Culinary Teas

We go through so much of this tea! It’s great as a light morning tea, and just as good in the afternoon or even in the evening. I like to serve this one to company because it seems to make everyone happy. It’s my mom’s all time favorite tea. The flowery notes are not overpowering, and it’s not a malty tea either. It’s crisp and clean and just, well, happy.
We drink it black with sugar. Oh – you have to be careful not to oversteep this one. If you do it gets a bit yukky. Five minutes TOPS.

This is a favorite breakfast tea in our house. It’s a nice robust cup with the flavors of Earl Grey and Jasmine. It has Assam maltiness. I would call this a complex tea, that changes flavor somewhat as it cools. We drink it black with sugar. Not so great iced, it gets a bit cloudy. I have reheated the cooled tea and it’s surprisingly good, it seems to hold its original flavor fairly well.

Oh yes!
Robust, malty with a dry lip smacking finish! An excellent morning blend!
I drink it with sweetener and milk. I use coconut milk not dairy milk and my friends who have tried it this way say it’s nearly as good.
One thing I can say about this tea is if you over steep it, then it can get a bit gross. You want to not really go over 5 minutes TOPS on the steeping time.

I love this darjeeling! I would call it a medium body tea which is delicious hot or iced. (Actually, I only make iced tea with this particular tea)I have sampled many different darjeelings, and while there are some which could be called “better” this particular tea is my “go-to” darjeeling. It’s great in the afternoon, served with fresh fruit or baked goods. I have also had this as an evening tea. The only time I will brew a darjeeling in the morning is if I’ve had coffee, or some other tea which didn’t hit me right, and I need to follow up with a favorite old friend.
Drink this tea black with or without sweetener. Don’t oversteep!

I can not live without this tea! It’s ALWAYS on hand! It’s a lovely Earl Grey, with a nice touch of lavender. Not overpowering on the lavender, just enough to make it slightly different and more exotic than ordinary Earl Grey. If you like Earl Grey and you like Lavender, you MUST try this tea. I know you will fall in love!

I bring my water to a rolling boil and steep a full five minutes. Sometimes I forget and go over five minutes, but as with all Earl Grey teas, it just gets a bit stronger and remains very very nice.

This is another tea sample that comes to me thanks to Alphakitty. I was intrigued by the flavor combination in this one: passion fruit, orange, grapefruit, and grenadine. Sounds pretty interesting!

The steeped tea definitely smells very citrusy, perhaps predominantly grapefruit. It’s actually really weird for me to try a “citrusy” tea without bergamot in it! But anyway, I definitely catch the grenadine in the aroma too, all dark and pomegranatey. And yes, some passion fruit as well. This is suddenly reminding me of a fruity, girly beach drink like a tequila sunrise. The taste is predominantly citrusy, quite grapefruity, with some nice tropical flavors backing it up. As it cools it gets a little astringent, but it almost works because that’s basically what a grapefruit does to your mouth anyway. Overall a pretty tasty tea, though probably not one I would pick up more of.

Wow my husband must have really loved this tea! I like Yunnans. I don’t know if I’ve reviewed this tea, but this was a nice warm and toasty tea. I haven’t had it in a very long time since I’m preggo and am trying to avoid caffeine as much as possible. I was looking fondly through my tea when I noticed this empty tin!

This tea is LOADED with currants! It’s also got a fairly large amount of hibiscus in it, so, if you’re not a hibiscus fan, beware.

I generally am not a fan of hibiscus, but, I’m not minding the hibiscus too much here. The flavor of the currants seems to meld well with the hibiscus. But I wouldn’t recommend oversteeping this – I went with six minutes and that seems just about right. I think that had I gone longer, this would have ended up syrupy or too tart.

As it is though, it’s pleasant enough. Tart, yes, but, not overly so. I like the flavor of the currants, it gives it an almost wine-like taste. Kind of cozy. I think it would be really good if some spices were added, to make it like a mulled wine kind of taste … or maybe if it were combined with warmed apple cider to lighten the flavor a bit and add just a bit of spice to it. As it is, I like it, but I wouldn’t say I love it.

I will include more details later, but I wanted to say that it smells as if it contains alcohol though I am sure it does not. It smells a bit “rummy”. It is good, but not great.

