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I think I’ve been going through Earl Grey withdrawal because this is really hitting the spot! The black tea is rich and smooth, the bergamot is strong with a nice grapefruit briskness to the citrus, and the vanilla is subtle but noticably sweetens out the tea and rounds out the edges. The cream note could be a little stronger and creamier but overall I’m enitrely satisfied. It’s a classic tea that just feels right on a sunny fall morning.

Portal Tea (it’s still Tea Chai Te in my heart!) gifted me two teabags of this with a recent pumpkin spice emergency order. Since I have my yearly doctor check ups today, I am only allowed water or plain black coffee or tea until the vampires get me. So this black tea will do me fine… I don’t need additives anyway!

This is a morning blend of Ceylon and Assam teas. It is likewise very malty with a strong baked bread background, with the slightest hint of something fruity… perhaps a little cherry with a slight honey sweetness? It’s very smooth, and I’m not tasting the coppery or citrus notes I usually find in Ceylon teas. (Maybe a hint of citrus in the aftertaste?) I steeped these teabags for two minutes per the instructions on the sampler pouch and have a very smooth and tasty cup, with no bitter astringency. I imagine this could became quite brisk very quickly if one steeped it longer, if that is a preference.

It’s a nice breakfast tea, and I’m glad I got the chance to try it out. Thanks, Portal!

This is the last of the teas I decided to pilfer from my coworker’s decupboarding. This was one of the hibiscus teas, and I took all of what was left of the box since I know hibiscus isn’t very popular. However, I think this is my least favorite of all the hibiscus teas I snatched from the breakroom. The flavoring in this one just isn’t as good as Republic of Tea’s “Hibiscus Sangria” or Taylor of Harrogate’s “Blackberry and Raspberry.” The blueberry flavoring just tastes weird… I don’t normally get a “chalky” taste from berry flavoring like Cameron does, but now I understand because I’m absolutely tasting that here. It’s almost like a weird powdery taste/feeling after the sip. The lemon is okay, it provides a nice tartness to the tea, but it’s bordering a little close to tasting like floor cleaner.

So, not a favorite. I will finish off making coldbrew (which uses up the teabags pretty quickly) but it definitely won’t be missed.

This was one of the teas left by my coworker in the breakroom, and I see it has some pretty awful reviews here on Steepster. I can understand why… even I puckered up on my first sip, and I’m the Queen of Sour (I’ll note that I was perfectly fine on all subsequent sips after I’d adjusted my expectations). Needless to say, this is quite tart, and it comes on hard with the citrus. It’s okay, I’ve definitely had worse orange flavorings in my time, but there is something a little artificial about it… sort of like Tang or an orange popsicle. There is a little sweetness at the end of the sip that does balance out some of the tart, but that is provided by licorice root, another contentious ingredient (and yet another I’m fine with, so I’m unbothered by it). So I totally get the low ratings, and don’t think I could recommend this myself.

While I’m fine drinking something like this, I don’t really like it enough to seek it out. Personally I think it would work much better for me as a cold brew, but I brewed the two bags I’d nicked from the breakroom hot and straight to go with the gloomy weather today. If there are more bags of this in there I may take them just to try it as a cold brew since I don’t think anyone else around the workplace is going to like this, but I wouldn’t go buy a box of it for myself.

This is another of the hibiscus teas I took from my coworker’s decupboarding stash left in the breakroom. I prepared it as a coldbrew, and it’s okay, but nothing I’d be wowed by. Mostly it just tastes a little thin of flavor… there were two teabags available and I took both and steeped in 500ml water, but I’m guessing this is a tea that would do better to be overleafed a bit… a third teabag probably would’ve made a world of difference. The flavoring isn’t bad though… I can taste both blackberry and raspberry, with the blackberry being a bit stronger at the front of the sip and a tart raspberry note popping toward the end of the sip. The hibiscus is rightfully tangy, and though there are some sweeter ingredients in the blend, it retains more of a berry tartness. It’s likely too much for those that already don’t like hibiscus, but it isn’t as potent as the “Hibiscus Sangria” from Republic of Tea I tried the other day.

I nicked this teabag from the breakroom at City Hall when I was there last month for some training, and I decided to brew it up today for Sunday tea time. Had I noticed that chamomile was the first listed ingredient I probably would’ve passed (what a strange ingredient for a pumpkin spice tea!) but I’m actually not tasting it too much against the flavoring. It reminds me a lot of an herbal version of Tazo’s “Pumpkin Spice Chai” in the pumpkin flavoring. The spice blend is pretty nice too, the cinnamon hits first but the ginger comes second with a little bite that lingers after the sip.

