Evol Ving Ness Send Message

I am really enjoying this one today.

When I first tried it in autumn, it seemed just ok. The whole pumpkin fever thing is pretty much beyond me. I don’t get it. Usually the teas are just all about pumpkin spice. What, really? That’s what people get excited about?

Today I reached for this one as an evening tea, and gave the bag a good shake and then another good shake. I steeped using cooler water and longer than I usually do: perhaps five to eight minutes? Anyway, the result is good. Far better than what I recall it being. Here I am tasting the medley of pumpkin spice, but possibly pumpkin with them, in addition to maple and cream. Rooibos is a good base choice.

Now that the pumpkin fever of autumn is over, I find myself craving the odd pumpkin tea, like this one from time to time. Nice cup.

I made the mistake of preparing this initially with boiling water. Oops.

Lovely leaf—curly, slender, and wiry.

In that first cup, I tasted very very faint sweet notes: apple, more rum than brandy, and the slightest hint of cream. A bit astringent despite a short two-minute steep. The cream note is along the lines of ice cream. I am not sure how the flavour is so faint and yet each sip leaves the vaguest of sweetness on my lips.

I’d like to note that I am finding these flavours because I am looking for them based on the name of the tea. Otherwise, I likely wouldn’t be able to identify them.

On the second steep with slightly cooler water, the flavour of the tea comes up nicely with a hint of apple. I taste houjicha rather than oolong. Odd. Is it a blend? Or am I missing something? Is my inexperience showing?

My leaf is from a sample. Thankfully, I have enough for maybe one more cup left. I think slightly cooler than boiling is the way to go with this tea. My rating reflects optimism that the next cup will be far better with cooler water from the get go.

Fighting to get on some sort of reasonable sleeping schedule again. So easy to fall off the wagon.

This tastes like peppermint and lemony camomile with the slightest hint of valerian bitterness. I’d like a bit more hibiscus or rose hip tartness. Like a classic sleepytime tea with a sledgehammer hiding in the back room.

High marks for getting the job done.

I haven’t been craving green teas much lately, but tonight I had a searingly hot butter chicken roti for dinner. This has been an excellent match.

Mango. Roasted Rice. Green Tea. Win.

The mango in this tea is the fresh and juicy fruit but also the slightest bit of bitter peel.
Very enjoyable cup.

I really need to reach for it far more often.

Yes, pretty much like vanilla cake batter frolicking on top of red rooibos. Enjoyable.

That said, this tea is very much in the same family as QTT’s Snowflake rooibos and DT’s Birthday Cake, Creme Caramel, and even maplely Oh Canada.

A teeny bit different, yes. But very much the same.

Edit—now that I’ve read the notes of others, I am wondering where my strawberry flavours went. Nope, none in this cup.

This one delivers—when I am in the mood for a punchy black base with orange notes carried on intense vanilla. It reminds me of some of the Cream of Earl Grey teas out there, but, to my taste, way better than most of the competition.

I really enjoy this one when I have a taste for it. I don’t often crave this tea, but when I do, there’s just nothing like it. This will always have a place in my tea cupboard, even if it is only a few teabag packets. MLT packages the individual tea bags nicely, and the scent and flavours last forever.

I think this was one of my very first favourites when I lurched into tea fever less than a year ago.

Like most of DT white tea blends, the white tea is nominal, the barest flavouring agent. The rest is whole mulberries, fat coconut slices, and vanilla-like flavour. Gentle. Sweet. Delicious.

I don’t bother straining this tea. I just scoop the leaf directly into my tea glass and eat the mulberries later.

The problem, of course, with this tea is that it is heavy and expensive. So, it is a costly addiction.

It’s a good one to pick up with frequent steeper points if you have tired of other options.

Having been disappointed with my tea selection yesterday when craving a strong kick in the pants kind of tea, I made up for it today with this one. Such fab malty goodness with the occasional sweet note. Even more chocolatey notes are coming up now that I gave the leaf more of a shake in the bag. Even a bit of fig, although it doesn’t appear to contain any.

Inspired by the suggestion of a strong kick in the pants kind of tea, I reached for this one as Mighty Leaf black blends tend to have a robust black supporting the rest of the event. Well, not so much this one, as it happens.

The dry leaf appears to be mostly fruit and spice and not much tea: much different from the image here. It smells heavenly though.

My first few cups of this were straight up black and unsweetened. Strong cinnamon with a hint of star anise with generic fruit in the background.

I popped around the shops to try the second batch sweetened with honey with milk. More or less the same flavours with more complexity this time as I had gone a bit heavier on the leaf the second time. Nice.

I get the impression that flavours will vary depending on the leaf you have in the tea scoop. The fruit and spice pieces are rather large.

Very much a chai type blend. Perfect for a cold winter day.

I am adding the Mighty Leaf description and ingredient list of the Holiday Blend 2015 that I am drinking. Very much different from the tea described here on Steepster.

Holiday is a festive blend of Chinese black tea with cranberry, orange, papaya, apple, peach and spices. At once sweet and hearty, this tea is the ideal accompaniment to a joyous gathering of family and friends.

4 oz. loose tea in bag

Ingredients

Black Teas, Cranberry Fruit, Orange Peel, Apple Fruit, Papaya Fruit, Peach Fruit, Almond, Cinnamon, Rosehips, Rose Petals, Cornflower and natural flavoring of Cinnamon Orange Spice

It is so incredibly cold out there today. Even when the sun is shining.

I’ve been home for a couple of hours now, and my thighs are still defrosting from the deep chill. On the way home, I picked up a teeny tiny thing of milk so that I could coddle myself with teatime. Normally, I drink my tea black and unsweetened, and I rate teas based on their black and unsweetened flavours.

The milk and honey is a big treat. It works so well with flannel pyjamas and the prospect of clean flannel sheets to crawl into when I become drowsy.

That said, milk and honey, even when the tea is strong, sort of make all dessert teas taste kind of the same, give or take a spice or two.

When I tried this tea black and unsweetened, I was quite disappointed. I had been looking forward to a richness that this particular tea lacks. It does have a bit of sweetness and a bit of nuttiness and a bit of caramel, sort of. But it is mostly like an echo of these flavours.

With milk and honey, delicious. But I would like more from it when it stands by itself.