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I haven’t had this tea in a long while, but occasionally I get these moments of panic when I remember how quickly DTs with coconut go off. Drink all the coconut teas. Drink them now.

This is the tea I put in my timolino for the tea festival today and forgot all about it. There was far too much tea to sample and far too much to talk about with newly met tea friends there. A lovely day.

Milk + camomile = yuck.
Milk + (Apple) Custard (tea)= divine. Truly truly divine.
Rich smooth vanilla with spiced apple notes
Based on this tea moment alone, I would rate this at 100.

Used more leaf than usual and cooler water as usual.

Cinnamon scent and taste. The strawberry flavour is gentle. I am not detecting any cream.

In my perfect world, I would prefer more strawberry and less cinnamon.

As an experiment, I added a spoon of honey to see whether it would bring the strawberry flavour up a bit, and it did, perhaps a little.

Came across a sample of this.

Smells good. A bit hot chocolatey.

The taste is a bit thin on the chocolate. Not much on the chili or chai spice either.
Slightest bit of heat at the end of the sip, but I wouldn’t know if I weren’t looking for it.

The base doesn’t thrill me. It doesn’t stand up to a second steep. Also, a bit of astringency although I didn’t steep over three minutes on the first steep.

Mild tea. I wonder how it would be with a pinch of Lapsang Souchong for a bit of smoke and burn? In which case, I’d need to add a bit more Aleppo Pepper too.

Shake, shake, shake. I reach into the bag with my teaspoon to spoon the leaf into my steeper and somehow I managed to drop and fling the very last cranberry somewhere. I looked everywhere and that cranberry just would not be found. How very sad.

I love this tea. Everything about it works for me. Nice degree of tartness. Just the barest hint of cinnamon. A dash of cream.

Yes, this favourite is rapidly disappearing.

Just the right one for my 100th note.

I am really enjoying this one today.

When I first tried it in autumn, it seemed just ok. The whole pumpkin fever thing is pretty much beyond me. I don’t get it. Usually the teas are just all about pumpkin spice. What, really? That’s what people get excited about?

Today I reached for this one as an evening tea, and gave the bag a good shake and then another good shake. I steeped using cooler water and longer than I usually do: perhaps five to eight minutes? Anyway, the result is good. Far better than what I recall it being. Here I am tasting the medley of pumpkin spice, but possibly pumpkin with them, in addition to maple and cream. Rooibos is a good base choice.

Now that the pumpkin fever of autumn is over, I find myself craving the odd pumpkin tea, like this one from time to time. Nice cup.

I made the mistake of preparing this initially with boiling water. Oops.

Lovely leaf—curly, slender, and wiry.

In that first cup, I tasted very very faint sweet notes: apple, more rum than brandy, and the slightest hint of cream. A bit astringent despite a short two-minute steep. The cream note is along the lines of ice cream. I am not sure how the flavour is so faint and yet each sip leaves the vaguest of sweetness on my lips.

I’d like to note that I am finding these flavours because I am looking for them based on the name of the tea. Otherwise, I likely wouldn’t be able to identify them.

On the second steep with slightly cooler water, the flavour of the tea comes up nicely with a hint of apple. I taste houjicha rather than oolong. Odd. Is it a blend? Or am I missing something? Is my inexperience showing?

My leaf is from a sample. Thankfully, I have enough for maybe one more cup left. I think slightly cooler than boiling is the way to go with this tea. My rating reflects optimism that the next cup will be far better with cooler water from the get go.

Fighting to get on some sort of reasonable sleeping schedule again. So easy to fall off the wagon.

This tastes like peppermint and lemony camomile with the slightest hint of valerian bitterness. I’d like a bit more hibiscus or rose hip tartness. Like a classic sleepytime tea with a sledgehammer hiding in the back room.

High marks for getting the job done.

I haven’t been craving green teas much lately, but tonight I had a searingly hot butter chicken roti for dinner. This has been an excellent match.

Mango. Roasted Rice. Green Tea. Win.

The mango in this tea is the fresh and juicy fruit but also the slightest bit of bitter peel.
Very enjoyable cup.

I really need to reach for it far more often.

Yes, pretty much like vanilla cake batter frolicking on top of red rooibos. Enjoyable.

That said, this tea is very much in the same family as QTT’s Snowflake rooibos and DT’s Birthday Cake, Creme Caramel, and even maplely Oh Canada.

A teeny bit different, yes. But very much the same.

Edit—now that I’ve read the notes of others, I am wondering where my strawberry flavours went. Nope, none in this cup.