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Are you kidding me with this? Hot Lips? I got this in a swap from Awkward Soul (thank you!) and I waited until I was in just the right mood to try it because I was expecting it to blow my socks off.

I’m one of those people who orders everything “mild” from the Chinese and Thai menus. I’m a WUSS. And the only thing I could think of when I drank this tea was that old garbage bag commercial, “Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy!” I barely even got any cinnamon flavor at all! Here I was nervous about those chilis or whatever, and I couldn’t even taste the cinnamon. Huh. Maybe all that Hot Cinnamon Sunset that I used to drink from Harney & Sons really toughened me up.

Second tasting note on this. I still really like it. I have discovered that I am a Sencha fan, which is a good thing because as Awkward Soul noted, so many green tea blends use it as a base. Awkward Soul gave me a pretty generous sample of this so I should get at least two if not three more cups out of it! Thanks again!

Gosh darn it all to heck, I wrote this long tasting note and the Steepster Gremlins ate it.

So this is the last of my sample from Awkward Soul. Thanks!

I was called away from my tea and came back 45 minutes later and drank it really cold. I don’t like iced tea but I found this to be really, really enjoyable. I’m conflicted. I bought one of those iced tea makers once and hated the result. Maybe I do like iced tea but I just don’t know how to make it? Maybe I’m just scarred from my mom’s Lipton sun tea? I need some tea counseling.

I actually really liked this one. I had a cold when drinking it but I could taste the fresh cherries and whatever gives it that “black forest cake” feel. Nice tea background too; I’m getting pickier and pickier about that.

I can’t be all poetic about the flavor, because I had a cold when I tried this tea. But it’s a keeper. To me, it was just a good solid black tea. Kind of like the Chinese Folgers of the tea world. I’m keeping it to drink straight and also to mix with other teas to stretch them out or if they have too much flavoring.

All I can tell you about my impressions of this tea is that it smelled just like asparagus to me, and it tasted like sweet asparagus when I drank it. I imagine if I hadn’t sweetened it, it would have had an entirely different flavor profile (unsweetened asparagus) but I don’t really think I’ll be experimenting. This will go on the swap list.

Gosh I really like this tea. I had it last night while watching the Presidential debates. It has such a nice sweet creamy lemon flavor to it. I’m glad I got this one. This is a 2nd tasting note.

OK, second time around I had to admit that I didn’t like this as much as I thought. I was trying too hard to like it because everyone on Steepster said how great it was and I thought I was missing something. But, well, it’s just OK to me, to be honest. Onto the swap list she goes!

I have been looking for a deep, rich, hazelnut tea ever since I ran out of my last stash of it, thinking maybe I could find something even better. Alas, this was not it. It was tasty, sure—I definitely got the flavor of the hazelnut and the cocoa nibs as I sipped. But I was missing the richness that I was looking for. I thought maybe the mate’ wasn’t roasted, but it is. Maybe I’m just used to black tea with my hazelnut rather than mate’. I do love my mate’s and it probably isn’t fair to compare this to a black tea, so I will say that it really is a tasty and healthful beverage and you could do a lot worse. I’ll be sipping it while I continue my search…

Oh, I don’t know, it was OK. It tasted like an herbal tisane to me, and I like my tea to have a tea flavor in it somewhere. I had put two Splenda in there and still got a tartness from it—and you can probably guess from how much Splenda I use that I am not really a fan of sour/tart. It wasn’t horrible or anything, but I have so many amazing teas in my cupboard that this one would probably go on my trade list. Probably great for some people, especially sweetened and iced. Just not my style.