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I’m down to the “I really don’t know how I’m gonna feel about this” pyramids from my Tea Forte sampler, and I hesitated to give African Solstice a go, particularly when I saw that rosehips were a key player. I was braced for a mugful of tartness, but this is surprisingly sweet. My taste buds can’t detect anything but a general “unspecified fruit” flavor, kind of like that one single good chew of Fruit Stripe gum before it goes tasteless. Same with the roses—a nice team player in this rooibos-based blend, but they don’t stand out.

None of that sounded very complimentary, did it? It’s a really nice evening cup, especially out of my new favorite hissing mug (just the favorite one that hisses, not my very favorite). Go ahead. Say I’m nuts. I think this little ceramic mug, which had been stashed in storage for ages, was from a donation center when we were trying to cobble together a kitchen after our tornado. Brown with little curlicue hearts on it. I don’t know if it’s the porous texture of the ceramic, or the shape (it tapers inward the tiniest bit at the lip) or the slight flaw in the inner glazing … but whatever it is, it hisses when it’s full of a warm cuppa. Shhh. There. Hear it?