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Finally, finally, finally… After what seemed like forever to wait… I received my second 52 teas order in Ecuador! : ) This order took longer than the last order to arrive, so I started to loose hope that it would arrive, that maybe it got “lost” in customs… But it is here! Yay!!! Joy, joy, joy!

I was particularly excited about this tea because the day I decided to purchase it, it suddenly sold out! I was so mad at myself for taking so long to decide that the last one managed to be sold… But then, magically, it reappeared as “in-stock”! So I quickly ordered it and sat back semi-patiently to wait for it to arrive.

The leaves are broken a bit smaller than what I was originally expecting for a white tea, but this could have a lot to do with it having been shipped across an entire continent to me! They we nice and fuzzy! I had two large cherries sitting in the tea, looking quite comfortable among the leaves. It would be great to sit on a heap of Bai Mu Dan! Lucky cherries….

The smell of the dry leaves was distinctly Bai Mu Dan with a hint of cherry rather than the other way around. I was happy it worked this way, because the tea smelled delicious!

I brewed two teaspoons of the tea and picked out one cherry to brew with it as well! (Once again, lucky cherry! Bathing Bai Mu Dan!) The brew smelled a bit more of cherry, but the white tea scent still stood up well. I didn’t smell any almond or amaretto like smell… Or vanilla, which I was hoping for…

From the first sip, the cherry showed up first, followed by fruity Bai Mu Dan, a somewhat nutty taste, with a smooth vanilla finish. I was glad that the vanilla finally decided to show up!

The first cup I had I sweetened, and the second I had plain. The sugar really made the cherry and creamy flavors shine, but without sweetener it was just as good with the tea flavor taking center stage.

I really enjoyed this tea. Sadly there is only 1oz of it… Compared to the other blends from 52teas that I have tried, it isn’t my favorite, but it is worth trying and enjoying for sure!

I woke up this morning and couldn’t decide what tea to take to work with me today. There are a few teas that I am trying to drink down because I need to make more room and also just need to get rid of. I decided that I would go with Strawberry Pu Erh. No particular reason, mostly just the fact that I hadn’t in a while.

The smell is surprisingly creamy. I smell strawberries and cream with pu erh as a prominent background. The leaves are dark and ominous with little pieces of strawberries poking through to make it less monotonous looking.

I brewed 2 tsp to 16oz of water. The smell continued to be creamy with strawberries. I like creamy! There was an earthy undertone which I am sure was contributed by the pu erh.

The brew was a nice brown color that was exactly the color of my dogs spots! : ) It made me smile to realize this (my dog is actually called Sencha, I don’t think Pu Erh would make a very good dog name…).

The taste wasn’t quite as good as I was hoping for. I still got a creamy strawberry flavor with a nice earthy pu erh flavor to accompany it, but something wasn’t quite right. The transition from strawberry to pu erh wasn’t smooth enough. Almost as if you got one, pause, and then the other. I added a bit of sweetener to see if it got better, and thankfully it did! The sweetness made the strawberry and cream play in nicely with the earthy pu erh.

I actually ended up enjoying this tea, it just wasn’t something spectacular or that I would order again. I will enjoy what I have left with sweetener or sugar.

This is another of the teas I purchased from Bigote, the nifty place with the cups with mustaches on them! The cups make me super happy, instant smile!

I am not entirely sure what type of green it is… But, there is no doubt that it is green! The leaves are a beautiful deep green color that is almost as bright as it is deep. The name is very fitting. The scent is thoroughly vegetable. Almost like steamed spinach with asparagus.

I did 3 steeps of this. The first was a beautiful green that tasted and smelled entirely like spinach. Sadly, I am not a big fan of spinach, so this wasn’t a great cup of tea to me. The second steep was less spinach, still vegetable and there was a hint of oolong sweetness hanging around in the background. The third steep was awful. It tasted like water with astringency added to it. Water is not supposed to be astringent… So second steep was by far the best.

I won’t be buying this again. It just isn’t for me. If you like vegetable taste teas, you will enjoy this. I just am not a fan…

EDIT: I removed the rating because I feel that this is a tea that some people may really enjoy. I just don’t like vegetable broth flavor as the main note in my tea. : )

I love mint. All kinds! I am lucky to have it growing generously around my house. Even though I am able to pick it fresh and use it in my tea, I have found that the fresh peppermint I pick can taste very different from the ones I have tried in the US. Maybe the Ecuador variety is different from the US type? Both are delicious, just different.

This is one of my favorite peppermints. The leaves a pleasant fresh green and have an unmistakably minty aroma. They are in small pieces, but I feel that part of the strength that his tea has is due to this.

