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Dear god does this smell delicious. It’s a heavy sweet creamy smell, with a dominant but not overpowering chocolate scent as well.

The initial taste is black tea, but the chocolate cream sweetness rushes in soon after, and lingers strongly in the after-taste. The taste is deep, and I think worthy of the ‘Irish’ in the name. I can see this going well with alcohol, actually, which is weird coming from a teetotaller like me.

This would be equally delicious with milk, I think. But testing that would require trekking all the way back upstairs to get some, and I’m lazy.

The tea base is strong and only faintly bitter. I’m sure the added flavours would be stronger with a loner steep time (the package said 3-5 minutes, I did 3 1/4). The flavours seem to have faded in later sips. They’re still there, though. I should try five minutes for my next attempt. I was originally going to go with five minutes, but changed my mind at the last moment.

It seems to be getting a bit more bitter the more it cools. Not good for the added flavours.

Also, it took a bit of will-power, but I kept myself from picking out the chocolate bits and eating them.

I’m finding this one astringent and drying, but considerably less bitter than my other attempts. Although it hasn’t quite cooled enough to when I REALLY start tasting the bitterness, so I could be wrong. I’ll just have to drink it faster before it cools then.

Overall though, finding this cup to be considerably more enjoyable. Reminds me of drinking it in-store. Mmm.

Also just ordered samples of Dawn, Firefly and Honeybee from The Simple Leaf. All at once. I think I’ve strained my tea-budget enough for a while. Damn, I was thinking of ordering from 52Teas too. No! Next month! Must resist.

Rating’s going up.

As soon as I took the plastic off I smelt a very wine-like pomegranate. Once brewed, the water turned a deep magenta colour, very bold, and the smell was less of wine and just strong pomegranate with blueberry. The blueberry meshes so well with pomegranate though (surprising!) that it’s almost just one whole new scent. This smells delicious and I want to try it iced.

On that note, I found litchi juice at Shoppers. I wanted to get it. Mm.

The taste is not as strong as the smell (figures) or colour, but there is a sharp tangy aftertaste at the back of my tongue at the end of every sip (the lemongrass? You’d think so, but this also contains rooibos, hibiscus, and apple, so it’s most likely either the hibiscus and/or the apple). I smell blueberries when I breathe out. The tangyness gets stronger as it cools, although the pomegranate is there. …Sort of. A little bit. Blueberry is there less-so, especially since it meshes so well with the pomegranate as to be barely detectable.

I haven’t tried very many fruit tisanes, honestly, so I don’t know what I should expect, but I like this I think. Kind of wish the blueberry was stronger. I think a blueberry-pomegranate juice would be pretty tasty. I wonder if there’s some place that sells that.

Sipping this one again tonight and finding that it’s got a sort of sickly sweet aftertaste in the back of my throat. Otherwise I still like the tea, but the way the taste just sticks at the back of my throat is a little… ick. I don’t know if it’s the chamomile or the flavourings for the honey or vanilla.

You know, I think I am beginning to enjoy mint. In tea, at least—I don’t seem to like it anywhere else.

This brewed oddly dark, I think, but it’s nice and refreshing—I’ll admit, I compromised my taste buds a bit by having a saltastic bowl of instant noodle soup right before this, so this probably won’t be the most in-depth tasting note, but this tea is light and refreshing. I taste the mint (or rather, feel it, I think—that sort of coolness that is more of a sensation than a taste), with green tea, and a sharp secondary taste of something else. The lemongrass, maybe, since I haven’t much experience with how it should taste (…like lemons?).

This’ the last of this, and to that, I shed a tear.

I couldn’t remember if I’d tried this with milk and sugar yet, although I vaguely remember an instance in which I added too much, so I decided to add a bit to my first cup from the pot. Just a very small splash, and a touch of sugar. It doesn’t need much, and the milk makes it as smooth as silk. It’s actually very enjoyable this way—all the flavours come through quite strongly. Perhaps even moreso than without the additions. Very delicious, even if I think processed white sugar has a weird taste to it. I prefer honey, but I think that would disrupt the flavours here.

So I’ll be removing this from my cupboard, because my tin is now empty (although I plan to resteep, at least), but this’ still on my shopping list.

Taking the rest of this without sugar or milk. Mm. This cup came out slightly strong, since I was using up all the rest of it, and most of it was quite a lot of small leafcrumbs. Thus, perhaps just a tad bitter without milk, although it’s oddly bitter but smooth on the tongue.

Thanks again to the quiet life for sending this one to me.

Having this with a bit of milk and sugar this morning. Didn’t actually add enough sugar to make a different, but the milk pretty much covers up the vanilla taste rather than bring it out.

I would also like to report, I see NO pretty vanilla bean chunks like in the picture.

It’s nice. The vanilla isn’t very bold, and the tea itself is quite mild. I’m sure milk would bring out the vanilla a bit more, but I think the tea taste would be lost.

When I first started sipping it I found it a bit bitter, but that seemed to fade with cooling.

Sipping this right now. I added a bit more leaf this time, but I found that the tea taste is stronger while the lychee is weaker.

Added milk and sugar again. Very nice.