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I got this tea in a stash sale, and I had to try it today because the smell of it was so incredible. I think that some flavors got muddled in shipping, even with the good packaging, because it smells very different this morning in my little sealed glass jar—still good, just no longer good enough to eat out of the bag.

The smell coming off the brew is overwhelmingly molasses, smoked blackstrap molasses. It reminds me strongly of making molasses “tea” for those days when one needs an iron boost.

Taking a sip, and the scents are represented perfectly in the flavor. It’s a complex, layered sort of flavor, with molasses dominating the mouth, then a caramely sort of sweetness hitting the middle of the tongue. The smoky flavor seems to be carried on the molasses, but doesn’t hit for a couple of seconds. There’s a dry finish at the end I could do without, and it seems to be getting worse as the brew cools. Ah well, I should be drinking more water anyway.

More information on additional steeps later.

Okay, off topic now. Since I don’t have a blog or journal or anything, this review is going to have to act as such.

I’m sort of having a tea identity crisis, and it’s making me see why people start making their own blends. For so long, I thought that the chippy, black, bitter teas that most shops put in blends were good. I enjoyed those teas mixed with peach essence or whatever with calendula leaves to make people think of peaches when they drank it.

Now I’m trying these blacks, and they’re so smooth and complex on their own. And while I will always, always love a good blend, how can I go back to what I was drinking before? Is this the end of my beloved Peachy Black or Coconut Cream? Do I go back for a bit and find a way to rediscover my old favorites, or am I one of those people now that can only get tea from online vendors? I loved going into tea shops and smelling all the teas and collecting everything that smelled good to me, but I’m learning now that smell does not necessarily correspond to taste.

What does everyone else do when they discover stuff like this? How does everyone curate their collection? What thought processes go on behind decisions like “I should keep a couple of ounces of this around” and “meh, I can stand to let this one run out” and “I have to keep a supply of this to keep for the rest of my life”?

I’ve got this huge project due tomorrow night, so I’ve spent the entire weekend chained to the desk and drinking tea. I wanted to start off this morning with something high quality, but I also felt like checking a tea off my cabinet, so I chose one of the free samples from Soleil.

The first thing I noticed about this tea is the smell. It’s an aroma that I’ve only noticed on a sheng before, which is squash and a sort of burnt brown sugar. Sometimes I can smell a bit of almond in there like the website suggests, but it’s very faint. I think butternut squash is predominant for me.

For flavor, there is the slightest, SLIGHTEST hint of bitterness, but it’s a smooth bitterness. I honestly didn’t know there was a difference between good bitterness and bad before this morning. There’s a tangy astringency that lingers on the back of the palate that reminds me of cranberries, but I wouldn’t say that the tea tastes like cranberries. The chocolate notes seem to build the more sips I take.

There’s something buttery about the mouthfeel.

I like this tea. I think it would be interesting to defile it with a bit of sugar and milk. But I don’t think I would order it to keep around.

Edit 1: Second steep added a bit of raw Ohio Fall Harvest, and suddenly I’m drinking a slice of whole wheat toast with a bit of honey butter.

Edit 2: Third steep with 1 demerara cube and the tiniest touch of half and half, and it’s a delicate honey breakfast tea. I have to say that I am loving the diversity. I’ll probably take it back to black after this to see what has happened in the last couple of steeps.

Edit 3: Fourth steep black, and there isn’t much left. It’s sugary sweet though, with honey notes, a tiny bit of chocolate, and maybe some cinnamon. But the leaf is almost spent.

Steeped at 175 for 2 minutes this time. Much better. There’s no soap or bitterness. There’s hay, and I think there’s some corn in there, which was a nice surprise.

There’s still that weird, SO slightly bitter effervescence that I described as minty last time. I don’t know what that is, but I don’t like it much. Dryness in the back of the throat is still going on here.

I can imagine some people liking this tea, but this one just isn’t for me.

We’re working through Blue Spice this morning, apparently.

The green base on this is nice, a little toasty, a little tangy, and subtle. I haven’t really had enough plain greens to be able to talk about them on their own. This one isn’t vegetal at all, for which I am grateful, as I don’t think I prefer vegetal, or maybe just certain vegetables. It does leave the back of my throat a bit dry, however.

Anyway, the strawberry is nice as well, but a little false-tasting.

This tea is okay, but not great.

I don’t know what I was thinking when I picked this tea out from the shop. I was probably thinking “that smells nice” in a way that I wanted to take a bath in it, not drink it. I’d say the blend is about 40% lavender flowers, which is reflected in the scent of the dry leaf. I have given samples to my oolong loving relatives often enough that I have time to review this one cup and move on.

