Friday Afternoon

Pleasant – maybe get again sometime? Not as much of a home run as I thought (ginger + rose + citrus) would be for me, though

Grabbed this sample from a TTB. It’s supposed to be chocolate and fig, but I don’t really taste that. The black tea tastes relatively high quality and has a pleasant depth to it. On top of that, I taste a mild fruitiness, but I really wouldn’t have guessed fig. I don’t taste the chocolate at all. Some bitterness does start to come out as it sits.

I don’t know what flavor this is supposed to be, but it’s super visually appealing with all the sprinkles. The flavor is surprisingly tasty since I haven’t loved most of the Friday Afternoon blends I sampled from the TTB. It tastes mostly like plain black tea, but it has a little something extra in there that’s really enjoyable. I shared this cup with someone else, but I wish I’d kept it all to myself! I’d like to order some to give it a more thorough try.

Sample from a TTB. This mostly just tastes like roasted oolong. It’s too burnt tasting for me to really enjoy. I taste some light fruitiness that reminds me of apple, but that’s it.

Grabbed a sample of this from the last TTB. The content is mostly fluffy sage. The flavor is surprisingly more thin and mild than I expected. I would definitely overleaf if I had enough for a second cup. I taste the sage and a bit of smokiness, but the tea base is a bit weak to my tastes. It’s also a bit more savory/herbaceous than I prefer, but I do find the idea of this one to be fun.

Grabbed this sample from the last TTB. It tastes like a pretty typical gunpowder green, but very high quality. I don’t really notice any other flavors except maybe some mild fruitiness. I like this better than most gunpowder greens. I shared this cup with my partner, who doesn’t usually like green tea. He said, “I like this one because it doesn’t taste like dirt.” So I guess that’s some high praise.

Grabbed this sample from the last TTB. I usually feel neutral toward fruity black teas, but this one is surprisingly delicious! It has a candy-like fruit flavor, and it’s so smooth. There’s no tartness or weirdness, just a perfect cold cup of tea. I wish I had grabbed a few more servings!

Oh wow, it’s a tea I don’t have to input to Steepster because I’m not the only one drinking it! Neat!

I liked this one, but not enough to want to buy it. It’s a cheerfully chocolate tea, strong in the nose, but when I drink it, the chocolate somehow got muddled in with everything else and I lost it somehow. This doesn’t make any sense at all, but it’s what my tastebuds did with it.

(Also, because it’s got real chocolate in it, it left a glaze of chocolate on the walls of my teapot and I had to wash it rather more thoroughly. Fair warning.)

Anyway. If a friend offered it to me, I would cheerfully drink it and be happy about it, but I don’t need to keep it in my cabinet.

This particular masala chai doesn’t do anything in particular for me. There’s nothing wrong with it? But it’s a fairly standard masala chai. It’s a little more mellow, a little more malty than the ones I usually drink – I suspect that’s because the tea itself is aged. The peppercorns aren’t particularly strong (nothing like Prepare For Trouble) and I can’t taste the cardamon at all.

Nothing wrong with it, but not one I need to keep around. It came as part of a sampler from bigger order we got from Friday, so when I finish off the last of my advent teas, I’ll be on to those, but it’s dark and gloomy here this afternoon, so I figured a dark chai might be the way to go.

This tea scratches the same itch that Tea & Absinthe’s “Elixer of Wisdom” does – namely, a black(ish) tea with floral notes. I don’t think I like it quite as much as I like Wisdom, but that’s a bit like saying I don’t like vegetarian masala burgers from Trader Joe’s as much as I like a gourmet hamburger from a specialty restaurant.

This is a fine floral tea. The aftertaste has a pleasantly minty feel to it, for all that it’s not mint at all. (I think that’s probably the green tea that my tastebuds strongly associate with mint.) The aroma is good, also. I can slightly make out the flavor of apple, but I’m not sure I’d know what an osmanthus flower tastes like, so I can’t tell if I can taste it. (I can definitely taste the linden. I’ve had linden honey. It’s yummy.)

My spouse wanted to know if I would drink this – he’s the one who bought it, as he’s more of an Avatar: The Last Airbender fan than I am. I will drink it! But I’m not going to be seeking it out, so it’s getting the top rating for something I’m not actively looking to put in my cabinet on the regular.

Good tea, definitely glad I drank it.

LEMON. Wow, that’s a lot of lemon. Possibly I’m not used to it anymore?

Spouse bought this one, and quite likes it, but wanted to know if I would drink it with him. (He’s not sure he can go through it regularly.) So he asked me to try it.

