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Lewis & Clarke TTB

Vanilla is one of my favorite flavors, so I had to try this one. :D The leaves are pretty generic-looking black tea leaves. It smells very sweet and vanilla custardy, but there’s also another smell that I’m having a hard time placing. I know, it reminds me of those vanilla-flavored calcium chews! Lol…

Brewed, it smells like vanilla custard, om nom nom! To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed by the lack of vanilla flavor in my cup. I’m not sure whether I didn’t get any vanilla bean or what, but it pretty much tastes like a mediocre black tea with a hint of vanilla at the end. :( Sad day.

Lewis & Clarke TTB

Yum, chocolate black tea & puerh blend? Sounds tasty. This one is in sachets. The leaf is fairly small with some larger sticks in it, and a few yellow flower petals. It smells lovely and chocolatey! The instructions say 1 sachet for 16 ounces, but I didn’t listen because I’m a rebel… Lol. I did 8 ounces for mine.

Brewed aroma is chocolatey and brisk with just a little hint of puerh “pond” smell. Well, it didn’t come out super bitter so I guess the 8 ounces of water was okay. :P I actually quite like this one. The chocolate and the puerh go together very well and the flavoring seems like part of the tea. The puerh gives that lovely almost woody quality that I’ve experienced with Mandala’s shou, while the black tea is just generally malty and somewhat brisk. There’s a little bit of mineral quality to this, but it’s not strong enough to bother me. Overall, pretty tasty! :)

Lewis & Clarke TTB

Okay, this just sounded interesting. And no one has tried it yet, so I’m exploring uncharted territory! Lol. Visually, it definitely looks like chunks of dried root, similar to dried ginger root or something similar. Dry scent is quite earthy and musty with some similarities to hay or straw. Maybe a bit of bran? There were no instructions regarding steep time or water temperature, so I just went with boiling for 5 minutes, which is what I generally do for herbals.

Brewed, it smells pleasantly roasty and reminds me of sunflower seeds or peanuts in the shell, and maybe bran flakes?

AHHHH I HATE WAITING FOR TEA TO COOL!

Ahem. The taste reminds me of peanut or sunflower seed shells. Somewhat musty, somewhat roasty, a bit woody? Definitely dead-on for sunflower or peanut shells. There’s a bit of similarity to houjicha but with less roast and more wood. Interesting, and not at all unpleasant! And apparently rich in fatty acids! Lol. :)

Lewis & Clarke TTB

First off, I really like that Brenden separated this into individual servings, it makes it so easy. And I love that they have quotes on them! Cute.

Leaves are smallish and very dark, and they’re long and twisty. Dry scent is quite sweet with a lot of malt and some fruitiness. The aroma is very fruity with a lovely burnt sugar scent. There’s also some dark bread with honey in there too.

I think the tablespoon of tea is a bit much for 8 ounces, but it didn’t come out bitter. This is very strong malt with some dark bread and molasses. I can also taste a dark fruitiness underneath that is very concentrated and reminds me of raisins without the sweetness. The end of the sip mellows out a little bit more and goes more into bready territory, which is lovely.

Overall, this tea is tasty but I don’t feel the need to order it because I already have two of the three teas it’s composed of. :)

Lewis & Clarke TTB

First of all, these Tea at Sea tins are the cutest thing ever… :P On a more general note, I’m going to try to keep my tasting notes somewhat short because there are so many teas in this box that I want to try.

This tea is fairly unique-looking, I don’t think I’ve seen a rolled black tea before. It smells sweet, fruity, and grainy with a touch of hay. The aroma is similar to the Sansia Black I had this morning – very fruity with molasses, but this one has a touch of caramelized brown sugar too, and a touch of bread.

Taste-wise, I really like this one! It’s a bit musty and mineral at the beginning of the sip, but it quickly mellows out to a lovely and delicious grainy bread flavor that reminds me of white tea. I don’t notice a lot of the fruit from the aroma, maybe a little bit if I try really hard! There’s definitely a honey sweetness over the top, which does perfectly with the creamy grain/bread taste. Lovely! I would absolutely buy this one, especially with the cute tin!

I bought this from Ost in her stash sale, thanks dear! I can’t help myself when it comes to Taiwanese black teas, or Butiki teas in general. The leaves of this tea are much smaller than the other Taiwanese teas I’ve had from Stacy, I imagine because this one is a different varietal (not Assam?). They do have a similar look – jet black and twisty. Dry scent is sweet and fruity, maybe plums along with other dried fruits.

