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?!! This is the most delicious green tea I’ve ever had!
It’s very mellow and sweet with a nutty finish. A most welcome surprise since I was nervous about the smell. When I opened the bag, grass smell was evident and overpowering. Thank goodness I went beyond first impressions… Yum!

It’s 10:59PM with jet lag, and I’m beginning to lose faith in my ability to taste tea…

Second infusion, 175 F, 90 seconds. Can actually smell the fruit now, although I’m not sure I’d be able to identify it as blackberry. I keep staring at the label on the tea bag, trying to conjure “blackberry” out of the tea as if by reading the word over and over, I might taste it.

I’ll try this again tomorrow. Trying this three times in a row has only enhanced my sense of the tea’s acidity. My mouth is puckering.

Just under boiling, 1/2 a teaspoon, better than the first try. There’s a sweetness in the tea now, and using fewer leaves resulted in a mellow cup with medium flavor length. I still can’t taste or smell the blackberry. This tea remains very dry with high astringency. It would probably go well with honey. At this point, I’m not sure buying 4 oz of it was a great idea…

Not sure what’s going on here, but I’m tasting a lot of acid and not a lot of fruit…

Had a cup of this on the fly, and WOW. This is only my second time trying yerba mate, but if this is what I can expect, I want more! It’s got a lot of mouthfeel, and it tastes exactly how it’s named. I’m going to have to pay close attention to my second cup… :)

I went to Down to Earth to look for a roasted yerba mate, and I found this. Used a generous tablespoon to go with about 10-12 oz of water (I think I’m still dusting mate sediment off of my work table). What I like about this is that it steeped for a good long while, but it never gave me that BLEH flavor that overbrewed black coffee has. The color is rich and dark. Goes well with Stevia, but I’m going to try a little less mate next time to see if I can ferret out the actual taste of the herb…

I just don’t know when to give up, do I?

After consulting my coworker, who is married to a local tea expert, they recommended that I steep this with just below boiling water for around 3-4 minutes. Didn’t work.

I did a second infusion using water around the Teavana recommended temperature (~195 F) and for exactly 3 minutes. Slight improvement over the initial brew. Still horrible.

I’m greatly confused by the other tasting notes here, but here goes…

For an orange creamsicle flavor, I didn’t taste any creaminess or smoothness. Maybe my tea was old? It was already kind of unappetizing covered in white powder, which I assume imparts the cream flavor. The first sip is like a punch in the face: bitter citrus, astringent, short lasting. After the funky flavor disappeared (which it quickly did), the tea just tasted flat. Not even black, not even orange, just dead. After three cups, each lightly steeped, I threw away the 1 oz bag.

Pretty tea when dry—the leaves are rich, deep green. I don’t have a list of ingredients, but there might be rose or other flower petals in it. There are also dried pieces of the eponymous fruit.

The only thing I can smell in the dry tea is the tangerine. It also smells kind of oily. I steeped the same batch of leaves (1 tsp) twice:
(1) 5-6 oz boiling water, 10-12 seconds
(2) 5-6 oz 175-185 water, 30-60 seconds

The first tea brought out some bitterness, so I’m guessing I steeped it too long. The scent of the liqueur had floral/vegetal undertones, but again, there was that overpowering tangerine smell. The green tea in the background either tasted bland or bitter, and steeping it longer was only going to make the fruit taste stronger.

I left the remainder of my 1oz sample in the employee lounge for the kitchen fairies to try.