TeaSource

This is one of my oldest teas, and yet somehow I’ve yet to manage to get around to reviewing it. Welp, I guess I should rectify that, since I’m working on sipping it down.

This tea has a very strong sweet strawberry aroma in the bag, but I honestly find the flavor a bit underwhelming; then again, I have found my flavored rooibos blends seem to not hold strong flavors due to aging the most so far, so for my next pot, I may try adding an extra helping of leaf to see if that helps compensate some. The rooibos itself has a pretty strong flavor to me, it’s edging a little more on woody/medicinal/herbaceous, though the tea itself is very sweet with a subtle vanilla note. The strawberry is present, but there isn’t a strong, creamy vanilla note, so I don’t really get “strawberries and cream” at all, and the strawberry doesn’t feel strong, juicy, and defined against the rooibos base… and I’ve had strawberry rooibos teas like that. This just doesn’t hold a candle to Bird & Blend’s Rhubarb & Custard, which did the strawberry/cream rooibos so well. I believe TeaSource discontinued this one, but I have a very similar blend in my cupboard called Lavenderberry, which tasted like strawberries, vanilla, and a touch of lavender, and I remember it being quite lovely. I wonder if they tweaked the recipe, got a different flavoring for the strawberry, or if the age just made that much of a difference? I may have to make a pot of that tea again to jog my memory and see if I still like it as much as I remember…

This isn’t so bad that I won’t be able to finish it off, but it’s just so underwhelming compared to other better teas I’ve had with this flavor profile. It just feels so weak on the strawberry and cream elements it is supposed to be bringing out, so I feel like I’m just having a pot of rooibos. I like rooibos fine, but if I’m going to have rooibos, then I’d rather not have a very weak fruit flavoring in it, since I feel like that is probably what is bringing out the medicinal qualities.

Lovely stuff. I like mixing it in with honey and using it on toast as much as to make tea with. Also good to spice up baked goods and cocoa.

Interesting. I think it shines in bringing out the strawberry flavor and making a nice blend of sweet and bitter.

smells: very sweet, a little spicy. a bit acidic.
tastes: mellow with aftertaste of mango. While it sits in the mouth, the ginger comes through.
color: light yellow

Smells sweet and fruity. Brandy colored.

Received as part of the blind tea testing pack from story of my tea. It’s not something I would normally buy for myself but happy I tried it! Somewhere in between a light oolong and black tea, beautiful colour.

I took a little sample from the TTB a while back for a day like today. I really enjoyed trying some new teas today.

A bit prone to bitterness but fairly flavourful and fruity. I didn’t find it sweet at all or particularly fruity, but the hints of white grape and apricot are faintly there.

Green rooibos from the tea box! This tastes similar to other fruity green rooibos blends I’ve had from Adagio. It’s weird that this is supposed to be almond because I definitely taste fruit and not nuts. Hot, the flavor is more grassy, but as it cools, the sweet fruity flavor comes out, and it’s super nice. I drank it during a workout and felt extremely refreshed!

Holiday Tea-son! This was another tea I had in a holiday sampler from TeaSource that I got shortly after the 2016 holiday season and… I sadly haven’t tried it yet. Though I have sampled this tea before at Twin Beans, which is pretty much the only place in my little town to order a cuppa (we have tons of coffee shops but only one of them has decent loose leaf as an option on the menu); they source a small selection of TeaSource teas and this happens to be one of the ones they keep around, and I know I’ve enjoyed it with one of their amazing crepes before. I’ve been drinking Cocomint Green tea all day (but was on the phone with family and didn’t have a chance to do a write up so I still need to get around to that!) and am still feeling in the chocolately mood. Just switching to a non-caffeinated option, since it’s back to work for me in the morrow.

I love the smell of this herbal! It’s chocolately, but it smells a bit nutty to me too, so the aroma of the dry leaf comes off like Nutella to me. There is nothing nutty in the ingredients, so I’m not sure what is giving me that impression in the fragrance, but I have no complaints. Smells sooooo good!