This is surprisingly good, especially for being on a chamomile base. If you are like me and don’t like the taste of chamomile, you’d be hard-pressed to even notice it in this blend. It has passion flower too… so I guess this would be a decent evening alternative for those that like Tazo’s “Pumpkin Spice Chai” which is on a black base. The pumpkin flavoring in both is a little weird/artificial but if you like it in one, you’d like it in the other.

This has a very appealing scent… a fruity sweetness mixed with spices, particularly a nutmeg aroma on the nose. The flavor is surprisingly fruity… though the blend has sugared papaya cubes in it, the taste is more akin to teas that use apple as a fruit filler… that sort of sweet, non-descript “fruitiness.” There is also a bit of vanilla sweetness, and the spice blend is very nice. Aside from the cinnamon the rest is coming from flavoring which usually ruins a spice tea for me, but this tastes very nice… I think the cinnamon grounds it out and I can definitely pick up a bit of nutmeg flavor.

Prepared straight and plain, it felt a little thin to me, so I’d probably need to overleaf it next time to get closer to a good flavor. But this morning I prepared it as a latte (I’ve really been in a latte mood lately) and the creaminess and sweetness of the vanilla almond milk really pulls together the flavor profile. It’s very indulgent, though a bit sweetly mouth-coating with this preparation.

I really enjoy this, though thinking back on other carrot cake blends I’ve enjoyed, I don’t think it is as good as 52Tea’s “Carrot Cake Pancakes” or Bird & Blend’s “Carrot Cake” tea. That said, the former isn’t a readily available offering and the latter is ridiculously expensive and hard to get for me in the United States considering overseas shipping and the new tariffs and whatnot. This at least holds up on its own for something I can easily get (and at a quite affordable price) in the US. But I’ll probably continue to explore other carrot cake teas as I stumble upon them. I think the biggest critique with this one is the flavoring is doing most of the heavy lifting rather than having a nice blend of actual spices in the leaf (though that is probably a big reason why it is so affordable…)

Another of my coworker’s abandoned teas. As far as bagged chai go… I’m okay with this. It’s still not the best, with that really artificial/oily spice flavor, but it goes hard on the cinnamon rather than the clove so instead of being overtaken by clove oil that dominates the whole tea, it tastes mostly like one of those generic “cinnamon candy” teas… which is also a very artificial flavor, but works okay for me since I’m okay with that really artificial cinnamon flavor in candies.

This is pretty nice as a latte with sweet vanilla almond milk (though I did burn my mouth on it terribly at work yesterday when I went in for a drink during a boring customer service staff meeting without waiting for my thermos to cool properly). I’ll probably just keep making it that way until I use up the teabags, since it is so serviceable that way.

Drinkable but nothing to write home about.

This is another of my coworker’s abandoned teas… I took pretty much all the hibiscus ones she had left in the breakroom, since nobody likes it but me. (I’m pretty much just a hibiscus rehoming sanctuary at this point…)

This came as quart-sized cold brew packets, so that is how I prepared it. It is very unseasonal, I admit, but I was starting to get tired of my mugicha coldbrew and welcomed a change-up. This is very tangy, which I of course enjoy. The hibiscus provides a nice full texture with a strong tart, fruity background, and the orange is quite zesty. The orange flavor is also very nice, rather than that weird artificial note it sometimes can have. I find it quite gulpable cold and plain, but I don’t know if I could recommend it to anyone else… if you a) like hibiscus b) like orange c) like things on the tangy/sour side, then you’ll probably enjoy this like me. But if you can’t check all three boxes, this isn’t going to be for you.

I had a craving a while ago for a “Chinese restaurant” teabag oolong… The only bagged oolong I could even find at my local grocery was this one, so I figured I’d try it out. Sadly, it just isn’t quite what I was hoping for. It has a bit of that roasty note and a subtle florality in the background, but its just so flavorless… It comes out really bland tasting. Adding an additional teabag helps the flavor substantially, but then it also gets a bit bitter/tannic at the end of the sip, which isn’t ideal either.

It’s a shame I live in an area that just doesn’t really have foreign speciality grocers around, which would probably have what I’m looking for in regards to a simple bagged tea oolong that gives that classic Chinese restaurant flavor… but this Twinings offering is not it. I won’t be purchasing again.