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This tea sounded so interesting, when I won a Della Terra Tea contest, I had to go for it. You just don’t see pu-erh blends like this everyday. As others have said, I thought the pearl balls were for show, but they actually melt in the tea itself. Very neat!!

This tea has a very nice taste and is a nice starter pu-erh or good for someone who doesn’t like straight pu-erh. I myself have a hard time drinking pure pu-erh (see what I did there?), and I find this very good. The pu-erh is not overpowered, you can definitely taste it, but it’s not so in your face either. A nice flavored tea.

Still have to try this iced since apparently it’s amazing, according to all the other steepter reviews..

Azzrian sent this to me a while ago, and I’m just now getting to it. My other Steepsters know how it goes when you just get so inundated with different tea to try ;)

Anyway, I kinda ignore this one for a while, but I’ve been on a green tea kick lately, and I wanted to try something different. And, oh my – this tea is much better than I anticipated. I wasn’t really expecting a whole lot out of this tea, but it’s very very good. I’m getting this really smooth creamy undertone on top of the green tea which makes it perfect. I let the BF try it and he couldn’t believe there wasn’t any sweetener in this.

It’s a really good tea. Just one problem, Azzrian got it from a tea store in Ireland. So it’ll be insane to ship. Maybe I can find a local vendor or a similar tea?

Really really good.

I got this in a swap with Queen of Tarts and I’m still trying to figure out how to make it work for me. Right now I’ve found the tea works best on the lowest temperature setting on my kettle (below the green). I’ve also found I have to steep my tea a minute or under or else it gets too bitter too quickly.

But I’m still trying to figure out the ideal leaf for 8 oz of water. Teavivre says 7g which seems awfully high! I’ve been using 4-ish which isn’t bad. I don’t know. I want to make sure I’m getting the most out of it.

What have everyone else’s experiences been with this tea?

I got this in a swap with Reasoned_Melody. There’s a longer story behind how I got this tea, but let’s just say they finally came. Yay!!!

I was dragging a bit this morning and I thought this guayasa blend would be good to blend up. I’ve never seen a chai version before. I checked the ingredients and saw there was stevia, so I proceeded cautiously, since other blends in the past I haven’t gotten along with. 

I brewed this up and since I’m off to a festival with the family, I put it in my Celestial Seasonings mug (so cute – it has all the CS characters on it). The flavor isn’t bad. There’s definitely chai spices, guayusa flavor, and unfortunately my arch nemesis stevia. It’s not as bad as DT’s cherry cola, but it’s there a little bit. The good news is that it’s masked somewhat by the spices. I still feel though that I could have done without the stevia in the blend. I guess they thought that since guayusa is new, stevia will help ease the transition.

Overall an interesting blend, although I’m still not a fan of stevia. 

Thank you to Pekko Teas for this super generous sample.

I admit that I don’t have much experience with Formosa Oolongs, but I wanted to give it a try. This definitely smells like toast, as other reviewers have mentioned, and there is definitely a toast taste when drinking, too, almost like a REALLY crispy toast.

This tea is also very fun to watch while steeping because the leaves are so entertaining to watch. I want to call it “flowy” since I can’t really think of a better word here.

Second infusion at the same time is a bit more astrigent.

Thanks to momo for the sample.

This isn’t bad. Brewed up pure I was getting chocolate but wasn’t getting any red velvet. So I splashed some soy milk into this and it definitely helped bring out that cake creaminess. This is on par with the peppermint chocolate I tried the other night.

This was in the travelling tea box and I believe it came from momo. The name definitely intrigued me. It makes me think of fairies. Speaking of fairies, I think I’m going to buy this for my bf’s 8-year old niece (http://flitterfairies.com/). It seems like something an 8-year-old girl would enjoy, right?

This tea sounded really cool. Green tea AND green mate. For some reason I thought this might be better as a cold brew so I did it over night and .. I don’t know if I’m really feeling it. It’s not as amazing or interesting as I thought it would be. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and brew it hot?

This was in the Travelling Tea box and I believe it came from CupofTree. I’ve heard of these chocolate blends and I’m excited to try them (I have another sample I need to get to as well)

This was VERY minty and had a nice chocolate smell. I do agree with the other that the mint comes through more than the chocolate. Knowing how RoT is, I made sure to not use too much water since the bags are small. This is a nice herbal blend, and I would highly recommend this for anyone who loves mint.

I just let this steep forever and ever in the mug so it got pretty strong.

I also just realized this is a rooibos blend, so I have to give RoT points because I didn’t even taste the rooibos (which is usually pretty strong).

This comes from the travelling tea box. Thanks to ssajami for a sample!

It’s hard to find info on this tea. ssajami wrote (in the handy tea traveling book) “Local blend of black with safe, lemongrass, and cardamom.” This isn’t the exact same tea, since this doesn’t have lemongrass in it, but I didn’t feel like making a new entry.

This chai intrigued me because I rarely see chai’s with lemongrass in them. It adds a nice flavor but doesn’t overwhelm the chai.

This tea blends also says, "The nomadic Bedouins traditionally drink this tea “strong and sweet,” so it is recommended to leave the tea to steep for at least 5 minutes before removing the bag, then sweeten."

I am a wimp about bitterness, so I probably steeped it closer to 2-3 min (I didn’t have an official timer), but maybe next time I’ll give it a longer steep since that’s the traditional way.

Oh, and if you were wondering what Bedouin refers to (because I didn’t prior to this tasting note), wikipedia knows: “The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arabian ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes, or clans, known in Arabic as.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this matcha. There’s actually several different coffee matchas to choose from on the website. This one called to me because I know Kona coffees tend to be more expensive and less astringent. I admit I don’t have much experience with it because I’m not a coffee connoisseur.  I always end up adding cream and sugar to it. Lol. 

I was hesitant with this matcha, but opening the package it smells delicious!!! It has a coffee taste but there’s also some creamy notes and smooth notes as well. It definitely smells like a fresh cup of coffee. 

I prepared this in a water bottle, which might sound crazy since coffee is usually hot, but I really do like iced coffee over hot. Also, I just generally like my matchas colder in general. 

It is wonderful cold. The coffee flavor comes through and there is some roasted notes and coffee flavoring. It almost tastes like I’m eating a bean over more so just drinking a cup of coffee. Have you ever had a chocolate covered espresso bean? It’s a lot like that, minus the chocolate. 

Definitely one of my favorite matchas, especially if you like coffee. 

You can buy this matcha here: 
http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/kona-matcha.html