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This may be the only tea I get to rate for a while—it’s in my mom’s kitchen, and because of the F4 tornado in Southwest Missouri, my collection … uh … may be steeping the entire Missippi River.

What really matters, is we are safe because of miracles. God’s protection is amazing. The first person to meet us at the door of the hotel where we refugeed said, “Would you like a cup of tea?”

Beware! This tea will give you an uncontrollable urge to read Little Women!

(Just kidding. Sorta. I’m itching to go blow dust off my copy right now.)

Thanks to SimplyJen, I have just been introduced to what could be one of my favorite fruit teas ever! I’m getting more of a blueberry scent and taste than blackberry, but the cream/vanilla punctuation makes this really outstanding.

Hoping I can muster up the self-control to ration enough of this to try a small batch chilled.

This one is waiting for a full review at itsallabouttheleaf.com, but quite tasty—made a pot big enough to ice down when weather gets warm this afternoon, but I don’t think it’s going to last that long.

Tea friend ashmanra sent me a cup’s worth so I could compare to my old-faithful Monk’s Blend from Culinary Teas (Metropolitan/Mlesna). First, this is several years fresher than my old-faithful, so all the flavors are stronger - but the floral/bergamot vibe comes through first. I’m not normally a floral fan, but the vanilla balances it enough I don’t feel like I’m swigging my Mother’s Day bouquet water.

Thanks for the treat!

OK, I haven’t tried this, but it seemed like a fair place to post the beginnings of a backyard experiment. We have honeysuckle in bloom. LOTS of it. Copious amounts of it. Husband did a little research about the appropriate way to harvest and dry, so we’re going to attempt a little home alchemy to see if we can make our own blend-in. I’ll let you know if it’s a disaster!

Still experimenting with coconut as an add-in. It’s a plausible complement to this one, but seems to cancel out some of the tangerine’s tang, which is really light in this blend anyway. But warm and light and pleasant all the same.

Better now that I backed off quantity and water temp. Very traditional oakey-smokey green, as advertised on the website. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Wasn’t being particularly careful and let this go a little bitter; think the water was too hot. Still smells nice and tangy, and is a plausible substitute for its caffeinated counterpart.

Following a hint from cofftea, I doctored this up with some unsweetened coconut chips. Need to work on the proportions a little more, but it was a nice combo! May have to back off on the lemongrass, because this is pretty strong.

“Surprising body” in the tea description must be a euphemism for “man, this stuff is strong!” Whatever I did, I did wrong because this is putting wrinkles in my tongue! (But I guess it’s doing it’s job if it’s waking me up, pleasantly or otherwise.) Do-overs pending.