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Sometimes I’m in the mood for a cup of green tea, but it’s too late in the evening for a cup of green tea. I think this means I should save the cup of green tea for the next morning, but I try some decaf green teas.

This gave a light, rose-brown liquor. The aroma over the cup is a generic green tea. I caught a quite faint floral aroma in my first sniff.

The first taste from a sip reminds me, strangely enough, of licking envelope glue (but the glue on good envelopes). Beneath, there is some bitter.

This gives me moderate astringency and a nice sweet aftertaste.

I’m still not sure if tea flavor looses “oomph” in the decaffeination or less “oomphy” leaves are used for these teas. I do have to think that this one tastes different than it would without decaffeination. I am on a possibly fruitless search for tastier decaf greens.

After steeping in a teapot with infuser, cup is slightly murky, red-brown, with some rooibos floaties. The aroma over the cup mostly a powdery cocoa.

The taste is dominated by cocoa in the back, with some earthy rooibos flavor, too. I get a hint of vanilla at the end of some sips. The body is light to medium, provided by the rooibos, with some powdery feel from the cacao. Breathing out through my nose after a sip gives a cinnamon flavor.

I’ve had some rooibos blends that had too many things going on. This one is simple, but does simple well and in balance.

The smell of the leaves is floral with some mowed grass (on a hot afternoon) aroma.

I tasted two steeps in a 8 oz steeping mug.

1st: Almost boiling water, 3 min. The liquor is a clear, bright green. There is a light floral aroma. My first impression is that I haven’t tasted a tea this complex before. I sip over and over again trying to break down what I am tasting. The first taste is a floral one, but not a strong perfume floral taste. This is followed by a flavor that I only know from oolong tea. It is savory, not at all smokey. It reminds me of the savory flavor of wonton soup broth, but without the saltiness. I haven’t had oolong in so long that I had forgotten this taste. Overall, the taste is sweet and floral. Breathing out my nose gives a great floral flavor. Swishing it around violently in my mouth (with lots of air) brings out a great nutty flavor. How many ways can I taste this? Everything is soft; there are no sharp edges here.

2nd: 205 degrees, 5 min. This cup is less floral. There is more sweet flavor and some nuttiness coming out. I feel the first sense of astringency. There is the start of a bitter edge, which I like, but not enough to call this bitter. The aftertaste stayed sweet and seemed to get nuttier as I sipped this over ten minutes. Overall, this cup is sharper. There are fewer flavors and they are more well defined.

I kept writing floral because I didn’t know what flower to call it. I thoroughly enjoyed taking the time to taste this tea. I am excited to see what is in the remaining teas in the sampler pack this tea came in.

Brewed in about 6 oz boiling water, then honey and 2 oz milk added.

I like this, although I could go for stronger spice, especially peppercorn. All the flavors I tasted were well-balanced: tea, cinnamon, anise, then ginger, and cardamom/pepper bringing up the rear. I suppose that if the spice flavors were stronger, I would also ask for a bolder black tea. I can say that I didn’t have a hard time making out the tea among the milk, honey, and spices, but nothing about it called out for my attention.

When I am in the mood, I like making my own chai in a small sauce pot, throwing in the amount of spices that I like. Then I go for more peppercorn. This chai in a bag is more to my taste than the CS India Spice which is too heavy on the cinnamon for me.

One interesting thing: one of the tea bag pouches was not sealed and the bag was misfolded. It was leaking tea and spices all over the inside of the box, but the box didn’t smell of tea or spices.

The tea comes as long, deep green needles with areas of blue-green. The smell of the dry leaves is overpowered by a “tropical fruit” aroma. I can’t put my finger on it: mango, raisins, fruit-stripe gum? I put my nose right in the top of the open tin to get any green tea smell.

I steeped my first cup at 175F for 3 min. With the strong “tropical fruit” aroma of the leaves in the tin, I am ready for a bland green tea taste overpowered by overly sweet “tropical fruit” flavor. I am wrong. The aroma over the brewing cup smelled of pineapple over green tea. When sipping, this one had a fruity aroma over the cup, and a green tea taste with the fruit coming in second and a sweet aftertaste. The green tea taste gives me mostly seaweed, with faint bitter and very faint astringency. The color is golden-green.

