T Kettle

Hmmm…

I can’t decide how I feel about this Just Beet It dupe. On one hand, I like that it’s not as sweet and intense as Just Beet It and I appreciate that I could taste more of the smoky and grassy notes of the yerba mate. On the other hand, I got a lot of beet and a lot of black currant. I don’t particularly love the taste of beet in tea, though I don’t dislike it either – however, combined with red fruit notes and the carrot as well something about it here reminded me a little bit of V8, and my brain didn’t like that comparison. Black currant is good – I wish more tea companies used black currant. But black currant and V8? Uhh…

This tea is exactly what I mean when I say that T Kettle isn’t just creating similar teas to DT but VERY directly and in a calculated way trying to recreate the ones DT carries. I mean, look at the visual of the dry leaf!? I think this is arguably the closest they’ve gotten to ANY of the visual looks from a DT blend – it is uncanny how similar this looks to Cotton Candy…

With that aside, it actually smells very different. While certainly sweet and fitting of the “Candy Shoppe” name, it sort of smells more like bubblegum to me more than anything else. I actually like the smell of it A LOT – more than DT’s Cotton Candy, actually. It steeps out alright – the flavour is thin, but the sweet spun sugar and, yes, slight bubble gum notes are pleasant to me. My expectations are honestly not usually super high with things like Cotton Candy inspired teas because, at the end of the day, the flavour you’re going for is just sugar. However, that notwithstanding, I like this.

Is it better? Worse? I don’t know – I think I’d need to do a side by side. I feel like they’re pretty darn comparable…

This was my first EG from T Kettle and I was excited to try it because, even though it’s not their “classic” EG profile, it’s always fun seeing the different twists people like to put on this standard…

The concept of a grapefruit EG is really cool, but this isn’t it. I really don’t know any other way to say this but… the flavour of this tea had the same intense kind of skunky cannabis notes as the Acme CBD blends I tried over the summer, but with none of the relaxing and calming benefits. I struggled through this mug, and I don’t think I could do another one.

I’m honestly not sure what specifically went so wrong here, but it does make me very dubious of trying the remaining EG in their line up. I’m hoping the issue was the grapefruit and not the bergamot, though.

Man… I had this tea a while ago during another IG tea friends night of playing Among Us.

I put off writing the tasting note for a while because I kind of just felt like I didn’t have much to say here – the tea isn’t bad/unpleasant at all but it’s just sort of boring. It’s obviously mirroring DT’s Cool Eucalyptus blend which I think I can fairly say it, whether you like it or not, not a boring blend. It’s got such an intense punch of eucalyptus coupled with very sweet wintergreen and a whole lot of tangy and sour berries/hibiscus.

This… Well, it has practically the same ingredients list but the flavour level is dull.

I suppose, if you’re in the camp of people who find Cool Eucalyptus has too much going on or that thinks it’s a little bit like Listerine (a flavour that I’ve noted in that tea before, as well) then the pro of this blend is that it does not have the same level of intense and competing flavours. I just wish it had something that stood out, y’know? More than anything else I was surprised with how sad the eucalyptus notes were. It’s the first ingredient and I didn’t get any of the herbaceous and camphorous “Vick’s Vapor Rub” punch that I actually crave in a eucalyptus tea. Just sad.

But again, like I said, there isn’t any unpleasant about this blend at all. It just needs more…

I don’t really drink jasmine scented green teas because after many different attempts at finding one that works for me I just haven’t really been able to do it. In part, it’s just because I don’t like green tea much but also I think I’m just pretty damn particular about my jasmine teas too. With that said…

Would I want anything close to a large amount of this one for my own stash? No, definitely not – I don’t think I would ever crave it. However, it’s good. The flavour is very smooth and round feeling with a prominently sweet and fresh jasmine. It was very grape-y to me and almost juicy, but that’s just a well documented and pretty personal to me “brain thing” where my brain oft interprets very sweet and flavourful jasmine notes as tasting like grapes. Intellectually I know that’s not true, but you can’t really help what your brain comes up with, can you?

I think this is excellently scented, the jasmine is really nice. It’s just the green tea part that I’m like ’Nah, hard pass" on – but I probably would recommend this to someone looking for an affordable jasmine green for daily drinking.

