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What beautiful leaves! They are long and twisted, cocoa brown, with a stem or two, but not as many as you might find in a Taiwanese tea. Gorgeous leaves and worth displaying before steeping if you are serving tea to guests.

The flavor is lovely with fruity notes like raisin and apricot, and a bare hint of sweet potato aroma. It is very nice on its own or with food.

Lost Malawi from Rare Tea Company is cut much finer and is a beloved breakfast blend for me. You steep it at a lower temp and for a shorter time, but it has more smoky flavor and a bit more heft. I don’t add milk or sugar but you could get away with it.

This tea is flavorful but has a different profile than Lost Malawi to me. It is an afternoon delight that is not delicate but is clearly not for breakfast, if that makes sense. It has a suit to wear to your tea party.

I have had a number of Satemwa Estate teas and they have all been excellent..

This sample is probably at least two years old and I have no idea how old it was when it was sent to me by a friend. In spite of that, it tastes as I expected and agrees with the notes here.

I don’t love chai and I don’t love clove and ginger in tea unless they are pretty light. Having said that, this one was actually drinkable to me. It is late September yet the early morning was already hot and muggy with heavy clouds, so something in the “comfort tea” line appealed to me and I decided it was a great time to try this and get it out of the samples bowl. I used boiling water and steeped for about 3 1/2 minutes.

There are so, so many teas with some combination of cinnamon, clove, ginger, and often orange. Occasionally you will cacao nibs added. I love when they include cardamom, as this tea does. But these blends end up tasting very much alike to me. I drink my tea plain and maybe with milk and sugar I would like that style of tea better.

I agree that this is best when hot as a briskness amplifies as it cools and the tea flavor becomes simply that – briskness. And then you are left just tasting the spices which at this point really are not all that strong. I kept thinking that if I tried it again, I would like to steep it in apple juice and make a mulled cider type drink.

Also, I did make this by steeping once, steeping again, and combining the two, so take that into account as you read my opinion.

September Sipdown Prompt – World Rose Day: a tea with rose petals or flavors

This blend contains rose congou black tea as well as rose petals, but it is overwhelmingly violet flavored. This smells and tastes like the violet candies I love and always try to resist opening a pack but I want to eat the whole thing at once.

I do not serve this to Ashman as he doesn’t like tons of floral flavors in tea, especially rose. He likes jasmine pearls and doesn’t mind an oolong with some light scenting. This one would be way too floral for him (I think) but I love it when I just need to feel foofy.

The black tea base is good and hefty and I am sure you could add milk and sugar if you like your tea that way. I drink it sans additions and had it for breakfast. It is strong enough for that for me!

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I think this was my favorite tea from the gift bag I was given by Ashman’s co-worker and his wife. It is lightly fruity and has no artificial taste as do teas which have had candy flavoring added. The berry notes are natural seeming to me and taste like I expect a tisane made of dried berries to taste.

It was relaxing to drink as a hot beverage and refreshing as a cold sweet tea.

September Sipdown Challenge Prompt – a tea you reordered before you were out

This tastes like what it says, and my neighbor who loves coffee but gets indigestion from it adores it and has given up coffee.

I thought I would only like the flavored Teeccino blends, but this one is really good. When having it with food, I can even drink it sans additions.

September Sipdown Challenge Prompt – Sipdown a Sample!

The site is running as slow as molasses in January. Clicking like on a post takes me to an ever spinning new page instead of lighting up the wee heart. Come on, tech team! We believe in you! Get us running again!

This sample was a tea mail surprise from GMathis – many thanks! It really came in useful today. Brekkie was late but I had to teach, so lunch was literally a slice of deli turkey I grabbed from the fridge and a glass of chocolate milk to wash it down. I walked as I “ate” lunch.

I wanted something to sip on for a couple of hours of afternoon teaching and it was the perfect time to try this.

The label says white tea at the bottom but the first ingredient listed is rooibos. The rooibos is somewhat temprered by the white tea and flavoring, though. It added a nice fruity note to the fruity flavorings without being overly woody. It smelled very nice in the cup. Enjoyabke, and I would drink it again if offered.

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This may have been Ashman’s favorite of the Earl Grey All Day line from RoT that we tried. The flavouring is pretty strong, which meant he could easily resteep and combine so that he had tea for breakfast plus enough for a travel mug to take to work.

The strawberry and rhubarb were pretty balanced so the rhubarb toned down “candy” tendencies in the strawberry. It was a brightly flavoured green and the base wasn’t sharp.

I barely picked up bergamot in these, and I don’t think I noticed it all in this one.

Sipdown

What a shocker to come on here today and see that my two sipdowns have never had a tasting note from me.

This was a really enjoyable blend. Orange Marmalade was super heavily flavored. This one a little less so.

It was genuinely a lemon biscuit/pastry flavor and not just tea with lemon. Ashman is not a fan of lemon in tea as a rule but he liked this. There was a nice, creamy vanilla note that sold the dessert profile.