T Kettle

This tea is tasteless, I tried with different kind of bottle water, same results. Very disappointed. I even tried to brew with lower temperature with different amount of leaves. Conclusion: do not buy this tea, it a waste of money. Always the same stale taste that I can’t even describe how the single flavour taste.

Strange VariaTEA TTB: Tea 12

Ended up finishing off the package of this, which I made as a latte. It wasn’t bad. Wasn’t overly good either. Sort of made me think of maple oatmeal with lots of cinnamon.

Strange VariaTEA TTB: Tea 11

The stevia is strong in this one so I’m glad I caught that in the ingredients list and only made a small cup. It’s blueberry jam color with stevia and just a lot of sweetness. Like cloying. This is a pass for me but glad I got to try it!

Strange VariaTEA TTB: Tea 10

Started my morning with this. It’s not bad. Sweet, but given it’s a maple tea that isn’t surprising. I also taste the oolong base which pairs nicely with the maple sweetness. I sort of get French toast as well. Overall, this is alright but not one I personally need again.

Strange VariaTEA TTB: Tea 7

One of the Instagram participants added T Kettle teas to the box. Seeing as I still haven’t gotten around to trying any, I was pretty happy to see those. However, I cold brewed this one and we aren’t off to a great start. This is very earthy from the beetroot but then had carrot sweetness hit you at the back of your throat. Then there is something nutty here too and it’s the sort of nutty flavour that had me completely turned off from Forever Nuts – yet I don’t know what’s creating that quality here. All in all, I am just not liking this very much.

this is the best tea i have ever had in my entire life i would go as far to say this is e best beverage i have ever had i don’t think anything will ever a mint to the feeling i got when i tried this for the first time that first sip is something unforgettable i cannot stop thinking about this tea

Bought this tea on a whim during my recent visit to Calgary, Alberta Canada. I love bringing back tea souvenirs from my vacations. Also picked up a nifty little yunomi teacup from a really cool Japanese chain there called Oomomo.

The first thing to note about this tea is the smell. It is incredibly potent. Even without opening the bag, you can smell the watermelon candy from a mile away. The dry leaves, interspersed with pink ribbons (flowers?) and dried citrus rind, are quite beautiful to look at. Aroma is reminiscent of watermelon, Jolly Rancher candy, root beer, and soda. I had to double bag it because it was making my entire tea drawer smell like watermelon.

Ambient brewed the tea for a little over 2 hours and then served over ice. I was worried it might be too overpowering but the flavor was surprisingly balanced for such a strong scented tea. Juicy watermelon with a hard candy sweetness and hint of bubblegum flavor. Citrusy finish. The watermelon flavoring is pretty natural and not artificial or cloying. Pretty much nails the flavor it was going for.

Last T Kettle blend for now – may explore some of the flavours I missed in the future, but I think I ended up sipping through around 90 of their teas so I do feel like I got a really good sense of what the company is about/their direction and blend style/and their strong suits…

For a Serenity Now recreation, which is honestly a tea with a lot of layered flavours that probably shouldn’t work because of how all over the place it is (and yet, it does), this is actually a pretty good version of the profile. It feels thinner overall in terms of body, and is missing some of the “low” fruit notes and density of flavour that Serenity Now has – but the overall flavours are here: a bright “top note” strawberry, soft lavender, and a hint of spearmint in the finish. It’s sharper/more high notes and less cooling in the end sip – also a little more noticeable apple flavour. But overall? Good and enjoyable.

No surprises that I left the Sencha to (second) last. I typically hate Sencha.

This actually isn’t as unpleasant to me as most Sencha is – like, I got through the whole mug with very minimal fuss. However, that’s for two key reasons I think – the first being that the tea is just pretty flat/dull. It tastes like maybe it’s not the freshest!? The second, though, is that I’m not entirely convinced it’s actually a Sencha – looking at the tea leaves, both dry and steeped, it just looks so much more consistent with a bancha green tea…

So, yeah.

