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Mkay. Decided to give this one a second try, after taking Mercuryhime’s advice and upping the leaf and lowering the steeping time. (I also added more sugar, hoping that would help the chocolate nuttiness to step out into the limelight.)

Mmm, better! It’s definitely the most sugar-needy green tea I’ve ever tasted, but once you get the balance of flavors right, the tea is quite enjoyable. It’s SO delicate… but it’s a unique flavor achievement for a green tea. Gotta give it props for that. Perhaps, like many teas, the second steep will be the best.

Ohhh, I was so looking forward to this, based on the way it smelled. Unfortunately, I seem to be finding more and more, like some other people here, that the wonderful aromas are just that—aromas. They don’t translate into the taste of the tea. T-T So sad! I even sweetened it with white honey, which doesn’t alter the flavor of the tea, just to be sure I’d taste all that chocolatey spicy nuttiness… but it wasn’t there.

I may have steeped it a wee bit long (it’s starting to get a shade bitter as it cools), but I know I had the temperature right, so it shouldn’t have scorched it. I’ll try another steep and see if the other flavors come out more after the intense (though yummy) green tea flavor has abated.

The second steep is indeed better, but still not as good as the smell promised. I also added some demerara sugar, which helped the other non-green tea flavors come out. Overall, I’d say this tea isn’t exactly a disappointment, because in the end it does taste nice, but I don’t know if I’d give it a rave review, just because the smell is SO misleading.

Hmm. I’m not currently sure what to think of this. The loose tea smells pretty good, a little fruitier and less muffin-y than I was expecting.

The liquor doesn’t taste so much like a date muffin as it does those Italian fig cookies you can get at specialty grocery stores (and your grandmother’s kitchen). They’re delicious, don’t get me wrong, and I suppose dates do sort of taste like figs, and vice versa. However, I like my muffins. I wish this had a little cinnamon, or some other sort of baking spice. I like the walnuts okay, but they didn’t do for the tea what I thought they would do.

It’s possible I didn’t steep it long enough. I normally steep rooibos for at least 5 minutes, usually longer, but this time I got impatient and only steeped it for 3-4 minutes. Perhaps giving the rooibos more time to steep would have filled the gap in the flavors that I experienced. Not a bad tea overall, but on this my first try, not a total success either.

First, let me say thank you to LefTea for sending me this in a swap!

The loose tea smells AMAZING, like you’ve just cut up a bunch of fresh tropical fruits and made yourself a fruit tray. The leaves are small and curly, and the marigold flowers add a little pop of color.

The brew is lovely, dark and rich, with a very inviting fruity aroma. I find I absolutely CANNOT steep it for longer than 1.5 minutes, because after that the black tea gets very astringent and takes over the fruit flavor. Perfectly steeped, it tastes like summer, and I wouldn’t change a thing. I don’t really taste “mango,” per se, but I’m okay with that, because I don’t actually care that much for mango. I give it a pretty high score, because it fits my tastes, but if you’re specifically looking for mango flavor, you should possibly look elsewhere.

This tea just came in the mail yesterday, and I’m just getting to trying this one today. The loose tea smells bizarre—I take one sniff, and I get honeybush, and the next sniff I get cinnamon like WHOA, and the next sniff I get something else entirely, a rather eggnog-ish smell. The brew is dark and auburn-colored, smelling very much like hot eggnog. I steeped it for about 3-4 minutes, and now I have to wait for it to cool off a bit…

I tried it without sugar first. I’m not sure if the eggnog-y flavor is coming from the honeybush, but even without sugar, that’s the primary flavor, right at the front. The cinnamon will probably come forward once I add some sugar.

After one teaspoon of sugar, the cinnamon does start to play a part, and I get the “Cinnamon Roll” taste. I can taste now that the eggnog-ness COMBINED with the cinnamon is what creates that flavor. I think perhaps I ought to have let it steep a smidgen longer, but I am enjoying the overall effect. Half a teaspoon more of sugar rounds it out even more (I don’t know if it’s just my palate, but I find that for ~10 oz. of tea, two teaspoons of sugar is usually perfect, no matter what type of tea it is).

