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I have been interested in trying this one out since reading Scheherazade’s review, since chocolate, coconut, and lavender are three of my favorite things! (I’ve been making a lot of lavender cocoa recently, and even my friends are quite fond of it!) I wasn’t crazy about the flavor of the Cat’s Pyjamas tea sampler in the Dreamtime Collection I picked up from Bluebird (though that stuff is a miracle drug at helping me go to bed early, so I’ll definitely be keeping it around and drinking it with some extra lemon and honey to help with the taste for those nights when I need to turn in extra early, so it has its uses!), but based on ingredients alone, I have high hopes that the flavor of this particular Dreamtime Collection tea will be a bit more to my liking!

The tea has a nice lavender aroma, with some carmelly sweet notes from the rooibos. The flavor of the tea is a very sweet rooibos base that has some caramel and mellow chocolately notes; it isn’t a strong, rich flavor, but more of a sweet subnote. There is touch of a coconut flavor, but the floral lavender notes come out much stronger. I absolutely love lavender, but the flavor is a bit overwhelming to the coconut here.

I don’t typically add milk to rooibos, but I do love milk in lavender blacks, so I decided to go with Scheherazade’s suggestion and added a dash of some coconut creamer. That definitely helped balance out the coconut notes, and the creamy texture was very pleasant. I enjoyed the tea enough before, but found the flavor balance much nicer with the dash of coconut creamer! I really enjoy coconut and lavender and found the combination a nice, sweet, relaxing cuppa for the afternoon and evening.

Love You Oolong Time! I love milk oolong, but this is the first time I can recall finding a flavored blend using milk oolong as a base. Milk oolong already has such an interesting flavor naturally, the idea of making a blend out of it both perplexed me and oddly piqued my interest, so I was quite interested in trying this one out.

I was happy to find that the mouthfeel of milk oolong holds out here; the tea has a very silky, creamy feel. I get some buttery notes from the base as well, though they are a little more subdued due to the rich, minty flavor of the tea, which comes to the forefront. There is a subtle sweetness in the background, that isn’t a rich, full, chocolately flavor, but there is a light, sweet, chocolate-mint candy impression left on the tongue in the aftertaste. I’m /really/ enjoying how this is all coming together; the milk oolong makes what would otherwise be just another standard choco-mint tea feel more creamy and buttery and dessert-like than it really should. It’s really good, and this is likely going to end up a permanent fixture in my cabinent. Right between my regular milk oolong and my chocolate mint rooibos, because while this is very similar in ways to each of those, neither of them can quite scratch the same itch as this.

Love You Oolong Time! I got a sample of this in the Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox (thanks tea-sipper for organizing and to whoever contributed this!), and it appears to be the original blend, rather than the reblend. As I’m trying to focus on oolongs this month, and since I’m fighting off a cold I’ve been craving citrus ginger blends, this was a perfect choice!

This tea has a very silky, smooth, somewhat creamy mouthfeel. It steeps up a bold lemon yellow color, and has a very sweet lemony flavor. There are some subtle ginger notes that hit toward the back of the tongue toward the finish of the sip, but they are more mellow than a typical lemon ginger tea, and since I prefer my teas to not be too heavy on the ginger, I prefer the more gentle touch of the spice and the overall naturally sweeter profile. I think what is most unique about the flavor is there is a soft, subtle floral flavor just beneath the citrus, which likely contributes to a lot of the sweetness and mellowing out the heat of the touch of ginger. This is a very nice lemon ginger tea, much sweeter and creamier than any of the other lemon ginger teas I’ve tried recently during “ward off the plague” mode. I don’t normally add sweetener to my teas, but do feel that adding a little sugar makes this a little more “cookie” like; while I really enjoy the tea for what it is, it doesn’t really make me think of a dessert blend.

Full Review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2018/02/13/tea59/

Recently I picked up a sampler set of the Dreamtime Collection from Bluebird Tea Co., mostly because the blends in the set included lavender, and I’ve been on a big lavender kick lately. This was the only blend in the collection lacking lavender, and therefore the one I was the least interested in… but I have to turn in early tonight because I have a cataloger’s meeting that is at a library two hours away tomorrow (meaning I have to get up at the buttcrack of dawn to get on the road to make it in time!), so I figured this blend, with it’s valerian root (known as a holistic sleep aid) and chamomile (a beloved relaxant) would be a good choice to try to get me to bed a bit early.

