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Completely in love. Just like hot chocolate, without all the sugar. Delicious with a splash of 1% dairy milk. I don’t know how Teeccino does it, but they are magical.

This is from last week. I got this one in my August Sips By box.
I brewed it gongfu style, using spring water at around 190 degrees F, 10 seconds for initial rinse, 35-40 seconds for each subsequent drinking steep.
Leaves are huge and beautiful to look at once open. The liquor is a surprisingly light brown color, considering that this is such a heavily oxidized oolong.
I got notes of delicious roasted nuts, minerals, chocolate, and baked bread in the first two to three steeps. The flavor trailed off slowly after that. I got about 6 steeps in before the leaves were totally spent.
This was an amazing tea.

I smell something faintly and pleasantly floral in the liquor. I’m thinking it’s the astragalus.
Dominant flavor notes in the sip are earth and roasted nuts/ barley.
It’s not too sweet, despite the figs and dates, which is fine with me.
I added a bit of milk to it.
I taste maple very slightly in the aftertaste.
It’s kind of a delicate cuppa, and not overly flavorful.
I don’t think I’d buy it again, but it’s definitely drinkable.

Tastes like peachy cough medicine.

These are a little kooky, perhaps…. herbal/ mushroom tea that tastes like coffee?
When I tore open the packet, I inhaled the dry leaf and got a whiff of cinnamon, but there was an earthy, umami quality to it that reminded me of tomato sauce, almost. Is that weird?
It steeped a delicious orangey-red color, and I got notes of cinnamon, earth, and herbal bitters. It DOES taste a lot like cinnamon coffee, and it holds up to milk quite well. People who like pu-erh would enjoy this one as a caffeine-free option.

Apparently I was super grouchy and snobby when I first reviewed this tea— so I’m upping my rating on it now.
Normally unflavored green teas are not my thing, but I do sometimes make exceptions for Japanese green teas. This one is rather nice. I love buttery sencha as a base, and the addition of the matcha gives it just the right amount of umami. This was also relatively low-maintenance with steeping, which was nice as well.

Catspring sent me a free single teabag of this blend to try with the rest of my order.

It’s very smooth. At first, it tastes very similar to any nondescript bagged green tea, with a tiny little twinge of pleasant sourness in the aftertaste. The longer I let it steep though, the more it started to remind me of raspberry leaf. It has the same sort of mouthfeel.

What makes this blend special though is the soothing experience of drinking it. There’s something about yaupon that just feels healthy and right. Maybe it’s the way the liquor holds the water temp— yaupon infusions seem to stay warmer longer than regular tea— or maybe it’s the mildness of the flavor.

Unflavored green teas are not my thing personally, so I much prefer Catspring’s Marfa Dark Roast and Lost Maples Medium Roast yaupon options, but this was definitely not bad.

Has a broth-y mouthfeel to it. This one is heavy on the fennel and ginger, with the peppermint giving it a little bit of a green, cooling edge in the aftertaste. I do wish I were getting more of the dandelion and rosemary.

Tried in teabag form— will try the loose leaf form later.
I quite like this so far. The best part is the scents the liquor gives off. It’s more floral than Catspring’s Marfa dark roast blend, and I do get a faint note of maple/ caramel as well. It’s a nice balance of toasty and green, kind of like an oolong, but nowhere near as high maintenance to steep. I left the bag in the water for ages and it didn’t oversteep at all.
Notes of toasted bread, grass, and hay in the sip. Not smoky or tannic at all.
Yum!

I really wish they sold this one in grocery stores… but alas. I’ve been meaning to try it for a long time now, and since I’m on a bit of a “coffee alternative” kick with yaupon and mate in the mornings and caffeine-free herbal alternatives like dandelion and chicory in the afternoons, I finally gritted my teeth and paid the $6 Amazon wants for a single box of it. My grocery store sells other CS blends for like $2 or $3 a box. T-T
The dry teabag smelled very strongly of cinnamon and not much else. However, the SECOND the hot water hit it, the liquor released a very strong roasted barley scent, in addition to the cinnamon. The scent was very faintly reminiscent of coffee, but it really reminds me more of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, minus the sugary component.
Once I sipped, I tasted the anise, barley, chicory, and cinnamon. Didn’t get much in the way of carob or allspice.
Overall, this tea tastes like biscotti. I see what CS was going for here, and it’s a very pleasant, warming, roast-y cuppa, but it doesn’t taste like coffee and doesn’t satisfy the 2:00 PM coffee urge the way that Teeccino’s Dandelion Dark Roast does.
Still, I’m not mad at it. I’ll definitely enjoy the rest of the box and maybe even consider re-stocking it, if I can continue to get it online.