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I’ve been drinking this a few times per month because it makes a nice latte on days when I’m having caffeine. I enjoyed it this morning with some unsweetened soy milk and a touch of sugar. The sugar actually doesn’t come through at all, but the black base is very strong and tannic if you forget your teabag for 45 minutes like I did.

I normally only get rose and rich tannins. Today because of the longer steep, I’m getting some lychee fruity notes. Since lychee is already floral, it blends into the rose really nicely. The bitterness from the tea needs milk and sugar to counter it. On shorter steeps, it feels a bit one-dimensional having just rose and tannin without any under tones or after tastes. It might make a nice summer iced tea if sweetened and served very cold. I might save my remaining tea for that.

If you like rose black tea this blend will be for you. If you like your black tea strong, you will have to brew it extra strong and then add milk/creamer because you don’t get the intricate tea notes until you brew it longer but by then I find it too bitter to have plain.

Another sipdown of a very old tea. This has lost some of its potency and flavour, but it’s still an ok cup. I mostly get stale peppermint and some vegetal herbal flavour.

Another teabag from my old misc. collection of samples.

The teabag smells great! I’m coldbrewing 1 teabag, 4 minutes, in 350 mL cold water.

It smells very aromatic, which is nice to see from a very old teabag. The liquid is vibrant red-purple. I’m getting a lot of various berry notes. I can pick out blueberry, strawberry, and general mixed berry flavour. I think there’s another red fruit in there but it is not distinctly raspberry or any other berry I can make out. I get the hibiscus flavour a bit because of the longer brew. I find this tea sour, as most hibiscus teas are. It would make a great addition to a pitcher of lemonade or ice water with sugar in the summer.

I’m happy to have this tea back in my cupboard. Surprisingly, this organic premium offering was cheaper than all of the others.

I love the sweetness and intensity of this spearmint. Very tasty and smoothing without giving heartburn like some peppermint can do (menthol can cause heartburn).

Look at me getting through old samples!

This is a little pouch of oolong puerh labelled “Oq Maocha” which might be left over from a TTB or from very old samples sent to me by a very kind Liquid Proust as part of some free new-to-puerh samples. I’m wondering if I put the rest of a sample into this pouch and it originally read O5 (the tea company) but I can’t be sure.

Anyway, the leaves are slightly silvery and smell a little but fermented but not too funky. I don’t have a proper puerh steeping set up so instead:
3-4g(ish) loose leaf (not a cake)
Rinsed in cold water ~10 seconds
Rinsed in near boiling water ~5 seconds
Steeped ~60 seconds in 350 mL near boiling water

It’s a cold spring morning and I really felt like a tea latte. I choose this one because I wanted to get through all my old teabags and this one goes well with milk. I have no idea where I got this teabag or how long I have had it.

I’m drinking it was unsweetened soy milk and ~1 tsp sugar. 1 tea bag, 3? minutes (I didn’t keep track it might have been 4) steep time in 350 mL boiling water

It smells promising – like my ol’ reliable (Red Rose orange pekoe). The brew is fairly dark amber orange. Flavour wise, it tastes quite strong for a bagged tea. Malty with strong tannins but the milk counters the bitterness. Overall pretty typical of a straight black bagged tea but delicious and exactly what I wanted.

Since they changed producers this mulberry leaf tea hasn’t been as good. It is still good, but more of a 75/100 than a 100/100 as the previous one was.

There is still a lightly mineral ocean water taste and toasty vegetal notes. However this one is much less toasty and more tasteless than the previous. It also seems more vegetal, but I think that is just the lack of toasty notes evening it out. Even strong steeps don’t produce a very flavourful brew.

~1 tsp (1.25-1.5 g) leaf in 250 mL. 10ish minute steep with hot but not boiling water.

My blend is just called “Cherry” and is a sampler size bag.

It smells incredible! The honeybush was a good choice to pair it with. The dried cherries are a bit sweet and jammy but also tart. It tastes a lot of like the black cherry kashi granola bars because the honeybush gives an oaty honey granola flavour. The cherry flavour is pretty good. It doesn’t taste like medicine and it doesn’t taste like cherry candies, but it also doesn’t taste like a fresh cherry. It’s still excellent and I’m really enjoying my cup. I’ll be buying another bag for sure.

Main tasting notes: black cherry, granola, honey, oats, toasted grain, sweet, tart

It’s so cold, rainy, and blah where I live that I can’t get through the morning without a hot cup.

I brewed this one really hot (because this office only does boiling and cold water) but I’m getting more fruit than in previous times I’ve drank this. I think it is blueberry and maybe vanilla. Lots of woody rooibos with a honeysuckle sweetness to it. Some minerals. I’m getting some tropical fruits, but I can’t quite pick out which ones. the sweetness is like an Asian pear (apple-pear) where there is no sour/bitter so the sweetness comes out more even though it isn’t very sweet to begin with.

I forgot what type of tea this was and was thoroughly confused because the name made me think green but the smell makes me think black. It wasn’t until I went to look at this tea’s info on steepster that I found out it was a yellow tea that I have tried before.

So, this sample is really old. However, it was sealed and stayed fresh. It smells incredible! Super fragrant! It reminds of flowering current and daisies with that dark wood and chocolatey cocoa smell of a Laoshan black tea. It brewed up a bit weak, but I also didn’t rinse it and I steeped it in a paper teabag, so it’s probably my fault. It couldn’t move around as well as it should have been allowed to.

The fragrance is quite light in the actual brew. It is a faint amber colour with a bit of a clay/mineral smell (might have been the teabag material). It dries my mouth out, but I do like it. I wish it tasted as intensely as it smelled. I get hints of dry wood and cocoa/dark chocolate but also some honey notes (despite no sweetness). This might be what I thought could be honeysuckle. It’s not intense enough to be enjoyed like a Laoshan black made into a latte, but it isn’t watery, either.

I get some cool floral notes that really remind me of spring. One of the first flowers to bloom in my garden in March is the pink flowering current I have along the walkway. It smells so good you can smell it from the driveway. It’s by far one of my favourite plants and it supports native pollinators, too. I’ve always wondered what it would taste like as a tea.

Previous rating: 62/100

I’m bumping it up to 80 because I really liked the unique floral notes combined with the cocoa and toasty notes.

Depth of flavour and potency 6/10
Mouthfeel 7/10
Fragrance 10/10
Sweetness 2/10 (dark bittersweet)
Overall rating Interesting to try. Smells great but taste is less impressive. Interesting floral and cocoa notes.