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The dry leaf of this tea has a lot of interest. The green leaves are long and slightly fluffy, and they appear to have been rolled into little cigarette shapes. I don’t see much white tea in here – there appear to be a few scattered silver needles and some of the smaller leaf pieces could be bai mudan, but I’m not sure. There are pink rose petals and little squares of what looks like almond. There’s a decent amount of dehydrated raspberry that is broken into small pieces, which is a good idea in my opinion. The mini white chocolate chips are few and far between, much to my dismay. It smells strongly of tart raspberry (the exact scent reminds me of some raspberry candy… Jolly Rancher maybe?) with some musty green and hay in the background. I used a heaping teaspoon and brewed for 3 minutes at 175.

The brew smells vegetal with the same tart raspberry scent and little bit of hay. The taste is similar to the smell. I like this raspberry flavor even though it’s not entirely a genuine flavor. It’s tart and pleasing and it doesn’t entirely overpower the vegetal taste of the tea. However, I get zero white chocolate taste out of this, even though I made sure that there were a couple chips included in my teaspoon of tea. This makes me very sad because I was really looking forward to the raspberry and white chocolate combination… This is a fairly tasty raspberry green tea, but even with sugar I don’t taste any chocolate. Shame.

Number two from my Della Terra order! If nothing else, this tea is adorable – I love the sprinkles. Mine has these weird little pastel-colored squishy spheres in it. They’re about peppercorn size and they feel spongy when I squeeze one. I’m not sure what they are, Della Terra’s website says that the add-ins can change due to availability. I didn’t go as far as to eat one… There are also little baby sugar crystals dyed in pastel colors. Cute! The dry tea smells very strongly of rooibos with some kind of weird sour note and maybe a tiny bit of sugar. Very strange. I brewed two teaspoons for 5 minutes because in my last experience, the tea wasn’t strong enough with the recommended amount.

The brewed tea smells like rooibos and… cherry lozenges? This was not a flavor I expected to find. There’s also a quiet note of spun sugar in the background somewhere. When I first tasted the tea, it kind of just tasted like rooibos. So then I added a teaspoon of sugar and I think that really helped the flavoring, because it got extremely sweet (sweeter than I would expect from the amount of sugar). I definitely taste the rooibos, but thank goodness there is no cherry lozenge here. I do get spun sugar from this, but there’s also some kind of vanilla-esque flavor. Then there’s something that reminds me of a mildly fruit flavored hard candy. This is extremely sweet, and anyone who doesn’t enjoy rooibos is certainly not going to like it. I happen to like rooibos, so I am finding it very tasty. I’ll definitely play with steep times just to see how it affects the level of rooibos versus flavor.

I sent out my first swaps ever today, hooray! Thanks to Arshness and Ost for their friendliness. :D Ladies, I sent your tracking numbers via private messages.

This is my first tea to try from my Della Terra order that arrived today. It was full of shameless dessert teas like this one and cotton candy… Sue me! The dry leaf of this tea smells amazing – mostly butter with brown sugar undertones. It’s black tea mixed with a decent amount of candied pineapple pieces, various flower petals, and the occasional dried cherry. I have to assume the cherries are only there for style, since there were only like five total in my 1 ounce package. This makes sense, considering the maraschino cherries on top of the pineapple upside down cake are only there for show, too.

The first time, I brewed the recommended teaspoon (mine was a bit heaping) for 3 minutes. It came out far too weak for my tastes. So then I did about a teaspoon and a half for 4 minutes and it definitely improved. The brewed tea smells strongly of butter and brown sugar with kind of a toasted nut smell. It reminds me of a really buttery pound cake with some kind of glaze, which is pretty much what pineapple upside down cake is. I don’t get any pineapple in the smell.

The tea itself is quite tasty. I can taste the base just barely, so it must be a fairly mild variety since I steeped for 4 minutes and with extra tea. The flavor is very buttery and sugary with hints of dark caramelized sugar and cream. I think it equates very well to the actual cake used in the dessert, but I am getting zero pineapple here. Not even a hint of pineapple. And to be honest, that’s okay with me because this does cake very well. This is almost a dead ringer for that terrible-for-you sliced butter cake that you can buy at grocery stores (it’s like a more ridiculous pound cake basically).

I feel like this tea is a little weak, maybe I’ll try 2 full teaspoons next time I make it. Very tasty though!

Trying this one again after the French press pre-steep debacle… Steeped for 3 minutes at 205 degrees.

Wow, I am definitely getting a lot more lemon and lime than I did before. Still getting bergamot too and a tad bit of orange and a hint of floral. The lemon/lime (they kind of meld together) is definitely the main event though, and it kind of transforms into bergamot in the middle of the sip. Yum yum. :D

Oh, boy. I made a boo-boo. So, I brew all of my loose teas in a French press (I just put the loose tea in the bottom, add water, then use the plunger as a strainer instead of actually plunging the tea). I rinse it between uses and just leave it to dry by itself. As it turns out, a lot of the time there ends up being a tiny amount of water in the bottom. And I usually add my dry leaves a couple minutes before I add the water. So… basically a lot of my teas have been sort of “mini-steeping” for a little bit before the actual steep… Uh oh, spaghetti-o’s… And I noticed this completely by accident because of this tea.

This tea tastes completely different when I add the leaves just before the water… The bergamot is no longer strong or in the forefront. I now taste mostly red fruits (!!!!!) and vanilla with a bit of caramel, then the bergamot in the back. So… This means I’m going to need to retry a whole bunch of teas that I already rated. Sorry, guys. XD

Bumping the rating from 78 to 85. Je l’aime!

I just picked up a huge bottle of this, and I thought I’d check and see if it’s on here since it technically has tea in it. I love this stuff! Tastes like a thick, creamy vanilla soymilk with a little spice in it. If you like soymilk, you should definitely try it! Om nom nom.

I don’t think I’ll give it a rating since it’s not really tea.

I wasn’t really planning on drinking this one hot again after trying it cold, but it just sounded good today. I’m trying my best to get used to drinking tea without sweetener, and this one is very easy to drink. I can’t help but think I would enjoy it just a little bit more with sweetener added, but I’m holding strong! Very refreshing – the mint and the green tea balance out perfectly. I think I might need to try a plain gunpowder green tea at some point.

This one was a little too strong for me (and apparently my nose) last time I made it, so I decided this time I would cut open a silken sachet and measure out a teaspoon. There’s not too much more than a teaspoon in there, probably about one-and-a-half total. Steeped it for 5 minutes as per usual.

I’m finding it even more pleasant this way. I could see it being a tiny bit stronger, I might try a slightly heaping teaspoon in the future. And it’s not making me sneeze!

So now, the fun begins. Cutting open all of those sachets and putting the loose tea back in the tin. XD

I’m having this one chilled today. I cold-brewed it for six hours, and it’s been in the fridge for a couple of days since then. I added some syrup and I’m finding it very refreshing after a short workout (we have a rowing machine). It tastes of vanilla and a little bit of wood in the background. The amount of spice is perfect, it’s definitely there but it’s not a starring role. I could see this being my cold-brewed black tea of choice this summer! Oh Vladimir, how I love thee…

I’m sipping on this while lazing about, watching cooking shows and waiting for it to be time for me to go get my depo shot. I added some honey to it this time and I must say, I feel like it really complements the flavors in this tea. In particular, I’m tasting the lemon and lime a lot more than I remember from previous steeps. I know a lot of you prefer your tea without any sweetener but I find bergamot teas to be too harsh or something without it. Yum. :)