English Tea Store

A lovely Rooibos tea, strong vanilla flavor, great all day drinking tea. Maybe good for a mocktail too?

Thanks very much, AJRimmer!  I will eventually get to all these samples. haha.  I wasn’t expecting much from this tea, seeing as how chocolate teas are normally somehow gasoline tasting  and lacking and English Tea Store’s teas have been generally disappointing… but the flavor of this tea resulted in how I would hope it would be.  First off, it’s dark.  I can’t do chocolate teas that aren’t deep and dark.  Second, no gasoline here.  Plenty of chocolate flavor.  Dark dusky chocolate.  I like that they actually include cocoa shells!  I thought I was seeing coconut in the blend, but it’s actually chamomile petals for some reason?  I don’t think they bring anything to the flavor anyway.  It’s a good pairing between this type of black tea and chocolate flavor in general.  It is what it says it is. Of course, it can’t actually be hot chocolate, but this is the closest thing to hot chocolate that a tea can be.  I wouldn’t mind having a bit of this around when I want a chocolate tea — there aren’t too many good chocolate teas.  Next time this will be a sipdown.
Steep #1  // 1 1/2 teaspoons for full mug // 20 minutes after boiling  // 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // 3 minutes after boiling //  3 1/2 minute steep

The first time I had this tea, I found the blueberry flavor pretty clear, authentic, and tasty. Every subsequent time, it’s turned out weird, harsh, and artificial. I drank my whole ounce of this hoping to accomplish that first flavor again, but it wasn’t a very good time.

The flavor is a little bit chemically, but the orange is sort of nice as well. I like drinking it cold. It’s pretty good, but not great. I didn’t try a resteep because the chemical scent of this one is pretty unappealing.

Thanks to tea-sipper for sharing this one! The flavor is lightly fruity, and I feel like I can sense the cucumber. I’ll definitely have to give my sister a cup of this the next time I see her! I wish I could taste even more cucumber, but this was pretty pleasant!

This is definitely unpleasantly chemically when warm, but when it cools, it’s decent. Desserty rooibos flavor with a really nice vanilla. Quite sweet and light, but with some depth to the flavor.

Similar to other ETS herbal teas. So muddled and artificial. This one really isn’t good at all though. Not too sour, just really lame.

I know I’ve been hard on ETS teas before, but this one is legitimately tasty. And it doesn’t just taste the same as many other peach blends. It does its own thing, but the peach flavor totally comes through. It’s bright and tasty, and it makes a totally lovely cold cup of tea. I cold brewed a second steep, which turned out great as well.

The nuts smell so good, but when I took my first sip of this, it was jarringly sour, salty, and weird. Maybe it’s oversteeped, but I usually steep herbals like this for a long time with no problem. I added a lot of milk, and it actually tastes really good now. Such a contrast to my earlier experience. Suffice it to say, I don’t know how to rate this one.

This tea tastes like a generic, low quality fruit tea with its hint of artificiality. It’s fruity and not overly sour. It doesn’t taste like any particular fruit. It’s best cold, but not great generally.

Thanks again for the swap, AJRimmer!  Sadly, this was not one to write much about.  I’ve certainly had worse chocolate teas, but this was mostly rooibos in flavor (as well as mostly rooibos as a blend itself) with only the faintest hint of chocolate, and possibly an even fainter hint of almond type flavor which I guess would be like those sorts of chocolates?  But it seems the name itself is combining multiple brands of chocolate candies, so not sure what they were going for here.  Maybe I’m imagining the almond and it’s really chocolate.  So really this is heavy rooibos, light chocolate.  I’m glad to only have a sample —  next time it will be gone.
Steep #1  // 1 1/2 teaspoon for full mug // 29 minutes after boiling  // 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // just boiled //  3-4 min

The flavor here is just thin and strange. It’s definitely berries, but they taste artificial and watered down. There’s a background flavor I’ve noticed in several English Tea Store fruit teas that’s artificial and strange, and I notice it here too.

