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Working late again, so it’s a cup of tea to keep me warm when the furnace goes to sleep for the night again.
Strawberry White, eh? I have been known to enjoy white teas, but historically not the white teas from David’s. And smelling this very pale tea makes me understand why; their whites have a slight hit of a jasmine smell. And me no likey the jasmine. The strawberry is very much there too. It’s like a strawberry-scented french soap instead of a tea I’m about to drink.
First sip: don’t care for it. I’ll probably drink it all at some point, but this is certainly not going to be my go-to tea. I wanted it to taste a lot more like strawberries than it does. I understand the other reviewer’s diagnosis of “floral.” It tastes as much like jasmine as it smells.

Ho-lee MACKINAW, is this tea dark! It’s almost overwhelmingly dark. It makes me kind of hesitant. And I’m not even done steeping it! I was going to go for a 6 minute steep, but I pulled the plug around 4 minutes because that colour is too intense.
It smells very gingery. I don’t really smell the orange at all; just ginger. And fear. Full disclosure, I wouldn’t know an oolong or pu’erh tea to smell them even if I was told that was what I was smelling, so ginger is the only thing I can think of.
But not even like the gingery part of the ginger root; the woody skin.
Think I’ll let it sit for a minute or so until I balls up enough to put it to my lips.
It’s so dark…
Ooh, that’s unexpected. I slipped some honey in there while it was steeping (instead of my usual sugar) and left out the milk because I figured it would curdle. I think that instinct was probably correct. Even as I was going to sip it, my whole mouth was recoiling in fear, but with that first sip, the ginger slid around my mouth like, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” It warmed everything up, zipped down my throat and then left a nice cooling sensation on my tongue. Quite nice.
I can see this tea being a good one for if I was feeling kind of crappy or full (like it’s intended.) I’m pretty sure I’ll find myself craving it later. I can see why this is a popular tea.

I put milk and sugar in as it was steeping. The colour is very mild. I like my black teas to have that roux, and this is kind of a chantarelle.
Really interesting smell. I’m used to an orange pekoe for my straight black tea (a la Red Rose.) This almost has a horses quality to it. Like, you know how horse poo is gross but doesn’t smell bad? This tea is kind of horse-pooy.
Interesting mouth feel. It’s a lot thicker than I thought it would be. Almost to the level of a rooibos. Really inoffensive tea. I can see sipping this in morning traffic and getting a tiny sliver of zen before I resume screaming at the douchebag who cut me off/won’t let me in/is driving like a tool.
It smells and tastes like there should he a substantial aftertaste, but it isn’t there. Kind of a twitching at the sides of my tongue, but no aftertaste per se.
I don’t know that I’ll rush out and buy a gigantic bag of this; I still prefer my Red Rose. But it’s a nice inoffensive tea. It’s appropriate for using to warm my body up while I’m working*.

*my “office” is an office chair at the dining room table, but our dining room partly sticks out of the side of the house, and there is INSUFFICIENT insulation in the floor for that. It’s probably a solid 2 degrees colder than anywhere else in the house. So it’s usually my Sesame Street slanket and a big ‘ol cup of tea while I’m working.

Can’t smell.
Can’t taste.
Feel icky.
But thanks to Electric Lemon, my throat isn’t stingy any more!

Holy mackinaw, it smells like apple crisp! That’s insane. How did they do that?
I’m brewing it heavy (1tbsp to a cup between 16-20oz) because I always brew David’s Teas heavy.
The dry tea looks like art, but the tea in my cup looks like garbage. No colour except for a lightly tobacco-stained appearance towards the bottom. It does not look at all as wonderful as it smells.
I’m letting it sit because I always burn my tongue and have just eaten peanut butter toast as a snack, which probably wouldn’t mingle well with the cinnamon and apple (… or would it?)
So, like, I’ve been playing a lot of Fable 3. A LOT a lot. So addictive. I currently have 7 husbands and 10 children. What fun. This tea makes me forget that I’d rather be playing Fable 3 and keeps me at the table where I should be working.
Of course, I’d rather be in front of a fire in a cozy sweater having just come in from cross-country skiing to have this mug of aromatherapy waiting for me, but beggers can’t be choosers. And I really SHOULD be working.
Okay, on to the tasting. I’m trying this one naked.
Disappointing mouth-feel at first, but it has an apple-y juiciness (almost a crispness?) at the back of my tongue. I think that I’m getting the taste more from the smell than the actual taste, which is disappointing.
But still a lovely tea. Something I’d brew when I was feeling crappy about it still being winter in Manitoba and bitterly cold.

