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Making this as the first thing I’ve made in my brand new Breville Tea Maker! Which I will review when I get a handle on what it can do. Ahem.

When I was sipping this when it was really hot, I didn’t get much flavour except the black tea out of it at all, but as it has cooled, I’m getting much more chocolate with a bit of fruitiness which I guess is the raspberry. If you had asked me to name which fruit this was in a blind taste test, I don’t think I could have told you that this was raspberry, but it’s nice nonetheless.

I did add milk to this, and I think that next time I won’t because I think it’s dulling the flavours I get. Milk is always a crapshoot, I’m finding. Sometimes it enhances flavours and cancels out bitterness and sometimes it dulls everything until it just tastes like barely flavoured milk.

The only thing that is disrupting my tea experience right now is the fact that one of the cats is attempting to bring up a hairball a couple feet from the table, very loudly. But I won’t hold that against the tea :)

First off, I have no idea how long I steeped this, but the mug was still pretty hot when I remembered I was drinking this tea so it can’t have been for too too long. At least it’s an herbal, right? I also added more than a bit of sugar to both counteract the dreaded hibiscus and also to hopefully mask the rooibos taste that I really don’t like very much except for very specific instances. I’m currently hugging the tea mug because it feels very nice and warm on my hands and the building is cooler than normal here at work. I broke my purse today, the handle ripped out, so I’m hoping this tea is better than I’m anticipating, to make up for my cruddy day.

Drinking this, it isn’t horrible. There’s still a yucky rooibos undertone that I don’t like at all, but the fruit flavours are pretty strong with the sugar added and tart and fruity like they are supposed to be. I can definitely taste the cranberry and there’s some pomegranate in there too. I don’t think I’d like this tea at all without the sweetener.

This thing is pretty awesome. It heats up water quite fast and then it sings a little song when it is done. You can have it turn off for up to 10 hours and then it heats right back up automatically. I do wish that it had a longer standby setting than 10 hours (14 or something) but I’m glad it has one at all.

I put only filtered water in this and I think that’s what it says in the manual, not that I’ve read the manual in a really long time. You should rinse it out on occasion and that’s a bit of a pain to do, but this is otherwise a pretty fantastic water heater.

I’m so excited! I live in the Amazon Fresh delivery area around Seattle and this tea maker was there at $100 off! Just $200! I was so excited that I bought it even though I was just shopping for cheese logs and tomato soup at the time. By 9pm tomorrow, I will have it!

Smelling this dry, I get the chocolate and the strawberry, which smell very nice, but not much of the tea base. The wet leaves have a stronger smell of black tea as well as the chocolate and strawberry being a bit more subtle, but they aren’t mixing well in the smell, if that makes any sense.

Drinking this, I can taste the strawberry strongly upfront but not really any chocolate at all. It definitely tastes good, but more as a strawberry tea than a chocolate covered strawberry tea. I can taste the black base alright, not too strong, not too weak, definitely not bitter or astringent. I did add sweetener.

Overall a nice tea but I’m looking for more of a chocolate flavour than this. The rest of my sample is going in the swap pile.

This is definitely a sipping tea. When I sip it and let it linger on my tongue before I swallow, this is the most delicious of the chocolate teas that I have tried so far. A definite dark chocolate flavour with notes of vanilla in it. I did let it cool quite a bit before drinking and I only let it steep for 3 minutes so not all of the chocolate melted so I’ll try another steep after this. I did add a bit of milk.

The tea did taste weirdly bitter if I drank it at large swallows. I don’t know, the pace of it flowing across my tongue made it bitter or something? And the aftertaste was bad too. Dainty sips for this tea, definitely.

ETA: Second steep, added a bit of sweetener this time to see if it made a difference in the ‘drink fast’ taste and it did! Now it’s super delicious. A very nice dessert tea.

I was a little hesitant to try this first thing in the morning. I like sweet things all day long but I just drank a cup of hot chocolate (a little morning ritual) and eating some sweetened oatmeal and I was worried that the tea would be too bitter compared to that. To counteract that, and also bring out the caramel creaminess of the tea, I added some milk and sugar.

I can definitely smell the caramel in the brewed liquid. It’s quite strong actually and nice, ‘darker’ if that’s the word, than a little cube of caramel so I think that’s the black tea.

This tastes like burnt caramel, especially the aftertaste. The black tea base is quite strong and I can definitely taste it although it is an eensy weensy bit bitter, although that might be because I steeped it on the high end of the steeping times provided on the package. Altogether I like this tea enough to drink the rest of it, I think, but I probably won’t be getting it again.

This is one of the few black teas so far that I have even tasted the ‘flowery finish’ but it is quite strong in this. This is also, probably no coincidentally, the first straight Darjeeling that I have tried. I’m not usually a huge fan of the Indian teas but I have been mostly pleasantly surprised by this week at my mother’s house, going through her unopened teas.

Forgetting I was drinking this and writing this review…cooled off there is more bitterness but it’s not overwhelming. Overall I like this but it is not even close to my favourite.

This is certainly a bold cup of tea. This is from my mother’s stash and I think I’m going to have to steal it from her. Deliciously malty and the smallest bit astringent but not really bitter at all, this is a wonderful tea with milk and sugar.

1 1/2 tsp tea with 11 or so oz of boiling water. This is for the loose tea, not the bagged.

Either my expectations were too high or there is something wrong with my taste buds because I’m not getting the delicious chocolatiness that everyone else is. This smells fantastic both dry and steeped but I’m getting a sour taste when I drink it that is overwhelming everything else. If I take tiny sips and let it linger on just the tip of my tongue I can taste the cacao but the feeling of this tea is very thin and when I drink it like a normal drink I just get sour.

The last swallow had more chocolate than the rest of the drink so perhaps it all just sank to the bottom for me? But whatever it is, I don’t like this tea very much at all.