Della Terra Teas

I’ve had this in my cupboard for ever and decided to finally open it up and give it a try. I wish I’d done so sooner! This is delicious. Some sugar really makes the blackberry stand out. I don’t really get a cream or vanilla taste, though, but it’s still very yummy. I’ll have to put this into the rotation.

I’ve been wanting to try this one ever since TeaSipper wrote a note saying it seemed to have actual pumpkin puree bits in or something along those lines. Then, the lovely Ost sent me some to try! Yay! I love when it works out like that where I get to try something without having to buy a whole 2 oz.

Does this taste like pie? Yes, it does. Does this taste like pumpkin pie? I don’t know and I don’t care this time. I’m not even 100% sure I’m tasting everything accurately as my nose is still recovering from being sick this past weekend. I think this tastes like cinnamony crusty bits with some kind of sweetish something that I’m willing to call pumpkin. I’m having this plain right now, but I’d wager there’d be more pumpkin flavor with a little sugar added. Ost sent me just enough for a second cup, so I’ll try it that way. I’m glad I found another one from Della Terra that I like since I haven’t had the best of luck with the samples I’ve tried.

And it’s so quintessentially fall outside right now. This was a perfect choice for my noon tea :)

I’ve been super curious about this tea, since I’m a big Della Terra fan! But I figured it would be super cinnamon-y, so I didn’t want to buy any. Thankfully, Rosehips sent me a generous sample! :D
The dry leaf of this tea smells like pure cinnamon, and even while steeping it continued to smell like that. So I wasn’t too hopeful while I waited for it to cool.
When I finally drank it, I was pleasantly surprised.
It wasn’t dominated by cinnamon at all!
The pumpkin was the most present flavor, with a touch of cinnamon and spices.
It’s one of the better pumpkin teas I’ve had (Though I haven’t tried too many :P).

Sadly, I couldn’t finish the entire cup of this one since I had to eat dinner, but I look forward to trying it again. Rosehips gave me enough for a few cups. Super generous of her! Glad I got to try this finally. Thank you so much, Rosehips!! :D

On a side note though!
EIGHT CANDLES AND EGG NOG ARE FINALLY BACK IN STOCK AT DELLA TERRA!!!!!!!!!!!!
They didn’t officially annouce it yet, so I was surprised to see them up on their website. I’ve been waiting for so long it feels like!! And finally they are back! If you haven’t tried them, but love dessert teas, try them!! They are both incredible!! :D

Sipdown! 986. Finished this off with my boyfriend’s mom last night. A pleasant enough rooibos, though not vanilla/cream-y enough for my liking. However, it is happily free from overwhelming icky rooibos flavour.

I haven’t had the chance to write many Steepster reviews these days, but I felt I needed to record this one… I’m really enjoying it. I bought it as part of a sampler set and I’m so glad I had the chance to try it. The almond comes through more strongly in the smell than chocolate, but in the sip I get a nice balance of chocolate and almond on the black tea base. I don’t know the exact temperature that I use, but I boil the water and let it sit to cool off for about 3-5 minutes before pouring it over the tea leaves. This makes a lovely Fall/Winter tea. I would definitely re-order this one.

Pass the Stash TTB #13

Meh. I’m not sure what this was supposed to taste like; I probably should have looked it up before steeping a cup. But I honestly didn’t taste anything but the rooibos. Even a little sugar didn’t help bring out other flavors. Now, I like rooibos but expected something more. Maybe if I had added more than my normal scoopful of tea, or had steeped it longer, or something. But I ended up dumping the mug and steeping something else.

Sipdown! 148/397. Now for a new target – I think I’m gonna try to get my cupboard below 300 teas by my 5 years on Steepster anniversary, at the beginning of February 2019. Google tells me I’ve got 41 days, so it works out to like 1.2 a day. Which is totally doable, if I don’t deviate from my sipdown box. I am totally committed to getting my cupboard down enough that I can justify buying more tea in 2020. Maybe even next year, if I’m super committed!

I chose this one today as a sort of low-key good luck charm for my football team. I’m a huge Sunderland fan, raised on them since I was 6 years old (18 years ago) and I’m going to their Boxing Day match against Bradford today. They’re expecting a record crowd of 44,000 and I can’t wait; the atmosphere is going to be amazing. Their nickname is The Black Cats, hence me choosing this tea.

The tea itself is disappointing. I paid attention to adding more leaf and less water than usual to try and intensify the flavour, and zippo. It is an old tea at this point, and I’m not going to judge it for that, but I know I’ve had better cups. Ah well. Hopefully the football will be better!

