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I’d like to start off with the fact that I only have one cup left after this one and I’m very sad about it. I couldn’t find it on their website so I think this flavour is discontinued. Sad.

I can taste in this the peach and the cranberries with a little bit of ‘tropical’ flavour in the background from the pineapple and papaya I’m assuming. I don’t taste the black tea much at all so this just feels like a particularly hearty herbal tea rather than a black tea for the most part. I do like it though.

I was really hoping that this would be the tea that would make me like yerba mate. Really hoping. I should really know better by now not to let my hopes up like that, but I keep trying.

The dry tea smells like chocolate with a hint of something else, tobacco maybe? And after steeping, the tea smells like chocolate and malt and some yerba mate smell. The taste is strongly of the mate with some chocolate and a hint of malt in it. The combination is kind of a weird flavour and I can’t say I like it at all. Which is really too bad because I really really wanted to like this tea.

So my first cup of this was terrible. I must have oversteeped it too long or something because it was really bitter and tasted of maple and this odd flat wooden flavour like bad pipe tobacco that I really didn’t like. So I tried again.

The dry leaves smell strongly of maple and a little bit like rum to me. I made the second cup with a shorter steeping time and a bit more sugar (a rounded teaspoon rather than a level one) and a splash of milk because I like to with black teas.

On to the taste: I don’t pick up much of a ‘pancake’ taste, but it is definitely mapley and buttery and sweet and quite good. There’s still an odd ‘wooden’ taste in the background but it’s not so strong that I can’t overlook it. All in all, this is a very interesting tea, but it will probably go into my ever-increasing swap list.

First off, this is a mighty hard tea to scoop due to the big twisty leaves, but there are worse problems to have.

There is a definite sweetness that comes out of this tea, above and beyond the sugar I added (a touch of milk also). I’m not sure I taste the caramel notes from the description but there is something there, teasing me, that I can’t quite identify. This is a very simple and pleasant tea, with just bare hints of astringency that I may just be imagining and no bitterness at all.

I quite like this, but it is nothing to shout from the rooftops. Also note that it is only available in 25g size for order.

This tea is so pretty to look at with the leaves and hibiscus flowers and fruit pieces. The smell of the brewed tisane comes across as mostly orange and eucalyptus with a note of grapefruit.

Drinking it is quite good, citrus comes through the strongest followed by the hibiscus and eucalyptus afterward and I can catch a hint of lemongrass at the end of the sip. Really very well done with no single flavour overwhelming the rest and the orange and grapefruit are well balanced against the herbs in this concoction. This is a tisane for gulping as well as sipping as the flavour hits the entirety of the mouth and lingers pleasantly at the back of the tongue.

Overall a very nice blend.

Just opened the package for this today and I figure now is as good a time to try it as any.

The smell of the unbrewed tisane is absolutely delicious, like a strawberry sundae or a strawberry and cream smoothie. The smell of the tea itself after brewing is delicious also, but the hibiscus comes through also, making it much more sour than the dry tea itself.

I’m currently waiting for the tea to cool down a little so that I can drink it without burning myself and hoping that the cat that just came over wanting attention doesn’t knock it all over my computer. That would be bad.

Oh my Flying Spaghetti Monster, this stuff is delicious. The strawberry and cream flavours come through strongly but not overpowering and the hibiscus hides in the background and manages to keep from being too sour and instead helps to tie this all together. The flavours mingle wonderfully and I think this is one of my favourite tisanes yet.

Now normally I don’t like rooibos very much, so I went out on a limb a little when I bought some of this tea from Zen Tea (and it comes in such a pretty tin too), but I find I’m actually quite enjoying this. The raspberry and vanilla flavours mingle very nicely with the rooibos so that nothing is overpowering anything else. The raspberry and vanilla flavours are definitely distinct and strong, but also well balanced and the rooibos is there but not quite as…rooibos-y as I’ve tasted in other teas.

All in all, I quite like this tea, next time I’ll try to drink it while it’s warmer rather than putting it down and forgetting about it until it’s barely above luke-warm, tasty as it is at this temperature.

Mild astringency, slightly bitter at the back of my throat, though I didn’t put as much sugar into this black tea as I usually do so that might be why. Strong mineral note throughout. I don’t like the aftertaste but I can’t quite put my finger on what I don’t like about it.

Overall a mild-medium black tea with not too much notable about it. I don’t like it, but I don’t hate it either.

The first thing I thought of when I took my first sip of this was of bread. The really nice type you buy at specialty bakeries and eat plain because it’s such a shame to mask the flavours of the bread itself with jam or butter. I have never tried Golden Monkey so I can’t compare them. I can also taste the slight cocoa notes as the tea cools. I’m not picking up any spice or fruitiness at all as many reviewers have tasted.

First impression is that I like this tea and I wouldn’t mind drinking more of it.

I keep this around for when my mother visits because she doesn’t really understand my tea setup and prefers to make her own (she usually gets up before me since I’m on the west coast and she’s coming from the east coast (of the USA)). Bagged is what she usually gets, although I spent a couple of hundred dollars of plain black teas from a variety of sources for her to try during her iced tea experiments earlier this year.

Anyway, I like this tea slightly better than the Teavana English Breakfast that I was drinking earlier today. The brew is less astringent and only a tiny bit bitter (I think I steeped it for slightly too long, lost track of time). This is the bagged variety. This tastes like a nice simple tea with not much coming out on a flavour profile except a slight mineral note, mostly just tastes “tea”-like to me.

I enjoy a simple cup of tea now and again, but I think I’ll mostly just be saving this for when my mother visits.