The Tea Girl

This one wasn’t my favorite. Chocolate teas and I don’t tend to get along, but also this type of hazelnut flavoring reminds me of hazelnut coffee creamer and for some reason that taste is just so cloying to me. Not sure why, it’s not like I had a bad experience with hazelnut coffee ha ha.

I actually didn’t get a ton of chocolate, but the hazelnut was quite strong. At least the glitter was restrained! ;)

Another Tea Girl sample down!

This was a nice enough blueberry black tea. Not candylike or jammy, but not quite fully fresh blueberry either. Dried blueberry perhaps, like Blueberry Morning cereal? There is something that’s giving me a slightly hint of almond or grain as well, so maybe that’s why my mind goes there. The base is Ceylon, which is never my favorite, but I found cutting the steeping time short by about thirty seconds really helped to smooth things out.

An enjoyable morning cuppa, thanks Courtney!

Another of Courtney’s Tea Girl samples finished off. These are only two servings, but you know how it is – too many teas, too little time ha ha.

This was a bit similar to the French Toast Crunch black tea, but perhaps a bit less specifically maple and more brown sugary (but still buttery). The base also seems a touch smoother, but she doesn’t specify what type of tea it is. Looking up Canadian butter tarts, they seem a bit like a runnier pecan pie without the pecans. I’m not a pecan pie fan, I find it too sweet, so I doubt I would like these either, but at least the tea was nice! I laughed at the “mixed in raisins for controversy”, it make me think of oatmeal cookies and the raisin vs. no raisin camps. Personally, I am always pro-raisin ha ha.

2025 sipdown no. 3

I really enjoy this EG variation. The lavender is at the forefront with bergamot just behind. I appreciate the Ceylon base. Looking back at the EG/EG Creams I’ve enjoyed, they all share a fully Ceylon base (a note to myself because many an EG has a weird scent that bothers me). I would order this one for my cupboard. The resteep was also really lovely and had almost as much flavour as the first.

1st steep 3 minutes
2nd steep 4 minutes 30 seconds

2025 sipdown no. 2

I expected this to be similar to Berried Treasure, but actually, Berried Treasure is the clear winner between the two. This tea has the same depth of flavour (and gorgeous colour), but the hibiscus and raspberry together creates more of a one-dimensional situation where it’s tart and not much else.

This steeped up a dark red/burgundy. Very hibiscus, but much deeper in colour. This tea smelled very, very berry-y. The taste was much deeper and ‘thicker’ than I anticipated (like when I have Cavalla and think it will be like hot chocolate — this tea was the hot chocolate version, or like mashed berries poured into a mug). The flavour was akin to a warm cherry juice. But not exactly cherries — that may be the elderberry. Regardless, I was happily impressed with this one!

I’ve been wanting to try The Tea Girl for a while, but she doesn’t ship outside of Canada. Miss Courtney was so sweet to send me a tea care package with a dozen Tea Girl samples, plus a few samples from her own stash and some fun candies. Tea friends are the best friends! :3

This one is a tasty maple tea. I wouldn’t call it specifically French toast, more of a slightly buttery maple black tea with a teeny hint of cinnamon. The base is an Indonesian black tea, and to me it tastes similar to Ceylon – fairly acidic with a metallic edge and a brisk finish. Not normally my favorite kind of black tea, but I actually kind of like it here, as I feel like the sharpness of it tones down the decadent maple and keeps it from being too cloying. Not one I would order for myself, as I just don’t reach for desserty teas, but I enjoyed the sample!

2025 sipdown no. 1

A lovely vanilla tea, and great to have a decaf option that tastes nice. The pink cornflowers are also pretty in the dry blend. I prefer this to the Vanilla Bean.

2024 sipdown no. 96

The walnut flavour here is spot on (considering this tea has no nuts). The walnut is at the forefront with the caramel much more subtle. The oolong is a lovely base. The resteep still had a decent amount of walnut flavour and was enjoyable.

1st steep: 4 minutes
2nd steep: 6 minutes

2024 sipdown no. 86

This one was tasty, but some of these dessert-type teas just taste the same to me. I don’t know that I could really tell this apart from Canadian Butter Tart. A good tea, but not specifically French Toast Crunch.

2024 sipdown no. 85

I’m too lazy to write a full note, but just for me this was bleh and dumped.

2024 sipdown no. 84

Naturally this is a lavender explosion (which I don’t mind). The vanilla is also very apparent, but amongst those two strong flavours, somehow the bergamot gets lost. A good tea overall, but I’m not a vanilla fan, so I’m looking forward to Tea Girl’s regular lavender EG.

