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While not undrinkable, this tea is rather mundane. I found it in my mom’s stash of random tea bags that she offers to people who come over to our house to eat (she is very much a coffee person, so tea is just for me and the guests…).

As far as presentation comes, it looked to me like a dust and fannings filled tea bag. The smell was first paper, then lemon, them something that smelled incredibly similar to bergamot and hence Earl Grey, and finally, tea.

I steeped the teabag in boiling water for about 3 minutes and ended up with a nice burgundy brown brew. It smelled mostly of lemony Earl Grey followed by the thick plesent smell of black tea.

I added sugar before I tried it (sorry, was in the mood for sweet and wasn’t expecting anything out of this world anyway…). It tasted a lot like a so-so Earl Grey. Unfortunately, the aftertaste killed it. I was left with a chemical plasticky bitterness in my mouth after each sip. This taste lingered annoyingly in my mouth all day, even after more tea and tooth brushing… It was an unpleasant experience over all. If I hadn’t gotten that aftertaste, I would rate it quite a bit higher.

On a more positive note, tomorrow my puppy (English Bulldog) competes in a dog show here in Ecuador! Her trainer has high expectations for her, but I personally just want her to have a positive experience. Even if she gets last place, she is still my little girl. My French Bulldog (Sencha), my boyfriend, and I will be cheering her on! I am proud of my littlest girl! : )

I’m reading the “So what’d you think?” prompt for this tasting note over and over while trying to finish the now cold cup of this tea.

I was sooo excited about this one! I looove oatmeal cookies. But mine are spicy (cinnamon and nutmeg), and by no means taste like grape lollipop… That being said I am incredibly sad that I didn’t like this tea.

The dry tea looked promising. It had little pieces of dry oatmeal in it as well as raisins. I was so excited to try it! I waited until I was home from work and took my time opening and preparing it. First off, the smell that was exuding from the package was grape candy. I shook my head and must have looked like a confused dog with a cocked head and all. Sniffed again, and grape it was! I have never known of grape oatmeal cookies… I had high hopes that it was only the smell.

Two tsp, 12oz and 3 minutes later I had a steaming cup of tea smelling overwhelmingly of grape lollipop. No doubt… Grape lollipop steaming from my teacup. Well, maybe the oatmeal cookie is int he actual taste.

Sip one= grape lollipop + bitterness. Sugar added. Sip two= grape lollipop + sweet + a little bit bitter. Milk Added. Sip three= grape lollipop + milky + something vaguely resembling dough….

No. I do not like it Sam I am… I do not like in a box or with a fox… Hahaha…

I feel like somehow the grape flavor that was used by Frank sneaked itself into this brew. Maybe try again with spices instead of grape? I love your teas Frank, in fact a few of 52teas have quickly become my favorites, but this one missed its mark.

Now off to read a good book with Pancake tea which really makes me smile…. …And will surely make me forget the grape!

EDIT- As an afterthought, as a grape tea it isn’t bad, just not oatmeal cookie. Removing numerical rating…

Thanks to Tabby for sharing this with me!! : )

Green teas started my love of loose leaf tea. Green tea is the reason my dog is called Sencha. Green teas taught me that time and temperature in steeping are very important. Most significantly green teas taught me that quality makes a HUGE difference. I had almost forgotten about why I loved green tea so much until I tried this one.

The large green leaves smell fresh with a hint of sea weed. It makes your eyes pop wide open, the smell alone alerts you that you are in for a treat! The package reomends that you steep 1-2 teaspoons per cup. Since the leaves were so large, I opted for 2tsp.

They were beautiful to watch steep. The water turning golden green and the leaves expanding is borderline magical. The smell was hypnotizing. Mineral sea weed goodness!

The taste was exactly what I was hoping for. Sweet creamy sensation up front followed by a mineral wave ending on a pleasant seaweed note. The vegetable was toned down under the mineral (in my opinion, the way it should be!) Delicious first brew. One of the best I have had in a while!

The second steep was a little too watered down for my taste. I enjoyed it, but the with the sweetness and mineral flavor toned down, it was more of a ghost of what the first cup was.

I love this tea! Sadly, I just placed my order from Teavivre and didn’t include this… I guess that a second order will be necessary soon! : )

I have a soft spot for Adagio’s vanilla teas. That being said, this is my least favorite of them. I think that the main issue is that green tea seams to work better on its own than flavored to me most of the time. It can work with fruity, but I have yet to find a creamy flavored green tea in which the vegetable flavor doesn’t seem to get in the way of the tea as a whole.

The dry tea leaves are bright green and a joy to look at. They look green, fresh and inviting. The vanilla aroma is very strong (points in favor!) followed by the familiar green tea plantiness. In fact, if the vanilla flower (it is an orchid) smells like vanilla (I am not sure it does…) it probably would smell a lot like this tea.

