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Autumn Harvest! Well, I found a bunch of other of my Tealyra blends on the D&B website looking for this particular one when I wanted to add it to the Steepster database under the proper source (it’s also from Germany, and now that I know Tealyra uses D&B as their wholesale source, I pretty much knew this was a D&B blend) but it appears it’s been discontinued… I double-checked on Tealyra’s site as well, and yup, it’s been removed. Another discontinued D&B blend, baaah! Hopefully it won’t be as amazing as Date Shake. Since I have no way of knowing the original name of the blend (Tealyra tends to rename the teas) I’ve put it under Tealyra… but there is no mistaking this is a Dethlefsen & Balk tea.

It smells very orangy, more like a creamsicle tea than something that makes me think of pumpkin, though the citrus has a very sharp, tart aroma. Steeped, it has a light tangerine color, and actually suddenly smells pumpkiny… how odd! The strong citrus in the leaf really mellows out in the steeped aroma, and it actually smells more squashy, but also quite creamy. The flavor of the tea still tastes very orangy, though. I do make out some pumpkin notes, but also tangerine and a slight tartness toward the end of the sip like green apple skins. There is definitely some vanilla, too, which brings a sweetness about midsip. It doesn’t quite taste like a creamsicle, because the orange isn’t as pronounced, but it does sort of evoke that citrus/vanilla flavor combo. I am happy to see the pumpkin flavor wasn’t completely overwhelmed, but at the same time, it isn’t as pronounced as I was hoping, since citrus is such a dominating flavor. It is quite tasty, though.

Next time, I may just try making a really strong infusion, and going latte with vanilla almond milk.

Autumn Harvest! This is a sampler I had from a holiday sampler pack from Art of Tea. The leaf has a very strong rooibos scent, with a slightly sweet aroma that reminds me a bit of vanilla or cream, with just a hint of spice.

Steeped up, the tea has a very rusty red color, with the same sweet, inviting aroma of the leaf. The taste was a bit underwhelming, though. For a tea that is called Pumpkin Pie, it just didn’t taste as much like pumpkin pie as I was expecting. The rooibos/honeybush base was a bit dominating, and I didn’t feel like I was tasting much of a pumpkiny flavor coming through in it. There certainly was a hint of creaminess to the tea, like a small hint of pumpkin pie with a dallop of whipped cream right at the back of the tongue as you swallow, which I found quite pleasant. I just wish that note was a little stronger. It feels to me like the honeyed/woody rooibos and honeybush takes center stage first, and the pumpkin tones are only able to squeeze in afterwards.

At least the spices in this blend aren’t too dominating or overwhelming, as they often tend to be in pumpkin spice blends. They have a nice sweet spice flavor toward the end of the sip and blend in nicely overall, and really the only thing that would’ve made them work better is having a proper pumpkiny flavor component to the tea.

Overall pretty meh. It just didn’t quite get there for me, as far as pumpkin teas go.

Reposted review. I bought this blend as “Perfect Pumpkin Pie” from Tealyra, but they source it from Dethlefsen & Balk.

This is an interesting tea. I’m a huge pumpkin fan, so if I can find teas with pumpkin in them (that aren’t just pumpkin spice blends) I get pretty excited. Especially if the pumpkin isn’t paired with banana (as I don’t do banana). This one actually fit the bill.

The scent of the tisane is really strongly spicy though… I’ve never had turmeric before, but since I couldn’t place the scent, I had no doubt that had to be it (it was like a more pungent ginger, and from everything I’ve read about turmeric, that seems to be pretty accurate). Brewed up, more spices come out in the aroma. The turmeric still has a very strong scent, but I can make out ginger, cardamon, and something sweet, like hints of vanilla. The aroma does evoke a sense of pumpkin pie, but far more spicy and earthy.

The flavor, however, was not what I was expecting. It didn’t really taste very… pumpkiny. There was a sweetness to the base, likely from the apple, but the turmeric dominates the flavor way too much, and it just isn’t a flavor note that makes me think of “pumpkin pie.” It gives the tea a somewhat earthy taste that seems a bit out of place. That said, the blend isn’t bad… it is not the “perfect pumpkin pie,” that I was hoping for, but it does have a nice, savory, autumn spiced cider flavor. Past the strong turmeric there is a nice gingery flavor, with some cinnamon and peppery spices that close out the sip. There is a nice warmth to the spices, but it doesn’t linger, and instead a sweet orange-apple flavor is left lingering on the tongue.

I tried the tea as a latte, but the flavor easily gets overwhelmed by the milk, so if making it this way either make a very strong infusion of tea, or only add a small dash of milk. The warm milk does add a nice, creamy dimension, once I found a good tea-to-milk ratio.

I’d say this is a decent spice herbal blend, and a good “autumn flavor” tea… but a horrible pumpkin pie tea. If you are ordering it based on the name, you’ll be disappointed! This definitely is more of a savory blend, not a dessert blend, and just doesn’t have much of a pumpkin flavor.