2024 sipdown no. 82

This is very much strawberry rhubarb, but I don’t get any pie. The strawberry and rhubarb are juicy and realistic, so I’m quite enjoying the tea regardless of the missing pie. I suspect this would be lovely chilled — If I were to order this, I would definitely try it that way.

Happy Christmas Eve to those celebrating! ❤

Wow, this is all blueberry! I am really impressed with the true blueberry, non-cloying or candy-like flavour. I will happily stock my cupboard with this one. :)

2024 sipdown no. 81

This is would be good if you’re into vanilla. The base is smooth and the vanilla is well balanced and at the forefront.

2024 sipdown no. 80

This has that waffle sweetness typical of a Taiwanese black, that really comes out as the tea has cooled. The body is light-light/medium and the tea is fairly smooth overall. The real shock of this tea was with my second cup where I oversteeped by 4 minutes (face palm) and it was still perfect! I wasn’t expecting a lot since TG seems to specialise in flavoured teas, but I would happily order this one.

Sipdown (2652)!

I was really craving chocolate yesterday and I didn’t have any in the house so I ended up looking for a super rich chocolate tea instead. I landed on this one because it let me sneak in that extra sipdown. It was very, very good. Super dense and fudgey with the right balance of sweetness and slight bitterness. Reminded me of very good slice of moist chocolate cake with perfect icing slathered on it. I’m not usually a pure chocolate kind of person, but dang this hit the spot!

I’m still trying to decide on one last advent for this year, and The Tea Girl is one of the ones in consideration for me so I decided to make a cup of one of the teas I have from there to see if it helped me decide. I think I originally got this one from Sil via VariaTEA, so thank you both! It was a perfectly fine tea. Rich chocolate in a pure play/straight forward kind of way. I appreciated that it wasn’t so much chocolate that I couldn’t taste the tea base, but at the same time the pu’erh had a touch of that “fishy” wet pile funk that didn’t feel fully aired out.

Didn’t really help me decide though.

I’m conflicted about this tea! I enjoyed it so much at first. It is warm and has a nice coconut flavour. The coconut oil that happens when the little flakes are steeped means that the tea becomes sort of buttery and creamy in a very palatable way. But then, as it cools, the coconut oil becomes…very oily, and then it sucks. So I would love this tea and then be totally sick of it for a long time, there was no in between, really.

Sipdown (1710)!

I believe this was gifted from either Sil or VariaTEA so thank you to whoever passed it along! I’m sorry that I don’t remember who…

I feel like I should have probably tried it back when I got it because as soon as I opened the sealed packet the tea immediately smelled like soured/off coconut. I was hopeful that it wouldn’t be as funky when steeped but sadly this was just unpleasant with that rancid sort of coconut note that comes off as unpleasant sunscreen lotion. The add salt to the wound, it had the sort of fatty gross liquor that I really hate in coconut teas…

Not rating though because it’s pretty apparent that I didn’t try this tea in its prime, and who knows how my experience would have been changed if I had!

Sipdown (1708)!

I had this one in the morning and it was definitely nice and very agreeably flavoured. Not too much chocolate in taste or texture, and the strawberry was very even throughout the sip though maybe just a hint more artificial tasting. I definitely don’t think this is something I’d seek out again as it’s not particularly unique, but if this is a profile that you like then I imagine it would make for a really good “everyday” cupboard staple option where you’d be able to produce the same tasting cup over and over – and that’s definitely not something to write off.

I have been doing a rapid sipdown of ‘the tea girl’ sample tins this week. Taking 4 hour online lectures has proven to be a great motivator to cruise through some quick accesible tea (ie tea samplers). I drink out of fairly large mugs or like my tea stronger so i just put an entire tea tin (about a table spoon in size) in my steeping basket. So far I think I have drank a half of the tea girl samples I have received. Hoping to polish the rest off next week.

Prep: Western
Tasting note: I think my tea was a little muddled, I got a bit of rooibos, but the cranberry and other “foresty” flavors were faint. This tea didn’t stand out as much as I thought it would in the flavor department.

Sipdown down theme from a previous month: An Earl Grey tea

I forget how much I like earl grey blends. It’s probably because I have accumulated more tea than is manageable for one person that it isn’t as much of a priority anymore. Looking at some of the past 2022 sipdown prompts, I think there is another earl grey blend that would apply for “tea that makes you happy” theme. It just reminds me when I was first getting into tea as a young teen and it felt both “sophisticated” and tasty. My household was full of coffee drinkers so it felt special to be able to enjoy something they didn’t know a lot of about.

Preparation: Western
Tasting Note: I would say that this is slightly creamy in mouthfeel more than taste. It still has the slight astringency of a bergamot flavored tea. I don’t think it is the best earl grey but it is certainly not bad. I am not getting a lot of jasmine since the bergamot and black tea is stronger.