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So this was another impulse buy on my Florida Vacation, and I am still trying to curb the tea purchasing and opening new ones while others live on my shelf unfinished. I am happy to say, that today I was able to finish off other teas and open this one!

The smell of the dried leaves is overwhelming. It smells creamy, strawberry, coconut, a hint of hibiscus and rose, some lavender. The leaves are beautiful: little black curls mixed with red pieces, small slivers of coconut, and purple-blue leaves.

I took two heaping spoonfuls and added them to my pot, hot water, no additives. I originally intended to infuse for the full five minutes, however as it was infusing the lavender/hibiscus/rose scent liberated and I got concerned of bitterness, so I cut my infusion to three minutes.

The liquor is a dark color, somewhat like spiced rum, guess that was intentional. The odor is still the lavender and hibiscus with the powdery rose note and unfortunately, I am having a lot of trouble getting passed that smell. The flavor seems to not really be anything, a bit of strawberry, a hint of coconut, and then the familiar bitterness of lavender/hibiscus and a smack of black tea.

I do not like rose, I do not seek out hibiscus on it’s own either, and to be perfectly honest, I cannot stand lavender. I wouldn’t say this tea is bad, because it’s not, it’s just not my cup of tea (pun intended) – I would not typically drink/enjoy this regardless of the name because it is just too floral for me.

Oh well…

Preparation
3 min, 0 sec

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Bio

I am a sarcastic perfectionist, a computer nerd, a game geek, an avid reader, a gadget guru, a wine (and tea) enthusiast, and (in my spare time) a chemist.

As I mentioned, I am a chemist, research and development to be exact, so when evaluating tea, it is much like evaluating my products: I will find the flaws and do my very best to fix them because it is what I love to do. Along those lines, nothing is perfect, but can have perfect qualities, I will highlight those also.

I made a preliminary guide to my rating scale:
0-19 – Did not like anything about the tea, feel it cannot be saved without being reformulated.
20-40 – Did not like the tea, it can be saved with extreme amounts of tweaking (i.e., sugar, milk, honey and or blending with another tea)
41-60 – Neutral about the tea, it can be helped or hurt by additives or blends, varied temperatures and steep times
61-70 – Decent tea, needs a little bit of help to get it in the place I like it, but definitely not out of reach
71-80 – Quality tea, liked it, will try again
81-90 – Really enjoyed the tea, high quality, will continue to drink the tea, not looking for something better
91-100 – Loved the tea, will continue to brew and drink and spread the word about the tea to everyone

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NJ

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