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The cream flavor is really nice. It doesn’t have a nice milky mouthfeel like I was hoping, though. I was also looking for a more vanilla bean flavor in the vanilla, so that’s a bit of a let down; but what is there is decent. The black base is so-so too. It’s on par with mixing Adagio’s Cream and Vanilla with a far less fickle base, but it’s nothing special.

I just had a revelation.

This would be really tasty mixed with my Art of Tea Cinnamon Fig.

Experiments Ho!

Cold steeped is where this tea is at. It’s extra fruity and the spices add some definite interest.

It’s unfortunately also where the rooibos flavor is at.

Bonus pic: A teacow charm I just made! (being in Wisconsin and all). He’s so fresh I haven’t even baked him yet!

http://bit.ly/13q4m1U

I’m stuck at home today waiting for the plumber (and then babysitting the plumber) because our dishwasher decided to stop draining last yet. Not the best set up for a good day. So I thought I’d break this in. No, I don’t know I’ve managed to let it sit a week without touching it either.

The dry leaf here smells like the freshest lawn clippings ever. And that is absolutely a good thing.

There was a little brewing hint enclosed advising that ramping up the first brewing temperature to 170-180 would bring out a stronger mouth and nose feeling, so I figured I’d try that first.

My first steeping was at 170 for 90 seconds, using the recommended rounded teaspoon per 2 oz.

I was blown away.

It’s grassy and subtly sweet with very very little astringency. It’s only at the bottom of my cup that I notice any dryness. There’s this wonderful savory brothiness going on too. My (probably bewildered) Fiance received a text that simply stated ‘You need to try this.’

I did a second steeping at the parameters on the package, as well (180 for 30 sec) The second steeping is similar to the first, only a little less full-bodied with more sweetness.

I can already tell this tea and I are going to be really really good friends.

So, this regional dairy company recently released a 1% banana milk that Fiance just insisted on trying. It’s not uncomfortably sweet smelling like some stuff, but it’s definitely got this creamy banana thing going on. That is exactly what this dry leaf smells like. Milky, creamy, natural banana. Yum.

This tea pretty much cements my love of banana flavored tea. Which is weird, because I don’t really much care for real life bananas. Kind of a texture thing. So tea is really the best of all worlds here.

The base here is rich, smooth and has a little of it’s own natural sweetness going on. There’s definitely some astringency here too, but it’s not overwhelming. The astrigency is kind of a neat little thing here too. You know how when you eat a slightly-green banana and the starch makes your mouth a little dry? It’s just like that.

And the banana. The banana is the star here. It’s not loud banana taste. It’s this nice subtle flavor that runs through each sip. It tastes like slightly green (the best) bananas. It doesn’t taste like artificial banana flavor (I’m looking at you Banana Pudding tea) but real, fresh bananas.

I’m going to have to add this to my shopping list too, because I think this would just be too good with milk and sugar and latte-ized.

I seem to be doing a lot of cold steeping lately. But there’s just something so awesome about tossing a thermos in the fridge and crawling out of bed at the crack of dawn and not have to actually do anything. Of course, this crack of dawn I forgot half of my tea here when I left for work so blerg (Fiance was nice enough to put it in the fridge for me when he got up later though!). Oh well. Half a thermos of tea now!

I really do actually think is a pretty decent raspberry tea. The raspberry flavor is natural and raspberry-y. Kind of a fresh picked, maybe a little underripe, thiing. It’s definitely not overly sweet raspberry flavor, or jammy, but it’s fresh tasting and the black tea base is far smoother when cold steeped. This would also pair really well with something like Adagio’s Cream tea to make a pretty decent dessert tea. I think that’ll go in my to-try bucket.

As an aside, I feel really snooty drinking tea while snacking on Wensleydale with figs. But they pair really really well!

I got this from Kaylee and thank you so much! :D

The dry smell is very peachy and fruity. Almost Snappley. Maybe Arizona Peach Tea? The super fruity smell led me to do my first sample of this as a cold brew because fruit flavors lend themselves really well to iced tea.

Very fresh tasting with apricot in the forefront and mango backing it up. It tastes like a tropical paradise and makes me think of beaches and humidity and sun!

I don’t really get much from the green tea, maybe a little bit of astringency, but overall it’s like drinking a not-so-sweet juice (in a good way)! I could definitely see having this on hand for the summer months. It can wait until I’m down a couple dozen teas first though.

This tea tastes just like fresh baked bread to me this morning. It’s earthy and yeasty and really excatly what I needed as a pick me up. Only have enough for one more cup though :(

Bonus picture of a paper wreath I finished last night! http://i.imgur.com/Y4N3A99.jpg

BACKLOG! So I’m going with my terrible notes on my computer here.

Another sample from Bluebird Tea Co. I really gotta get to drinking my last one!

I did a cold steep on this, because I was running around down in the Tri-State area (Iowa/Wisconsin/Illinois; you can cross two state lines in the matter of 20 minutes!) and attending my sister’s graduation in Platteville, so the set and forget method was far more ideal here!

This makes a really nice fruity cold brew. The fruit flavor isn’t specific, but it makes its own unique fruity flavor that is actually pretty tasty! There’s also a really nice hit of lime in here. Unfortunately the cold brew seemed to wash out a lot of the pepper zing and I it wasn’t anything more than a mere suggestion that you noticed only when you were looking for it. Even so, this made a fan-freakin-tastic iced tea and I’m tossing her onto my shopping list for my next purchase from them

I really don’t do much in the way of brewing Teavana tea normally anymore. They either seem really light on flavor, or get bitter way too quickly. So if/when I buy Teavana, I usually entertain the thought of ‘would this be good iced?’.

So, here we are with my last bits of this tea, drinking a cold steep. I probably threw in 3.5-4 tsp for 20oz to get the flavor where I wanted. But all said and done, it has a nice, natural blueberry flavor. I complete miss the acai, and blissfully don’t get the tartness from the hibiscus either. But all’s said and done, it’s a solid iced blueberry white tea. Nothing more, nothing less.