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This is a very delicious green tea… but it is also very fussy to make. You must be very mindful of the water temperature and especially the steep time, because if you oversteep this tea, it will turn bitter very, very quickly! But if treated just right, this tea has a very lovely green tea flavor. It reminds me of genmaicha, sans the nuttiness of the genmai rice. The leaf just doesn’t seem to come off with that overly astringent grassiness that many green teas have. And the fruitiness of this tea is excellent! What I love about it so much is that it is light and delicate, rather than being so strong that all you taste is this heavy strong infusion; I find flavored green teas of that variety tend to just come off feeling so artificial. You get such a nice green tea flavor here, with these light fruity notes that hit the back of the tongue that give it a lovely combination of fruity sweetness and tart zing. The fruitiness is a bit like a combination of pomegranate and raspberry. So far this has been my favorite fruit-flavored green tea.

Full Review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/tea13/

You know when you visit the Farmer’s Market, and there is stall selling bags of nuts covered in warm cinnamon and sugar and the smell is absolutely divine? When you open up the bag of this tea, the aroma reminds me exactly of that! (The loose tea looks good enough to eat too… like a cinnamon-covered granola!) This is a tea that works best for me when it is brewed strong to really enjoy the flavor, so I usually use two heaping teaspoons (this tisane has pretty large, chunky ingredients, so I find it comes out a bit weak otherwise!) and let it steep in boiling water for around 7-10 minutes. The resulting tea is a dark red color from the beetroot powder, which also gives it a very slight tart note which reminds me just a bit of hibiscus. It counters the natural sweetness of the tea, as it is very nutty and has some slight cinnamon-sugar notes. I really like the tea with its natural beetroot tart bite, since that is a flavor I’m personally quite fond of, but adding a bit of sweetener mellows that note out so the tea becomes such an incredibly smooth dessert tea. This is a rather unique evening indulgence tea!

I got this tea in a holiday sampler from TeaSource last year. Opening up the sampler and sniffing the leaf, it smells strongly of cinnamon, reminding me of Big Red chewing gum. After brewing, the tea continues to have a cinnamon aroma, though not nearly as potent as the dry leaf. The black tea had a medium-body and very smooth mouthfeel with no hint of astringency. It has a warm, cinnamon flavor, that leaves a slight spicy note lingering on the tongue, but it isn’t quite as strong or as potent as some black cinnamon teas I’ve tried; there is a bit of natural sweetness, likely from the fruit inclusions, that keep the spice a bit more grounded. Sadly I pick up no fruit or citrus flavor notes, so the tea is pretty underwhelming; it’s just a cinnamon black tea that is a little more subdued and a little more sweet than stronger cinnamon black blends. It has a fine flavor, but isn’t particularly interesting; if I want something spicy I prefer a tea with a bit more depth, like a unique chai.

Full Review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2018/01/09/tea54/

Ah, old faithful.

About a year ago I got really into tea drinking, and it was at that point that I switched exclusively to loose, full leaf tea. Prior to that, I was an occassional, casual drinker of bagged tea, and this tea was always a favorite.

I have a hard time now drinking bagged teas, even ones I remember enjoying in the past — something about them tastes so artificial, and after steeping loose leaf for so long, now I actually can taste a papery, cardboard-like flavor from teabags. But sometimes, particularly just before bed, I still get an odd hankering to go back to this tea. Maybe it’s just nostalgia, but I’d like to believe that despite being composed of sad, overly processed, dusty shredded pulp for ingredients, this is still a good tea.

But seriously, I’m not going to suffer the paper-taste of a teabag to revisit my old haunt, so I ripped that sucker open and let the powdery remains fill my gravity-well infuser like the sad pulp that they are. And I have to say, for what it is, a cheap, easily accessible caffeine-free herbal… ya, I still like this a lot. I enjoy the cooling mint flavor on my tongue, followed by the slightly-tart citrusy lemon flavor. There is something surprisingly sweet and mellow about it, so the tartness doesn’t feel too strong or puckery. And there is something about it that hints at a bit of grassiness, very subtle in the background.

To be fair, I’m surprised I still enjoy a bagged tea as much as I do after “making the switch.” But I think if my tea collection suddenly disappeared and I had to live off one grocery store tea, this one would probably be it.

I received this tea as a sampler size from Beleave Teas as “Pistachio Almond,” but the blend was sourced from TeaSource. I took it to work today and had a nice sipdown.

The leaves have a very sweet marzipan aroma that reminds me of amaretto: there is a honey-like sweetness, the nuttiness of almonds, and just a slight hint of cherry. The tea steeps up dark with a very inviting sweet, marzipan scent. Though the tea smelled very sweet, it is surprisingly quite well balanced: the base is dark, full, and smooth, and the finish closes with a satisfying sweet, almond dessert flavor. It has a dessert tea appeal, but the black tea and nutty flavors hold up enough that the tea can pass for something heartier (a few extra strong, dark brews to get through the work day can attest to that!) As for the pistachio, it is a more subtle flavor, but noticeable enough if you are looking for it. Pistachios have never been my nut of choice, but here it blends well with the other flavors.

