Floragold

All these Floragold teas are courtesy of Roswell Strange and last night I realized just how many are caffeine free. Obviously that is convenient for whipping up a super easy cup of tea later in the evening/at night. I planned on having this last night but instead ordered a late dinner.

The puffer they gave me for whatever I had last week seems to be messing with my tastebuds a bit but this is still very fruity, with a clear strawberry/kiwi vibe. I was worried since the best before date is December 2019 and rooibos/honeybush blends can come off a bit odd sometimes but there was no need to be worried here. Despite the best before date and the weird tastebuds, I am enjoying this one so thank you Roswell Strange for the share!

Oh no. Very no. Hibiscus overload. Maybe 10 minutes was way too much and maybe I knew that in my heart. Regardless, it’s cinnamon and hibiscus fruity and I picked it because it’s best before date was the last day in November. With that said, I don’t think that factored into the hibiscus overload that made the cup not that enjoyable. Thanks for sharing Roswell Strange but this was not for me.

This smelled like lotion when I brewed it which had me worried and while that’s faintly present in the cup, it’s not as strong as it is in the smell. It’s pineapple-y but not my favourite.

I thought I was finished getting through my Floragold sachets, but I found this one last straggled in the very back of my sachet drawer earlier this week – sneaky little bugger was somehow separated from the others!

I think I was actually more impressed with this one than Kittenna was – I agree that it seemed like the mouthfeel was a little thin, but the flavour was really nice. Had some malt and sweetness, but most interestingly also had a strong freshly baked French Bread note and a hint of raisin to it. I added some milk, and it stood up very well to the addition, without losing its defined malty sweetness!

I actually think this was one of the better Floragold samples overall.

Just a normal, no frills jasmine green tea – it’s fine, smooth enough. Jasmine is pretty strong; has a little bit of a grape-y taste to it. Only because jasmine tastes like grapes to me; not because there’s any grape in the tea…

Also! This is my last tea from Floragold – it was months of casual drinking in progress, but I made it through a TON of these tea! That’s pretty cool, in my books.

Rather mediocre cup of tea; it’s supposed to be raspberry and currant flavoured but it just tasted like some sort of really sweet, syrupy mixed berry profile with a hint of a medicinal edge/undertone. Not my favourite, for sure.

I mean, not much to say really since this tasted like tulsi, orange, and ginger. Very accurate blend; actually quite enjoyable too! I’m learning, as of late, that I really enjoy the combination of ginger and fruit – and ginger orange just felt especially refreshing to me!

Sipdown! 260/365!

Stressblocker… sounds like a good tea for me right now. The teabag smelled lemony and kind of a herbally sort of sweet, but not overly so; the herbally aroma predominates in the brewed cup, however. Likewise with the flavour – there are certainly lemony overtones, but it kind of tastes mostly like a herbally blend, which I can’t pick out specific ingredients from. But – something in here is bitter, like citrus pith. It lingers on the palate after swallowing, and I’m not the biggest fan of it.

I grabbed the packet to look at the ingredients, and this is a strange mix of ingredients! Mistletoe(?!), bean peels, birch leaves, lemongrass, nettle leaves, St. John’s wort, gingko leaves, flavouring. I’m not sure what is contributing the bitterness, but I’m unfamiliar with the majority of these ingredients, so who knows! Maybe I’ll be lucky and it will have some sort of stress-reducing effect, though.

Thanks for the share, Roswell Strange!

I… don’t remember anything about this tea at all. Oops.

Maybe Kittenna will be able to do a better judge summarizing the flavour!?

I think this is a FTGFTOP grade Darjeeling – it said on the overwrap for the sachet, but I can’t really remember definitively. Personally I found this was very underwhelming; not unpleasant to drink and I could probably drink a pot of it as one of those “mindless” type of teas during a Netflix binge or something similar since there were no off notes, but in general I found the taste dreadfully flat/dull.

Wasn’t sure if I’d like this one but surprisingly it’s been one of my favourite flavours from Floragold yet! The mouthfeel is very thick and creamy, and the coconut note in the blend really dominates the cup. It’s a fresh, creamy tasting coconut that marries really well with the natural sweet honey and graham notes of the rooibos. The profile was also a hint woody, also from the rooibos, and the ginger was mellow but contributed a nice warming spice note in the finish of the sip and back of the throat. Overall I thought this was very well balanced, and actually something I’d have an interest in getting in a larger quantity!

One of the bagged teas I packed with me for my trip. I, unfortunately, drank it during the peak of the cold that I managed to catch during the week – and at that point I could hardly taste a thing, so I don’t really know if this was good or bad or somewhere inbetween. I think it’s supposed to be raspberry and currant? But I couldn’t tell…

Another tea that I packed for my Winnipeg trip – I packed a lot of bagged teas because I know that for travel they’re far, far more convenient. I actually drank this one while on the plane from Montreal to Winnipeg – this is not the first time I’ve made tea while 30,000 feet in the air, it’s always an experience though…

I had mixed thoughts on this one; I liked the pineapple note a lot and the strawberry, while generic, was also nice. Kind of a sweet candied fruit vibe that I could get on board with. The green tea base wasn’t good though; rather drying and astringent, and extremely grassy. There was also too much of it; definitely not proportional to the fruit in the blend.

Could have been worse – but also could have been better. Still, it was tea – and a lot better than the shitty Tetley tea bags that the airline was offering. So a net win, afterall.

