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So this bag that I’m holding reads “Roasted Cocoa Mint” — Yerba Mate. Yet steepster insists it is called something else. I would have edited the info except it was Fusion Teas themselves who updated this info last month. Mindhump?!? The ingredients in here are exactly as those on my bag, in the same exact order. So get from this what you will.

The tea is good. The dry leaf smells of chocolate. there are some rather large chocolate chips in it. Not many, but on the large side. The yellow petals (marigold?) and toasted rice are also not hard to find. Everything else, you need good eyes for, it’s sparse.

Brewed, 1.5 tsp for 5.30 minutes the tea is dark and smells mostly of mint. Ditto for the taste, mostly mint. There’s some oily stuff floating on the surface and leaving a ring on the teacup. It also has a lot of sediment on the bottom and this is after transferring! I steeped in DAVIDs steeper and then I transferred to a teapot where the resteep will also go, on top. Yah, I will be blending the two steeps.

Anyway, It’s not a bad tea if you’re in the mood for mint. You have to be in the mood for mint because it is mint first and cocoa and everything else second.

Can something smell creamy? if you smell this, there’s something past the mint. It is a not a dairy smell, its almost a sweet smell. Maybe it’s from the teaspoon of turbinado. Yeah, I tossed my no sugar rule out the window for this because how on earth can you drink peppermint patty without sugar (and probably cream except I don’t like the taste of dairy so I’ll have to do without the creaminess).

Sweetened, this tea is amazing. Not wintry peppermint, but sweet warm peppermint. And really, I just want to hold the liquor in my mouth for a long time so the taste buds go “yeah, yeah!” You ever get like that, where you know that if you actually drink it, you’ll just have to take another sip and another, whereas if you just take a sip and hold it you prolong the sensation until it becomes unbearable and you just have to swallow that tea. Although now you can’t taste anymore because it is on its way to your stomach and so you take another sip. And then you make another pot, and then you go online and buy 4 oz or more… you get where this is headed?

I don’t even know what else to actually tell you. There is a lot of chocolate inside and the dry leaf smells more chocolate than mint to me, but once steeped it doesn’t smell much like chocolate and it doesn’t taste like chocolate, it tastes like sweet, sweet, delicious mint.

If you made up your mind you don’t like mint, just prove yourself wrong and buy some of this. It’s available in 1/2 oz so you won’t go broke. And I’m sure you’ll always find willing souls if somehow you do not like it. Heck, I’ll buy it off you as long as you don’t tamper with it too much.

The other head of the household is not feeling well tonight so I offered tea. “Whatever you like! Anything! I’m a buffet of tea!” Now of course you hope that when she says “chai” you actually have some. This is the last chai in the house. We must remedy that. Anyway, we killed off another sample. I only had two cups worth so we shared it. She had a giant mug and I had the resteep. Not sure but I might have had the better deal.

I must replace this bag. Chai must be represented in this household, it was the first type of tea we liked simultaneously!

Thanks for this generous sample, Dexter3657

And oh my god, James Gandolfini died today. Total shocker!

Sil ‘s sample sipdown! I am not really counting my sipdowns but I’m trying to go through all these baggies that are taking over my kitchen! The goal is to finish off all baggies by July and just have properly stored teas — in their original packaging, be it tins or otherwise — of my shelf. All these bags in bowls are starting to get to me a little bit.

I keep forgetting this is a pu’erh because I like it and I really don’t dig pu’erh yet. It’s like I have a short term memory problem. Every so often I think “wait, this is a pu’erh?”, and then I remember, only to have to go through it again the following week as I drink it.

This gets too cinnamon heavy as it cools, almost loses the bread part so maybe you should try to drink it faster, don’t take it in the bathtub with you like I did, and then leave it sitting there in the corner all neglected.

Not as good as the first time because a) I accidentally let it cool and b) it lost the surprise/novelty element.

I had all these plans for what I would do with my July tea budget but I think by July I am going to be scrapping most of the plans.

This afternoon I really wished I had ordered the Grapefruit Dragon like I originally intended to. It is beautifully sunny out and I’m making snapper with dill beurre blanc (fancy way of saying white butter dill sauce). I need a tea to go with it as there’s no white wine in the house. So thought to myself “self, you should have bought the grapefruit dragon!”

Oh well, next time.

Onto this tea. I wanted a green tea and I wanted the pistachio ice cream. Oh looky here, the pistachio icecream is a green tea! And to top it off, i had just I bought almond milk. Now I’m sure I’m zapping all the green tea healthy properties by adding sugar and almond milk but hey, it’s my tea.

I did try it without milk at first. I’m not really eloquent with this stuff so I’ll just tell you I get mostly pistachio, which is fine because that’s exactly why I bought this. Vegetal? Forget it. And here I thought green teas were mostly barely flavoured warm water. Nay!

