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Dear, sweet, merciful teacup, this was good. I had no expectations of what Rose Congou should taste like, but one sniff, and one sip, and I now have my ideal Rose Congou in my head. Made a cup for Cara and she liked it as much as I did (and also added wisely that it didn’t smell like her paternal grandmother, who always wore rose perfume!). Like drinking not just a rose garden, but a garden full of tea roses.

I can’t quite figure out what’s wrong with this tea, but there is something very wrong with it for me. It’s kind of flat, and I’d waver between diagnosing it as stale (except it’s a new packet), or that it contains badly mixed, cheap synthetic flavours (except that I was assured that PdT uses no artificial flavours). It’s not anything that makes me want to behave like Tom Hanks in BIG, on tasting caviare, but I’m not going to be eager to drink it either, though that mix should be a winner for me. Luckily, younger daughter likes it, so we’ll probably get through the packet easily enough, without my having to drink it.

Well, that’s a surprise – I just drank a cup of this and thought it was absolutely delicious! I only ordered it (the 10 g sample size) on a whim, because I have thought for a long time that I don’t like lapsang souchong. It’s good to find out things about yourself, even if they’re “You don’t even know what YOU like” kind of things, right? Er, right??

Anyway, I don’t think I’ve even tried one since moving back to Ireland, almost 20 years ago. Maybe tastes have changed, maybe I was drinking it ‘wrong’, or maybe this is just a really good tea. (I think I’m going to send some to cteresa to see what she thinks.) Whatever the reason, I brewed up a cup this morning, with about 1.5 teaspoons (big cup) and then drank it without milk, which is both weaker and milk-less-er than I usually drink the morning caffeine blast. (By milk I mean either soy or almond, and right now it’s almond, as our local grocery store has started stocking Alpro Almond – yay!) I meant to add a small splash of milk about halfway through, but found myself with an empty cup before I knew it. Smooth, slightly sweet and smoky. Not even a hint of bitterness or over-astringency.

I’m so glad I happened to see PureAromaTea’s 25% off Steepster discount, which pushed me into ordering from them! Really enjoying working my way through the teas.

Parcel arrived from PureAromaTea this morning, and there were so many enticing little packets I got quite dizzy! First order from them, so I’d chosen to try sample sizes of lots of teas, and they’d added three (generous-sized) samples free. Doing a little happy dance, and only just stopping myself from ripping open ALL the bags to sniff at once.

I’m not rating this one as I don’t have any other Russian Caravan experience to compare it against, as far as I remember. Also, I over-brewed a bit as I was serving my daughter’s cup of Peach Black, which smells delicious, btw. But I’m liking the level of smokiness in this, which is smoky but not licking the cold barbeque smoky, and it’s a very smooth black base. More tasting notes should follow at some point.

The ingredient list is a bit odd – not sure what “China Sencha” is, for one thing. But this is a nice tea all the same. Smells just like creamsicle in the tin, sweetly creamy and vanilla-orangey! And it is a pretty tea, if not quite as elegant as the picture on the website would suggest. That may be a good thing though, as a piece of orange that big and full of peel might add a bitterness the tea doesn’t have at all. Taste is more flavoured green tea than creamsicle, which is a good thing, and it’s a nice smooth tea base, whatever it is. Still doesn’t taste quite as good as it smells, though it’s very tasty. I’ll keep experimenting, and will be reordering when I finish the small size order I got first.

A lovely flavoured green, which I appreciate the more for having tried a few artificially flavoured ones by mistake. The mango is delicious, and either it balances out sencha’s typical bite of bitterness or this is a particularly mellow sencha base. This one even convinced Becca (not a green tea fan) that green teas could be good, though she said she’d have preferred it with a bit of honey.

I’ve never got around to drinking it as an iced tea, despite the suggestions from Yumchaa, but then it’s just not often hot enough to put you off drinking hot tea here! Second infusions have been a bit less tasty, but I’ll try again and make more careful notes.

I had the ends of a bag of this, and a new one of Yumchaa’s Raspberry Vanilla, and after a few nights of alternate enjoying, decided it was time for a proper taste test, before all the Berry Berry Nice was gone. It was totally scientific! Well, actually, it was nothing of the sort. I put the teas straight into two cups and infused for the same amount of time, then divided those two cups into two more, so Cara and I could each taste properly. Naturally, we ended up with different preferences, but Berry Berry Nice is my winner.

With that mix of fruits, I’ve very little hope of distinguishing each flavour note, but despite Yumchaa’s description of it as a “tart treat”, I don’t find it tart at all. Both it and Raspberry Vanilla have vanilla and rose petals (though BBN has vanilla “pieces” while RV has “pods” — ??) and I’d have thought the combined fruits in BBN were at least as tart as raspberry, but I find it a smoother, less tangy tea nonetheless.

It’s all gone now, and I will definitely be ordering more of this favourite. It happily serves as a winter, nighttime drink, as well as the summery one the “drink while wearing sunglasses” suggests.

My favourite rooibos tea so far. It’s probably worth mentioning that my gingerbread recipe is adapted by (at least) tripling the amount of ginger, doubling the amount of cinnamon, and adding nutmeg, cloves and cardamom. I LIKE spicy. (And now I’m thinking it should get some pepper and chilli too.)

All that said, the tea is spicy but not overly so! A good rooibos base, with strong but balanced flavours of cinnamon and ginger, and a nice kick of chilli. (I’ve no idea what red thistle adds to the mix – does anyone know what it tastes like?) I almost always brew this in a large filter bag (Palais des Thés calls the size small, but they’re generous) and leave it in, as rooibos doesn’t get bitter with long steeping. I’ve noticed that when I drink it without milk (it’s good either way) the last little bit of tea has a much more pronounced sweetness than the rest of the cup.

Have re-ordered several times from Yumchaa, and will keep buying as long as they keep selling!