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Thanks, Anna, for starting this craze. Thanks also, ifjuly, for supplying me with more. And thanks, nay lynn, for shipping me even moooore!

if you can’t tell, I love this tea.

This time i had it with a bit of sugar and no milk. It was still heavily melon flavoured, although I have to say i think I prefer it with just the slightest dash of milk. There’s something a bit…earthy? lingering in the back-sip and I find a touch of cream smoothes that right out. That being said, I feel as though this will be a tea I drink all summer. I’ve only ever had two melon flavoured teas, but so far this is the most flavourful.

In a travel mug at work with me. At first it was too hot for me to really notice anything aside from my singed tongue. Then as it cooled, I got more smoke than I’ve ever gotten. Then it cooled even more and accompanied me while I ate my tuna sandwich lunch. But ultimately, I’m thinking she is best enjoyed in an ordinary mug. Also, as a few of us have mentionned before, I think she doesn’t age particularly well, because I’m noticing a difference in the complexity of the tea as I near the bottom of the tin. It’s ok though. Nothing really diminishes her perfection ultimately. Long live the queen!

Thank you so much, charlotte0! It was so thoughtful of you to include so many MF teas in our swap. I do hope to make it to an MF location in my near lifetime, and the more teas I try beforehand the better.

To be honest, I never really knew what a cannele even was-it sounded French, and I knew it was a food, but that’s about all. A perusal of the tasting notes suggests however that I would enjoy being face-deep in one if the opportunity ever presented itself.

It’s hard to say what this dry leaf smells like, since the entire box was positively exploding with fragrance. As soon as the water hit the leaves, however, I got the strong and familiar scent of sugared vanilla. I used a heaping tsp for 8 oz. of water and steeped for four minutes.

I started the cup feeling pretty ambivalent about the tea, but liked it the more I sipped. The vanilla seemed a bit too sharp or cloying, but I soon realized that that might have been my own added rock sugar. I also found the base tea to be a bit thin for my liking, but it did lend the vanilla flavour a slightly astringent backdrop, which sort of made the whole thing taste burnt in a good way. Due to charlotte0’s generosity, I have enough to have another cup at least, and I think I’ll try it with less sugar before I make up my mind. So far, I think it’s a good tea, but perhaps not as remarkable as some of the other mf teas I’ve tried.

Thanks, charlotte0!

As spring (supposedly—it’s supposed to snow tomorrow!) approaches, I’m feeling inclined to move toward lighter teas. When I was at DT on Friday, I tried to choose between this, the pearls, and their silk dragon jasmine. I chose this, as it seemed to be reputed to have the most prominent jasmine flavour.

I brewed this up in my carry mug, and used a little over a DT perfect tsp and steeped for three minutes. This is a lovely, smooth jasmine tea. While it’s incredibly calming to be drinking this here in my office (god knows I need it), it feels like a tea that should be sipped in the evening during a thunder storm, or conversely while seated on a sunny park bench in the summer. I’m glad I bought these, because I really enjoy jasmine, and also find the green tea base to be fairly unobtrusive here. If I didn’t know better, by taste alone I might even assume this to be a white base.

It was such a lovely weekend; such a shame I had to get up and get ready for work this morning. The winds were really howling in the middle of the night, and I woke to a fairly chilled room and only wanted to burrow further under the covers and make the world go away. But alas, that was not to be. Such is the story of my life.

So I chose this tea to have in place of breakfast, because we’re sort of out of inspiring breakfast options. So a strongly flavoured black that happens to also taste like banana medicine fit the bill perfectly. I’m a little worried that this tea doesn’t keep nearly as well, although admittedly it’s still only in its original foil packet, but I found the flavours a touch muted this morning. I maintain that a three minute steep is the way to go to extract all the flavour possible while keeping the sometimes finicky base at bay.

A great first cup, that’s for sure.

I’m really trying to make an effort to drink a variety of tea, especially because some of my tea is from September and I really should be getting to it instead of hording it.