I steeped using butiki parameters because I trust them more than I trust me at his point and I got a almost clear but not quite liquor which tasted and smelled like roasted pistachio. I should really drink this cold so that I am actually reminded of icecream but my ice cubes smell of freezer … wha?!? … so I can’t put any in.

Hurray for green teas, there’s hope!

PS. I also had “with open eyes” earlier, but that’s a whole different note.

It is going to be impossible to be descriptive when it comes to this tea because all I want to do is repeat “oh my god”.

First off, the dry leaf. I have never seen tea like this but I am sure it’s because I’m new! The leaves are … furry? And the bag smells so nice!

1 tbsp @ 185 F. It smells so good even as the water hits it. I put the lid on quickly so as not to lose anything. You know they say all that good stuff you smell when cooking things (or brewing tea in this case) is actually flavour escaping with the steam. That’s one of the reasons sous vide cooking became so popular, the stuff is trapped in a bag and the bag immersed in water, no flavour escapes there!

This tea is so refreshing, the flavour matches the aroma. You almost want to drink this in the winter when you miss watermelon but there is no fresh watermelon to be had! (for most people anyway).

This is like watermelon water!

You make tomato water by hanging a cheesecloth bag with a concassee of tomato and you let it drip. The water is clear, there is absolutely no colour but the taste is pure tomato. I wonder if you make watermelon water the same way… And then you soak the tea leaves in it and maybe after a few days you dry it out and see what happens. In theory the water evaporates and the flavour remains. I should make my own experiment.

Stacy if you’re laughing, this is my way of thanking you for this tea: with entertainment!

This is the most delicious tea I have ever had so far.

I requested a sample of this with my order and Stacy was kind enough to oblige. I made this first thing this morning and was quite excited because the dry leaf smells so good and the reviews on here were so favourable. Which is maybe what set me up…

The smell of the brewed tea is mostly black tea, followed by banana. For the taste I expected out of the ball park banana but I didn’t get that. It’s a muted flavour, more like banana walnut bread or some baked good featuring banana. Once you get past the juicy banana expectation — which I shouldn’t have had, not even given the name, I know! — the tea is quite enjoyable. You can smell it as it sits there on the table. I allowed it to cool and the flavour does come out a little more.

For the resteep I sweetened with maple syrup. I was itching to see what would happen. Sorry Stacy, hope you don’t think less of me for ruining perfectly good tea. But it was oh so delicious with the maple syrup, as I knew it would be, and I couldn’t resist. Yummy!!

I think I found one way to wean myself off of sugar yet continue drinking tea. Just buy a whole bunch of tea form Stacy. Just drink butiki oolongs until I no longer feel the need for sugar, or as much sugar.

You really don’t need sugar in this one, and if I say that, you better believe it. I’m usually the kind of girl you ask “you want tea (or coffee) with your sugar?” Or… “Let me just sprinkle some coffee on your sugar bowl there”. I used to get tease like that a lot. I still do. Really, I don’t have a sweet tooth. I do not eat any desserts, almost ever, with the exception of ice cream. I have no idea where the need to sugar everything to death comes from. And it’s gotten so bad where if I don’t add any sugar, well, stuff is just flavourless. Like when you decide to no longer salt your food (assuming you cook from scratch, otherwise you take in added salt from everywhere) and find it bland.

This tea, and I’m on the second steep, doesn’t benefit from sugar almost at all. Weird, right? Sugar just makes it sweet, really, but doesn’t contribute to the flavour an awful lot.

1 tsp for 8 oz, 180 F results in a clear pale yellow liquid, quite fragrant. There are floral notes in there, to me it smells faintly of jasmine. I hope I don’t end up calling every floral note jasmine, but this smells like jasmine just a wee bit in the back. Really really long aftertaste. The fruit just stays with you. You can have minutes go buy between sips (if you can manage that!) and still have the fruit with you.

I find the second steep stronger even though i didn’t increase the steep time (thank goodness?) and I think there is a bit less fruit and more … other stuff. I mean, this stuff is not juice, it’s tea. So don’t be expecting a lychee martini base or anything.

I’m only beginning my oolong experience but I’m glad to have a good starting point.

I’m not a fan of this tea. A white tea, so I brewed for 3 minutes with 180 water. A pale yellow liquor, almost clear. Slight citrus aroma when hot but it all disappears when the tea cools. It has a tangerine flavour and unfortunately a bitterness envelops the tongue at the end of the sip. I didn’t oversteep and I didn’t use too hot water, it feels like the bitterness is from the citrus rinds.

Will not resteep and will not finish the cup. Sorry Sil ! It sounded like it would be so good too! Bummer.