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Come, my friends. Come and hear my tale. It is a story of glory and tragedy, of trust and betrayal, of successes and failures, of the kindness and benevolence of the human spirit and of its depravity and selfishness!

Let me tell you about the heroine of our tale, Jillian, who asked for some tea possessed by our villain, sophistre, about a month ago, and how she — in all of her righteousness — sent forth tea to her nemesis and lo, the wicked sophistre did get distracted by writing and guests from out of town, and when the tea arrived at her humble abode, she was glad. And yet she had sent no tea, herself.

And Jillian went without.

It is to weep!

Seriously though…I fail at post office. I think I mentioned that earlier. I had no idea Jillian was sending me anything until she got her tea, and I feel like a big’ol heel now, because here I am with a very cozy-smelling cup of tea in front of me thanks to Jillian, and the Adagio tin I promised her is still sitting on my front hall table waiting to be whisked off to Canadaland.

I am such a jerk. I’m not even a tragic villain in this story, because mostly I’ve been either consumed by writing or running around with a bunch of other jerks from out of town.

Anyway, thank you Jillian! You shame me! The tea, it will be winging its way to you shortly. (I swear!)

The tea I was most curious about at the time we discussed a trade was a Russian Caravan she had, because at that point I had not had a Russian Caravan tea. I now have A&D’s Caravan in my cabinet, but that’s the only one I’ve tried…so I’m still looking forward to this one quite a bit. Even so, opening up the little packet, it was the smell of this tea that called to my newly-awakened braincells with promises of spices and sweet fruit, and so here it is.

It smells good dry, but I think it smells wonderful when it steeps. The heat really brings several of the spices to the fore in the nose. It tells me there’s citrus here, and I believe it…but it’s the clove-riddled citrus you might remember if your teachers, like mine, had ever had you make one of those clove-studded oranges for the holidays when you were a kid in gradeschool. Cinnamon is easy to detect, and while I would not have fingered almond as a taste present in the tea, I think I find it after I swallow. I could probably have stood to have it be more prevalent in the overall profile, but I’m somebody who douses themselves in almond oil on a regular basis in the bath, so I admit I may be biased. It’s sweet on the sides of the tongue, and there’s a lingering, spicy warmth on the middle and over my palate. There’s even a cozy warmth in my throat and belly that has nothing to do with the temperature of the tea, but instead with the spices involved.

It’s becoming pretty clear to me the more H&S teas I try that they really are exceptionally good at determining the best ratio of flavor to tea. I have yet to try a cup from them that was particularly intense, but I can also say with certainty that I’ve been struck every time by how balanced the flavors have been, not only with themselves but with the tea base.

I could feel a creeping headache coming on when I woke up (yes, when I woke up at 10pm. Just trust me)…but I’m getting close to the bottom of the cup now, and it’s going.

As a tea that reminds you of the holidays goes, this one without a doubt hits the mark. I can easily see myself keeping a little tin around of this, so I may actually add this along with Florence to my ‘will order’ list. Yay!

Thanks to Jillian and her INCREDIBLE supply of patience for sending me tea when I’ve been so dodgy about my end of the bargain!

Yet another rating bump. I’ve been trying to drink this pretty much every day so that I can get it out of my cabinet, since space is at a premium, and the more I play with temperatures the better it is. It is the single most overwhelmingly bake-y tea I have ever encountered, and the smell of it when brewed to the right parameters makes my mouth water the same way freshly baked goods do.

That said…

I am still not sure that I will be getting it again.

Hail, St. Patrick; we who are about to destroy ourselves on an early pubcrawl in hideously bad weather to celebrate your name…salute you.

Yeah, doesn’t quite have the ring of the original, but it captures the foreboding feeling I have listening to freezing cold rain splattering against my window, while I eyeball the clock and am forced to confront the fact that, yes, in four hours, I am going out. Hoh-boy.

