yes I am months behind), but again I’m cheating because I’m from the UK and have never had a (US style) pumpkin pie. Not only that, but the only sweet pie I have had is apple, and I’m not a massive fan of that, or pie in general actually as I’m not a big lover of pastry. That being said I love the idea of pumpkin pie, and have been desperate to try it for a long time now!

This isn’t my favourite pumpkin spice tea – that honour belongs to DAVIDsTEA’s Pumpkin Chai – but it does have a special place in my heart since it tastes like actual pumpkin/squash/it’scarrotreally, and not just a generic blend of spices with ‘pumpkin’ slapped on the label for no reason like a lot of other teas do. I made a pot of this and drank it a few different ways, all of which were enjoyable. My favourite way to drink it was black with a little brown sugar added, which brought out the pumpkininess even more. The spices grew stronger with each cup, and started to overpower the pumpkin note, so I think in the future I will stick to brewing it one cup at a time. The cinnamon and clove are most prominent of the spices, with a little ginger kick towards the end of the sip. Drinking with milk added mutes the pumpkin quite a bit, but it’s still enjoyable with milk and sugar. Milk and no sugar is my least favourite way to drink this though, it becomes just a generic chai and loses its special quality that way. Plain this is a tasty, pumpkin-heavy chai. Rating based on drinking it black with an added pinch of brown sugar, which turns it into Autumnal heaven.

This tea came from a mystery box from MissB an embarrassingly long time ago, and (I really hope) is the oldest in my cupboard by far. That being said, it still smells incredible and has a good amount of flavour. The black tea base is nondescript but not astringent, it has a slightly nutmeg-spiced vanilla creaminess which is delicious. It was sweet enough already, but I added a pinch of brown sugar and it really brought the creaminess out more. I chose this as my ‘tea which reminds me of an alcoholic beverage’ from Mastress Alita’s scavenger hunt prompt, but I don’t taste anything alcoholic. I don’t think that’s a result of age, since looking at the notes it seems like others felt the same way when it was fresh. It’s a lovely tea, and I think some rum flavouring would have tipped it over the edge into ‘great tea’ territory. I do wish it was more ‘spiked eggnog’-y, but a tasty tea all the same!

Another nice one from the advent calendar! You can’t really go wrong with a green mint tea. This one has a decent amount of mint without being overpowering, and there’s a hint of creamy sweetness rounding it out from the vanilla. There’s not as much green tea in the blend, it looks like it’s about 50/50 tea and mint leaves, and I think that’s a decent proportion. The green tea is definitely present, and gives the tea body, but it’s not astringent and just buoys up the creamy mint, which is the star of the show. As with the other teas in the calendar, there are a whole bunch of completely unnecessary ingredients which add nothing at all to the flavour, and just seem like a waste of time. The cinnamon, orange peel and chicory don’t come out at all. I’ve had better ‘candy cane’ type teas in the past, but I wouldn’t complain about drinking this again.

Of all of the English Tea Shop advent teas I’ve tried so far, I think this has the longest list of ingredients, and most of them are completely undetectable. I’ve also noticed that a lot of them are quite similar in their ingredients, so I’m not too impressed with this one. The green tea base is weirdly more astringent than the last one was, I was hoping that a longer steep would bring out some more of the flavours but in the end I had to take the teabag out as the astringency was becoming more prominent. It’s mostly an average green tea with some nondescript fruitiness which I wouldn’t say tastes like pomegranate. I can kind of smell the cinnamon, and if I concentrate really hard I can just about convince myself that I can taste it, but the rest of the huge long list of ingredients fades into nothingness. Not my favourite!

This one is nice!

The green tea base is delicate and not very astringent, it’s barely there until the very end of the sip, which I don’t mind as I’m not really a lover of green teas. After a couple of minutes, it was a really nice berry tea, most likely from the acai, and I probably should have taken the teabag out like the instructions said. But I left it in, and it still has the juicy berry note, but it’s competing with a slightly earthy, slightly metallic note I could have done without. It’s still nice, and not at all unpleasant, I just wish I’d taken the teabag out and kept that delicious, bright juicy berry tea! The advent calendar I’m working through has a couple of each of the teas in it, so I’ll have to remember that for the next time and hopefully improve on the rating. This is my favourite from the calendar so far!

Strong lemongrass with a ginger kick. This was a birthday gift along with some ginger honey stirrer spoons, and they go really well together. A little strong on its own, to the point where it leaves a tingling sensation in my mouth. Better in a big mug so it’s not overpowering, although that could be my fault since I left the teabag in and used boiling water when it recommends 80 degrees C. Nice with whisky too!

Teabag left in during drinking.

This is a weird tea. At first it smells super sweet, but it contains turmeric and garlic and after a couple of minutes the garlic really comes through. Vague spiciness in the background, but really, it tastes mostly like a garlic-y rooibos and that’s just not something I’m on board with.

As I noticed with my last English Tea Shop blend, this also seems to be a renamed organic version of an existing blend from the company – this time Ginger Bread Man.

I left the tea bag in to steep while I was drinking, and noticed that the ginger became a lot more prominent as I drank. At first, the cinnamon was the most prominent note in the initial sip, followed by the apple and clove intermingling, chased by the ginger, which was faint but present. As the tea steeped, the ginger became more prominent until it was the most prominent note throughout the sip, with the cinnamon, apple and clove becoming background notes which are only noticeable at the end of the sip.

It doesn’t taste much like gingerbread, and ginger isn’t my favourite flavour to begin with, but it’s a decent cup for a winter’s night. Not bad, but not one I’d run out to buy.