A less good Headache Halo…

This one makes me about as sad the the Bee The Change dupe made me – I watched my coworker put so much effort and research into creating Headache Halo. That blend was deeply personal to her, with origins reaching back to her childhood. Seeing it recreated so blatantly (and poorly) just feels gross.

The taste on this is just very unbalanced – it’s a whole lot of spearmint and nettle in a way that comes off as a little skunky/too herbaceous and also cloyingly sweet and coating. If they had dialed back some of the ingredient ratios, maybe this would taste alright. But I just find this to be a messy blend overall.

Just a few more T Kettle blends to write notes for – I didn’t try all of their teas but a very significant chunk of their website, and now I just have tasting notes for the last few stragglers from that initial sampling…

This is very clearly modeled after Caribbean Crush from DT – it’s one of the most overt of the T Kettle “dupes”. As a stand alone tea, it’s not bad at all – sweet tropical pineapple and red berry with some vanilla undertones. The finish is a smidge soapy to me, and I can’t place exactly what that’s coming from. As a side by side against Caribbean Crush, I find this doesn’t make as strong of an impression – it just lacks a lot of the juiciness of Caribbean Crush and overall the taste/mouthfeel is just thinner. There’s also a much more overt vanilla/cream flavouring in this blend – and while there is cream flavouring in Caribbean Crush it’s not really there to make the blend taste creamy – y’know!? So it feels a touch out of place here.

So this is the T Kettle “dupe” for DT’s Valerian Nights…

When I steeped this up my first sip really caught me off guard because the steeped tea is actually very fruity – both from the apple in the blend but greater than that. I swear it tasted like pineapple. Sweet, tropical pineapple flavouring style pineapple – like what you might find in a “Pina Colada” inspired tea blend. The result, because this tea DOES have a lot of coconut in it, was that it did indeed taste a bit like a Pina Colada. For that reason alone, it’s a terrible flavour match – Valerian Nights is a very sweet caramel/coconut kind of taste and not at all fruity.

…however, I do like pineapple a lot so this bright and sweet Pina Colada adjacent type of profile was actually pretty tasty to me.

I am certainly not a matcha expert and, in full transparency, I don’t drink a lot of straight matcha either – but I thought this was actually pretty good! It’s very smooth and froths up pretty nicely/thickly with a light vegetal snow pea note and a little unctuous umami creaminess. The texture could be a little smoother/softer, especially for a “Ceremonial Grade” but the taste didn’t disappoint – which is good, because the mint matcha from T Kettle was rough…

That said – I find the price point a little high for the quality.

Very, very standard Earl Grey and not much to write about here. Heavy on the bergamot for my tastes, but probably normal for most – the cup has body and a decent amount of tannin to it, indicating to me this would be great with milk and/or sugar. The finish is a little metallic/brassy, but not enough to bother.

Thankfully not skunky, unlike that truly gnarly Grapefruit Earl Grey (it might have been called something else – it’s been a while since I had it) that I tried a while back from T Kettle…

Clearly T Kettle’s take on DT’s Mother’s Little Helper – chamomile, mint, hibby, and Valerian.

It’s not a great recreation, but the reason it fails at recreating the DT blend are actually the reasons why I think I prefer it more. Mother’s Little Helper has such strong and sharp/bold flavours. The mint is crisp and menthol heavy, the hibiscus saturated and berry like, and the chamomile thick on its distinct floral character. Personally, I find all those distinct flavours cacophonous and disconnected. In this case, it’s the same main set of flavours but they’re all much milder and weaker – it creates a gentler blend overall and while I still don’t find them necessarily complimentary it’s just easier for my palate to accept overall.

Arguably the nicest straight tea/tisane I’ve tried from T Kettle thus far, and that doesn’t surprise me since I’ve found it pretty enjoyable in the majority of the rooibos blends I’ve tried from them thus far – they seem to be using this same standard through their blends…

It’s sweet and honeyed with bits of graham and hazelnut and a little pinch of minerality as well. I know red rooibos is not for everyone, and this is pretty “standard” red rooibos profile so that would probably hold true for this tea. However, I quite like red rooibos so this works for me as a simple, enjoyable caffeine free option.