Reposted review. I bought this from Tealyra, but they wholesale this blend from Dethlefsen & Balk. I sipped this one down recently!

This is a very bulky herbal, so it does take quite a bit of leaf; it has big, full dried apple pieces and large cinnamon rods, so it is a bit heavy making it a bit expensive due to the weight. But it is really nice! It has a strong, full apple flavor that is mildly tart and tastes like Granny Green apples, with some sweeter cinnamon notes toward the end of the sip. The ingredients do need to be well shaken; at the end of my bag all my hibi-petals had settled to the bottom, and my last pot was more of a spiced hibiscus cider than an apple cider (which I was fine with, as I like hibiscus cider as well) but that is something to keep in mind.

Autumn Harvest! I got this tea quite some time ago, on a vacation in the fall of 2017 when I was in San Diego for a convention from a place I had High Tea called Shakespeare’s Corner Shoppe. They mostly sold a lot of popular wholesale blends but had a selection of unique blends they made in-house named after popular British characters, and this was one of those blends I picked up, since the odd assortment of ingredients intrigued me. Lots of chunky dried fruits and veggies in this tea — apple, lemon, lime, orange, tomato, and cucumber — on a rooibos and hibiscus petal base. I really have no idea what this should taste like!

The steeped tea, of course, was a dark rooibos red, but the aroma smelled surprisingly creamy, which I wasn’t expecting. It was sweet, which I suppose could be from all the fruit, but I was getting a vanilla sort of aroma, and citrus, making me think of creamsicle, and I could also pick out the cucumber in the aroma.

Woah! This is uniquely savory, sweet, and tangy all at once, it’s a very unique assault on the senses. The base is actually quite rich; it has this slight sweetness to it (there is no indication in the ingredients there is flavoring added, but the rooibos really tastes of vanilla to me!), then fills out with this tangy fruity taste that has that hibi punchy flavor mixed with a lot of orange citrus and very juicy tomato. It sounds strange, but reminds me of those V8 fruit juice/tomato juice combos that I used to quite enjoy. Toward the end of the sip, a citrus note and a stronger cucumber note push forward, and the cucumber actually leaves a somewhat refreshing feeling on the tongue. It’s a really unique tea; I seem to be on a roll for blends that have been offering me some rather new taste experiences lately.

Autumn Harvest! The second flavor from the TeaCrush stash I shipped back to myself from California. This one has a black tea base, and is mixed with lemon juice, apple juice concentrate, ginger juice and extract, monk fruit extract, and cayenne pepper. This is by far my least favorite flavor of the three iced teas TeaCrush makes, for only one reason… it’s a bit too spicy for my spice-wuss tastes. I really like lemon ginger teas, and this mostly does come off tasting like a strong lemon ginger iced tea… but the cayenne hits right at the end of the sip, and unlike the Turmeric Ginger Pear, where the turmeric and ginger just leave a little pleasant warmth on the throat and the tea is overall mostly sweet, this leaves a lingering heat on the back of my throat for far too long after the sip to really feel that refreshing to me. If the cayenne was missing, I’d really enjoy this one too, since I do like the flavor of the lemon and ginger before that spicy aftertaste hits.

I still have the Matcha Coconut Pineapple in my fridge, and then all my TeaCrush will be gone. Boo!

Autumn Harvest! This is one of Tealyra’s (many) discontinued teas, and since they were discontinuing it at the time I was making an order with them and it was highly discounted at the time, I decided to order some. I like dates and had never seen them in tea before. I’ve been trying to horde it since I know I can’t get it anymore, but since it has coconut chips in the ingredients, I figure that is probably a bad idea and I should just drink it already! Dates are actually a harvest food (albeit rarely thought of as such and certainly not very traditional) so now seems as good a time as any.

This is one of those chunky, heavy blends, so it will go fast. It has big ol’ dried chunks of dates, sour cherries, dried sliced apples (seriously, they aren’t even cut into little chunks, but full dried up slices!), coconut chips, and then some spices like chunks of cinnamon rods, cinnamon bits, and cardamom. It’s supposed to mimick a date shake, and I have only ever had a date shake once, and my memories of that now are a bit fuzzy: I was fourteen, and my family had gone on our first ever trip to Disneyland. One of the days was a bus trip down to San Diego to the zoo, and the bus stopped at some truck stop between Anaheim and San Diego that claimed they had “famous Date Shakes” (I didn’t even know what a date was!) so I asked if I could have one. I remember I loved it, that it was really sweet and creamy. I’m fairly sure I’d have to make this latte-style to try to recreate that flavor, but I’m just making a plain pot of this tonight.

It’s a light golden apple color, and smells of sweet dates and cinnamon in the aroma. The flavor is quite nice; it’s very naturally sweet, with the sweet dates and a sugary-cinnamon taste coming forward on the sip, but toward the end of the sip is a more tangy fruity note that tastes like those frosted cherry heart-shaped suckers around Valentine’s Day.