While brewing, my 2 tsp of leaves unfurled quite nicely and gave of a smell very similar to that of the dry leaves except that once wet, the vegetable in them gets a tad bit stronger.
The liquor is a nice golden/green color.

The unsweetened tea is overwhelmingly vegetable that clashes with the vanilla. The individual flavors are great, but together they just confuse me. Sweetened it works much better. Why? Well, sweetened the green tea vegetable taste is highly disguised as, well…, sweet. This way the vanilla becomes the protagonist and the the green tea is like a pleasant little reminder that you are drinking more than just vanilla sugar water.

I enjoy it, don’t love it. I will happily finish what I have of it, I will just keep in mind that creamy greens just are not my thing.

This is a tea that is hard for me to review… Why? Well, I had it hot and thought it was absolutely awful. So bad that I forgot about it (or tried to forget about it) for a really long time. This weekend, I arbitrarily remembered it and decided that it was time to try it iced and if I still couldn’t stand it, out it was going! So, turns out, that iced it isn’t nearly as bad!

I brewed a large pitcher of it (8 cups) with 12 teaspoons of the tea. The dry tea was high on the raspberries and lacking in the mate. It is very pleasant to look at the big luscious looking dry berries, but when you want tea, the berries become more annoying than pleasant. The smell is very artificial, it reminded me of Kool-Aid (which I haven’t had since I was 8…). There was a powdery sensation to the scent, which was very disturbing. I can’t really place what it was, but it somehow brought the word “dusty” to mind every time I sniffed it.

I let it brew for hours, basically until the liquid was cool enough to put into the fridge. It was a neat bright pink color. It looked really cool in the sun as well as under the light of my fridge! : )

I sweetened it very slightly and it turned out to be quite enjoyable! It is just tart enough to remind me of fresh raspberries and smooth enough that it doesn’t become painful to drink (no excessive puckering…). The aftertaste is artificial lemon. It reminded me of candy lemon drops. Not terrible, but also not great. The downside to this is that I tasted no mate. If I think about it I get a tiny bit of something that is woody that maybe may be a hint of mate, but I have to put too much effort in to finding it, so I am just going to say that the flavor is absent.

As a fruity iced drink, I would recommend it. As a hot tea, most definitely not, no way. I am enjoying what I have of it iced and maybe, one day, I may get more.

I am surprised that I haven’t written a tasting note for this one yet. For a while it was my morning tea, nearly everyday.

I really enjoy vanilla. While it is one of the most simple flavors, it is also one of the hardest ones to actually get right. I have had quite a few vanilla teas, many that taste too mineral or too artificial. To me a good vanilla tea has to be creamy, very strongly flavored, work well with milk and sugar and not over power the tea. Wow… Those a lot of requirements…

The leaves of this tea are dark brown, so dark that they seem black unless you stare at them for a while. The scent is sweet and inviting. The tea base smells dark and woodsy. The Ceylon used as the base tea tends to be “moody”, Adagio black teas are way too easy to over steep. So, after a bit of practice the 2 tsp for 12oz of water for 3min was just right.

As the brews, the scent makes it evident (in a 3m radius) that you are steeping vanilla tea. I love this. My kitchen smelling like vanilla is glorious.

The resulting brew is dark brown with a reddish tinge to it. Sadly, all of my glass Bodum tea cups have shattered and I am drinking out of a dark blue mug. I miss being able to look at the colors of tea while I drink them…

Unsweetened, the tea is very creamy followed by evident astringency from the Ceylon. While I have enjoyed it straight, this is a tea that benefits from being sweetened. The sweetness enhances the vanilla making it taste a lot like a hot vanilla ice cream float made in Ceylon! With a dash of milk (or even better, condensed milk or vanilla soy milk!) it is delicious and rich. The vanilla is strong enough to hold up to the milk and make it an easy cup to enjoy.

While it is rather simple, I really enjoy it. I dug it up this morning and remembering how much I used to love it made me smile. I am on my third cup of it today. This is one of my comfort teas. Nothing spectacular, but always there to make me smile. : )

I was angry last night. Really angry… My bother decided that the best idea he could possibly have was to through a party at my house because he figured that I would stay at the hospital because my Dad had surgery yesterday (everything went well!). I got home, expecting to unwind after work with my doggies, boyfriend, and tea when to my surprise there was about 20 drunk people and loud music blasting… I was sooo angry that I couldn’t even get myself to relax. As a kid I understand that an empty house that you have access to usually means fun, but this was not OK. Well, I didn’t get much sleep and I am still angry, but a tasty tea this morning will make things a bit better!

I bought a pack of this because I enjoyed it so much. It just arrived and it is exactly what I needed! Something spicy, strong, sweet.

