T2

My last cup for a while! I have too many in the cupboard… though monk pear is a sweet treat to which I will probably always return.

It’s wonderful tea

This is the way English Breakfast should be. It has all the characteristics of your normal English Breakfast blends, but somehow manages to bring just that little bit more. There’s a light, airy flavour sense as you sip this, which is one of the most delightful feelings in the world. This is the only English Breakfast I’ll drink, everything else is far inferior. Please, buy this tea. You will not regret it.

This is best drunk when brewed from a large pot of tea. The true delight comes from multiple cups in the one sitting. The flavours slowly come through richer and stronger the more you drink. If you’re in a funk, a pot of this to yourself and you’ll be right as rain in no time.

There is a lovely little tea cafe/bar in Melbourne that I visit from time to time. Once of the most exciting parts is that they serve cocktails with tea in them. One of my favourites was the Gin & Tonic is Jasmine Tea, I fell in love with it almost instantly. Sadly it’s a little pricey to go there all the time just to have one cocktail, so my friends and I made our own version.

Jasmine tea + gin = amazing

China Jasmine + gin = heaven

Mix about five or so teaspoons of this into your preferred brand of gin, and you have one of the most amazing drinks you’ll ever taste. The harsh edge of the alcohol is washed away, and replaced with the lovely scent and subtle taste of the Jasmine tea. It is heaven in a glass.

Leave the China Jasmine in the gin for at least a day before drinking it, the leaves slowly infused over time. I prefer to leave the tea leaves in the gin, so as you make your way through the bottle the flavours change slightly, bringing a new taste every time.

I was very intrigued by the description of this tea. A chai with mint, green tea and spearmint? I was curious to see how it would work, how the flavours would balance out and I was glad I did.

I feel this tea certainly suits the description of being modern, bright and fresh. The classic chai flavours like cardamom, ginger and spices were there but they were matched well to the smooth, silky green tea and mint base. I had it on its own and thought it was lovely, it certainly tastes like a chai but it has a wonderful herbal base as well. This tea is certainly interesting and I enjoy drinking it, but I do have to be in the mood.

So THIS is the tea that started my love affair with loose leaf tea (well, who am I kidding? Tea in general!!). I was lured in by its spicy scent and when on tasting at T2 it was brewed with vanilla soy milk and honey. I am now NEVER without vanilla soy in my cupboard.

I find this tea can be hit and miss. Sometimes it can be perfect, and other times, a bit meh.
The cloves do tend to over pow3er and i have taken to the habit of culling some of the cloves and this definately improves my chance of making an awesome chai.

I make this 2 ways: 50% water 50% vanilla soy milk heat milk and water separetely and brew for 3-5 min while adding honey to taste.
50% water 50% vanilla soy millk on a stove top while adding honey. Brew for about 5 min. Do not let boil!

This peppermint is unsophisticated, pure and a standard staple for any tea cabinet. It’s wonderful to aid with digestion and an excellent edition to teas that can be taken at nighttime with no caffeine. It’s a great ‘starter tea’ for someone who’s finding their favourites, and for me when it comes to herbal tea – the simpler the better.

I like to brew peppermint teas for about four minutes, some mixtures can easily steep and ‘Just Peppermint’ by T2 unfortunately might be one of those. However, when brewed it has a great colour and is distinctly fragrant.

I had this tea as a sample at one of the stores, and enjoyed it. It’s warm, tastes like caramel and has a rich, vanilla undertone. However, I felt this tea lacked a little bit more substance and structure. I wish this tea had more spice, so that it could be a little more interesting.

I liked this tea and thought that it would make a good addition to an afternoon tea or dessert collection. I think milk would dilute the body of this tea, so honey, sugar or black would be the best choice to bring out the flavours.

This is one of my favourite teas. While the black tea base gets a little lost amongst the rest of the flavours, it’s still a staple in my tea library. There are definite notes of peach, rose and hibiscus in this tea, and it has a wonderful floral aroma.

