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Ok so the description of this tea and the ingredients list GRAPES. But there are no grapes in here. There are raisins. Raisins are not grapes! Just saying!

This tea has a strange smell. There is a tart blueberry smell but almost like a yeasty, bread-y smell. Very tart smelling.

The tea is super tart. Thanks Hibiscus! I think though it an be controlled with a shorter steep time. After you choke down the initial hibiscus flavour, you can taste the black currant and elderberry. I get raisin but no grape flavour, HA! There is a very faint blueberry taste in the aftertaste. I do not get sangria at all. So I guess that means I get to open a bottle of wine and make some real sangria. Mmmmm!

Right now I am not liking this one too much, but I think it can be fixed up and blended with something to be a bit better.

Last of my free samples from my Butiki order.

The dry tea smells like creamy caramel – like if you have a caramel sundae and it melted.

The brewed tea smells strongly of burnt/dark caramel with hints of vanilla. The tea initially tastes strongly of burnt/dark caramel with very light notes of vanilla. As it cools the vanilla becomes stronger and the caramel more creamy. The flavours of the Assam also come out more as the tea cools. It also becomes sweeter while it cools, but still carries the flavours of burnt caramel.

Delicious blend, this is not something I would normally pick up for myself but super happy to have tried it as a free sample. May have to stock up in the future.

Another free sample from Butiki!

The dry tea smells very mildly of sweet bergamot. Brewed the tea is lightly scented bergamot but there is also a sweet scent to the tea. The brewed tea taste like a medium boldness black tea with light bergamot flavouring. The black tea base is not too strong and it blends well with the bergamot. The bergamot tastes sweet. There is almost a sweet candied orange taste to the tea. The sweetness is not overpowering though, and fits just right with the tea blend.

I would describe this as a traditional Earl Grey, the bergamot is just right. This is a good one for anyone that doesn’t like their bergamot too strong.

Received this as a free sample in my Butiki order.

I am not getting much smell from the dry tea but brewed it smells strongly of cinnamon bark. It reminds me very much of a cinnamon coffee cake. I thought I should have brought some brown sugar with me to put in this tea. Then I read the description on steepster and noticed it says to add some brown sugar… I guess I’m not crazy after all.

The taste of the tea cinnamon and amaranth. There is a slight pastry flavour on top of the black tea base. I get almonds towards the end of the sip and strongly in the aftertaste. This one reminds me of an almond biscotti.

I am not a super fan of dessert teas, usually because they are either disappointing or way too sweet. But this one is well done and I would be happy to enjoy it in place of a dessert.

Received this as a free sample with last Butiki order. Super impressed that Butiki teas are labelled with exact water temp and brewing time and it is not just a generic for all blacks use this, etc.

This tea smells of delicious peaches. Not too juicy, but it is authentic smelling. While brewing the smell of peaches with an undertone of hops was wafting out of my mug.

This tea tastes like an unsweetened peach juice. It is not thick though. There is a slight black tea taste but I almost had to wonder if I was really drinking tea or not. There is a very faint hops taste that becomes more prominent in the aftertaste. This one doesn’t really remind me of beer at all, which is slightly disappointing because I was hoping for that hop-y, slightly malty beer taste. But it is still a delicious tea. The hops work really well with the peach flavour. Excellent blend!

I am not too impressed with this one, but I should have known after looking at the ingredients. It is not too bad, just did not meet my expectations.

Made this one iced, steeped 4 minutes in 24 oz boiling water, then chilled. Added a lot of white sugar and served over ice.

The dry tea smells of spicey raspberry, almost peppery. The brewed tea is a beautiful ruby red colour. It smells strongly of hibiscus and a sour fruity smell. The unsweetened cold tea tastes like very tart raspberry. Bordering on sour, but not bitter. I added some white sugar, I didn’t measure, just dumped it in and stirred it really well. After the sugar was added, it did make the drink sweeter, but there is still an underlying tart taste. The raspberry flavour is now more artificial. There is a slight spicey aftertaste, making me think of white or pink peppercorns. This one reminds me very much of the juice you make from those frozen cans of juice concentrate that you mix with water.

Stopped by Starbucks today after getting groceries for the week. I am a sucker for iced tea lemonade. There is nothing better to me in summer or winter. I often mix my own by using black tea mixed with either lemon tea or sugar lemonade mix. I haven’t found my perfect blend yet but I am enjoying trying.

This one tastes like a mild black tea, with sweet lemonade. It is quite sweet. I wish they didn’t make this one so sweet but they use syrup so it is hard to modify.

I am going to be enjoying this one all summer long. Its always better when someone else makes it for you!

I have been camping all weekend. All the weather did was rain. It was a horribly cold and wet experience, but at the same time, I had lots of fun. I had planned to make a lot of sun tea all weekend using this tea. I put a few bags in an old 2 gallon pickle jar and filled it with water and left it “in the sun”. That means I put it on the picnic table and all it saw was cloud and got rained on. So it was more of a cold brew type tea. Never the less it was delicious. I just kept filling up my cup, and left the tea bags in the jar the entire time. I used varying amounts of ice and sugar in my cup depending on how I was feeling. Towards the end of the jar, it was getting pretty strong, so I just used more ice to water it down. It was quite refreshing, no astringency, and even though it was getting strong towards the end, it never got bitter, just more bold. This made the camping trip totally worth while. I should do this more often at home.

This was part of Tea Forte’s Nantucket iced tea sampler that I bought. Dry it smells of sweet ginger. I brewed it as per instructions, 24 oz boiling water, steep for 5 minutes, add sugar, chill, add ice.

The brewed hot tea tastes strongly of spicey ginger. There is a very faint sweet fruity taste. It was good enough that I wanted to drink it hot. After it was chilled it was sweet ginger with a more fruity taste. Juice-like. I would not say pear per say, maybe peach, just generic fruity. Still good. I don’t really distinguish the white tea other than that the tea is not very strong. I added some sweetener and on my, there is the pear. It is definitely more like sweet candied pear. I like that with the sweetener there is more pear taste, but I think I preferred it without the sweetener, as now it is too much candy taste. There was only one of each flavour in the box which is too bad because I would have liked to have more of this one.

The smell of the dry tea had me a bit nervous because I didn’t really smell any bergamot. It smelled much more like Eve by Nina’s Paris.

The brewed tea smelled of delicious malty keemun. The tea taste like smooth malty keemun with a very light bergamot flavour. It tastes like a medium strength black tea. There is also an orange citrus flavour, and a slight natural sweetness to the tea. It tastes like there is a mild fruit flavour underneath the base of the tea.

The is not a bergamot-lovers Earl Grey, but it is a very smooth and delicate Earl Grey. Very delicious. I recommend to anyone unsure of Earl Grey as the bergamot is not too scary.