It brewed up relatively weak-looking by my standards (4 tsp. leaves in my 3 cup pot) and when I took a sip, the lemon punched me in the nose. It’s drowning out most (not all) of the other flavors – about the only thing I could taste in addition was the rose. Not the tea, and not the ginger.

This one is definitely not for me. Oh well!

Okay. Honestly not excited to try this because I’m not a huge fan of gunpowder green and the aroma from the dry leaf makes me think this has been defiled by other tea. The dry aroma is weird. Kinda smokey. Kinda cigarettey…. nose scrunch The green of the gunpowder is very apparent. Instead of Imperial soldier, I would have named this Civil War soldier. The taste is kind of bland. A little woodsy a little grassy, a little hay.

Always a bit disappointed when I see a delightfully twisted dark brown leaf like this but the flavor does not match. At least when consumed hot. I will let it cool in hopes of better flavors. Nope… still nothing that piques my interest…

Twilight Princess. I cannot think of anything else but that game when I see the name of this tea. This is a very herbaceous tea. The wet lead aroma is incredibly complex. The rosemary is easy to pick out (especially because I love it) but the rest merge into an amalgamation of herby goodness. The flavor kind of knocks your socks off too. So much going on in my mouth. Herbs, herbs, herbs. Rosemary, sage, slight oregano, and thyme. The pu er is a great base for this but the earthy base remains cautiously hidden.

Meh. Not bad but not one I’d buy. But maybe the sample has been corrupted. It has potential. The liquor and the dry leaf smell remind me of maraschino cherry syrup. But the base is kind of blandish. I’m honestly not sure I’m getting the whole story for this one so I’m not going to rate it for now.

Well, this should be interesting. I dislike coriander as much as I do cilantro. But I will tolerate it when it mixes well into salsa or curry… etc. OH. MY Covers and squishes face I smell it. Big NOPE face. Do not like the wet/steeping smell. I mean, it’s not a bad taste. I could see it working in some recipes. Maybe tilapia. But Do I want to just drink this? It’s sippable. I’m still drinking it. It’s smooth. Maybe would mix well with bourbon. But it shouldn’t be just tea. That’s the problem.

Berry…. Juice? I feel like I’m missing something. Maybe this sample is too old? Got corrupted by other smelly teas? I get a vague sense of what they’re going for but it’s so weak that I don’t know if naming it as such is worth it. It is a little stronger if you let it sit on your palate but has a bitterness that is not so plesent. Kind of like licking an orange peel.

This just tastes like lightly flavored black tea, which is a shame because it smells so good. I didn’t taste any of the flavors I was supposed to, but it was still pleasant warm. Thanks to the TTB for the opportunity to try it!

The scent when I opened the bag smelled so strongly of anise that I was a little afraid…I tried to include as little anise as possible in my basket, but the flavor still shows up pretty strongly in the tea. I can taste a little black tea underneath, but it’s really mostly anise. I don’t find myself minding the flavor though. I wish I tasted the sour cherry, but nothing can overcome the anise. This is one of the better Friday Afternoon teas I’ve tried from the TTB surprisingly! It was satisfying with some milk.

Unfortunately, these Friday Afternoon teas from the TTB aren’t working that well for me. This one was mildly fruity oolong, and that’s all there was to it. The oolong was too floral for my preference, and the fruit wasn’t strong enough. If you’re a fan of floral teas, a cold cup of this might be exactly your thing, but unfortunately, it’s not for me.

This tea from the TTB has absolutely huge slices of guava in it that I really just want to eat. It brewed up quite light. The black tea is a little weak and unsatisfying warm, but the fruit flavor comes out a bit better when it’s cold. The fruit flavor isn’t clearly guava, and it could have been much stronger. I think this tea would do better if it focused on adding flavoring instead of huge slices of fruit, which don’t impart much flavor. Overall, I didn’t find this very exciting, and the quality of the black tea really wasn’t great.

I got a tiny packet of this as a sample along with another bulk order of tea from Friday Afternoon, and it sat in my cupboard for a while – until I had a morning where I was doing a bunch of writing. At which point I thought, “OK, this is probably when I should crack that sample.” I wasn’t expecting to like it – I’m not generally a fan of smoky teas, and although this one doesn’t officially list “smoke” as a component on the webpage, the package does.

I was very pleasantly surprised. This is a very good non-distracting tasty tea. I can see why it’s considered writer’s fuel – it’s the sort of tea one drinks all morning and enjoys the mouth feel and taste, while not being distracted from the task at hand. It is definitely a cooler weather tea, however – I don’t imagine this one would work particularly well over ice.

I will probably keep a smallish (2 ounce) tin in the cupboard for marathon writing sessions. It’s not a tea I’ll be going for regularly, but it’s definitely a keeper.