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This recently made its way into my “5 oldest teas” sipdown box, and to my dismay, the tin is still basically full. Oops?

I don’t normally write notes for teas that aren’t new or a sipdown, but I just had to pop on to say that this is still delightful at almost three years old. The raspberry is such a nice middle ground between candy/jam and the real thing, and the touch of savory sage sets it off perfectly. Their light and earthy base, while sometimes detrimental, works perfectly here and gives a more wild, botanical taste that doesn’t overwhelm the raspberry.

Will happily drink a mug of this one every day until it’s gone, and then reorder more so I can neglect it all over again! XD

Sample from Courtney, thank you!

This is lovely. It has a nice balance of rich and creamy notes with the spices. It reminds me a bit of a less-sweet pumpkin pie with a stronger ginger presence. I don’t know that I specifically think of maple, but it does have a brown sugary, rich sweetness to it that fits. The strong spices also help keep it from tasting too rooibos-y for me.

Quite a nice one. I already have a pumpkin spice rooibos in my cupboard, but would happily stock this if I didn’t. Not sure yet if I’m going to try to get the The Tea Girl advent this year…

Sipdown! (14 | 117)

Another iced milk tea! This has a similar base to Castella, with those teeny tiny CTC pellets.

I’m not generally a chocolate tea person, but this is lovely as a milk tea. The chocolate tastes very dark and cocoa-y, and even a touch boozy, as if there were rum in the cake or buttercream. I don’t taste coffee, but it’s unclear from the description whether there’s intended to be any here or not. The base is very strongly malty and a touch woody.

Never got around to trying this one from the Summer Fruit collection I bought in May, so I figured I should remedy that.

It’s nice enough. The base is a mix of Keemun and Ceylon, so it has some earthy notes but is also a bit brisk and quite acidic. As for the strawberry, it’s definitely more on the candy side of things, but it does have a nice tang to it that keeps it from being too sweet. I think I will probably enjoy this and the Raspberry version most as milk teas, as the base can be a bit hard on my stomach when taken plain.

So ginger. Much wow.

This strikes me as a Rishi-style blend for some reason. The ginger is extremely potent, enough that it feels spicy and tingly on my tongue. It’s difficult to taste the citrus notes alongside such a powerful ginger flavor. I did add some clover honey, which helps tame it just a tad.

This isn’t something I would personally drink, as the ginger is too spicy for me. But it was certainly interesting to try, and I’m sure it would work wonders for my digestion! XD

I don’t recall exactly how I found this tea company, but I stumbled upon their website somehow. They have some interesting blends, and offer samples for $2 a pop, so how could I resist? XD I will say, the samples are fairly generous too, with enough tea for two large mugs.

This is the first tea I saw from them, so I figured I would steep it up first as well. It’s quite lovely. I sometimes have issues with blackberry and mixed berry flavoring tasting chalky to me, but thankfully this one isn’t like that. It has a lovely sweet-tart fresh blackberry flavor to it, which goes so well with the citrusy bergamot. The flavoring level overall is somewhat restrained, but I can still taste both flavors clearly. The base has a touch of musty earthiness, but is also somewhat tannic, so I assume it’s a blend of multiple black teas.

So off to a good start with Apolis! So nice to find a blackberry flavor that I enjoy, and looking forward to trying more teas.

Sipdown! (12 | 115)

Last bag of this, and sadly they don’t carry it anymore. I really enjoyed it as a cold steep, it has a nice balance of sweet and tangy without having hibiscus, and the orange and sea buckthorn go so well together. So refreshing and thirst-quenching.

I did see that Tealyra now has a green rooibos blend with a lot of dried sea buckthorn, so I may have to give that one a go whenever I order again. This time around, I’ve opted for a selection of fruit infusions from Simpson & Vail, as I’ve never tried any of theirs.

Sipdown! (10 | 113)

Another one from Valhallow, thanks again!

Prepared as an iced milk tea. This has a teeny tiny CTC base – it almost looks like fannings, but upon closer inspection there are little pellets. I assume this probably means it’s meant to be enjoyed with milk, so I figured this was a good way to send it off.

It’s a tasty enough tea, there’s definitely a caramel note to it as well as the cake. To be honest, I find castella cake kind of bland and uninteresting, though obviously I’ve only had the mass-produced type. I prefer the flavored ones, as just plain sponge cake isn’t very exciting to me. So I appreciate that this tea leans heavily into the caramelized notes as it adds interest. Not a tea I would personally order, but really enjoyed trying it and it does fare well as a milk tea!

Single serving.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to try this one since it lists almond in the tasting notes. But I’m glad I got it, because there is no almond flavoring, so I’m not sure why it’s presented as one of the predominant flavors.

The green apple is crisp and refreshing, but not overtly sour. It reminds me a bit of Lupicia’s Tsugaru, which I enjoy. The spices are somewhat mild, just enough to give it a cozy fall feeling but still letting the apple shine. Apparently there’s coconut flavor, but I don’t detect it at all. There’s a hint of mint in the finish, which I thought I was imagining, but it is there at the end of the ingredients.

I quite enjoyed this one, and I thought the green base was perfect for it. I’m not sure I would order the full size, only because I have other apple and spiced apple teas in my cupboard already. But it’s definitely one of the more successful blends from my order so far.

Sipdown! (9 | 112)

I really liked the idea of this blend. I enjoy all of CatSpring’s different yaupon roasts, this being made with the medium version. It smells wonderful, with the mellow herbaceous notes of the yaupon, sweet dried apple, and warming spices.

However, in practice, the clove sort of dominates everything else. Which I guess isn’t that surprising given (1) clove is quite a powerful flavor and the other ingredients less so, and (2) this has been in my cupboard for almost three years, so it’s had plenty of time to “marinate” ha ha.

So not sure I would order it again. Maybe if I removed all the cloves right off the bat, it would be more balanced.