As far as flavor… I’m not going to lie, this tea isn’t a favorite. I am not a fan of the flavor of chamomile, and that is all I can smell and taste from this cup of tea. I was really hoping that the lemon verbena in the blend would leave a stronger impression (or any impression, really) and bring some nice citrus notes to the forefront, but I just get that strong, floral, chamomile flavor. There is no cinnamon flavor or spicy warmth from the cinnamon in the blend, either. As far as I’m concerned, I may as well just be drinking plain chamomile tea, here. It’s pretty disappointing, especially since I prefer chamomile notes in a blend to be on the subtle side. When they are this strong, I have to add lemon juice and honey to the tea to make it more palatable.

So as far as taste goes, this tea fails for me. Fuctionally, though, this tea works very well! I had two cups in the evening, and I was really winding down, feeling quite groggy and drowsy well before my typical bedtime! As far as a nightcap to help unwind and get ready to go to bed, I think this herbal hits the spot! If you are looking for a good “unwind” tea to help you nod off, you may want to give this one a try!

Love You Oolong Time! This is a very nice flavored oolong. I prefer TeaSource’s Rhubarb Oolong a bit more, but this one is also quite nice. The base is very smooth and sweet, with some vegetal notes, reminding me of a green tea. It has a mellow strawberry flavor that does a nice job of not being too heavy, syrupy, or artificial, but instead just adds a lingering sweet fruity note to the tea. I enjoy the tea warm (it reminds me a lot of a strawberry sencha), but the tea is very pleasant after the cup has gone tepid, and especially as an iced tea. I enjoy cold-brewing it overnight, straining off the (very-full!) leaf the next morning, and enjoying the refreshing sweet, slightly vegetal, smooth strawberry flavored cool tea throughout the day. It’s even better with some sliced strawberries floating in the glass!

Full review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/07/04/tea27/

Last spring around April Fool’s Day I found a glass mason jar filled with an unidentfied tea leaf in the back of my cupboards that I decided I would finally try to identify. I knew an old coworker had given the tea to me, but it was around when I’d first started working at the library — and that was in 2004 — and she’s been gone from the staff for some time, so it was going to be up to my nose, eyes, and finally tongue to identify this stuff.

I could tell from a visual assessment that the leaf was black tea leaf, and there were small chunks of something in the leaf that looked like dried apple, but a sniff test of the jar produced a strong cinnamon scent. I searched online for some images of “cinnamon black tea” and sure enough found some pictures that were dead ringers for what I had. I was more used to seeing cinnamon in stick form rather than the somewhat spongey cubes I had in this blend. But there was no denying it — I had Cinnamon Black tea, and some very old Cinnamon Black tea at that.

They say that a tea “never goes bad,” but when I decided to have a sipdown of this the other day, I discovered just how wrong I was in that belief. Bleeeh… I remember thinking this was pretty good when I tried it a year ago! Could one more year make that much difference, or has my palate just become that much more sensitive after a year of avid tea-drinking? Because this was nasty, nasty tea. It tasted old and flavorless. The base was weak and devoid of any elements of a nice black tea, with a pallid wash of cinnamon sadly trying (and failing miserably) to hide that fact.

Like milk that has gone rancid, it was time to let this leaf go.

Full review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/tea14/

I noticed I had one teabag of this stashed away so it’s time for another bagged tea revisit… and a sipdown! I have vague memories of drinking this a lot before I really got into tea as a hobby, but I’m unsure how I’ll feel about it now that I frequently drink loose, whole leaf chais. Time to find out! As per usual, I removed the bag and infused in my gravity well infuser, since I don’t like the papery-taste the bags seem to leave in the water.

Eeh… Well, I actually quite liked the black base, and I often tend to find bagged blacks too astringent for my tastes. This was a strong tea, with only some mild astringency, but it was not bitter and I found it pretty pleasant. The chai spices, however, just tasted off. There was a very heavy clove flavor which seemed to dominate the whole cup, with a slight hint of some cinnamon and ginger flavors on the back of my tongue in the aftertaste. If it had more balance between the spice flavors, this wouldn’t be too bad, but the heaviness of the clove ruins the whole cup. I do recall that I used to always drink my tea sweetened, and admittedly, some sugar did help ground some of the overpowering clove notes a bit, and improve the cuppa some. Just not really enough that I’d care to have it again.