Several years back it used to be a dream of mine to find the perfect carrot cake tea but I’ve since given up on that goal and realized that I just don’t think that I’m ever going to be satisfied with one…

I didn’t much like this tea, and that’s not surprising as the ingredients list almost totally mirrors DT’s Carrot Cupcake blend and I don’t much like that tea either. Overall, I think the flavours in this tea are a little bit lighter/less dense and the tea tastes less spiced overall. That’s a mixed trade off for me – I think a good carrot cake profile should be dense (because a good carrot cake is something heavier and moist, not airy/fluffy IMO) but I did like that there was less spice to this blend. I think DT’s blend is a little too focused on the spice, not enough on the carrot. Ironically, I taste more of the sweet and earthy carrot in this blend but carrot is the second ingredient in this blend and the first in the DT blend. I suppose we don’t really know which blend is using more carrot because we only know the placement in the ingredient list (which is indexed by weight) but not the actual percentage of the carrot in the blend as a whole. That’s sort of a funny thing to think about…

Maybe one of the things that’s holding me back is the licorice – it’s in both blend, and I simply just don’t enjoy the taste of licorice root. Or ginger. There’s less spice overall, but more distinct ginger IMO. So many things that just aren’t my jam, haha. I guess my overall conclusion is that if you want more of a carrot tasting Carrot Cake this might be better, but DT’s blend is richer and has more spice if that’s more what you want.

I want neither, I seems.

Ooohhh boy…

So this is the T Kettle version/attempt at recreating DT’s “S’mores Chai” and, let me just say, I think that this tea is a hot mess.

For starters, I don’t think the ingredient list is accurate; there are clearly green leaves throughout the blend that appear to be green tea – but even assuming that they aren’t green tea, according to the listed ingredients in this blend on T Kettle’s website they aren’t accounted for. Not one ingredient they’ve declared could concievably look like those green leaves. So, that’s concerning – and while I have other reasons why I think the T Kettle ingredients lists are inaccurate (missing sub ingredients on things like candied fruit and undeclared flavourings) this is just adding to that growing list of concerns with the accuracy. We had a long conversation about it on my tasting note for T Kettle’s Guangzhou Milk Oolong – but I do not fuck around with inaccurate ingredient lists. That shit is important to get right.

Moving along though…

The dry leaf aroma is really strange to me. I mean, it smells like play doh!? My experience is that usually when a tea smells like that there’s probably nuts in the blend? But, again, no listed nuts in the ingredients list. So maybe it’s coming from the popped rice? That seems strange to me, though. I do think, however, that one of the flavourings in this blend might be an almond flavouring (or another nut flavouring) because in terms of taste I got a very distinct sweet almond note – so I guess maybe the play doh smell is me smelling the almond in the flavourings? To use an almond flavouring or other nut flavouring would make sense though; the DT blend has hazelnuts in it and you can see from some of the other DT blends that T Kettle has tried to dupe that they paid particular attention to mirroring the ingredients in their blends…

Lets talk about the taste though! This is not a Chai. I mean, to be fair, I don’t really think that S’mores Chai is a “Chai” either because the only spice in that blend is cinnamon – such is the case here. However, at least I taste the cinnamon in S’mores Chai. I didn’t really taste it here. What I did taste was the aforementioned almond note, a note of chocolate that read almost more as a chocolate liqueur flavour, and a prominent toasted rice note. It wasn’t great tasting but it wasn’t unpleasant either, however it really read more as a “Chocolate Genmaicha” profile to me instead of anything close to a Chai or a “S’mores” profile.

I don’t think T Kettle achieved what they were trying to do at all with this one, and even if you ignore the DT comparison I think the flavour is a big mismatch for the name so I would be either confused or disappointed as a customer based on that alone. Wish they named this it’s own thing – it would be better as a differentiated profile, and avoiding the Chai description altogether.

This was fine.

In all fairness, I don’t know if I’ve ever come across a Pumpkin Chai that I really loved. It’s just one of those profiles that doesn’t excite me personally – in part because I don’t tend to love Chai but also in part because I’m always so disappointed by the lack of actual pumpkin in the taste profile.

In the case of this Pumpkin Chai I thought that the flavour was milder than what I’ve typically come across, with a bit more of a creaminess to the profile and a slightly more muted level of spice. Cinnamon and ginger being the two prominent spice notes coming through. The flavour balance itself was fine to me, but I did think the cup felt a little bit thin overall – I suppose brewing more leaf or perhaps adding milk could be a good solution to that.

This is a nice peppermint but, also, at the end of the day it’s… peppermint.

