Blue Mountain

In an attempt to work through a bunch of my teas to clean up the cupboard a bit, I tried this one as my breakfast tea. I added half a teaspoon of sugar automatically and on first sip really wish I hadn’t. This is a naturally sweet tea, extremely so, and now it is too sweet. There are definite vanilla notes here, and I can sense something possibly fruit like as well. Overall a nice cup, but not a black for first thing in the morning, and definitely not one that I’ll be sweetening again.

At first I thought this would be similar to Melbourne Breakfast, due to the vanilla aroma. However, this is a lot lighter and less sweet, much better for drinking on it’s own. I wouldn’t drink it every day, however, it is very pleasant and is a fairly regular tea for me.

TEaTiff. TTB.Artifical flavoring _. I hope this doesn’t give me a headache. The dry aroma reminds me a bit of an Earl Grey but sweeter and with a slight lemony and metallic tone. The blue cornflowers are quite pretty with the dark brown, lightly twisted tea leaf; despite the fact that they do nothing for the flavor. The wet leaf is unique. The bergamot has disappeared and been replaced with a light liquor note. Cherry liquor. Also some cream and a hint of bread. Flavorwise… it’s okay. Woody with some citrusy notes. Interesting to try one but not one that I would buy myself. In fact, I would not because of the artificial flavoring.

TTB tea! As this cools, the flavor comes out, and it’s really quite decent! I wasn’t sure what flavor this was supposed to be. The bag mentions floral flavors, but it’s a little fruity for me. With milk and sugar, this is quite enjoyable cold! It reminds me of a dessert we would eat when we were younger – frozen blackberries with sugar and cream on top.

Got it cause it smelled really nice in the store. But after being steeped, it mostly just tastes like a bland black tea, kind of disappointed

June Wedding! Time for something blue! This is one of my T2 sampler stash, a vanilla-flavored black tea decorated with blue cornflower petals.

The leaf smells nice, sweet but not overly so. Steeped up, the tea is a medium black tea with a nice caramel color, and the aroma from the cup has a nice vanilla fragrance, but also almost a caramel candy sweetness to it. The tea is very light in body, smooth, and there is no bitterness or astringency… but something about the flavor, despite smelling heavily as vanilla, doesn’t really taste like vanilla to me. It’s tasting more like banana-flavored candies to me (like those nasty marshmallow circus peanuts), and banana is my most hated food, so this just really isn’t doing it for me. The black tea base is pleasant enough, I like how light and smooth it is, but whatever supposed “vanilla” flavorings are used in this tea are just… really unpleasant to me. This is definitely not a tea I would ever want to revisit.

I was pleasantly surprised by this tea. It tasted slightly tropical and similar to yesterday’s (Black Rose) in the sampler. It feels almost like a lighter version of yesterday’s tea.

I tried this tea for the first time today, and my tasting note follows on with the rest – do not sweeten this tea, it is very sweet on its own. While I found it passable, with the vanilla adding a smooth, creamy texture, the artificial flavours were unpleasantly noticeable in this tea.

The body of the tea was fine, the cornflowers added a nice minty acidity to balance out all the flavouring, but I feel this is a poorly constructed tea. With more herbs, spices or flowers this easily be a favourite of mine. However, it will probably not be a regular tea and end up drifting to the back of my cupboard. I liked this tea, it was drinkable, and I might have it again, but I might not.

This tea should be brewed for no longer than three minutes, and now after tasting I see why – the artificial flavours would become too strong and totally overpower the tea. This tea is definitely not for everyone, I’m not saying don’t try it, I’ve certainly had worse, but I’ve certainly had better, too.