Featured & New Tasting Notes

A sipdown! (M: 3 Y: 68) prompt: May 21 — International Tea Day: Any tea that makes you happy!

I prepared remaining amount in the pot and steeped for longer time than usual, but it’s just okay.

It is a fruity black tea, although there are no other ingredients but tea. I do notice rosehip for sure today, but also mentioned peaches and oranges, but only if I know what to look for.

Mouthfeel was very short too, without any prominent note.

Very forgettable tea.

Sipdown! (6 | 83)

Finished off this delightful infusion from Murchie’s, which really does taste like carrot cake IMO. Even though I’m not a rooibos lover, I think the base here works well because of the addition of green rooibos and honeybush. It certainly doesn’t have that traditional rooibos woody/medicinal flavor. It’s sweet but not overly so, and has nice subtle warm spices with a touch of cream cheese creaminess. I’m not a fan of chocolate chips in tea, but there don’t seem to be a ton included here, and they also don’t melt all that well, so it’s not an overly oily cuppa.

I made a Murchie’s order a few days ago, as I want to try their summer orange tea, and another bag of this made the cut!

Once again restocked and back in rotation. I adore this tea. I prefer the decaf one and enjoy it in the evening. Brew ~3 minutes for optimal balance between bitter and flavourful. Add milk and you get something super creamy, malty, sweet, with a strong maple flavour. It reminds me of those maple leaf cookies with the buttery cookie and maple filling.

Such a unique tea! It’s surprisingly fruity, and reminds me of cooked apples or applesauce.

These were a Mother’s Day gift from Ashman. I have been out of jasmine pearls for a while and really only loved Teavivre’s but I told him I wanted to try these since they are a new offering. They have previously only been available in the Piccadilly location.

My complaint against Harney’s Dragon Pearls is that I don’t care for the base. The jasmine seems okay, but the green tea is harsh and sharp to me. The attraction of the Teavivre Premium Jasmine Dragon Pearls was that I love their jasmine teas pretty much across the board (they have many) and I liked the base a lot. It was calm in a cup.

I made three steeps of this. It was sipped beside my wall of jasmine vine on the patio from a tiny bamboo hat cup. The instructions call for boiling water and I wasn’t brave enough to do that on my first try with these. I used 175F, and for reference Teavivre calls for 185F for theirs. I steeped for three minutes.

I am so glad we got these! The base is just right for me. The jasmine is a little lighter than I expected and probably lighter than Teavivre’s, but it is possible that increasing the temp to what F&M calls for would bring out more jasmine. I am very happy with the base on all three steeps. The jasmine was almost all gone in the third steep but the green tea was nice.

I will try it again using their parameters now that I know I don’t have to tame a sharp green tea to enjoy it.

This is so great. The green tea is lovely. The pear flavor is fresh and pleasant. The spices are well-rounded and super tasty. I’m drinking this cold, and it’s juicy and wonderful.

Captain’s Backlog 3 May 2025

What a doozy. Knocked me out cold for a 2-hour nap after only 2 pours. Whisper of smoke. Sandpaper tongue. Very drying; not a pleasant feeling when combined with dried-up mucous membranes from allergy medication.

Back into the crock.

$60 for a 200g cake in 2025. I think it was $18 or something when I bought it 8 years ago? To be honest, I don’t remember :P

Another afternoon tea pick! This is a pretty hearty black tea! Nice almost malty flavor. Great warm with sugar and milk. I see from my Steepster history that I’ve enjoyed their regular English breakfast in the past, so I’m happy that their decaf blend was nice as well! Other reviewers don’t seem to agree.

Sipdown 16 – 2025

Trying to drink through green teas more quickly once I open them. This was really tasty and easy to finish.

TTB! The vanilla tastes so strong! I’m drinking this at room temperature with milk and sugar, and that vanilla flavor is so clear, sweet, and tasty. I don’t know if I’ve ever tried a tea with such a strong, authentic vanilla flavor. It’s so desserty and nice!

Sipdown

Another gift tea from the daughter who lives with us!

I had this a while back as a hot tea. I agree that it is very chai-like. I had expected just black tea with lemon from the name initially but there is a lot more going on.

Today I am having it as a sweet iced tea, steeped hot and allowed to chill in the refrigerator. Made this way, I am finding the ginger much more prevalent and the lemon less noticeable. It is smooth and lightly peppery – I have had three glasses just with lunch so it must be pretty good!

I do have a 12 ounce serving that I am cold steeping to drink unsweetened but it hasn’t been in long enough yet. Will report back on that one!

Edited to add: just drank the cold steep. Tastes much the same, but I feel like I get a vanilla note that I didn’t notice before and I don’t see vanilla listed as an ingredient. Maybe it is just a sweetness of the tea base itself. I added no sugar to the cold steep.

From the 2025 steepster TTB

This is a very lemongrass and mint blend with not much else going on. I can’t taste the ginger at all. I made sure to get some fireweed leaves but couldn’t make out any flavours from it. The mint really takes over. Without being able to taste the other ingredients, it is tough to rate this blend. I think the idea is creative and interesting but I don’t feel inspired by plain peppermint and lemongrass tea.

Sipdown 15 – 2025

Another delicious Tezumi matcha. Surprisingly good quality for the price point. Fresh, bright green. A bit of subtle astringency. Really easy to drink.

Also has a cat on the label, so an instant winner for me.

