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Miss Marzipan was sweet enough to send me a sample of this once after she ordered a tin during their free shipping sale. Thanks Marz! :) Visually, it’s generic black tea leaves with itty bitty chunks of something, which I assume is fig? A couple of them look like they could be citrus peel, so maybe it’s both. Dry scent is delicious strong and sweet fig with vanilla – I don’t really smell lemon here. I did a 4 minute steep at 200 degrees.

Mm, the brewed aroma is also strong figs (which to me, includes a honey scent) with sweet and woody vanilla and a touch of lemon. To be totally, I’m a little bit disappointed by the level of flavor here, I could have used a little bit more. I can taste all three flavors, which is nice, but I was hoping for more fig. I added a teaspoon of honey to mine, because I feel like honey and fig is a natural combination, and it did help to bring out the flavor a little more. I actually really like the lemon here, it adds a nice top note and really freshens the whole thing up. Something in the base tea tastes a little odd to me, almost mineral? Maybe I should have stopped at a 3 minute steep. Luckily, Marz sent me enough of this to try it a few times! :)

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Another tea that I removed to sample later. I’ve had one ginseng oolong before, but that one didn’t have the green powder coating like most of them do, so I figured I’d try this one as well. The leaf is tightly rolled pellets which are coated with an olive green powder. Dry scent is somewhat sweet and woody or something? It’s hard for me to describe, lol. I gave it a 4 minute steep a 200 degrees.

Yum, the brewed tea smells interesting! It’s very sweet and herbaceous with a bit of a woody note. The taste is much milder than I would think. There’s a light roastiness from the oolong itself, and then there’s a mild sweetness and an interesting vegetal note that reminds me of matcha or green tea flavored things. There’s a lovely sweet and fresh aftertaste that lingers nicely. Pleasantly surprised by this one! :)

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This is the first of the five samples I took out before sending the box on its way. I’ve tried houjicha once in the past, and didn’t really like it, so I figured I’d give it another chance. The leaf is a mixture of leaf and stem pieces, are they’re a light to medium golden brown in color. Dry scent is roasty and autumn leafy with a surprising amount of sweetness. I let mine steep for 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

Once brewed, it’s very roasty-smelling and reminds me of autumn leaves and roasted oolong. There’s not as much sweetness here are there was in the dry. If I’m remembering correctly, this one tastes pretty similar to the other houjicha that I tried. It just tastes like roasted autumn leaves with straw and a little bit of a toasted nut flavor. It’s decent and I’ll finish it, but this isn’t something I would ever need to keep in my cupboard.

Cheri was kind and generous enough to provide me with a sample of this (pricey) tea! Thanks so much, dear! The leaves are black, long, quite thin, and twisty. They definitely look similar to Fujian Black and Ailaoshan Black, the two teas that make up this blend. Dry scent is very chocolatey with sweet vanilla, yum yum! Cheri’s sample was about 2 teaspoons, so I just used the whole thing and used slightly more water (10 oz versus 8 oz) to compensate. I let it steep for 3 minutes.

Once brewed, it smells very strongly of grain and bread with plenty of malt. There’s also lovely chocolate and sweet vanilla with a bit of dried fruit (from the Ailaoshan I presume). I must say, I was expecting much more vanilla in the taste… The strongest notes are heavy grain and bread with that dill/caraway flavor that I often get with Fujian teas. There’s also a lot of dark bitter cocoa flavor and a touch of dark dried fruits (maybe raisins or prunes). I am surprised to not find much vanilla here, and I’m also surprised that this tea comes off are more savory than sweet to me. I’m partially relieved that I don’t love it based on the price, and partially worried that I’m missing something that other people are tasting… Lol.

