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May Flowers! This is one of the teas that came in my mega-Bluebird cupboard sale from tea-sipper (thanks, tea-sipper!) and this seems like a very appro-po time to try it!

I can’t drink a plain, jasmine-scented tea as they are just too strong for me and come off to me like drinking perfume because of the aroma, which aggrevates my migraine-head much the same way as standing next to someone wearing too-strong perfume, but I’ve found I’m usually okay with teas that are lightly scented, by blending jasmine teas with other teas, or just including the flower blooms or petals into a blend with other scents and ingredients. When I brewed up this tea, I could definitely smell a jasmine aroma, but it wasn’t the strong, overpowering aroma I got from my experience trying jasmine pearls, it was softer, sweeter, but still very floral.

The taste of the tea was wonderful; this is the kind of jasmine tea I could drink all day! The pear base is lovely; it’s a lighter pear taste than, say, the strong juicy taste of 52Teas Pear Chai, but the jasmine notes come through easily so the two flavors blend nicely. There is the slightest bit of fruit tanginess, followed by a soft, floral sweetness. Overall, I’d say this is probably one of the nicest green blends I’ve tried and really hope Bird & Blend Co. gives it a reboot at some point!

May Flowers! I was gifted this tea by a volunteer at the library; it’s one of only two Steven Smith Teamaker teas I’ve seen locally in town, which is a shame, because as far as “bagged tea” goes, whole leaf in sachets is certainly my preference (sachets don’t leave an unpleasant taste in the water that I notice from paper bags, and I just have a general preference for whole leaf over crushed). I wish we had more options of this brand in my local grocery… especially since this particular blend has a heavy chamomile base (I immediately could tell from the scent when I opened the bag!), and I’m just not really a chamomile fan, despite my love of floral teas.

There are a lot of other things in this tea too: rooibos, hyssop, linden flowers, lemon myrtle, rose petals, safflower, cyani flowers, and natural flavoring, so it very much is a very floral blend, but the steeped cup still had a very strong chamomile scent. The taste was… eh. Definitely not my favorite because of the strong chamomile presense, but there did seem to be a slight honeyed note from the rooibos (which I honestly wish had been stronger), and an overall sweet floral touch. I think if the rooibos and lemon myrtle had been stronger flavor notes in this blend it would’ve been a bit more to my personal tastes, but I didn’t find it undrinkable, and I certainly have had chamomile teas that I found entirely unpalatable, so there was something here that was done right. A teaspoon of my lemon-infused honey even makes it quite pleasant.

A soothing tea with a nice floral touch, and fans of chamomile will definitely like this. There’s enough nuances it doesn’t come off as a plain chamomile tea, but it is similar enough to scratch that itch if you enjoy that sort of tea.

May Flowers! Seeing as I’m a huge lavender fan, of course when I found some lavender matcha I had to get some. I like my matcha latte-style, since the vanilla almond milk adds a bit of sweetness and creaminess all at once, so I tend to prepare my matcha very lazily by putting a sifted teaspoon into my milk frother with a cup of milk and letting it mix and heat up at the same time.

The dry matcha had a very strong lavender scent, but my finished latte pretty much just smelled like an average matcha latte, without a lavender aroma… I’m not sure if the milk made that much of a difference, or if the flavoring was more subtle than it seems once out of the bag. Most of the cup I was just getting a very sweet, grassy matcha taste, but toward the end of my cup, I finally started getting a distinct lavender flavor. I stirred up my cup with a spoon even after its frothing, but it seems the flavor still settled toward the bottom of the cup. Once I did reach the lavender flavor, it was quite nice though. The flavor goes nicely with the sweet grassy flavor of the matcha, and I’m looking forward to trying some other things with it, like matcha lemonade.

May Flowers! This is actually the first earl grey tea I ever bought for my collection. I had never liked the taste of bergamot (which, considering the way I like citrus and strong tart, tangy flavors, I’m not sure why I never liked that taste, but it just was very offputting to me… perhaps because it was so perfumy? Despite how much like I like florals, I can’t handle a jasmine-scented tea because it is simply too strong in scent and sets my head off because I feel like I’m drinking perfume, so the aroma more than the taste could have had a lot to do with it). But I read a lot of reviews saying this was a good earl grey for “people that normally don’t like earl grey” and I thought I’d try to adapt my palate, starting with this blend (and I later added other blends as well, and now I’d say I’m pretty tolerant with all but the heaviest of bergamot teas).

