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Dry, this one smells like the scented markers they gave us in Kindergarten. I thoroughly confused my fiance last night when I held the bag of this under his nose and demanded, “Doesn’t it smell like a magic marker?” If he didn’t think I was crazy before, he probably does now… (That IS what this tea smells like though. It’s not my fault if his elementary school wasn’t as awesome as mine.)

I steeped this one for 7 minutes and got a VERY minty tea; after I’d finished the cup, the cooling sensation from the mint lingered in the back of my throat. The fruit flavor is reminiscent of watermelon and very light. It’s more of an accent to the mint flavor if anything.

Overall, this is an enjoyable tea, but I’m not sure I’d want it in anything other than a sample package.

I ran out of this a while ago and realized I never wrote a note for it – oops!

I love this one. It needs the tiniest bit of sugar, but once it’s sweetened, it’s fantastic. Very minty with the chocolate adding sweetness.

Sipdown!

I’ve had a sample of this for a while and put off trying it after striking out with the previously-adored Coffee Pu’erh.. I probably haven’t stored this all that well (zip lock baggie), but it still smells strongly of cinnamon. Taste wise it’s a lot of hay with the cinnamon adding a faint heat. Not bad, but I like Hot Cinnamon Spice so much better.

Still, I’m glad I got to try this one!

This was a post-dessert tea last night and I’m really regretting my choice there. It’s so yummy and sweet that I didn’t need dessert! Curse you, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream! Curse you!

This is a lovely tea, one that lives up to its name. Hot it’s identical to cotton candy and doesn’t make your hands sticky! As it cools, it loses that cotton candy flavor and transforms into a sweet tea that’s easy to drink.

I’m going to need a lot of this one…

This is a straightforward minty black tea. The chocolate isn’t really noticeable except for a hint of sweetness towards the end of the cup and a lack of astringency in the black tea. Overall, not bad!

After enjoying a relaxing long weekend with my finance, I’m sick. It’s not even the good kind of sick (pardon the oxymoron) where you sleep for a day and feel better. Nope. This is the sort of cold that both keeps you awake and insists that you sinuses also be plugged.

Bleck.

I received this as a sample in my most recent order. It’s not something I’d ordinarily try as I historically haven’t been a huge fan of ginger in my tea. Truthfully, I keep expecting to hate this one, but I don’t. It’s spicy and hot and really soothing. I’ve already gone through a pot and I’m making another.

The only downside is that I don’t have any more of this. I can see it being really helpful when I’m back at work tomorrow.

I got a pitcher pack of this to try and I’m really on the fence. It’s not as caramel sweet as I was expecting — the first steep reminds me of Fruity Pebbles cereal, of all things. The second steep is very apple cinnamon — pleasant, but not what I was expecting from a kettle corn flavored tea.

This was sort of a cheater sipdown. I usually steep everything twice partly because most of my teas seem to hold up well to a second steeping and partly because I’m cheap and this helps me justify the cost of my tea.

With this tea, though, I just couldn’t bring myself to resteep.

Oh, the flavor is spot on. It’s very orange and very chocolate. The flavors just don’t meld for me; the whole thing was just too sharp. So I dug out the biggest cup I have, added a tiny bit of sugar, steeped the little bit I had left, and gulped.

Turns out, this one isn’t terrible if you sweeten and understeep. And, turns out, I don’t feel as guilty as I expected to, only steeping this one once. The cabinet space more than makes up for it…

My fiance and I have been working on our apartment recently. Specifically, we’ve been unpacking and finding homes for everything. We actually moved in together last October and had originally planned to make the move in a month-long get organized extravaganza.

Yeah … so that didn’t happen at all. The closest we came to settled was putting our clothes into the dressers and unpacking the kitchen stuff. And – fun bonus – our apartment is seriously lacking in storage space which means there really isn’t a place for everything to go.

To resolve this problem, we bought a hutch for our dining room and, since it finally came in, I’ve been on a bit of an organizational bender. Also a tea buying bender seeing as hutch = more places to store tea = I can stock up.

(My fiance, feeling guilt over his third!!! fishtank, is surprisingly supportive of this. Hmm.)

Anyway. I got this as part of a fandom sampler from Adagio and made it yesterday to take to work. With a little added sugar, it’s not bad, but it’s definitely a bit biting — I’m not sure which of the ingredients is causing that. I tried again today with some milk and sugar and it’s quite tasty. The berries aren’t as prominent and I don’t get any chocolate, but it’s a nice tea to wake up to.

Backlog from last week.

My tea drinking has gone down lately between work being busy and the weather getting hot and muggy. I had this with breakfask thinking blueberries and cream would make for a nice, light tea.

It’s not bad. I definitely get a creamy flavor. Seems like the blueberries got lost in the shuffle. Maybe it needs some sugar?