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When I need something strong to get me through a difficult morning, I call for balls. (God I love saying that!)

I’m tired and achy so this tea is perfect comfort tea.

The tea is a brilliant chartreuse with little pieces of bright green popped rice and roasted rice kernels. It brews up into a pale cloudy green brew that smells delightfully roasty and has a light rounded roasted, slightly salty taste. There are other notes that have a very light sweetness to them as well.

When I visited Dream About Tea in Chicago I asked the proprietor for advice about Pu-erh. I told him that I hadn’t found any I truly liked and that they upset my stomach. He asked what I had tried and so I told him the most recent experiment Tuocha: Camel’s Breath. He told me that Tuocha is made with broken leaves and that I would likely enjoy full leafed pu-erhs better. This rang so true for me I felt like slapping myself for not realizing it. Afterall, I prefer full leaf teas of every other sort of tea, why not pu-erh? I asked him for a recommendation for a beginner pu-erh tea and he showed me this one.

I rinsed it with hot water and then brewed it for 30 seconds (as per directions found on the web). Brewed up it smells like a combination of honey, light sweet fruits and apricot. The taste is very light, though that may be due to the 30 second brew time. I am looking forward to the second steeping which I may do a longer steep. There is no bitterness, no compost like taste. Just a sweet good tea. I really like this one.

Second Steeping: 45 seconds this time. It has stronger notes of honey and apricots.

It smells wonderful in the bag, like candy. It brews up into a slighly murky, light brown liquid that smells of coconut and some kind of sweet spice. As advertised, it pretty much tastes like a candy bar as well. I will probably steep it longer next time to get a stronger the tea and chocolate taste from it, but so far I like it.

I haven’t liked most of the rooibos teas I’ve tried, but this one is quite good. It doesn’t have the dusty taste I’ve come to associate with rooibos, though it does dry my mouth a bit, but that’s ok. It has a strong scent of Bourbon vanilla, which is one of my favorite vanillas. In the cup the vanilla and rooibos combine to create a creamy delicious whole.

It’s nice to have a soothing non-caffeinated choice for evening drinks.

I love this tea. It brews up into a sweetly scented pale copper colored liquor. It smells and tastes as if a few drops of a Midori had been added to the tea. It is a lovely, luxurious taste.

My giant half pound bag of Sinharaja arrived. When I saw it I feared I’d made a terrible mistake. What if I’d been overly optimistic about the tea? A few sips dispelled that. It is still smooth, sweet, and delicious. If aliens came and took every other tea, I could be content drinking nothing but this. Mmmm!

I’ve been waiting for another “Be Brave” day to try Lapsang Souchong. I like the salty, smoky way it smells dry but I have a hard time seeing it as a tea. I can picture using it as a marinade over seitan or tofu and I may try that at a later point.

I brewed it light with less leaves than I normally do and for less time, just 3:30 minutes. (It smelled so strong in the sample, I couldn’t imagine doing my normal kamikaze tea routine.)

It brews up into a light honey colored amber, though I’m sure that if i brewed it for four or five minutes it would be darker. It has a campfire smell that is reminiscent of smoked food, as someone said it smells like bacon or smoked meats. It has a light sharpness in the smoky taste. I can definitely see using this tea in cooking, especially to soak seitan or tofu in. I don’t mind it too much as a tea drink, either. Though I put it in the same category as drinking pickle juice: something fun and strange to do to wake up my taste buds, but not an everyday quaff.