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The last of the Secret Pumpkin teas from Lariel I’m trying tonight—I feel so doused in the season now! I love it (fall is the best)! It’s like I’ve had a three-course Thanksgiving meal where every course was a fall dessert, ha.

The maple in this is STRONG both aroma and flavor-wise. But it’s not bitter. I think the green rooibos in this is good stuff, makes the rooibos in general less noticeable/distracting/scented woodchippy.

The maple for me is strong enough that it evokes other things due to childhood association, primarily black walnuts. Memories of picking them up one by one off my neighbors’ driveway (the deal was we could keep them…there must’ve been a reason we didn’t just sweep them with a wide broom to collect them, but now years later it completely escapes me), then going out back with a sledgehammer to open them one by one. My cat playing with them in their rock-hard bristley shells by the fire in winter, the noise they made skittering across the living room. Some of my happiest seasonal memories of upstate.

P.S. The colorful maple leaf candies in this are adorable; I love how they’re visually echoed in the felt maple leaves that came in my Secret Pumpkin card.

Decided to make a real autumn taste testing night of it with my teas from Lariel, whee. Was nervous about this one—I like baked apple flavor in tea, but tart-fresh fruity apple in tea for some reason I hate (I don’t know why as I LOVE me a nice raw tart upstate apple). So I was crossing my fingers this was truly a pie apple flavor, not raw apple. And it is! There are pie spices and a cooked 20oz apple sort of flavor—it might be unconventional to say this, but it’s bitter-sweet instead of tart fruity-sweet (kind of similar to clove or unsweet cinnamon, which for all I know is in this, not sure), and I much prefer the former. As is often the case, the smell of the apple is stronger than the taste—the front of the sip tastes pretty weak, watery almost, then you realize it’s kind of like literal unsweetened fruit juice, subtle, and deepens and lingers at the end of the swallow. This is pretty good and a little like the Utopia Tea Berkshire Apple and Fig I tried recently, where the spices here give depth in a way similar to the fig jamminess of the latter. As it cools, the bitter spiciness comes forward and the apple takes a step back. I don’t taste much green tea, but it might be contributing to that specific sweet-bitter baked tart apple flavor. This is a nice fall tea. I have a feeling it would be fantastic cold steeped.

The first tea I’m trying from my first swap on the site, from my Secret Pumpkin Lariel! Thanks. (:

This smells insanely creamy steeping. Like you could cut through the air with a knife heavy cream-like. When I put my nose right up to the pot I get the pistachio. I don’t think I’ve had mulberry leaf in tea that I’ve noticed in my glass teapot before—at first I was like “What’s this? It looks a bit like oolong!” The color in the cup is surprising too, reminds me a little of guayusa, that sort of dark green soil-y hue.

Like with most David’s stuff I’ve tried the smell is quite powerful and then the taste is more subdued. This one’s better than many though in terms of living up to the aroma some. The nuttiness becomes more present as the tea cools a little. I like how there’s a slight saltiness both in smell and taste akin to, yep, a pistachio. Tasty! I don’t think I’ve actually had any tisanes from David’s come to think of it—which makes this extra cool as I often found myself unimpressed with the black bases they use for their flavored teas. That’s not a problem here, so goody.

I’ve been weirdly upset/emotional/stressed out lately for a handful of reasons (that IRS thing, my husband’s job stress, the holidays looming, my seasonal depression kicking in, still mourning my old coworker and friend, and a sick cat in our backyard I’m trying to save and worried is not going to make it and the ensuing feeling of being an inadequate decision-maker when something’s life is on the line, ugh), and tea and rediscovering musicians I loved and bonded with people over when I was younger are the two saving graces lately. I was getting a bit jumpy tonight after so much good black and green tea all day and this was just the thing to calm me down with its sweet, soothing herbal properties. Got the house to myself right now post-band practice, gonna keep watching comfort food stuff like X-Files now after writing in my diary and listening to Richard Buckner and Spiritualized for hours.

Smells so much of honey. I admit, I love black teas with natural honey notes (Golden Fleece and Honey Orchid are two of my favorites). Interesting it’s from Lincang; I could be imagining it but it seems to have that clean almost minty quality (albeit subtler) Loose and Luscious Lincang Pu Erh has. I really like it; it sets it apart. You don’t think it will work with sweet and “dark” flavors but it does.

I forgot what was in this, so I was very pleasantly surprised when I opened my sample packet and got that auto-soothing heady scent of bergamot. Figured it’d be a standard kinda heavy, smoky caravan-type blend. But no! There is a bitter smell though, made me worry it’d continue onto the sip and make the tea sharp, but so long as it stays pretty hot it’s not there. This tea is surprisingly light (I tend to associate Russian-labeled stuff as strong and relatively bitter, meant to take tons of sugar). The smokiness is not the ashy, musty kind many lapsangs have; it’s more like scorched firewood, barbecue smoke. Kind of a “wet”, fresh burn, if that makes any sense. I would drink this again! I often feel a tad self-conscious preferring so many of Upton’s blends that admit to having artificial flavors over their natural ones, but them’s the breaks.

