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This is a comforting sort of cup – it’s nutty and tastes kinda like fall leaves look, although at first taste it’s a bit thin, flavour-wise. A hefty slosh of soymilk helped to balance out the toasted hazlenut notes and left me with something that reminds me vaguely of cookies.

It’s not the cup I expected to get from this tea, but it’s definitely delicious. Better suited to an evening cup than a morning one, though, so I’ll save this for my pre-bed ritual from here on out.

Finally, a coconut tea that actually tastes like coconut! It’s a little bit oily, but there’s a solid chocolate background that balances it out rather well, especially with the black tea in the mix.

With a little sugar this actually turned into quite a delicious – albeit heavily strawberry flavoured – cup. The hibiscus is well balanced and the tartness evens out the sweetness and fruitiness of the blend.

It’s not my favourite cuppa, but I’m also not offended by it. On to the next one.

1 ball + 360 ml at 175F+ 1tsp sugar
1st steep: 3 min // 2nd steep: 4 min

I’m not the biggest fan of blooming teas since so often they’re made for looking at instead of tasting good…but this one was a pleasant surprise. The white base is simple and quiet, the peach overlay is mild – it’s a tea that’s made for quaffing more than sipping, but the flavours are comfortable enough.

Not sure I’d buy more of it, but it’s not going to be painful to finish out the ones I have left in my stash.

I’m not a fan of honeybush – and I often loathe bananas – but this one turned up in my mystery grab bag from 52Teas, so I had to give it a go in good faith.

…and it turns out that I still hate banana. This one is all kinds of ick and bleh, so it’s going to be disposed of with extreme prejudice.

I’ve been on an anything-but-honeybush kick lately, but we’ll see if this one is enough to persuade me out of that particular funk…this brew came out richly red and almost overwhelmingly smelling of blueberries. I can still pick up the cardboard rooibos/honeybush smells that are icky, but I’ll give it a try regardless.

One sip in and I must say that I’m impressed. I added 1.5tsp of raw sugar and it did a fairly good job of bringing the berry flavour to the forefront and boosting the pastry notes that make this taste delightfully close to an actual streusel.

I’m still not the biggest fan of honeybush, but I would totally buy this one again…it was delicious.

Finally – a Teavana tea that doesn’t make me feel like I should pour it down the drain after the first couple of sips…this one definitely doesn’t bring up any green tea flavours, but the strawberry and grapefruit come across in a wonderfully well-melded mess of tastiness.

It’s still not a great tea – and I likely won’t buy more – but as far as Teavana blends go I certainly won’t diss this one as heavily as I would some of the others.

This brews up like a dark apple cider and has a lot of the same scents – you can definitely pick up on the crisp apple and what seems like pie spices layered over a decidedly smoky note that makes my mouth water.

And the tea itself – delightfully enough – doesn’t disappoint. You can taste a fresh apple flavour (with just a little tartness) over top of that smokiness…which really rounds it out and makes it reminiscent of pie that’s been baked just a second too long; you know – when the crust gets just to dark brown and it’s almost burnt but not quite…yeah, that one.

It’s a good flavour. More subtle and spot-on than I would’ve expected from a tea and I’m really glad that I got a whole bag of it from the 52Teas Grab Bag event they had going on.

Om nom nom.

Generally I’m not a big fan of Teavana teas…and this one isn’t really an exception. The jasmine is cloyingly overbearing – although I must admit I’m not generally a fan of that flavour, so grain of salt… – and it really just manages to come across as both perfume-y and astringent at the same time.

I think my issues with this tea really come from the jasmine…so it’s not one I’ll be drinking again. Bleh.