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I’m undecided on this tea.

First steep: steeped 1 minute, less than boiling. Delicious, light and vegetal, more jasmine than peach. They reminded me strongly of something specific, but in all my judicious sipping and savouring the closest I could figure was that it tastes like the old TV show ‘Shining Time Station’.

Second steep: steeped 2 minutes, less than boiling. Much, much darker in colour, the jasmine has turned bitter and the peach has completely run away

Third steep: steeped 2 minutes, less than boiling. Way too bitter to drink.

The first cup was delicious. The last cup was horrible. I don’t know which to judge its merits on. But definitely a short steep at a low temp for this delicate tea.

Not only was this tea not in Steepster’s database, the company’s website has very little info on it. Vanilla chai! Which is a little silly considering that I made a batch of vanilla-laced chai concentrate from scratch and left it in the fridge. It’s so good that I’m saving it for a pick-me-up at work this week.

Tea Monkey’s chai is quite good! The spice blend is quite well-balanced, no licorice (yay!), and has a nice warm vanilla buzz. The black tea base is really lovely, a little dry and smoky on the tongue.

Made a pot of this to go with the Thai green curry I made for dinner. Overall I would describe this tea as . . . inoffensive. It has a mild flavor, just grassy enough to distinguish it from a straight black. Not terrible. Not in any way memorable.

Picked up a little of this yesterday to give it a try. Dry, it smells rich and chocolately – so far so good. But I found that once it brewed up it was underwhelming. Next time I’ll try a longer steep, but at my usual 2 min it was just a vaguely sweet, vaguely creamy, vaguely flavoured mild black. No real flavours stuck out to me. Just all-around meh.

I am not one for iced tea but it was offered to me free (because I went in to exchange a broken tea tumbler and she didn’t have any more so couldn’t do the exchange, serious David’s can have the best customer service), so why not? Iced, two pumps of agave. It’s pretty good! Very colada-y, tastes like summer and day-drinking on a boat. The light pink colour surprised me, I haven’t seen a tea turn quite this pale rose.

I always forget how good straight oolong can be. This cup was smoky and a little earthy, dry in the mouth. I will def be resteeping this today.

Why was this so terrible ;-;

It smells amazing. Like, amazing. It smells precisely like carrot cake – a big, rich, sweet carrot cake. And it tastes like licorice. Not even like a mellow root beer-y licorice, but that sickly-sweet stuff that gets stuck to the back of your throat and destroys all other flavours.

A world of no.

It’s been a while since I’ve reached for tea to help with a headache, but this headache is not responding to drugs so it’s time to get hippie about it. This cuppa also officially kills my stash of this at work, but it warrants a refill. The licorice seems to have mellowed out, leaving the mint and green the most prominent tastes. Got two steeps out of it, the second cuppa held up pretty well.

It’s amazing how much smell can bring up memories. I made myself a cup of this at work today. Bag is getting low and I probably won’t restock. But this was one of the first looseleaf teas we ever bought, about six years ago now. Very early in our marriage. But just smelling it brewing immediately put me back in that tiny house, that time. As before, the scent is much stronger than the taste – ‘chai’ and ‘chili’ are both generous labels here, though I won’t deny the chocolate.