Evol Ving Ness Send Message

GCTTB

First tea of the day. Quite enjoying this nicely balanced blackberry and maple on a black base. I am not picking up any doughy goodness, but the maple sweetness and berry is enough to make my happiness complete.

Thanks, VariaTEA, for adding this to the box, and thank you also for noting that it needs a five minute steep to develop all the things. Otherwise, I would have given it a brief dipping as I tend to do with black teas in general and missed the boat entirely.

I had planned to come home in between my morning appointment and the rest of my daily agenda, but I had underestimated how much time would be spent waiting in the hospital waiting room and then in the examining room.

Hmm, now that I have read the rest of the reviews of this tea and discovered that the rest of the tea world hated it, I am wondering whether I was tricked into loving this by the half and half—the first bit of half and half I have consumed in months and months.

Enjoyed this on the go today. The light apple and even lighter cinnamon complement the sencha base well.

I am not the best one to review sencha as it is not a favourite or something I would reach for. The only reason that I reached for this one is that it was in my travel bag. And one of only two that were already bagged. And I was in a rush and needed immediate convenience. If I factored in the above criteria which it satisfied, my rating would be much higher.

2016 harvest

Apparently, I am going through a Darjeeling thing these days. I am not quite sure how or from whom this tea landed in my sample box, so my apologies to the lovely soul who sent a couple of spoons of this tea my way. Though you shall remain nameless, I appreciate you because this is a fine, yet unexpected, cup.

Here, I am picking up an appealing combination of custard, jasmine, and orange blossom on a light base, light as in black but veering in the direction of oolong green. Lovely.

Find myself wanting to eat all the chocolate today. I keep buying all the chocolate, so this is easy to do when I am at home.

I could have sworn I have a stack of chocolate teas for moments like these, but it took me forever to find one. I finally found this one in a cluster of those that I had divied out for Sil—yes, yes, that was three months ago— and was dismayed that this has green tea in it as well as black. In my experience, those green/black blends don’t turn out well, but hey, let’s give it a whirl.

It may be green and black, but steeped, it smells like pu’erh. Like others have noted, it tastes like watered down hot chocolate.

The flavour actually is good, but calling it Chocolate Delight sets up an expectation. Calling it something like Muddied Cocoa would be more accurate and less anxiety-provoking.

Currently eating caramel chocolate to assuage my disappointment.

That said, it is getting better as it gets cooler.

GCTTB

Quite enjoying my cup of this one. The flavour seems to modify every few minutes as it cools, alternating between stone fruit, muscatel, and soft tones of honey. The tea writeup claims dark chocolate, but I am not quite able to target that flavour in my sips. Clearly, more practice with darjeelings is needed.

Thank you, Mackie, for adding this one to the box.

I cannot believe that I haven’t yet written notes about this tea. It is one of my standbys—most especially when I want a good cup of tea for either home or to go and I don’t want to have to make a decision. Grabbing this one is always a win. The flavour is very juicy mango with just enough support for the black tea to come through in each sip. Let me say that again—-very juicy sweet and lovely mango. I always steep briefly, ie. two minutes or so, for best effect. And another plus, it travels nicely throughout the day in either my travel mug or thermos.