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Another tea found at my workplace’s coffee station, lurking among the Lipton Green majority. It’s not bad at all – heavier on the cinnamon than I prefer for a chai, but the other spices are still detectable. It reminds me more of a ‘Christmas tea’ type blend than of a standard chai. As such, I think it works better black than with milk and sugar/honey.

My workplace had this tea at the coffee station, so I gave it a try. Despite quite a lengthy ingredient list, I mostly just taste almonds, chamomile, and licorice. The flavour isn’t unpleasant, but it’s not something I’d buy for myself.

It’s presented as an evening tea to help with sleep, and contains the mild depressant valerian root; I did indeed feel very tired after drinking it, but that might have been because I had just wolfed down a sizable lunch, so I can’t attest to its effectiveness.

This one runs the gamut of flavours. It takes a while to open up. Early steeps are fruity, growing more tart, then slightly yammy, and at last very floral and almost reminiscent of perfume. It’s interesting, but none of the flavours stood out as great examples of their type for me. Possibly a good choice for days when you’re not sure what tea you want!

The leaves smell amazing, dry or wet. The scent initially comes across like strawberry, but after a moment it’s possibly to detect the individual notes of pear, guava, and what is apparently soursop (which smells like pineapple). Brewed Western-style without sugar, it’s not great; to be fair, I don’t usually like unsweetened fruit tea blends. With sugar, it’s excellent – one of my favourite fruit teas.

This is a very nice tea – my favourite so far of the green tea sampler pack from this company! It was unexpectedly sweet when brewed in a gaiwan. It has some caramel flavour, and possibly mango? I brewed it according to the instructions as well, and the results were similar, with a vaguely roasty taste as well. The flavour profile is not what I’d expect from a green tea, but not in a bad way at all. A surprising tea, and definitely enjoyable.

Brewed according to the instructions on the package, I found this tea very mild. I tried brewing it gongfu, which produced a very astringent tea reminiscent of ‘gunpowder green.’ I got a lot of steeps out of it, but none of them were terribly good. It was best Japanese style, but still not my favourite – very bitter, a tad nutty, a tad vegetal. It tasted like a slightly more complex gunpowder green.

When I see ginger listed as an ingredient, I usually expect it to be the overriding flavour. This is not the case here. I can taste ginger, barely, but for the most part this tastes like turmeric. That’s fine, as I like turmeric; however, it does make for a rather simple taste. Possibly this is intended to be consumed more for health benefits than for flavour, but since that’s not why I’m drinking it, I’d have preferred a slightly more balanced flavour profile.

As this is a spice-based tisane which creates a dark gold brew when steeped, it has some similarities to chai. However, it lacks the sweetness and complexity of chai. It’s not really sweet at all, in fact, so if you like your spicy teas sweet as well, some honey would probably do well here.

Had this again… It really is very good. It’s a solid, very normal black tea, and oftentimes that’s exactly what I’m looking for as I start my workday. This and Rukeri Black, from the same company, are probably my favourite ‘standard’ black teas, and I go through both rather faster than some of the more interesting, unusual teas in my cupboard.

Boy, I can definitely use some stress relief today… This is a pleasant drink if you like lavender. I do – it’s clean and bright while still being relaxing. I don’t taste much honey, though it is detectable. If you don’t like lavender, I expect you might find this tisane reminiscent of some kind of cleaning product (that’s how I feel about lemon tea, which has a similar brightness) although the impression might be alleviated by adding a sweetener.

Like most tisanes, I don’t know if it’s actually possible to oversteep this. Possibly if you find the strong lavender flavour offensive, a lighter taste would feel better-balanced.

Nice and refreshing! I’m not sure if the leaves were just newer than bag peppermint teas tend to be, or if it’s because they’re less finely broken, but the taste is less stale and a bit more like fresh mint than some other peppermints I’ve had.