I had this tea with breakfast this morning, and far prefer it in an ordinary mug to a travel one. In my travel mug, there was something terribly cloying and sickly about it, and that just wasn’t the case in an ordinary breakfast mug. Or perhaps it’s more that I really enjoy drinking this tea, just not 16 oz. of it at a time (would it be tea sacrilege to admit that I don’t enjoy consuming gigantic mugs of tea all the time?). I take my 16 oz. mug to work, but otherwise typically enjoy mostly 8 oz. cups. Too much more than that and my stomach feels uncomfortably full of liquid.

Anyway, the tea. Sorry. I still maintain that this tastes largely of spiced marzipan. For people looking for a straight marzipan tea, this one most certainly is not it. I can’t even really identify the spices; I just know they’re there. All in all a lovely tea. Because the spices do seem appropriate in a dessert—this tea is most certainly not savoury or anything. More like a spiced almond cake.

Thanks to ifjuly, I have an entire package of this to indulge in! Seriously, you were far more generous with me than I deserve!

I love grape flavoured things. Pop, candies, grape juice—I love it all. And so when David’s tea was coming out with a grape-flavoured green, I was over the moon. Picked up my spring sampler kit, and had a rather traumatic experience thereafter. The base was bitter, ugly, and nearly killed me with hatred for my mouth. But it smelled amazing in the bag.

This also smelled amazing in the bag. But there was absolutely some trepidation as I brewed it up. I actually followed the steeping instructions and steeped this for two minutes. As usual, I chickened out at the last minute and foisted the cup upon Mr. keychange to have the first sip. I mainly didn’t want it to taste bitter.
“I don’t know what you’ll think of it,” he said, “but it’s definitely not at all bitter.”
This gave me cause for hope, and I took my first sip. There is definitely a light grape flavour, although it certainly isn’t of the candied or grape juice variety. It isn’t tart, either (thanks to the sugar I added, although I think in future cups I’ll add a touch less, even), and there’s a slight…not earthiness, necessarily, but it’s as if I’m right there in the garden, and along with the smell of grapes, can also smell the earth and greenery and stem, but all in a wonderful way.

I liked this tea, and am excited to experiment with it further. And thanks to ifjuly, I’ve got tons to play with!

I had this with breakfast before going bridal gown shopping yesterday! There are a few possibilities in the works, but we haven’t settled on one quite yet. I loved the woman whose house it was (she has a show room set up in her basement and the whole place is lavish and gorgeous and I could have wandered among the racks for hours).

You know, although I can enjoy this tea, I won’t feel the need to restock it once I’m out. Not even because there’s necessarily anything wrong with it, but mostly because I’ve exhausted my love affair with it, and there are just so many more teas to try and love. So although it was definitely a good cream earl grey, it may be a while before it works its way into my cupboard again once I finish what I have. It’s rare that I want to continuously restock a tea, it would seem. I can only think of a few.

Doing a bit of backlogging because somehow I haven’t been online all that much this weekend. Mr. Keychange and I went to David’s tea on Friday evening to sort of celebrate the end of a rather stressful work week (for me), and I had this as a latte. Thankfully, the girl who made my latte was one who’s made me lattes before and she actually knows how to make them really well. Mr. Keychange had glitter and gold, and when he took his first sip, he was like “No one makes tea like you. I like it your way.” and that made me feel so proud and happy! haha.

As for this tea, it was delicious as usual. Thick and pudding-like, and I honestly can’t even describe the rest of it because I’ve honestly never tasted any tea quite like it. I also picked up some butterfly jasmine tea, as I’d had some jasmine tea at a Thai restaurant earlier and was craving some jasmine in my life. Got my rewards card, and all in all it was a pretty great trip. The staff there are always so friendly and I love the way the place smells and I just find it to be such an awesome environment.

Oh my gosh. The carry travel mug is probably the best tea thing I own, hands down. I was afraid to brew such a good tea in it for fear of losing out on all the nuances, but the steeping basket in this thing is pretty deep, so I figured I might as well try, especially since I’m placing another Butiki order really soon anyway. So I brewed this up, tossed in a bit of milk and sugar, and have been sipping on warm, sugar drizzled waffles all morning. I even greedily got the last few sips, when typically the tea at the bottom of my mug isn’t the greatest. I love my carry mug and I love this tea.