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This one came as a surprise in my swap with Ysaurella.

For some reason, teas with fig smell like baby food to me. The fig here is apparent, yet not overwhelming. I’m finding it most in the aftertaste and scent. There’s a bit of a floral quality that drowns out the fig in the initial taste. If this one didn’t have a floral quality and was only fig and vanilla, I may have been able to get on board. It’s more up my alley than Figue Fraiche.

Thanks for the opportunity to try more from Mariage Freres Ysuarella!

P.S. I love how “fish broth” is a flavour option, but “fig” isn’t.

Sil sent me such a generous amount of this matcha. Thanks!

I read all the tea notes on this one last night, and ultimately decided to use Cavo’s method and add some matcha to cold milk and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Every sip is different. One sip I’m thinking this is pretty decent, the next not so much. I’m getting some sort of syrupy taste mixed with the peanut butter that’s more or less drowning out the actual peanut butter.

However, this new matcha overnight with milk thing is genius. I’m just mixing Banana & Cream matcha with milk to enjoy later this afternoon.

This was distinctive flavouring.

This tea is a nice treat. It satisfies the need for something sweet, without actually being truly sweet.

Update: I’ll definitely need more.

I decided on my Hobbit tea this morning. This tea is delightful, though I can’t drink it regularly. There’s something in the taste that doesn’t sit right after when I have a lot of it – like a syrupy quality.

I just opened the package, and it smells exactly like David’s Luscious Watermelon. Looking at the ingredients, I think it may just be exactly like it too.

I could see most people enjoying this one cold it is good cold. Though I prefer it hot. The mix of ingredients is pretty bang-on watermelon-like.

http://s770.photobucket.com/user/courtneyns/media/Steepster/91a703a3-d77d-4db7-9e19-a3b906111348_zps4b53f248.jpg.html?state=copy

The water fizzed when I poured it in my mug to steep. It definitely smells chai-like, with creaminess.

I may have oversteeped this because there’s a lot of astringency (1.5 tsp for 3 minutes), or perhaps boiling water wasn’t the answer. It’s still piping hot, so maybe I’ll take another sip in a few minutes when it’s had more of a chance to cool.

While I was out I got 4 swaps/shares in the post. Hopefully you all enjoy your teas Aimee Popovacki, Angrboda, Roswell Strange, and VariaTEA!

Update: I dumped out that cup. This time around I tried 1.25 tsp for 2.5 minutes at less than boiling.

This attempt is definitely less astringent. The coconut isn’t really present, perhaps only in a creaminess dimming the spicy chai-ness.

So there’s a chance here, that I didn’t let this one air out quite as long as I should have. I’m getting a creamy banana tea. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I have a sneaking suspicion this tea shouldn’t have the exact flavour banana as the matcha.

Thank goodness Sil sent enough for more than one cup.

Alright you guys. This tea is awesome, but I want to comment on Herbal Infusions in general in this note. Feel free to skip right over if this doesn’t interest you. :)

My first order with HI a few months ago went over very smoothly. I placed the order, got the email confirmation, and a day or two later, got the shipping notification. The teas arrived within an appropriate amount of time.

I ordered again in late January and after ~2 weeks I still hadn’t received a shipping confirmation nor my teas in the mail. I spoke with a couple people here who mentioned similar problems. I emailed them and was provided with an explanation and the promise the teas would be shipped out the next day. I received my teas yesterday, so they were shipped out quickly after the email. From the date of the order to receiving the teas was near to a month. I weighed out my Cacao and SCC this morning because I found it strange 50g could fit in one bag, whereas before I had received 2 bags of 25g each. When I weighed each bag I found that the tea inside was ~40g rather than 50g. I emailed HI again and they were incredibly quick replying and explained that the tea had been being weighed at their cacao supplier versus with them, and they’ve now fixed it so that they weigh it with their own scale (they provided me with the scale accuracy) and that they would ship me a couple 25g bags of Cacao this afternoon.

I have to say, the order taking an age did bother me, however it was alleviated by the explanation they provided when I emailed about it. I was also slightly irritated this morning as well when I discovered the tea weight was off. However, I have to say I’m happy with all the explanations provided in both instances, and the immediate response about the weight and offer to ship some Cacao off to me to make up for it.

Feel free to take what you want from this! Also, this tea is amazing! I have done an actual tasting note on it a short time ago, if you want to know about the tea itself.

This one came in my Herbal Infusions order today.

The scent is pretty awesome. Warm creamiscle. I have to say the taste is more orange than cream. My package of this specially says “Orange Lapacho/Vanilla”, but I don’t get vanilla.

On the upside, this lapacho type of tea is great! When I saw a comparison to rooibos/honeybush I was slightly concerned but there’s no bizarre medicinal taste here.

Thanks Sil for adding this delightfully scented treat to our swap. :)

I warmed milk in the microwave (thanks to Stephanie for this tip), then proceeded to dump in 1.2 tsp. of matcha and use my frother to mix it up. The scent is incredible. The taste is banana creamy milk. I’m tempted to use more matcha next time. I poured about half my mug full of milk and the flavour is definitely there, but more could be better.

This one was distinctive flavouring.