Another unique flavor and I’m happy to be exploring some surprising variety in blends recently. I’m a bit sad this one isn’t still around, though. I actually have a feeling, knowing now that Tealyra sources many of their teas from Dethlefsen & Balk and seeing “Source: Germany” on my package that this was probably a D&B blend, and that they discontinued the blend, so it isn’t like any other companies are going to have it, either, since it is gone from the source. Bah! I don’t think I’ve ever seen any other date teas, and now I really wish I did!

Autumn Harvest! The same “Honey Mead” tea found at Fusion Teas; this is their wholesale source. It has a lot of interesting ingredients in it, some of which I don’t think I’ve ever tried in tea before: apples, sultanas, sour cherries, and propolis.

I think, because the dry fruit has such a raisiny appearance, I was expecting a very sweet, raisiny taste like the Tea & Scones tea I had pretty recently, but this is quite different. The base is quite malty, but there is a somewhat floral touch to the tea that reminds me of honeysuckle and a very weak rose, and a mild peppery note as well, that settles close to the end of the sip. The fruit notes are a little hard to pin down… there is a sweeter raisin sort of flavor, but also a sort of tart, underripe grape, but I actually really like how the two blend together. There is a very subtle nuttiness left on my tongue after the sip too, like almond or cashew? I’m surprised how much depth and variety of flavors I’m getting from this one. The last two teas I’ve tried have both been fairly unique and presented a lot of different flavors I haven’t really experienced from blends before.

For a morning cuppa while stuck working on a Saturday, this will certainly do.

Old review; I’m just moving it because I discovered (Nancy Drewing out a completely different tea, mind) that Tealyra had wholesourced this from Dethlefsen & Balk. Yes, all the other reviews are under “Maple Splash” by Tealyra. Yes, I realize everyone probably thinks I’m crazy that I like putting my blends under the wholesaler instead of the teashop. Consider it a librarian quirk. It makes me feel too much like cataloging a Harry Potter book under every little bookstore that carries said Harry Potter book instead of “Rowling,” the person who made the book…

I got this tea from tea-sipper in a cupboard sale recently, and will admit that the name alone sold me (though I am a fan of TeaLyra’s teas and have several of them in my collection… shame they don’t seem to carry this one anymore, which seems to be a blend from their old Tealux days). I’ve been crazing maple teas lately, so I decided to have this one with my breakfast this morning. (I almost made the Maple Houjicha from 52Teas since that would’ve fit my “Green March” theme, but the higher caffeine content of a black tea was speaking to me this morning!)

I’m not exactly sure what popcorn is supposed to be adding to this blend, but I do love the almost caramelly sweet scent from the bag. Brewed up it has a lovely caramel color with some reddish tones, a medium body with a very smooth mouthfeel lacking of astringency, and a sweet maple flavor with a nice hint of cinnamon in the finish. I really enjoyed that tingle of cinnamon which was a nice compliment to the sweet maple, and found myself adding a little extra cinnamon to my infuser to really emphasize that flavor.

This is a nice tea. Even with a steep a lot longer than I typically give blacks, it came out sweet and smooth, rather than developing an astringent bite, and I really enjoyed the maple/cinnamon flavor combination.

Autumn Harvest! I received this one in a past cupboard sale from tea-sipper, so thank you tea-sipper! Been meaning to try it all month and realized that since houjicha has next to no caffeine in it I may as well make it as my evening pot on a work night (and yes, I’ve got the Saturday shift this week so tonight is a work night for me… bleh.) This is a rooibos/houjicha blend mixed with almonds and savory spices… the smell of the dry leaf is very interesting. It has a sort of sweet marzipan quality, but I’m also definitely picking up on the spicy ginger and sage. I really have no idea how this is all going to pull together. I’m certainly curious.

Brewed up, it’s the dark brown coffee color of houjicha, and the aroma smells of roasted nuts, melted caramel, marzipan, and sage. I still can’t imagine these things going together… but the taste is actually better than I could possibly expect. The woody and roasty/nutty notes of the houjicha make a good base for something like this, and the sweet and spice create a counterbalance for each other that is an interested juxtaposition. I think my only real issue is the marzipan comes across as such a desserty note, and everything else in the tea is quite savory, so it feels a little out of place? I can see the need to get some sweetness in here, since the fenugreek and sage are very dominant on the tongue and I think without it the blend would’ve been way too harsh, and I can understand how sweet nuts does compliment the nutty notes of hojicha… but it just seems odd overall when the blend is very savory. I feel like maybe it just needed some slight tweeking of the components (maybe a dash lighter on the savory spices, or more rooibos in the blend to try to bring in more of the sweeter honeyed notes from that tea to lighten up on the marzipan flavoring?)

It’s different, and I’m surprised I actually like it… the more I drink it, the more I warm up to it. Maybe the fact I’ve never had anything like this is making it so enjoyable. I don’t eat actual stuffing (I’ve never liked the stuff; it’s a texture thing for me) so I can’t compare it to what it is trying to mimick, but I’m personally really enjoying a sage-heavy tea with a nice roasty base and some sweetness to keep the spice from being too overbearing. It’s definitely the kind of tea that is going to be polarizing, though.