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Tried this last night while watching A Little Princess (I’ve been on a holiday season “feel-good classic movies from my youth” bender before bedtime). This was quite enjoyable—it really does have a sweet carrot flavor (it takes a while to emerge; it built up enough to be quite noticeable around the middle of the cup), and you even somehow get cream cheese icing (!). It does taste rather sweet especially by the end of the cup. But I was pretty impressed; carrot cake seems a hard thing to pull off, and somewhat unusual.

This was a very generously sized sample Garret managed to throw in somehow at my request in the midst of holiday madness. Mandala’s customer service is top notch!

This has all those malty smooth qualities good starchy Chinese black teas possess, but also aspects of legacy-style breakfast teas in that it’s strong with the merest hint of breakfast blend astringency and a woodiness that emerges at the end of the sip and builds gradually. A nice everyday-type morning tea, the sort of thing you could replace a mandatory cup of coffee first thing-type habit with. Its subtler charms come out the more you drink it. It has a sweet cleanness in the aftertaste that’s unexpected and a nice counterpoint to the upfront smooth starchiness. I enjoy these “go-between” type teas that have parts of both worlds in the basic black tea market.

ETA: Forgot to say earlier too that this is a very pretty leaf, long and unbroken, lovely both dry and steeped. I just seem to extra appreciate that quality in brisk morning teas because it feels so relatively unusual and overlooked, unnecessary in the haze of caffeinating oneself. It always makes me smile though when I encounter it.

Another Nina’s from JustJames! Finally have some alone time tonight to get a headrush from all these goodies, yay. Thank you!

This smells pretty good dry and steeping; it’s light and creamy, with a little more orange than chocolate (makes me think of a creamsicle but with a fresher orange component), all soft and sweet, unlike the fresh-zesty-candy-sit-up-and-take-notice intensity of a Terry’s chocolate orange (and hence unlike Butiki’s Three Friends). The texture is wonderful, so creamy. It really does feel like a well done creamsicle tea to me. There is chocolate but it’s not the intense kind; it’s light and, I keep using this word over and over, creamy. It comes out more in the finished tea’s flavor and nose-right-up-to-the-cup aroma than while steeping. I’ve yet to find an orange creamsicle tea I like or many at all period (I don’t count Butiki’s because of its unique tangerine flavor, which is a plus not a minus but hence doesn’t place it in the “creamsicles from my childhood” category), so this is a pleasant surprise. Everything fits well together and I like how the chocolate doesn’t steal the show from the orange or cream at all, plays just right with it.

Another fancypants French tea from JustJames! Thank you! My first Nina’s Paris tea, whee.

Such a romantic name for a tea, hee. This has a very fresh berry scent (particularly raspberry, one of my favorites, yum…I used to like Bigelow Raspberry Royale as a kid) dry and steeping. Tantalizing. Makes me think of being a kid with a friend down the block with a backyard full of bramble bushes, picking all sorts of sun-warmed juicy berries in the summer. The citrus goes really well with the fresh berry notes; you worry it might end up TOO bright veering toward tart, but it’s not. Nice and smooth, with the black tea faint but steadily present in the background, grounding everything, keeping it from being too sharp. Berry teas (and citrus ones for that matter) are very hit or miss for me when paired with black bases, and this is a lovely one. No bitterness or puckering, just fragrant and light which is what a fresh berry tea needs as it’s not a heavy cold weather-type flavor for me. Reminds me a little of some of Harney’s nicest fruity black teas. Very happy this first Nina’s is a hit!

An amazing surprise treat from JustJames! Our swap was loosely French themed, so now I have lots of beautiful Nina’s Paris, Mariage Freres, and Dammann Freres goodies to try (!!) and that wasn’t even all of it! I tip my hat to you, sir. (:

This is surprisingly subtle—if you’re expecting over-the-top-rich-roasty-nuttiness or sweetness a la Florence and its ilk, you may be disappointed. But this rewards those who like evocation more than straight up flavor replication, if that makes sense. There’s a woodiness here I quite like (you know me!), and a gentle warmth. Kinda like crawling up to your grandma’s attic and opening up her wooden chests full of pretty things. The roastiness comes out slowly and feels very genuine, not like an added-on flavor dimension so much as an inherent foundational component. This is very comforting, not the sugar dessert bomb I thought it might be but instead something a lot gentler but also subtly deeper. Deeply soothing. I enjoyed it with the chocolate from my Advent calendar late tonight, and it was perfect.

Resteeps like a dream too, and I’m usually pretty picky about that sort of thing.

Smells wonderful, reminds me of the chocolate cake liqueur my girlfriends were on about a couple years back. You’d think the rose element might be kind of weird, but it makes it seem like a fancier chocolate cake flavor, a more feminine one. It’s not strong, just a backdrop that gives the thing some soft complexity in a welcome way. Such a nice guilty pleasure. I could definitely turn this into a nighttime staple when I have a sweet tooth—it is quite a sweet tisane, yum! Yeah, I think I’m marking this in the “could definitely reorder” category.

BTW, I love that Fusion Teas puts the individually tailored steeping directions for their teas right on the bags, even for samples.

So far so good with Fusion Teas, a company I’d not tried until Black Friday sales but had been curious about for a while. I’ve been impressed and pleased with how carefully and flavorfully blended their stuff is.

I messed this one up so I’m reserving judgment. Thought it was a black tea because just about everything else in my massive DT sampler haul is and only realized my mistake once I saw the brewed leaves and color in the pot. Even so, it was pretty good, so I’ve a feeling I’ll be pleased when I treat this properly.

I was worried this one’d be disappointing because the 4oz size was on massive discount and I’ve been longing for more fig teas. But luckily it’s great. You have to be careful not to oversteep—the second cup edged toward overbrewed because I didn’t remove the infuser on time—but it’s a smooth, rich, wonderful cup, not too heavily spiced, just right, and you can really taste the fig (the few fig teas I’ve tried haven’t always delivered on that beyond smell). No regrets! Husband noticed the jump in quality too (we’d been drinking cheaper also flavored tea earlier in the day).

I am DROWNING in tea. I have a feeling my logs for a while are going to be brief and to the point, simply marking for posterity whether I like something or not. Just so many to go through. Lord, no more tea for a year! But it’s nice to have so much to try…

This has that soapiness I’ve learned happens when you put lemongrass in tea, but it’s light, and the rest of the blend makes up for it. Got the husband-approved “mmmm!” response. It is excellent at what chai’s good for, warming you from the inside out, but without the heaviness and clove-iness some chai blends have, instead a brightness and freshness from the Thai ingredient profile. Just unusual enough to stand out. I like!

Thennn we went on an American Horror Story bender (most of my pals have been talking about it, so) and I needed a big pot of no-caf tea for that, so some beloved Fauchon, yet more from Dexter3657, and all was right. (:

The rooibos is definitely present here, but it works well with the other aromas and flavors (it doesn’t taste anything like Butiki Coconut Cream Pie but reminds me of it in that it uses the rooibos flavor upfront, acknowledges it, doesn’t try to mask it). For some reason the taste just makes you think of crunchy orange fall leaves. There’s a sort of crispiness, a something-was-fresh-and-then-it-was-dried-and-now-it’s-disintegrating tone somehow. That maybe sounds gross but I don’t mean it super literally. It’s just a feeling. Fauchon is great at evoking complicated feelings through scent, at least for me. Hard to describe or explain.