Culinary Teas

Gorgeous to look at, with the green & purple candy sprinkles, bright yellow sunflower petals, wiry black tea, spices, and pink hibiscus pieces.

This is also a very interesting blend. The ingredients list rooibos (though I don’t see any), apple, rosehip, and almond in addition to the black tea and chai spices. I can tell there’s going to be a lot going on here. However, pumpkin is mysteriously absent from the ingredients on the bag. Perhaps it’s in the “natural flavors.”

Steeped this on the stove in three parts water to one part milk, with 1.5tsp per cup and a heaping tsp of turbinado sugar.

This has a vegetal rich pumpkiny flavor and aroma that stands out against the warm spices. I don’t detect any rooibos or hibiscus. The pumpkin isn’t as pronounced as something like DavidsTea Pumpkin Chai, but I wasn’t really a fan of that so this is perfect for me. This doesn’t quite taste like a slice of pumpkin pie or anything, but it’s warm and flavorful and stands up to milk and sugar.

I’m having sneezing fits this evening, and the powdered spices in this blend are not helping! This chai is incredibly fragrant and obviously full of different spices: ginger, cardamom, cloves, definitely black pepper. I don’t detect any whole cardamom pods or cloves in the bag. It seems they’re all chopped instead of whole. It’s also quite sweet smelling. Once brewed, the spicy aroma still comes through, namely cloves.

I wasn’t impressed with the strength of the previous two teas I tried from Culinary Teas, so I brewed this double strength, upped the steep time, and used slightly cooler water to cut back on the astringency I found in their Assam base. I think that really made a difference in terms of strength, but this still leaves my mouth feeling dry. Seems I’m really sensitive to astringency lately.

Unsweetened, this tastes quite sharp with a hint of bitterness. Not something I would drink straight-up. Some added turbinado sugar (about a tsp) cuts the bitterness and really compliments the spice, but doesn’t enhance the white chocolate. There probably just aren’t enough of those mini chips to really make a difference. Milk makes this much smoother and creamier. I’ll try this next as a proper latte, simmered in milk and maybe with some honey.

A light, delicate, hint-of-gingerbread tea. Like other reviewers have said, I would love if this had some more sharp fresh ginger taste. Perhaps brewing this double strength would help. This doesn’t have much body and brews up very light, so I think it would be fantastic blended with a spiced black tea, just to add some punch.

Dry leaf aroma has hints of dried ginger with a dominant sweet caramel-y molasses smell. The brewed tea doesn’t smell as strong, but as it’s cooling I definitely get that molasses aroma coming through. Added milk and sugar reveals vanilla notes and a gingery aftertaste, but not any creaminess. I’ll have to give this one another go. I think it has potential to be a really nice dessert tea.

FInally, some new teas to try. I believe this is my first straight-up assam, but I’m impressed. The dry leaf aroma has slight cocoa notes in the background but smells mainly starchy, like potatoes? Along with the typical “black tea” aroma.
The brewed tea is a lighter orangey-red, fitting because it’s about medium strength. There’s a bit of astringency as it cools but no bitterness, just a smooth bright flavor. A bit of sugar really enhances the flavor but milk masks any sort of nuance, so I prefer this tea without it.
I re-steeped once and it was just about as flavorful as the first cup, but it’s now way too dry and astringent for me to enjoy, so I will have to try shorter steeps next time. Can’t wait to try the rest of my order from Culinary Teas!

One of my favorite teas, I brew at 180 for 2:30 with lemongrass, mint, and jasmine. Absolutely delightful.

Very tropical… Not fond of the flavor hot, but one of the best iced teas I’ve ever tasted! The strawberry and coconut are strong, but the kiwi flavor is pretty understated – if you’re not specifically looking for it, you may only notice a vague fruity flavor, not necessarily kiwi. The brew smells strongly of coconut, but doesn’t have the thick mouthfeel that coconut usually brings a tea – probably since there’s no real coconut in the tea. For someone like me, who hates that oily texture, this tea is a winner!

I’m not quite sure I enjoy this one, honestly… The black tea base has an interesting flavor, slightly bitter. And the mint isn’t what I expected – I was hoping for a sweet candy mint, or a very icy-cold mint (like their Brandy and Wintermint). It tastes vaguely minty, and very green, which just isn’t something I look for when wanting to drink a mint tea.

Actually pretty good! I feel like this tea won’t get a fair shake from me right now since I adored Twinings Pomegranate Raspberry herbal so much, and in a way, I’m right. This tea is delicious – when steeped properly, its not bitter at all, and the fruity sweetness is really nice. But, possibly due to my taste buds missing the raspberry in the other tea, this one feels like its missing something. Maybe a squirt of fresh citrus juice, or a dried berry from your personal stash tossed into the steep?

