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At my age one should not stay up all night. Yep my pulling all nighter days are long over on Wednesday night (technically Thursday morning) I woke up to the saddest dog crying ever and I had to sit up with him all night or he would start up crying again. So imagine this its about 3:00 am and me and my neapolitan mastiff (about 200lb) dog are sitting on my bedroom floor (well he was laying) with his head in my lap and he is in a weird miserable position I’ve never seen him in sorta tangled looking. He’s crying and I’m crying I mean he is my BEST FRIEND EVER and I can’t stand to see him in misery. I sit there and comfort him thinking about when the vet my open and if he will make it until then and lo and behold he is pulling through (Thank you God).

Anyway on to the tasting note I just had to let you all know where I’ve been the past couple days and what I’ve been going through if you’ve ever loved an animal you completely understand I’m sure. On to this tasting note I needed something soft and comforting and I thought why not go with this white licorice so here we sit me and the white licorice tea and all I can smell in the dry leaf is star anise which doesn’t remind me of licorice but pizza yes I said pizza when I was in H.S. I would rush home from school to eat and most times the easiest thing would be to throw a totino’s party pizza in the oven and wait well the sausage pizza had star anise so I’m thinking that’s why I think of pizza.

While I’m not tasting much of the white tea I do somehow know it’s there but mostly I’m getting the pizza star anise flavor and I don’t know that I like that in my tea. No I do know I DO NOT like that pizza spice in my tea. If you like star anise you probably would enjoy this tea unfortunately I do not.

P.S. Thank you to all of you who have been sending me your heartfelt wishes for Massimo I appreciate you all.

I was sent this tea by Doulton (Thanks so much). I was in search of a black tea in my cupboard and decided to go dig through my stash and here I found this little gem of a tea. I didn’t know anything about it besides the name and who blended it but while steeping I noticed an interesting smell filling up my kitchen. I then sipped and boy was I surprised it is this wonderful cup of black tea with hints of peach. I really do not get much more than that taste wise but the thing that really impresses me is this is a strong black tea that has NO astringency a very smooth cuppa. Thanks Doulton! :)

I was so craving a cuppa Florence and went to my tea cupboard to make me a cup and there sat my samples from all my steeps and in front was this one. I decided to give it a shot as it is a chocolate flavored black tea. I was very excited to try it as it is made by LiberTEAS while I’ve never actually had the opportunity to try any of her teas I love reading her posts.

Anyway on to the tea the dry leaf smelled delicious like delicious enough to eat delicious. Steeped 5 minutes in boiling water and the smell is still delicious but I am now picking up on very faint hints of the rose in this blend. The liquor is very dark with hints of orange and red the chocolate taste is very good. As you all know I love me some Florence and so it’s hard for me to be unbiased when it comes to chocolate teas but I have to say where Florence has the hazelnutty chocolate taste this one has a rose chocolate taste so they are completely different chocolate teas. Enough rambling I like this tea and I have to Thank AmazonV for this sample (Thanks AmazonV).

Okay I guess my taster is just off today! This one is is sweet, florally, woody and what I was thinking to be peppery but instead of pepper it maybe peony I don’t know what peony tastes like so I’m going to have to assume that flavor to be peony but I wouldn’t bet money on that. I don’t get melon but as it cools I get a small hint of sweetness at the end of the sip. Thanks to Erin I get to try this one (Thanks Erin).

So I’ve read so much on here about this tea and couldn’t wait to try it. I haven’t really been craving black teas since it’s starting to warm up here in TX but this morning is dreary and yucky after last nights rain. So I decided to pull the trigger and go for Sinharaja this morning.

The smell in the dry leaf was just tea smelling to me. Steeped it and took a taste while it was still hot and you probably are going to think I’m crazy but when I went to take my first sip I smelled tomatoes and tasted tomatoes and now I can’t stop thinking tomatoes as I sip this cuppa. I also get slight maltiness which I love and I find no astringency which is also a good thing.

