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I LOVE THIS TEA. IT IS AN APPLE PIE IN A CUP.

http://sororiteasisters.com/2016/09/16/equestea-geeky-teas-2/

A concise version of my opinions on this tea is here:

http://sororiteasisters.com/2016/09/14/wake-juice-geeky-teas/

The original draft of that review involved me saying that the tea smelled kind of rustic. Like a barn. Not a YUCKY, UNCLEAN barn. Just a kind of hay/wood smell. And then I went off on a tangent about my aunt and uncle’s sheep, which I will offer up now:

“My aunt and uncle had two sheep, a black one and a white one. They weren’t for eating. They were big pets.

They were two females — or so we thought.

After shearing the sheep one year, they noticed that one of them had a VERY strange-looking undercarriage. There was something, um, bumpy under the lady business. They were vets, so they knew what they were looking at, but called in another vet to verify.

One of the sheep was a hermaprodite. They had to castrate their ewe. That sheep (which had had an attitude problem) became very docile afterwards.

I was really into those sheep. I once climbed an electrified fence so I could get to them.

I was a stupid child. It’s a miracle I lived long enough to review this tea."

As you can see, that entire tangent had nothing to do with the tea. But now you have a better idea about the type of person I am.

A post about what a daquiri is, how this tea tastes, a good music soundtrack, and EVERY SINGLE THING I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT 1995’s BATMAN FOREVER is here:

http://sororiteasisters.com/2016/09/12/musicandteamonday-mango-rose-daiquiri-from-52teas/

Do I like oolongs? I wasn’t sure when I ordered this. I just threw it in my cart for the name. And the idea of a tea that sparkled.

So let’s get this out of the way first: it doesn’t sparkle much, which 52teas had actually mentioned in one of her reviews. Apparently the glitter is a pain in the you-know and doesn’t have a lot of payoff. So I wasn’t expecting much sparkle. The sparkle is (or should be) secondary anyway.

Other than the sparkle, the appearance is really striking. It’s got SUPER LONG leaves. There’s a certain DRAMA to the look of this tea. The leaf length makes it kind of hard to figure out how to portion it, since it doesn’t fit neatly into my Perfect Tea Spoon thing. I just eyeballed it. (Do other people have a solution to this?)

Anyway, this tastes great. I don’t know if I like oolongs or not (gotta keep trying around), but I definitely like THIS. It’s got a rich, throaty sweetness. I would have described it as “plum-like.”

When I looked at the ingredients, there are “pluots” in there. What’s a pluot? It’s a plum-apricot hybrid. I didn’t even know that was possible! This tea isn’t just a tea — it’s an EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE.

So fruit, a little bit of sweetness, some slightly vegetal tea, and a deep booming bass note.

I am super-bummed I only got a sampler of this tea. I should have purchased a vat of it.

Good day, Steepies! Today I’m hitting up one of my Quarter To Tea samples as a nice little break from the things I’m actually supposed to be doing. (I hoard my samples and deploy them as pick-me-ups as needed.) Reviewing teas is a nice little counterpoint to my day.

Today’s victim — er, topic of discussion — is a maple vanilla Earl Grey.

Which this tea totally nails.

If you wanted
a) maple
b) vanilla
and
c) bergamot

You would swiftly locate
a) maple
b) vanilla
and
c) bergamot.

If you blindfolded me and asked me what to call this, I’d call it that exact thing.

So now the operative question for you, Dear Reader, is: do you like those ingredients? I certainly do. That’s why I purchased this tea.

I’m pretending right now that I’m in Canada watching a mountie on a moose amble by. (I think they ride horses. But shush.) I am eating a pancake in a diner. The waitress is a curvy lady with fake red hair and perfect lipstick application. She calls me “hon.” The sun is rising over the maple leaves, and I feel a sense of optimism.

A few weeks ago, I was sent a sample with “Chocolate Hazelnut” written on it. Turns out that the sample was from a company that no longer exists, so I feel okay about posting the review here now. Because, as you will see, it’s not the best.

Let’s start with the handwritten nature of the bag. This lack of a branding scheme was ominous. Was it made in the basement by a maniac? I have no idea what the ingredients are. We’re going to have to walk into this review hoping one of them isn’t arsenic.

I gave the mysterious bag the sniff test. The tea inside smelled really chocolatey and delicious.

This tea appears to contain black tea, nuts, chocolate chips, and chocolate Rice Krispies. (A quick Google reveals that product is called “Cocoa Krispies.”)

I tried it plain, but thought it tasted like dirt-blood. Once the tea was out of my mouth, however, the aftertaste was awesome. My tongue was coated in some kind of chocolate nut delight. Heck yeah.

So it was time to Go Rogue and dump some vanilla almond milk and honey into that puppy. Alas, the taste was still like getting kicked in the face by a kangaroo.

Is this hazelnut? Do I not like hazelnut? Was this tea made really close to Chernobyl and pick up trace amounts of some sort of otherworldly chemical? Why does its dry tea and aftertaste smell so wonderful — but when the tea is actively in my mouth, I don’t like it?

Did you guys know that Bill Nye is getting his own show on Netflix? What I want is for everyone who reads this blog to hook me up with a little 5-minute segment in which he can explain what’s going on with this tea. How does our sense of taste even WORK?

Also, I just want to meet Bill Nye. Is it weird to have a tiny crush on Bill Nye?

Be sure to leave your thoughts on hazelnut and/or Bill Nye in the comments. Also, if you’re a serial killer, please let me know if “dirt-blood” is a real flavor. Or, if you’re Australian, if “getting kicked in the face by a kangaroo” is a real flavor. I strive for accuracy.

This tea is a super-weirdo. Some sips are tasty; others taste fake. And I’m a super-basic chick who enjoys diet soda, so when something is fake, it’s italics-bold-underline-caps-lock FAKE.

I have a little more of this sample left, which I mixed in with some basic black to make some iced tea. I spilled some of said tea all over the floor at work* and was kind of relieved not to have to drink it.

(*My boss told me not to worry about it. He was so chill. 10 gold stars.)

This tea isn’t bad. It’s just not good. It’s, you know, drinkable. It’s the “that’ll do, pig” of teas.

I’ve written a few notes about this tea, but I wanted to mention it briefly again because a few other people around have liked it. I gave it to a friend who was very sick and exhausted Saturday, and it perked her up and soothed her throat. I gave it to another friend today, who happily declared it super-tasty. It’s a majestic brew that a lot of disparate people seem to like.

This tastes like the Sleepytime Peach, minus the peach.

It’s mostly chamomile. I’ve had several cups now, and I honestly can’t taste the honey. I felt like this should be sweeter.

That said, it’s pretty good, and I like to sip it as part of an evening ritual to get to sleep. I have a lot of trouble sleeping sometimes, so this is, hopefully, a Pavlovian training method. Drink this, body falls asleep. It’s soothing.

This tea tastes like a peach cobbler, except with a lot of cinnamon. Basically drowning in cinnamon. If you’re the sort of person who loves oodles of chai flavoring, with maybe some fruity peach/apple thrown in, this is for you.

If you’re the sort of person who wants a straight fruity tea without spices, here’s what I want you to do:

1. Procure a Zamboni.
2. Hitch a gazebo to the back of the Zamboni.
3. Hire a driver named Jeeves.
4. Find a road where there is no police presence.
5. Have Jeeves start up the Zamboni while you lie in repose in the gazebo.
6. Ride off into the sunset, far far away from this tea.