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This one smells amazing in the bag, sweet cocoa goodness all the way. I can’t say that follows through to the flavor though. At most I get a slight feel of cocoa more than a real taste of it. I keep taking drinks of this and I still can’t identify what it is I’m tasting – it’s not the roasted mate, and it’s not very chocolatey, but it’s still good? The body reminds me of coffee, it’s like a very smooth roast.

Okay, I’ve just gone and added a dash of chocolate soy milk to this cup, that improved things. I’d recommend this to coffee drinkers if you take it straight, it feels very similar to coffee but doesn’t quite have that bracing coffee flavor that made me turn to tea, haha. Worth a try if you’re trying to kill your Starbucks habit.

This is a caramel rooibos, straight up; it tastes just like rooibos with small caramel pieces in it. I was definitely hoping for the caramel to be the big flavor in this one, but it’s overpowered by the rooibos, and the buttery note implied by the word “toffee” is unfortunately absent. Which isn’t to say it’ll be a chore to drink, but it won’t be one I reach for. It’s not making me shout “Ole!” but it’s not bad, either. It’s just kind of there, being caramel rooibos.

This definitely smells like chocolate cake once brewed! The taste is way more subtle, more like the essence of chocolate cake rather than the flavor – what’s interesting is that it’s definitely chocolate cake I’m getting, not just chocolate, but that particular cakey flavor. Not very sinful, and unlikely to replace dessert, but it’s a fun cup of tea if tea can be said to be fun.

I had a total psychotic break and decided I needed to order all the tea in the world at once – the lucky beneficiary of this late night binge was the Fusion Tea Room, from whom I ordered enough to qualify for free shipping (so: a lot). Shipment just came in, so expect more from me on these guys!

First up is Strawberry Ginger. I don’t usually bother with straight herbals, but this one caught my eye – I like the tummy-soothing properties of ginger but not so much the taste, so mitigating that with strawberry sounded like it might work. And it does! There’s definitely a sort of strawberry juice flavor and feel to this, that same slightly acidic tartness that’s left in a bowl of sliced strawberries. Impressive how much that comes through, since this tea has a lot going on ingredient-wise. The ginger is present in the beginning of the sip but in a very gentle way. It’s not very sweet, but there’s something about this blend that makes me want to keep drinking. Overall, yum!

This is another instance of me trying to like flavored black tea and failing. When perfectly brewed there are only the very faintest hints of maple and pecan; mostly it’s just black tea, black tea, black tea. Sometimes I add maple sugar to it, but even that can’t do much to help. Bummer.

I adore this tea! It’s rare that a roobios is really flawless for me, but somehow the random ingredients in this one really work for me. There’s a smoothness to it that I don’t generally get from this type of tea, the flavors really cover the roobios and elevate the cup to something better. I’m sad to de-cupboard this one and will probably buy more in the future!

I just got burned trying the roobios at a local tea shop (one ounce of chocolate roobios with one chocolate chip and nothing else in the entire thing? really?), and the only thing saving that boring up is cutting it half and half with Azteca Fire so there’s some actual flavor in there on top of the roobios. I recommend this one to pump up an otherwise dull tea!

One thing I love: tomatoes. One thing I don’t: most black teas. Here is how good this tea is: I got mine in the mail, made myself a cup, and was not even halfway through it before I got back on 52teas.com and ordered the very last package of the stuff. Each ingredient stands out – smoky, sun-dried tomatoes, the flat intrigue of basil, the spicy purr of black pepper. One of the most creative and marvelous-tasting cups of tea I’ve ever experienced. Bravo, Frank.

I’ve been feeling under the weather and looking for teas to help – Teavana touted this one as having a good dose of vitamin C, so here we are. I definitely don’t get much of the spiciness I was hoping for, but it’s a nice cup as it is, sort of a watered-down strawberry chocolate…not even tea, definitely an herbal blend. I like to make sure the water’s really hot and then really let it steep for awhile so the chocolate melts more, that pumps up the flavor.

Yum! Something about the way they put this one together makes the flavor stand out more than I’m used to in white teas, it’s subtle but definitely present. This takes milk really well also – I like it best with a little chocolate soy milk for a nice chocolate coconut treat.