Almost Tea

I kinda like this one! It’s a green rooibos, so very little dry mouth feeling or woody taste. I think they really nailed the flavor of almonds on a croissant. Not so much the croissant part, but that particular flavor of almond, which is almost extract tasting. It doesn’t have too much depth to it, more middle and high notes in the flavors, but it’s tasty anyways. It reminds me of a David’s tea I had long ago that was on an unusual woodchip like base and had a very strong almond taste. I’m enjoying this cup and would happily drink another, but isn’t something I’d buy and stock.

In the bag this smelled like fresh orange juice. It had that intense juicy scent to it. Once steeped the chocolate scent comes out. It’s a lovely rich scent balanced with the higher notes of the orange and reminds me of Butiki’s Three Friends. A few sips in and I think this might by my favorite Almost tea so far. The orange and chocolate are really well balanced with the puerh base hiding in the background while providing depth. I don’t think scones so much as I think Terry’s chocolate oranges. It gets a little sharper as it cools, but it is still really good. I’d almost consider buying this tea. If the price was lower and they sold it loose leaf I think I’d be in.

I love Cranberry Pear flavoured teas so I’ve been nervous about trying this one. I just feel like the potential for disappointment for me personally is so high…

The dry leaf wasn’t off to a great start as it smelled potently of alcohol. Just such intense and fresh flavourings which clearly hadn’t been given enough time to air out and settle. Steeped up most of that boozier punch did dissipate, thankfully. It was still pretty artificial tasting once infused but I did sort of like it. The pear was almost like the Juicy Pear flavoured Jelly Belly candies but with a floral undertone, and there was a very nice light tartness from the hibiscus. I will say, I definitely got more “red fruit” than cranberry but I liked the duo of generic red fruit with this sweeter pear note.

It does kind of fail at being a baked good inspired blend. Like, there’s just nothing in the cup that reads that way aside from maybe potentially the rooibos base itself but that definitely feels like a stretch. Better cranberry pear blends exist, though…

Sipdown (2402)!

Second time around I still don’t love this tea but, at least, I knew what to expect with the combination of very bright, almost citrus-y fruity notes with the chocolate liqueur type of flavouring. Froot Loops dunked in cheap chocolate, perhaps? Much less astringent than last time since I was a lot more careful with my steep time.

It’s a moot point because Almost was absorbed into their parent company and doesn’t exist on its own anymore, but this would have been SO MUCH better without the chocolate.

This one made my brain hurt a little.

Firstly, I love the name/concept. A few year ago DAVIDsTEA released a Cereal Milk inspired blend, but it was more like Frosted Flakes instead of the Froot Loops/Fruity Pebbles route. I actually think this direction is actually way more on point for the whole cereal milk trend. It’s crazy how much the dry leaf aroma smells like Froot Loops too. Like, it’s dead on in a sort of eerily close way.

I 100% over steeped this which brought out a lot of bitterness and that’s fully on me. Not the fault of the tea at all. Despite the over steeping, there were elements I loved and some that just confused me. For starters, it tastes so much like Froot Loops with that kind of generic and slightly starchy mixed fruit note that ever so slightly tastes citrus-y. Sometimes bergamot tastes like this, and I wouldn’t at all be surprised to learn that one of the flavourings used to create this combination was a bergamot flavouring or oil.

Where Almost loses me is the inclusion of chocolate. I don’t know what their deal is with forcing chocolate into things, but it doesn’t work here. I mean, it really breaks the illusion that the fruitier notes was settling up so, so well. Like, you can 100% taste the undertone of chocolate and it fully just doesn’t work and it’s so out of place for the description/imagery used.

Like, make it make sense Almost! Make it make sense!

Sipdown (2527)!

Finished this one off yesterday afternoon. It was fine, but definitely artificial tasting. Though the strawberry wasn’t half bad, the cream note was just rubbing me the wrong way. It was thick and almost pasty feeling as it built up on the palate over the coarse of the cup. Also had a weird floral undertone. I hate that I’m saying it, but a little acid from something like hibiscus probably would have helped balance things out.

Another one that I was actually pretty on board with! It’s light to medium bodied with a pretty distinctly grassy green tea base, but the notes of strawberries and sweet cream are both indulgent and playfully fresh. Somewhere in between a more candy-like strawberry taste and the real deal, with a hint of tartness that alludes to the brightness of a strawberry without the use of hibiscus. There’s a nice floral undertone and I think it kind of helps push the more candy-like elements of the flavour away from that “fake” and cloying zone. If I’m nitpicking, then I feel like the “cream” could have been stronger but ultimately I think this was pretty good for the cost/format it comes in!

So far April’s box (which is breakfast themed) has had the best success rate of any of the month’s themes thus far…

Sipdown (2312)!