I’m impressed! It’s clearly an ‘herbal’, because there’s no astringency, but it’s a very nice thing to have on a crisp day. It’s almost a crisp day here, about as crisp as autumn gets in this area of the world… so still appropriate. :)

I have drunk this tea before, but today I tried blending it with Dragonwell. I am hoping it will be a light and healthy complement to this strongly fruity black tea. Dragonwell has always seemed to me to be the fruitiest of the green teas, so I generally pair it with teas that are a bit stronger on the fruit. So far so good with other experiments.

I steeped the whole thing for about 1 1/2 minutes at a fairly low temperature (I didn’t measure, but it was well before boiling). The steeped leaves smell very vegetal (I would expect that, since black teas generally release all their goodies in one go, whereas the Dragonwell in this mix would just be getting warmed up). The liquid smells quite like I thought it would—not strong, just fruity and somewhat grassy.

As I tend not to like black teas without any sweetener, to the first cup I added about 1/2 a teaspoon of a solid gold honey (a Teavana product, the Hawaiian Lehua Gold). The first sip hinted at fruitiness, but not strongly. After a couple of sips, I don’t get the impression that the Peach Cran-Tango had enough time to release its flavors, because I’m getting a lot of the Dragonwell. Now that it’s cooled off a little, I think I’ll let the mixture steep a tiny bit more and see how that goes with the second cup. Adding about 1/4 a teaspoon of turbinado sugar helped the fruit come out a good deal!

The second cup tasted a lot the same, probably because the water had cooled a good bit. I think what really helps this blend to taste like it should is the addition of sugar, which doesn’t seem to dumb down the Dragonwell at all. Overall, a good blend.

Although this tasting note was mostly about the blend, Peach Cran-Tango is a pretty good tea by itself. I don’t often drink it by itself, but it’s a nice fruit tea if I’m in the mood for a specific fruit flavor, rather than just a vaguely fruity palate.

I, like many others who have commented here, have found this tea to be rather disappointing. It is not toasty, nutty, or like a brulee. I bought it because I loved the way it smelled in the store. However, it doesn’t taste like it smells. Having had it for a while now, the dry leaf does not smell quite the same as it did when I first bought it—in fact, it smells more like it does when steeped. I can taste some of the spices (mostly cardamom), and I can taste a teensy bit of the candied fruits, but I can’t detect very much of the oolong flavors I know and love. This was an all-around bummer, and I won’t be buying more of this one.

Ohh, this tea.

This was the second Teavana tea I ever owned, and I very clearly remember the first time I smelled it. I took one whiff and stepped back coughing, not because it smelled bad, but because it smelled STRONG. From then on, this tea has had the nickname “the stinky oolong.” This nickname, once sarcastic, has now become a term of endearment, as this tea has become a staple of my tea collection.

The tea’s richly spicy aroma carries over when steeped. When I sip, I taste mostly cloves and the creamy pumpkin, with the nutty oolong flavor as a complementary base. The papaya comes in the aftertaste. I love this tea anytime, but particularly when it’s cold. It’s great in the morning or in the afternoon, and I frequently pair it with lighter flavored teas, like Dragonwell or Snowy Peak Downy Tips, or a tea with a similar flavor profile, like Spice of Life (all of which are Teavana’s). Teavana suggests pairing it with Toasted Nut Brulee, another oolong, but I find that the two of them just don’t mesh very well.

This is, hands down, my favorite white tea, even better than Spice of Life. I steeped a pot of this tea last night and drank it all, but I left the tea leaves out and steeped them again this morning. The loose tea smells so richly fruity, and the steeped tea is probably the most well-balanced cup of tea I could ever ask for. It’s light, but has so much depth of flavor you almost don’t remember you’re drinking a white tea. It’s the perfect relaxer, comforting and familiar (perfect for rainy days or when you’re feeling like tea but not really sure what you’re in the mood for).