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This tea is lovely! I’ve always really liked the flavor combination of peach/apricot with lavender but rarely find teas with this profile (the only one that comes to mind is a now discontinued Plum Deluxe blend). I’ve been preparing this as a cold brew, and it is very sweet, with a really soft peach flavor which leans a little toward candy due to the sweetness. The lavender is prominent in the flavor and blends beautifully with the peach, but doesn’t taste overly floral or perfumy. There is no tartness/tanginess in this tea, which would make this more approachable to the hibi-hating crowd. I personally wouldn’t have minded a little tartness to the peach, but the soft candied sweetness can be nice too, and works especially nice as a cold brew (no extra sweetener necessary!) This is a flavor combo that is simply a keeper for me, and I will have to get more of this sometime! (Though I would say this is more of a spring/summer sort of tea, so it may not be the most seasonally appropriate at the moment… I guess I’m just ready for the winter to be over already!)

Though this is marketed as an immunity blend, I’ve actually been holding up well this winter and managed to dodge the sick bullet that went through another department here at the library. But I am in pretty bad pain today (the menstrual double-whammy of migraine + cramps… my fellow migraineurs out there know exactly what I’m talking about!) so I made a big thermos of this at lunch to hopefully help boost the anti-inflammatory drugs. While I’m pretty skeptical about purported herbal health benefits, it at least can’t hurt anything…

Honestly, this tastes very on par with one of my earliest teas, Celestial Seasoning’s “Tension Tamer.” Which makes sense, both being very echinacea/mint heavy. The flavor is a sort of grainy dry hay mixed with mint, with a touch of herbaceous citrus from the lemongrass. Most cups of this I’ve made had a slightly weird tangy note at the end of the sip which I assume is the elderberries and rose hips, but I’m not getting that with this cup, so maybe it’s a “luck of the scoop” issue or something that only comes out with a really long steep (I’m known to just “leave the bag in” on herbals when I’m sipping at home in the evening, but today I did a 10 minute steep and then removed the leaves).

It’s not particularly exciting, but are sick teas ever, really? It’s a bit herbaceous in the taste which isn’t my favorite, but I’ve definitely tasted healthy herbal blends that were way worse. The mint does a good job of hiding a lot of the weirder notes.

Mmm… I kind of forgot I had restocked some Keemun black tea a while ago, and as the Pineapple Express is rolling through here in the western US, this robust Chinese black is really hitting the spot against the dreary and wet weather. I wouldn’t say it is exemplary among Keemun blacks, but it is exactly what I was expecting… Rich with malty notes leaning into a savory flavor of leather and smoke with an overall brassy mineral quality and a hint of bittersweet cocoa at the back of the throat. It’s also very smooth rather than tannic or drying. I really enjoy this type of tea!

A Natural Grocers opened in town a while ago and I’d bought some teas there that aren’t in my normal grocery stop, this being one of them. I have been out of tulsi blends and didn’t read the packaging very close, thinking this was a tulsi rose blend, and while it does have those things, it’s actually on an assam black tea base. Which I wasn’t too bovvered about, as I like rose black tea as well.

The blend, however… is a little weird. The rose flavor is nice, it’s pretty strong and I wouldn’t recommend it to those averse to florals, but it doesn’t taste perfumey (at least to me, but I love strong rose tea). I’d put it on par with the rose flavor of Kroger Private Selection’s rose black tea. But I don’t think I’m as much of a fan of the tulsi mixed with a black base, because while I normally like tulsi on its own, it leaves this really strange aftertaste to me on the assam. Sometimes it just comes out kind of minty which is pretty pleasant, but other times it just comes off with this weird oaty/hay note that just isn’t playing nicely with the rest. It’s not bad, but I think I’d prefer a rose-on-tulsi or a rose-on-black more than this amalgamation of both.

My favorite rooibos chai is West Cape Chai from Rishi, but because they only sell it in large bulk amounts (it doesn’t matter how much I like a tea, I do not need a pound of it at any given time!) I usually have to hunt it down through resellers. I believe at the time I was making a Tea Runners order and they carried it, but it was sold out so I went with a different rooibos chai they had at the time, which was this one sourced from SerendipiTea.

I love the aroma of this tea, both dry and steeped, and while it has a nice flavor as well, it still doesn’t edge out Rishi’s West Cape Chai for me. The spice blend is very good — they blend together nicely but at the same time can be picked out distinctly — but I feel like the base rooibos isn’t quite as flavorful as I’d like? The spices in the tea are pretty warming… it just borders on being “too much” for me (I am the world’s most sensitive spice-wuss) so it leaves a bit of a peppery/gingery kick at the back of my throat after the sip, which I’m not the biggest fan of but I imagine would be quite flavorful and pleasant to others. I suspect this will hold up to milk nicely, so next time I’ll prepare it that way and then I think it’ll be just right for me.