Well, having very recently had some waffles with Saskatoon Berry syrup on them, I can confidently say that my initial impression of this tea as tasting a lot like saskatoon berries was preeettttyyy spot on. Not a lot of butter flavour to be found here, but the berry notes are delicious and pretty striking for a teabag. I think this may be one of my favourite Almost blends, but that it likely the nostalgia of it reminding me of home playing into that…

Boo to another decaf black tea, but honestly… I kinda liked this one!

Blackberry is a very, very hard flavour to get right but I thought this was pretty solid. Definitely sweet, thick and syrupy in a way that I feel very much fits the evocative imagery on the sachet overwraps. Personally, it reminded me more of the Saskatoon Berry syrup I used to have on pancakes back when I was living in Saskatchewan. I miss that a lot (you can’t get it in Montreal) so it was very nostalgic for me. Flavour level was pretty good overall, and I just thought it was a pretty nice, approachable cuppa.

I’m so confused. The package says green tea as do the leaves in the bag, but green tea isn’t listed as an ingredient and honeybush is. Proofread fail? The instructions for this tea say to steep at just under boiling for 3 minutes, which is a lot for a green. I did two minutes at 175 and probably should have only done one minute. The sip is flat with a hint of alkaline and the start of the finish is the same. Once that initial taste wears off I’m left with a nice caramel brown sugar like taste that was nowhere in the sip. Sometimes flatness will wear off a few sips in for some teas, but I’m not having that luck with this one. There is also something that leaves my throat feeling almost irritated. It feels a little weird. I’m dumping this cup.

I’m liking this less this time. It was too hot, so I let it cool and came back to it when it was too cool. It’s citrusy with a flavor I can’t describe. Feeling pretty eh about this cup.

Huh. I had a cup of Lupicia’s Natsukoi earlier today and this reminds me a bit of that. It has a lemony taste to it with hints of lemongrass. The sip is a little sharp at the start before it mellows out. The finish is nice with lemon lingering. There is an almost gelatin like taste to it which I’m guessing is supposed to add a jello type jelly flavor. It is a totally acceptable inoffensive tea that I can sip in the evening, but isn’t exciting enough to run out and buy.

Does it count as a sipdown when I only had two bags of this to begin with? It smells amazing and rich in the bag. Once steeped the scent and flavor are much lighter. I get a little depth and richness from the sesame, but not as much as I’d hope for. I’d love for the flavors to be more bold. I feel like adding sugar had helped. I think I get more of the bread (what is bao bun bread called?) flavor popping out. The sesame is a little more pronounced, but still not as strong as I’d like. There is something translating to chocolate in the finish. I still get hints of alkaline in the sip and I’m not sure what that is about, but it’s at the front of the sip, not the finish like last time. I’m at a place this weekend that has well water, so I used bottled water for this cup. I do love the idea of this tea, but I’d like to have it with more umph. More umph, please!

This was the one black tea in this month’s Almost subscription. It does have a very light black sesame taste, but I have to search for it a little. I let this cup cool, then reheated it and I’m getting a flat alkaline taste. It was better when it was freshly made, but it still wasn’t amazing. In the finish I can imagine a little of the bao bread flavor. I think this is a really interesting idea for a tea, but the execution needs more work. The flavors need to be more rich and present.

Having conflicting feelings about this one! I’m usually not a huge fan of chamomile. It’s an ingredient that is often times companies don’t think to do much with blending wise. I do have a soft spot for Celestial Seasonings Vanilla Honey Chamomile, probably because the vanilla honey addition makes it more interesting. But onto this tea!
This smelled very boozy when I opened the bag. The first few sips started with various flavors and ended with chamomile, but as I sip on the cup seems to develop and the chamomile chills out. I don’t know that I’d exactly pin this as custard egg tart. It’s almost more of a crème brulee, which is close, but has more caramel flavors behind it. There is something else the flavors make me think of and I can’t put my finger on it. It’s going to bug me! LOL!

This arrived in the mail today! Looks like they gave up on photographing their teas in a different shape for each month. I thought that was a clever way to group the teas. They have three rooibos teas this month and one chamomile which means only two teas that are actual tea. Seems like an odd choice to me, but I am really glad this is a green rooibos tea. I’m actually pretty impressed with this blend. It has a really nice mango flavor to it with a touch of cream. Very dessert like. The flavor seems very clean and true with no weird lingering artificial bite. I happily drank my first cup of this then resteeped for another good cup. I like!

Sipdown (2613)!

As a ginger tea this was nice. It had a bit of a peppery heat to it that warmed from the belly up into the chest and throat, and the flavour level was pretty even-keeled. Not weak, but not too intense either. I could see it with honey on a cold day or if I was feeling a little bit sick. However, as a gingerbread tea I think it fails. It’s missing that iconic sweet molasses-y brown flavour, and it’s not nearly dense and heavy enough.