Something…reassuring…was in order, here. Why not try Florence, finally? I have fond memories of that city. Eight months or so out of the year, my mother and stepfather live in a tiny villa on the side of a mountain overlooking the Mediterranean on what is known as the Cilentan Coast, in the Province of Salerno, within the Comune di Sapri, and a bunch of other divisions I can’t be bothered to remember sorting out. It’s nice. Peaceful. There are goats and hairpin turns winding through mountainside towns of a variety that you do not get in the United States, because if you had them here, there would be incidents resulting in cars on rooftops every other Thursday. Somehow that does not seem to happen there, regardless of the fact that every other person you glimpse behind a wheel appears to be one thousand years old and half-blind.

Anyway, I digress. Off to Florence I go, when the goats no longer hold my interest. Hop a train, and bam: buona sera, Ponte Vecchio!

For those of you interested, the very best way to see Florence is not, in fact, to get a hotel room, but to rent one of any number of widely available private apartments just off of the very same Palazzo della Signoria mentioned in the description of this tea. There are a ton of them, and they are available, in the off-season, on what passes for the cheap when you’re talking euros (which means not so cheap anymore, alas).

Anyway, I cannot for the life of me recall having had hazelnut hot chocolate in Florence, but there IS a little chocolate and pastries cafe on one of the corners of the Palazzo called Rivoire that…

…mmm….Rivoire…

…wait, what?

Anyway, enough about Italy. This tea is escapist enough to be worthy of the moniker even if the flavors it so expertly captures are not flavors I immediately associate with that city. I prefer this tea hands down to the plain chocolate blend from them that I’ve also sampled…something in the hazelnut really gives the tea depth, and without it the nose would not be nearly as special. It has the balance I’m coming to expect from a flavored H&S tea, and all in all I’m pretty pleased with having selected it to restore my resolve to march out into the worst weather ever in search of a perfectly-poured Guinness.

Where would I be without this tea?

In sad-town, that’s where.

In my original tasting note, I said that I wasn’t sure I could see myself constantly wanting this tea every day. I was certain it would get old for me…but man, was I wrong.

Buttery, creamy, sweet, thick coconut oolong with a luxurious, lingering mouthfeel that reminds me, without fail, of the heavy musk of gardenias…without the obnoxious lack of subtlety that this might seem to imply.

I don’t have a ‘favorite’ tea, but if I did, this would be a heavy contender for the seat.

Nope, still don’t like it.

But it isn’t making me gag like it was before, so I’m upping the rating, at least for now. I might increase it even more than I have if it were not for the persisting fact that the smell of it is really sort of too much for me. I can actually taste the peaches in this tea this time…it’s that faintly nutty stewed-fruit babyfood flavor I pulled out of the ginger-peach tea from Tea Guys. Some people would probably find it gross, but it doesn’t really bother me. Small side note, Teavana: there are no ‘fresh’ peach pieces in this tea. There may be dried, but I’m quite sure there were no gloppy, juicy cuts of fresh fruit in the bag.

Brews up sort of cloudy. Guess that’s the fruit.

I would probably really not be drinking this if I didn’t feel a monster headache coming on, and simultaneously want something sweet and low-caf as a result. This reminds me of pretty much all of Teavana’s offerings: the ingredients seem to be pretty high-quality and harmless, viewed separately, but the result of mixing them together is a little bit like being brained to death with candied fruit. If you’re into their other stuff, this probably wouldn’t offend.

Edit: Cup cooled down and…yeahno. Not drinking this. Sigh.

So….

I can’t really write a tasting note for this, even though it’s sitting in front of me, because I am confused by this tea. I’m pretty sure I did it wrong.

I’m not sure how many of the marbles to use. I don’t have a scale. :( More, I don’t…really know how long to steep it. And it’s white tea but it smells and tastes very vegetal, and the little marbles don’t unfurl like jasmine. Are they even supposed to?

I’m sending out a tea S.O.S. over here. Does anybody know how to properly steep this stuff?