Happy (belated) Halloween, everyone!

So Frank’s dad is staying this weekend, and I didn’t have time to write much up last night, which was when I had this tea. I received it in my Secret Pumpkin swap from KittyLovesTea, and now is of course the perfect time to drink it.

I looked through a lot of my samples yesterday, and picked out 10 which were Halloween-inspired, some more than others. The plan is to drink all 10 over the weekend, although I might have to include Monday as a “long weekend” depending on how it goes. Some I have drank before, and some are completely new to me. I am also doing them in alphabetical order, partly because it’s easier to remember, and partly because I’m both indecisive and anal.

So here goes, tea 1/10 of my Halloween Tea Marathon!

Visually, this tea gets 100. It fits the mood perfectly. There are little candy pieces in the tea – black cats and orange sprinkles. The real magic, though, happens when it is steeped. As soon as I poured the water over the dry leaf, it turned a green colour. Over the duration of steeping, this became darker and darker until it was a murky almost black colour. It definitely put me in the Halloween spirit! (Haha, spirit, get it?).

The smell of the dry leaf was utterly divine, all tropical and sweet. I think this tea requires a lot of leaf, though, because even though I only brewed half a cup of it (on account of the drinking 10 teas), the scent diminished significantly when brewed.

The taste confirmed that more leaf is required, and I think that next time I have it I will use up the rest of my sample. I used a heaped teaspoon for only half a cup of tea, and I could still barely taste anything when drinking it plain. I was forced to add a sweetener, which was kinda too much but at least brought out some of that tropical fruit I had been expecting.

Overall, I am not disappointed in this tea as I expect it was mainly a quantity error on my part. I am excited to try this again!

The blends raw scent is of cocoa. Sweet though with a light herbalness.

1.5 tsp of blend put into an empty tea sac with boiling water for 4 minutes.

Steeped scent is strongly of rich cocoa. Sour and dry.

Flavour is dark, rich and smoky with dry cocoa, sweet vanilla and subtle mint tones. It tastes like mint chocolates. It would seem the base change from black to rooibos has made a grave change (har har).

For pictures and a comparative review between the black base and rooibos base please view my blog.
http://www.kittylovestea.co.uk/2014/10/31/halloween-tea-showdown-2014/

This tea was…not very memorable.

Of course, I’m having a bad day. One in which nothing went as it was supposed to.

So….I won’t rate this because maybe it’s not the tea’s fault.

However, we may never know since I drank all of the sample Ost sent me. :(

I’m finding that I haven’t liked as many of Della Terra’s teas as I’d hoped I would.

I made this as an eggnog latte while simultaneously cooking/ eating my dinner since I worked the closing shift and didn’t get home until 9:15ish. In order to help me out, my mom offered to froth the milk/eggnog mixture for me however she got a bit froth happy which made for a bit of a latte explosion: http://instagram.com/p/wxacGiPJWX/. Consequently, the first few sips were all foam. However, when I did get to the tea itself, it made for a refreshingly cup of creamy vanilla mint goodness. Candy cane in a cup for sure with just a hint if chocolatey warmth. It is really delicious. This was an excellent way to say goodbye to this sample I have had for almost a year. 282.

I’ve had this tea for almost a year now and it is still sealed. I decided it was finally time to break it open and try it out. I brewed it up both plain and poured over milk to see how I felt about it both ways.

The plain tea seems a touch bland to me. There is mint in there for sure but it is not as strong as one would expect given the amount of leaf and peppermint pieces. There is also a hint of chocolate richness at the end of each cup but it is fleeting. And the vanilla is virtually non-existent except for in the aftertaste where a touch of vanilla flavoring can be found.

The milk really brings out all the flavors. I immediately pick up a creamy vanilla-mint that is certainly reminiscent of the holiday season. It reminds me quite a bit of Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane (which personally I quite liked). That combines with a splash of milk chocolate flavor thus making for a pleasant enough cup. With that said, the fact that this needs the milk to make just a decent tea, I find myself not all that interested in keeping this stocked in any quantity.

A third birthday tea came just in time for my birthday, thanks to the package I received today from Ost! This one was a little different than the other two so far in that it is the only one to actually contain tea. I wish I would have started with this one for my first cup because I’m sad that I can’t resteep it more than once since it’s getting late. Oh well. This is one I’d consider buying, for sure. I don’t get much in the way of chocolate, but I again can taste a vanilla buttercream flavor. It smells quite sweet but isn’t really. I’ll be looking for this next time I place a Della Terra order!

