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This tea maker is brilliant! I am so happy to be able to have tea made every morning when I wake up and kept warm long enough for me to get ready and head out the door with a perfectly brewed cup!

My tea maker was a birthday gift! It is truly the perfect gift for a loose-leaf tea lover like myself! The automatic settings allow you to perfectly brew almost any tea and, if these settings are not to your liking you can customize your brew temperature and time! If you want to brew the occasional tea the old fashioned way, this tea maker also functions as an electric kettle to heat water. I haven’t had a bitter cup since using this tea maker, even with finicky brews like strong black teas and a jasmine pearl! I surely drink more tea now due to the convenience! I definitely recommend this tea maker to anyone who enjoys a great cup of tea!

I just got this sample from Whispering Pines Tea Company yesterday! I am so excited to try the other teas I ordered (look for tasting notes on Port, North Winds, and 2013 Ontario Pu-erh coming soon). This tea is a smooth, sweet treat. I’d like to add a longer tasting note at some point but we are starting case rounds so ta-ta for now!

I brewed this based on Brenden’s recommendations!

This is not my favorite night time tea. I am not a big fan of licorice and that’s what I get from this tea.

On the other hand, my cat loves this tea and often grabs the label to try and pull the bag out of the water. She also steals the bags out of my tea box. She doesn’t want to ingest it… she just wants to hold it and rub her face all over it. It seems to act like a cat nip to her. I wouldn’t recommend leaving any felines alone with access to this tea haha!

I don’t mind recommending this tea; however, I have night time teas that I enjoy more.

I use 1 bag in 10 oz of boiling water and I often allow the tea to steep as I drink.

This is a strong earl grey. It requires a short steep time. The tea base was nothing to write home about. It made an okay breakfast tea but I wasn’t too disappointed at sip down. If you are fairly new to tea or prefer bagged teas then I would recommend the Twinnings over the Tazo brand.

I used 2 bags of this tea in 24 oz of boiling water with a steep time of 2 minutes.

This tea contains some of my favorite ingredients (bergamot and lavender) but it was just too strong for my tastes. It was very pungent in odor and flavor. I kept decreasing the steep time and at 2 minutes it made an alright breakfast tea. I am a huge fan of earl grey but this tea was nothing special.

Recommended for people who love a strong breakfast tea.

Brewed using 2 bags in 24 oz of boiling water with a 2 minute steep time.

Il dolce far niente… the joy of doing nothing… What a beautiful thought! I am sitting here sipping this delicious brew and while I watch Eat Pray Love :) What a fun movie and a delightful tea!

When you open the tin, the smell is so enticing! I shared this tea with my husband last night. We both love it! It has such a bold coconut/nutty flavor with just the perfect hint of chocolatey sweetness! This is the perfect cup for a relaxing Saturday afternoon.

Preparation: Bagged tea. Truvia added. (confession: I left the tea bag in the mug and drank around it)

Drank this tea this morning with a splash of grapefruit juice! I very much enjoy this tea. It’s such an easy cup to sip in the morning. Something comfortable and familiar about the tea base. It doesn’t make a bold cup but somehow that works with the lemon overtone. This tea will always be an easy choice for me.

Preparation: Bagged tea. Honey to sweeten. Splash of grapefruit juice. (confession: I left the bag in the cup and drank around it)

I sincerely enjoyed my first exploration into writing a tasting note; however, I do not have the time to write such long tasting notes regularly. I also contend that anyone reading my tasting notes may prefer that I keep it a bit more succinct… so here it goes.

This has been one of my go-to teas of late. I tend to prefer black tea in the mornings and Earl Grey is the tea that got me back on my tea kick after a several year hiatus. This was my first voyage into the flavor of Earl Grey Creme.

This is a loose leaf tea. The dry leaf is dark and intermingled with yellow petals (Marigold, apparently) which gives this tea an inviting character. The smell of the dry leaves is a rather strong floral perfume of bergamot. I LOVE Bergamot. I like the more perfumey as well as the more citrusy flavors.

The color of the steeped tea again reminds me of stained cherry wood. The aroma of the steeped tea is much more heavy on the vanilla and the bergamot gets a bit lost for me. The tea is very smooth and has an almost creamy mouth feel. I can tell this is an Earl, but the bergamot is a bit mild for my tastes. I am enjoying the 2 oz I purchased immensely. This is a great breakfast tea and gives me a pleasant start to my day. I plan on sipping on this during morning rounds today.

Preparation included 1 packet of Truvia, my sweetener of choice. I have also enjoyed this tea with a splash of cream/milk; however, the flavor gets a bit lost so I prefer this tea alone.

This is my first Steepster tasting note. I do not typically find that writing is my creative outlet of choice; however, I have been loving reading other people’s reviews on this site and I wanted to try my hand at it. In addition to helping me determine whether or not to purchase a tea again, I hope that by reviewing my teas I will start to take note of and gain an appreciation for specifics of preparation, attributes of the tea leaf, the aroma, and subtleties of flavor that tend to get forgotten when I allow myself to sip without attempting to describe a tea.

I am drinking the Harney and Sons Vanilla Comoro in the full leaf sachets. Preparation is detailed below and included the addition of a single packet of Truvia, my sweetener of choice. I used 1 sachet of tea. Next time I make this, I will steep for four minutes as there were some bitter undertones after a five minute steep.

The dry leaf is very dark in color and quite uniform. The sachet contains pieces ranging anywhere from a finely ground consistency (like coffee) to a 4 mm leaf size. The smell of the dry leaves is quite heavy handed with the vanilla; however, there is an undertone of what I can only suppose is the scent of the Ceylon leaves which I would describe as a bit floral.

The steeped tea is the color of a cherry wood. (I realize comparing tea to the colors of different types of wood may be strange, especially since I can not pretend to be an expert on either subject; however, I can’t help but think that the only other thing I know that has such deep, rich, amber color is cherry wood.)

The aroma of the steeped tea gives off a much milder vanilla scent and the floral scent of the black tea reminds me of my mother making sweet tea when I was young. I especially remember “sun tea” which is a slow brewing method of making sweet tea (or any other tea I suppose) where a pitcher of water is left out in the sun with a couple of tea bags. As the sun warms the water, the tea steeps. I remember watching tea steep on the porch at my grandmother’s house with a cat lazing about next to the pitcher. My grandmother used to make all of her tea this way in Florida. I wonder if she used a Ceylon or if I just need more practice to be able to distinguish between types of black tea.

The tea is very smooth and easy to sip. The flavor profile is fairly straightforward. There is nothing surprising about this tea, but it delivers an exquisite vanilla flavor that is much more subtle than you might expect compared to the scent that hits you upon opening the container. For me, this is a solid choice for a black tea. I like that it is decaf. While I don’t typically purchase decaffeinated teas and tend to stick to naturally caffeine free herbal teas in the evenings, this is a great night time tea that is soothing in the same way as a mug of warm milk and honey before bed.