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5g sample into 100ml gaiwan, using 90-100C water. A couple 15sec steeps, then a few 30sec, then a few 1min, now I’m at 1.5min and it’s still going strong. Strong roasty notes with a sweet finish, especially in the early steepings – like a dark roasted oolong. Quite a bit of bright, acidity, reminiscent of fruit or citrus. I can definitely see the comparison to a lightly roasted coffee there. Gotta say, I much prefer my coffee dark roasted because I don’t usually like that acidity, so this isn’t my favourite of Verdant’s blacks. Later steepings are less sweet and more malty. Overal it’s not very chocolatey for me, though I can see the comparison to a fruity dark chocolate .

Thanks to Anlina for the sample! :) I tried this a few different ways. A while ago, I mixed it up with 80 degree water (using a milk frother) and tasted it that way. It was ok, tasted like matcha plus a nutty flavour that wasn’t unlike macadamia nuts, but there was definitely some bitterness that I wasn’t a huge fan of. Then I heated/frothed some milk and made it into a latte, which definitely helped, though there was still a bit of a funny aftertaste to it. Today I finished off my sample by dumping the rest (about 1tsp) into the blender with 1/2 banana, 1 tbsp of hemp protein powder, a bit of sweetener, and 2 c. of skim milk. Very tasty! It added a bit of nuttiness and a caffeine boost to my blender drink, but there were enough other flavours in there to prevent any bitterness or weird tastes from emerging. So… recommended as a smoothie add-in but not as a straight matcha drink. :)

Finishing off this sample, finally. :) This is a really nice tea. I’ve been drinking a lot of Chinese black teas recently, so it’s interesting to go back to an Indian/Nepalese black and be reminded how different they are. This is quite floral for me today, smooth and medium-bodied, with a bit of grapey fruitiness on the finish. Just a tiny bit of acidity and astringency emerging as I get to the bottom of the mug.

Mmmm, tasty. Smooth malt, bread, cooked fruit, and a bit of honey sweetness. Flavours linger on the palate. Very nice!

Third one! It’s a herbal tea with hibiscus in the name, which doesn’t exactly bode well. The dry tea smells really good, actually – strongly peach-flavoured, maybe a bit more peach candy than fresh peaches. The brewed tea has the same peachy scent, as well as the classic pink-red hibiscus colour. It tastes… tart! Yeah, pretty strong hibiscus in there. Now it’s kind of reminding me of sour peach candies. :) I don’t hate it, but I think I’d like it better if the hibiscus weren’t overpowering the whole blend.

Well I like all the component parts of this tea, but not sure how I feel about putting them all together. Guess we’ll see! Dry leaf smells like peppermint. As it steeps, it still smells mostly like peppermint, though I can detect the ginger if I really focus. Tasting, peppermint is still the predominant flavour, though I can taste a bit of the green tea base in there. I’m not really getting much ginger at all (and there were definitely ginger pieces in the tea I steeped). Maybe at the lower temps needed for the green tea, the ginger flavours don’t really come out as much? Anyway, it’s fine, but if I wanted to drink something that tastes like peppermint tea, I would probably just make peppermint tea.

So the latest (and my last) Postal Teas box included teas from this company. I’m pretty puzzled, since black licorice is definitely one of those polarizing flavours that some people just always hate. So why would you include it in a subscription box? Unless you’re not trying to entice people to your brand so much as you’re trying to get rid of old stock that’s not selling.

Anyway. I’m one of those people who do like black licorice so this is something that might work for me, but the smell of the dry tea is… odd. And the smell of the steeped tea is… still odd. Definitely a bit licorice-y, but not a lot. The taste is… like, I can taste what I’m coming to think of as “generic cheap ceylon base tea”, and I can taste the licorice root (which doesn’t actually taste anything like black licorice), and there’s this sort of… old, musty, herbal tea kind of flavour. And there’s some astringency building up in my mouth. Nope, do not like.

Finally trying this purple green tea. :) The dry leaves are quite dark, look more like black tea than anything else. Once steeped, they look a bit greener. The tea liquor is kind of a light brown, looks almost like a darker oolong or maybe a really light black tea. But then it smells and tastes very green. :) I’m getting more of a spinachy than grassy flavour, with a lovely creamy mouthfeel that makes it kind of like spinach cooked in butter. Definitely some astringency building as I get down to the bottom of the cup, a real drying sensation on the sides of my mouth, but it’s not bitter or unpleasant. It’s a pretty good, fairly robust green tea, but not the sort of thing that I crave very often.

I had these yesterday, so this is from memory. 3 pearls (at about 1g each) in 10oz of boiling water x 3min. So the thing I found most interesting about this was that the brewed tea smelled like chocolate-covered raisins, but the wet tea leaves smelled super earthy. Like, puer level earthiness. The actual flavour of the tea is sort of a combination of both – smooth, earthy, a bit sweet, with raisin and chocolate notes. Yummy, easy to drink. Second steeping at 5min was lighter and a bit less chocolatey, but still good. Third steeping at 8min was slightly-sweet hot water, lol, can’t win ‘em all. :) Overall, this was pretty decent for the price (especially on sale) – I’ll probably restock when these run out.

Ok, this is a Tea Sparrow sample from Silver Service, but it sounds the same as this blend so I’m going to put this note here. I finished off the sample by cold brewing it overnight (spring is here! I finally don’t feel the need to have hot tea all the time!). Very tasty! Fruity and floral, quite refreshing, great cold. I’m a little disappointed this is a sipdown!