Spring 2024 harvest

Same as it ever was, and that’s a good thing! Complex or comforting, you get to choose. Grainy, sparkling, mineral and sweet with notes of orange blossom, jasmine, ginger, hay, wheat, sweet potatoes, chocolate, tobacco and light vanilla cream. I do appreciate this more gongfu (which is not usually the case for Yunnan dianhong) as I have a tendency to oversteep it western, bringing out oaky tannins.

Thanks for the sample, Whispering Pines :)

I tried this catalog tea years ago under the name “Blood-Orange Smoothie” from Spice and Tea Exchange, and sort of fell in love with it and then out of love with it. I think it was on sale at the time I made this particular Tealyra order so I figured I’d give it a try again, but mostly my opinion has stayed the same. I don’t dislike it, but I feel kinda meh about it… It has an amazing creamsicle aroma to the dry leaf, but that just doesn’t translate to the flavor. The blood orange comes out but there just isn’t enough of a sweet cream/vanilla flavor present for me. Plus, I feel the blood orange falls into the right flavor profile to bring out some of the medicinal notes in the rooibos that I don’t care for much. So to finish off the bag, I started brewing this cold brew… and it actually is pretty good that way. In general I tend to not cold brew red rooibos because in the past it has come out really cough syrupy to me that way, and despite getting a bit of that when I brew this hot, I’m not really getting that when its cold, and the orange feels particularly refreshing with this preparation method. So, I probably won’t grab this tea again in the future since it lacks that creamsicle vibe I’m looking for, but it also wasn’t really a chore to finish off this bag making cold brew pitchers.

Thank you Cameron B for a couple of these adorable teabags! Looks like I didn’t write a note for the first one I had, so here we are. I have been reading ‘The Summer Book’ by Tove Jansson who created Moomin. Right when I turned the last page of the book, I realized I had some tea in my stash with Moomin wrappers. The tea is quite good for having so little in the teabag! It definitely tastes like a chocolate truffle, and that is good enough for me. :)

TTB! I surprisingly loved this tea. It’s supposed to be fig, but I really just tasted a candy-like, non-specific fruitiness plus some cinnamon. I drank it sweetened with milk, and it was really desserty and tasty. I wouldn’t mind more of this! The resteep was really nice too.

I just got my first tea haul from Bitterleaf Teas! I pre-ordered small tins of all the non-Longjing spring green teas, as well as a glass green tea mug (it has a built-in filter making it ideal for grandpa style brewing). I decided to try this one first, because I’ve never tried a taiping houkui before and it just looks so cool. I steeped it grandpa style in the new mug. :) I started out with water at 180F for the first few pours, then started increasing the temp with each pour (cycling through the presets on my kettle).

Dry leaf aroma is really lovely – fresh, sweet, and verdent. Aroma as it steeps is also lovely and floral. Flavour is light, floral, with a remarkable nectar sweetness that started out strong and gradually tapered off. It remains soft and delicate even with the higher temperature water later on – absolutely no bitterness and very minimal astringency. Very nice.

What tea is good for a grief filled heart? I picked this one from the wall of tea in Ft Collins. It’s good one. I’m on the second steeping and it’s still chocolatey and rich. Not too complex, but a very good example of Keemun.
My cousin passed away yesterday after a lengthy hospital stay fighting cancer and pneumonia. She was 53. Life is short. Hug your peeps and drink the good tea.
I always like stopping at this tea house. Highly recommend the atmosphere and people.

The flavoring is a bit alcoholic/sharp. I don’t taste anything that reminds me of cake. I definitely taste the lemon, but it’s not too enjoyable to me. My dad tasted mostly creaminess with a hint of lemon.

I got this months ago from a local M&P and I’m finally finishing this off today. The thing I appreciate the most about this tea is the company’s clear note on the box: “Our teabags are made from non-GMO sugarcane and are commercially compostable. No microplastics to see here.” This is a refreshing change from a lot of other brands where I have to search high and low on their website to determine the composition of their sachets, and even then there isn’t always a clear disclosure available.

Flavor-wise, this tea is merely okay. I wish I tasted more flavors that gave that “winter chai” feeling. I do get a bit of the spices, but everything feels rather muted and covered by the black tea itself. There is a malty mouthfeel that I enjoy, but it leaves much to be desired. Perhaps a peppercorn and a hint of citrus would have been a welcome addition. Still, I enjoyed this tea.

The primary flavor I taste is overripe banana. I also taste coconut. In some sips, the banana is a little too overripe for me. This is pretty good, but not one I would seek out again over 52teas banana blends. I feel like I’ve had my fill after a few cups.

Steepster TTB 2025

The TTB is out the door and on its way to Canada, but I kept a small sample of this tea and am having it with breakfast today. Not in bed, alas — it’s the first day of my FINAL SEMESTER OF GRAD SCHOOL. I am experiencing a bit of ye olde senioritis, which will not affect the quality of my scholarship but will probably increase my grumpiness with respect to things like “doing readings” and “writing papers.”

Aaanyway. The hazelnut flavoring here is so pronounced and tasty, and it’s complemented well by the blackberry. The black base is very brisk and astringent, which honestly is exactly what I want in a breakfast blend.

I will say that the more I drink, the more I wish the hazelnut was just a smidge lighter and the blackberry a smidge stronger. The hazelnut lingers after the end of a sip in quite a powerful way!

Still, this is pretty dang tasty.

This was delightful. I drank the whole bag much too quickly. It has a familiar 52teas spice blend, but one that I always enjoy. The base supports the flavor profile perfectly. It tastes desserty, like I could really see it being an oat crumble of some kind. I never tasted any cranberry. This was best cold sweetened with milk.