By that I mean that even a really nice tasting peppermint is still kind of plain and will always be comparable to dozens of other nice peppermints carried by other companies. For me this is the kind of tea that, while classic and something that most people consider a “cupboard staple”, is inherently the sort of tea that you can kind of pick up from any shop and be satisfied with? I don’t know many people that are brand loyal when it comes to buying their peppermint – they usually just get it from whatever shop they next order from that happens to time out around needing a restock.

I guess to ellaborate a little on what I mean by “nice peppermint” though…

The flavour is really crisp and clean, with strong cooling menthol notes. A poor example of a peppermint is “muddy” in its taste; just rougher in general and tastes more like vegetation with earthy undertones the longer it steeps. Not the case for this one, so it was a good cuppa overall.

I figured I’d end today’s T Kettle tasting notes on a positive one because I’m not all criticism…

I really enjoyed this blend a lot! The smell of the dry leaf is really captivating and delicious too; I’m having an awfully hard time placing specifically what it reminded me of but it was definitely some kind of sweet nostalgic summer treat from my childhood. I thought, since this looks to be the T Kettle version of Rainbow Lemonade, that maybe it was just that it was reminding me of Rainbow Sherbet" since that’s what DT’s blend is based on. And, while it is true that this has a mix of fresh and sweet raspberry, lime, orange, and lemon notes like that nostalgic rainbow sherbet, it’s definitely not just reminding me of sherbet. Skittles!? Maybe!? Starburst!? It’s gonna come to me eventually!

The crazy thing is that the smell of the dry leaf actually translated into the flavour of the steeped tea almost perfectly and that rarely happens. Sometimes a tea gets pretty close to tasting EXACTLY like how it smells but this was almost perfectly spot on. It was so well balanced, juicy, and flavourful with just the right amount of tang and sweetness.

I… actually liked it a lot more than Rainbow Sherbet/Rainbow Lemonade from DT and I think that, were my cupboard more in control, I would probably buy this for myself. It might just dethrone “Strawberry Fondue” as my favourite T Kettle blend that I’ve tried yet!

I can’t decide if I think this is supposed to be the T Kettle version of DT’s Frozen Raspberry or not, and I also can’t decide if I enjoyed the taste of this tisane…

It’s pretty earthy for what appears to be intended as a fruity raspberry profile. Like, I can really clearly taste the earthy tones of both of the beetroot and carrot in the blend about as much as I’m getting raspberry and hibiscus. It’s sort of like one of those cold pressed juices that’s actually equal parts fruit and veg, and intended to be healthy. Tasting the earthy veg notes here doesn’t make it unpleasant tasting, but it does sort of distract from the pop of fruit and tangyness of the blend.

The one thing in the blend that I do flat out dislike is the finish – it’s almost chalky, but in that way that sometimes weird cream flavours come off as chalky? Because T Kettle doesn’t label their flavourings I can’t say for sure, but I feel pretty confident that there’s some sort of cream or vanilla flavouring here that isn’t vibing well with me.

If it weren’t for that I think I could almost get on board with this tea, earthiness and all.

The smell of this blend intimidated me a little bit because it was so pickle-y and acidic smelling. It reminded me a lot, actually, of Monster Mash from DT – even though the tea I believe it’s trying to be is Baked Apple Chai. Thankfully, like Monster Mash, it doesn’t actually taste pickle-y once it’s been steeped.

For such a pungent dry leaf aroma and so many spices and other strong ingredients, like hibiscus, in the ingredients list… I was a little surprised by how thin the mouthfeel was and how light the flavour. I even left my fill your own teabag in the mug to give it a chance to get more potent and it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. The taste was pleasantly apple forward, with a crispness that seemed fitting the name and notes of anise, cinnamon, and ginger – but just not a lot of any of them.

I could see this working for people who find Baked Apple Chai, from DT, a little too strong because that is a very strongly flavoured blend – but for me this just felt a bit flat and lackluster. But again, at least it wasn’t pickle-y.

So, when I see the name “Pom Punch” I expect the flavour here to have some intensity. Maybe a pucker/tartness, maybe a lot of sweetness similar to a “punch” like the drink – but just some kind of “bang” to it – and of course that makes sense to me because I’m pretty sure the intention with this blend was to mirror DT’s Pomegrateful white tea blend which is a pretty juicy, sweet and strongly flavoured tea…

With that in mind – I don’t really feel like the name matches the profile!? I mean, the pomegranate is spot on – this does, to me at least, taste pretty clearly like pomegranate. However, it’s more of a gentler and light to medium bodied take on that profile with a lot more of the white tea flavour coming through than what does in Pomegrateful. Even if you don’t view this as a recreation of that tea, I feel like I would have been at least a tiny bit disappointed by the name. It’s so soft and soothing, albeit the finish is a little more tart and crisp.

