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Now that I’ve brewed this differently, it’s pretty amazing. It’s recommended to use boiling water and steep for 3 minutes, but I found the blackcurrant flavour to be pretty weak last night when I did that.

This morning I steeped with cooler water, and for 4 minutes. And, perfection! It tastes like those British blackcurrant-and-licorice candies, without the licorice. Since I prefer most of my black teas with milk and honey, this one is pretty much no exception. The honey brings out a sweet candy flavour, and the milk makes it even more delicious. The black tea base is pretty unassuming, and hasn’t bittered or gone astringent at all.

I hope this fares well in a mug! I’ll test that later today while annoying my mom – she loves the candy, but can’t stand flavoured tea! I can hardly wait to see what her reaction is.

I’m pleasantly surprised by this tea! I asked, and was warned that it can turn quite bitter if it’s not watched, so I was careful with it. I’m not 100% sure of the water temperature, but I waited about 5-7 minutes then poured the water into my unheated mug, and pushed the tea basket down into the water.

I’ve decided to copy Kittenna by loading up my Contigo travel mugs with different teas, and decided to test this one out in this manner tonight just for kicks.

It is pretty darn awesome. The only tea basket I have that fits these narrower mugs isn’t as fine as I’d like, and there were a lot of floaties in the tea that made me worried. It wasn’t super strawberry flavoured hot, but as it’s cooled down a bit (about 1.5 hours in my mug!) the strawberry has come out. It’s backed nicely by the slightly grassy green tea flavour, and there’s definitely something else in there that’s sweetened. Candied pineapple or papaya? Something that starts with a P…

This is going to be an AWESOME mug tea for me to haul around from campus to campus and sip. Yay!

(Steep 2: Still good! Less strawberry, more green tea. I steeped for 3 minutes with IDEK what temperature the water was, as I used kettle leftovers from something else!)

Yay! I used this one up, then got more. I really really like this tea.

It wasn’t quite enough to make up for having to go to calculus class this morning, though. I don’t know what would be. Maybe I’ll try a matcha latte on Friday.

As for my neck, I have a protruding disc that is pressing against a nerve bundle. The pain comes and goes, and all I can really take for it is naproxen or advil. Whee. I started physio today, and will use up all my massage/chiro/physio/acupuncture moneys for this, as I’ll be doing physio twice a week for 6 weeks (or more). :/ (In BC we get 12 combined visits at a reduced rate if we’re poor, and I have an extended plan with my university that covers an extra $300 per year. That’s an extra 3-4 appointments.) There goes all my tea money!

I infinitely prefer later steeps of this tisane. I’m sipping a first steep right now that was 3 minutes, and that is still too long for me. The vanilla is very boozy and in my face, there isn’t a lot of almond flavour, and it’s almost bitter the chicory is so strong. It brewed up super dark/strong in only three minutes. Next time I start fresh I’ll try 2 minutes.

The more resteeps I do, though, the more I like it. The last time I did 5 steeps (dumping the first long steep), and enjoyed all of them. And resteeps are good because this stuff is heavy and therefore somewhat expensive! I might dump out this first steep and do another for 3 minutes.

Hmm. I don’t know what’s up with this one, but I disagree with the “tawny tips” in their comments about the tea.

Otherwise, it’s a good basic black tea that I’ll probably drink with honey and milk. I had it this morning and steeped for the recommended 3 minutes. The flavour isn’t as bold as I generally like in a morning tea, but it was not astringent or bitter at all. Very smooth. I didn’t get rose from it, but that’s possibly due to my additions and possibly because I just don’t like rose in my tea.

This is one I hope my mom picks up for me again next Christmas. She has a good taste for plain black teas, even though she’s super picky! (I just visited, and I brought 8 teas for a tea tasting. She liked one. Dad liked most of them.)

The nice thing about doing Christmas this late is that I now have enough money for one of those programmable water heaters! I have my eye on a 3L one at a local Asian market. I hope they have another sale coming up soon!

I received a sample of this in an order. Simply put, I don’t love it. I’m not even sure if I like it.

Dry, it smells strongly of, yes, cookie dough. It’s chocolatey and a little vanilla-y. Brewed for 4 minutes, it smells strongly of baking chocolate chip cookies. It smells like it’s going to be sweet and amazing, but it’s not. I tasted it plain, but the cookie dough flavour barely comes through the somewhat bitter, astringent white tea base. I added some honey to see if that would help, then added some cream. I’m left with a bitter white tea that smells strongly of baking cookies.

I don’t think I’ll be buying any of this one. :/

Edit: As it cools I’m getting the cookie dough flavour on the back of my tongue, but I still don’t like it. It’s almost an aftertaste. I think I’ll be having something else to clear my palate after I finish this.

I discovered a trick! Soy creamer doesn’t curdle in this tea…

Steeped 1 minute, with honey and soy creamer. The cream tones down the lemon flavour a bit, and the black tea base doesn’t have time to bitter when you do a super short steep. I will have to add this to my Morning Hot Teas list…

Steep 2: PERFECT. 4 minutes with used stuff, and this is amazing. I preemptively put a whole teaspoon of honey in it, which wasn’t really needed. The vanilla has toned down so it’s less of a punch in the face, and the almond and chicory are blending really well.

I think I need to do a shorter initial steep, then plan on resteeping the “leaves” a few times in an evening.

I was pleasantly surprised by this tea! A friend loves it, so I included it in a recent order for her… and then I stole a sample tin before I handed it over.

The green tea is really quite mild, and it smells strongly of apples. Normally I don’t like rose in my tea, but in this one it’s really good. I’m not sure how to distinguish everything, but it’s an appley, nutty, floral, slightly green tea. Yum! If it has indeed been discontinued (it’s not available in the local stores, but it’s also not in the Last Chance section of the website), I might add 50 or 100g of it to my next order.