If you follow along with my reviews on Teaviews with any regularity, then you probably already know that I love, love, love coconut. Pretty much anytime there is an available sample with coconut as an ingredient it is requested by me. Culinary Teas is a company that I am not unfamiliar with as I have had friends give me some samples of their stuff. However, it has been quite awhile since one of their offerings has entered my tea cup. My sample package consists of the dry black tea leaves, thin shreds of coconut and small blue flower petal shreds. It smells delicious and the aroma is slightly intense. It smells mostly like a strawberry kiwi blend with little in the aroma to call attention to the coconut. Did I mention that I love coconut?

I prepared this using water cut just short of boiling and infused this for about 4 min. The flavor profile is very nicely done and quite delicious. The flavoring is not quite as intense as the aroma suggested and that is probably a good thing. When you first begin to drink the blend the primary flavor is that of a strawberry kiwi tea. However, the finish and aftertaste is all coconut!! The coconut flavor is spot on and reminds of a good dessert coconut flavor. The black tea base used is quite mild and is of a good enough quality so as not to detract from the blend. One word of caution, this blend is very naturally sweet on its own so I would hold off on adding any sweetener until you’ve had an opportunity to taste it. Since my favorite part of the cup is in the finish and aftertaste (coconut), I was reluctant to add any dairy and try this out latte style.

If the description of this blend appeals to you, then this is definitely one that you should add to your cart when shopping with Culinary Teas. I thoroughly enjoyed this blend. It is kind of the perfect union of strawberry, kiwi and coconut. One thing about this blend is that it is fairly two dimensional (even more so than many) in that the initial taste is strawberry kiwi and the aftertaste/finish is all coconut. It is almost like this blend has a split personality—in a good way. At $13 for a 4 oz bag of tea, this one is a bit of a splurge but one that I would make. In a word: Yummo.

I put two teaspoons of the pearls along with 12 ounces of 175° water into my clear glass teapot for three minutes. The tea smells sweet and somewhat vegetal, and the flavour is similar. It is hefty for a Silver Needle, and I had hoped for a more delicate cup. For my second steep, I left the tea for four minutes, which gave me a cup more like what I expected. It was less savoury and more of the delicate sweet white I know and love.

I attempted a third infusion, which I steeped five minutes. This cup had a somewhat tart aftertaste and teetered on the line set between the hearty first steep and the calm second.

Final verdict: A good white tea, but not exceptional. I felt it lacked the complexity of an especially fresh and fine Silver Needle. If you’re looking to buy something particularly stunning, this isn’t a miss, but if you’re wanting to buy based on flavour alone, you can probably do better.

This tea is described as containing black tea, dried orange and lemon pieces, rose and cornflower petals, cinnamon, as well as natural flavours (presumably including bergamot essence, without which there can be no Earl Grey!). All of the above ingredients are abundantly present looking at the dried blend, with the exception of the cinnamon, which I can’t seem to spot. The tea leaves are of varying lengths and the colour of espresso. Overall, the mixture looks and smells lovely in a Victorian sort of way. The bergamot takes second place as the smells of spicy lemon and rose petals dominate the blend. It’s easy to imagine this perfume trailing behind a lady in all her furs and feathered hats, sadly wandering about the docks looking for her husband.

Once brewed, the scent is a bit tamer, leaning more towards the gentle sweetness of the cinnamon and cornflowers. Following the instructions on the site, I chose a 4 and a half minute steep. The result is a bronze-coloured tea, brimming with the taste of lemon zest. This is a flavourful and invigorating cup, floral and astringent all at once, not unlike freshly crushed lavender. The sweetness of flower petals is quickly followed by the peppery bite of lemon peel. To my delight, the taste of bergamot is abundantly present throughout, without overwhelming the delicate floral notes. As the tea cools, the aftertaste becomes more citrusy, making it a great candidate for an iced tea as well. A second 4 and a half minute infusion leads to another pleasing cup, although with less expansiveness and definition in the flavours. The floral notes have faded at this point. What remains is passable citrus Earl Grey, not bad at all for a second steeping really.

This is wonderful twist on an old standard, indeed a noble tea that’s been expertly blended by the folks at Culinary Teas. I would very much recommend this tea to any Earl Grey lover looking to venture out into new territories, without straying too far from home. Well worth it!

Frank takes Formosa Oolong (a fancy term for saying the tea was grown in Taiwan — Formosa meaning “beautiful”, which is quite nice) and blends it with natural flavors of raisin and vanilla. Also sprinkled into the mix are – you guessed it – golden raisins. The dried blend is quite gnarly, to be honest – a mish-mash of processed tea leaves, all twisty and rolled; a good portion of twigs and stems (not sure that’s really a good thing, coming from a quality-control perspective); and chunks of greenish-yellow raisins, with a few shriveled, reddish ones mixed in as well. It’s kind of a Halloween-looking tea, if you will. A tad spooky. The leaves are of varying size – mostly medium size, and mostly broken.

A 4 minute steep with sub-boiling water and utilizing 2 tsp of leaf makes this tea a pungent one. The aroma of the dried blend pretty much screams “raisin”, and the cup matches as well. The vanilla flavoring in conjunction with the raisins creates what is obviously a deliciously sweet brew, so anyone adding sugar to this is clearly a maniac. Every sip of the cup, hot or cold, is quite intense, with big, bold raisin flavor. The vanilla is certainly detectable as well, and blends perfectly with the raisin taste. A second infusion (even at an accidental 8-minute steep!) provides a slightly subdued raisin/vanilla flavor, but is still plenty potent. What’s nice about this second cup is that the oolong creeps back in more toward the forefront. I rather prefer this cup to the first, not because the first was bad or anything, but that the flavors balance out more nicely.

