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I sent out my first swaps ever today, hooray! Thanks to Arshness and Ost for their friendliness. :D Ladies, I sent your tracking numbers via private messages.

This is my first tea to try from my Della Terra order that arrived today. It was full of shameless dessert teas like this one and cotton candy… Sue me! The dry leaf of this tea smells amazing – mostly butter with brown sugar undertones. It’s black tea mixed with a decent amount of candied pineapple pieces, various flower petals, and the occasional dried cherry. I have to assume the cherries are only there for style, since there were only like five total in my 1 ounce package. This makes sense, considering the maraschino cherries on top of the pineapple upside down cake are only there for show, too.

The first time, I brewed the recommended teaspoon (mine was a bit heaping) for 3 minutes. It came out far too weak for my tastes. So then I did about a teaspoon and a half for 4 minutes and it definitely improved. The brewed tea smells strongly of butter and brown sugar with kind of a toasted nut smell. It reminds me of a really buttery pound cake with some kind of glaze, which is pretty much what pineapple upside down cake is. I don’t get any pineapple in the smell.

The tea itself is quite tasty. I can taste the base just barely, so it must be a fairly mild variety since I steeped for 4 minutes and with extra tea. The flavor is very buttery and sugary with hints of dark caramelized sugar and cream. I think it equates very well to the actual cake used in the dessert, but I am getting zero pineapple here. Not even a hint of pineapple. And to be honest, that’s okay with me because this does cake very well. This is almost a dead ringer for that terrible-for-you sliced butter cake that you can buy at grocery stores (it’s like a more ridiculous pound cake basically).

I feel like this tea is a little weak, maybe I’ll try 2 full teaspoons next time I make it. Very tasty though!

Trying this one again after the French press pre-steep debacle… Steeped for 3 minutes at 205 degrees.

Wow, I am definitely getting a lot more lemon and lime than I did before. Still getting bergamot too and a tad bit of orange and a hint of floral. The lemon/lime (they kind of meld together) is definitely the main event though, and it kind of transforms into bergamot in the middle of the sip. Yum yum. :D

Oh, boy. I made a boo-boo. So, I brew all of my loose teas in a French press (I just put the loose tea in the bottom, add water, then use the plunger as a strainer instead of actually plunging the tea). I rinse it between uses and just leave it to dry by itself. As it turns out, a lot of the time there ends up being a tiny amount of water in the bottom. And I usually add my dry leaves a couple minutes before I add the water. So… basically a lot of my teas have been sort of “mini-steeping” for a little bit before the actual steep… Uh oh, spaghetti-o’s… And I noticed this completely by accident because of this tea.

This tea tastes completely different when I add the leaves just before the water… The bergamot is no longer strong or in the forefront. I now taste mostly red fruits (!!!!!) and vanilla with a bit of caramel, then the bergamot in the back. So… This means I’m going to need to retry a whole bunch of teas that I already rated. Sorry, guys. XD

Bumping the rating from 78 to 85. Je l’aime!

I just picked up a huge bottle of this, and I thought I’d check and see if it’s on here since it technically has tea in it. I love this stuff! Tastes like a thick, creamy vanilla soymilk with a little spice in it. If you like soymilk, you should definitely try it! Om nom nom.

I don’t think I’ll give it a rating since it’s not really tea.

I wasn’t really planning on drinking this one hot again after trying it cold, but it just sounded good today. I’m trying my best to get used to drinking tea without sweetener, and this one is very easy to drink. I can’t help but think I would enjoy it just a little bit more with sweetener added, but I’m holding strong! Very refreshing – the mint and the green tea balance out perfectly. I think I might need to try a plain gunpowder green tea at some point.

This one was a little too strong for me (and apparently my nose) last time I made it, so I decided this time I would cut open a silken sachet and measure out a teaspoon. There’s not too much more than a teaspoon in there, probably about one-and-a-half total. Steeped it for 5 minutes as per usual.

I’m finding it even more pleasant this way. I could see it being a tiny bit stronger, I might try a slightly heaping teaspoon in the future. And it’s not making me sneeze!

So now, the fun begins. Cutting open all of those sachets and putting the loose tea back in the tin. XD

I’m having this one chilled today. I cold-brewed it for six hours, and it’s been in the fridge for a couple of days since then. I added some syrup and I’m finding it very refreshing after a short workout (we have a rowing machine). It tastes of vanilla and a little bit of wood in the background. The amount of spice is perfect, it’s definitely there but it’s not a starring role. I could see this being my cold-brewed black tea of choice this summer! Oh Vladimir, how I love thee…

I’m sipping on this while lazing about, watching cooking shows and waiting for it to be time for me to go get my depo shot. I added some honey to it this time and I must say, I feel like it really complements the flavors in this tea. In particular, I’m tasting the lemon and lime a lot more than I remember from previous steeps. I know a lot of you prefer your tea without any sweetener but I find bergamot teas to be too harsh or something without it. Yum. :)

So today I’m up for round 2 of me versus Paris. I decided yesterday that I wanted to drink it straight and then had some unsuccessful attempts at brewing it – they all came out either bitter or unflavored. So after some advice from TheTeaFairy I am trying again today.

First try, I cut open a silken sachet and measured out a teaspoon for 8 ounces of water. Brewed it at 195 degrees for 5 minutes. This one tasted underleafed to me, both the tea and the flavor were extremely mild. So I tried again with a full sachet at the same temperature and time. This came out much better. It seems to me the flavors in this tea are very subtle, and for this reason I much prefer it with a little bit of sweetener to bring them out.

The only conclusion I can draw from all of this is that this tea comes out bitter when it’s understeeped. Does that even make sense…? I guess anything is possible.

I need a little spice this morning to pep me up a bit. This definitely does the trick. Amusingly enough, the amount of cinnamon in this tea seems to be affecting my nose this morning, because I keep sneezing as I’m drinking it! I find with this tea that it’s best to keep a spoon in it and stir it every so often to keep the flavor distributed. Yum yum red hots! <3