This tea does have a noticable bergamot flavor that lingers on the tongue, but there is a fruitiness to the base. Most people say it tastes of peach, but for me, it tastes very much of lychee, and lychee black teas are one of my favorite things, so that actually was a good way to ween me into the bergamot. The tea is accented with rose, sunflower, hibiscus, and mallow petals, and while you can’t really taste any of those flowers individually, there is a very subtle floral sweetness right at the end of the sip.

I used to always take this with some milk, to cut the bergamot back just a bit, but now that I’m more used to it, I can drink a cup plain, and pick out the lychee fruit notes beneath the citrusy bergamot. I think I’d certainly prefer something like this over a plain earl grey in my cupboard.

It’s a sipdown! I’m raising my rating on this one because my gut was right after tasting that first awful cup; Art of Tea’s recommended steeping instructions were just not favorable for this tea, and once I made a cup using a much cooler water temperature (around 170-175 F) and a shorter steep of about 3 minutes, this actually was a really nice tea! It really mellowed out and I suddenly didn’t have that overbearing smokiness that just didn’t really blend with any of the other flavors in the cup; instead it tasted more grassy with an underlying fruitiness and a mild floral touch at the end of the sip. The flavors actually blended well and felt complimentary now. It really made a world of difference!

May Flowers! This is one of my oldest samplers, so it’s time I finally tend to it (at least there is no coconut in it, so dodged a bullet there!) This is a guayusa tea blended with jasmine green tea (I admittedly can’t stand a plain, heavily-scented jasmine tea, but have found I’m usually fine when it’s blended with other things so it’s more subtle), and it also has some hibiscus petals as well as some strawberry (since my sampler was before they changed the formula to raspberry) and rosehip to add some other fruity notes.

Brewed up warm, this tea has a very odd aroma… I’m getting a somewhat tobacco smoky but somewhat earthy scent from the guayusa, but it is mixed with a very sweet floral aroma. Honestly, I don’t think the two really pair all that well, and after tasting the tea, I feel about the same. The flavor of the guayusa is a bit dominating and that smoky flavor sticks out a bit rather than really mixing well with the floral jasmine and soft, underlying fruity notes. It feels a little off. I think if it was a little more subdued it would be better, or maybe if the tea was somehow a little more naturally sweet, somehow the profile would work better. Since I still have quite a bit of the sampler left, I do plan to play around with brew amounts, water temperature, and steep time, and see if I can’t get a more favorable tasting cup out of this. I feel there may be potential, but for now I’m not impressed.

The batch of iced tea I made is a bit more pleasant; the guayusa is still a little stronger than I’d prefer, but much more subdued overall than my warm cup, with far more of the sweeter strawberry and floral jasmine notes coming through. Since my iced tea batch was prepared by cold steeping overnight, this definitely makes me think that experimenting with colder water temperatures and shorter steep times than what Art of Tea recommends may be the secret to a tastier warm cup. But if all else fails, I definitely can sip this down making iced tea!

May Flowers! I discovered one teabag of this in my cupboard, gifted to me from a volunteer at the library sometime ago. Since I just sampled a bagged raspberry-flavored hibiscus tea last night and found it quite enjoyable (especially when I don’t really drink bagged teas much anymore), I figured I’d give it a go while that comparison was still fresh in my mind. Since I only had the one teabag, though, I did a hot steep.

