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When the hot water first hit this tea, I immediately smelled pumpkin pie filling. The taste of the brewed tea is more pumpkin chai to me. I definitely get a pumpkin flavour. I am getting cloves and a very light ginger taste. I am also getting quite a roasty or burnt flavour – burnt like caramelized sugar. I get only the slightest bit of rooibos flavour, which is a plus for me.

Definitely surprised by this one. Thanks*Terri*!

Another one from Terri HarpLady.

This one is pretty good. I anticipated it to be a bit stronger tea based on the title. I would say it is mild to moderately bold. It is thick, creamy, and smooth. There is a very slight sweetness to the tea. I am getting a metallic tinge in the aftertaste but it is not unpleasant. Given the name two tigers, I feel like this tea is actually two different teas. The first half of the sip is very gentle, it is the smooth and creamy part. The last bit of the sip has a very small bite to it, more like a nip. Slightly rough, with a bit more boldness and with the metallic tinge. To give it a ridiculous metaphor, it is like the first part of the tea is the gentle loving mother tiger, who is nursing her baby. The second half of the sip is the baby tiger starting to get curious about its surroundings, wobbly on its feet, and has to have your constant attention at all times- ridiculous, I know :)

It becomes much more creamy as it cools.

Received this from Terri HarpLady.

I was having a difficult time figuring out how to describe this one. It is sweet, smooth, maybe its malty. It is definitely a STRONG tea for sure. Maybe some assam, or some Ceylon? Is that a Darjeeling? I really don’t even know if that is what I am tasting either. I thought maybe my taste buds were off from eating or drinking something. So I started doing some digging. I think the best way to describe this tea is how the company describes it : A blend of seven teas, named after an Regency/Georgian English gentleman with a massive collection of tea. Strong and black.

This one came from Terri HarpLady!

This one has been on my shopping list, now newly named wishlist (?), for a long time. I love flowering teas. They are definitely beautiful to watch bloom, it is almost like I have no idea how that even works. Definitely an art. But I don’t really care for the taste of flowering teas. So when I came across this one, I was super curious, it was a flowering tea but made of black tea. Right up my alley.

I only used 2 cones for a cup because I wasn’t sure how strong it would be. In hindsight, I should have used 3 or 4 cones but I have enough to try again. Definitely beautiful to watch the cones “flower”.

This one brewed up a sweet, malty black tea. I am getting honey notes, but very specifically barley honey notes. It is quite mild on the boldness scale but I think that is more to do with not using enough tea. This one is similar to some of the black pearl teas I have tried but with more sweetness.

Edit: I did a resteep with the same two cones, but for 4 minutes. Definitely a lot stronger with the 4 minute steep time. less honey flavour, it is strong but not bold. Pretty smooth taste. I think, though, I would prefer more tea with less steep time.

Received this one in my swap with Courtney. I love assam. I am sure I have said in many of my reviews that CTC assam is one of my all time favourite teas.

This one is not a CTC version, but the leaves are quite small. There is not much smell to the tea dry. Brewed there is a very, very light assam smell. Slightly sweet.

The brewed tea is OK. I had quite high hopes for this one. I am not getting any malt, which is the most disappointing part. It is only moderately bold. There is a mild sweet honey flavour. I am not getting much spice either that is described in the description of this tea. To me, this one is almost bordering on a Ceylon. I am also getting a light metallic tang in the aftertaste, which I have had with some assams before.

The tea itself it good, I just prefer a much bolder and maltier assam. I think it may have been better with a larger quantity of tea, I used 1 tsp which is what I normally use.

Received a sample of this tea from Courtney. I had forgotten I had tried this one before, it was still on my shopping list. About a year ago, I was in a little family run sushi place. I was waiting for a friend to arrive, so while I was waiting the hostess served me a tiny cup of this sesame tea. I have no idea what kind of tea it was. It honestly tasted like salty, roasted sesame seeds. It was most likely a green tea but in all honesty it could have been soup broth. It was delicious! It wasn’t on the menu and I got caught up in visiting with an old friend so I forgot to ask the server what it was. I haven’t been back since but this is an excuse to go :)

Anyway, this one tastes nothing like that. Ha ha. It is a smooth, light green tea. There is a sweet caramel taste. It is very light. There is a light sesame flavour, but I would have liked it to be stronger.

Thanks Courtney.

I made this one again today, cold shaken. I added about 1/4 tsp of white sugar. It helped to brighten up the taste a bit. Made it taste a bit less waxy. But I would say it didn’t really bring out much passion fruit. I still have to try this one hot, but so far it is an ok generically tropical tasting matcha and not so much passion fruit tasting.

To me, this one doesn’t taste a whole lot like passion fruit. I am not sure what it tastes like. It isn’t bad or anything, I just can’t quite put my finger on it. I did chose to get distinctive flavour instead of robust becuase I had a few issues with the fruity flavours in robust tasting chemical, so this could be the problem. I also did not add any sweetener because I wanted to try it plain first, as is my usual with trying flavoured matcha.

The dry matcha has a slight hint of passion fruit. More tart than sweet. The taste is a sweet, fruit flavour. I don’t want to say it is generic fruit because it isn’t, but it is familiar. Maybe just tropical tasting. Or maybe a bit more like guava, not sure. There is a slight hint of a waxy flavour.

In other news, I am finding this matcha, as well as the last flavour I tried, is quite lumpy. It lumps quickly even after sifting. And it does not dissolve very well at all. I used the same basic grade matcha as I always get. So I am not sure if it the flavouring or the matcha.

I made this cold shaken, 8 oz water. I will try adding some sweetener for tomorrow and see if I can squeeze out a bit of passion.

This tea is different every time I drink it. It is some kind of magic.

Yesterday on the second steep, after it had been sitting for about an hour, I could swear I was tasting rootbeer notes by the end of the cup. In all fairness I had previously been drinking a rootbeer flavoured tea, but I was still amazed. I also sometimes get cinnamon out of the second steep.

This morning on the first steep, I am getting a lot of fruity flavours. Very much like a dark, sweet plum. It is very creamy. There is some sweet tobacco notes, almost like a hint of clove cigarettes. And I feel like there is just the slightest hint of nutmeg and cinnamon. It tastes almost like a coffee cake.

I often do not get much chocolate or cocoa out of this tea like many others. But it doesn’t matter, it is still good. It is almoste like this tea is whatever you need it to be :P

Well I just sing the praises of about every Nina’s Tea I have tried. I guess it had to come to an end at some time. This one just didn’t knock my socks off like most of the other ones. It is still good, maybe its OK, but I was a bit disappointed. Really just disappointed in all of my excitement and not in the tea itself.

This one smelled like a gentle green tea with strawberry flavours. It was a mix of real strawberry and strawberry flavouring. There was real strawberry pieces in the blend.

The taste is just a bit lacklustre to me, maybe it is just too gentle. I am getting a very soft green tea taste. It is smooth, slightly sweet, no vegetal flavours at all, no astringency. Maybe there is a bit of a hay taste, I would associate that more to white teas than green. There is also a strawberry taste. Slightly sweet, mostly red berry tasting. This tea tastes very mild to me.

I think next time I will try a bit more tea and a bit longer steep time.