Cameron B. select Send Message

I assume this much have been from the subscription box, as I am not a huge fan of coconut so I can’t imagine ordering this blend. There are huge flakes of unsweetened coconut in it, so naturally I was nervous about not knowing how old the pouch is. But generally it’s very obvious from the smell when coconut has gone rancid, and fortunately this smells perfectly pleasant.

As a coconut tolerator, and not a coconut lover, I’m pleasantly surprised that the coconut is fairly light here, just a supporting flavor. The milk oolong is fairly basic, without much depth to it, but it’s still a pleasant combination. There are mild grassy, leafy notes and of course a smooth creamy flavor. At the tail end of the sip, a light peachy note emerges, and it remains in the aftertaste.

It’s not complex, but nice enough to sip on in the evening. The light coconut flavor melds nicely with the creamy oolong for a decadent tea.

This surprisingly came out a little bitter despite being steeped for only 2.5 minutes…

This tea is a bit older (as most of my teas are at this point), and at this point it’s mostly just a generic genmaicha. Although looking at my previous note, it seems like I didn’t find much apple flavor when it was new either.

I do like genmaicha, so I don’t mind, but I have much tastier genmaicha in my cupboard. Sorry, B&B, this one just isn’t special to me.

This is the only Kusmi tea I have in sachet form. I think I bought it during a sale or something? Their sachets are really cool, made of linen with a cloth string and no staples. Fancy.

This tea is a bit… blah. The flavoring is very mild and the base tea unremarkable. It’s a little bit too light for me, and I’m sure its age hasn’t improved it either. As far as the red fruits, mostly I taste the cherry and raspberry here. Having never tried redcurrants, I’m not sure I would recognize their flavor.

Having a Dammann tea similar to this one that I prefer, I’m not sure what to do with the remaining sachets. Maybe I’ll put them in my big ’ol bag of wrapped tea bags that I keep for travelling…

Sad sipdown… Yunomi doesn’t seem to carry this flavor anymore, unfortunately.

This isn’t quite as good as it once was, but it still has that yummy cinnamon toast flavor that I love. I’ll have to look into recreating this flavor profile in the future, as I assume I won’t be able to get this tea again. Maybe I could add cinnamon stick to a nice bready Yunnan tea.

I will miss you, tasty cinnamon toast tea… :(

I had half of a sample packet of this inside an empty Adagio fandom mini tin. I was shocked that there was no entry on Steepster… I feel bad being the only one to write a note for it, since I’m drinking it Western style, and lazily at that. Looking at the website, it looks like I ordered in March of last year, so at least it’s not that terribly old…?

Regardless, this is super delicious. I love the amount of oxidation here, it’s such a good middle ground between too green and floral (for me) and highly oxidized. It retains some of those nice green and fresh mineral notes but has a lovely rich bready and dried fruit flavor too. There are also some strong honeyed fig notes which are to die for! Maybe a hint of cinnamon as well? And of course, the lovely thick and silky mouthfeel that is a hallmark of oolong.

Nom nom nom!

Another tea from my Dammann advent order. This is one of the few Noël teas that I haven’t tried yet, and the flavor combination sounded lovely, so in the cart it went! It’s listed as an apple, peach, pear, and mirabelle plum black tea with hazelnut and chestnut. I’ve never had a mirabelle plum before, except as preserves, but I love all plums and stonefruit in general, so this seems right up my alley! The smell is very sweet mixed stonefruits, and I would almost guess there was vanilla as well.

This steeped up very light in flavor, which I think is well-suited to the mix of fruits here. The strongest notes are the apple, which is crisp and somewhat tart, and the juicy plum. The peach sort of melds into the plum, being quite similar, and I don’t think I’m tasting pear here at all. I also can’t pick out any nutty notes. The base tea is generic and unassuming, a good foil for the lovely fruit flavors. There’s a tad bit of tannic astringency, which sort of enforces the idea of apple and stonefruit skin on the tongue. And perhaps a hint of floral at the tail end of the sip from the rose petals?

Overall, I’m very happy with it, as the plum flavor is quite pronounced and not overshadowed by the peach. This would be a lovely choice as a light afternoon or early evening tea. I definitely don’t get any Christmas-y association from it, but I’ve also never been to St. Petersburg! ;)

This is my last sachet of this flavor.

I really enjoy these fruit barley teas, the coffee-like deep roasted barley has such an interesting interplay with the sweet fruit flavor. In this case it’s a crisp green apple, and it’s sort of similar to a Jolly Rancher. But for some reason, it works for me. There’s a clear sweetness from the barley, which also helps temper the roast a little bit. Such a nice cozy and satisfying tea for the evening…

I don’t feel the need the restock this one, as I prefer some of the other flavors – namely the watermelon, lychee, and pineapple versions. And I have plenty of those from my Lupicia panic order. XD

All I’m getting from this tea is smoke and maybe a hint of burnt sugar.

I’m not sure if it’s because it has a “best by” date in 2019, or if I’m just not a fan.

Either way, meh.

I have a drawer full of old Bird & Blend subscription packs. I just signed up for it again, so I’d better get cracking on drinking them! I love grapefruit and this smelled amazing in the pouch, so I pulled this one out to try.

It’s pretty good. The grapefruit flavor is nice and tastes accurate to me. But what keeps it from being amazing is a little too much hibiscus. I can appreciate that hibiscus makes sense here, since grapefruit is sour, but I would like this blend a lot more if there was about half the amount. And the green tea is a little pointless, I can’t taste it at all, but I suppose they need a base for the flavoring.

Still tasty enough though!

So I placed a Dammann Frères order because I wanted the advent calendar, and I figured if I was going to pay €15 in shipping I might as well add on a few teas for good measure. Don’t ask me how I ended up with three green teas, but here we are.

I was surprised to find there wasn’t an entry for this tea. It’s a pineapple, mint, and lime green tea which I would think would be a winning combo. I’m always happy to find a tea that has pineapple without coconut.

For some reason, this came out quite bland? I’m not sure how that happened. The dry leaf has a strong aroma, but the steeped tea is extremely light, on both the base tea and the added flavors. I can taste a little bit of pineapple and a little bit of generic green tea but not much else. Hmm…

I’m perplexed, and I think I’ll skip the rating for now in case I accidentally picked the wrong temperature on the kettle or something… :/