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I wasn’t sure about this one at first. It smells strongly of cinnamon and apples. Sort of like an apple crisp. Brewed, it tastes like dull cinnamon with some apples. Slightly sweet. There is a weird taste on my tongue with the aftertaste. I want to say astringent but it is more bitter (?). I was expecting a bit more punch with this one. I was hoping for strong, spicey cinnamon, and tart apples. I would have liked there to be more sweetness as well. I am going to play around with the brewing parameters a bit. And add some rock sugar, maybe honey or maple syrup, next time. I think the rock sugar will help to bring out more of the apple. There is less bitterness as the tea cools quite a bit.

A long steeping time may help with the cinnamon as well. We will see…

Met up with Roswell Strange at a tea room and decided to have a cup of this one. The description on the menu was something like lemon and orange flavours. It intrigued me as earl grey is basically orange flavoured (bergamot is a type of orange). I was expecting it to be a bit smokey because it was called Russian (thinking Russian Caravan), but it wasn’t. I would say it was a light to moderate strong Earl Grey. There was definitely a bit more lemon flavour, very distinctly lemon grass. I think the base was a Ceylon, but unsure. The tea came in a tea pot, it was loose tea in the water. So it did get a bit astringent once I got towards the end of the pot. I did get a refill of hot water into the pot. The second steep was definitely a lot lighter and thinner than the first steep, but I was expecting that. Not a too bad Earl Grey. It was great for our little get together. Its always fun meeting fellow steepsters in person.

Received this one from Teavivre’s free tasting activity. Thanks Angel!

The brewed tea smells deliciously sweet. I immediately thought of wild honey.

The brewed tea tastes wonderful. First tastes that come to mind were clean, malty, wild honey flavours. As I get into the mid sip, I definitely get a sweet potatoe taste, like crispy sweet potatoe fries. There is definitely a lingering sweetness. This tea tastes full and bold. Slightly creamy taste and feel to the liquor. No astringency.

I love Fujian blacks, and this one is no exception. Next time I would like to brew for a but longer to get stronger flavours.

I had to get an eye exam today where my eyes were dilated with eye drops. I still have quite blurry vision although it is improving. I still can’t read anything on my cellphone, but I can now watch TV. Computer is not too bad as long as I am not looking at it for too long. But I still feel quite nauseous and dizzy from having blurry vision.

So anyway, I decided to have some ginger tea. I am not sure if it will help my stomach because the problem is not really upset stomach but my eye problem, but anyway. I bought some dried ginger root, just to keep on hand for when I didn’t have fresh ginger root in the house. I mixed the ginger root and some honey, steeped that in boiling for 2 minutes, then added one of these teabags and steeped for another minute. I needed to use decaf tea because it is getting a little late in the day for caffeine for me.

It is actually quite good. The green tea and honey taste smooth and sweet. The ginger is moderately strong. Not as strong as I would like. All the ingredients are mixing well together. I quite like this. (It is doing nothing to help with my stomach, or my eyes, but my tongue likes it).

Tried this one a few times today. To me, it tastes better with a bit of brown rock sugar added. It just enhances the fruit flavours in the tea. I definitely can tell the base is a keemun. It is sweet, and smooth, just the tiniest hint of smoke. I do get a taste of papaya and some melon flavour. I am not really getting any peach flavour in the tea, but there is a bit of peach in the aftertaste. The liquor is thick, reminiscent of a juicy slice of papaya.

I do like this tea, however, I think it would be a bit better with a different or lighter base. I think the keemun just overpowers the papaya and melon a bit.

Based on a few other reviews of this tea, I made this one again, cold shaken without any sweetener. It was not good though. Hardly any taste. Some generic citrus overtop of the green matcha taste. It definitely tasted better to me with the addition of sweetener. I am thinking the distinctive level flavouring is not enough for me on this flavour.

Made this one again because I was going through my tea cupboard(s) and was debating whether or not I should get rid of this one. I had only had it once before and to be honest, it was gross. So I thought I better try it again to see if I would keep it or not. I did end up sending half of this one out in the Canadian Travelling Tea Box, but that still leaves me with a lot. (Long story but I bought a 100g tin without trying it because I wanted it so bad based on the other Tea Fort Coconut teas I have tried).

I made sure to use a lower water temp and much shorter steep this time. It is actually not as horrible this time around. Still definitely more perfume/chemical tasting lychee flavour, but it is not terrible. I feel like I am getting much more coconut flavour and am getting a bit of cocoa flavour (even though that is not an ingredient). Will probably be able to finish this tea now that I found the right parameters.

Edit: You also have to drink it right away when it is hot, because it gets less desirable again when as it cools.

I got this one because I wanted that juicy, tart, peppery, grapefruit taste. I decided to go with the distinctive flavouring as some of the previous fruity flavours of matcha I had tried as robust flavouring had a very chemical taste. So I thought it I cut down in the amount of flavouring that would help.

When I first opened the bag, it smelled like orange flavoured chewable vitamin c. One of the flavours I had trouble with regarding chemical taste was orange, and the orange matcha smelled exactly like this. So I proceeded with caution.

I made this one cold shake, 1tsp in 8 oz water with a dash of white sugar.

The taste was ok. Very underwhelming. There is definitely an artificial orange taste, similar to the chewable vitamin c. I am disappointed there is not more grapefruit flavour. There is just a tinge of chemicalness to the drink, like I am right on the edge of it. So I am happy I got distinctive flavouring but sad it is not more grapefruit like.

Next time I am going to add a bit more sweetener and see what happens.

Oh well, you can’t win all the time.

Made this with just regular hot water today. It was ok. There is not much eggnog taste. Mostly just a vanilla, caramel, creamy taste. This one was definitely better as a hot latte.

Totally bought this for this tin.

This is a royal blue tin with red writing on it that says keep calm and carry on. It has a bit of history of the “keep calm” on the back which essentially says that during WWII the British Government created a bunch of posters that said “Keep calm and carry on” in order to help keep peace among citizens. But the posters were never used, and years later someone found one and resurrected the saying. So I thought that was pretty neat.

What’s not pretty neat is that I can find no information on this tea anywhere on the expanse of the internet. All I can find is that is it “afternoon blend” but what is in an afternoon blend?

The tea bag looks and smells like a crushed up Ceylon blend. The brewed tea is the colour of a Celyon tea, really reminds me of Red Rose. The smell of the brewed tea, smells of Ceylon but there is something else creamy in it. Not too sharp, maybe something like vanilla.

The brewed tea tastes like Ceylon (big surprise here – haha). But it is not harsh or astringent like I find a lot of Ceylon teas. There is definitely something creamy in there. Not necessarily vanilla, but kind of feels like that. It is much more mellow that I expected – maybe that is the afternoon part.

Definitely surprised at this tea. I anticipated it to be just a really cheap bagged tea (and therefore taste like a really cheap bagged tea), but it tastes pretty good. Maybe I will drink this in the afternoons :)