I brew a 2 teaspoons for 12oz, but I enjoy it really strong. 1tsp to 12oz will make a pretty tasty brew as well. The liquor is very dark murky green, almost brown.

The taste is a minty punch in the mouth followed by a pleasant minty breeze aftertaste. (sounds like a toothpaste commercial… But trust me, it tastes much better!) With a bit of honey or sugar it is great as a relaxing night time tea, refreshing iced tea, great for sore throat and upset tummy!

I brewed it today with Adagio’s Vanilla Black to make Candy Cane flavor (equal parts, I used 4 teaspoons of each for a large teapot full). I loved it! So did my family who got to drink it with cheesecake and pumpkin pie. (A belated Thanksgiving in Ecuador! : ) ). It was great hot and I loved it even more iced. Even though I wasn’t able to find actual Candy Canes in Ecuador, I feel that this captured Candy Cane flavor perfectly! Great way to celebrate the beginning of the Christmas Season! I am so happy, I love Christmas time!

First and foremost Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it! Even though I am far away, I still celebrate! Sadly, there is no vacation for Thanksgiving in Ecuador, but I took the day off to stay home and share it with my family and doggy.

This tea is always a pleasure to drink. As long as you don’t oversteep it, it is really hard to mess up.

The leaves are nice mix of large pieces of spices. some apple pieces and adagios usual black tea base. It is both pretty and fragrant. I always get oohs and aahs when I open the tin. It smells deliciously spicy.

I used 2 teaspoons to my 12oz of water and steeped for 3 minutes. The brew is reddish brown. It smells rich and spicy. Adding brown sugar generously it manages to taste a lot like apple cider. It is missing a tiny bit of apple tartness to be actually called an apple cider tea.

I added a bit of milk and the apple flavor does a disappearing act! It is completely gone! It is still a decent chai, but no longer apple at all. No matter how much I tried to find it, it was gone. Poof!

I made another cup to make sure I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t! Without milk apple ciderish yummy tea. With milk decent chai no apple at all!

I do really like this tea. I don’t think I will add milk to it again, as there are plenty of chais that work great in lattes. This one is yummy all by itself.

This is a happy tea. Happy, creamy, yummy, chocolaty, strong, smooth mate and black tea blend. It is an experience. I needed something like this this morning when I woke up way to early to realize that I had some work to catch up on. Thankfully, the internet exists, and through some magic programming I was able to work in my bed with a hot cup of tea curled up with my dog. Ok… When I put it that way, it actually doesn’t sound miserable at all!

The description of it as Mate is a bit misleading, as I make out a lot more black tea than roasted Mate. But, in all fairness, the roasted Mate is there and you can find it if you look for it! It smells amazing. It really is a happy smell to me. A nice mix of chocolate and vanilla backed up with tea. Yum…

I brewed 2 teaspoons to 12oz so that it would be a strong and tasty companion through my work on Sunday morning. It smell remained consistent as you I brewed. Filling my kitchen with chocolaty goodness. Sadly, no one was awake to comment on how good my tea made the kitchen smell… My dog had no comments… Still love her though!

The brew was a burgundy brown. I added a teaspoon of brown sugar. It is really good. It tastes just like it smells, and in this case, that is a good thing! The chocolate vanilla notes still stand out and you can taste tea in the background. It is like sipping liquid dark chocolate brownies with a roasty tea flavor to accompany it.

I really enjoy this tea. It always manages to cheer me up and be the right choice when I need something sweet and strong to make it through the day (or just because!).

I ended up finishing all of my work, and having extra cuddle time with my sleepy lovely dog! Wasn’t that terrible a Sunday morning after all! : )

So… Weight to go… Really? hahaha… Well, the ingredients sounded interesting, regardless of silly names or not.

This tea smell delicious. It really does. It has a very candy like berry/mint thing going on that seems to be an addictive scent to sniff… Though, I do have to agree with teatoad that it is remarkably similar to the smell of Trident Strawberry gum. Almost exactly… Wow… Anyways… The tea base is pu-erh, though I see very few tea leaves in relationship to the fruit pieces (apple squares, strawberries…). I can’t see any spearmint, but I can unmistakably smell it.

Once again with Teavana’s teas I was worried about the fruit to tea ration when steeping, so I used 2 heaping teaspoons for my 12oz cup. It smelled great while steeping. The spearmint became a bit stronger in the scent and the fruit a bit less candy like.

The tea itself was a pretty pinkish color. It tasted pretty much exactly what it smelled like. I got absolutely no pu-erh… None… Even after exaggerating the amount of tea. I still got Strawberry Trident. I am not sure that this is what I want in a tea.