Last T Kettle blend of the night! I’m excited to be ending on one that looks to actually be more of a unique to T Kettle creation…

There’s a catalog blend from MTC called “Bourbon St. Vanilla” and I feel like this probably started as that tea, but it’s definitely a bit different – especially in the very gorgeous visual of the tea. I really love how they incorporated all the colours of Mardis Gras into the visual of the blend; it’s such stunning story telling and tie in to the name. The Bourbon St. Vanilla blend, while not the most exciting flavour, does kind of feel exciting in a similar way – it’s named after Bourbon Street in New Orleans, but the name is also a riff on that “bourbon vanilla” profile that was quite commercial and popular at one point. This takes that wordplay to the next level, and I respect it.

The taste is similar to the fondant-like or “doughy” vanilla flavour that I experienced in their Birthday Party blend – it may even be the same flavouring. I personally do not like that style of vanilla type flavour, but I know there’s a large amount of people who respond really well to it so it makes sense I guess to keep it consistent. Not an unpleasant tea overall, and preferable to me over Birthday Party – but not something I’d feel compelled to have again.

But, again, I just think this is a super fun interpretation of that classic MTC blend. If more of T Kettle’s blends were in this vein, I think I’d have a lot more fun with their approach to tea…

…this is basically just like a less intensely sweet version of T Kettle’s True North blend, which is their other maple rooibos blend. Because, y’know, they needed two of them!? I honestly prefer this one, the other way cloying. However, it’s a bit of a sad maple flavour. Not a half bad tea overall though.

Oh… no.

This is clearly meant to be Cold 911, but it’s a very weird take on it. Definitely does not have anywhere close to the same level of Vick’s Vapor Rub “punch” to it and I suppose for some people that would be good in terms of taste, but it definitely isn’t as effective in terms of the wellness benefits, y’know? Like I don’t drink Cold 911 for the taste typically – I taste it because I want to feel face fucked by the eucalyptus.

The issue I have with this tea though isn’t primarily the lack of intensity. It’s that it seems to have a cream note/flavour in it!? And I just don’t understand why you would want a peppermint/eucalyptus tea to taste creamy!? It’s like straight up toothpaste and I just cannot handle it.

My mind is elsewhere tonight, so apologies if tasting notes are… jumbled…

This isn’t anything exciting, but dang if it doesn’t taste like 90s nostalgia! It’s got that distinct hibiscus tartness that it sort of trying to replicate the taste of berry, but in this case it mostly succeeds in conveying the flavour of a very tart and juicy strawberry. I want more kiwi, but I do get some and that’s just enough to poke my in the nostalgia bone. More body would be nice, I’m skeptical if this could hold up to being iced – but overall I did enjoy the blend.

In today’s episode of “What the hell is up with T Kettle’s copy writing!?” I’m both trying to figure out what their obsession with comparing things to tasting like toast is while also trying to mentally digest the phrase “full frontal lavender”…

The tea itself was pretty nice though – I think the lavender tastes pretty nice quality. It’s clear and pretty strong, but not soapy or too much like perfume, and it works nicely with the honeyed notes of the rooibos. It’s pretty straight forward – I did not taste much in the way of coconut. I didn’t mind the simple and well executed single flavour note. I’m not a massive lover of lavender, but if I was in the mood for it I think this would definitely satisfy that craving!

Noticing a trend with some of the straight teas from T Kettle in that so far the overwhelming majority of them have been inoffensive but incredibly flat/bland without much life to them. This is definitely true here – no off notes to speak of, but the tea was so unremarkable that I just cannot remember what it tasted like. It’s almost as if they’re all just super old and stale…

Honestly not much to say here because this flavour combo is so classic and so overdone that I feel like I’ve tasted practically every variation of it under the sun. This tasted just fine, and not offensive like some of the other teas with bergamot that I’ve tried from T Kettle thus far. It’s not really a tea type that I personally seek, and if I was feeling a EG Cream like this I think I would want one with a much stronger cream flavour – this was fairly mild. However, I have no complaints aside from the intensity of the cream which honestly not a complaint. Just a personal preference.