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I sprinkled a bit of raw sugar in this one.

This smells amazing dry and brewing, heady sweet strawberry. I rarely like strawberry flavored teas it seems, but With Open Eyes made a believer of me, and I love rhubarb, so…and come on, Bunny Grahams! So cute.

The first flavors here are sweet-tart berry that turns lush and jammy as it lingers in the mouth. The hibiscus is very well balanced—not too tart, but keeping the strawberry and pastry in check enough to really evoke the cooked filling of a rhubarb strawberry pie. There’s a magical fruit-floral combination (kind of like how really good fresh berries, the small wild ones you pick, smell like flowers, not just fruit) in the smell that also becomes the taste as it cools (and I couldn’t resist scooping some Bunny Graham mush out of the infuser basket for a taste, and it’s pumped full of that perfumed fruity flavor in a major way). I’m not getting tons of pastry or cinnamon/bakery spices here, a little as it cools (and what cinnamon I do taste does a good job of supporting and playing foil to the fruit flavor more than starring in itself…it lends a warming slight bitterness that really makes the fruit taste like cooked filling). And while that would just put it over the top, even without lots of it this tea is still gorgeous because of that heady floral perfectly balanced sweet-tart jamminess. I wish my rhubarb pie filling tasted this good. Also, and this might not sound like a plus but is in my case, the black tea base is so light as to be entirely in the wings. Normally I want to be able to taste the tea more, even with dessert flavored blends, but experience has taught me generally I don’t like the way black tea tastes with fruit, so this works just fine for me. Yummy!

EDIT: Actually, the crust comes out a lot more at the end of the cup, either through flavor build up or cooling, not sure. It’s light but sugary and lovely, a bit like a sugar cookie. Again, yummy!

Surprised to discover this resteeps ok too (with flavored blacks I often don’t even bother trying honestly, but hibiscus seems to do well resteeped so I went for it). Bonus!

Dry and brewing this smells utterly fantastic, full on floral peaches including that mysterious “peach pit” aroma, with an element of…fizziness somehow. Wow. I love how fresh fruit-sweet it smells, not sugary or syrupy. The fizzy quality also contains a tangy aspect that’s perfect, contributes to the fresh fruit/fizzy beer evocation. If this was a perfume I would wear it! Someone mentioned peach oatmeal and I can definitely see that. The interesting thing is, the taste definitely still has the flavor of tea. Its lightly bitter, tannic astringency gives the blend that beer quality (and the more it builds the more it does taste like hops…perhaps it melds with the hops somehow, but it turns from tea tannin to west coast IPA hoppy, pretty cool), but also reminds you it’s tea you’re drinking (a good thing, I think). Really nice stuff.

Delicious. It initially has that bit of salty, almost marshy quality the first few milk oolongs I tried had in spades, but it’s very faint, and is quickly overtaken once steeped by a luscious sweet creamy smell and taste that’s wonderful. I’m not quite sure I love it more than the Teavivre one I tried, but it’s wonderful, a creamy warm treat in a cup, and if I wind up loving other Mandala teas enough to place regular orders in the future I’d definitely pick up more of this. Resteeps wonderfully too, of course. I’m such a sucker for sweet, creamy oolongs.

Pu erh, here I come. I was a little freaked out by the dry and brewing smell of this, as it was in fact fishy to me. It wasn’t super strong or the worst thing ever or anything, but it was mildly unpleasant and I wondered what I’d gotten myself into (underneath the fish, there was some great stuff though—mushroom mostly). At first sip, I was impressed how light and silky the texture is, no astringency or bitterness, just smooth sweetness. As it cools a bit, leather comes out along with more mushroomy, mossy soil, and while that might sound offputting it’s wonderful. Right at the very end of the cup I start to get intense, dark bricky chocolate.

I’m wondering if I’m missing some vital information to avoid the initial fishy smell (it receded by the time I finished my first steep), something as obvious as a 10 second rinse first or something (I just cavalierly followed the instructions on the package, which mention they’re just general ones). If I can overcome that in the future, I can definitely see enjoying shus. The texture and the way the tea comes across as rich and silky but without that general sweet potato and malt thing going on most of the nicer blacks I’ve tried have (and which I confess I’m getting kind of bored by) is great. It’s so soft but also full of flavor. This seems to be the week of mushroom and wet bark tea love for me, ha.

The second steep smells a bit like classic beef and mushroom stew.

This is one of the samples Mandala generously sent me. So nice of them!

This brews up incredibly light, as to be expected given the nature of yellow tea. It’s a beautiful color in the cup. Smells fresh and wonderful dry and steeping. At first it was so, so light, but the flavor builds as you drink more of it. It’s way different from the yellow tea I had from Zen, which was surprisingly dark and tasted like if you took qualities from every basic kind of tea—black, green, white, and oolong—and mixed them all up. This is more the way I expected yellow tea to be—light, refreshing, with elements of green tea (nutty, buttery) and white tea (lightly floral, gently sweet) and none of the bitterness greens can sometimes have. It’s delicate and delicious, so sweet and clean tasting like sweet corn (it tastes like fresh corn silk smells, if that makes sense), but with a very subtle creamy nut element too. It would be perfect on a warm summer day; it calls to mind crisp sugary-sweet spring and summer vegetables. Yay!