The steeped tea smells like melted chocolate and very sweet, and I still am getting a hint of nuts, though not as strongly as the dry leaf. The flavor of the tea is reminding me a lot of that Tiramisu herbal from Citizen Tea that I tried a few months ago and loved (I finished that sampler off), with a few differences. Both have that sweet and slightly tart apple note to the base, but I’d say that the Tiramisu tea had a more caramel/toffee-forward note with a more subtle chocolate flavor and some subtle hints of coffee, and this tea is very chocolate-forward in its flavor. I’m getting a strong cocoa flavor, and note both milk chocolate and bittersweet dark chocolate and hints of nuts; the finish comes back around with that tang of green apple skin.

It’s a nice dessert tea; comparing both, it’s a hard call; the Tiramisu is probably a little more varied in flavor, but this is definitely a better choice for a good chocolately flavor. They are similar enough that, trying to narrow down space in my cupboard and with Citizen Tea being in Canada and therefore having expensive international shipping for me, I’ll probably keep this one in stock instead as a dessert herbal. It definitely makes a nice sweet late-night cap.

On the 15th day of Sara’s Advent Calendar…

Ooh, this is a fine green tea. It’s very smooth, with a pure taste, if that makes sense. It’s a little sweet, with honey notes. It’s very refreshing, even hot, and I would love to try i iced too. There’s also a very mild vegetal note. It’s really good.

Holiday Tea-son! I got this in a holiday sampler from TeaSource I believe discounted after the 2016 holiday season, so I think I got it around January or February of 2017? In any event, it’s quite old now and due for a sipdown, so I’ll probably be drinking this as my nightly herbal for the next few nights.

The leaf doesn’t smell light gingerbread to me, but certainly smells like orange — creamsicle specifically, as I get a lot of sweet vanilla from the aroma as well. The steeped tea still has a very creamsicle flavor, but it isn’t overly sweet, since there are some subtle spice notes in the background that linger in the background. Namely I get just a hint of pepper. There are a lot of nuts in this tea — sliced almonds and pistachios — but I’m not really picking up any nutty notes from the tea. It’s sweet, with some subtle woody notes and stronger honey/caramel notes from the rooibos, a rich orange note that tastes quite juicy and rich, a creamy sort of vanilla, and a very subtle peppery hint on the tip of the tongue at the end of the sip.

This is a nice creamsicle rooibos tea; the last rooibos tea I tried with that flavor profile just didn’t quite do it for me. For my next pot, I may make this with vanilla almond milk and go creamy latte style, but this is perfectly fine as is, as well. I may even restock this sometime since I like having a creamsicle tea around, but I’m not in a particular rush. But the name of the tea confuses me… Gingerbread Orange? Nothing about this tea makes me think of gingerbread, at all. It doesn’t have any any of the spices common to gingerbread, and the orange/vanilla flavor combo isn’t something associated with gingerbread either. It’s a bit misleading. If you are looking for a gingerbread-flavored rooibos, this isn’t it!

Day 3 of my advent calendar from Sara!

Out of the bag, it smells like roasted chocolate! Mmm. I smelled it brewed and opened the TeaSource page on it without even tasting it yet. There was a train station I would stop at on the way to work, to catch a shuttle. It was near a chocolate factory, and a few days a week the whole area smelled like chocolate. This smell is bringing me back there.

I took a few sips. Roasted chocolate, and a hint of apple. Okay, I ordered four ounces.

Yeah, that’s good. I’ll bet it would blend well with others too.

I got this from Mastress Alita! Thank you! Backlogging from last night when my brain was too burnt to make with the words.

This tea smells so sweet and lush and melony. There is a generous amount of lemongrass mixed throughout the green tea and puerh. The latter two don’t seem like they’d go together, but in this blend, they make sense.

A storm was on its way last night, making it unseasonably warm, so I made this over ice. It’s interesting how I don’t get any puerh notes from this at all. It’s all fresh green tea flavor and sweet, almost candylike melon. The lemongrass is soft and kind of hidden by the fruit. And I guess the puerh is there to brace it and keep it from going full Jolly Rancher. But really, I am having such an affair with melon teas, and this is another one I am really pleased with. It may not quite stack up to Lupicia’s, but it’s up there for sure.

I received this tea as a loose-leaf sample in a subscription box. I was very excited when I opened it and found that it smells like an Almond Joy! I love Almond Joy. I didn’t see coconut listed as an ingredient on the package, so this intrigued me. I could still faintly smell it after steeping. The taste of this tea has a nice mellow nuttiness. It seems to linger for just the right amount of time, keeping me sipping, but not making me feel like the tea is lacking.

