2297 Tasting Notes
I bought Churchill’s herbal advent calendar, and this is the first tea I tried, many months later. This wasn’t bad, though I wouldn’t need to drink it again. There’s tart lemon and fake strawberry. It is what it says it is! Though I’ve never been a fan of the particular tang of lemonade. It was decent cold, and the cold brewed resteep tasted similar to the first.
I absolutely loved the Tea & Scones flavor from a few years ago, so I was excited to try this one. As usual, there’s a high quality black base, and the fruit flavoring is pleasant, but that’s about all there is to this one. It’s a berry black tea (I never noticed the bergamot). It’s a very good one, but I don’t taste anything that makes me think of scones. My second cup of this tasted even better, and I really tried to make myself see scones…maybe? It’s a tasty tea regardless, and I don’t usually love fruity black teas.
The banana flavoring is pretty mild, and the matcha base is mild as well. This is sweet and tasty, but I wish it were a little bolder. I feel like I could taste a nice powdery banana flavor in the first few sips, but then that disappeared. I got this single serving in the advent calendar, but I wouldn’t mind trying it again to see if I can coax more banana out of it sometime.
Tiny sample from a TTB. Something in there tasted a little off, but otherwise it was just slightly desserty honeybush. Old almonds maybe? Very mildly flavored; didn’t taste like almond milk. The rancid almonds showed up a lot more clearly in the resteep, though since this was from a TTB, who knows how old it is. I’m sure it was better fresh.
From a TTB. This is about what you’d expect from a tea like this. I taste some mint that’s not the freshest or most delicious, but it’s okay cold. There are a bunch of other ingredients that combine to taste sort of generically herbaceous. This was fine, just very not exciting.
This was a very exciting blend to see in the advent calendar (and I’m only just getting around to trying it months later – lots of time for anticipation). I taste a bit of soda essence, though it’s milder than in the crisp cranberry blend. I also taste the deep fruitiness of the pomegranate. I taste mainly green rooibos, which is my favorite herbal base. I actually enjoyed my second/final serving of this more since it seemed a lot more soda-like, and the fruitiness was lighter. I’d totally drink this again, though I’d still pick the cranberry version first.
I don’t love the matcha base itself. It’s just a little too dirt/plantlike. On top of that, I taste occasional chai spices, but it’s just sort of heavy and not delicious. Sometimes I get a little whisper of spiciness, which is fun. Mostly it’s just sort of murky and meh. I’ll probably give the rest to a friend. At the bottom, all the spices settled, and it’s quite spicy!!
Sample from a TTB. I was going to add milk, but I tried it first without, and I’m glad I did. The vanilla is pretty authentic and nice. The base tea brings a bit of a toasty flavor to round it out. I enjoy how desserty this one turns out. I don’t usually like oolong, so I was surprised by all the negative reviews.
The pear flavor comes through so clearly – it’s really nice! This was best cold with milk. The pear has somewhat of a baked flavor, but is also sort of floral and fresh and complex. I was even more impressed with my second and third servings. It’s so expertly blended, and I’m sad it’s gone.
This has some of the alcohol flavor that I noticed the last time I had Florence. I taste some chocolate, but it’s not as strong as the alcohol. I only bought the sample size, so it wasn’t a problem to finish this one, but I don’t really recommend it.