I will be reviewing this tea in depth on Tea Examiner, probably this weekend. The spices are very tasty, but the tea flavor was a bit weak for my personal taste. I felt myself wishing there had been a bit more tea in proportion to the flavorings.
Another thing that crosses my mind is that I have yet to taste a pumpkin spice tea that really tastes like the spices most commonly in pumpkin pie, which seems to be what the tea companies are trying to do. The primary spice in pumpkin pie is ginger, followed by cinnamon, clove then nutmeg. Pumpkin spice teas always seem heavily spiced with cinnamon with the other flavors lagging sadly behind or completely absent.
Despite this fact, however, Culinary Teas’ Pumpkin is a delicious and very drinkable tea.

Another tea from the box!
It certainly does taste like pumpkin. Unfortunately, like most pumpkin teas it’s kinda like the uncooked version. Tried with and without a splash of lait, and they were both nice.
Overall, I like it, but I don’t love it.
Rating: 78

Thanks Liberteas
I know she’s reviewed this over at http://sororiteasisters.com a while back but I was UNable to locate this in the steepster database so I am adding it now!

This reminds me of McNulty’s China White which I remember enjoying as a straight-up white tea that happens to be sun-dried. All-Natural…no flavoring…just plain GOOD.

This is just that and I am enjoying it very much!

Thanks Liberteas!

This is really good! It looks like your stereotypical Genmaicha but the aroma reveals it’s Chai side! What a rebel! :)

This IS exactly what I was hoping for with this one! Popped Rice, a great green tea base, matcha-hints, roasty and toasty, and SPICE! Everything is present here and everything is well REPresented! Very nice!

This came in the traveling tea box Group B – I think this is quite nice actually. It could be more “creamy” or some sweetness to it but I actually like adding my own german rock sugar over having stevia already in a tea so I respect it not being sweetened. I added sugar and the flavors really popped.
A good one.

Thanks to darby for sharing this tea! It smells like fall – pumpkin, spice, warm blankets, fuzzy boots, and hay rides. Sadly this tea doesn’t taste much like it smells. I’m not getting pumpkin much at all. It tastes like black tea with a little spice at the very end of the sip. Not nearly as much flavor as I was hoping for. The cream however is a very nice touch here.

A little sugar doesn’t really help bring out the flavors either. This isn’t bad really, I’m just one of those people that really likes an in-your-face pumpkin spice flavor.

Prepared this by steeping for 2 minutes with 180°F water, then putting in the refrigerator overnight. I also had a small cup hot before chilling.

This is very flavorful and aromatic. It’s delicious. I’m not sure I would think pear if I didn’t know that’s what was intended, but I am getting a sort of dried pear flavor when I think about it. It’s very good, fruity, sweet, and has a nice clean aftertaste. No bitterness or astringency. The green tea base is really good too, which really makes the aftertaste pleasant.

Sip down #4

The dry notes smell mostly of cream with a hint of candied pumpkin. Once steeped it smells very creamy.
It’s a little spiced like pumpkin pie and mainly creamy. There is however some astringency.
I’ve been having issues with my black teas lately. I must be steeping too long. So I’m going to add a bit of milk to this and see how that goes. It definitely helped to get rid of Tue astringency and it still tastes mostly like cream with that hint of pumpkin pie.

Although not my fav tea, it will stay in my cupboard.

This is a very pleasant morning tea – a nice, mild black tea. It’s not an overly strong breakfast tea, rather average, and the flavour is pleasing. Like most of its type, it’s lovely with milk, and the bare hint of Earl Grey gives it an agreeable character. Tends to be an easy tea to get multiple people in agreement on.

Sad to see this one go. I stretched this little last bit as much as I could. Delicious! I had this for my morning ride to work. Didn’t need any sugar or milk. One of my favorite fruit flavored black teas.

Backlog. I drank this yesterday. It was very exciting to open this tin of delicious smelling lichee black tea! I absolutely LOVE lichee and the scent. I only have one more helping left! Ahh! I don’t want to run out of this one.

I love this tea! I am trying to reduce my caffeine intake to one cup of tea per day. It is hard, but I need to do it for the time being. This was a good choice. :) I’m glad I am still able to have most of my tisanes.