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My second go at this tea – though this time with some skim milk. The creaminess of the milk brought out the flavour and the sweetness of the white chocolate a little bit, but it’s still not something that hits me as being instantly recognizable – though that might just be due to the nature of white chocolate being less intense and distinctive than dark/milk chocolate.

I can still taste the cashews very well – kudos to Frank, by the way, for trying something unusual. I think this is the first tea I’ve come across that has cashew nuts blended into it; usually tea companies use almonds or hazelnuts. But cashews are my favorite type of nut so this tea makes me a happy girl. :D

Argh! I had a nice tasting notes written for this tea when Bob the computer decided to die on me. * swears * So I’ll try and reproduce what I remember from it. >:(

This tea was another of the samples that Mike from “It’s All About the Leaf” (http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/) gave me to review. I have to say that I feel a little spoiled with the size of the samples he’s giving me, there’s a good 30-40 g of tea in this pouch, for instance.

Dry it has a sweet, vegetal scent, and the leaves are rolled like most green oolongs – although fairly loosely in this case – and the leaves look to be a bit paler than what I normally see. The steeped tea reveals how “Imperial Gold” likely got its name – it’s a deep, warmly-golden liquid. It also has a rather delicate floral aroma that teases the nose rather than punches it.

This is quite a ‘green’ green oolong, with a vegetal flavour profile and, oddly enough, little of the sweetness that I’m used to tasting as an oolong cools off. The first steep, at 4 minutes, is a little weak – not too surprising as the leaves take time to unroll and open up. I’ve been told that the 2nd steep of a green oolong is usually the best, and what I’ve experienced so far with this type of tea seems to bear that out, more or less.

The 2nd steep, at 5 minutes, has a fuller flavour and a more substancial body. It has a flavour like cooked greens with a faintly spicy or peppery note that lingers on the tongue. By the third steep, at 6 minutes, I can tell that the tea is starting to lose its omph, as it has a thinner liquor and a sweet, green taste that’s more fresh than cooked – although there are some buttery notes on the end.

Not my favourite – I like my oolongs sweeter, though I think you can put that down to a matter of personal preference rather than lack of quality in this case.

Much more flavourful and sweet at this steeping time, though oddly enough it’s the cherry flavour that seems to be the most enhanced by the change, not the pineapple. I’d almost say that this tea doesn’t need to have any sweetener added to – it’s naturally sweet on it’s own.

Not a bad tea but it’s sort of thin-tasting. I don’t get the sense of there being a lot of substance or body to the tea, I guess. Not to say that it’s tasteless, it’s just a bit…ephemeral.

I’ll give it a try with a longer steeping time the next time I drink this tea, and see if that makes a difference.

My A&D Series 1 and 2 teas have been kicking around in my cupboard for awhile, but I haven’t really touched them since I didn’t want to open a new tin while I had so many teas already on the go. It says something that LiberTeas got to try my tea before I did, lol!

Cool and unique-looking tins aside the dry tea itself is quite pretty to look at – black twists of leaves with a mixture of silver-white, golden, and light brown streaks. The steeped leaves turn a uniform light reddish-brown colour, which is very close to the colour of the liquor itself.

The tea has a lot of superficial similarities to a Darjeeling tea – not surprising I suppose since the Darjeeling region of India is near Nepal. However it isn’t as astringent and while there are some muscatel-wine notes initially, the tea fades into a flavour that strongly reminds me more of a light beer. The tea also gains a sweetness as it cools off, much in the same way an oolong does, interestingly enough.

I’m reviewing this one for Mike the founder of ’It’s All About the Leaf’ tea blog (http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/).

I grew up drinking Celestial Seasonings teas and it was (and still is) a staple in my mom’s cupboard; but for some reason I never got around to trying this particular one even though ‘Sleepytime’ is one of the standard CS blends. For once CS seems to have made a herbal tea without hibiscus being involved (thankfully). Out of the box it smells quite herbal with a strong odor of mint. More in-depth sniffing revealed a sweet vanilla-y odor lurking in the background.

There’s not really a whole lot of vanilla that I can taste in the tea itself and I think that’s partially due to the fact that the mint and chamomile are such strong, aromatic herbs that they drown out any subtleties in this tea.

Ah Sencha Fuka-midori, you were only with me for such a short time before you were gone again.

I tried multiple resteeps with the last cup’s worth of leaves but here the tea let me down. The resteeps were rather dull-tasting and lack-luster, and few of the flavour notes from the original steep carried over. The tea will lose a few points over that I think.

I got this tea courtesy of TeaEqualsBliss.

Definitely lighter than some Assams I’ve drank, despite the dark, reddish appearance of the brewed tea. It still has that familiar malty quality with some bakey notes that linger in the mouth. It’s a bit astringent initially, though I think that could easily be solved by taking this tea with a bit of milk. I’m not a huge fan of drinking Assam teas straight black anyway, so I’ll give the milk a shot next time I drink this.

This tea is exactly what it says it is: chamomile and lemon myrtle. It smells like them and it tastes like them. The chamomile isn’t too kick-you-in-the-arse strong or bitter and it makes up the main body of the tea. There’s just enough lemon myrtle to give the tea a lemony, ever-so-slightly spicy flavour without taking away from the chamomile.