I am not sure why the leaves of this tea are ground so fine… It keeps making me expect bitterness, but thankfully I haven’t gotten any from it. It smells great as long as you don’t inhale too strongly (instant sneeze… found out the hard way…)

I prepared it with my tasty condensed milk/skim milk latte mix. It put a wide smile on my face (at least until I see my brother again…) and finally got me relaxing. The vanilla was really strong this time, and the latte mix helped smooth out all the flavors. I couldn’t make my cup last me every long. That is usually a sign that I really am enjoying what I am drinking!

I love Oolongs… I think I have mentioned this previously, but I will gladly repeat it! This is one of my everyday day teas for two main reasons: 1 It is delicious 2 I can get it for not an outrageous price decently close to my house! Since caffeine has absolutely no effect on me, this ends up being a bed time tea. It is incredibly relaxing to sip through the complex yet incredibly comforting array of flavors.

OOOOOooooolongs… The OOOooo is so appropriate! OOOoooo sooo good! (Ok… Now I am done with my silliness for the night! On with the tasting note!)

I had this tonight in my usual three steepings. I steep this 1 tsp of tea to 8oz of water, 8oz per cup so I can actually enjoy all three steepings (each increasing in time) without being too full my the last one!

The smell of the leaf is very fresh with hint of fresh cut grass. It has a lingering sweetness to it, that makes me always want to come back to it. While steeping, the freshness scent is briefly enhanced but always leading to sweetness.

The first steep is always the most vegetable like one. It tastes very crisp followed by artichoke and leading into a buttery delight. The aftertaste is all sweetness. Joy joy!

The second steep is my favorite. The artichoke is still there, but it is nutty and smooth. The buttery taste and feel is everywhere and the sweetness in the aftertaste is even more evident. It takes a lot of willpower to not drink it too quickly. I really want it to last!

The third steep is lighter. Upfront buttery and nutty. There is a woody note that doesn’t ever show up before the third steep. The vegetable becomes more of an afterthought, but still is very present. The sweetness in the aftertaste is subdued in this last steep. This is what keeps it from being my favorite of the 3 steeps.

If you like Oolongs, this is a handsome one to try! : )

I spent 2 days experimenting with this. I really wanted to like it more than I did the first time I tried it… I set out to make it tastier. My quest involved my latte mix (essentially condensed milk and skim milk in 2 to 1 proportion warmed and mixed in a pan), clove, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Today was a good day to get it right, considering it was so miserable… My favorite (and last double wall Bodum) tea cup got broken by someone (no one says who). Also, my cellphone decided to die on me (how did we live without having internet and communication always before!?!?!). The cherry on top was the pile of puppy poo that greeted me when I first got home… I really needed something sweet and tasty!

I brewed myself a cup of this with added spices (cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg) and added a bit (overdid it the first time…) of latte mix. Wow… It was delicious! But, I exaggerated on the amount of sweet milk I added, so, I tried again. Success! The added spice and sweet milk turn it into a creamy smooth pumpkin latte. The flavor is strong enough to stand up against anything so it welcomed the extra spice and milk!

I will surely finish the 100g that I bought, though it didn’t make my superstar tea list as I had hoped it would… I think I will only be drinking this as a latte, so, not an instant winner. Enjoyed it! Not sure I would re-order… Ask me again next fall. : )

Finally, after reading and reading about all of the hype that Davids Tea has, I finally placed an order that my brother brought to me when he came from the US to spend Christmas with us. The order I placed is rather large… I ordered almost everything I wanted to try! : ) It has taken me a while to get around to trying them though… Today I try my first, and the one I have been most excited about. This one!

I love pumpkin pie! Even here in Ecuador, I must have pumpkin pie with Thanksgiving and Christmas. I think that it is my all time favorite pie! That being said, I went ahead and order 100g of this tea.

The smell of the leaves is spectacular and the tea is handsome to look at! Full of bright orange sprinkles and pumpkin pieces it is wonderful to stare at, sniff and enjoy. The scent smells a lot like pumpkin pie candle, very fragrant and delightful, but not entirely like something I would like to eat per se… It is low on the spiciness and high on the vanilla and caramel. I also got a scent that seemed to be actual pumpkin, which gives this tea some extra points!

I brewed it following the instructions on the package and achieved a pumpkin orange brew! The color was astoundingly similar to pumpkin pie color! It made me smile to realize that. The scent was still much like the leaves. Rich in vanilla and caramel, light on the spices with a hint of pumpkin.

The flavor was loyal to the scent. It was very rich and creamy. The pumpkin definitely stood out followed by creamy vanilla and caramel. I got an earthy note from the pumpkin, and enjoyed it! Sadly, there was not nearly enough spice for me to think pumpkin pie, just meh… I added sweetener and to my surprise I liked it less! When sweetened the pumpkin gets played down and the creaminess takes center stage. Not what I wanted. I have yet to make it a late, which I believe will work well with the creaminess of it. But as of now, it missed being one of my favorites. This is disappointing mostly because I was so excited about it.

If you want to try it, go for it. It is an enjoyable brew. Just not what I in particular want as pumpkin pie! : )