The picture on the front of the overwrap for this teabag is so far from looking like any typical gingerbread to me, so that was already very concerning as I went to brew this blend. Not surprisingly but, still, disappointingly this blend does not taste anything like gingerbread. What it does taste like it A LOT of star anise. I do love that flavour so when I go to have the last cup of it I think I’ll probably enjoy it more since I’ll be in the right mindset. However, in this moment I was just disappointed by how little ginger and molasses there was in this cup…

I had this tea so long ago at this point. Like, days before the database crash. So all my thoughts about it have sort of been wiped clean at this point, which is frustrating because I definitely had a lot of observations while drinking the tea! I guess for now all I’ll say is that this blend definitely possessed that sort of “sweet brown” sort of molasses-y caramel taste but that’s it’s kindddaaaa perfect for the concept. I do think it’s one of the nicest blends from Almost, and from what I can recall pretty accurate to the name.

Another blend where I love the concept but the execution is sort of just so-so. The oolong base is, I believe, the same as what was used in Amaretto Sweet. It’s actually a very nice base for a sachet, but IMO I think that Almost is using too much of it per sachet. The leaves were practically exploding out of the sachet after steeping and didn’t really look like they’d properly unfurled. Plus, the taste was very overwhelming. Very, very floral and green…

Floral and green isn’t bad, but I did feel like it was a bit intrusive. It was mostly the “green” element; with the type of lemon flavouring that was used I thought it made this read a bit like an under ripe lemon instead of a thick lemon curd. Something that could, I think to some, trigger associations with cleaning products were it more intense. I did really like the creamy finish and it was the element that I thought was most like the namesake – I just wish it were a little stronger.

Still a pretty good blend overall and it’s amazing how much complexity was able to be conveyed through such a simple ingredient list – but there were some small tweaks that could be made to (IMO) make this closer to what I imagine their desired result was.

Pretty agreed with Cameron B. on this one. It’s not quite banana bread, simply because it’s lacking that buttery cake-y quality and the banana is too sweet/candy like and creamy. I mean, no one in their right mind describes banana bread first and foremost as a creamy dessert. However, it’s really delicious when you don’t think about the name!

Totally banana flavoured Laffy Taffy vibes and that’s something I’m really into. I do think it’s a shame that it’s not exactly its namesake, but IMO I think Almost would have needed to use an entirely different type of banana flavouring in order to get closer to what they were going for. I’ve liked all the banana teas so far though! Would love to see their interpretation of something like a Banana Split. It feels like that would be well in their wheelhouse.

Undecided on this one…

The concept is so cool and I feel like it’s a really fun way to twist up a chocolate blend. Lord knows that Almost certainly has a lot of chocolate teas, so anything to make them feel differentiated is welcome in my books. However, Boston Cream Pie (the cake and the donut) seems like a much more complex flavour to execute that I think most people would assume. Primarily because there’s such a separation between the rich chocolate frosting and the creamy custard when you eat/experience them. Creating that separation in a tea? Ooph. Tough to make the flavours hit your palate at different times in different ways…

Anyway, all that to say… this is boozy. I mean, it tastes like chocolate and it tastes like cream and I feel like there’s the right amount of richness to the flavours while having a slightly more thick texture. Promising! But also it’s just such an alcoholic edge to all of that. I’m blaming it on too fresh flavouring that didn’t get the chance to properly air out before being packaged into the overwraps.

So, gonna wait before I make the last sachet and hopefully give the tea some time to settle into itself. We’ll see how the flavours read then…

I’m not usually a fan of oolong. It takes a really special one to not taste like steeped cardboard to me. This one is okay, which is good praise in the oolong department. The leaves expanded a lot in the bag and looked like they needed more room to stretch. There is a touch of licorice root in here to add some sweetness that linger in the finish, but not enough to identify it without reading the ingredients or taste like licorice in the cup. The amaretto is there and distinct, but that’s about all that is happening. Nothing that says cupcake, like what is pictured on the package and it leaves me wishing they developed and built on it more.

Sipdown (2657)!

I want to like this tea so badly, especially because the dry leaf aroma is really appetizing. Kind of like a raspberry gummy candy smell but mixed with an almost carnival/midway style lemonade. So inviting!

The steeped tea just has way too much flavouring in it though. First sips start of fine with a bright, sweet lemon lollipop note and a sweet raspberry taste to balance it out. By sip three or four it starts to REALLY coat the palate in an almost numbing and alcohol way that really emphasizes this more artificial and “fake tasting” side of the flavours. It was a shame, because I do think there was promise here.