Thank you GoodLifeTea.com for another round of surprise samples! There are a couple I wanted to try just based on the names that recall some of my favorite teas and those were the couple I happened to receive. This tea IS like the other one, but to me it seems slightly different. There is an uncanny resemblance though. The black tea base is very nice with the flavors, though tough to describe as the flavors are so nice. It looks as gorgeous as it tastes with the dark red color of the mug. With the first steep there is mainly a very bright flavor at the front that shifts between lemon, orange, bergamot. Then there is a lovely berry flavor coming through, with a sweetness that sometimes seems like pastry, butter or vanilla. The second steep somehow seems to have MORE of these flavors. It’s like a bergamot berry pastry. I will say though that the Hot Cinnamon Spice that was sent along with this one seemed to give it a cinnamon flavor, so my tasting wasn’t as accurate as it should have been… even though I knew that was going to happen and removed Hot Cinnamon Spice from the others as soon as I got the samples. A REALLY delicious blend though. I’m not sure how they got this one so close to the other tea, as I think the black teas are different. I won’t say which one is better as I think it depends on a ton of different factors.
Steep #1 // few min after boiling // 3 min
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 min