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I bought a bag of this from the Spice & Tea Exchange in Georgetown. Thankfully, it was Rishi brand. The teas that were the house brand I bought were lackluster, disappointing, and not worth the money. Because this was Rishi, I expected better, and did get better.

This is exactly what the name says it is: sweet matcha. In hindsight, preparing this using sweetened almond milk was probably overkill… my drink was too sweet, in fact. But still delicious. I normally buy the sweetened almond milk but may switch to the unsweetened if I’m going to be adding it to tea (which I am).

I could probably blend your own sweetened matcha easily, and might try myself in the future. I did get some ridiculously cheap matcha (probably low grade given the price) from the Asian market so I can play around a bit without feeling like I’m tossing money down the drain. I’ll see if I can approximate this matcha – it’s that good. And not too badly priced, either. Spice & Tea charged $13 for a 125g pouch.

I normally don’t like apple teas because they taste too tart and the apple is overwhelming the other flavors. This one, surprisingly, is neither. This tastes pretty close to apple pie filling.

Granted, the pie that comes to my mind is less pie-shaped, and more those “pies” from McDonald’s – which for the longest time was my only exposure to apple pie. (First generation Chinese – whatcha gonna do?)

I would have liked the flavor to be a bit stronger, and oddly enough, when I added sugar, the flavor diluted instead of becoming stronger. I also wanted some creaminess (apple pie a la mode, anybody?) but that could just be me.

Despite not being an earl grey, this is very similar to one. It’s like a more floral version of an earl grey. It’s pleasant. The black tea is strong, and heavy. The floral lightens it up a bit.

I think this would be a tea that would be made better with some milk and sugar.

Stacy was kind enough to send me a sample of this in my last order. Thank you!

I was a bit disappointed at first because I had a hard time tasting the mango. I really wanted mango flavoring. I even tossed in some sugar and steeped it longer to try and bring out the mango.

I then settled back to enjoy the tea, even if it wasn’t very mangoey, when it it me. The name of the tea was Mango Lassi. DUH. That’s why I wasn’t getting fresh juicy mango, which relatives used to send up to us every summer from Florida, and the skin would practically slough itself off so we could sink our teeth into the fruit. AHEM. Anyway, Lassi.

Well, now that I made that brilliant realization, this tea is totally a less-creamy version of a mango lassi. This tea is delicious. The texture is creamy, and the mango lassi flavor comes right through. And now that I’ve let it sit for a bit and the sugar saturate the tea, there’s even mango – not fresh mango flavor, but it’s mango.

Lovely.

I’ve been drinking this at work, and every time I brew a cup of this, a coworker wanders by my office and then pokes his/her head in. “What’s that delicious smell?”

“Oh, just my tea.”

“It smells like maple syrup.”

Every. Time. :)

This tea tastes fairly ordinary at first, but once I put in a little bit of sugar, the flavors exploded. The mango, passion fruit, and papaya blend together nicely, and make it a nicely sweet tea. This would be awesome iced.

This tea just tastes wrong. Maybe I just don’t like chocolate in tea. It’s just bad, and needs to go sit in the corner and think about what it did.

I can definitely see why some people may like it, but I am not one of them.

There are packs of preserved plums I used to beg my mother to buy for me at the Asian market when I was a child. This tea reminds me of those plums, which is kind of odd and makes my brain hurt a bit.

This tea is pleasantly sweet, but I’m not really enjoying it hot. I think it would be much better chilled, and will have to try it iced at some point. No rating for now. To be continued…

I only recently started learning to enjoy flavored teas, and I’ve found a number I liked. My philosophy for flavored teas: go strong, or go home. This one needs to go home.

A little bit of a letdown. I’ve been wanting to find a nice pear tea for a while, but this tea is not it. The pear flavor is there, but it’s weak and overpowered by the black tea, which is more bitter than a dessert tea should be.
And caramel? What caramel?

This is really good. It’s not as almondy as other almond teas – the pistachio is actually the strongest flavor here. It provides a bit more of a savory edge, and some buttery taste to the tea that is really nice. A nice nutty tea when you don’t want something sweet.