Dustin Send Message

I’m liking this tea better this go round. The floral almond combo is very welcome today. The crowns are visually interesting in the dry mix, but I don’t know that I like the disintegrated bits in my tea. I might pick them out next time. Right now I’m feeling like this is a tea I would reorder at some point if I were making another order. Funny how my mood is totally different with this tea today than it was the last time I had it.

This starts out pleasant with a nice bit of warming light spice, but then the stevia kicks in and takes over. It’s too sweet in that stevia way and is super distracting from the flavors. The aftertaste is all stevia too and a little sour, leaving a light itch in my throat. The spices do say pumpkin, but I don’t get to linger on them for long because stevia. I’ll have to try this cold steeped to see if it is any good that way. Hot is no bueno.

TTB

Steeped this up and added a little honey and oatmilk. It’s a pretty good chai mix. I do wish it was heavier on the pepper. I love the heat of pepper in chai. It either looses a little flavor when it cools or the honey somehow concentrated at the bottom because honey is all I taste now. I like this and I’d take another cup if it was offered, but it’s not something I need in my cupboard.

TTB

This smells delicious. For some reason I expect it to have hibiscus in it, but it doesn’t. The first several sips were bitter. I steeped it a minute less than the package recommended, but it still seems a little over steeped. I could taste almond when it was really hot and as it cools a cherry taste starts to come out. There is something alkaline that creeps in the finish and my mouth feels dry after each sip. Interesting tea, but not something I’m taken by.

TTB
I took a few sips of this while it was hot and it was a very rich and lovely roasted broth like flavor. Very umami. I walked away to do some things and came back to a cooled cup that is not as delicious. It still has a very bass roasted flavor, but some of the magic is gone. I don’t know if it’s the flavor along with the coziness of it being hot that makes it special when hot or if the flavors just transform. It’s not bad cooled off, but it does taste a little more flat. I am loving the idea of the popped rice with hojicha combo of this tea! I wish they would explore it more and do a flavored blend. I can imagine peach or some other stone fruit working well with these flavors.

TTB

Huh, this is strange. It says cola and I can pick cola flavors out in the finish, but the sip is more savory and almost sage like. I can smell ginger in the cup, but it gets sort of muddled in the sip. This tea is confusing! Not really into it.

TTB
I’ve been eyeing powdered flavored hojichas from this company recently, so I’m excited to try this! My brain is all over the place today and after I added a little sweetener to the mix to bring out the honey flavor I forgot that I had done so and added honey so this is extra sweet. Having it as a latte. I taste honey and lemon that brightens it up a bit. I wish I had tried it before adding sweeteners, but brain fail. It’s a delicious cup with that deep hojicha flavor, but I’d like to try it again before adding things to it so I can get a good feel for the flavors present.

Wow has my tune changed on this tea over the past 8 years since I first logged it! I didn’t like it at all 8 years ago. 7 months ago I accidentally bought a bag that was in the row for a different tea and managed to go through that bag in record time. I bought another bag a couple months ago when I placed an order with MF because I ended up loving it so much. There were so many new teas in that order that I’m only now digging up the bag of this, but I pulled it out today and drank a cup pretty quickly. It’s such a strong and smooth EG that works well plain as well as holding up to cream and sugar. I think it’s my favorite straight EG now. How times have changed!

I wanted something smoky today, but this one isn’t quite hitting the spot. The jammy flavors aren’t in this cup, which is part of what made it unique. Another instance of tea hoarding going bad? It’s coming off as a lapsang with an edge that gets sharper as my cup cools. I need to figure out what plum or jam flavored tea I have and start mixing it with this when I steep. I still have a decent amount of this left to go.

Sipped down!
This smells a little pumpkiny, but I really have to think about it when I smell the cup. I don’t get pumpkin in the flavor. There is a light chai flavor, but it’s really light. I added honey and creamer in this cup and it diluted the chai quite a bit. The cup was really bland and with chai I expect the flavor to be strong enough to withstand the addition of cream. I had several other cups plain since I got this, but none of them really caught my attention. I was hoping I’d really like Friday teas, but so far I feel kinda eh about them.