Spiced Brandy Shou Mei

I’m not loving this. It’s not the anise for me – in fact, the anise isn’t really coming out strongly. It’s that nutmeggy eggnog aroma – it doesn’t combine well with the tea flavors. I love eggnog, but for me, it just doesn’t combine with bitter flavors – I don’t like it in chocolate or coffee, either.

I think I’d love this if it were a rooibos/honeybush tea.

I’m sure this is a personal thing, because I know there are plenty of people who enjoy things like eggnog lattes and eggnog or nutmeg flavored chocolates.

EDIT: It is growing on me. Perhaps that’s just my body going “hells yeah caffeine,” but I definitely did enjoy the second half of the cup more than the first half.

GCTTB

Wow! I’m going to preface this review by telling you that I’m not a huge fan of licorice, and the anise makes this smell a lot like it when dry. Passed that, this the spices are great! I’m a huge fan of most Chai teas, and this one packs a punch, when brewed, it doesn’t taste as much like licorice, and It’s not overly hot in a spicy way, but there’s definitely a tingle on the back of my tongue, partly from the peppercorns, but also from the cloves as there’s also a numbing sensation going on. The rest of the flavors balance wonderfully! I don’t know what spiced brandy is supposed to taste like, but I actually really like this. It’s very full flavored, and the peppercorns really linger. Strong, just the way Iike it! I’m stongly debatin taking this out of the box and keeping it.

GCTTB

I found this to be a nicely spiced tea. I found the licorice in the aftertaste, and it wasn’t so prominent to me, which is a good thing, since I don’t like tea’s with a strong licorice flavour. I didn’t get the brandy. Despite that, I still found this to be enjoyable, but not something that I would feel the need to own.

GCTTB

I think this if my first tea ever tried from 52 Teas. I’m not really into too many flavoured teas and they do have a lot of flavoured teas. This one surprised me though. It was a lovely licorice spice. A bit of the delicate taste of the white tea came through and it was a pretty good blend…if you like licorice/anise , which I do. I don’t get any brandy from this tea. I think it should be called Licorice Spice.

Whoa, this one has got some POTENT flavors going on. As soon as I opened the package, I actually had to back AWAY from it, because I was so overwhelmed by the licorice aroma charging at me like an aggressive rhino. I let it sit open while I prepped the water, and gave it another sniff right before steeping, and I can happily report that the anise had lightened up, and I could in fact smell other things—spices, mostly, and something a bit musty.

I steeped it up and sweetened it, because not being a huge fan of anise, I thought that sugar might help. What I got instead was a POWERFUL flavor of alcohol. It pretty much took over, leaving the spices to duke it out for the aftertaste. I don’t think I am a fan of this one. My husband is, though, so he’s welcome to it.