Vanilla and Cardamom chai on a rooibos base…

Surprisingly, I think this is my favourite Floragold blend that I’ve tried so far!? It does taste like vanilla, cardamom, and rooibos all distinctly but with pleasant notes – they compliment well. However, when I do that thing where I shut my brain off and let all of the flavours kind of bleed together it reminded me a little bit of rootbeer w/ vanilla? I wonder if there’s sarsaparilla in the blend? Regardless, I was very into that weird spiced/vanilla rootbeer kind of flavour. It’s delish!

I feel conflicted about this blend – it’s supposed to be pineapple and grapefruit, which actually sounds like a delightful flavour pairing to me. I don’t really recall it tasting much like either of those two flavours but it did have a generic tropical and borderline candy like sweetness that was pretty nice and the entire time I was drinking it I had this nagging feeling of deja vu and nostalgia; I never did figure out what it was reminding me of, though…

Sipdown! 216/365!

I actually drank this quite a while ago, but had misplaced the package and didn’t know what I’d drank – until today, when I found it while cleaning (mission to actually babyproof the living room). Unfortunately, all I remember is that I wasn’t particularly fond of it. It looks like it’s supposed to be Pineapple-Grapefruit flavoured, if I’m correctly remembering my French, but I don’t recall that at all. Oh well.

Thanks for the share regardless, Roswell Strange!

Sipdown! 215/365!

Another share from Roswell Strange – thanks!

This tea is supposed to taste of strawberry and pineapple… but while I can taste that it’s fruity, the primary flavour is definitely a mariney/grassy green tea. One of the few times I’ll say that I’d rather taste less of the base tea. It’s not terrible though, but definitely a generic sort of flavouring (it’s quite familiar to me – I’m thinking of some “strawberry papaya” blacks and greens I’ve had in the past, with chunks of candied pineapple), and not a great base choice. Well, to be fair – it’s actually a fairly standard base choice for medium-quality flavoured greens, so I’m probably being overly harsh. Probably not bad for a bagged tea, but nothing I’d pick up.

Sipdown! 214/365!

Thanks to Roswell Strange for this sample! Unfortunately, I oversteeped it, but luckily, a bit of extra water tamed the astringency right down – so a fairly forgiving tea! The bergamot is actually at a perfect level and quite tasty, though there’s almost a bit of a piney note in the aftertaste that’s perhaps not my favourite. The black base isn’t too notable – it does its job.

Not a bad EG, but it would be better with milk just to cream it up.

This one is a “herbal tea but with added green tea” – and I say that because that’s how the company is marketing it, but normally I’d probably just consider this a green tea with a lot of herbal ingredients/not much green tea in it at all…

Unfortunately it was a pretty forgettable infusion and I don’t really remember what it tasted like too much apart from being rather ambivalent towards it and seeing lots of lemongrass in the dry leaf.

Another tea from Floragold that makes you go “How does this name have any correlation to the flavour at all!?” – it’s a mango/peach rooibos, and a pretty tasty one at that. I just fail to see any correlation with the name…

On the sweeter side, and definitely an artificial mango/peach combo – but still quite tasty. I almost found it creamy, and that gave it a Campino/yogurt candy sort of vibe. I think there was a mango/peach Campino flavour too, so it’s just especially fitting. I enjoyed the mug a lot though.

Really, I’m mostly just noticing the trend that Floagold’s strength is their rooibos line up. That’s definitely what I’ve been most impressed with this far!

This… might actually be the best tea from Floragold I’ve tried yet!?

It’s supposed to be a strawberry kiwi flavour and, much to my surprise, it actually did taste like Strawberry Kiwi!! It was pretty sweet, and heavier on the strawberry notes – but it was there and that’s a heck of a lot more than what I was expecting. Really hit me with a wave of nostalgia; strawberry kiwi is such a 90s/early 2000s flavour. Really nice, though!

However, Fairy Fragrance!? What a weird, and kind of off putting name!? Like, I don’t mind a good fairy reference/whimsical reference with my tea however I don’t know if “The Smell of Fairies” is exactly the direction you should be leaning. I mean, I’m sure fairies would (hypothetically) smell better than say goblins or dwarves or what have you. Just, in general, I think it’s best to refrain from naming your tea after anyone’s odor.

Sipdown! 161/365!

Thanks for the share, Roswell Strange! I was feeling like a black tea the other day, and also like I should get in a sipdown, so I found this in my teabox from Roswell. Thankfully, it was better than the herbals of theirs that I have tried; not a bad example of a bagged assam, IMO. Malty and a bit thinner than my preference would be, but decent flavour.

Very, very standard/simple/classic Earl Grey flavour – especially for a bagged tea. It was just fine, but kind of boring so I twisted it a little bit with the addition of some pumpkin flavoured agave. I actually really enjoyed the bergamot + pumpkin combination, and now I just really want someone to make a tea that is purposefully Earl Grey and Pumpkin.

You could call it a “Pumpkin Fog”.

I’m perplexed by this cinnamon/orange rooibos blend…

The dry leaf of it smells quite delicious, albeit very familiar. It’s essentially like DT’s Spice Is Right blend (Cinnamon, clove, orange) but with a more intense orange note. However, steeped up there’s a very off smell to the infusion. I know this is a pretty harsh comparison, but also it’s accurate: the steeped tea smells a lot like literal shit and farts, and also cinnamon. Kind of like someone took a very big number two, and then covered the aroma with some Febreeze…

While the steeped tea actually tastes fine, basically a softer version of the dry leaf aroma with more woody rooibos undertones, the smell you get when you bring your nose to the cup to take a sip is so off putting that it took me ages to finish off this mug. Don’t know what’s up with the blend to make it come out like that; but definitely not a “good” experience with this one.