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I was not expecting the smell of this; as others have said, it’s a very strong fruity/candy scent with only a hint of green tea! I like it a lot, I’d love to be able to buy a perfume that smelled like this.

The scent of the liquor is similar, except far more on the green tea side of things — I’m inclined to call it mainly sencha, but I’m really not sure. It sips like the liquid’s smell, not the dry. I can distinctly pick out the berries, including some sweetness, even without any sugar added, but it very much tastes like a green tea.

I like this a lot! Probably the best sample I’ve gotten from Lupicia’s magazine thus far.

I’ve had the sample pack of this tea (unopened) for a few years now, which admittedly might have impacted the taste, but I thought it was getting around time to try it and that a tasting note wouldn’t be amiss.

The first scent I noticed from the dry leaf was tobacco, but after a few more sniffs I can also pick out a leafy smell — it reminds me of the woods in the fall. Not generally what I expect from tea, but I’ve never had houjicha before.

1st steep – boiling water, 30 seconds:
The liquor smells like tobacco too, but in a surprisingly pleasant way. A lovely golden color! I’m glad I’m using a clear mug. There’s not much that surprises me about the flavor, honestly — it’s got a smoky kind of flavor, although much weaker than I get from, say, lapsang souchong. There are some definite woodsy notes as well, and the flavor lingers in the throat after swallowing.

2nd steep – near boiling, 60 seconds:
There’s a pretty similar flavor profile here, although it’s less complex now. The leaf notes have now really taken over.

Ultimately this isn’t really my preferred flavor profile (I do enjoy smoky teas, but I’m not so fond of the other notes), but it’s a very interesting sipping experience and I’m glad it was included in the sampler! I can see it being particularly pleasant to sip on a cool fall day.

This tea is good at being what it is, which unfortunately means that it’s not really to my taste at all. It’s very strong and quite bitter, even when brewed normally, and the flavor is fairly malty. I always have to add milk and usually also sweeten it — I’m finishing it up with some vanilla creamer right now, and for me it needs that to make it easy to drink without wincing from the bitterness. On the flipside, if you like strong black teas and want to be able to add a lot of things to them, you’ll probably love this. (Although perhaps unsurprisingly, I haven’t tried many teas similar to this one and I can’t really directly compare it.)

Minty green tea with a flavor that seems like it’s trying to be chocolate but failing miserably — which is what I get from most chocolate teas, really. While this tastes pretty odd, I do like it well enough due to my enjoyment of minty greens; still, there are dozens of better ones out there.

One nice thing to note is that I’ve found that this is impossible to oversteep. I’ve had it steeping for 10+ minutes more than once accidentally and it just amplifies the flavor a bit without getting bitter.