4/5, and probably going to be a go-to for when you want to feel like you’re really drinking TEA and not just dessert-y tisanes at night, similar to H&S Vanilla Comoro (where it doesn’t hold a candle to real tea but is the best substitute option I’ve found for that taste). In this case I suspect it’s not an uncanny nearly-like-black-tea-leaf magic so much as a mental association thing, where the Earl Grey profile is very spot on and smooth, enough to trick you into just having the whole EG sense memory thing fill in the blanks with the actual tea flavor. Neat.
I was thinking this was nothing to write home about albeit a totally drinkable if pale substitute to the real thing for after 9pm cravings, thennn I filled my second cup with Upton’s and let’s just say that made me appreciate the heck out of this one. You could clearly do a lot worse, ha.
EDIT: Thennn about an hour later I was craving it all over again so I made enough to fill my 3 cup corningware makeshift matcha bowl, ha! This time I added milk, which worked really well (it doesn’t need it, but it also is great with it; it doesn’t turn into cloudy sad dishwater but stays smooth and silky and opaque, creamy in look, texture, and taste, yum). Yeah, I think I’ll be making this a regular rotation thing for when I want something that tastes of tea but without too many distracting dessert-y bells and whistles late before bed.