871 Tasting Notes
Made this as a cold brew. Brewed for about 26 hours. Tastes like flat Barq’s rootbeer. I prefer to drink pop when its flat, so this is delicious. I could have added a bit of sweetener to give it a more pop-like taste, but it was good without sweetener as well. I think this one might be good steeped in soda water.
I bought this one as classic grade matcha and robust flavour.
On smelling the package before even opening it, it did smell like french butter cookie to me. When I opened the package, there was a very strong astringent almost chemical smell, on top of a buttery matcha smell. So I got a bit worried.
I brewed it up traditional style, with just hot water. The smell of the brewed matcha is a very strong green matcha smell. There is a light buttery, vanilla smell as well. None of the astringent, chemical smell that I smelled in the dry matcha. It tastes like green matcha with buttery and vanilla notes. There is a light pastry taste. Moderately creamy. After adding some white sugar, it tasted a bit a cookie. I would not say it tastes like a french butter cookie but more like a generic vanilla cookie or vanilla cake. If I think about it hard enough it could be french butter cookie.
The flavours start to become much stronger and much less green matcha taste as it cools.
Preparation
Finishing off this swap from KittyLovesTea.
Made it as a cold brew. Brewed for about 6 hours. The tea smells so awesome, like strawberry juice.
I am happy I stopped brewing after 6 hours, because the hibiscus is just on the verge of getting too strong. I can taste the strawberry. I would say it tastes similar to other strawberry kiwi flavoured drinks I have had, but I do not distinctly taste any kiwi.
Definitely a good fruity, juicy cold brew!
Thanks KittyLovesTea for this in a swap!
This tea smells of beautiful bergamot. The bergamot is super strong, and I love it. The tea is also very pretty with whole black leaves, mixed with bright blue flower petals.
The brewed tea smells very strong of bergamot as well, but there is another smell I cannot place. It is the black tea but I can’t tell what kind of black tea it is.
The taste is good. Not as strong bergamot as it smells. The black tea base is throwing me off a bit, I wish I knew what kind of black tea it was. It is still good though, just not a familiar taste. Cornflowers always adds a flavour of pastry/crust/bread to me. So there is a faint taste of sweet bread underneath the earl grey taste.
Delicious Earl Grey, definitely something different to mix it up a bit!
Preparation
The website just says this Earl Grey is made from the highest-quality black China teas. Most EG I have tried use a Ceylon base.
My first thought was that it tasted kind of like a Darjeeling, but then I saw it said China black tea. To me it is not quite like a Ceylon tea, but it could be. It might just be the bergamot flavouring and cornflowers that is throwing the taste off for me.
I made this one as a cold brew. Brewed for about 12 hours. I used equal parts of each tea. Turned out really good. I think anyone that does not like either of these two blends straight, may like them together. There is much less of a champagne flavour. There is a strong peach flavour over top of the strawberry flavour. I do not taste the oolong at all. This is quite a nice thirst quenching, cold drink.
Made this one as a cold brew. Brewed for about 12 hours. It tastes very similar to the hot brewed tea. The green tea base is very light, slightly buttery and nutty. There is a stronger citrous and strawberry flavours. There are undertones of a light rose flavour.
Made this one as a cold brew. Brewed for about 12 hours. I have cold brewed a lychee blend before and I didn’t like it too much. But Harney and Sons recommended this one iced so I thought I should try it. It turned out delicious. There is a very light lychee flavour, not overpowering and not perfumey. There is a slight sweetness to the tea. Very good.
Please be advised – this note contains a rant, you can skip it if you like.
This is not a tea I would have normally bought for myself. It was given to me as a gift, which I am grateful for. Stepping out of the box!
Let rant begin: I hate it when a tea blend contains a sweetener, this one has stevia. If I wanted a sweetener in my tea, I would add it myself. Now I totally understand teas like pineapple upside down cake and pankcake breakfast, that contain a sweetener in the blend. But that is because they are mimicking a food. But there are teas that add sweetener, whether it be stevia or rock sugar or whatever, that don’t necessarily need it, like this tea. I will make my tea how I like it, please don’t force your sugar on me!
End rant.
On first smell, I wasn’t quite sure. To me it smelled like fermenting fruit/berries/grapes, like if you have ever smelled the mash that is used to make wine (and no, I am not a moonshiner).
On first smell, I got a sweet, tart smell, much like Sweet Tarts Candy. But underneath, there is that fermenting fruit smell. It almost has a carbonated drink smell to it, like pop/soda.
The tea tastes nothing like it smells. To me it tastes strongly of stevia (you will know what I mean if you have tasted the leaves of a stevia plant). I can taste the metallic notes of rooibos and the lemon verbena. A faint, slight generic fruity undertone, but I would not say it was raspberry. There is the aftertaste that I get with drinking carbonated drinks.
It does not taste anything like it smells, but I am still overall not a fan. I think I was jaded by reading the ingredient list, and thus, going on a rant. I think I will try is as a cold brew as I do with most of my herbals, and see what happens.
Preparation
I am with you on that one!
I totally agree with you. There were a couple of teas I was looking into from Davids and as soon as I saw ‘stevia’ listed in the ingredients I passed. Like you, I’d rather choose whether to add sweetening or not. =/ Especially in the case of your sample you had from Teavana. I understand sweetening a brewed sample inside store locations, but mixing in sugar with the dry leaf!? Not cool.
I agree completely! I wish a lot of vendors let their tea stand on their own – it’s not exactly a vote of confidence that they add sugar.
I didn’t mind this one, actually, but I think it really depends on how much stevia you get in a cup, which seems to vary. For instance, I love Banana Oolong even though it has stevia… but when I hit the bottom of my bag? Barf. All the stevia seemed to have accumulated down there or something. It was disgusting. I think I had the same experience with two batches of DT’s Blueberry Jam as well; one was amazing, and the second was so stevia-heavy it was gag-worthy. Sigh. I’d personally also prefer it was entirely left out. I’m quite capable of adding my own sweetener… (and yeah, when things like maple sugar or chocolate are ingredients in a blend, that’s one thing… stevia is another.)
Made this one as a cold brew. Brewed for about 12 hours. Turned out pretty good. It tasted very similar as it does hot. Cold, there are strong notes of vanilla and cake. I feel like I am getting a lot of cherry flavour. Slightly creamy. Delicious.
Edit: I had a glass of this today while I was painting, my parents came down to help. I hate painting, and my mom loves painting, so that helped. Dad just lounged and “directed” us while painting. When I turned around, my glass was half empty. Dad tried denying it was him. Anyway, he was caught, and he said it tasted like jasmine tea. I explained to him what it was and what the tea tastes like and he responds “No, it tastes like jasmine”. I had another glass later in the day and for the life of me could not taste any jasmine. To each their own. From now on, I am guarding my drinks!