That said, I like this tea. I don’t think I’d want to stock up on it because I just don’t see myself craving this kind of softer pomegranate profile often but I actually think I prefer it to the almost more generic “red fruit” that I get in Pomegrateful. They’re just so dissimilar!

Echinacea Shielf, which is the DT blend that this is clearly modeled after, isn’t a personal favourite tea of mine but I do think it’s an incredibly well balanced one that manages to find harmony between green tea, tropical mango, and herbaceous sage notes against all odds of those flavours not working together…

With that said, I did enjoy this tea quite a bit. It’s decidedly not as well balanced at conveying all of those flavours though – instead this really feels like an ode to sage through and through. There’s a hint of fruity sweet undertones that keep it from feeling like a savory soup stock, but the primary note here is a robust hit of sage. Now, I happen to like sage teas a lot so I didn’t at all mind that. For a sage blend, the quality of the sage seems quite good. I’d definitely drink it again for that profile, for sure.

So, in my personal opinion, not a good recreation but a nice tea as a stand alone.

I’m sooo tired, but also so close to catching up on tasting notes. Two more, and then I’ll finally sleep…

This is obviously T Kettle’s recreation of Magic Potion from DT. However, I’d like to call your attention instead to what I think might genuinely be the worst piece of copy writing that I saw on any tea throughout all of 2020. Like, it wins the award for “worst way to describe your tea”. So, I present the short copy on the T Kettle website:

Brrrrr…. this is so bluey good (incredible as a DIY Popsicle). Tends fruity with ‘into the wild blue yonder’ notes.

I’m sorry, but… INTO THE WILD BLUE YONDER NOTES!? What does that even mean!? It’s such a bad and confusing way to describe your tea.

However, with that aside… it’s not a terrible tea. Like, it’s definitely NOT a tea for me but honestly neither is Magic Potion, really. Both have pretty strong notes of stevia and a pleasant but ultimately pretty generic fruity berry flavour that I don’t dislike but that I don’t really like all that much either. I find this blend a little more distinct in what fruit, specifically, it tastes like – and that’s black currant, and maybe just a bit of anise? However, just because it’s a little more distinct to me doesn’t mean I think it’s better. Or worse, actually. What I do think is that black currant is a flavour that’s not super beloved in North America, and that when steeped too long can kind of read and medicinal. That said, the more intense flavour of Magic Potion coupled with the heavy use of stevia can just read as pretty cloying/artificial. So, I think whatever trade off of flavours you’re getting between the two blends probably cancels each other out.

Actually, thinking about it, the taste of this tea sort of reminds me of the black version of these Haribo candies: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xjQdyDMKi1M/XLx_V8ZZjtI/AAAAAAAAZN4/q9dtlrydzi8To9mKhn01foJ9WyiCu7UqwCLcBGAs/s1600/0C09BAF4-DC16-4E0C-A25D-F4272ECBBDFE.jpeg

Don’t know if that’s good or bad, though.

…this would be the T Kettle “Glitter & Gold” dupe.

It smells nice, but very straight forward sweet cinnamon. Like the cinnamon heart candies you get around Valentine’s Day and, I mean, fair enough – that’s basically exactly how T Kettle describes the taste of this blend. Steeped up, it’s accurate too – medium bodied, malty black tea and sweet red hot cinnamon. Not too much, not too little. Still though, at the end of the day, just cinnamon.

If you want a pretty looking cinnamon black tea, this will do the trick. However, if you’re comparing it to Glitter & Gold then I don’t think they’re good matches. Yes, there’s cinnamon in Glitter & Gold but I think a bit part of why a lot of people enjoy that blend is because it’s spiced but not really any one particular spice, and more of a soft and sweet spice balanced by just the right amount of sweetness and even a touch of something just a bit creamy. I always loved the gentle use of clove in that tea as well, and while I see cloves in this tea I really just felt like it only tasted like cinnamon.

Still a nice tea, and I bet it would be good with milk too. However, more than anything else it just made me want to go and make a cup of Glitter & Gold, y’know?

…do mom’s make marzipan!?