Wow, you know how lots of green teas get billed as smelling/tasting like spinach? The truth is I rarely get that (snap pea and green bean yes, spinach no). But I do with this one! No metallic quality to go with it though, which is a big plus—it’s like the freshest, most tender baby spinach. It combines with this fantastic clean sweetness—so much natural sweetness in my teas today, whee. I thought I’d miss the roastiness I’m used to from some greens but the lack of it really lets the sweetness shine. This is a beautiful color in the cup too. Batting really high today with new teas—first I took Queen Catherine to the supermarket with me in my hourglass “flip” to-go steeper, let her hang in the car while I did my thing and by the time I was done shopping it was just the right temp. to drink and was duh-licious on the ride home, perked me right up. Then that Yezi was good AND unique, and this is scrumptious too.

Wow, this is really good. I can’t get over how naturally sweet it is. And it has this wonderful quality of feeling, bizarrely enough, both light and clean as well as bold and rich. It’s hard to explain. But this is beautiful. Often Steepster collectively feels like it prizes smooth black Chinese teas above all, and while I’ve enjoyed the zillions I’ve tried I get bored by a kind of…sameness to the most favored ones. This is a class apart though—for once no sweet potato! Really digging this.

This was a freebie Utopia sent me, forgot to cupboard it here, whoops. After so many unsuccessful apple teas I decided to straightaway only try this cold steeped, and I must say it’s really good that way, and perfect for the season—it’s like light, subtle cider, but with more going on, a warmth and fig-jamminess that’s great. Thirst-quenching and tasty. Even so I’m not sure I’ll try what’s left hot…you know me.

Had with afternoon tea hazelnut and jam ladyfingers, cuke cream cheese sandwiches, and Moulins Mahjoub artichoke spread on toast (I am in love with that stuff, going to be very sad when our jar’s empty…got it on sale at Zingerman’s this spring). Yummy.

So Harney’s seasonal promo came just in time; I tried a bunch of sample sizes of Steepster faves way earlier this year (March maybe?) and loved just about all of them but it’s only been lately I’ve been like “Oooh I need me some Tokyo/Boston/Florence/Tower of London/cold steeped Fruits d’Alsace” only to realize oh yeah, they were SAMPLE sized and I have none left. D: Knew I’d restock eventually but didn’t do so immediately because I had so many other teas to try first…but the time has come! I restocked my faves, was delighted to see their black tins are back in stock, and picked up lots of new stuff to sample, mainly breakfast-y black blends (How did I miss the first time that they have about a zillion?! All with neat names too…guess I was still in “exciting-sounding flavored tea” mode) as I’ve had a craving for them lately (have only recently switched to “really well done straight blended tea” mode).

I was also excited in a new way this go-round ‘cause this is the first time I’ve checked the site out and ordered after reading Michael Harney’s tea book (which was a very useful companion as I tried lots of different teas and needed a tetherline to help me map each’s place in the broader spectrum of tea around the globe). I did a good job of knocking out my to-try list of just about every major type of tea he describes (I love that he placed them in order of flavor strength too, helped a lot especially with oolongs which completely confounded me at first…I understood the different types but the way some are Taiwanese and some are Chinese and there’s overlap with the methods and names there but not entirely…well, let’s just say I was overwhelmed!), with a few straggling exceptions which I remedied this time (couldn’t find tencha easily from a source I felt confident ordering from, but H&S carries it…ditto old skool Formosa Oolong, the heavily oxidized kind that Rachel was nostalgic for…they carry every type he mentions naturally as it’s a guide for their line of teas not just tea in general).

This one had so much to live up to (there are some diehard fans on the site), and I think it does! Yay! I was very surprised how sweet this smells steeping; I could swear I smell vanilla in there but no one else mentions it in their notes so maybe I’m just hallucinating. Still…so strong, that rich sweet aroma. Sipping I’m pleased to find this is wonderfully smooth while still delivering that breakfast blend “TEA!”-flavored boldness. There’s also a wonderful subtle spiciness, nothing you can precisely put your finger on but it’s there, nice and rounded out by that smooth sweetness. At first I didn’t get any of the smokiness people keep mentioning, but then it comes out near the end of the sip and lingers—it’s a sweet smokiness that pairs perfectly with the initial vanilla aroma, not acrid at all. Delicious. I was skeptical of Harney’s ratings (they’re awesome BTW, wish more tea spots attempted to pinpoint their teas along those lines though I can understand how time consuming it’d be, and tastes vary), particularly the one that indicated very little astringency, but he’s right. Somehow you get all the classic black tea flavor but none of the astringency; it’s like a phantom where you sense the component out of remembering it tends to be inevitably linked to the other flavors, but it isn’t actually there. So this has a lot of the qualities that make me love Tower of London, the way it’s so easy-going to drink but still packs a ton of great intertwining flavors, but it feels stronger and a bit more complex, with deeper sorts of flavors. At the end you wind up with a mouthful of lingering “TEA!” taste, the sort of thing that lets you know you’ve had classic black tea and reminds you of why that’s so delicious. Satisfying and invigorating like breakfast blends should be, but also complex enough to make you dwell on all the flavors you’ve tasted like a good meal.

I’m inclined to agree with the folks who’ve mentioned Harney seems particularly good at doing breakfast-y black blends. Now I’m one of y’all and can invite Catherine over whenever I want, which pleases me to no end.