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Interesting. This definitely tastes like a nice fresh strawberry. There seems to be a whiff of hibiscus in this too, which I’m not enjoying as much. I’m also not getting the cream aspect. I do like this as a strawberry tea, but I wish I was getting more creaminess out of it. I still have some leaf left – suggestions are welcome!

Thanks to Laurent at Nina’s Paris for the sample.

Now this. This is the taste of victory. I won the stressful thing at work, got my travel mug back, and had a lovely little reunion with my training class (all unrelated but wonderful events). I spent my entire commute home looking forward to celebrating with this exact tea (don’t worry, I take the train; wouldn’t want to risk tea-dreaming and driving!). And it is just as fantastic as I remember it. Just a nice, natural watermelon flavor over a light base. Resteeps quite nicely. I thought it would go well with apricot raspberry thumbprint cookies, but it’s just too much fruity sweetness. Maybe it would work if the cookies were homemade instead of store-bought, but I’m not much of a baker.

Many thanks to Stephanie for the swap!

Big day at work. I barely slept and woke up nauseous. Time for some ginger tea! This didn’t taste especially ginger-y, but it quite did the trick. Got me out the door, at least.

Oh boo. I wasn’t paying attention this morning and ended up overbrewing. The result was still drinkable, but the magic was gone :-( It was just kind of generically green and black. Smooth and not at all astringent, but…meh. Which I suppose doesn’t matter much, because I ended up losing my travel mug. My awesome, spill-proof, keep-tea-warm-for-ages travel mug.

Go a few days without constant easy access to high quality tea? Whatever shall I do? ::promptly orders a new travel mug::

Thanks again to whatshesaid for the sample!

This is really pleasant tonight. I’m having it after some Bailey’s Irish Cream and it’s actually a great chaser (to the extent that tea can be a chaser and Bailey’s needs chasing). Next time I think I’ll just pour the booze right into the tea. How have I not thought of adding creamy alcohol to dessert-y teas before?!?

I had what I believe to be a sipdown of this tea earlier today. I see from my previous tasting note that I enjoyed the ginger flavor. Unfortunately, I could barely taste the ginger today. It just seemed very weak all around – maybe the water wasn’t hot enough? I did let it steep for a good long while…

Oh well. I have better ginger teas and better Wissotzky teas, so it’s no big loss to be done with this one.

Mmmm. This is a great palate cleanser. Clean, toasty, roasty goodness. Green tea at 9pm probably isn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, but I needed something proper and savory to get out the taste of my previous drink. Definitely something that I’d like to keep in stock if I can actually get my numbers under control first.

So I tried this with honey and rice milk this time. I ended up with a nice little latte with hints of cocoa, carob, and coconut. Nothing special though, and not a bit like a macaroon. It is less smoky than last time (probably because of the honey and rice milk), but there’s still a touch of smoke in the aftertaste. See my previous note for more detail!

Hey guess what?! This is another sipdown for Kaylee!

Well this certainly smells like a macaroon! It doesn’t quite taste like one though. There’s a good bit of almond creaminess going on that’s rather pleasant. The aftertaste is closer to macaroon than the sip is. A bit too dry for my taste, but very shredded coconut-y. I usually (really, really) dislike coconut teas, but this is the exception.

This isn’t astounding, but it’s quite solid! Nice for an evening dessert tea. Thanks to whatshesaid for the sample.

I had some of this last night to help out a headache (not a migraine, thankfully). The brew is an extremely pale yellow. As to the taste – I know there’s no mint in this, but it totally tastes minty to me. That might be because I store it next to the Whisper of the Woods tea :-) Pine plus mint is actually a lovely and refreshing taste. The underlying tea is oh so slightly buttery and quite smooth. This blend becomes even more refreshing as it cools. Very reminiscent of walking through the woods in that seasonal sweet spot where summer has ended but fall hasn’t truly set in (so, pretty much right now).