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I was so excited to try this tea, sent along by Roswell Strange, as coffee cake is one of my favorite indulgences I rarely indulge in. But… This tea has very little to do with coffee cake. The dominate note for me was oily oil chemical oil. Some caramel perhaps, but the aftertaste is so bad you loose even that glimmer of taste to the oil.

This tea came across too malty for me, to the point of distraction. I varied steep times and sugar/milk combinations but ultimately it didn’t work for me.

I hesitate to give any tea a perfect score, yet here I am! A huge thanks to cavocorax for sending a sample of this to my wife! I love stories, especially stories about what’s behind my favorite things, how movies are made, how books are written, and how tea is grown. Verdant does it’s customers a great service by not only supporting local growers but also telling their stories. I would love this tea even if I knew nothing beyond the fact that it was a black tea, perish the thought but I’d even love it in a tea bag! The taste, oh that lovely chocolately goodness, so deep and complex. It’s like drinking a brownie, or a malted milk shake, or a chocolate donut. But it’s more than a sweet desert tea, it’s full body tells a story just as rich as Verdant does. I feel as though I taste the land of Loashan, the rain that fell, the sun that gave it life… It’s a remarkable experience from a remarkable tea!

This is another tea I’ve had the pleasure of trying thanks to cavocorax and my wife. I love the concept of this tea, and it comes so close, so close. The cinnamon comes through well, not too strong but it is the dominate note. I do taste bread in the aftertaste but I don’t know if it’s wishful thinking on my part as I don’t know what black tea base was used. With a littl organic sugar I think it would be just about there but otherwise it falls kind of short for me.

Thanks to MissB for sending a sample of this to my wife today! and thanks to my wife for sharing it! I’m always on the lookout for new Rooibos blends, being on a low caffeine diet makes for challenging tea drinking sometimes, so I was excited for this one! It’s a tricky tea, trying for Tangerine was a bold move but I’m not entirely sure the tea made it there. At times it’s a triumph, like a fresh orange on a hot day, but other times it comes across as artificial. Like orange flavored cough drops if I’m honest. I think the problem is that bits of tangerine rind were included, but not tangerine itself (freeze dried or otherwise). Rind can either work or taste very bitter, and in this tea sometimes it went one and sometimes the other. If I had more I might experiment with different sweetners to try and stabilize the taste. I’m going to recommend this tea though because it’s definitely worth a try!

This tea is one of the guilty pleasures, the idea of adding ice cream (freeze dried or otherwise) just seems so wrong and yet it tastes so right! It’s just like drinking a hot mug of birthday cake, for better or for worse! The Rooibos is completely lost but one doesn’t sit down with a birthday cake tea actually looking for tea do they? It’s not something I could drink every day, but when that sugar craving hits and I have to have some sweet sin this hits the spot!

This is one of the best black teas I’ve come across in my recent introduction to loose leaf teas, it’s bursting with flavor and so smooth I found myself at the bottom of my cup without knowing exactly how I got there! Whenever I see the word ‘premium’ in a product description I’m wary because more often than not it’s hyperbole, but not in this case. Excellent tea!