Whoa, when brewed this tea smells very dark and fruity with a touch of molasses. The taste is also mostly fruit to me, but in a dark and syrupy concentrated way. I can definitely taste plums/prunes along with some other dried fruits. The fruit is accented by a mixture of deep, rich molasses and a bit of lighter honey with a little bit of a floral note. I can taste a slight yeasty tang that reminds me of sourdough bread, and it definitely adds a bit of interest.

Overall, this is a nice enough tea, but I think it’s my least favorite of Stacy’s Taiwanese blacks so far.

Aw, sad sipdown…

I really really want to order more of this one before it’s all gone, but I also want some more Laoshan Black Chocolate Genmaicha and it’s out of stock right now… So I need to decide whether it’s worth it to me to pay shipping twice and get this now or wait and have it possibly be gone. Hmm…

This was one of the free samples included in my Han Xiang Ecological Tea order on AliExpress. I’m not the hugest fan of floral teas, but jasmine can be an exception to that rule. These pearls look and smell like others I’ve had – the scent is strongly sweet and jasminey. I set the timer for 3 minutes but I didn’t hear it go off because the TV was too loud… So I’m not sure how long it steeped. It came out lovely though, so I guess it’s hard to oversteep this tea.

Now, it may have just been a while since I’ve had a jasmine tea, but I’m enjoying this one immensely! The jasmine is pronounced but still very lovely and sweet. There seems to be a fruity note that’s similar to apricot, not sure I’ve experienced that in a jasmine pearl before. I can only taste the green tea slightly, it’s quite mild and sweet and melds nicely with the jasmine. Overall, very tasty and appreciated! :)

I bought this one during Stacy’s birthday sale, and it’s been sitting in my cupboard, waiting to be tried, ever since. Now that I’ve reached my cupboard goal of under 100 teas, I’ve been going a bit crazy with drinking Butiki teas for the past couple of days… :P Butterscotch is one of my absolute favorite flavors, so this one was a no-brainer when I was making my order. The White Rhino buds are huge and beautiful, half golden and half dark. There are also a lot of flower petals mixed in, I assume for visual interest? Dry scent is very sweet and candylike, primarily butterscotch but I can smell a hint of mocha too. I imagine Stacy giggling with mischievous glee when writing some of these instructions… “level teaspoons” for this tea… not exactly possible. :P I just kind of guestimated what two teaspoons would look like.

Yum! Brewed, this tea smells very similar to the butterscotch disc candies that I love so much. I can also smell the hazelnut and a bit of coffee. I must say, the flavor was much lighter than I was expecting, since I had heard White Rhino described as somewhere between white and black teas. The butterscotch is definitely the main attraction, and it’s perfectly dead-on for butterscotch candies. The texture is very creamy and smooth, and I attribute that to the nuttiness from the hazelnut flavor. I must say, I don’t really detect any coffee or chocolate, but I definitely don’t miss it. The base tea itself is rather silent as well, though I do catch a bit of grain and I’m sure it contributes to the creamy texture.

I can imagine this being delicious and decadent with a bit of sugar or even a bit of soy milk, but I’m currently trying to abstain from adding things to tea. Still delicious au naturel!

On a side note, this is my 400th tasting note! Woo!

So now that I’m under 100 teas, I seem to be going on a Butiki rampage without even noticing it… This is a much-beloved tea that I hadn’t tried yet so I figured I should get it over with and see whether it lives up to the hype! The leaves are the lovely creepy tree branch variety – large, long, and twisty, and jet black. The dry scent is sweet in an almost caramel way with some honey and a bit of stonefruit or something similar. I wish there was a weight parameter for this tea, as it’s extremely hard to measure in teaspoons. I think I may have overleafed but it’s hard to tell having never tried it before…

The brewed aroma still has those strong sugary caramel notes, along with sweet potato and a bit of dark fruitiness. Happily for me, I can also taste caramelized brown sugar and a bit of caramel, especially in the end of the sip and aftertaste. Yums! This is a very rich tea, with nice dark dried fruit flavor along with some molasses-like richness. There is a point in the sip where it’s almost bitter but not quite, I’m not sure if this is from overleafing or just part of the dark cocoa flavor that’s also present.

Overall, this is tasty but I’m not convinced that it warrants its high rating. I definitely enjoyed the Taiwanese Wild Mountain Black much more. Ah well, to each her own. :)