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Sipdown, 783. Just was in a mood to finish off my sample of this one from whatshesaid. I have some more that I’ll get sometime in May, so felt like I could indulge myself now :D I was intending to throw in a bit of brown sugar but forgot and am too lazy to go back and do it now, so I’ll have to try that with the next batch.

Sipdown, 784. Thanks again to Bluebird Tea Co. for this free sample :)

Although this tea certainly didn’t look like it contained any oolong at all, it does almost have an oolongy sort of flavour to it… Apparently it’s supposed to be a green oolong, which makes more sense (I was thinking dark oolong).

Anyways, the aroma is very herbally. A bit fruity, a bit of lemon verbena. Reminds me of some other tea I’ve had recently-ish (maybe Feng Shui from Tealux?). The flavour is definitely herbally, with touches of lemon and sweetness, and a flavour that I’m not quite enjoying (I’d say mint or chamomile, but I’m not sure if either is in here??) Or perhaps it’s the hibiscus I’m not enjoying? (Although it’s not a tartness issue here, just a flavour thing.)

I think, actually, that it might be that this reminds me to some degree of either Earl of Anxi (Verdant) or Citron Oolong (DavidsTea), both of which I like… but at the same time, had a bit of an aversion to that I couldn’t figure out. Something about flavouring a green oolong??

I’m not sure, this isn’t a bad tea at all, but something about it isn’t quite clicking for me. Perhaps I infused it incorrectly (I just went with my standard oolong parameters)? Oh well, they can’t all be winners! Don’t let my review discourage anyone from trying this tea though! It’s just not for me :)

Sipdown! 785.

I am completely and utterly unmotivated today. I think the weather is getting to me. I just want to go back to sleep, even though I’m not particularly tired. This tea is ok today, but I’m really not getting anything coconut, just milky oolong, which is quite tasty, plus a lingering “flavouring” taste. Probably won’t pick it up again, but yummy enough to have tried!

Yum. Still enjoy this. I can certainly understand how people just think this tastes like regular Laoshan Black, but I’m pretty sure that David’s intention was only to intensify existing notes and add additional toastiness, not make the change in flavour in-your-face obvious. And I do taste additional chocolate and toastiness, so this is successful for me, and I seem to be picking it over straight LB lately (I actually haven’t had any LB for quite a while… trying to tackle some other straight blacks first). Anyhow! Yum!

By the aroma of this one, I was definitely underwhelmed. It smelled floral, leading me to bemoan the person who decided that “pear” and “floral” should be BFFs. So naturally, I was dreading taking a sip. However, I am pleasantly surprised. This tea does actually taste like sweet pears. I’m not getting cream from anything but pear? Very much yes. It’s like Jelly Belly pear, except less artificial.

Now, I prefer D’Anjou pears, so this is not/will not be my perfect pear tea, but it’s certainly one of the better ones I’ve encountered. A few points have to be taken off for the base tea, however, because I’m just not fond of rooibos, and as usual, scratchy throat syndrome is occurring as I sip, which is unpleasant. But overall, pretty impressed and glad to have tried this one!

Thanks to Sil for picking some of this up for me quite a while back. It’s one that I was dying to try, but that my local DT didn’t carry.

I thought that 5 min would be excessive to infuse this tea, so I gave it 3. I think that 5 would have been fine… but… I don’t think I really care for this tea, haha. There’s an overwhelming dried grass-y note in here that I’m not finding appealing, and although I’m picking up some dark chocolatey tones at the end of this sip which are not too bad… I am getting major dried grass. Like, stale dried grass. Idek. I really don’t think I’m fond of this. And it shouldn’t be a storage issue, as this tea was simply in its original zip bag, and certainly shouldn’t be too old.

I’ll try this at 5 minutes next time to see how it goes, and if that doesn’t work, I guess the rest will go in a giveaway pile. I’m sure there are other people who would enjoy this much more than me. (Interestingly, I’m getting kind of a dark honey note in here as well… and the flavour is growing on me, although I still don’t particularly care for it… I don’t think…)

So I finally found the source of the delicious smell in my room – this tea! It’s in a plastic baggie, so that’s probably why. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t taste as good as it smells, although it certainly doesn’t taste bad! While it’s chocolatey, it’s more of a cocoa flavour than an artificial chocolate flavour, which is certainly appreciated, and I can understand why Sil enjoyed this. I wish it had a bit more flavour (I’ll steep it a bit longer next time, I think), but I can see it as a go-to chocolate tea over some of the more heavily flavoured-tasting ones. That said, if I want a chocolatey comfort tea, I’ll be having some of Verdant’s Laoshan Black Genmaicha, thanks.

Sipdown! Due to a) throwing out the last of my funky-smelling Lime Gelato and b) apparently not deleting a tea that I sipped down a few days ago, I’m now at 786! Woo! Nevermind that order that we jointly placed on Monday… and the Butiki order. And Della Terra….

Anyways. Almost done with my Bluebird Tea Co. samples (thanks for this one as well!), and have high hopes for this one. Unfortunately, however, this one’s a bit of a miss for me. It very well may be user error (too long of an infusion at 2.5 min?), but there’s too much astringency here for me to enjoy this tea. The base is likely nice (when not astringent) and I can almost taste some yummy flavours, but… nope. That said, I would likely request this one as a sample if I made an order in the future, as I think it’s promising. It also just occurred to me that it’s possible that there was just extra leaf in the package, and so I ended up overleafing my cup… the astringency tastes more to me like “too strong” than “crappy finicky tea base”. Hmm. Oh well, it’s mostly gone now, so as I said, I’ll save a second attempt (and a rating) for sometime in the future!

Well, this is certainly successfully as a raspberry tea. The flavour in here is unmistakably raspberry – strong raspberry, at that. Almost candied raspberry or something, because it’s certainly not as tart as actual raspberries (I am thankful for this, however.) Sadly, I’m really not tasting any cream. Perhaps there’s a bit of softness to the raspberry flavour that wouldn’t be there otherwise, but I guess I was hoping for a more noticeable creaminess. I suppose I could achieve that myself with milk or something?

A 2-minute infusion kept the black base in check here, so it works fairly well. I think I prefer this with a black base over generic green sencha base, as well. Overall, I don’t really see the hype around this one, as to me it isn’t anything overly special, but it’s certainly not bad! Better than a few other blends I’ve tried recently.

Since I ran across my packet of this at the same time as Strawberry Lemonade BMD, I decided to cold-brew some of it as well. I was never as fond of this one, possibly due to “tequila” flavouring, or just something being a bit off in the blend for me, but it’s still pretty good for iced tea. I also definitely ate a chunk of kiwi out of the bag last night. Mmmmmm, haha. In this blend, kiwi and the possible tequila flavour dominate, in my opinion. I may give this one a bit of sweetener later to see how it fares (whereas I was thinking to add a squeeze of lemon to Strawberry Lemonade…. yum).