Overall, still a very good tea that I would order again, since it does have a flavor, yet is still versatile enough to play well with others.

This tea is pretty delicious. Sadly, you have to pretend that the baggy doesn’t say Black Forest on it to really appreciate the flavor. Because if you’re expecting chocolate cherry cake, you won’t get it – you’re better off trying the Cherry Cordial blend from this company instead, which has those flavors. This tea, however, is more like a sweetened black tea – very smooth base, almost no bitterness. A nice, plain drinking tea, but maybe not a dessert tea.

This tea is good, but not quite what it says it is. The cheesecake flavor is pretty nonexistent, though it does taste of whipped cream. The cherry is more of just a vague, unidentifyable sweet fruity taste. The caramel note is quite strange… more like a brulee topping that is just SLIGHTLY darker than it should be – not overly burnt, but a tiny bit overdone. Overall, a pretty good tea if you’re not expecting it to taste like cheesecake, caramel, or cherry.

This tea is a bit confusing to me. It smells incredible after brewing, and if I could find a scented oil like it, I’d be set for life! I didn’t much enjoy the very first flavor that hit me from the first sip… Maybe the brandy? But still, not something I loved. But then the peppermint hit, and its the most wonderful mint flavor I’ve ever experienced in a tea. I’m imagining this with a squeeze of lime, or with a spoonful of hot cocoa powder mixed in, and just incredibly excited about the potential of this tea.

This tea is actually pretty good on its own – a nice, deep brown infusion that smells much more of cream than of pumpkin. You can taste the pumpkin, and the cream, but this particular tea tastes a little bland – improved by a pinch of this brand’s chai spice mix.

Had this tea rated at 82, but had to lower it. It just isn’t sweet enough… Drank it iced today, with extra sweetener, but the orange flavor was very faint… the tea completely overpowered it, and made even the slight hint of orange taste burnt and completely unappealing. Finished for the caffeine, but didn’t enjoy a sip.

At first taste, I didn’t like this tea at all. It tasted more like orange pith than anything else, very overpoweringly bitter with no hint of the fresh orange peel sweetness I was hoping for. After adding 4x more sweetener than I do with my other teas, I found the flavor I was looking for, and the tea became quite good! Would’ve been rated higher, but I like to use even Stevia sparingly, and prefer teas that work with little.

I may have oversteeped, but this one is exceptionally bitter to me. It smells like a good, albeit artificial, caramel apple, and I’m hoping that if I keep a closer watch on it next time, I’ll get a flavor closer to that scent.

Backlog from yesterday.

I also got this tea from Alphakitty, thanks!

This was pretty pleasant. The base of the tea was similar to the pumpkin cream: uninspiring, but inoffensive. The apple was juicy, the caramel was definitely caramel “flavored” but not very authentically. It’s like some caramel candies, or caramel flavored things that don’t have caramel in them inherantly. Again, not necessarily bad, but just with that hint of fakeness to it. Still, again, I drank up my cup of this tea with pleasure.

Backlog from yesterday. Super busy lately!

I got this tea from Alphakitty, thanks!

I love anything pumpkin, so I was interested in trying this. It was a pretty tasty tea! Definitely pumpkiny, though not especially creamy. It’s also only lightly spicy. A hint of pumpkin pie spice, but not overwhelming for sure. More like a delicate pumpkin souffle. The tea base was not very interesting, but also pleasant enough and not bitter at all. Definitely tasty and I drank up my cup with pleasure!

A very nice Assam. Malty and rich. A bit on the dry side. Good with milk and sugar or even with a slice of lemon peel in the pot and sweetened with honey. I’ve used this Assam to make Chai.

So far my favorite Assam yet.

HOLY DISGUSTINGNESS!

Ok so this was my first attempt with Lapsang Souchong, but OMG! I opened the package to sniff and expected a delightful aroma. Instead I got barbequed dirt… And a case of the dry heaves.

I gave it to the friend who so heartily recommended it. Evidently my review was quite entertaining to her. AND she got some free tea lol.

Never again!

Rich and delicious tea! A bit malty but not dry at all. I love this two ways, with milk and sugar and also with a slice of lemon peel in the pot, sweetened with honey. A great morning tea for sure!

Nice enough, but a bit light for me. Then again, I’m not a huge fan of first flush darjeeling.

The best Oolong tea I’ve ever had. It’s sweet with a floral finish and aroma. Never bitter. A lovely tea for any time of the day or night – and especially if you’re a fan of Oolong teas. If you’re new to Oolong don’t start out with this one because if you do, all the others will taste terrible!

I have resteeped this twice with good results. They claim you can resteep it more than that but I don’t, mainly because I like a fresh pot of tea.