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Took a chance and brewed this up with milk for some friends who stopped by for brunch. Smelled strongly of pepper and turmeric, and with the milk it was a beautiful creamy, buttery yellow color. Very spring-appropriate! The spices had more scent than taste, so it was very mild. I sweetened it very slightly, which I’m not sure was an improvement – it may not need any sweetness at all. That being said, I felt that it was more of a health drink (and I don’t drink tea for health reasons at all – just for flavor) than a delicious beverage. It was okay, not amazing. But I think that’s just a personal taste thing, not the fault of the tea. I think for people who love caffeine-free turmeric-based drinks, it would be a winner – it just wasn’t my thing.

Picked this up at Home Goods quite a while ago and I’ve been using it to concoct my own masala chai. I’m definitely homing in on what I think is a really good blend of spices with this as my tea base. It’s a nice, malty assam that stands up to the spices but doesn’t overpower them. I can boil it with the spices in my chai pot and it doesn’t get bitter at all. Very nice tea and it’s been so much fun to experiment with!

Picked up a sample of this last year and since I know Camellia Sinensis takes their teas very seriously, I figured this would be a really lovely tea. Plus I generally love teas from India. Extremely smooth, almost creamy taste with bready/grainy notes. Very thick, luxurious mouthfeel. Not astringent at all, not particularly bright (more mellow), not tannic at all. Enjoyed this very much. I may have to put it on the list of teas to get more of when I get some more sipdowns completed.

The flavor description from Song is cognac, passionfruit, and coconut. And this tea hit all of these flavors, and in that order! Cognac up front, coming mainly from the way the leaves are roasted, with beautiful fruitiness right after, then finishing on the coconut/tropical notes. So complex and delicious! I tried to get multiple steepings from it, and got around three, but I think it’s better to just brew according to the vendor instructions. Maybe get a weak second steep out of it if you like to push things, as I do. Still, very interesting and flavorful tea. Next time I’ll try brewing Western style and see if that works to make it even better.

Another tea from my trip to the Netherlands. Caffeine-free, and the next best thing to hot cocoa when you add a bit of milk and sugar. The chocolate notes are nice and rich – it’s always so tough to find a chocolate tea that tastes right – and the caramel is there, but not very much, unfortunately. Luckily, this is still an extremely enjoyable cup. I’d order more of it, but the shipping is just too much. I’ll make a note of it to purchase again if I ever get back to that tea shop.

Picked this up at last year’s Toronto Tea Festival and just getting around to it now (egads!). It’s spicy, ginger-forward and warming, with a richer tea taste to it than other chai I’ve tried. It’s really good, very enjoyable but I noticed a lot of fennel in it. Luckily, the flavor didn’t transfer too much to the brew. Picky note from me: this chai is a bit more finely chopped, so it tended to clog both my chai pot and the filter in my teapot when I decanted it.

Gifted to me by my Dutch bestie, she knows I like creamy, vanilla forward teas so she figured I would like this tea version of a Dutch custardy dessert. Sadly, it’s more fruity than custardy – mostly strong notes of cherry, and more like cough syrup cherry than juicy cherry. Some hints of cream are detectable, but can’t get much past that medicinal fake cherry flavor. Disappointing, since I was really hoping for more custard, less fruit. You can’t win them all, right?

Incredible. Got this at last year’s Toronto Tea Festival and after tasting it at the booth, I just had to purchase it. Can’t believe it’s been a whole year and am bummed that I’m not able to go this year. As for the tea, it’s smooth, sumptuously creamy, and definitely one of the best milky oolongs I’ve ever had. This is going on my regular rotation!

Essentially an orange and cinnamon flavored black tea. Nice, but subtle. I added a couple of cardamom pods for extra oomph. I would probably add more leaf in the future, as the flavors were kind of weak. It was sort of Christmas-y, but for a spiced tea, I prefer a masala chai. Hmmm….maybe this would be an interesting base for an different, orange-y chai…let the experiments continue!