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Deeeeelicious! Fruitier than fruit. Definitely getting the plums and cherries, though I think it also tastes like apples and pears. I’m also pleased as punch with whatever H&S is using for the base tea — it’s smooth, doesn’t draw too much attention to itself, and compliments the fruits flavors beautifully!

The smell of this tea! No wonder everyone is over the moon about it! The description of it on the H&S website didn’t sound that impressive, but I’d read many rave reviews, so I decided to give it a try. Raving quite justified. Consider me a convert! I sort of see the earl grey comparison that others have made, but it’s not a conclusion I would have reached on my own. To me the strongest notes are the cherry/berry flavor, smoothed out with some cocoa and vanilla. I think a flavor combo like this often turns out artificial-tasting, but this tastes SO natural and so amazing! I just want to sit here and sniff the tin.

Harney and Sons came in today :)! I’ve never a found a Harney and Sons store, but the Barnes and Noble cafe serves a limited selection of their tea in sachet form, and Bangkok is the cup I’ve had from them over and over. I think it would be the perfect tea to serve with Thai food (coconut, ginger, lemongrass) but it’s also wonderful all on its own.

Now that I’ve got a tin of this and am drinking it loose leaf style (and at a better water temperature. I’m pretty sure B&N makes all their tea with boiling water straight from the coffee machine) I’m noticing some differences in the flavor. Before ginger was the strongest flavor, with lemongrass present but noticeably in second place. I never even knew there was coconut in it till today. Now all the flavors are on a more even footing, with coconut ever so slightly in the lead. It was always good, but it’s better this way!

All the Shan Valley teas have been good, but to me this one was the most balanced. Smooth but very flavorful. It will probably end up being my favorite, but I want to give them all another try, as the other steepings were plagued by a combination of bad luck and my own ignorance. I kept steeping them a little too long, didn’t use enough leaf, etc., and while they really held up quite well, I bet they would be better prepared properly.

This tea doesn’t mess around. I wasn’t sure what to make of the name at first — Black Tea, beginning and end, about the least descriptive name in the history of loose leaf. But I kind of get it now. The tea is strong and decisive, packs a punch, and doesn’t wait around for adjectives. It reminds me of an Irish Breakfast. Very good, but you do have to like hefty tea.

Drank this last night. Definitely a stronger tea than the first flush green I previously tried from Shan Valley. Flavor was fuller all around and there was a slight bitterness, but it didn’t diminish the tea. A little bitterness is fine, I think, as long as the rest of the flavor can stand up to it. And the bitterness might be entirely due to user error anyway — I oversteeped this by at least two minutes, so I will need do a re-tasting before I write my official review. Even as it was, I quite liked the tea.

My free samples from Shan Valley just came in the mail! I am so psyched! Not only did they send a sample of all four of their teas (in very cute resealable bags), the samples are extremely generous. At a guess I think there might be as much as 50 grams in each one. I’m sure there’s at least 30. Anyway, I finally settled down and picked this one to try first. It’s light and smooth, a bit vegetal and a bit mineral. I’m getting just a touch of astringency, but it’s not a bad thing at all. Overall, a solid green tea. :)

My fondness for this tea is growing. There’s nothing showy about it — it’s just an unadorned whole-leaf green — but there’s something vastly comforting about it. I think the caffeine level is just right for making me feel focused and grounded.

I put these two together because the Shou Mei seemed so plain and sharp on its own and the Sweet Almond Green, while a wonderful idea, has some chemically thing going on that lingers in the aftertaste. I hoped they might neutralize each other, and to an extent they do. The flavors don’t merge as much as I expected, and if I’d bought this in a store I’d wonder why the blendmaster had put such a rough base with a sweet flavoring. But for my first blending experiment, it’s not bad.

Third time’s the charm. Finally realized I was using too MUCH tea (the instructions were on the bag the whole time but somehow I didn’t see them?! Even though I looked? A sorry insight into how my brain works before caffeine) and mucking up the flavor. While still not strong, I can taste the vanilla and bergamot; it seems that the base tea flavor was overwhelming them before. Though the cup is more balanced now, there’s something about that base tea I just don’t like. Not sure what Upton is using, but this seems to be an issue for me with all their flavored teas.