Mighty Leaf: Organic Spring Jasmine

Mighty Leaf: African Nectar

Mighty Leaf: Chocolate Mint Truffle

Organic Spring Jasmine (Mighty Leaf): A flavorful Jasmine with high-grade sencha, making the taste smoother. Wonderful.

African Nectar (Mighty Leaf): Not just a plain rooibos tea, but adds tropical flavors as well. (Mighty Leaf is quite fond of adding tropical flavors to their teas.)

Chocolate Mint Truffle (Mighty Leaf): A wonderful nightcap to wish upon for sweet dreams.

Good night.

Rishi: Peach Blossom

Republic of Tea: Strawberry Vanilla

Steven Smith: Churchmouse Summer

Peach Blossom (Rishi): Perhaps the only white tea I’ll ever like. I prefer my tea flavored, and plain white tea tastes somewhat earthy to me. Peach Blossom works the peach pretty heavily, but it plays well with the white tea body which I otherwise would have hated.

Strawberry Vanilla (Republic of Tea): One of their pretty good red teas. This turned out to be excellent iced, and I couldn’t really tell the difference between this and Sir Robert’s Strawberry Cream (likely because rooibos is already comprised of tiny leaves, so they wouldn’t get crushed like normal tea leaves would in a tea bag).

Churchmouse Summer (Steven Smith): Wonderful as always. Ah, if only nights were colder right now… but it’s quite alright iced.

Harney & Sons: Decaf Ceylon

Kusmi: Prince Vladimir

Sir Robert's: Rainy Days

Upton: Saint Isaac's Blend

Mighty Leaf: Chocolate Mint Truffle

Mighty Leaf: Ginger Twist

Decaf Ceylon (Harney & Sons): Pretty good for a decaffeinated black tea (which can always turn out… differently). It’s been a little while since I’ve had a black tea that wasn’t flavored in some manner, or was a breakfast knock-your-tastebuds-out tea.

Prince Vladimir (Kusmi): A lovely Russian blend of orange, vanilla, and spice.

Rainy Days (Sir Robert’s): Also a lovely Russian blend of orange and spice. There’s supposed to be almond here, too, but it’s difficult to taste. I still prefer Prince Vladimir, because I was always a sucker for bergamot and vanilla.

Saint Isaac’s Blend (Upton): A Russian-style Earl Grey. I prefer these sorts of things with vanilla (or “cream”), though, so still prefer Prince Vladimir.

Chocolate Mint Truffle (Mighty Leaf): The most excellent chocolate red/roobios tea around. Chocolate Mint seems to work best as a tea flavor, if a tea is going to go with Chocolate Something.

Ginger Twist (Mighty Leaf): One of the best ginger herbal blends around, it plays down the ginger a bit and is sweeter than most ginger teas. I like this one iced, and it reminds me more than a bit of ginger ale.

1. I don’t promote my blog. And from now on if anyone asks for permission to link, I will say no. Not that I can stop them if, for some reason I can’t figure out, they want to.
2. I’ve almost always been a lone wolf, because I don’t play with communities well. (See also this post on my Sherlock Holmes blog.) I’ve never actually trolled though, unlike other people, because that would be inconsiderate.
3. I blog for myself, and this blog is public because a few of my friends and acquaintances read it. In other words, fuck you if you’re going to tell me that I can only blog publicly if I’m going to be a “good” member of a community I could care less about.
4. It’s the internet. Go elsewhere if you find my little blog offensive. There are many places that will welcome you, or at least tolerate you; Tea Derivations is not one of them.
5. Feel free to totally lambaste this site on your own blog/site as belonging to an ignorant trash tea fan. People don’t agree on many things, and tea is not an exception. (Oh, fandom.)
6. I have no compunctions about banning people who come here with an ulterior agenda¹ and obviously haven’t read the About page, in particular “This is a quiet, private, and humble little tea blog, sort of a bonsai blog.” Which has been there from the very beginning.
7. It’s not my fault if you can’t do SEO as well as I apparently subconsciously can. I actually only use All in One SEO to rewrite the title of my blog pages consistently across multiple sites and themes. Go install the plugin if you care that very much.
8. If you’ve read this site, you obviously know that I disagree with a lot of tea experts on many “important” lines. Like whether we call herbals “teas” or “tisanes” is so obviously SRS BIZNESS.
9. If you’re so anal that you worry about little blogs like this, just remember: when it comes to any kind of hobby or fandom, I enjoy your delicious tears.
10. Remember xkcd #386.

Have a good day.

1. Hmm. Like Jon Stewart and populism, I find this ability to not care what other people think and ban spammers/trolls strangely addictive.

Mighty Leaf: Vanilla Bean

Harney & Sons: Dragon Pearl Jasmine

Revolution: Orange Chocolate Green Tea

Tazo: Passion

Vanilla Bean (Mighty Leaf): Still my favorite black vanilla tea. Having real vanilla bean bits, as opposed to merely flavoring, rather helps. I’m going to have to get a decent bag of this in full-leaf form soon….

Dragon Pearl Jasmine (Harney & Sons): I’m starting to really like this tea. It looks cute, and though the jasmine taste is somewhat more subtle… well, the tea looks so cute.

Orange Chocolate Green Tea (Revolution): Really brings out the somewhat delicate flavor of orange-chocolate much better than Mighty Leaf’s black tea version—or at least, in my opinion. Black tea can be so overwhelming, although I imagine a steep at 3 minutes for Mighty Leaf’s Orange Chocolate Truffle might let more of the taste through. Will have to try that.

Passion (Tazo): Great iced as always.

