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Sipdown! (100 | 197)

My very last sample from Courtney. Thank you Courtney, I always appreciate the chance to try some Dammann teas without the dreaded 100g blind order! :P

I asked her to send me some of this one, because I had it in the advent a couple of years ago, and I remember everyone else loving it while I was underwhelmed.

Well… still underwhelmed. :(

It mostly just tastes like green maté to me. And don’t get me wrong, I love yerba maté every which way, but I was expecting to find more cacao and more almond. There’s a subtle hint of nuttiness, but I can’t taste cacao at all. And I’m so sad about it, because I’m always on the lookout for more maté blends…

Oh well, sad day. I’m still interested in trying their clementine and lemon-cherry maté though…

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I’m not sure what to think of this one, it almost tastes bland to me? There’s a light sweetness and a hint of hazelnut, but otherwise I mostly just taste the woody black base. Maybe a tiny hint of chocolate flavor?

Strange, because Mon Petit Chocolat is fairly strongly flavored.

Sipdown! (98 | 195)

Another one down from the RoT fall sampler!

This tastes just like those caramel apple lollipops that are green with a caramel coating. I mean, obviously there’s rooibos in here, so it doesn’t taste exactly like them, but the flavors are very close. The caramel is sweet and very buttery without much depth, and the apple tastes like a green apple hard candy. The caramel and the rooibos are the strongest flavors, with the apple more in the background. I think I kind of prefer that though, because if the apple were stronger, it would really just taste like a green apple Jolly Rancher. The rooibos has a mellow woody flavor, with no medicinal qualities.

A very pleasant dessert tisane for fall! I’m not sure I would go out and buy it necessarily, but I would certainly drink it if it were in my cupboard. I have a similar tea from Stash, Maple Apple Cider or something? I’ll have to pull that one out soon for an autumnal evening cuppa…

Sipdown! (97 | 194)

So we were at Lowe’s yesterday to get some new pendant lights, and there’s a World Market in the same shopping center. I’d never looked at their tea selection before so I figured I would go and check it out since we were in the area. I ended up coming home with one of the semi-recently released Bonne Maman herbal tisanes, and also this fall sampler pack from Republic of Tea. I haven’t historically been a huge fan of theirs, but I like having an opportunity to sample some of their teas without buying a tin of 50 bags, plus the flavors sounded nice.

So here we are! There are four teabags of each of six flavors, and I figured I would try to get in some quick sipdowns since we’re nearing the end of the month, and I only have two teapots’ worth of each tea.

I’ll be honest, this is the tea I was the least excited about. Pumpkin spice teas are never my thing, I always want more pumpkin and it’s never there. And this pretty much lives up to my low expectations, it’s a generic black base with mostly ginger and clove. There are other spices in there, but I’m not tasting them much, maybe a hint of the nutmeg. There’s also apparently pumpkin flavoring, not sure why they bothered, as I don’t get that at all. At least the black tea isn’t astringent, I suppose.

Anyway, generic pumpkin spice black tea. Inoffensive, but glad to have gotten it out of the way. ;)

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Last one from my 52teas haul! \o/

I enjoyed this one, it has a nice light and slightly creamy lemon flavor with a touch of pleasant herbaceousness from the lemony herbs. I don’t get a lot of coconut, it mostly adds a creamy element to the lemon. And I’m happy about that, as the coconut could’ve really taken over here if it had been stronger.

A yummy light-as-a-cloud lemony tisane that’s a perfect cuppa to end the night on. My one critique would be that it reminds me more of a lemon coconut marshmallow than a custard, as it doesn’t have that custardy richness. But delicious either way, he he. :)

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This tea is confusing. It’s called Dorian Grey, and the description compares it to Earl Grey, but there is no bergamot in the ingredients. The dry leaf smells like bergamot, and the tea tastes like it has a touch of bergamot to me, and maybe some vanilla. Yet there is no bergamot, and no flavoring of any kind – just black tea, apple, and flower petals.

Huh?

Thank you Courtney, for this strange tea experience ha ha. ❤

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This one was just okay. It mostly tasted like peppermint and rooibos with a mild sweetness from the maple. Fine but certainly nothing cookie-like, and the peppermint is a bit little wet raggish. The package says to drink it as a latte, but if I did that with every Deb tea that recommends it, I think I would only ever have her teas as lattes lol. If it can’t stand on its own without adding milk and sugar, I’m not interested.

This was my last tea left from the subscription box last year, and good thing too, because I just got an order in of samples of her spring collection. Well, it was supposed to be samples, but apparently she had a label issue with a couple of the teas, so she sent me 50g tins of those instead of 25g pouches. Which, don’t get me wrong, is incredibly sweet of her! But I would’ve preferred the 25g pouches ha ha, I have too much tea! x.x

She also sent me samples of a couple of the new summer teas, which was so sweet. I’m very interested in trying the milk bread hojicha and watermelon lime slush oolong (both 75g minimum size), so if anyone has those and would be willing to swap samples, let me know!

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Another Dammann sample from Courtney, thanks friend!

The vanilla here is so yummy. It tastes like actual vanilla, but at the same time it’s creamy and rich, like a vanilla bean ice cream. There’s a soft woodiness to the black tea that also helps sell that bourbon vanilla sort of flavor. The peach is mild by comparison, but adds a nice sweet-tart fruitiness to punctuate that rich creaminess. The overall effect is sort of like sliced fresh peaches that are absolutely drowned in crème anglaise.

I’ll have to peruse Dammann’s other vanilla teas when I go to order the advent in a month or two, as I often find vanilla black teas disappointing but this one is spot-on.

Sipdown! (92 | 189)

Finished off my second (and last) sampler of this one, which I received in a grab bag.

Honestly I think this is one of my favorite teas from 52teas. The balance of the cola, the ginger, and the base tea is just perfect. I feel like I’m tasting some lemon or lime as well, but I don’t see that listed so I guess it’s just the interplay of the flavors. So to me, it ends up tasting like some lovely combination of cola, ginger ale, and Sprite. And yet it also reminds me of root beer barrel candies somehow. I like how the ginger tingles slightly on my tongue, which helps mimic the effervescence of soda.

Yummy! Will have to keep an eye out for more soda-inspired teas in the future.

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Another one from Courtney!

I feel like this is one of the better carrot cake blends out there, at least of the ones I’ve tried. It does still leave something to be desired IMO. There’s a nice gentle spicing that, combined with a hint of cakeyness, does remind me of a spice cake. I do feel that it’s missing the frosting element, perhaps a bit of vanilla or cream would be a nice addition.

A very pleasant and comforting tisane for the evening, though probably not one that I would order 100g of. I am thinking I might do the Dammann advent calendar this year, since it’s my favorite and I didn’t get it last year. So I’ll have to pick out a few teas to order along with that, since I’ll already be paying a lot for shipping…