Thanks to Mastress Alita for this wonderful sample. Wow, this tastes really good. It’s not just a maple tea, as the toasted flavor also comes through really clearly. I would never have known that this is green tea. I steeped it for a long time at a temperature close to boiling, and it’s not the slightest bit bitter. The flavor really lingers in your mouth. I’m so glad I have enough to make a few giant mugs of this. I don’t eat actual maple syrup much, but maple tea is so so good.

DELICIOUS! Talk about love at first sip. I’ve always considered myself to be more of a matcha/green tea fanatic.. but recently, I’ve found an undying LOVE for a good oolong tea. There’s just no other flavor or tea like oolong tea. There seems to be a different flavor with every sip, and a warm cup of oolong is delightful to have during the cold months. 10/10, HIGHLY recommended.

A sweet, mild apple scent is what greets you. For sipping, the apple is not too overpowering, and the coconut somehow compliments it nicely, lifting the apple up. I wasn’t expecting the two to mix so well, but I was surprised. This makes a nice Autumn tea.

Home – 6:30 PM

Another of my randomly purchased teas from TeaSource. I think I may have ordered because I got a sample I liked in my Sips By box? Unsure.

I didn’t realize that this also has hojicha and maté in it, so I steeped it as a black tea. Luckily it turned out fine.

I can definitely taste the hojicha, it has mellow roasted and autumn leaf notes. Otherwise, this tea seems more almond than chestnut to me. But not in a marzipan way, which is nice. It brings to mind more of an almond-vanilla custard sort of flavor. And I feel like there’s some coconut here as well?

Unfortunately, it just can’t compete with Simpson & Vail’s Almond Sugar Cookie black tea.

Which reminds me, I need to drink that one again… ❤

ETA: The more I drink this, the more it reminds me of coconut macaroons. Which is odd as coconut isn’t even mentioned in the flavor description…

Home – 7:00 PM

I’m not sure why I bought this tea. Sure, I like lychee well enough, but I don’t love it or anything. Plus I tend to prefer green, white, or oolong teas for more tropical fruit flavors.

This tea tastes very sweet, which is odd considering it claims to be simply black tea and flavoring. It reminds me of stevia.

The base tea is light but malty, and the lychee flavor is very strong. It also tastes like rose, which is one of my least favorite flavors…

So this is not the tea for me. It will have to go into the “go live with someone else” pile.

Withholding rating because blegh, rose!

This one is definitely a bit past its prime.

I know at one point this was an orange spice sort of tea, but now it just tastes like clove with a bit of cinnamon mixed in. I’m not the biggest fan of clove to begin with, so I don’t see any reason to keep the remainder around.

Sorry, tea! At least you were inexpensive.

I should look into getting another orange and spice type of tea, it is a lovely combination.
Any recommendations?

Work – 12:00 PM

Tea of the morning! I’ve been sipping on this one for a couple of hours now while being productive at work.

This is a nice enough lightly-spiced black tea. The orange is strongest and is a bit zingy, verging on tangerine in flavor. The spices are quite mellow. I can pick out cinnamon and clove first, followed by a bit of floral cardamom. The base tea is smooth but doesn’t add much in the way of flavor.

Really, it’s a nice light orange spice tea, sort of Constant Comment-esque (although I haven’t had that in a very long time, so I don’t really remember it…). Very autumnal or wintry without being overly spicy.

I dig it. I won’t repurchase it since I have Prince Vladimir, but I’ll happily drink up the rest of the pouch.

This tea smells so amazing, both dry and after steeping.

Unfortunately, it just doesn’t deliver on the scent. It’s not bad per se, it’s just a bit bland. There’s some mild spicing, maybe cinnamon and ginger, perhaps some clove. But the apple isn’t really there at all, and the base tea nonexistent.

Womp womp. Oh well!

Home – 9:00 PM

This tea smells really nice, but the taste is rather ho-hum.

It’s pretty weak even though I used a lot of leaf. There’s a little bit of apple, a little bit of cinnamon and clove, and some ginger. It’s also a tad bit bitter after a 3-minute steep. Mostly it tastes vaguely of dry leaves.

I do very much like the idea of apple chai, so I’ll have to find a good one elsewhere… :)