Steven Smith: Jasmine Silver Tip

Steven Smith: White Petal

Steven Smith teas are well known for their hand-picked, high-quality ingredients. As such, I enjoyed the Jasmine Silver Tip and White Petal surprisingly well. White Petal has additional orchard fruits to take the edge off the white tea for those of us who don’t like the body of white tea.

Tuesday

Harney & Sons: Tropical Orange

I attempted a cold steep of this in the office, since it’s getting warm over here. The Tropical Orange didn’t fare as well as I’d hope, and tasted washed out. May need to add more tea for the cold soak.

Wednesday

Much screaming, crying, and running around.

Thursday

Mighty Leaf: Beatles' Blend

Sir Robert's: Island Blend

Harney & Sons: Winter White Earl Grey

Mighty Leaf: Organic Spring Jasmine

Sir Robert's: Strawberry Cream

Beatles’ Blend (Mighty Leaf): Brings two loves together: Jasmine and Bergamot. These two flavorings are my dream. Backed by a good mix of black teas, and it’s a wonderful combination.

Island Blend (Sir Robert’s): Black tea with tropical fruits. Churchmouse has a Rooibos version with similar fruit additions.

Winter White Earl Grey (Harney & Sons): It’s a white tea, and I dislike white tea. There was not enough Earl Greyness for me to wish to stick around, and so I’ll have to rate this tea as “personality clash.”

Organic Spring Jasmine (Mighty Leaf): It is deemed very Jasmine. Maybe slightly over the top, but sometimes extra taste is nice, especially when accompanying meals. When I want subtle, I think I’m going to go looking for Jasmine balls.

Strawberry Cream (Sir Robert’s): This is a more upscale take on Republic of Tea’s Strawberry Vanilla. Still needs more tasting I think.

Life has not been conducive to teas of late.

Saturday

Harney & Sons: Dragon Pearl Jasmine

Steven Smith: Churchmouse Summer

Dragon Pearl Jasmine (Harney & Sons): I’m starting to explore Jasmine teas again (after a hiatus of over a decade). This is a very fine Jasmine. I think not as vibrant as Mighty Leaf’s Organic Spring Jasmine; Dragon Pearl Jasmine is a more mellow cup, but the tea is wonderfully shaped into little balls. This should not matter to me this much, but it does.

Churchmouse Summer (Steven Smith): Wonderful as always.

Sunday

Steven Smith: Peppermint Leaves

These last few days I’ve not been drinking much tea because I feel like throwing up most of the time. Too much to even drink any peppermint tea most of the time. I’m a little less queasy today, and so am spoiling myself a little with the nicest Oregon peppermint leaves ever.

No tea. It’s been a strange week.

Monday

Rishi: Peach Blossom

The only tea I had this day, mostly due to work being busy moving office, and my first sip of tea in the new digs. A pleasant start.

Tuesday

Steven Smith: Lord Bergamot

Harney & Sons: Winter White Earl Grey

Mighty Leaf: Hojicha

Lord Bergamot (Steven Smith): Still my favorite Earl Grey.

Winter White Earl Grey (Harney & Sons): A white tea Earl Grey, this is a very good white tea, but I’ve yet to determine its Earl Grey worthiness. 3 minutes is definitely too little time; will try for 6 minutes on the next sipping, similar to the Rishi.

Hojicha (Mighty Leaf): Hojicha is a lovely afternoon tea. I’ve only had Mighty Leaf’s version, and it’s damn good.

Wednesday

Mighty Leaf: Orange Dulce

Mighty Leaf: Green Tea Tropical

Mighty Leaf: Mint Melange

Orange Dulce (Mighty Leaf): This is not an Earl Grey, but I think of it as one. Its taste likely resembles that of a “London Fog”—an Earl Grey with cream in it. Orange Dulce combines oranges and vanilla with astonishingly good black tea.

Green Tea Tropical (Mighty Leaf): The green tea for people who don’t like green tea. Best brewed as a green tea, but is passable in less than ideal brewing situations as well. This was less than ideal, but the tropical fruits still resulted in its usual slightly sweet cup.

Mint Melange (Mighty Leaf): This is actually a peppermint tea, but the peppermint is grown in Morocco, so the flavor is much gentler, some would say smoother. In many ways it resembles a certain mint tea that Lipton used to make but no longer does, and somewhat resembles Celestial Seasonings’ Mint Magic, but using only Moroccan peppermint and no other ingredients.

Steven Smith: Peppermint Leaves

Nauseous since the early morning, I’ve been drinking multiple cups of this towards later evening like no tomorrow. A double-strong brew from Tao of Tea’s version would probably be best for the stomach, but I want to spoil myself a little.

Sadly, I didn’t get to enjoy anything else. Althogh the World Cup match between England and the USA was amusing, at least for the first half.

Queen Mary: Strawberry Pepper

Mighty Leaf: Organic Spring Jasmine

Mighty Leaf: White Orchard

Strawberry Pepper (Queen Mary): I love this tea. I’ll have to put it on the reachable shelf once I work out a proper categorization system for my teas. For the record, it’s more strawberry than pepper; the Pink Peppercorns are different from black peppercorns, and here they gently accentuate the strawberry flavor, in a way that you don’t get from strawberry alone.

Organic Spring Jasmine (Mighty Leaf): This is a very, very good Jasmine tea, from what I can remember of the Jasmine teas I drank while I was growing up. Not much more I can say, I think; I lack the flavor vocabulary to describe its surprising yet non-wimpy sweetness as green teas go, with a good balance on Jasmine—it’s very present, but doesn’t overwhelm the rest of the cup.

White Orchard (Mighty Leaf): Actually a white/green blend (more white tea than green), and brewed to white tea standards rather than green. Still more bitter than I was expecting, but that may simply be the body of the white tea (I don’t always like white tea). Peach flavor is pleasant. I still prefer Rishi’s Peach Blossom.