Hah, I automatically went to type “Lewis & Clarke TTB” at the top of my post. Whoops! I did keep five more teas to try, but none of them are black teas, and I need my black tea in the morning! :) This one came from Han Xiang Ecological Tea on AliExpress. The leaves are gorgeous, as you can no doubt see from the image. They’re straight with pointed ends, definitely reminiscent of pine needles, and of course they’re golden and fuzzy and lovely! Dry scent is very sweet and honeyed with that lovely stonefruit smell that these teas tend to have.

Once brewed, this tea smells sweet and bready with sweet potato notes. I’m also getting a little bit of cocoa. The taste is all the things I love about Yunnan teas – smooth, sweet, bready, sweet potato-y, and with just a bit of fruitiness. It’s making me a bit happier this morning, when I’m grumpy because I didn’t sleep well last night. :P

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Another Tea Sparrow tea from Cheri! I’ve been curious about this tea for a little while, as I always am about anything almond or vanilla-related. There are a few pieces of almond mixed in with the rooibos itself. Dry scent is quite sweet and I can definitely smell vanilla. The instructions recommended a tablespoon of tea (?!) but that sounded ridiculous to me, so I halved it for my 8 ounce cup.

Once brewed, it smells like rooibos (woody, etc.) with vanilla and the tiniest hint of marzipan. Unfortunately, this basically tastes like rooibos to me… Maybe with a little bit of vanilla, but not enough. And I definitely don’t get any almond. Oh almond teas, why must you always disappoint? :(

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Another jasmine tea! I figured this would be nice to start winding down for sleep soon. And I’ve really enjoyed Verdant’s teas so far! Visually, this one is basically a silver needle, I don’t see any jasmine flowers in it. Dry scent is very jasmine and very sweet.

Once brewed, this tea smells like jasmine candy. Seriously, it’s that sweet-smelling! I’m a bit saddened by this tea… The jasmine flavor is actually very good, it’s quite sweet which I like. However, I can’t taste the silver needle underneath at all. It adds a creamy texture, but that’s about it. So while the jasmine is nice here, I’m missing the base tea! :(

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This is going to be another one of those terrible notes because I was playing Diablo III again… Oopsies. The leaves are those type that are thin and dark and partially curved into little ‘u’ shapes and loops. Dry scent was faint jasmine.

I found that this tea had a little too much jasmine for me when it was hot, I couldn’t really taste the green tea base much. As it cooled, I liked it more, but it was still very jasmine-y. Apparently I would like jasmine green teas cold brewed! :P

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This one is in Tea Sparrow packaging. I’m always interested in fruit teas, even if they almost always end up being disappointing with either too much apple or too much hibiscus. This one has chunks of papaya, mango, and apple, and it has the hugest pieces of hibiscus that I have ever seen (I avoided them mostly). The dry scent reminds me of a specific fruit gum that I can’t think of right now, and it’s quite tart.

Uh oh… Even though I tried to avoid the hibiscus chunks, my tea brewed up that trademark fuchsia color and it smells quite tart. Here goes nothing… :P Whoa buddy, this is super tart! To its credit, it does taste very citrusy, which is good. But it’s also quite strong on the hibiscus tartness, and I’ve not been adding any sweetener to my teas. I can see this one being very tasty and refreshing as an iced tea, but it’s just too tart for me to drink it hot. Ah well…

Lewis & Clarke TTB

I’ve never had a tea from Culinary Teas before, but I think they’re one of the vendors that a lot of other companies buy from and then resell as their own. I don’t have super high expectations of this one, but seeing as how I love both blueberry and vanilla, I had to try it! I don’t see any actual blueberries in here, just small black tea leaves and flower petals. This one was stored in a rather thin zipper bag, so it doesn’t have much scent left, though I can smell a little bit of blueberry. I gave it a 4 minute steep at 200 degrees.

Once brewed, the tea smells strongly of both blueberry and vanilla, which is promising. I can also smell the cream in there. Meh, the flavor’s not bad, I do get a decent amount of blueberry flavor, but not as much as I would like. The vanilla doesn’t really show up for me until the aftertaste, as well as the cream. It’s decent, but not something I would purchase.