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I quite enjoyed this one today. It’s fading the slightest bit, but I’ve been on a chocolate roll lately so that fluffs things up. A bit of chocolate, quite a bit of pumpkin spice, very very little of the cheesecake element coming through. That said, if you ignore the name of the tea and dispose of your expectations, this is a lovely cup.

Going through a stretch of feeling poorly, so as today the temperature has decided to dive towards freezing again and as I will have to be some kind of productive this weekend, I am at home in my pyjamas drinking all the teas and eating all the things and staying warm and otherwise doing little. Hopefully, my resting is going to produce some energy to carry me through the necessary activities of the weekend. Here’s hoping.

This one is ok. I pulled it out because I had likely already reached my capacity of caffeine for the day unless I rally in the next hour or so and this one doesn’t have all that much actual tea in it. Nothing more to add aside from what I’ve already said.

GCTTB Six

I suspect that I have a sample packet of this around somewhere in the multiple places I keep tea. You know, multiple tea places to convince myself that I may not really have all that much tea. To convince myself that perhaps it might be ok to place a wee tea order when the next fab tea thing pops up. To convince myself that I don’t really have a problem.

There was enough leaf for two cups of this in the box. I am trying this tea for the first time.

Ahem, yes. So. This tea is a bit of an enigma. It’s as if my tastebuds are on a strobe light. Each sip alternates between smoke and peach and butterscotch and smoke and back around again. Occasionally, I get a mouthful that combines the flavours all at once. And then again, my tastebuds get confused. I don’t know what all that is about because I get the impression that the flavours are balanced and the tea is delicious. It is just a bit odd. I am wondering whether adding marshmallow—because who can argue with marshmallow—would buffer this a bit. Or perhaps a bit more of one particular tea base to gentle things up a bit here. I like the intensity of each of the flavours—that is to say, I don’t find that any of the flavours are too much, so I wouldn’t suggest reducing the amount added, but what can be done about the strobe light effect? Or is that a desirable thing? Or is that just me?

The next cup of this will determine how speedily I try to hunt down the packet that I most likely have. Yes, yes, Sil is going to remind me yet again to keep an excel chart.

Thank you, VariaTEA, for adding this to the box.

GCTTB6

Mmm, yeah. I started my day with this punchy tea. Malt with all capitals, but also a raisin or prune sweetness and intensity. A slight bit of dryness post-sip but a bit of honey too. I am very much enjoying this cup of goodness. It seems to be waking up cells that have been inert for a long while. Happily, I gave this one a brief steep, like two minutes. I suspect more steeping would not augur well. That said, I am adding this one to my shopping list because wow: damn fine tea.

I drank a charcoal roast oolong the other day and enjoyed it with chocolate. I am prolonging this ritual here. Chocolate and tea can be an awesome thing.

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

GCTTB

Sipdown.

Hurray! The box arrived. The foil packet closure of this tea was broken, so I sampled this one. There was just enough left for a cup. I didn’t detect any fruit flavours, just the faintest caramel with the slightest bit of fig over a slightly astringent base. Not rating this one.

I used to like Earl Greys quite a bit. Then the thrill wore off and I found myself avoiding them. Today, however, as I was deciding what to load my travel mug with, I grabbed this one. Not because I was craving the bergamot Earl Greyness of it, but I just thought that I will need to drink it eventually, so why not start today. Wow! Really, really good. The smoke and feisty intensity really appealed to me. In fact, appealed to me so much that I immediately made myself another cup when I came home. Delicious.

Continuing to cold steep this. It really is lovely when you manage to catch the pillowy marshmallow aspects in combination with all else here. Enjoyable and refreshing as a cold steep, but not necessarily a blend that I would feel the need to restock. I say this now, but let’s see how I feel after my sip down happens and a bit of time goes by. It is delicious and it is refreshing and it is a lovely thing to have handy when thirst urges you towards something just like this.

During the first couple of sips, my tastebuds were confused by, to me, the conflicting flavours of caramel, coffee, ginger, and orange. It seemed too much and too distracting. Too all over the place. Perhaps I feel this way because there is the slightest bit of a relationship to my beloved Coffee Caramel and then suddenly not. A few sips in though, I am quite enjoying this. Now on the second steep and I am quite enjoying this too.

Thanks for this, Sil. I appreciate having a chance to try this.

Really enjoyed this subtle lovely tea. Thank you for the sample, Sil.

This one is a winner in my books. Perfect balance of all the things. As odd as root beer tea sounds, it rocks: both in the balance of flavours and the tea supporting it all. Both the flavours and the tea itself have their place here in the sipping experience. Even the tingle on the end of the tongue happens. Don’t change a thing.

Side note—I love the word sarsaparilla in all its variations.