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I love this one, though they seem to have changed the recipe last time I checked. They were also out, and since I only had another day or so in Rome I never got to buy that second package… I’ll probably try next time. Oh, I miss Rome. Must go again soon.

Anyway – pistachio! Who knew? It’s a wonderful flavour to go with tea, as is the yoghurt, but I’ve had yoghurt in a number of teas (always with good results) but this is my one and only pistachio so far. …. though I am scheming to get my hands on the Theodor one with pistachio and macaroon. But I digress.

I got this tea on the tea shop owner’s advice – I asked for something unusual. It also happens to be one of the very few rooiboses that I like, and I like it quite a bit. By the way, the shop and the owner are both utterly lovely so do stop by if you’re in Rome.

Lovely jasmine tea, though a bit finicky. (Oh, I so love having an excuse to use the word ‘finicky.’ Such a great word…) I do find that to be the case with jasmine teas in general, though. Basically, if I put in a bit too much tea or leave it in a bit too long or make the water too hot, it gets this overpowering flavour somewhere in there, which I associate with jasmine though it doesn’t actually taste like jasmine (I think). And gets a not very nice, strong aftertaste. BUT if made right – so, not too much leaf, not more than about 3 minutes – it’s just pure wondrous perfection.

This one is a another one of my favourites to have with Cream Tea chez moi.

I pretty much only drink this tea when I’m getting sick, am already sick, or want to be utterly lazy and cosy in a way you can be when home sick but minus the headache (bonus!). And the only way I really drink it is with added lemon juice (nothing fancy, just from one of those plastic bottles you buy in the shop) and a decent amount of honey to balance out the lemon. I tend to be decently ‘sensitive’ to ginger, so it often gets too strong for me if I drink a tea plain, and that’s the case with this one too. But with the honey + lemon, it’s just sheer spicy perfection.

I also have a special mug that this tea is supposed to be drunk out of. It has a moon on it. Yup.

Your basic lovely green rose tea. I tried this one and Kusmi’s green rose side by side, and they tasted pretty much the same to me, with the note that this one is much much cheaper.

I love to make this tea when I do a cream tea at home – scones, jam, clotted cream and all that. It’s very mild on one hand, but still holds its own against the jam/cream and all that. Plus, even though I don’t have a fancy porcelain tea set, you could imagine this tea feeling right at home in one :)

Well, I was brave and put both a whole teaspoon of tea leaves per cup, and steeped it at boiling temperature, AND left it in for 4 minutes. And no bitterness – hoorah!

I am definitely getting what a bunch of folks said about the jamminess of the tea. I don’t quite get strawberry jam or fig jam, more like a combo jam. But – I still don’t really like it very much. Which makes me feel bad. I really really want to like this tea! I think I may actually not like the base very much. There is a flavour that seems to overpower the jamminess, and it kind of just tastes like tea. Black tea that’s not bitter, but also definitely not my preferred kind of black tea.

I tried adding some honey, but it didn’t really change much. Sorry, tea. I think I’ll need to find a better home for you.

I split my last Dammann order with two tea-loving friends, and one of them gave me a sample of her Old Man Tea. I have to say, I was primarily in love with the name (because – how could you NOT be?), but I was a bit sceptical because it very much sounds like an ‘autumn’ tea of the kind I thought I’d love until I bought both Noel en Provence (Dammann) and Autumn Blend (Betjeman & Barton) and …. didn’t really like either one. They just felt too heavy and black tea-ish that kind of way that I associate with getting a headache. And they were sweet in a way that didn’t work for me. Which was sad.

BUT – I kind of rather like Old Man Tea. For one thing, it is very strong on the grape note. It smells just like hot grape juice, which I love. And it also tastes very strongly of grape. It was definitely the dominant flavour for me, and it was rather pleasant. Also, it didn’t feel too heavy even though it was decently strong. So, go Old Man Tea. I will be trying you again, what with my very generous sample. And knowing me, I’ll be doing a triple side-by-side tea comparison, cause hey, why not?

Like cteresa said, Yumchaa doesn’t tend to make actually bad teas, but this one isn’t quite my thing. (ha! Avoided a pun there.) It is, however, that got a bunch of my former colleagues into tea. I took my jar of Enchanted Forest to work because I wasn’t that into it and thought it might work as a work tea (you know, when I have something else to think about other than tea), and I made it for everyone and they were quite wow-ed. Then again, they didn’t have any idea that tea could be awesome. I do enjoy being a tea evangelist…

Anyway, it’s a perfectly fine tea. It smells nice, rather sweet. It tastes like berries. I’m not even sure which ones, since there’s so many in there. I think blueberries or blackberries, maybe? And then I feel like I can tell there’s cream in there, since there’s a kind of smooth quality to it, not sour. I don’t really know what else to say, really. There it is.

Btw, Dammann’s Souffle Fleuri has similar ingredients but tastes rather different and I liked it better. Feel free to mosey over to that review if you’d like :)

So, I just accidentally deleted the first two paragraphs of the review. Gah. And since I hate repeating what I just wrote, I’m going to summarize. Basically, I’m not that great at detecting different notes in tea, and the best way to start to get them is by doing a side-by-side comparison with a supposedly similar tea. So, with the rhubarb and berries and flowers business, I thought of Yumchaa’s Enchanted Forest right away.

The first time I tried this tea (which was yesterday?) I have to say I was disappointed. It just tasted like floral oolong to me. Very familiar and not particularly special. Reminded me of Jardin de Luxembourg (also Dammann), which has a ton of mostly unusual flowers. I was mostly going for the rhubarb note with this one, so that was a bit of a downer. Also just the fact that I couldn’t really notice anything unusual about it.

Then I did my side-by-side, and boy – flowers! And unusual flowers at that. It also had one of those 1-2 punch flavours, where I first strongly taste one thing and then quickly another thing. I have no idea what, but I’ve never tried tea with either Tulip or Lilac before, so I’m guessing something to do with those. Also, the smell of this tea really started to stand out after comparing it with Enchanted Forest. I’m guessing it must be the lilac, because it smells rather wonderful and I love lilac. Also, tulips don’t smell.

I’m also pretty sure I taste some rhubarb now. It’s got a bit of that lightly sour note somewhere in there, which gives the tea an interesting complexity when mixed in with the florals. I’m also pretty sure I can smell it a bit. I can’t find any raspberry in there, though. But then again, raspberry is also a tad on the sour side, so maybe it’s participating in the slight sourness going on there.

No astringency here, by the way. I don’t usually have a problem with that with Oolongs anyway, but it’s nice to know I keep not having it :)

Still not sure how to rate it. Will be back. Oh, but I definitely like it better than Enchanted Forest. Seems I was right – I’m getting over Yumchaa…