I’m sort of confused by the marketing angle of this tea. Maybe it’s my own limited experience with European culture but I always thought marzipan was more of a store bought holiday treat versus something that was “homemade” seasonally? And I guess I’m really just assuming the seasonal part based on the visual of the tea, which is loaded up with snowflake and other frosty blue sprinkles? It seems weirdly hodge podged together, but I suppose this would be the T Kettle version of Alpine Punch!?

Anyway, weird marketing aside, this is a nice tea. It’s very straight forward sweet almond and rooibos – which isn’t anything new, but is also just a very tasty combination. I love that almost amaretto type of flavour paired with honeyed and naturally nutty rooibos. The two just compliment really well, and I think this is a great execution of that flavour profile. The thing is, you can find this profile from a ton of different companies – and even Alpine Punch slightly sets itself apart because of the addition of coconut, rose, and other spices. That said, if Alpine Punch has a bit too much going on for you, this feels pretty classic and I do appreciate a good, direct flavour concept when it’s well done.

So, when I saw that T Kettle was carrying some catalog blends from wholesalers that I was familiar with the one that I hoped they would carry more than anything is this Watermelon Oolong that I adore. It’s been carried by dozens of companies now, including T by Daniel among others – I think I currently have some in my cupboard from Cuppa T Specialty Teas. I try to always have it on hand/don’t really care where I grab it from…

Sadly, it appears they’re not going to carry it – but I had to try this tea on the off chance it might use the same delicious watermelon flavouring that I love so much in that oolong. The gamble was worth it, because this is very much that same distinctly sweet and juicy watermelon candy flavouring that I adore so much. Like a Watermelon Jolly Rancher but without are tang/sourness to it!

I’ll be honest, I think “bubblegum” is a weird flavour descriptor here – it’s definitely a sweet and more candy leaning watermelon taste but it’s not really bubblegum in anyway. More like a watermelon hard candy, or even one of those gummy candies. I like it way more on the green tea base than I had expected to, and the addition of lime is surprisingly refreshing and adds a nice vibrant and playful top note to the cup. Also just a bit of crispness!

I do greatly prefer the Watermelon Oolong – but this would more than do in a pinch just to keep that watermelon flavouring in my life.

Sipped on this one tonight, and it was… alright.

It smells quite good in the pouch – sweet and spicy cinnamon, ginger, maple and a hint of something fruity. It seemed like it had all the bells and whistles to be a good gingerbread profile. Steeped up, it’s a nice tea but there are a few things that detract from it fitting my personal idea of what a good Gingerbread tea is. To start, there’s a surprising amount of spice/heat to the ginger – of course, I expect ginger in gingerbread but usually more of a warming and sweet ginger versus a ginger with real heat to it. It’s also very maple forward and while I do enjoy the ginger and maple flavour combination it’s not exactly what I think of for Gingerbread.

I’ve said it time and time again and I will likely continue to say it for many years to come, but a good gingerbread profile needs a warmth to it from the spices but it should also have a dense/darker sweetness – something like a brown sugar/molasses flavour. The maple is a little too sweet in my opinion, and not heavy enough to properly convey my perfect gingerbread profile. The ginger/maple/hint of currant mix here? Yummy! And I think to many people it will fit the concept – I’m just personally super particular about this specific flavour profile.

Shockingly, I think I prefer this to T Kettle’s “Papa Don’t Peach” blend.

The two are similar enough profiles – both ginger peach, although this is on a black tea and obviously also has the addition of Turmeric vs Papa Don’t Peach which is more of a fruit based tisane. Despite that fact, I felt like this seemed juicier and more forward in the peach flavours. Still earthy and spicy, of course, from both the turmeric and ginger but the spice in this came almost seemed to make the peach more vibrant/flavourful in contrast.

Not really something I would go out of my way to get, because at the end of the day it is a pretty commercially available profile and I don’t love turmeric or ginger. However, my expectations were pretty low here given my reaction to Papa Don’t Peach and I thought they were more than fairly exceeded.

Oof – and not a good oof.

So this is obviously inspired by DT’s Cherry Berry Punch, which was one of my favourite teas that DT released this summer. It was super juicy with punchy, vibrant cherry and pineapple notes and a playful pucker to it. This is… not that.

