The Tea Table

Oh, this is a great iced tea! Just the right delicacy of the cherry flavor.

Oh, this is nice! I was uncertain at first, because I ripped open the sample packet and it smelled exactly like cough syrup, but apparently that’s only in the dry leaves. The tea smells fruity and summery, and it tastes sort of in between actual cherries and really good cherry candy. And tea, of course — there’s a really good tea taste too, and it mixes in very nicely with the cherry flavor.

Now I’m wondering if I’ve got enough in the sample to make iced tea out of it! This would be a really great high summer tea, I think.

Wow. Immediately after opening the package I was hit with a very strong fruity aroma. Luckily it mellowed out a bit after brewing, but it is still quite strong. There is a certain aftertaste to this tea, but it’s not necessarily bad. It just stays in your mouth for a bit.

Very fruity, quite strong, reminds me a lot of Tazo’s Passion Tea. I’m going to try this again Iced, It seems like it’s better suited for that purpose.

I like this tea a lot, but some may find the vanilla in this tea to be too strong. Which is fine with me, I prefer my tea to be on the stronger side. It’s not overpowering, just very noticeable. It’s smooth, very sweet, and aromatic. I would recommend this tea to anyone who has a bit of a sweet tooth and doesn’t mind their flavor a bit on the strong side.

Cold-brewed for iced tea: two parts of this to one part Georgia Sunshine (http://steepster.com/teas/teasource/8838-georgia-sunshine). It tastes a lot like the straight-up Georgia Sunshine, very peach-y, but with more of a grassiness thrown in. There’s a bit of a bitter aftertaste, though.

This has kind of a lot of caffeine/whatever in it, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?

My first yerba mate! And I like it!

The dry leaves smell very much like something, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what. The brewed tea also has a very familiar yet unnamable scent. Argh! But perhaps I’ll be able to remember for the next cup, after the caffeine in here kicks in, or the mateine, or whatever it is — it smells like caffeine, anyway. And also like something a bit burnt.

Oddly, it tastes very sweet! I was not expecting that, and it’s somewhat odd to pick up the mug and smell cinder while sipping sugar. There is an ashy aftertaste, but not at all in a bad way. It’s tasty!

I wonder how many infusions these leaves are good for?

When I opened the pouch this morning, this tea smelled absolutely wonderful! Sadly, it just isn’t as exciting when it’s brewed up. I tried it with sugar and again with milk, and neither one made a big difference.

First Tea Table tea of April! I’m not actually sure what I think of it yet; it’s definitely a good mint, but the black tea underneath was somewhat muted. Consider this a provisional rating!

Thank you, Cait, for the sample. I’m liking this tea.

The dry tea was alarming because it reeked of maraschino cherries. I loved that odor when I was 8 years old and prone to stealing one or two of these cherries from a jar my parents kept in the refrigerator. I suspect that they had had them around since prohibition. The problem with my petty thievery was that all 5 of my siblings were also drawn to the maraschino cherries, also stole a few, and hence our family suffered through Maraschino-Gate after my parents commenced a Select Committee to nab the magpie amongst their offspring. But I digress.

To this day, I find the odor a bit alarming because it is redolent of child-hood busts and childhood disappointments.

Through the alchemy of boiled water, the maraschino cherry odor disappeared and now I am drinking something that is certainly a vanilla caramel. It is sweet and rich and of course it’s a dessert tea (I take my dessert teas at all times of the day). I don’t know if I will buy this, but the tea does make me want to investigate more black caramel teas. Good cup! I’m ready for seconds.

Okay, “sour” isn’t really the right word. There’s something going on here which I’m experiencing as neither bitter nor sweet, though, and I can’t seem to mesh it with my “caramel tea” expectations. Perhaps I’m just holding it up against Fortnum & Mason’s vanilla tea.

Bizarrely sour. I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt and hold off rating until I can try this again with a fresh steep.

Eh. There’s nothing wrong with this tea, but nothing exciting, either. It smelled a bit smoky, but I couldn’t find any taste of it; mostly it was just spearmint, with an aftertaste of tea.

I think I approach mint tea the way some people approach coffee: I keep hoping it will taste as good as it smells, and I keep being disappointed.

Mmm. Apparently, on the right sort of day this is very soothing mug-steeped.

Okay, this one can definitely get bitter if it’s left to steep too long. Not a good steep-in-the-mug tea! Although it’s worth noting that even oversteeped it has a sweet tang which lingers longer than the bitter does after sipping.

This also makes a lovely mid-day palate cleanser!

This tea smells amazingly like lemon candy when dry. Sadly, that probably bumped the tea down a few notches here, because it doesn’t taste like lemon candy — it’s very sweet (I did add honey as they recommended), and it definitely has both lemon and candy tones, but it’s not that bright lemon drop experience. On the other hand, once I got over that disappointment, it’s a lovely lemon green tea! It’s very smooth and earthy underneath the lemon — brewed it smells a bit grassy, in a really nice way — and it’s not at all puckery, nor is it medicinal once the honey is added. (It was faintly back-of-the-mouth-medicine in the first few sips before I put in a small squeeze of honey, but that might also have been that the water was still rather hot.)

Also, it’s very pretty dry: take a look at the picture!

Okay, how is it that this iced tea is sweeter without sugar?