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So I’ve been in a Tea Funk. I pretty much had to force myself to make this but I did. And it was delicious as always. And my girlfriend got me a cute little Danish blue infuser mug with a saucer for my birthday so now I have a new go-to mug, and I’d say my tea funk is on the way to being over now.

Thanks to Rachel for this sample! This is my first matcha ever and it is so awesome! I know I mention in most of my tasting notes that I am not an iced tea drinker. But I wish I liked it, because when I want to really get some caffeine in, iced tea is a quicker vehicle for it and much more refreshing.

Well, this isn’t an iced tea exactly, but it’s a refreshing cold tea. Rachel sent the matcha powder to me in a nicely folded aluminum square. I couldn’t help but feel like a drug user unfolding my little aluminum packet of powder. LOL I took a swig from my water bottle to make room, added my typical two packets of Splenda, and dumped all the matcha into the water bottle. I shook it up and said a prayer.

It’s so good! It’s better than any iced tea I’ve ever had! The taste is light, and refreshing, and berry-ish. It makes me happy. I was afraid it would taste like Snapple or Crystal Lite or something but I should never have doubted. Someday I’ll buy my own matcha and I’ll have my own cold caffeine vehicle.

Just wanted to throw in another tasting note, since I had this yesterday and today. It’s a real staple for us. My girlfriend is always asking me to make her some “graveyard.” She’s so spoiled to the point that when I made her some dessert tea that wasn’t as good as Graveyard Mist she dumped it out rather than finish it!

I guess I’m not much of a dessert tea person after all. I really don’t know why this is called White Chocolate Tiramisu, either. It contains coconut, almonds, and cocoa, and is a mix of black and green teas. The tea flavor itself is a little thin. I can taste the coconut, but not much else, although it isn’t substantial enough for this to count as a coconut tea. I really don’t get much almond or chocolate. I thought it was just OK and drank all of my cup, but I’ll probably sample it out to people I swap with, since I have less than an ounce left. :-)

One thing I find that Simpson & Vail is really good at is creating teas with one extra flavoring ingredient and making them delicious (one fine example: their hazelnut tea). This is shown in this coconut blend. When I look at the dry leaf, the coconut is a fresh bright white, and when I drink the tea, I can taste that fresh coconut! It’s delicious. I drink it sweetened with no milk, but I bet it would taste really decadent with some coconut milk in it. This tea is highly fragrant and I recommend that if you purchase it you get it out of the paper bag and into a tin right away before it makes all your other teas smell like coconut. Just a word from the wise. ;-)

I had this last night, and unfortunately I can barely remember what happened five minutes ago, let along a whole 15 hours ago. But I do remember some things about this tea. It was delicious. I did sweeten it, which brought out the sugary creaminess that was layered over the medium bodied black tea flavor. I loved this and will have it again.

This is more like it. I bought a nice fresh four-oz. bag of my favorite version of hazelnut, Simpson & Vail’s. They have never let me down. See my previous tasting note. I was so happy to have my new supply, I practically gulped it down.

This is another mild, coconutty green from Harney & Sons, although it does have its own personality. The main flavor I get here, as you can guess, is coconut, along with a fresh, light, green tea. There is a slight smooth strawberry hitchhiking along with the coconut, but it’s not in the forefront by any means. I do not taste the popped rice. Very pleasant. I’ve had it with sweetener and without. I think it needs sweetener to bring out the flavors, but take that with a grain of “sugar” knowing that I have a major sweet tooth! :-)

OH! And I’m glad I bought it, because they donate half of every sale to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis fight against AIDS. Love Life!

There’s kind of a toasty smell and taste to this tea, along with the orange flavor. I guess I agree with the other tasting notes that the orange flavor is a little bit artificial, but it’s not like Tang or anything. I would rate this tea as an “OK.”

Since I was snapping up all the Graveyard Mist I could afford, and Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha was on offer at the same time, I bought two orders of that as well. I love teas with marshmallow root and was interested in trying the genmaicha with the toasted rice.

When I drank this tea, I recognized the flavor right away. First of all because of the toasty rice flavor, and secondly because I sweetened it, it tasted exactly like Super Golden Crisp cereal to me. I am not a huge fan of Super Golden Crisp cereal, but I kind of like this tea. I might trade away the unopened bag because it feels wrong to hang onto two bags of something that I only kind of like, though, especially since the supply was so limited.