Admittedly this is not the first time I’ve had this tea. The first time I tried it, I’m sorry to say I didn’t even finish my cup.

And it’s a good tea. There’s not really any debate as to the quality of it, or that it promises you the sweetness of osmanthus blossoms alongside the subtle sweetness of a fruity white tea. Those things are all present and accounted for.

It’s the matter of what osmanthus blossoms smell and taste like, and whether or not you’re in the mood for them, I suppose. It’s a very particular sort of floral, in the sense that jasmine tea or rose tea are a very particular sort of floral. Above and beyond the vague description of ‘floral’ for things like oolongs, there is no way to escape the fact that osmanthus infuses every last corner of this tea. On my first encounter with it, I think I was entirely undesirous of steeping myself in that particular aroma and taste.

Tonight, a different story. It was good enough to brew twice, as a matter of fact, and I enjoyed the taste both hot and cold. When the cup has cooled you’re free to find a little bit more of the sweetness they promise, but I would still not call this a particularly sweet white. Osmanthus seems to hint at honeysuckle and apricot without delivering a tangible sweetness, as though what you experience is more like the memory of those things rather than their presence.

All in all, a good and subtle cup, and one I’m glad I gave another chance to…unique and different, and probably inimitable, the only tea that will do when this is the tea you’re wanting.

Having a hard time rating this one, so this tasting note is going to be something of a placeholder, with a soft score.

This is a very subtle white. It’s so subtle that there isn’t much flavor to be had when the water is still hot — the ‘hot water’ flavor overrides the delicacy of the flavors in the tea (and I’m using filtered, fresh water in an all-glass cup, so there aren’t any lingering flavors coming from anywhere else to muddy up the taste). You can get a very vague sense of the citrus they mention in the aroma while very hot, and I thought I could detect what they were identifying as cloves, but everything was so humid and watery that it wasn’t easy to pull anything specific out of the cup.

As it cooled, however, it became much more interesting. It was still an incredibly light cup of tea, but instead of searching for the sweet flavor, it became immediately accessible. I’d say citrus and floral elements were the most notable. If there were other sorts of fruit in the flavor then they were elusive to me.

I think I’d prefer this tea if I upped the amount of leaf I used to increase the strength of the flavor, so with what remains of my sample, I may give that a try later this evening and see how it goes.

I have so much love for this tea. Even the smell of the dry leaves in the can is enough to send me halfway to a state of evening before-bed bliss, as this has rapidly become one of my favorite teas for winding down at night. It has a fresh, clean, dewdropped taste that I find soothing in the same way I find cucumber soothing, plus a gentle nuttiness and very slight honeysuckle sweetness that keeps it on the cozy, warm, snuggly side of things. Two steeps of this are always a good way to end my night.

So, this is getting a major bump, but not because it’s a tremendously amazing black tea, or anything. It’s getting a bump because the last time I rated it I was recovering from having my wisdom teeth out, and definitely must have oversteeped it. I’m not getting the intense sour bitterness I’d been having during that attempt. Strangely, though, in brewing this cup with actual parameters, I’ve lost the raisin/prune sweetness typical to many blacks. Instead, that has been replaced by …

Hmm. I suppose it’s malt, but…it’s the most bake-y malt I’ve ever smelled or tasted. It reminds me of the smell and taste of the floured underside of a loaf of bread. And it’s a pretty good cup of black tea, at least when brewed for a fairly short steep time, but it’s getting a rating cut because it’s pretty darn (every time I type that word I snicker. I snicker way more when I goody-two-shoes cuss than when I let loose with an inventive blue-streak. Not-cursing is the new cursing) expensive — almost 20 bucks for 2oz. For that price there are teas that provide equal amounts of satisfaction for a great deal less per cup, and which have a hope in heck (snicker) of being resteeped without turning into a bitter mess. So…I will finish my bag of this, but I probably won’t rebuy.