This is one of my favorite iced teas! I think I made it warm once, but I prefer it iced so much that I always cold brew it by the quart now. It has guayusa in it, making this the first hibiscus tea I’ve had that also packs a subtle caffeinated energy punch, and since I tend to drink a lot of hibiscus when I’m fighting off colds and trying to zap myself with Vitamin C, I’m usually really low on energy, so that caffeine really helps out! It’s also just really tasty! It does have a nice, punchy taste, but it isn’t as tart as other hibiscus teas I’ve tried (Tazo’s Passion, for instance), thanks to the blending of the stevia leaf. This tea actually has a nice balance of sweet notes and a slightly tangy finish. There is a nice citrus note to the tea, but it isn’t overwhelming; it’s like having some subtle lemon wedges floating in a fruit punch. This tea is so refreshing, and I tend to keep a mason jar of it in my fridge year-round!

Full Review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/08/29/tea35/

This is such a great tea! I found it at the Farmer’s Market in Boise, Idaho, from a tea vendor called Thunder Mountain Teas. The pu-erh base has a lovely rich, smooth flavor, with some slightly earthy and chocolate notes. So many flavored pu-erhs I try have this really cheap, “dirty” or “fishy” tasting pu-erh base, but this one is fantastic, and the flavoring is perfect! The tea has a very rich hazelnut flavor, with a natural berry sweetness, and a taste of strawberry right in the finish! It reminds me of dipping strawberries into a jar of Nutella! The tea has a robustness to it that makes me enjoy it in the mornings when I really need a pick-me-up, but it is smooth, contains no astringencies, and is naturally sweet and requires no extra sweetening unlike most black breakfast teas. It’s one of my favorites!

Full Review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/11/21/tea47/

Another entry for Love You Oolong Time! I had this one last night gongfu-style in my 150 ml beginner gaiwan. I am very much a beginner to Asian-style brewing… even with the beginner-style gaiwan I am still having trouble with the heat of the gaiwan against my fingers while pouring! Once I’m better at it, I’ll move up to purchasing the real deal, hahaha! This is only the third time I’ve done a gongfu session. I’m still very new to the process, but am really enjoying gaiwan brewing when I have the time to sit down and enjoy my tea at a more leisurely pace.

This is a tea sample from the Here’s Hoping Teabox (thanks tea-sipper and participants!) for an oolong I’ve never tried before, the Mi Lan Xiang Phoenix Dancong from Zen Tea Life (and from what I can tell, that site now only sells teaware, not tea). I used 200 degree F water, and my first infusion after rinsing the leaf was 30 seconds, and each subsequent infusion was increased by 15 seconds.

The first infusion was the most unpleasant for me. It had a malty sort of flavor with some lovely honey notes, but there was this smokiness to it that I found very off-putting; I am not a fan of smoky teas or flavors. But that was, thankfully, the only infusion where I got that particular flavor note, as the second infusion brought out some floral notes, and a slight bit of stonefruit, with a pleasant lychee aftertaste. By the third infusion the tea had become very sweet, and I was really getting the honey and orchid notes, with the fourth infusion very similar, with the sweetness tasting a bit like brown sugar or molasses. Sadly by the fifth infusion this tea was already losing steam, and my remaining infusions were a sweet, waning honey flavor with some subtle floral notes.

I had just a bit of leaf leftover, so I decided to just make this a sipdown and used it up with a western-style brew, sipping on the cuppa while watching the new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I used 200 degree F water and a two minute steep. The cuppa had a very smooth base with a malty, honeyed flavor. There was a brown sugar-like sweetness to the liquor, and just the faintest hint of lychee right in the finish, but I couldn’t pick out any floral notes when brewing the tea this way.

I really enjoyed the flavor of this tea, particularly when brewed Asian-style and getting to the sweeter infusions with heavier floral notes, but I was pretty unimpressed with how little stamina the tea had, and how quickly the flavor gave out, making for a fairly short gongfu session. Perhaps that could be to blame on me being such a beginner and needing to adjust and shorten my infusions (I’m still working at it!), or maybe it’s just not the best tea of this sort… who knows? What I do know is I definitely want to explore other Mi Lan Xiang Dancong oolongs in the future, since I really enjoyed the taste of this type of oolong and am very happy I got a chance to sample one!