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This was such a bummer. Another tea let-down from Chado. This just tasted like black tea. I kid you not. Where is the plum flavor? The safflowers are pretty, I’ll give it that at least.

This tea is absolutely fabulous! I ordered only 1/2 oz., because I wasn’t sure I’d like it and it just seemed so interesting, I had to try some. I’m glad I did! I can’t believe this tea was picked more than 20 years ago! Pretty awesome.

So, the dry leaf smells like a roasted oolong; however, the brewed tea is so much more! At first, it tasted like a roasted oolong, but then I noticed the buttery silky smooth mouthfeel, the notes of sweetness…mineral, then peach or mango, then a little mint aftertaste. Honestly my little cup went too fast! I definitely need to try this gong fu style, but it really is delicious western style too. I love complex teas, and this one fits the bill! I feel so special to have gotten to try a 22-year old tea! Yum!

I was excited to try a number of distinctly different chai’s, but I’m not sure Chado’s chai’s are working out for me. This chai wasn’t bad. It definitely tastes like coconut, but the other spices are kinda flat. I couldn’t really detect individual spices, because they all seemed to fall in the same level. The black tea base isn’t as smooth as I’d like either. I thought that maybe next time honey might help the flavor a bit…will try that.

This chai reminded me a lot of DavidsTea’s coffee chai, but it had too many high note spices. There was one large chocolate chip in the teaspoon and a half I steeped, but it probably needed more in order to have more chocolate flavor. I think the high note spice must have been the ginger, or maybe the green cardamom. Is there a difference between green and other cardamom? Not sure if I’ve noticed that distinction before. Anyway, it was not well-rounded enough for me and I would have liked more chocolate flavor. Not terrible, but not great. It had such promise…oh well.

This tea does not taste like the description. Talk about false advertising! I should have known it when I opened the bag, because it smelled fruity..not at all caramel or vanilla. It tasted fruity and a bit floral too. Anyanka posted that it tasted like a floral honey, and I definitely get that. Maybe a fruity floral honey. I also got the sediment she talked about. Pretty unpleasant to have sediment in your last couple of sips. Overall, this was a disappointment, because some people raved about this tea on the yelp page for this tea house. It makes me wonder if it got cross-contaminated somehow with another tea. At least their samples sizes are pretty cheap for how much you get!

We have been running around a lot on our week off, so I haven’t had much time for steepster, but I wanted to let you know I tried this one last night. It definitely smelled and tasted like rooibos, so for those of you that are sensitive to that, it’s probably not for you. I guess the butterscotch was in the aftertaste. I have not had a lot of butterscotch, although I do remember my mom using butterscotch chips to make haystack cookies, so I wasn’t sure if this tasted exactly like butterscotch. To me, it was like toffee…kind of buttery and sweet. For some reason the taste lingered on my teeth! Weird! Anyway, not bad. I’ll have to have some more to figure out what I really think about it.

So, we took this week off for our anniversary, and we did a day trip to Carmel and Monterey yesterday. I was a little sad to be away from all my teas, but we stopped in at a little place in Carmel for breakfast, who are known for their famous french toast, and I had some of this tea. The French toast was amazing…battered and fried like a funnel cake and served with homemade cinnamon maple syrup! Yum! I had some fresh fruit to help offset the heaviness.

I asked for tea and she brought out a basket piled high with mostly Numi tea bags. I decided to try the chocolate puerh, and it was pretty good! Does anyone know if they sell this tea loose leaf? The teabag, though, would be great to take on travel. Anyway, the tea reminded me of the bready quality puerh in sTEAp shoppe’s cinnamon swirl bread tea. Very nice, with added chocolate flavor. Not bad when you’re away from the stash!!

It is sooooo hot today! We were out running errands for awhile and took a nice walk, but it is really hot. Came home to chores, and needed something refreshing. I have not yet gotten into making iced tea at home, but my husband only likes it that way, so I’ve been making him this tea iced. It has mango, and I figured that was right up his alley, and it was! I make a bunch and so he keeps a large pitcher of it in the fridge, but he forgets it’s there, so today, I stole some! Ha! It is really delicious iced! Of course, we add a little sweetener too, but it’s not too sweet, and you get this subtle mango with a very refreshing base! Just what I needed!

Had a terrible night sleep last night. Woke up at 2am to my husband coughing…he definitely sounded sick and was complaining of pain in his shoulder (he seems to be better this morning though). I then couldn’t go back to sleep for about 2 hours. I felt like I wanted to get up and my stomach felt like it needed food! At 2am?!! I read for a bit, and that helped me get back to sleep. Good thing I don’t have work today!! We are thankfully taking this week off for our anniversary :)

Needless to say I needed some good solid tea this morning! In the absence of blueberry cream cheese danish, which, if I had any, would have been perfect this morning, I had this tea. I know people complain about the lack of flavoring in this tea, but I really like it. It was perfect today with some soy milk and sugar and paired nicely with my blueberry jam toast. Nice solid black with a hint of blackberry. I feel lots better now.

This tea is REALLY DELICIOUS! Thank you for the sample, Stacy! I get the peach, honey and orchid notes. I recognize the orchid, since I’ve had the vanilla orchid tea from DavidsTea, which btw, I love, and this is like that, but peachy instead! It has a super creamy mouthfeel! Yum yum! I think we have another winner! Yippee!! Time for another steeping!