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Now have two tins of this – one I ordered as a sample months ago, and one that came with my utiliTEA kettle.

I’ve tried this before, but I didn’t really remember it. That’s odd, because I LOVE Yunnan teas. Adagio’s Yunnan Noir is one of my favorites of all time. I love the malty peppery flavor of this, but I’m reserving more judgements until later because it’s tasting a little soapy – don’t think I washed out my thermos enough, hah!

Got this as a Christmas gift from my future brother-in-law. Apparently he walked into Teavana and told the clerk that I liked black tea, and this is what he recommended.

Honestly? I’m disappointed. I’ve been meaning to try a Golden Monkey for awhile now, enticed by the promise of a cocoa flavor and some maltiness. I tasted almost no cocoa in this, and the maltiness was bitter and overwhelming. I’ll still drink this with cream, but I’m sad that it didn’t live up to its promise. As another reviewer said, Black Dragon Pearls are everything this tea should be.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just not a huge rooibos fan. I don’t dislike it, but I just don’t find it all that appealing. That said, the vanilla flavoring in this is good. I have a tough time finding vanilla flavors that I like – either they’re too weak or too sweet – but this is a nice, creamy one, similar to the vanilla in the Monk’s Blend that I had this morning.

Mmm, this was so good. You can definitely taste both the grenadine (I’m a sucker for the stuff) and vanilla; the grenadine is more to the forefront, with the vanilla coming in toward the end. It makes the sip creamy and sweet. I’m not sure what black tea is used in this; whatever it is, it is very light and almost difficult to taste. It’s very, very strongly flavored. May have to order more once my 2oz. bag is gone.

Backlogging, since my Internet has been out most of the day. This is a good, basic black. I like the fact that it’s not as terribly strong as the only other Assam I have in my cupboard. The Assam and Ceylon mix is a good one. Stood up well to cream.

Very sweet, basic green.

My second Rishi tea and my first wuyi oolong. This tastes very strongly of roasted barley to me. I can taste a bit of the raisin sugar flavor in the aftertaste, but not elsewhere. Very earthy and roasty, which is how I like my oolongs. This isn’t wowing me, though.

Resteep. The milk and cream flavor is definitely gone, which makes me sad. Tastes more like a regular old green oolong.

Resteep. Definitely weaker this time, and not quite as creamy. But still really, really good. This one is lodging into my tastebuds. It’s all I could think about as I was drinking that Pu-erh.

My first pu-erh experience, and I’m kind of underwhelmed. This is really good – the blood orange taste is definitely prominent, and I love blood orange – but I can’t really taste pu-erh. I’m not sure exactly what it should taste like, but I was expecting a very heavy, earthy taste. Right now I taste a bit of that at the very end of my sip, but mostly just blood orange and citrus.

It does taste pretty darn good, though. Just tastes more like a flavored black tea than anything else.