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This is another of the teas that Whittard of Chelsea sent to me! Thank you!

I am flagging after spending the morning at yard sales, so a breakfast blend just after dinner makes perfect sense to me. This one is excellent. Honeychocolate! A little fruity. The Assam and Keemun make beautiful music together. It is certainly a bold tea, but it’s also extremely smooth. Downright velvety. Chocolate mousse smooth! Perfect with a scant teaspoon of sugar and milk.

I want to call it a classic, but I can’t — it has something a little bit different about it which makes it special. This is one I’d serve guests and save for special days. I love it.

You can find this tea at www.whittard.com! Look at the beauteous tea caddy:

http://www.whittard.com/tea/black/1886_blend_tea/125g_tin_1886_blend.htm

This is a Tea Sipper Traveling Tea Box Tea!

Train delays had me hot and cranky by the time I got to work (an hour late!)! I wanted something light and fruity to sip today, and the raspberry in this was very appealing! I just had some raspberry cider the other night, and can’t get raspberries off of my mind!

This is nice! A good light but natural raspberry flavor, and a medium, mellow oolong. I see this as an enjoyable everyday-ish oolong. Usually I like the first steep and love the second steep of most oolongs, but my first two steeps were remarkably similar — less raspberry-ish on the second, but the oolong didn’t change much. Interesting.

There is a little bitterness in the tea — I should try it 10 degrees cooler the next time I make it.

Love this one in the hot weather. Juicy berries, citrus, and a good, strong tea base to keep your energy from flagging. I give it a shortish, slightly cooler than boiling steep to keep the bitterness at bay, and add sugar on my first steep. What I like about this one is that you can get a great second steep, then drink cool, fruity, lightly tea flavored steeps all day!

This one has to be good iced!

Just a note of continued appreciation for this one. I love Golden Monkey so much, and Harney’s is still the most consistently delicious one that I’ve found. Sweet honeyfruity which turns milky on subsequent steeps. Fantastic resteeper. Good at any temperature. Wonderful with a croissant!

I am very low, and I just checked — there is some available to purchase. It’s pricey, but very much worth it to me. Heaven.

Delicious. Everything I love in a black tea. Tangy, roasty, chocolatey. Am I tasting cinnamony too? While it tastes kind of similar to the Fujian blacks I adore, and kinda similar to The Simple Leaf’s Dawn (!) it definitely also has it’s own thing going on. I keep on tasting a variety of nuances each time I sip. Buttery? Fruity? Bready? This is one that you don’t want to rush through, and one that will reveal different facets of itself each time you drink it.

Also – the Verdant $5 try me pack? Talk about an offer you can’t refuse! I was so pleased with both the amount and variety they sent. So excited to try the others.

I was contacted by Whittard of Chelsea and was asked if they could send me some teas to try and review. I usually say no to these types of requests, but I was absolutely delighted to accept some teas from this venerable tea merchant! On Saturday I got a “Knock! Knock! Knock! Delivery from the UK!” at my door — it was the tea! Thrilling! I tore open the package to find three beautiful full-sized loose teas.

I’m one of the few Darjeeling fans here on Steepster. I adore the muscatel flavor — so I was happy to see this tea in the package, and chose it as the first tea to try. I decided to take it with a little sugar “like the Germans.”

It’s delightful. Divine muscatel and a delicate but rich tea flavor. It’s a lighter tea — so perfect for the steamy day — but very flavorful. I drank it at work and had to pause for a moment to let the flavor wash over me. The wineyspicy muscatel, distinctive and delicious, was just so good. The sugar made it round and sweet without any of the astringency I usually find in a Darjeeling, but I took my second steep sans additions and there it was — a little piquant pucker. Love.

I was able to enjoy three steeps, the last one drank cool, which makes me think this would be a great fancy iced tea for a party (the color is a gorgeous amber – I could just picture it in a clear glass pitcher).

What a perfect introduction to Whittard of Chelsea — I am so, so pleased to meet you!

This has been my best friend during these busy end (of semester) times. Delicious, staunch, invigorating, and eminently resteepable. The strong bergamot makes me smile. I can’t believe I’m half way through the tin already! This tea has allowed me to mostly skip the iced coffee IV that I usually self-administer around this time of the year — I’ve only had two!

<3 <3 <3

It’s deja vu all over again! Made http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2013/04/17/apple-cinnamon-pull-apart-rolls-from-store-bought-to-homemade/ again, and there is nothing in the world I wanted to have more with them than Vanilla Black. That natural, dark vanilla flavor and good tea go so well with these little sweet breads. They are forever forged together in my mind…perfect pairing.

Many Thanks to Tea Sipper’s Traveling Tea Box for this tea!

I was Home Alone and had a Grand Plan to throw caution to the wind and drink a caffeinated tea in the evening so I could stay up and read The Hound of the Baskervilles late into the night under a blanket with my cat. Wild times. I made this one because I love chai :) and I had a single bag from TSTTB.

It was not the most distinctive chai I’ve ever had, but it was very good! There was nothing to dislike about it. Nice spices, nice tea base, good with a little honey and milk.

You know what happened though, don’t you? Yes, I fell asleep reading around 9pm, woke up at 2 am and tossed and turned because of the caffeine! This happens Every Time, yet every couple of months I do this thinking I’m going to stay up during the right part of the night rather than the wrong part of the night. Sigh.

One of my new traditions is getting a First Flush Darjeeling each spring. This year, I didn’t even have to go searching for one, as my Golden Moon Insider’s Tea Club selection was this lovely!

The amber color on this brewed tea is gorgeous. It has a much less green and more muscatel (and sweet!) flavor than most of the other FF Darjeelings I’ve tasted, yet it definitely doesn’t taste like a 2nd flush. Interesting! I’ve been contentedly sipping it all day. A little pleasantly astringent which is especially welcome after my giant burrito :)

The Insider Tea Club does it again :) Wonderful, special selection!