Old Barrel Tea Co

Another one from the summer subscription box.

This is okay, but not my favorite. I don’t tend to like hibiscus and cinnamon together. The combination here reminds me of some sort of blueberry crumble or pie, since it has sweet and tangy blueberry with the brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutty notes. But the description compares this tea to trail mix, which doesn’t make sense to me given the strong pastry and cinnamon notes. (shrugs)

Anyway, into the rehoming box it goes!

Really enjoying this blend from the summer box. The lemony herbs are sweet yet refreshing, and a nice mix of fresh lemon and lemon drops. I believe their Tropical Black is pineapple, but somehow it comes out tasting like apricot in this mix. Not that I’m complaining, I love apricot and it’s a great pairing with the lemon.

I’m sure it would be wonderful iced, but I’ve been enjoying it warm with a drizzle of clover honey. :)

From the summer subscription box.

I’m not a fan of Prickly Pear, so naturally not a fan of this either. I mostly taste the melon-y Prickly Pear with a bit of peach in the background. Will set this aside to rehome.

That being said, I’m quite happy with the summer theme and teas, considering it’s my least favorite season. They chose a summer camp theme which is very nostalgic and cozy, and I feel like it brought a bit of autumn influence in. There are some cozier teas like Horchata Rooibos and a Pecan Pie Puerh blend, as well as garden herbals which I also enjoy. Excited to try the others!

Received as a gift from somebody who visited Old Barrel in person!

Cold-brew is my first attempt and it’s a fruity, saturated blueberry brew. Artificial in the sense that it reminds me of the blueberry-scented Strawberry Shortcake doll I had in the late 80s, but I like it in the moment. Some light florality from the oolong and other ingredients. A little bit of lemongrass permeates throughout the main blueberry taste. Purplish-blue from the butterfly pea flowers.

I’ll try it hot, but I think most of this will go cold-brewed since added flavorings tend to hold up better that way.

TTB. When a smell triggers a memory, it is called the Proust effect. The moment I smelled this dry blend, I was ripped away from my home here in MN and taken straight to Island Soap & Candle Works in Kilauea, Kauai. It reminds me of how their shop smells.

That being said… not sure I want to drink that aroma…

Oh my goodness. The aroma has undergone a change from the dry to the wet. I’ve been swiped from Kaua’i and landed in Amish country in Indiana. The aroma of some of the places we used to visit. A mix of spices and fruit to form a relaxing potpourri.

The liquor color is opaque and beautiful burgundy.
Flavor: There is a lot going on in this tisane. It’s hard to pick everything out. Here goes: Hibiscus, Coconut cream, Cinnamon, slight woody notes, slight palo santo. Hint of beet.

This is quite intriguing.

This is one blend I’m keeping out of the TTB because I love it so much and it doesn’t appear to be popular with others.

I normally dislike hibiscus, but I actually like this one hot and cold over ice. I’ve had it hot several times. Although it is acidic and tart, there is also a lovely flavour in the green rooibos/green tea base. It’s quite fruity with melon and citrus notes. I’m finding it quite unique and an enjoyable summer cup.

Steepster 2025 TTB Team

While I was hopeful that this would be a nice well rounded floral tea, I found it very rose-heavy in a perfumy way. I do like rose, but this is too much rose for something called cherry blossom. I do get fruity cherry notes, astringent green with some vegetal notes, and a touch of jasmine. I would have preferred something less artificial tasting and a less bitter green base. I added milk and let it cool, which was a huge improvement to having this straight and hot.

TTB! I removed as many rose petals as I could since I’m not a huge rose fan, and I’m glad I did because this ended up pretty enjoyable! I’m drinking this cold, and it’s a little fruity and floral on quite a smooth green base. The main flavor is still rose, so I wouldn’t prefer much more of this.

Sweet tart apple and earthy puerh, they don’t seem to mix but somehow this works. Bright crispy apple is the dominant note and this would make an excellent iced tea. There is also a bite of mate in the aftertaste, and somewhere deep underneath is puerh. A good blend to offer to someone who is on the puerh fence. Not my favorite blend from OTBC but I might need another tin of this.

Subscription box tea. This is certainly suffering from a comparison in my mind to Banana bread coffee puerh, but this new coffee blend from OBTC is too heavy on the coffee part. The cinnamon dulls the coffee bitterness a bit, but I’m not a big fan of this tea. I’ll try some add ins to sip down the small tin.

TTB! This isn’t my favorite sort of tea, but with a lot of extra sugar, it’s not bad! The fruit is tart, and I can taste a bit of the spice. I’m drinking this cold, and it’s pretty enjoyable. The flavor is definitely mostly hibiscus, but that’s surprisingly what I’m in the mood for right now.

TTB! I’m super familiar with the flavor of the prickly pear tea since I have a big tin of it. I definitely taste more of that than the mango tea. However, I like this a lot more than my plain prickly pear, so I can tell the mango is doing some work balancing out the sometimes fake candylike prickly pear tea. I wish I could taste more distinct mango, but the flavor is quite refreshing cold.

Spring subscription tea.

This is a bit of an odd combo. I actually do like their horchata rooibos and have a full tin of it – mostly it’s just rooibos with a bunch of cinnamon, but tasty enough. I assume they were going for a cozy sort of sleepy time blend with this, but I just don’t think chamomile and rooibos go together all that well. It’s not a bad combination, I just prefer them separately I guess? Either way I like that they use actual cinnamon instead of flavoring, it’s so much mellower and more cozy.