52 Teas have done it again – a winning combination that’s sure to grab your attention, particularly if you are a raisin lover.

One teaspoon, boiling water, and five minutes yield an opaque deep chocolate liquor. It smells weaker than I expected, more mint than anything else, but the other scents are there. The tea is incredibly well-balanced with the mint lingering on well passed everything else. Pu-erh was an excellent choice for a base tea after all.

The cinnamon is an especially brilliant touch, leading me to believe this would be excellent prepared like a chai, with milk and honey. For my second infusion, I let the tea steep for six minutes followed by the addition of milk and honey. The tea itself is somewhat less exciting than the first cup, though still definitely worth the second cup. I do especially enjoy this with the additions, which is rare for me since I usually prefer my teas plain.

I’m not in love with this blend, but I have a lot of respect for Rishi’s gusto. I haven’t seen (well, tasted) anything quite like this on the tea market. I doubt this will become a staple, but I may pick some up in the future for a change of pace. In the dead of winter, I like to have hearty, warming teas around, and sometimes I’m not in the mood for chai. This seems like a great alternative for the days I’m in the mood for something different.

I have been putting off reviewing this tea for sometime now and I guess it is because the combination of mint and oolong seems a bit odd to me. However, I like pretty much anything mint flavored so I don’t know why this one keeps getting passed over as most of the offerings from Naivetea have been tasty. Further, a friend of mine who has her own blog tried this and loved it. Today I decided to select this one in part because I had a chewable vitamin this morning that left a nasty taste in my mouth so I decided to check out what I had available in the mint department. This one was basically begging me to review it.

Naivetea uses a green oolong for their fragrance-infused blends. The little oolong fists are scented rather intensely of mint in the kind of way that could help clear your sinuses. I prepared this using water cut just short of boiling and infused for about 20-30 seconds. The flavor profile is indeed intense and the mint largely overpowers the oolong. This appears to have the same oolong in it as used in Naivetea’s other fragrance-infused blends (Alishan) and it is a little bit of a shame that you can’t taste more of the oolong because it is a fairly good one. While I was concerned that the pairing of mint and oolong might be weird, all I can really taste is the mint. The primary contribution from the oolong is a mildly creamy mouthfeel. The combination of the intense mint and the creamy mouthfeel of the oolong is not unlike the center of a peppermint patty!

When preparing my second infusion, I also used water cut just short of boiling, but allowed the leaves to infuse for about 45 seconds. The mint flavor remained very intense and continued to totally dominate the oolong. However, the creamy mouthfeel that I experienced with the first infusion is largely AWOL. For that reason, I would call the first infusion my favorite. I suspect that this one will easily give up 4-5 infusions.

Overall, I found this to be a unique and tasty offering from Naivetea. I would warn those that do not strongly LOVE mint to avoid this one though because the mint is very intense. Don’t expect this to be oolong with hints of mint because it is actually vice versa. The mint flavor is extremely well done and tastes of very fresh mint despite the fact that there are no real pieces of fresh mint mingled amongst the little oolong fists. I found that this blend did an excellent job of cleansing my palate. This one is definitely worth consideration if you are looking for a mint blend that will keep going and going.

American Tea Room’s lavender-based Provence tisane is certainly an olfactory experience, and a visual one, as well. To the eye it is mostly tiny dried lavender buds, with large green mint leaves and tiny, hair-like twigs mixed in. It is composed of lavender buds, lemon verbena, lemon balm, lemongrass, peppermint, and spearmint. The website listing refers to Provence as “aromatherapy in a glass” and it’s a good comparison. It has a clean, crisp fragrance akin to good potpourri, which this mix really sort of is. You could tuck little pillows of it into your dresser drawers with good effect. Initially, lavender and spearmint were the prevalent notes.

I infused a heaping teaspoon of the dried mixture in six ounces of 195F water for five minutes. While it steeped, I nibbled a lavender bud to find out, once and for all, what lavender tastes like. Eaten dry, it is bitter.

By the time it was done the whole kitchen smelled of lavender, lemon, and mint. If a smell can be “sunny” then this one was, and it was much appreciated, as it was a dark, cold, rainy day. I poured the tisane into a glass teacup and sniffed the contents of the teapot. They smelled powerfully of lavender and the mints.

Although the website describes the color as coppery, my cup was a bright yellow. The flavor was minty and citrusy, without any bitterness, but instead with a strong floral note that went straight up into my nose: lavender. I guess it is best infused, rather than eaten straight. The lemon verbena and lemongrass were definitely present, but more as a background taste. It is a very smooth tisane, with a minty lavender finish. To be quite honest, when I first read the list of ingredients and smelled it dry, I feared that it might be a bit soapy, but it wasn’t; instead, it was smooth, slightly sweet, slightly astringent, and very well-balanced. With rain pounding on the roof, thunder rumbling, a fire on the hearth, Segovia playing softly in the background, and a warm dog snuggled up beside me on the couch, this was the perfect tisane for the moment.

A second infusion of five minutes gave up another yellow liquor, this one with a more lemony fragrance, although the flavor was primarily lavender with the slightest hint of the bitterness I’d tasted in the dry bud, and a fruity vegetal flavor that reminded me more of chamomile. The mints made themselves known mostly in a coolness on the tongue. Overall it lacked the balance and complexity of the first cup. To my taste, at least, this is a one-shot tisane, but a very good one. Highly recommended.