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Not being much of a pumpkin spice guy, I initially tried this one because I just started working at the coffee shop I ordered it from (and I take knowing our menu very seriously). I was surprised to be delighted from the very first sip.

This is an interesting take on a fall flavor because it isn’t really spicy. It’s sweet, rich, tempered with an almost delicately salty edge that reminds me of the caramel frosting I used to have on pound cake. My mouth feels swaddled in the warm caress of brown sugar. This is definitely a comfort cup.

I bought this tea because two things I have are insomnia and a lingering cough from a bout of the flu. These are two things my lifestyle simply does not allow me to have, so my battery of defenses is excessive if not largely ineffectual.

So a deep sleep blend? Add to cart. Perhaps this tea will help me sleep. At this juncture, sweet dreams seem unrealistic, because the smell that confronted me upon opening the bag is frightening. The sachets are almost as sickly yellow as me and smell like I’m about to go on a very creative journey that’s waiting for me just beyond this steaming cup of Magic Pesto.

The steep is unexpectedly sweet. The basil is unholy. I feel like the tea is reviewing me faster than I can drink it. I’m looking forward to doing this 49 more times.

Your sleepiest guy reporting for duty.

The color of this tea is so deep, dark, and rich that, paired with the warm spices and a touch of astringency, it exudes red wine and makes pinning down the flavors just a little more difficult. All of that and the fact that I am, in fact, bad at it, but I also find it interesting how divided the reviews on this tea are when it comes to the profile. What we can all agree on seems to be that it is very dark.

The fruitiness is most pronounced in the aroma of the dry leaves and has me dancing between strawberry and apple, but clove infused with the sweetness of cinnamon emerges as the prevailing flavor of the steep. That will have to satisfy us, as the exact ingredients appear to be a guarded secret and picking through the leaves isn’t the most forthcoming occupation to this end. The weather is a little warm still to fully appreciate this one but I am sure it will have its time.

I have just crawled out of bed after getting my world absolutely rocked by a 1mg tablet of children’s melatonin. Adult dosages of 10-20mg maim me beyond utility for at least 24 hours after taking and leave me with an insatiable craving for a white, padded room, but apparently based on this dosage chart, I have the body chemistry of a 3-5 year-old, and the body chemistry of a 3-5 year-old has a very specific craving lately.

I used to love watermelon as a kid but over the years I’ve cooled off on it. Nowadays my preference for watermelon flavored things is surfacing (Wiley Wallaby’s watermelon licorice has got to be the hottest collab that watermelon has dropped to date). This watermelon oolong seemed like destiny, and that’s because it is.

The aroma is prominent: sweet and piquant with an almost savory first impression that reminds me of pickled peruvian pearls, but the taste is so brightly and sweetly watermelon and feels like it pole-vaults into your mouth, skipping 60% of your tongue and landing flawlessly at the back of the palate. Oolong is the supportive introverted friend tip-toeing in behind it and softly closing the door behind them.

This morning I was truly feeling the effects of being at the center of a nightmare drum circle of depression, insomnia, the calamitous state of my current work environment, and the exhausting reality that they are not nearly as inclusive as they think they are. A mental health intermission called for a new tea.

This oolong is an interesting mix of floral and vegetal. The perfumey collard liquor aroma gives way to a palate somewhere in between. Warm and faintly wilted-tasting without being too brothy or peppery, this is a mellow and soothing mix with a remote impression of something I want to call pine nuts but can’t swear to it.

This is what you get when you extract all the evil spirits from a honeydew and make a tea with what remains.

My distractable brain decided I needed to simultaneously prepare one of every beverage option I possess today. Consequently, I didn’t get to taste much of this tea while it was still hot, but hours later, it is tasty and refreshing even if a bit chilly.

Admittedly, I am not much of a dragonfruit aficionado. The flavor is not evasive so much as unfamiliar but feels like it is fairly well matched to the rose in terms of intensity: neither seems to overshadow the other significantly. The pairing completes a crisp, zingy fruit taste that my uneducated palate would have probably labeled as nectarine.

Having just survived 5 hours of flight delays and a solid 1-2 more spent waiting to deplane, I have settled back in to my apartment from a July 4th trip to Chicago enough to investigate my treasures. Chicago is home to many wonders, but I found its strengths lie more in tea services and tearooms than in bulk shops. Though I regret that I did not have a chance to stop in to the Smashing Pumpkins-owned tearoom nor to visit the Russian Teatime restaurant to enjoy a samovar, I did get to swing by The Coffee and Tea Exchange and load my cargo pants pockets with samples like some sort of strangely gaited packhorse. And, in my typical fashion, I will test the waters with my least anticipated acquisition.

Ok. Well. The vision was to steep this for 3 minutes. Foolishly I responded to the call of nature right before the timer went off, and as we all know, nature loves to yap. So really we’re looking at a solid 6-7 minutes. Luckily this doesn’t seem to have been catastrophic for this tea. From the aroma I get a sweet, lemon-bar character of citrus on a muddled, mixed-berry bed. Tartly accented but not sour, this is a pretty balanced and fruity cup that sidesteps the raw aggression of an assertive lemonade. I think this tea could just as easily be billed as a “Fruit Tart” blend or a Berry Lemon Bar reflective of the warm and sugared fruit notes that impart a baked, jammy character to it that I just don’t anticipate from “Raspberry Lemonade”.