This brewed up pretty light. The bergamot is quite sharp. Sugar and milk make it pleasant. It’s not the perfect earl grey, but I can’t really point to any specific complaints either. The main flavor is the bergamot. The black tea is very much in the background. I accidentally ordered two one ounce bags of this in my huge order, and I don’t think that will be a big problem. I tried this another day with some lavender tea mixed in and made into a latte. Now that really kicked it up a notch. Now I add lavender every time, and it’s been great.

Thanks again for the swap, AJRimmer!  I’ve wanted to try this, but again with the mysterious ingredients, ETS.  So it’s hard to parcel out the ingredients here without knowing what they are.  Looking at the ingredients after steeping, it looks like actual lime?  Or some sort of citrus.  As well as rosehips which don’t really do much for the color of the mug/ flavor… I can’t really tell what else is in there. I guess the flavor is slightly lime, but it’s a very earthy lime, and by earthy I mean bordering on dirt flavor.  I’ve never had gelato but I doubt it tastes like this.
Steep #1  // 1 1/2 teaspoons for full mug // 10 minutes after boiling  // 2 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2  // just boiled //  6-7 min
2020 Sipdowns: 27 (David’s Rhubarb Cream Soda)

Yesterday I drank so much homemade Thai bubble tea that the caffeine kept me awake well past 6 AM. Whoops.

This tea smells like chocolate, but the flavor isn’t there at all. It’s just a mildly flavored black tea where you can’t tell what flavor it’s going for. The DavidsTea version is more accurate.

I guess I pictured blueberry with a name like this, but the flavor was definitely mostly hibiscus/red fruits. I had it warm, which probably wasn’t optimal, but it was all right. Nothing revolutionary, just another fruity tea.

Thanks so much for the swap, AJRimmer!  So many teas I get to try. :D I’ve already had this once, so this time it’s a sipdown.  A pleasant enough strawberry flavor on a rooibos base.  The strawberry is really just sweetness with a hint of alcohol.  Looks like blackberry leaves in the blend?  If so, there is only a hint in the flavor.  ETS is almost always vague on their ingredients.  The second cup was full of sweetness.  I would say it was more of a sweet rooibos blend than anything resembling strawberry. Not the best, but appreciate trying it.  Why are strawberry teas so tough to accomplish?
Steep #1  // 1 1/2 teaspoons for full mug // 15 minutes after boiling  // 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // just boiled //  3 min
2020 Sipdowns: 25

I should probably stop buying lime teas because I almost never like the lime flavoring they use. It’s just so strong, fake, and weird. This one wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t pleasant either. But if you usually like lime flavored things, maybe you’ll enjoy this one. I just wish the flavor were more authentic.

Sadly, this one didn’t taste special to me. It mostly just tasted like black tea with maybe a bit of flavor, but it wasn’t distinct enough to say what it should have been. I wouldn’t recommend this one because if I’m going to have a plainish black tea, there are so many other choices of better quality.

Pretty good. It is worth the extra money for the peony white tea, though. If I hadn’t experienced the peony white tea beforehand, I suppose could have been one of my staple teas.

I didn’t love the scent of this one, but the flavor is pretty nice! It’s like a blueberry pineapple mixture. It’s a bit fake tasting, but decent, especially when compared to many of their other fruit blends. Still not great compared with other brands, but decent for ETS.

Although the chocolate flavor isn’t too deep, this is tasty enough. Chocolate and rooibos combine to create a decent flavor. It’s not very exciting, but it’s okay. I like the rooibos they use. If you’re looking for a chocolate tea though, this really isn’t the one.

I didn’t love this one at first, but I left it in the fridge and took it to work in the morning, which seemed to help mellow any weird flavors it had. It turned into a pretty generic fruit tea. Couldn’t really say what fruit it’s supposed to be. It’s not too sour, just not too special either.

The ingredients in this are so fun looking – cucumber/zucchini?! They don’t list the ingredients, so I’m not sure. The result is a flavor that’s light and interesting, however it’s also interrupted with a bit of mildly distracting tartness from the other ingredients. I wish it could have had only that light, fresh flavor, but it does all combine to produce quite the satisfying brew.