I’ll admit, with the exception of Stash’s Apple Cinnamon Chamomile (I know, a tea with chamomile in it, of all things!), I’m just not really a fan of Stash’s hibiscus. I don’t know what it is. I’m a huge hibiscus fan (unlike the majority of the reviews I find on Steepster… seriously, I feel like such a black sheep on this site considering how I like things like hibiscus and licorice root!) but there is something kind of bland-tasting whenever I try a hibi-hip heavy Stash tea… it just never seems to have that nice, fruit punchy appeal. This one is no exception. It feels a bit too watery, and I’m getting way too much lemongrass citrus, so neither the hibiscus nor the raspberry is really coming through for me here. I can appreciate that maybe the raspberry isn’t as strong as Celestial Seasonings tends to go with its fruit flavorings, but it seems a little too drowned out here… or maybe it’s just the citrus notes are hiding it? In any event, I think the lemongrass was an odd fit here. Celestial Seasonings definitely had the nicer hibiscus raspberry tea of the two, in my opinion, both because the hibiscus just tasted nicer, and the raspberry flavor was more pronounced. And it wasn’t so citrusy.

May Flowers! This is the final of the four fruit teas I’m revisiting from the Celestial Seasonings fruit tea sampler! And since I had enough teabags of this one to make it iced (and that’s how I tend to prefer my hibi-hips teas anyway) this one was hot steeped and then chilled so it was icy cool!

Hmm… I may have to take back what I said about the True Blueberry being my favorite of the bunch (though it may be an unfair advantage, since I did get to prepare this one iced instead of warm). But I do think of the Celestial Seasonings fruit tea sampler set, this one works the best for me. The flavor is, once again, quite strong, but I think of all the flavors the raspberry blends the best with the tangy fruit notes of the hibiscus base. And since they blend so well together, the raspberry feels a bit more natural and juicy. It’s also easily the least obnoxiously sweet of the teas to me; there is a touch of berry sweetness there, but the tart and tangy notes are more dominant, and feel more natural of ripe raspberries to me. So of the four fruit teas, I think this one blends the hibi-hip base and flavoring the best, and tastes the least artificial of the bunch. It’s probably tangy enough that some folks may have to sweeten this one, which I would not say for any of the others in the sampler set.

May Flowers! Onto the True Blueberry from the Celestial Seasonings fruit sampler! There was only a teabag of this one left, so this is a hot steep.

The blueberry is definitely a step up from the Country Peach Passion and the Black Cherry Berry. Unlike the Country Peach Passion, this one is back to that fruity hibiscus base that I personally enjoy (which I’ll still admit I enjoy better iced, though with the warm blueberry flavor it isn’t too bad, since it reminds me a bit of warm blueberry pancake syrup). Unpopular opinion, I know, but I really like the tangy fruitiness a nice hibiscus/rosehip base provides. The tea has a strong blueberry flavor and a lot of sweetness, which really gives me the impression of a plate of blueberry pancakes (or at least blueberry syrup!)… but again, I just find the overbearing artificiality of the flavor a bit much (I have a feeling I’m going to be feeling that about all these fruit teas…) It’s not… bad, exactly, I just wish the volume was turned down a few notches. But, overall… a quite satisfying bagged tisane. I still need to revisit the Raspberry Zinger, but I have a feeling if I was going to pick up just one of the four flavors in the fruit sampler, the blueberry might just be it!

May Flowers! Since I started this trip down memory lane by finishing off my expired since [date redacted to protect my shame] Black Cherry Berry, I may as well go ahead and do the rest of the Celestial Seasonings fruit sampler.

I always remember Country Peach Passion being one of my favorites, if I am recalling correctly (at least, I have vague memories of getting an additional box of this one separately from the fruit sampler at one point in time, way back in the day). That may also be why I had a few more teabags of this one left than the others, so I decided to make a quart of iced tea to sipdown this one.

The tea had a strong peach aroma, but the flavor just… doesn’t hold up for me anymore. It may just be the more chamomile-heavy base of the blend (I’m not much of a fan of chamomile), but honestly I think it’s because I have started drinking too many loose leaf peach-flavored teas, which have such a natural flavor, that feels really refreshing and isn’t so overwhelming, and the flavor here just tastes… like fake-peach, like the kind of peach used in candies. It’s really sweet and really strong. It’s passable, but… meh. Honestly, it just feels like a bit much for me to drink this plain. I could imagine it possibly making a decent mixer with a rather plain bagged black tea to make a decent sweet peach-flavored iced black tea, though.

Full review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/08/08/tea32/