I think I liked this one better than EGSs I’ve had from Harney and, IIRC, American Tea Room (actually I think I’m remembering ATR Earl Grey Sterling, which was bizarrely gross tasting…not sure if that was a bad sample though or what). It was good! But I’ve never had one I liked markedly more than “normal” ones, so it never seems to merit actually stocking. I liked the Original Whole Leaf EG from Upton I had earlier today about as much, case in point.

All that brisk tea tasting on an empty stomach made me jittery (I didn’t eat much for dinner last night, haven’t had an appetite), so here we are. This is pretty nice. The ginger isn’t in-your-face-fiery at all (the warm spiciness of it comes out in a lingering kind of way, at the end of the sip), and the rooibos is definitely present both in smell and taste. I agree with another review mentioning there’s a lemoniness here, and together with the ginger it reminds one of Ricola-ish cough drops. Soothing and soft. Not the best Butiki I’ve had but not bad.

It seems I never logged this despite having it maybe a week or so ago, oops. From memory: I was really surprised and bummed to find I don’t love this! It has the same thing that the Upton Natural Bergamot EG has, I suppose um, natural bergamot. Weirdly, it turns out I don’t like that! It has, yeah, the smell of bottles of cheap orange blossom water you get at the Mediterranean grocer, an aroma I go to great lengths (and maybe impossible ones now that A. Montaux has shuttered its orange blossom extract business :( ) to avoid when cooking and making cocktails. I guess the closest I can come to describing the distinction is that those bottles of orange blossom water are more floral in a kind of jasmine-y way (and I dislike jasmine), and the bergamot I like is cleaner, soapier, brighter. At the risk of sounding sexist I would say EGs like this and Lupicia’s feel more like feminine perfumes while the ones I like best are more like masculine colognes/aftershaves. Weird to discover when things have better/more natural bergamot I don’t care for them. Oh well.

This wasn’t bad, and that smell wasn’t as strong as it was in the Upton Imports Natural Bergamot EG. I could drink this again when/if I had to (I’m probabably going to send this to my tea buddy though, as a whole 4.4oz canister is an awful lot of tea for something you don’t adore!). But it’s definitely not a favorite. Again, I was very surprised. I have a feeling if you like the popular Lupicia EGs you’d probably like this one too.

Surprised how much I like this one. The last bunch of Earls I’ve tried I haven’t been as into, Upton and other companies included. And I’ve pretty much made my peace with the fact two of the very first I ever tried (Upton Imports Lavender and Creme Vanilla) are just going to be go-to and I probably won’t find others that clear that bar (Teajo Teas Silky Earl Grey also made me go “uh that’s it, shut it down, we have a winner folks” regarding the great Earl Gey Tea-Off I had going on), especially from Upton, that comfort me as much. But this one’s nice and basic, no bells and whistles but it delivers that tea flavor and clean element I want when I reach without thinking for an EG. No distractions or weird “bottled orange blossom essence” funk (and I do love bergamot, just not that specific manifestation of it). I could see picking a bit of this up whenever I’m restocking Lavender and Creme from Upton, as nice “don’t think about it” basic tea padding (you know, for mornings your tastebuds are impaired, or for going out of town and just wanting to bring SOMETHING).

Sometimes I wonder about how much mood/context plays a role in tea experience and appreciation. At times I can sort of tell no tea is going to get through to me because I’m in a foul mood or for some reason nothing, food included, tastes good for a couple days, and other times I feel like I’m so receptive and cheerful anything that isn’t dishwater is going to sit right with me. Hm. Feels like I may be having one of those days of the latter; it is Friday after all, no more trips for a few months so things are back to normal (I’m like an introvert about routine and homey plainness, if that makes sense…when I go too long without a nice stretch of time with that, I get squirrely, no matter how much I love traveling and doing new things), and tonight we’re meeting up with friends for Vietnamese food and then touring one of the haunted houses in the Victorian Village. Fun!

Seems I never added to this my cupboard when I received it ’cause it was a (crazy generous—they gave me a full 1oz bag!) free sample.

I’ve been embracing the notion of starting the day with brisk tea now that it’s cooler and darker and harder to want to get out of bed (in the summer, I usually don’t make a cup of tea until after lunch). I feel like I stumbled upon the ultimate Holy Grail version—Butiki’s The Black Lotus—but it’s SO good and so special I don’t want to over-rely on it only to get burned out (quelle horreur!) or just plain not be able to afford it or ruin my ability to ever tolerate anything else, ha. And I do love these kinds of teas generally when done right. So I’m going to clear out all my EBs and similar brisk morning teas this season, I think. This randomly called out to me first today.

And I’m glad it did! It’s really good. I know I must be imagining it but it feels like there’s the lightest bit of bergamot or something in it. Something clean and slightly floral, zesty. Probably just citrus peel but whatever it is, it’s delicious to smell and drink. And this is nicely balanced, bold and woody-astringent (tastes like there’s darjeeling or ceylon in this) but with a sweetness too, and that clean floral feeling that makes the astringency more palatable. There are some toasty malty qualities right at the tiptop of it, just enough to notice at all. For me, that’s great (I like malt but I also like what I tend to put on the other end of the spectrum out of personal history not actual taste accuracy necessarily, that light drying woodiness). I didn’t add milk or sugar and really enjoyed it. Looking forward to more (and touched Utopia gave me so much there can be a lot more!).