I steeped a second batch of leaves at 165F for 5 min. The green tea is now greener in color, and the taste profile starts out with bitter from the tea, then a light fruit aftertaste. I smelled a nutty aroma in the leaves but it doesn’t appear in the brewed tea. There is no seaweed present. It leaves my mouth with a faint astringency. These flavors all seem well balanced steeped at this temperature.

I don’t know what “tropical flavors” listed on the ingredients means, and this is a little off-putting to me. It doesn’t taste specifically like pineapple or mango, but I will finish the tin and would consider buying this again. It is a nice one to have handy that seems to steep well at the temperature of the office’s coffee maker hot water spout. The 165F is the one I liked better, so I will rate based on the cup made at this temperature.

This is sort of like the fast-food hamburger of chai to me. It was loudly pleasant, but my stomach didn’t feel good afterwards.

Made with 6 oz water, 2 oz milk added after steeping and some honey, it was monolithic. I couldn’t tell any of the tastes from any of the others.

When I open the desk drawer that this tin is stored in, I think about who at work might like to take this off my hands. The closed tin fills the drawer with a strong, perfume-worthy rose smell. Then I make a cup, smell the more pleasant and fainter rose aroma of the steeping tea bag, and then taste the cup with a dash of milk and decide to stash the tin back in the drawer. The rose flavor in the cup definitely takes a back seat to the black tea, which is a nice, strong, sharp black tea, but I can still taste the rose. I don’t think I’ll run right out to replace this tin when the last bag is gone, but I’m enjoying this tea now.

The dry leaves have a grassy and floral aroma.

The first time I tried this, I steeped at 165 degrees and was not impressed. Green tea.

With another batch of these green, almost whole leaves, I tasted two steeps at 175 degrees. What a difference! The first steep gave a brownish green cup with a fragrant “green tea” aroma. This first steep had three tastes: first a nutty flavor, then green and bitter in balance. There was a faintly (and pleasantly) bitter aftertaste with some moderate astringency at the end, enough to make my gums tingle. The cup was pleasantly smooth and went down fast. The second steep at 175 degrees gave a cup similar in color, with all of the flavors being lower in strength, and with the nutty flavor dominating.

This is my first dragonwell taste and I think I might be a dragonwell person.

Greenish straw yellow in color. The aroma is a faint roasted brown rice. The first taste has the brown rice up front, mild, and a faint tea taste (but not bitter or green), or the tea and rice taste are hard to separate. There is a faint bitter, roasty aftertaste. There is not much here to taste, but nothing to object to, either.

I tried a 5 minute steep at 175F which did not result in a change or increase in the flavors.

I think this is a pleasant caffeine delivery tea without much to set it apart (or to complain about) Mild.

Three steepings at 175F for 3 minutes each. I have bought this before and just thrown it in hot water (how hot? I didn’t know) for about 2 to 8 minutes (without paying attention) and generally enjoyed it and the variable results. The first time I bought it was at the counter of a chinese restaurant. How inexpensive!

I appreciate it more after taking care with temperature and time over the last few days. Today I took the time to steep it three times and enjoy each cup. This is the first time I have tried re-steeping green tea leaves. Fun!

1st: Moderate jasmine and slightly bitter aroma, golden color. The flavors I get, in order, are bitter, jasmine, then green. Slightly astringent. There is a sweet aftertaste. The cup is more bitter at the bottom.

2nd: Jasmine aroma fainter, but still there. I get a green taste first, then a slightly bitter taste, then a faint jasmine taste. More enjoyable than the first cup. Less astringent. Sweet aftertaste is still there.

3rd: Jasmine aroma comparable with the 2nd steeping. The color is a redder gold. The green, jasmine, and bitter tastes are lighter and well balanced. Sweet, slightly bitter aftertaste. The bottom of the cup tastes much like the top.

I think I like the second steeping significantly more than the 1st or 3rd. I think the leaves “ran out of gas” for the 3rd, but the 3rd was still pleasant.

I think I will likely keep a tin of this in the cupboard.