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I received a free sample of this from Tea At Sea. Thank you for allowing me to try this tea.

This tea arrived at my door in very cute packaging. I received two samples and they were in small sample size packets with the company’s name and a tag attached to the package that described the tea and gave temperature guidelines for steeping.

I am usually more of a dark oolong verses a green oolong person. This tea is a less oxidized oolong. It steeped up with a yellow/green color. It has a flowery, green, honey taste. This is really nice! Some of the more green oolongs the floral notes over power the tea for me and I have a hard time drinking them. This one the floral is there but is well blended with the honey sweet notes. The sip also has a creamy/buttery feel and taste to it. I don’t think this is a milk oolong, but this has some of the same feel to it.

The way I rate tea is based on my personal preference. It is based on if I am driven to drink or buy a given tea again. In this case I will definitely finish this sample and would consider making a purchase from Tea At Sea to own more of this tea.

I received a free sample of this from Tea At Sea. Thank you for allowing me to try this tea.

This tea arrived at my door in very cute packaging. I received two samples and they were in small sample size packets with the company’s name and a tag attached to the package that described the tea and gave temperature guidelines for steeping.

The leaves were in great shape, little curly black leaves. This tea was a medium bodied tea with hints of fruit. The taste reminded me of some of the Ceylon teas I have had. Before I started drinking loose leaf teas I loved Lipton yellow label. Lipton yellow label was “normal” black tea to me. This tea has a very “normal” flavor, but very smooth. I liked this tea. It would be great iced, it would be good with lemon or ginger added to it, and it is also good straight.

The way I rate tea is based on my personal preference. It is based on if I am driven to drink or buy a given tea again. In this case I will definitely finish this sample and would purchase this tea again if I happened to be buying other teas from Tea at Sea.

This is from the January 2014 Steepster box.

Green tea and I aren’t best friends, but we sometimes get along. I have had one other dragon well tea and really enjoy it so I was looking forward to this tea. I think my excitement got the better of me though. I do not think I let the water cool long enough. The first few sips of this tea were very nice, a lighter green flavor. Not too chewy, or spinach-y. Sweet grassy/vegital flavor. As this cooled a bit it became extremely bitter to me. I will have a go with the second package. From the other reviews I believe the bitter was due to my error in steeping.

I received this tea in a “Mystery Swap” with Eva. Thank you!

I have been really leery of floral teas. I had a few in the beginning of my tea drinking that just make my mouth hurt from the over powering perfume-y taste. So this tea had me scared, but while I was trying rose teas I thought I might as well give this a go. I was pleasantly surprised. This was nice and very well balanced with the black tea base. I have not had a lychee tea yet. I think I could pick up on this taste separate from the rose but was not 100% sure. I will enjoy the rest of the sample and this tea has opened my mind to lychee and rose. Thank you Eva for expanding my horizon.

I received this from LiberTEAS in the Love of Food box. Thank you!

I have been very leery of rose. This was a light black tea with hints of rose. The rose was not over powering, but blended well with the flavor of the black tea. I have had a few rose teas and they are usually more perfumey. This was not the case for this tea.

I went to visit my sister this weekend in the twin cities and she was kind enough to take me by the Verdant Tasting room! We ordered a cup of tea and tried a few of the samples that were out. I was able to meet Lily and she spoiled us with sample of their cherry drinking chocolate (I think that is what it was). Yum! Thank you! I also picked up a few ounces of tea.

This tea is amazing!!! I have found that I am really loving dark oolongs, particularly on these cold days. Today we had a wonderful snow storm blow through so I sipped this all day long! This re-steeped so well. I can’t even tell you how many cups of tea I got off of one set of leaves. This is malty, chocolatey, and roasty. It is to me a smooth oolong.

I received a sample of this from MirandaGou in our swap. Thank you!

I had this a week or so ago at work. Since I drank this at work the brewing conditions were less than perfect. I wasn’t a fan. It was a decent quick cup of tea, but I wouldn’t purchase this again.

So 1/2 of December’s Steepster box is still sitting in my cupboard. I have not written a single review on them. Every tea in that box just hit me wrong. This months box, January 2014, is rocking my world so far. Okay so this is only my second tea from the box but so far so good.

This tea is thinner bodied. When I sip I get a bread/potato taste followed by a sweet cool (minty ?) taste. I don’t pick out as much cinnamon as I have tasted in other teas from Taiwan, but I do get a sweet spice taste at the end of the sip. I really like this tea.

EDIT: My second cup of this was a completely different aninmal from the first. I don’t know if I steeped it differently or what, but I dumped out the second cup. It was so bitter. I didn’t get any of the nice qualities I enjoyed from the first packet. Yikes!

Holy citrus! Now this has some tang. Probably not the best night time tea to try, but I just couldn’t wait after reading bluebelle’s tasting notes about this one. I really like it. It seems I alternate getting a tease of the bergamot and then the grapefruit. The grapefruit adds a bit of a sweet to the tea while the bergamot adds the spicy citrus.

My Harney and Sons order came in today. I seriously need to stop purchasing tea. I probably have enough for an lifetime, but guess who gets to go to the Verdant tasting room this weekend. This gal! Yeah so maybe one more purchase before a serious freeze on the tea buying.

This tea is exactly as promised. The Harney black base with hints of coconut and chocolate. I like this more as it cools and will probably add milk in sugar to my next cup. So far I like all of the Harney flavored black teas I have tried. Nothing is over the top awesome, but everything is really enjoyable.