Dustin Send Message

The dry tea smells like cherries. I used about half the water than I usually do in my David’s mug, hoping for a more concentrated taste and I think I got that. I’m reading the description now because I have no idea what I am tasting. Poppy and peony?! I have never tasted those before! Maybe the cherry I was smelling was the marzipan. This is probably the best DF cup I have gotten so far! Even so, it isn’t a must have, but I would enjoy drinking it again sometime.

This smells very syrupy. The more I smell it, the less it smells like maple and the more it smells like table syrup trying to be maple. I love maple syrup but turn my nose up at table syrup, so I’m not super impressed here. This needs sweetener or it just tastes like an odd woodsey rooibos. Once sweetened, the syrup takes on a fuller flavor that masks some of the rooibos if I don’t take too many sips in a row. Adding cream kills the flavor a bit. This is an okay cup, but it is a little boring and leaves my mouth dry.

The dry tea looks pretty and Xmasy. Red, green and white bits. My first sip was strange tho. It was almost medicinal cherry. Like those sore throat lozenges that leave the back of my mouth and throat feeling odd. I was hoping their white teas might sit better with my palate, but this one is actually worse than the blacks.

I can smell a faint chocolate scent in this dry tea. It is still faint when brewed as well. It tastes lightly of chocolate, but there really isn’t any kind of wow in this tea either.

This smells SUPER rootbeery. Totally not a word, but I’m using it anyway. I stepped out of the house after brewing this and when I came back in the whole place smelled like rootbeer! It is an odd flavor without sweetener. I can taste the rootbeer, but it has this cardboard flatness to it. Much better after sugar! I love the idea of rootbeer tea, but actually drinking something that tastes like hot rootbeer throws me off a bit, like I found a forgotten half drunk bottle in the car on a hot day and decided to take a swig. It is a very well done tea, has a creaminess to it and is right on the nose with the flavor it is trying to replicate. I want to love it, but it strikes me as strange. Still it doesn’t stop me from resteeping it for all it is worth!

I’m not so sure about this tea. Muscat is an odd flavor for a tea. It tastes just like the muscat gummy candy, but not as sweet. It is just one of those flavors that my head has a hard time wrapping around in a hot drink. It is a little bitter, I may have over leafed it. I might try it once more before giving up on it.

I’m not sure if I tried this tea before. It was part of the advent calendar of ‘12 and has been in my cupboard ever since. Right after it steeped it was full of little glittery gold pieces moving around in my cup. I see where it got it’s name! I took one sip when it was still hot and returned to the cup when it was cold. Sadly, the glitter show had ended but I was left with a nice caramel flavored cup. When the cup is low enough I’m able to stir it and swirl up the glitter again. The tea is very smooth and I enjoy it, but I’m not getting any cinnamon, clove or orange and maybe a bit of vanilla. If I had been buying this tea based on what I thought it should taste like with those ingredients, I’d have passed. I’m not sure if it is a result of the tea being old, but whatever it is, I like it!

The smell of this tea dry is a little deceiving and it has taken me a while to appreciate it. It smells strongly of very juicy strawberries, so I expected a bold flavor to come through. It is a sencha style green, which I guess translates to delicate flavor. I have had a cherry sencha before and the cherry worked to not compete, but match the sencha in strength. I think the strawberry in this tea does the same. It is a kind of creamy tea in smoothness, so the name seems appropriate. I tried cold brewing it over the summer and it was refreshing but failed to amaze me like some other greens did when cold brewed. It seems like a more subtle tea which is rarely my thing, but I can appreciate it for what it is even if it isn’t going to get a permanent place in my cupboard.

I was curious about purple tea and saw that Butiki had a few options. The blends sounded good, but I wanted to get an idea of the tea type on it’s own before trying it flavored. This tea looked black when I put it in the infuser, but looked green when it was done steeping. The leaves look ground and a bit of the powder settled at the bottom of my cup. When I first took a sip it felt sencha like at the front of my mouth but changed into something else in the back. I’m getting an almost wheatgrass juice feel aftertaste. It tastes a little greener as it cools and I think I like the flavor better when it is hot. So far I’m puzzled and intrigued! I’ll be trying more of this soon!

This tea smells delicious! Toasted rice and caramel! It tastes really good too! I’m getting toasted rice with the deeper black base and caramel flavors. I think I can pick out the chocolate, but it blends with the caramel so nicely they almost become a part of each other. It is a really smooth enjoyable cup. Next time I’m going to try it with less sweetener and see how I like it. I can imagine it being really good cold brewed as well!