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Finally brought in a thermometer and have found out that it is 53°F in my office. Not acceptable!

Have to warm up with tea. Fortunately I have a sample of this one from MissB! I almost bought a tin of this at TJ Maxx when it was around and I wondered if I would regret not picking it up. Well, this is quite tasty, but I’m not completely broken up about not having a tin of it. I have a number of mango teas around right now anyway. But I’m not saying that I wouldn’t pick up a tin if I happened across one again. :)

Now this is a tea. I can tell because when I smelled the brewed tea it smelled like TEA and not just flavoring.

Thanks to MissB for a sample of this one, which I had been curious about. Even though I knew it was chocolate, orange, marshmallow, somehow the bright, citrusy, fruity orange surprised me when I took a sip. It’s nice and authentic. The chocolate flavor is relatively light (but bolstered a bit by the Zhen Qu), and I’m afraid I don’t get any marshmallow, but maybe that’s just a hard flavor for me to pick out. It does come out in the aftertaste a bit. It’s nice, I enjoy it, I’m not bowled over. But I would take this over the other desserty teas I’ve had recently any day because it has a nice body and depth that you only really get with a high quality tea base.

I did have this cold brewed yesterday, and it was pretty tasty. But I don’t know that it was super passion fruit-y… for most of it, I had somehow convinced myself it was an Earl Grey blend that I had cold steeped. Um, nope. I guess it was just a kind of generically fruity cold brew, albeit quite a tasty one.

Holy cinnamon! Definitely that’s what I get from this tea (sample graciously provided by MissB). Lots and lots of cinnamon.

As it cools, it gets sweeter. Must be the “bits”! A bit of creamy icing comes out, and perhaps a bit of breadiness, but it remains kind of thin and lackluster in flavor. I mean, it’s drinkable, it’s decently tasty, but it just doesn’t do it for me. I can think of so many nice bready black teas that would be awesome with this (or maybe a bready, moderately roasted oolong!) instead of this tasteless black base. As before, my experience with Della Terra is all flavoring, no tea. Well, this is why I wanted (small!) samples of a bunch of them, to try a wider range of them without committing to their (rather too large for me) samplers.

I did not buy this tea when it showed up at the discount stores, but I was curious so I asked MissB for a sample. I knew when I pulled it out today that I would have to drink it today… what a wintery day!

This smells nicely lemony with a bit of white tea and a bit of cream. Yes, this is a relatively lightly flavored tea (which is I guess somewhat unusual for Fauchon), but I enjoy it. It has a nice, creamy texture with a lemony zing. Glad I got to try this one!

It’s freaking cold! And sitting in my freezing office is not exactly pleasant. Ugh. Well, at least I have this tea from MissB! Get use to seeing her name in tasting notes from me because she sent me a ton of samples.

This definitely smells nice, like an Earl Grey Cream but with an extra sweet punch from the marshmallows. I have to say, with my usual parameters I didn’t get a ton of flavor out of this. I mean, there was some light bergamot and vanilla, but I wanted more. So I threw the leaves back into my 3/4 filled cup, added the last pinch of leaf I hadn’t used before, topped it up with hot water, and steeped it for another two minutes. It sounds crazy, but it actually turned out nice! The bergamot picked up, the vanilla picked up, and the base tea has a bit more heft to it. Still, I don’t quite get marshmallow from the taste (definitely there in the scent), but I bet I would if I sweetened it (which I don’t do unless I can’t drink a tea straight).

I have a sneaking suspicion that Herbal Infusions will be like Della Terra for me. I requested a number of samples of both from MissB (and she graciously obliged me) because I always read the raves and feel like I’m missing something. I tried Della Terra a while ago and liked the teas ok but couldn’t get into them because of a boring base that had no role in the flavor of the tea (a plus for some). I wanted to try again to see if maybe I was just too harsh on them.

So far, this is a nice, drinkable cup of tea but nothing I have to order more of (I’m a little relieved, haha). Thanks MissB!

All I have to say about this one today is: YUM. And I think I get a bit more of a boozy “vodka” sensation from the loose leaf than I did with the sachet.

Mmm, roasty chestnuts! It’s been a long time since I had this one, but I don’t know why. It is the perfect tea for this snowy snowy day that we are having!

This isn’t a heavily flavored tea, really… it really reminds me of a nice nutty black tea with a good heap of roastiness. It’s almost like this tea was the base of that ATR Sultan’s Delight blend. Quite tasty overall.

Second gongfu session of the day. I ordered a sample of this tea because I really enjoy Verdant’s reserve Fuding white tea, and thought I would check this one out.

I would say that although this one doesn’t really approach the quality of Verdant’s, it’s a decent tea. Not quite sweet, but with allusions to the marshmallow notes I was hoping for. A bit of hay, a tiny floral note. I’m fairly picky about white teas (in that I’m not huge on white teas so one has to be really impressive or unique to win me over), so I’m glad I have just a sample of this one, but it won’t be too hard to finish it.