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Third was born on Thursday and we are both back home and doing well. He was a big baby – 10 lbs 5 oz – but the delivery went quickly and with no complications. I’m feeling sore still, but I’m healing well and my Mom will be here for the next week to help out. I tend to be exhausted and emotional during pregnancy, but immediately start feeling better once the baby is born, so I am very glad to no longer be pregnant. And, as an added bonus, tea and food are appealing again. Life is pretty good.

Herbal and Decaf TTB.

This is pretty good. It tastes mostly of cinnamon, nuts, and brown sugar. It reminds me quite a bit of Davidtea’s Forever Nuts, but with a rooibos base rather than a fruity one, and not quite as sweet. The rooibos is mild and is mostly a mild note in the background, but it does leave a bit of a drying sensation in the mouth. This tastes like it would make a really good latte. As the cup cools the flavors taste more artificial, and the rooibos lends a slight sour aftertaste. I think Forever Nuts wins this one, but this is still a pretty decent tea

Herbal and Decaf TTB

I haven’t had enough chrysanthemum tea to judge the quality of this, but I liked it. It has a pleasant, lightly floral flavor. Chrysanthemum always reminds me a bit of chamomile, although it’s different enough that eventually I would like to keep both on hand. I find this to be a very relaxing tea, which is nice today since it’s been a stressful week and the boys are a bit cranky.

Had a rough night. The boys have been sick, Second had a fever of 102 last night. The fevers have gone down, but they’re still cranky today, and I’m tired. I wanted something indulgent so I decided to finish off my sample of this today.

I tried the last of this with milk, and it’s even better this way – sweet, nutty, and creamy! Unfortunately I spilled half of it on the floor. Grrrr. I’ll definitely have to buy some of this eventually.

This is one of the old herbals Teasipper removed from the Here’s Hoping TTB and sent to me. Thank you!

My first though on trying this was that it was very tasty, but definitely didn’t taste like Banana Bread. It has a smooth rooibos base, with a very mild flavor. It mostly tastes sweet and nutty, with an occasional hint of sour in the aftertaste. It’s doesn’t taste artificial or cloyingly sweet like many sweet blends, so that’s definitely a plus. After puzzling over the flavor for a while, I’d say it reminds me of the hazelnut syrup I had last time I was at iHop. It’s quite yummy, definitely something I would consider buying, even if I’m not tasting banana at all. I know these samples are rather old, so that might be part of it.

This is a sample from the Mosaic Tea & Coffee company who are considering adding this tea to their lineup.

It’s been a few months since I had a jasmine green in my cupboard. I realized a while ago that I mostly drink herbals and I go through caffeinated teas very slowly, so I’ve been trying to reduce the number I have in my cupboard. This really reminds me what I’ve been missing. It has a strong scent and flavor of jasmine, which blends nicely with the light, vegetal flavor of the green tea used as a base. It makes me thing of spring – flowers and green growing things. the flavor is strong, but not heavy or bitter. It just dances across your tongue. I will definitely savor the rest of this sample and look forward to buying some Jasmine tea once my cupboard is under control.

This is a sample from the Mosaic Tea & Coffee company who are considering adding this tea to their lineup.

I wasn’t a big fan of this one. It smelled nice in the pouch – an interesting blend of vanilla, almond and light fruitiness, but with a bit of unpleasant smokiness from the rooibos, but the scents didn’t carry over to the flavor. The rooibos has a slight bitterness to it, and the flavors didn’t come through very strongly. I could taste the vanilla, but other than that all I could taste was that chemical flavor you sometimes get from artificial flavors. Not something I would buy.

This is a sample from the Mosaic Tea & Coffee company who are considering adding this tea to their lineup.

This is a mild, well-balanced rooibos chai which surprised me a bit given how spicy-sweet it smelled and the fact that I used the whole sample which was probably 1.5-2 teaspoons. The rooibos is very smooth, with none of the unpleasant flavors it can sometimes have. There is a mild spiciness, and a nice sweetness here. No one flavor stands out to me, but at the same time this tastes very well-rounded. It is quite pleasant on it’s own, but doesn’t really stand up to adding milk. That’s a strike against it for me, since I almost always drink my chai with milk. It’s very smooth and creamy with milk, but the spiciness pretty much disappears. Definitely a tea to drink straight.

This is the second straight green rooibos I’ve tried. This tastes less sweet than the one from Mountain Rose Herbs, but it’s also less astringent. It tastes mostly like hay and green growing things, with a mild sweetness and not even a hint of bitterness. It’s a very light, summery flavor. I bought this on Amazon, and it’s super cheap, but you have to buy a pound at a time. I think I like green rooibos well enough that I’ll drink it before it goes bad, but I guess now I’ll know for sure!