I have a full 2oz of this one (the least I could purchase online). I think that I will eventually drink through it, but surely won’t purchase again. I will try it iced to see if it works any better…

On a side note…

Today is the Harvard-Yale football game! My whole time at Yale I only went to one of these games, and we lost. : ( I lost track of the scores, but apparently Harvard has beat Yale for 5 consecutive years… That is not good news… Hopefully this year Yale will win!! Go Yale! : )

In a much better mood today! Yay! Since I was in such high spirits I let myself open one of my unopened, not yet tasted teas! Yipee!

I decided to go for this chai 1. Becuase I have been wanting chai 2. Because I still had a bit of latte base (that I made 4 days ago…) that I wanted to use up and figured this would work great with it!

Brand new tea opening is always so fun! I opened it and breathed in the first whiff of this tea. First thought: “Yum! Spicy Chai!” Second thought: “Wait… Where is the coconut creaminess? Where are my coconut pieces?” Turns out the coconut pieces where much smaller that what they look like in the picture (think grated cheese). Once I scooped out my 2 teaspoons I did get a hint of coconut creaminess, but not as strong as I was wanting it to be.

I brewed it for 5 minutes (as recommended) and ended up with a creamy smelling chai! This is much more like the smell that I was expecting. I smelled a lot of clove and cinnamon with notes of cardamom and pepper. The lemon grass poked through nicely when brewed. It popped up to say “I’m here, I’m here!” and lead way for the final note which was a creamy coconut.

I tasted it first plain. It was pretty sweet on its own and had a nice creamy something towards the end. Not quite coconut, but it reminded me more of butter cookies with a hint of coconut. The lemon grass was a main player along with the other chai spices, and definitely a good inclusion. Once I added my latte mix (basically just 1 part condensed milk stirred over heat with 2 parts milk) the coconut leaped out, but I lost a bit of the lemongrass which I really was enjoying. I think I almost like this plain more than with milk!

I happily finished up my Thai Chai latte and smiled knowing that I have a full 3oz of tea to drink before it is gone! : )

A good twist to a chai. Not strong enough to be my favorite but good enough to make me smile.

Teavana Matevana + Teavana Chai/Chai blend = Cinnamon roll.

Yep, this is spectacular. I don’t particularly like Matevana, and I still have some I need to do something with. So, in an act of desperation I mixed 1 teaspoon of this and 1 teaspoon of the chai/chai sample that I had received with my order from them in hopes of making it enjoyable.

Turns out, that I created cinnamon roll tea!!! Really! It is the closest to cinnamon roll that I have ever had a tea taste. I am really surprised. It is so good a blend that next time I buy from Teavana I will get a bit of each of these teas so that I can get cinnamon roll goodness!!!

I also should probably mention that cinnamon rolls are one of my favorite sweets!!!

I am super happy that this worked out so well for me! I will have to try it with milk next time. : )

I believe I bought way too much of this tea. It sounded so great that I decided I needed to get enough to last me. And I did, and this is why I have way too much of this tea. I have had a few cups before, but this is my first time logging it. I have enjoyed it every time (thankfully considering I have a whole lot of it to drink through). My fondest memory of this tea is of it helping me through a tough case of laryngitis. With a bit of mint, it was perfect for my sore throat!

It is really pleasing to look at. I can make out the berries and green tea leaves. I think it is best described as looking “fun”. It smells great, berry being the main note followed by mint and, if you think about it, lime or lemon (definitely something citrus hiding among the berries, tea, and mint).

The brew (usual 2 tsp to 16oz of water) is an interesting purplish color. I get varying shades of it every time I brew it. I believe the color depends on the amount of berries in each spoonful, which can vary greatly. The scent is filled with berries and subtle hint of mint. I don’t get the citrus anymore. There is always a bit of a weird accompanying smell, which is malty (in a beer sort of way). I don’t really know where it comes from… It is the odd one out, making this tea loose some points for not being as smooth as it could be.

The flavor is great. First up berry followed by fresh mint. If you sweeten it, the mint will almost completely disappear and berry will take over. If you want to sweeten it, you should add more spearmint. In fact, adding more spearmint even if you aren’t going to sweeten it is a great idea. : )

I still tasted a bit of the malty “odd one out” I got in the smell, but it didn’t bug me. What did bug me was the sour taste it left in my mouth once the mint taste disappeared. Sour is not the way I like for my mouth to taste…

I like this tea, I really do… but it could be better. Adding more mint helps it reach the “great” mark, but it doesn’t quite make it. Still I am happy with the large amount I have and may consider reordering one day!