Full Review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/11/28/tea48/

As a hot steep, this tea is not one of my favorites. It has a very strong orange flavor, and if that is what you are craving, then this is the tea for you. I really enjoy fruity flavored green teas, but I personally tend to like the fruity notes to have a softer, more delicate touch in my greens; they don’t have to compete against the strong, astringent flavors of a black tea. This is just a little more bold than I care for, and the flavoring being so strong makes it feel too artificial (which it is, but some teas are quite good at hiding it).

Icing this tea, on the other hand, is an entirely different experience! I like to use the cold-brew method of letting a teaspoon of leaf per cup of cold water steep in the fridge overnight, and then strain off the leaf the next morning. The resulting iced tea is fantastic! It has a very crisp, clean, refreshing taste, the orange notes are tamed a bit while still providing a very flavorful tea, and the tea requires no sweetening. I like to make a batch and drink a nice cold glass with my breakfast, since it gives me such a refreshing “orange juice” feel.

This is definitely a tea that will be getting a lot of use in the summer months when I start ramping up the amount of cold brews in my fridge!

This is the first new tea I tried this year, a holiday seasonal I picked up as a sampler from Beleave Teas, which I decided to do a sipdown of recently since the little sugar snowflakes seemed appropriate for the snowy winter weather we’ve been having recently.

The scent of the leaves was very orangey and sweet, with just a bit of spiciness tickling the nose. I shook up the ingredients and went a bit heavy on the leaf, using two teaspoons and making sure to get a good mix of tea leaf and larger, bulky ingredients, and steeped for two minutes, and the resulting tea was a bright yellow-orange, reminding me of orange juice! The tea had a very silky smooth mouthfeel and citrus orange flavor, with a bit of warm cinnamon spice in the finish, reminding me of an orange spice tea, only with a lighter, softer body than the black tea orange spice teas I’m used to. It also had a nice, creamy sweetness with just a hint of vanilla that rounds out the citrus and spice notes from being too overpowering. This was an enjoyable tea, like a warm orange cider with some nice sweet notes.

Full Review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2018/01/02/tea53/

I was first introduced to this blend as “Autumn Apple Crisp” from Spice and Tea Exchange, which I picked up as an autumn seasonal in 2016, but the tea did not return the next year. Searching the ingredients, I then discovered Adagio’s autumn seasonal “Autumn Mist,” which was the exact same blend of ingredients, and not nearly such a price-gouge as Spice and Tea Exchange’s teas.

Revisiting this tea with the “Autumn Mist” version of the blend, I’m noticing a lot more of the gunpowder green tea than I remember from before. The tea has a very distinct, slightly smoky flavor from the base, and isn’t quite as sweet as I recall. There is still a nice touch of apple on the back of the tongue, and some sweet caramel notes, but the overall flavor is a little more full and less dessert-like than I was expecting.

I kind of miss the old “Autumn Apple Crisp” version now. Ah well. This one is good enough to scratch the itch, I just wish it were a little more sweet with stronger caramel notes!

Full review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/03/07/tea10/

I started off my tea blog a year ago by reviewing a Rooibos Chai blend by Spice and Tea Exchange, which I’ve come to find is more commonly known as the “West Cape Chai” blend. I thought it would be fun to try another rooibos chai blend as a bit of nostalgia. This blend is by an Etsy seller, AmberFreda, and features many of the same ingredients, but it is missing some of the ingredients and its balance is a bit different.

To me, the most notable difference in flavor between this chai and the West Cape rooibos chai I tried before is the absense of the licorice root, which makes this chai have a much spicier flavor profile. Though the rooibos itself provides a slightly sweet base, this chai packs a surprisingly spicy punch, with particularly strong notes of ginger and clove leaving some heat behind on the tongue. There is an almost peppery heat to it. It is a decent chai, but personally, I like the blend of the West Cape version better, as I like the way that the inclusion of licorice rounds out the spices and naturally sweetens up the blend, since I happen to be one of those people that is particularly sensitive to spicy tastes. But if you like really spicy flavors, this version of Rooibos Chai may be more akin to your personal preferences. I did find it quite nice with some warm vanilla almond milk, and it worked well for iced chai as well!

I received this tea as a gift from my best friend, who lives in the Bay Area of California where Hobee’s restaurants are a staple. I enjoy having breakfast there when I visit, so he got me a bag of their signature house blended Cinnamon Orange tea, which he especially enjoys iced.

The tea is a very finely ground black tea with a strong spicy scent. It has a very strong, full flavor; there is a warm, orange-flavor to the black tea body, but the finish is bursting with a strong cinnamon touch on the tongue that gives off just a little heat, with hints of clove and a subtle sweet, floral rosy flavor that balance out the cup nicely. The flavors compliment each other nicely and have a natural sweetness that works well. The tea makes a great warm tea in cold weather, but it is also great iced! I like to hot brew it and then chill it, and give it a nice brisk stir to mix up all the spices in the chilled glass. It needs no sweetening and is so flavorful and refreshing! It’s an amazingly versatile tea at any time of the year.

Full review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/07/25/tea30/