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Mmmmm……….. I wasn’t sure whether I’d enjoy this, but I I really do. I brewed it at a lower temperature and longer time than recommended. I love the peach flavor in the green tea. It blends beautifully. I’m not really getting the cakiness, except maybe as a booster to the peach’s sweetness. This is just summer happiness in a cup, without being too sweet.

This is the 52Teas rebo.ot blend

The dry tea smells like sweet maple syrup. And so does the steeped tea. Mmmmm….

Made this batch without milk and sugar, and I steeped them in a Zervo tea infuser (hadn’t use it in awhile because the last time… I left my tea leaves in there way too long)

On the first sip, I get flowers touched with maple syrup. Mmmmm…. I’m not getting any cheesecake, but the flowers and maple go really nicely together.

I generally don’t seem to be able to get the cheesecake from these tea flavors very often, which is to bad, but I’m not really missing it here. I usually figure I might try it with some milk and sugar to see if that brings it out more, but I don’t really want to here. I feel like that would muddle the TieGuanYin flavor a little too much.

Second steeping: 180 degrees, about 3 minutes.

This one is a little more bitter, a little stronger on the flowers. The maple is a little more subtle this steep. It gets a little lost in the flowers. Still nice, but I think I enjoyed the first steep a little more.

I absolutely love how this company adds pieces of real fruit to their teas, rather than just “flavors.” It looks pretty and generally means I get more of that flavor (not to mention that a lot of times, I’ll pick the rehydrated fruit out of the tea when I’m done drinking and just munch on it. This one had gorgeous long strips of coconut, and tiny half rounds of banana nestled in the honeybush.

When I first started steeping, I could really smell the coconut, and that’s about it. Now I smell the banana too. (I got one banana piece in this steep – I think there’s enough left in the sample package for one more steep, and that one will have at least two pieces of banana in it).

I’m definitely getting both coconut and banana in the first sip. A little heavier on the coconut than the banana. This is very pleasant. I’m not really getting the “cake” bit in this, but it might be overwhelmed by the coconut and banana.

I’m trying to use up more of the tea I have in my cabinet before it decides to come crashing down, but I might have to get myself a larger packet of this one.

As usual, I’ll make a note that I should probably try this with milk and sugar, too, but my habits still usually have me drinking it without.

Drank it this morning, so my impressions are a little bit rusty. This was very nice. It tasted a bit vegetal and bitter, but in a pleasant way. I didn’t really notice anything special about it for a green tea, but it’s nice.

Dried leaves: Mmmmm, lemon. And then, just behind the lemon… I don’t know if I’d have identified it as cheesecake, but it does fit that profile. It did smell like a lemony, creamy, dessert, though.

First sip: lemon in the forefront, the sugar and creaminess in the background. The sugar is kind of WAY in the background – just enough to evoke dessert without actually being sweet.

This is another one that might evoke the dessert better with added cream and sugar. That said, I like this one a lot, the way it is.

This is the 52Teas reboot version.

Dry tea scent: pure, white mint. Like wintergreen. I couldn’t really smell the white chocolate, but I did get a couple of beautiful white chocolate chips into my teaball. I’m kind of expecting the white chocolate to melt into my tea and turn it a bit more translucent, but it still appears pretty transparent, if dark.

This tea is like pure, white mint, like the hard ones you get in the restaurant, the texture of chalk, but they slowly melt in your mouth like ice, and when you blow afterwards, you almost expect to see your breath. Those mints.

Since mint is the predominant flavor in a grasshopper, I’d say this one is pretty spot-on as to the flavor. I do kind of wish I was getting the chocolate a bit more. I think it’s there, and I can almost taste it if I try looking for it, but it’s overshadowed by the mint.

This tea makes me think of being wrapped up in winter clothing, playing in deep snow. The fact that it is hot tea against the mint emphasizes that toasty warm feeling of being all wrapped up against the iciness, a beacon of heat against the cold.

Imagine if I cold-brewed this one…

This is another one I may need to try with milk and sugar, to see if it brings out the chocolate a little more. Also, next time, I might separate out the white chocolate chips, and add them directly to the water, rather than inside the tea ball. I mean, I think the melted chocolate would have made it through the mesh, but I’m not entirely certain. I might open up the teaball when I’m done to see whether I see any lumps of chocolate. I do think this will become a favorite – I just need to figure out my favorite way to drink it. :)

Mmmm…. dry, this tea smells like I’ve been running my smoker for awhile.

I actually took the tea ball out of the tea this time. This is smoky with a very subtle sweetness to it, with a smooth bitterness following.

I like this. I like this a lot. I haven’t had much lapsang souchong in the past, so not sure if they’re all like this (I got to try another souchong blend from this company, unreleased, that I also loved, except I got a bit of a rubber scent and taste from the first few sips. Then it disappeared into beautiful smoke). I’m curious to try something like a souchong/chai blend, see how I like a bit of smokiness mixed in with the chai flavors – I think it could be great, as long as the smoke doesn’t overwhelm the chai.

I got deep and earthy notes from this one, with dark, dark chocolate when I sniffed the dry leaves. The cocoa and cardamom dust quickly drifted from the tea ball to diffuse from the tea. After steeping, the tea is a deep, rich, blackish brown. It’s definitely one of the darkest teas I’ve ever seen.

The taste is earthy (Any time I taste nuts – it’s always pecans – guess that makes me a true Texan _), too, with the cocoa just deepening the tea notes.

I’m not quite sure what I think of this tea, honestly. i like it, but I don’t think it’s one I’d reach for too often. It’s almost like it’s a little too dark for me. I might try it next time with a bit of milk and sugar, see how I like it then.

Guesstimating that steeping time. I’m not feeling particularly nitpicky this time.

This is probably one of the first teas I had ever tried by Tea Forte, a tea bag a couple of years ago that I was given as a gift. I enjoyed it muchly, and bought more tea. _

This version is the loose leaf one, that I’ve had from time to time. I’m not really smelling anything right now, but there is a layer of… something on top of the tea – probably loose tea dust that got out of the ball and floated to the top. Doesn’t bother me, really, but that might bother others? Don’t know.

Anyway, this is another one of my happy white teas. (Granted, I will probably enjoy any tea where I can taste coconut.) Albeit, not quite as happy as my Teavana Ayurvedic Chai, but still pretty happy. I get a very smoothly blended coconut vanilla flavor that’s sweet, but not overly so.

Also, as white tea usually, I love how my fatigue-fogged brain usually turns on, like a flipped light switch, when I drink it. Yes, I know this isn’t exactly uncommon (why hello, caffeine!), but I felt like commenting on it, since white tea seems to give me the perfect caffeine boost in early evening times.