Kristin Send Message

This tea smells great. Lisbet sent me a sample of this one and I could smell chocolate when I opened my mailbox. I’m not a fan of Yerba Mate, so I was a little scared to try it. I brewed it for a long time… I was working and lost track of how long it brewed. It wasn’t as dark as I expected, but still smelled really good. I got chocolate flavor, but didn’t taste much of the malt. I liked it ok, but the Yerba Mate flavor was still there in the background (for those of you who like Yerba Mate, I suppose this is a good thing). Yerba Mate to me tastes like hay and cow fields and I did get a smidge of this flavor in this tea. It’s better than I expected, but probably not something I’ll order.

This one was not my cup of tea. It was drinkable but had a strange flavor to it; maybe it was Smarties candy flavor (or Necco wafers) and fig. The odd flavor was definitely something in a hard candy variety. I didn’t taste much of the cinnamon.

Thanks to Lisbet for a sample of this one.

Backlogging – I won this tea in a weekly trivia contest from Shanti Tea. I really like it. It’s quite mellow for a black tea. It’s not bitter or astringent. The liquor is a light greenish-brown. It’s a good black tea. I am sad that I don’t get any of the strawberry flavor that they mention in the description. Overall though, it’s tasty. I would have given it a higher rating if I could have tasted strawberry in it, or if the description hadn’t mentioned strawberry at all.

I’m drinking this iced today. I just got back from a run and it’s 83 out and we don’t have A/C… so the last thing I want is hot tea. I thought I would love this iced. It’s ok iced, but not nearly as good as it is hot. As I feared, when iced, it starts to taste like flat cherry coke. I don’t get the feeling of flat when I am drinking it hot. It still tastes good, don’t get me wrong, but I’ll drink the rest of this bag of tea hot.

I think I might love this one. How do they get that fizziness feel into it?

This tea is very very interesting. I was a bit afraid of it. I mean, you know, hot root beer? I got up the nerve to try it today and was not at all disappointed. It’s really good.

The tea in the bag smells lightly of rootbeer and sweetness. Once brewed it smells like root beer. The dry tea leaves have big whole dried lilacs and jasmine flowers. It’s very pretty.

The tea tastes a little flowery and spicy at the same time. It’s actually a nice combination. The finish is where you really get the root beer float flavor. So, this tea went from being the scary bag in the tea drawer to a welcome addition. I actually glad that the root beer flavor in this is mild.

This tea is pretty amazing. It taste just like a pina colada. Since I usually only drink a pina colada when I am sitting by a pool, I wasn’t sure how I’d like it. I do like it though. It’s coconutty and then there is a sweetness from the pineapple. Not sure I am getting any rum flavoring.

The dry leaves are beautiful too. There are pretty shreds of coconut and giant pieces of dried pineapple.

The funny thing about this tea is that while I didn’t like the pineapple upside down cake tea, I really like this one and wish the cake tea had had this much pineapple flavor.

I’m definitely going to have to try this one iced. I wonder if it will be too much or if I will really feel like I am drinking a pina colada.

Backlogging – had this tea last night.

Seriously, how do they get his to taste like Cherry Coke. Unbelievable. Tastes exactly like cherry coke. I occasionally get some other flavors like Smarties candy but the flavors all go well with the tea. I love this tea.

2 tsp to 11 oz; sweetened with a dash of agave nectar.

This is my last cup of this sample and as I stood in the kitchen singing a little song about it, I realized that I probably should have ordered some of this when I restocked the Choco*Late. Any tea that makes you sing songs about it while its brewing deserve to be bought again.

After seeing me rate many oolongs as ‘not the kind I like’, my friend Jim sent me a sample of this tea. I told him I liked Chinese restaurant oolongs! :)

This tea is very delicate, but does indeed have that richer, roasty, restaurant-style flavor. There is absolutely no bitterness to it. I like it a lot! It brewed up to a nice amber color. I did a quick rinse of the leaves (don’t know if that was necessary) with boiling water and then brewed it for about 3 min. I used about 2+ teaspoons in my 12 ounce glass bodum mug. Not sure if that was enough leaf, but I think so. My temp might have also been a little high on this as the water was already boiling in the kettle when I decided to make this. The high temp didn’t seem to harm it at all.