WOW, that ginger!
It’s all I can really smell and pretty much all I can really taste.
I’m disappointed in the tea because it got cold so quickly. I’ve never brewed green teas so low in temperature, and I’m not sure I’ll follow the recommendation next time. I need my teas hotter!
That having been said, I’m drinking this tea naked (the tea is naked, not me) and it’s entirely satisfying. The ginger sends stinging little prickles all over my mouth, and that’s what I like about it.
Good times, good times. I’ll try it again later and brew it much hotter. Maybe I’ll even slip some honey in!

Right off the bat, I want this tea to be darker and don’t care for the orange smell. It needs to be purer cinnamon and warm spices.
Full disclosure: I don’t know how much tea I used. I have an enormous mug, so I just dumped a whole sample tin in a coffee filter and steeped it that way. Gheeeeetto…..
The taste is much better than the smell. The cinnamon IS actually like a cinnamon heart, in that it almost stings your tongue (in the best possible way.) I think I added too much sugar — a habit of mine. The body is heavier than I expected, and it’s almost coolingly refreshing, but warming at the same time.
I made the right decision using my entire sample and a huge mug. This is going to be a good afternoon.

What what WHAT? Why is this tea rated so LOW? Why does everybody hate it so much?
Full disclosure: I am generally not a fan of white tea at all.
The smell is delightfully summery. Like lime-ade in the sun on a freshly-clipped lawn. It’s darker than a usual white tea (I’m guessing because of the addition of black darjeeling tea). But the mouthfeel and taste are just so lovely that I can’t understand the universal dislike of Tazo Cucumber White!
You shouldn’t sweeten this tea for sure. The peppermint is more of a feeling than a flavour. It kind of ices down the back of your tongue and into your throat, then reminds you that it’s there by sliding cold hands along the sides of your mouth. The lime has no overpowering zing to it and kind of coaxes your whole face into thinking that it’s summer. The cucumber lingers sweetly and makes your mouth feel happy and clean.

And, because it isn’t on this page, here’s what the box has to say:
“Cool cucumber, refreshing peppermint, lime peel and all the blessed antioxidants in white tea unite their restorative powers in TAZO CUCUMBER WHITE. Sip by sip, you may feel a spreading calm as the tea replenishes your body and spirit. And if you find yourself smiling at nothing at all, you have reached the coveted peace of mind. Nice feeling, isn’t it?
“Ingredients: white tea, lime peel, dandelion leaves, black darjeeling tea, cucumber, peppermint, lemon myrtle, natural flavours, lime essence oil.
“Did You Know? Louis XIV so loved the rejuvenating effect of cucumbers that he had his royal gardens filled with the gourd. And he ruled for seventy two well-hydrated years. Drink up.”

Full disclosure: I probably didn’t put enough tea in, quite a lot of it escaped my steeping ball, and I was distracted, so didn’t get to the tea until it was very much too cold.
BUT:
The smell of this tea is otherworldly. It’s like I’m in a beautiful dream where everything is made of ice cream. There’s the SLIGHTEST black tea tinge to it, but it’s mostly: chocolate, chocolate, chocolate; mint, mint, mint. Not that I’m complaining. This is a lovely situation! The tea itself looks a little weak, and the chocolate chips leave a rather unsightly brown ring around my coffee cup. But, again, it’s not THAT big a deal. It’s the kind of ring I’d stick my tongue into my mug for when nobody was looking, and lick it off. Because you KNOW that it’s chocolate.
I suppose I was whelmed by the flavour. I’d wanted a bit more knock-your-socks-off mintiness. And I could barely taste tea at all.
Milk and sugar as usual.
I’ll try it again when I can focus on it.
I can see this tea being brilliant on Christmas morning (maybe with a splish of some minty alcohol) and in the days leading up to Christmas, but — like Starbucks’ Peppermint Mocha — I can see it getting old once the red and green and gold of Christmas have faded into the blue and white and grey of late winter.
Maybe it would be good as an iced milky summer treat, though. As a milky ice-pop, perhaps?
We’ll see.

OH, enjoy.
I’m all caffeined out, so it’s on to the wonderful Refresh.
It’s peppermint AND spearmint, so it doesn’t have any of that gaggy back-of-the-mouth sharpness that the peppermint teas of my university years (when all I could afford was a box of Stash or Tetley.)
The colour is misleading. It doesn’t look like it’s going to taste good. And the has almost a medicine cabinet quality to it. But the TASTE is so wonderful. It has a richer body than I’d expect from brewing mint leaves in water (of course, I added a touch of my usual milk and sugar), but the minty taste has no menthol or toothpaste qualitites at all. The oils left behind give me a fresh-from-the-dentist feeling of clean (although I know for a fact that the several candy cane Viva Puffs that I shoved in my mouth for breakfast have something to say about the actuality of that situation.)
Lovely, lovely, lovely. And exactly what I needed on a light-grey November morning when I have a very present deadline looming.