This one reminds me in flavour of an “old-style” root beer – slightly medicinal tasting, a little black-liquoricey, a little chicory. The rooibos is a good choice here, and I actually feel the slight woodiness contributes to the flavour. I wouldn’t say that “float” element is particularly strong, although there is a light creaminess in the background. I tried adding milk to the second half of my cup to bring that out a little more, but I think it actually drowned what there was more than anything. So, without milk is the way forward with this one for me! Of the root beer teas I’ve tried this far, I wouldn’t say this one is a favourite. I much prefer the 52 Teas version. It’s a pleasant cup, though, and I’ll definitely enjoy finishing off my sample pouch.

In other news, I’ve been on a bit of a hot chocolate jag these last few days. That’s so totally not me, I should have known something was wrong. Then last night I started getting the sniffles and a scratchy throat. Time for another cold! I should have known that my tastes wouldn’t change that dramatically for no reason. I miss tea already, but no doubt I’ll return to normal soon. I certainly hope so!

This one cheered me up today, although sadly it is a sipdown. The whole office kitchen took on the fragrance of cotton candy; warm, sugary, vanilla loveliness. It’s even more of a joy to drink.

This one will be sadly missed. It was a wonderful afternoon pick-me-up, and the sprinkles are just too cute.

Another of the teas I started last week, primarily as a bedtime brew. I was expecting a generically sweet cup, but this is actually pretty much spot on cotton candy. There’s a sugary sweetness, and an almost marshmallowy/strawberry element that takes it from being just sweet, into actual cotton candy. I’m holding on to my pouch of 52Teas reblended Cotton Candy black, because that was the first cotton candy tea I tried that really lived up to its promise. Now that there’s this one as well, though, I feel like I can maybe be a bit less sparing with it. Maybe.

The rooibos base here is fairly undetectable. With any tea but rooibos, that would probably bother me, but this one is clearly all about the flavouring. It’s a sweet, caffeine-free pre-bedtime treat, and the sprinkles add that little extra touch of fairground cuteness. They’re small enough to melt completely, so none of the stuck in the steeper basket anguish. There’s a lot to love here, and love it I do.

I’ve drank a good few cups of this recently, so I can vouch for its deliciousness. The orange flavour reminds me of Kia-Ora, so not exactly natural orange flavouring, but the cream more than makes up for that. It’s so utterly cream-like, it’s almost dreamy. Besides, Kia-Ora reminds me fondly of my childhood.

The rooibos base is really nowhere, here. I can’t taste it at all underneath the flavouring. With a splash of milk to augment the creaminess further, it’s almost like drinking a cup of (artificially) orange flavoured cream, or melted orange ice cream.

I haven’t ordered from Della Terra for ages, but if I were to, this is one I’d look to pick up again. It’s a great caffeine free option, and it tastes just as it promises it will. No complaints here.

I had this for breakfast yesterday, and it was pretty good. Lots of cinnamon and cookie spices, and some raisin. Not quite getting the oatmeal part but still a nice tea.

Thank you, carol who, for this sample! I can’t say that I really taste much berry, let alone blackberry specifically, and it mostly just tastes like the black tea base. Perhaps it is getting a little old? Even still, I would expect at least a little bit of fruity sweetness. It’s just missing for me. At least I don’t hate Della Terra’s black base :) And I’ll try this again iced to see how that goes.

OMGSOGOOOOOD. This smells like cola and caramel, and has a really strong cola taste. There’s also some notes that I can kind of identify as cherry and cake knowing that’s what they’re going for, but probably wouldn’t if I’d tasted this without knowing. Still, definitely something more than the cola.

I usually don’t put anything in my tea, but this just called for a dash of sugar, and it’s pretty damned perfect. The black base is there but primarily works to support the flavours and doesn’t really stand out.

This is my first cola tea and I’m really impressed. I can’t drink carbonated stuff and I usually find it way to sugary anyway, so this is a really fantastic way to enjoy the cola flavour without all the other stuff.

This sample came from Dexter. Now, I haven’t had the best experiences with Della Terra’s teas, but this flavor sounded too amazing to pass up. It has cute tiny marshmallows (the kind you find in hot cocoa mix) along with red sprinkles and pieces of brittle.

I dunno, this one’s just not doing it for me. It has a weird (extremely fake) caramel flavor and I don’t get pumpkin at all. The marshmallow is just sweetness and there’s a gross alcoholic tastes that lingers on my tongue and reminds me of cough syrup. Nope, not for me!