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Mmmm… Woke up late this morning, and I have a lot of work to do today, but I’m stealing a few more minutes of free time with a mug of this tea.

It’s a perfect fall day, and the fall makes me crave black tea. Usually with blackberry blends, the blackberry is all I can taste, and it’s also usually very bitter. Not so with this blend. The blackberry is there, but it complements the black tea so well that I don’t mind at all. In fact, I’m enjoying it immensely.

Some days it’s best to just go with your instincts when it comes to choosing a tea. Today, I got it perfect. Today was made for drinking blackberry sage.

Okay, I’ve stalled long enough now. TTFN, Steepster.

This tea is a pretty good bagged green tea. I like the pleasant balance of spearmint and lemongrass. A dash of honey makes it. Steep it as long as you like. It’s a low-maintenance blend, good for those mornings where you wake up in a fog and don’t have the patience to deal with measuring and timing.

Its description is a only a slight bit overblown, but what do you expect from a company owned by Starbuck’s? (eyeroll) Pretension is practically encoded in their DNA.

Just prepare this tea like you would any old bagged blend, put some honey in it, and enjoy. It’s a simple -pleasure tea, even though Tazo’s marketers would like you to think otherwise.

Oversteeped and overleafed. It tastes sweet and almost wheatlike.

Ughhh what a fail. Oh well. I’ve drunk this tea enough times to know that it’s a good tea, even if I totally messed this up this morning.

I added a full teaspoon of sugar this time, and I was more generous with the leaves. I was also not afraid to let it steep for a little longer than usual. This tea just gets better and better every time!

Mmmmmm. Used up the last of my leaves on this one today, so it came out a little stronger than usual. Still delicious, fragrant, and perfectly energizing.

I always have better luck with the second steep than the first with this tea. I’m unsure why. Perhaps the flavors need to sit in a little bit of dampness so they can mingle chemically before they’re ready to be steeped properly. Kind of inconvenient. In that case, I can see why Teavana decided to discontinue it.

Anyway, I’m on my second cup today, and I’m loving it. The almond, cinnamon, rose, and violet have all blended gracefully into a lovely spicy-floral flavor. The black tea base is almost undetectable. Perfect tea to do Shakespeare homework with. Lucky me!

Sipdown! I made a pot of this and refrigerated it because it’s starting to lose its freshness and so I need to use it up quickly.

I really don’t know why I didn’t do this earlier! You’re supposed to drink mojitos cold anyway, so no wonder this tasted better chilled. I also added sugar to it, which took some of the edge off of the bitter blackberry notes.

I may have overleafed the pot in my anxiety to use the tea up before it loses its flavor. As such, the first few sips were quite bitter and the blackberry almost knocked me over. But I kept drinking it, and it did mellow out (or perhaps my tastebuds just got used to it?) into a nice cold green tea with notes of mint and raspberry.

I always find that adding sugar to a blend with mint in it will bring that mint out, and I think in the case of this tea, the mint needs all the help it can get. Blackberry can be quite a dominating flavor, and this tea is a prime instance of that. Punching up the mint with sugar really helps balance that tartness.

Bottom Line: Drink it fresh, drink it cold, and for the love of God, put some sugar in it!

I drank this one again this morning, and this time I added the merest suggestion of pure cane sugar to it. That seemed to help bring out the ice cream notes a little more, and it complemented the pistachio nicely, too. As usual, the tea has a nice, creamy feeling to it without needing any milk or creamer of any kind.

The base of this one is a lot stronger than the other two samples from Butiki that I’ve tried. It still tastes wonderful, and I thoroughly enjoyed this cup, but I definitely have an easier time detecting the “tea” part of this brew.

Yup, it’s official. One minute thirty seconds, and this is perfect.

I’ve officially found my favorite afternoon tea!

Delicious! Nutty and light, with just a suggestion of sweetness without being artificial-tasting. Perfectly balanced, perfectly blended. Made me feel like I was doing something naughty.

I can’t wait to make this one again!

Tried this one again, and gave it much less steep time. I think I only steeped it for about a minute thirty.

MUCH, MUCH BETTER! The flavor is so mild and citrusy, and the black tea base is so light that you almost can’t taste it. The lemon, bergamot, and orange are perfectly balanced this time around. THIS is the Twinings I know and love.

So yeah. Definitely drink this tea. Just don’t over-steep it. In fact, the SECOND the water turns amber-brown, take that teabag right out. I wouldn’t exceed two minutes.