However, I can certainly say that this tea isn’t for everyone, while it’s lovely – its sweetness can be a little overpowering and can detract from the full-bodied flavour. It’s lovely black, or with honey, I find that it doesn’t suit milk very well. I adore this tea.

I adore this tea. It has a deep, bold, black tea base with a minty flick. I generally add honey, but I also fancy it black. It’s my steady, go-to tea when I can’t decide what to drink – it’s full-bodied like a winter evening, but light enough to never be bitter. It’s not particularly sweet, and that’s what I like about it, but the cornflowers make it smell wonderfully floral.

It’s very distinctive, a tea I can alway recognise, and I’ll never say no to a cup.

Supposedly this is an afternoon or dessert tea, certainly robust but I tasted this tea for the first time in the middle of the day. (I’m a tea rebel without a cause.) It was lovely, very flavourful, very sweet, a relative aroma of mango and it shouldn’t be brewed for any longer than 3 minutes.

The only criticism I can add is that there seemed to be many cast-off tiny tea leaves in the bottom of my tea. I only sipped it with a smattering of honey – it would be best not to add lashings of milk to this tea.

The sun is behind cloud and I’m snugged under a blanket sipping away at this tea and sunday afternoon is perfect. This certainly isn’t a sophisticated oolong but it is very comforting.

Another tea that I wouldn’t have bought except for the free tasting in store, they are onto me with this sales tactic!

This oolong contains sugar and honey in the nougat so is a bit sweeter than I was expecting. Sweet and oolong isn’t a combination that immediately appeals to me but this is a really lovely tea for a cool drizzly night. The flavour changes a lot with multiple brews too, even though the first brew is a little too sweet for my taste, subsequent brews have just a hint of honey and a richer, nuttier flavour.

It is a little on the expensive size at $180/kg but since I get a lot of use out of oolong leaves, a small package lasts a reasonable amount of time.

Ahh the T2 French Earl Grey… This was the tea that made me overcome my suspicion of T2’s fancy stores and packaging to actually try the tea.

The French Earl Grey is nice. It isn’t a conventional Earl Grey as the bergamot is nestled amongst the fruity floral flavours. This is another T2 tea that I’d really like to taste sans the ambiguous ‘flavour’ mentioned in the ingredients list. Sometimes I find floral flavoured teas all taste a little bit the same but this one stands out to me. It is nice.

I was completely sucked in by a store tasting and bought this with the intention only to use iced as an alternative to sugary drinks in summer. It is wonderful iced and really perfect on a hot day.

I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed it hot too. The flavourings don’t overpower the green tea flavour but compliment it instead. In the end I used most of my packet drinking it hot rather than cold. I’ll definitely repurchase it again but not until the weather down here warms up again. Even as a hot drink it is has the taste of summer.

Ignore my water temperature and brewing time at the bottom of this review as I make chai with milk on the stove and stop brewing according to taste.

I’m still not sure if my lowish score is because of this particular tea, or if I’m just not quite convinced by chai mixes. I always find myself adding and taking out spices from my spoon to adjust the flavour, in this case it has usually been removing cloves. I also find that for a milk brew, the tea base gets lost. I can’t help but think I’d be better served in the future by tracking down a black tea that brews well in milk and raiding the spice cupboard for the rest.

I get given T2 sample boxes regularly and this must be a best seller because it is always in them. The samples are in teabag form but the bags are the nice kind that contain decent amount of quality leaf tea (not dust) and allow water to move around a bit.

I’m not a tea purist of any kind and always try to enjoy a tea for what it is. I usually prefer my flavoured teas with a bit more tea and a little less ‘flavour’, I’m also not super keen on spotting “strawberry and cream flavour” (what does that mean?) printed in the ingredients. At the end of the day though this is lovely drink that is very easy to enjoy.

Have used this for Chai cupcakes. Yum