This is a perfectly fine caffeine-free chai option and very nice against the brisk winter winds we have at this time of year.

Opening the bag, this tea has such a strong and pleasant nutty aroma, which thankfully carries out into teh brewed aroma and flavor. I get a strong sweet nutty flavor which stands up well to the earthy pu’erh and really drowns out a lot of the dirty notes in shou that I don’t care for. The earthy tones of the pu’erh do come out a bit more as the tea cools and is very present if the cup goes cold… for me at least, this is a “drink it while it’s hot!” tea. I decided to experiment with a latte, using 400ml of brewed tea and 100ml warm frothed sweet vanilla almond milk with a teaspoon of maple syrup, and it is outright decadent. More work for the preparation but it really pays off… the added sweetness and creaminess really makes the tea taste like a nutty dessert. For anyone worried about the rose petals in the blend, don’t be. They seem to be just for asthetics and I don’t get even a hint of rose in aroma or flavor. Personally, because I’m a fan of florals I’d love to see a strong rose note incorperated into this flavor profile… perhaps I’ll have to experiment and steep this tea with a bag of rose-scented black tea and see how it goes. But it’s really a treat as-is, and I’d happily grab more of this.

This is a sweet strawberry-leaning hibiscus fruit tea. There is a lot of juicy strawberry flavor, it’s a little candy-like though the tanginess of the hibiscus helps with that a bit. There is a sweet almond flavor in the background. I don’t taste the lavender in the blend at all, despite the fact it is pretty prevalent in the ingredients listing… maybe it was luck of the scoop and it all fell to the bottom of the bag? Will have to reassess as I work my way through this. It is a pleasant tea, but there is nothing really unique or remarkable about it… I know I’ve tasted strawberry hibi fruit teas from T2 and Adagio and probably other places that pretty much had this same sweet strawberry flavor on a hibi fruit tea base. It is a Dethlefsen & Balk blend so I’m sure the deja vu is warranted.

This tea is basically a chai with an oolong base, which I don’t think I’ve personally seen before (and feel should be done more often!) The base oolong is a darker variety with lots of roasted, earthy, and nutty notes, which I think is really complimentary with the spices. The spices are gently warming, with the cinnamon coming out a bit more on the front of the sip with the ginger and clove lingering pleasantly afterwards. The tea says it includes “pumpkin spice flavoring” rather than “pumpkin pie” flavoring, so there are no notes of pumpkin or vanilla. I think the closest tea I’ve had to this one is a houjicha chai, though this doesn’t have the woodiness the houjicha chai had. It’s a very enjoyable cold weather tea! I’m not sure if it would hold up to a latte the way a traditional black tea-based chai would (I haven’t tried it yet!) but it makes a perfectly fine plain cuppa with cozy roasty notes and warming spices for a winter day.

This is one of those “hibiscus and spices” teas that I know are pretty universally disliked on Steepster, but happen to pretty much be my favorite thing ever. While I normally prefer my hibi/fruit teas coldbrewed, I just find something incredibly cozy about warm and syrupy hibiscus mixed with spices… and the extra hydration and Vitamin C at a time of year where my nose seems to constantly drip for three months straight is an added bonus. The hibiscus base is very prevalent in this one with a pleasant tartness, but the pear flavor keeps it from tasting like a generic fruit punch like many hibi/fruit teas. It’s a decent pear flavor, even if a bit subdued. There is a lot of sweet, warming cinnamon that lingers after the sip. I’m really enjoying it, but could not recommend it to those that find hibi “too tart”… there is some apple and pineapple in the blend but I don’t find it adds a lot of sweetness. It’s more akin to a “mulled wine” sort of tea, just with a pear-leaning direction.

It seems the trend lately is caffeine-free coffee teas (which, don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoy!) but sometimes what I am really craving from a coffee tea is the stimulation of coffee as well as the taste, and I have to say this one holds up pretty well. It has a very strong black coffee flavor, which mimicks the flavor well but also comes off just a tad artificial. The dry leaf smells strongly of the cocoa elements but I don’t really taste that in the cup… it just tastes like black coffee with a roasty undertone, as well as a strong hit of cinnamon. I really like the cinnamon, and somehow paired with the black coffee flavor it tastes more like nutmeg to me on the tongue (still very pleasant!) I also like that the base is a combination of roasted yerba mate and black tea, doubling down on the caffeinated potential.

I’ve mostly been drinking this tea plain, but this morning opted for a sweetened vanilla almond milk latte since I’m trying to use up the carton. Adding the sweetened vanilla almond milk really brings out the cocoa notes that were hiding otherwise. Very delicious! A very good coffee alternative for those that like the taste but may have other issues preventing a morning cup o’ joe (for me, the acidity of coffee beans really does a number on my GI!)

Happy New Year, everyone!