It’s a smooth tasting ceylon I do enjoy this cup and if I find some other GM’s that I like as much as this one in my sampler I will order this one along with the others. Oh and BTW I’m not picking up on any of the berry flavors that is mentioned on the package but I am also not using milk or sugar just drinking it plain as I always do!

I needed to make a pitcher of iced tea today to keep my son and hubby from drinking soda’s all day and so I remember AmazonV telling me and Cofftea that we haven’t lived until we have had raspberry zinger iced tea.

So hoping my son and hubby would share AmazonV’s enthusiasm for this tea I decided to make it and here’s how I did it 4 bags of lipton (the large bags) black tea and 4 bags of Raspberry zinger steeped 15 mins in 2 cups of boiling hot water for 15 minutes then added one cup of sugar and 6 cups of filtered water and VOILA.

So I did a taste test on my son first as he is the most picky of us all and he took a sip and said “You might just be onto something here” with a big smile on his face we all liked it and I will definitely make it again. AmazonV recommends making this with raspberry lipton + Raspberry Zinger but I didn’t have any raspberry lipton. Thanks for the recommendation AmazonV!!! You rock! :)

If you like raspberry flavored iced teas try it!

This one is courtesy of Doulton. I woke up ran some errands today and was just so tired (I’m not sure why) anyway I thought hmmm maybe I’ll go ahead and have lunch and see if this helps. So I had my lunch which consisted of last nights leftovers homemade fettucini alfredo and a delicious salad and decided I needed a strong black dessert tea normally Florence would have fit the bill for this situation but I decided to live it up a little and go with this one instead after all it is Friday.

Once steeped the liquor is very dark and mysterious. The first sip was very strong black tea flavored and so I read the description which said add sugar well as you all probably know by now I don’t normally add sugar to my tea. Sugar added I think made this tea so much better and much more palatable (for someone with my tastebuds). Well with the addition of a teaspoon of brown rock sugar it is much sweeter I taste almonds but not the butter part. I can’t say that I’ve ever actually had almond butter so maybe I’m off on this but its a pretty good cup. I really appreciate the opportunity to taste it and it’s from California Tea House and I have never tried any of their teas before so double Thanks, Doulton!

I know this is a poor excuse for a tasting note but I completely ditto/agree with Ricky’s note on this particular tea. It just tastes like tea to me I wanted to taste the sweet potatoey goodness, bakey taste others describe about this tea but I’m not getting that I mean maybe vaguely I’m getting that but not as much as I do with Golden Monkey. I also do not care for darjeelings and this maybe why I’m not crazy about it.

I’m trying to like jasmine tea. This one is okay it’s not that it’s bad it’s just boring. Maybe jasmine is just not my thing. Sorry LiberTEAS I am trying. :)

Another tea I’m getting to try courtesy of…yep you guessed it AmazonV!

This one I’ve been curious about for quite sometime. I shop Teavana quite a bit in person while my son is making me wait for him while he shops the mall so I see this one alot and wondered if I’d like it the Teavana girl recommends it with there Black Dragon Pearls and well ya’ll know how I like my black Dragon pearls!

I need a real caffeine kick today as the weather here is just blah! It’s all overcast and just not a beautiful day. So I went for this and blended 3 dragon pearls and one and a half teaspoons of the Azteca Fire set the timer for 5 minutes and came back to what appears to be a cup of coffee. LOL this is not good considering that I hate coffee well I actually probably like coffee but the longer I keep myself from experimenting with coffee the better. I do not need another drinking habit so I refrain from coffees.

Anyway I’m rambling on to the tasting note these two mixed are dark like coffee and in the smell I get like a nutty smell mixed with chocolate. This cup is thick like much thicker than just plain tea. The two together taste like chocolate coffee with a hint of nut. I would have loved to have tasted the strawberry in this one I know it’s in there because I saw it in the dry leaf but sadly I could not taste it. This is a good cup I think I like it better than Mayan Chocolate Chai but it does not have the chili pepper kick that Mayan chocolate chai has.

This cup might actually wake me up and get me out of my sleepy stupor.