The one thing that I will say it’s got going for it is that you can taste more of the black tea, and it’s a pretty nice/smooth black tea. However, that’s about all the praise I can give this one. Even if you view it completely as its own cherry tea without any other direct comparisons, I think it’s a let down. The cherry is flat/stale tasting at best and medicinal at worst. Unfortunately the dry tartness of the hibiscus comes through and exaggerates those notes. Not every tea needs to be sweet to be good (far from it!) but I feel like in this case the blend is reaaaalllyyy lacking either sweetness or tangyness – probably both in all honest. The dry and tart mouthfeel and medicinal tasting cherry are very harsh combined, and sadly the pineapple is more waxy than anything else.

Cherry has a wide spectrum of flavours, but medicinal is probably the worst it can get and in my opinion this lands on that end of the spectrum. Definitely a shame.

Oh boy…

So, let me start by saying that I actually greatly enjoyed the taste of this milk oolong. It’s very rich and essentially tastes like straight up buttered toast. Like, veryyyyy generously buttered toast. Creamy, luxe and super tasty. I haven’t had the DT milk oolong recently enough to confidently say if I have a preference, but it reminds me a lot of that one…

But I have some serious issues here too.

The lesser issue is the copy writing of this tea – it’s described as “A stunning tea of profound depth” and, just, no!? Like, it’s a good tea but to say there’s depth here is a stretch. I mean, it just tastes like so much butter. Very one note – but a damn good one note.

Issue two, and this is the biggest issue, is that T Kettle is claiming this is an unflavoured milk oolong. As someone who works with tea daily, loves milk oolong/Jin Xuan and has tasted dozens of milk oolongs both flavoured and unflavoured I am saying with 100% confidence that this is is ABSOLUTELY flavoured. It’s too rich/buttery and consistent to not be flavoured – plus, you can taste the actual oolong flavour notes underneath the strong buttery/creamy main sip.

Now, I’m not shitting on flavoured milk oolong – there are a lot of reasons why you’d flavour a Jin Xuan, the main one for a larger scale tea company being the need for consistency. The creaminess of Jin Xuan comes from cold snaps during the growing of it, and varies a lot from harvest to harvest because weather varies in different agricultural seasons. So, when you’re carrying a tea like this on a large scale as part of a core/yearly assortment you want to be able to guarantee that your customer base is going to buy the same tea at different times throughout the year or months apart and have it taste the same each time.

So the issue isn’t in the flavouring of the tea itself – but just in the dishonesty of selling this as unflavoured. There is just literally no way it’s not flavoured – and I’d respect the tea much more for the delicious buttery profile if it wasn’t marketed as a straight oolong.

…so, this is the T Kettle version of Vanilla Cappuccino.

Obvious comparison of the vanilla/coffee profile (and shockingly similar ingredients list) aside, the two teas actually taste very different. Plus, there’s a difference in smell. I’m not a coffee expect by any means and I wont pretend to be, but the dry leaf aroma of this blend is a bit off putting to me – it almost smells oily/fishy.

Thankfully it doesn’t taste that way at all. It’s actually not really sweet, which was surprising to me at first because the tea they’re trying to recreate is very sweet. Like, I don’t taste the stevia in this tea at all (and I do taste it in Vanilla Capp) but I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not because I sort of want sweetness from this tea!? It’s a really pronounced dark roasted coffee flavour that takes up the majority of the sip. Creamy and vanilla? Yes, but honestly not a lot – certainly not to the level that the name or copy writing would seem to imply.

I don’t like the taste of coffee very much, so the strong and pronounced roasted coffee flavour was off putting to me personally – but that definitely doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t appeal to other people! Ironically, the coffee note reminds me more of DT’s Coffee Pu’erh than Vanilla Cappuccino. If you like Vanilla Cappuccino for the sweetness and the fact is mirrors more of the sweet Starbucks coffee drink vibe/makes that coffee flavour a bit more approachable than I think this would be a disappointment. However, if you think Vanilla Cappuccino is too sweet or doesn’t have enough coffee? Then I think you’d probably dig this one.

I’m just not loving it – but for personal taste preference reasonsl.

This one is Grapefruit Rose Starburst…

It’s honestly not a bad attempt to recreate that profile, and if I wasn’t super familiar with Grapefruit Rose Starburst/already a fan of that tea I think I would have really enjoyed this. It’s a sweeter pink grapefruit mixed with a floral oolong and hints of rose. However, it just doesn’t have quite the same juicy and fresh note to the pink grapefruit that the DT tea has – in fact, the citrus tastes a bit aged here because it’s just slightly starting to do that “waxy citrus” thing that aging citrus rind gets. The greener oolong is also a bit rougher and more prominent.

However, other than aspects of the flavour seeming less polished to me, it’s still quite nice.