Doesn’t knock one’s socks off, but it was a good mid-morning work tea.

I hesitated to give this full marks because I know it gets less interesting with time, but that’s also true of my chocolate mint tea that I love, and it’s been a while since I’ve had any of this, so my taste buds are very happy.

When one is at a gaming café, one pays one’s dues to help keep the place open, but the chai latte was a bad choice. It tasted like warm milk with some cinnamon mixed in, and maybe that works for some people, but it’s not what I’m looking for. I might just go for some “regular” tea the next time I’m there—or support the café in some other way.

A friend offered me a cup of this when I dropped by to visit briefly. It was good! I’d drink more green tea if it tasted like this!

While I’m in a “reevaluating tea” mood today, I want to confess that this tea is not as mind-blowing as it was when I first discovered it years ago. It’s good, but it’s not Smores or Dubai Chocolate-tier good.

I badmouthed this in my first review, but I’ve since remembered what I like about it even if it isn’t what I expected from a chai, so it deserves a review update.

I got this a while ago, when I was first trying to get into “real” black teas instead of the flavored stuff that’s my favorite.

It’s very strong, so I have had a hard time getting used to it, but I think I finally cracked the right way to steep it, and now I’m not dreading finishing the box.

This is a pretty good apple and cinnamon blend, but having cinnamon in it does not make it a chai, so points off for false advertising. It’s still good even when I borked the steeping this morning, though, so it has that going for it.

I bought a one-pound bag of this blend last April without ever tasting it. I generally like chai, and I generally like Elmwood Inn, so I figured it wasn’t too much of a gamble.

It turns out that this tastes different than any other chai I’ve had. It’s not cinnamony like some chais, but it’s also not the ginger and pepper combination that I really like in chais. Maybe it’s authentic in some way that I don’t appreciate, but it was a real disappointment at first. With time, it grew on me, but coming back to it after drinking none of it in December is reminding me how much of a disappointment it is.

Green tea is not usually my favorite, and I think hojicha would take a while to get used to, but even without a bunch of milk, I think I’d enjoy it more than other green teas.

Look, this isn’t that bad, and I’m probably being hard on it because it’s Starbucks, but I had a really good masala chai experience yesterday, and that makes me think about how too cinnamony and sweet this one is.

I don’t have Asian iced teas very often, but I usually enjoyed them! This had some fun flavors in it, and I think I like ube?

I have not paid any attention to the Dubai chocolate craze, but my spouse was right to guess I’d like this herbal blend. I wouldn’t mind a stronger pistachio flavor, but with more sips, I’m growing to appreciate the subtle nuttiness alongside the cacao flavor.

This isn’t what I want every day, but it’s an excellent combination of flavors.

I think this is my favorite tea of all time. It tastes just like an Andes mint and brings real joy to my morning.

This tea is tasty! The orange flavor is good, and I like the cinnamon more than I might have expected. I am not giving it full marks because I think I’d tire of it quickly, and even though that raises some inconsistencies in my rating system, I’m sticking with it.

One of my favorite herbals!

It’s not totally what I was hoping for (maybe I’m getting used to the oolong—the last licorice tea I had was just black), but it scratches the itch for a good licorice tea.

Good but not mind blowing!

I’ve been looking forward to this blend since the beginning of this advent calendar, and I’ve finally figured out how to follow these steeping instructions, and everything has paid off. I do miss some of the maltiness of blending it with Kenya tea, but this is good all by itself.

Okay, I think I figured out how to steep these “one bag per person” blends because this is really hitting the spot this morning! Plus, I reserved a bag instead of steeping both, so now I have more to enjoy later.

This would be better except that I steeped it too long, so some of the underlying tea flavor is too strong. It is the kind of chai I like (more pepper and ginger than cinnamon), so I’m going to have to be more careful the next time.

This was pretty good, but I think it would be better if I’d steeped it differently. I don’t get the “one bag per person” instructions and how it differs from “one bag per cup.”

Chamomile is not something I generally like in tea, but the overall combination here works, and it’s a nice “warm me up” blend for a cold day.

Feel weird giving this full marks because it didn’t knock my socks off exactly, but it wasn’t “slightly too strong” in the way that I penalized yesterday’s Kenya blend for, so I guess if I’m going to have plain black tea one morning, I’d be happy with Darjeeling.