It’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be, but since I use lavender when I take a bubble bath, this is a lot how I would imagine just leaning down to take a sip of my bath water. Lavender. Drinking this tea is like drinking lavender. There’s some tea flavor in the background somewhere, hiding like a child hides from the school bully. I didn’t want him to get bitter, so I left the steep low and short, but now I wonder if there was something I could have done to bring him out of his shell.

If you love, and I mean LOVE drinking lavender, this may be the tea for you.

I’m running around my kitchen brewing cup after cup of Lapsang Souchong and Russian Caravan for a smoky tofu recipe compare and contrast, and I figured I might as well brew a tea I’m actually going to drink tonight.

The base is light, and I can tell that it could easily be oversteeped. I only stepped this one for 3 minutes, and it’s JUST got a hint of bitterness. It’s getting more bitter as it cools. What’s up with that?

The tea’s crowning glory is the strawberry flavor, which is present but not overpowering. Margaret seems to do fruit flavors well. I’ve had fruit flavors that taste like lipstick, and this isn’t one of them.

Oh this is just what The Doctor ordered. That’s right, The Doctor. I’ve got the Russel T. Davies era on in the background while I work, and I needed something sweet and understated, so no Mexican Wedding Cookie for me today.

The base is smooth, with no bitterness or astringency. Which is great, because the teas I’ve been drinking lately have all been coming out REALLY bitter, so it’s nice to know that I am still physically capable of making a cup of tea. This is the first tea that I’ve come across with a natural cocoa flavor, and I have to say that I am loving it. It’s warm and a little cinnamony in a way that reminds me of Mexican chocolate. There’s just a touch of maltiness that reminds me of a milkshake, but make no mistake, this tea is nothing like a milkshake.

Then there’s the vanilla. It’s so simple, and you can tell that it’s really nice vanilla.

It’s out of stock now, but I hope it comes back. This is something I want to keep in my cabinet.

Edit: On a third brew (my dad took the second) the vanilla is pretty much gone, but it’s all chocolate sweet goodness from here on out. Would it be sacrilege to make this into an ice cream?

I feel like I start all my reviews off this way, but this was my first sencha. The tea was extremely light. I could barely taste the tea base, but that may have been because I had just finished dinner, which was cajun roasted chicken, so my tastebuds were probably blown out from that.

The cherry was nice and natural tasting, not too artificial, and definitely light. I had to kind of breathe it up against my palate to get a stronger dose of the flavoring.

I think this will be a tea I’m keeping around.

Well, I’m an idiot. As I pulled this tea out and smelled it, I kept thinking, “This is not like any Darjeeling I’ve encountered.” Well, of course I haven’t had many Darjeelings outside of Twinings, so there you go.

I was expecting black tea. Instead, the leaves are greenish white, and the tea has that hay smell. Luckily I used my good sense and decided NOT to brew this like a black tea. I still steeped it a little high…190º for 2.5 mins. Luckily, I didn’t kill it.

It’s smooth, with a bit of the flavor and bitterness of black tea. There’s something about the aftertaste of it that reminds me of mint and soap, though I can’t think why. It’s very faint, and only mildly annoying. It’s probably my fault. There’s a little hay in there and a mild, mild, mild astringency.

A shorter, cooler steep of the same leaves reveals the same flavors at a lower strength. Overall, I’d say, “Meh.”

I went to get the smallest offering of this tea, but there wasn’t enough left for the full size. So the person working there was nice enough to give this to me as a free sample. I’m not sure if the fact that the tea was sitting at the bottom of the tin affected this blend. I’m probably willing to get it again and try.

First of all, the leaves are very dark and extremely oily looking. This is the oiliest looking tea I have ever seen. It has a lot of nuts in it (pecan?) and brown sugar, and the smell is intoxicating…again. This is the third dessert tea I have had from Petali, and I haven’t been burned yet, so here goes.

The smell comes through as more caramel and nuts than the other dessert teas by Petali. Definitely that caramel pecan cinnamon roll at Cinnabon that will kill you if you so much as look at it. No surprise, but once it’s brewed, it has that oily sheen on top.
It’s sweet to the point where I feel like I put sugar in it myself—maybe a lump and a half. Again, this could be because it was at the bottom of the tin. The tea base is pretty weak, and I brewed it at a pretty strong concentration. The only hints of it I get are a bit of astringency on the back of the palate.

As to the flavorings: personally, I would call this tea Pancake Breakfast. Maple and pecan are pleasant and strong, as is the brown sugar of course. It also tastes buttery and caramely, with splashes of vanilla thrown in. My favorite part is that it doesn’t taste artificial. I mean, it is strong and obviously artificial, as you can’t get tea to taste like that by throwing bits of artisan-made pancake in, but it doesn’t feel like it should have the word “blast” in the title. Know what I mean?

If I’m looking to eat dessert and not eat 3000 calories of cinnamon bun, I’m definitely going for this, I think. It’s great for satisfying a sweet tooth.

If I’m looking to drink tea, I’m staying far away.