Civil Disobedience

The smoke smells really strong, but the flavor is a pleasant level. It’s a little simplistic with the only flavors really being smoke and cardamom, but it’s not bad. I recently ordered myself most of AU’s flavors, but not this one, so it was a fortunate find from the tea box!

Oat milk makes everything better but this is still an odd and rough tea! The cardamom flavour morphs into musky, floral tobacco and back again. With a hint of pine, it’s pretty drying/astringent. The flavour combo definitely reminds me of a mix of essential oils (the ones that are usually marketed as “woodsy fresh” and “sweet manly musk”).

It’s a pretty neat and novel blend but I don’t love it.

I wasn’t sure I’d like since the primary note is listed as Pine Needles, and then Maple Sap. I do like it well enough, but likely not for a reorder other than this sample.

Steeped at 4 min. I can see a tendency of this tea, and a few others I’ve tried from this company, to be easily bitter.

It’s a strong tea, and I added two sugar cubes to help offset. May try rest of sample at a weaker 3 minutes.

Tried again with different parameters: 3g, 300mL, 212F, 2 steeps at 3 and ?? minutes. When drank hot, it was smoky, dark, exotic and spicy. As it cooled, the blackberry leaf sweetness materialized and when mixed with that heavy-handed cardamom, really gave this a medicinal feel.

The smoked Chinese black tea mixed with both green cardamom pods and oil reminds me so much of black cardamom which I thought at first was in the blend. A little poking around and I see none, unless the cardamom oil was pressed from the larger black pods.

This is tolerable when brewed less intense than August Uncommon’s suggestions. Drinking hot is a must.

I still find this blend so odd. At least now I’m tasting the cardamom. It’s actually pretty much all smoke and cardamom.

so this was the tea that started my swap with beelicious. She was not impressed, and i’m willing to try nearly anything :) Turns out this is pretty gross. First off, it smells like tiger balm/vick’s vapo rub. There’s just something about it that isn’t right. Brewed, it tastes a little better….slightly smokey but mostly i feel like i’m drinking liquid vapo rub. It’s not even really “pine” it’s menthol more than anything. I am also not a fan. not the worst, but August uncommon has MUCH better offerings! Thanks beelicious! :)

Yeah, it’s pretty medicinal. Disappointing because of all the AU selections this is the one that I was most excited to try. I see that they were going for pine needles, but other flavors are overwhelmed. Even so, there is a slightly salty, slightly smoky, slightly sweet taste at the end of each sip which becomes more consistent as it cools. And then the cardamom comes out, which although I love cardamom, I think it is part of what’s wrong here— it really contributes to the medicinal taste.

No regrets on trying this sample or any of the other AU selections so far. Each has been surprising, intriguing, with a quality tea base— by far the most interesting if not the most delicious that I have tried. And I have this feeling that as my tea journey unfolds interesting may begin to trump delicious…

Another one I managed to sneak into my bag before jetting off the other day… And I’m kinda disappointed that out of all the amazing teas I have in my cupboard I picked this one up and took it with me…. It smells like hydrogen peroxide!! Taste wise it’s really medicinal when hot and as it cools there is a sweetness that suddenly jumps out but unfortunately the medicinal flavor is still the most dominant… I’m not a fan at all but it could just be me and my spoilt tastebuds. I would be happy to find this guy another home where he might be better appreciated if anyone out there is interested to try it

“A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR HELPS THE MEDICINE GO DOWN”
So this one is quite Uncommon and interesting…
I’m not sure what to think of Civil Disobedience really I was kinda shocked at the way it tastes…
There is this sore throat spray out there called Chloraseptic, I’m not sure all of you have heard of it before but thats what this tea taste like to me in too many ways.
Really no joke on the very first sip (straight no suga) alls I could taste was straight up Chloraseptic. Interesting because I was actually thinking yuck at first but I couldn’t stop sipping on it for some reason.

Anyways I had to add a little suga to this one because of the medicine taste, and it was a little better, still taste throat spray bit also a smokey tea in there somewhere, a little astringent with some leathery notes. The medicine taste isnt yucky as some medicinal tasting teas but it is still quite bold.

With sugar it actually kinda taste like some type of old fashioned herbal candy or cough drop that you find in an old country store down south, pretty damned good!
With milk it is reminiscent of a chai in some ways I guess it could pass as a mild chai type spiced tea, very smooth and creamy and no astringent but still a strong taste of the throat spray lol

Somehow even tho it really does taste like Chloraseptic it is really tastey, delicious even. Good Tea but the throat spay part is super hard to ignore, I think that taste is from the cardamom or cardamom oil tho So I think I could dig this one, I’d have to think of it as some type of chai I think.
But Really Chloraseptic lol