Subscription box tea! I’m not sure about this one, it certainly tastes like vanilla cake, but it’s a fake flavor that my tastebuds think is just ok. It might be suffering from a comparison to my favorite vanilla tea from San Fran herb. I will say that adding a scoop of collagen made this creamy, but I don’t normally drink my tea with add ins, so I don’t think this is a keeper in my cupboard.

Spring subscription tea!

This seems like a weird combo to me. I get the butterfly garden and lavender together, but then a creamy element? Floral and fruity and creamy seems like a bit too much… Plus oolong and rooibos together?

It’s not bad though. The lavender comes through quite strongly, and I don’t notice the fruit or the oolong. Mostly it’s lavender and red rooibos with an undertone of custardy vanilla. And since I’m not a fan of either of those first two things, into the rehoming box it goes! :D

A spring subscription selection.

When I first saw this one, I assumed they had renamed their Mocha Maté. But this seems to actually be a completely new tea! Usually they send an email announcement for new releases, so I was surprised to be seeing this for the first time in the box. It does seem to maybe be a replacement for Mocha Maté (which AFAIK was just Adagio’s Mocha Nut Maté) as that one is no longer on the OBTC site.

Anyway, this is a green yerba maté and black tea blend with coffee beans, cacao, and cinnamon. I love all of their blends with coffee beans, so I was excited to see them here as well. And I enjoy this one, too! It’s somewhat mellow with an earthy/grassy flavor from the green maté, a bit of body from the black tea, and a kick of roasty coffee. The cinnamon is quite mild, and the cacao even moreso. They describe it as being similar to Mexican hot chocolate, but to me it’s more reminiscent of a cup of black coffee with a sprinkling of cinnamon and cocoa powder. Not really desserty or decadent, but comforting and slightly sweet.

I think I will probably pick up a tin of this one the next time I order from OBTC (not anytime soon, LOL!) as it’s different enough from their other coffee blends to have a place in my cupboard. I like the flavor that the green maté contributes in particular, which is different from their usual puerh (which is also good!).

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This was a lingering tin from the winter subscription box. Red rooibos just isn’t my thing, so I never tend to reach for it, which is why this was still hanging around. It’s fairly unremarkable, mostly just red rooibos and herbaceous peppermint – I don’t really notice much in the way of vanilla. And because the rooibos is quite woody and the peppermint more herbal than crisp, it goes to a very earthy-tasting place that doesn’t really fit the name.

Not awful, just not my thing and didn’t come through on the promised vanilla.

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Cold steeped the rest of this, and it was fairly decent. Nice tangy but not overwhelming berry-hibiscus pairing with just a dash of floral. I did pick up more of a powdery flavor than in the hot steep though, which was not my favorite.

Another one from the spring subscription.

Was dreading this a bit, as I hate Western cherry blossom-flavored teas, and have tried OBTC’s before. But thankfully, the berry fruit infusion mostly overpowers the cherry candy flavoring, and the tanginess helps tame the cloying, medicinal notes that I so despise.

It’s not amazing, but it tastes more like a very mild tangy raspberry fruit tisane, with a dash of cherry and an undertone of green tea. Very easy-drinking, and I might just try it as a cold steep as well.

Spring subscription tea.

Tried this one a few days ago and didn’t write a note. It was nice enough, mild and inoffensive with a softly sweet floral flavor. Didn’t taste like perfume or excessively flavored. The oolong base was green and silky.

However, I’m not a floral person in general, so it’s going into my rehoming box. :)

TTB 2025. I rather like this! I agree that it’s probably more “melon” than “prickly pear,” but I made it iced with sweetener and it’s quite refreshing that way. The tin also suggests adding a squeeze of lemon… maybe I need to just go get some lemons now…
Anyway, progress on the TTB slowed today because I, uh, can’t be trusted to use a toaster oven. Thankfully everything is ok and nothing actually caught fire. But there was a lot of smoke and that kept me out of the kitchen for a while (don’t worry, the TTB isn’t being stored in the kitchen so it’s still safe!). I should be able to keep chipping away at it tomorrow.

2025 TTB. Hibiscus, cinnamon, and a sour berry note. Not bad-sour. I can see the sangria-adjacent vibes. I don’t really like sangria though so I may not be the best judge of flavor profile accuracy. I think this blend falls into the category of “interesting, just not to my personal taste preferences.”

TTB 2025. Since the first Old Barrel Tea Co. blend was so tasty, I decided to go for another one. At first I thought I might have messed up the steeping parameters because all I’m getting is a big hit of cherry cough syrup. But then I looked at the other tasting notes and they say similar things! So I’m comfortable saying this is a no for me.

2025 TTB. Ooh, I’ve been wanting to try Old Barrel for a while! Getting to try new-to-me companies is one of my favorite things about TTBs. To give this its best chance, I made it iced with orange blossom honey as instructed. It’s pretty good! The mango is sweet and clear and juicy. I’ve never actually had prickly pear itself but the flavor here seems similar to other prickly pear blends I’ve tried, so I assume it’s fairly close (or everyone is using the exact same flavoring that may or may not taste like its namesake). I can see this being a winner in hot weather.