Della Terra Teas

I have a slight obsession with this tea for many reasons. And I had a cup in bed last night, which is why I’m posting my love for it.

1. The snowflake sprinkles are too cute. Like I’ve said, I have a weakness for the cute factor in teas.

2. It smells- and tastes- like vanilla frosting. Not the sticky sweet that hurts your stomach and your teeth though, like an indulgence that you can’t get enough of and don’t have to!

3. It’s caffeine free and I can’t taste the “medicinal” flavor that rooibos can often have. I can drink this in bed while I obsess over the 25 Days of Christmas on ABC Family and not worry that my heart will race, I won’t be able to sleep, or that it will upset my stomach if it’s empty.

4. Rooibos is known for settling an upset stomach and is recommended for after meals to aid digestion…what better way to aid digestion than an amazing DESSERT flavored tea? It’s like getting 2 for 1, dessert and your food settled…and no calories.

I am now prompted to go order 4 more ounces of it while it’s on sale.

I made a cup of this as soon as the package came in as I rushed out the door to take my kitten to the vet…it made a cold blistery Vermont day warm and cozy.

This tea has a sugary sweetness to it without feeling sticky, I want to say it’s like frosting but it is much more like real eggnog than that. The cinnamon adds the festive spice to it and the snowflake sprinkles make it FUN!

I usually bring one or two teas to work with tea to drink throughout the day and this one is in my bag today. I love it! This is my first Della Terra experience and I just made my Black Friday Wish List at my desk :p

I think I have some kind of stomach bug but I’m dragging myself to work because I need my days off for the holidays. So I’m drinking a lot of this, tastes like ginger ale and has stomach settling rs.rooibos. Using tea to get through the day.

I got this as a sample with my Della Terra order and drank it last night with a couple of Pepperidge Farm Ginger Men on the side :) Such a treat! It taste very much like a gingerale flavor. It’s not super spicy like other ginger teas I’ve tried. It’s a very sweet, cozy kind of flavor and I love that it’s a rooibus tea and I can drink it at night!

I will probably order the 2oz bag on Black Friday because I love to keep teas on hand for upset stomachs and what better than a gingerale flavor rooibus tea for that? I recommend it

Azzrian Thanks for this one!

This is pretty pleasing tot he palate but I wouldn’t call it Ginger Snap.

At first sniff it reminded me of an adult beverage like Amaretto Sour. At first sip it reminded me of it as well with a dash of black pepper. once it cooled at room temp it was more like Orange Juice and Chai Spices.

Strange. Not what I would call Ginger Snap. But fairly tasty.

Like so many of my fellow Steepsters in the USA, this Monday will be spent scampering off to the grocery store for Thanksgiving Dinner ingredients.
My daughter called this morning to inform me that the body count for dinner at her home will be 20 people, 10 children and 10 over the age of 15. Oh my! I’m so glad she has a big house and an acre out back for the 6 non-infant boys to run around and play on a beautiful warm Autumn day. It will be warm here!

As the only Elder, I am required to bring the food memories my daughter can’t live without. Fortunately, that’s easy. She makes my mom’s turkey stuffing and has the antique gravy boat. I create her favorite yam, apple and pecan casserole layered like a lasagna with butter, maple, brown sugar and spice.
This year I’m making the kids ice cream pies. Pumpkin and candy cane peppermint pies for fun. And tea of course.
(I’ll save my prize winning Apple Pie for Christmas when we’re just family and have RIBS!)

Off shopping I must go! But first, TEA! Dessert tea puts me in a good mood. (All tea puts me in a good mood most of the time!)

I made a small pot of Chocolate Covered Strawberry tea, looking forward to several sweet cups.
Right off, this isn’t a tea that I would drink without adding sugar or sweetener. Some dessert tea’s you can omit sweetening, but not this one. The strawberry flavor is released when sweetened and is the dominant flavor in the tea.
I found the taste sour from the artificial flavoring so I added some cream to soften the tea and make it creamy. This helped.

Another thing that I have trouble with is the chocolate. The strawberry flavor is strong and the chocolate is hardly there at all. (I’ve had trouble tasting the chocolate flavor in all the Della Terra Chocolate Tea’s though, maybe the artificial flavoring and my taste buds are at odds with each other)

This isn’t an awful tea, don’t get me wrong. It’s more of a strawberry tea in my opinion.

I think some of the other tea’s I’ve tried have been more successful.

Off to shop!

SIPDOWN!

Vanilla! Yum!

See previous notes!

Azzrian Thanks, Girl!

Now…THIS…is a straight-up Vanilla Flavored Black! It smells and tastes wonderful!

A nice mellow yet medium strength black tea base but more importantly a wonderfully smooth vanilla walking hand-in-hand with the black tea. It’s lovely!

If you are a flavored black tea fan or a vanilla fan this would place nicely in your stash!

Catching up on my tea log – sorry for the flood, everyone!

The smell of blueberries was very strong in the dry tea, but lost a little of its potency in the cup. It still tasted very much like blueberries though, and went down very smoothly indeed. I found the blueberry taste a little artificial, hence the lower rating. I should note that my husband, who is not a tea drinker, really enjoyed this tea.

Have to admit I was a little disappointed with this one. It tasted like a whole lot of fruit and didn’t really have any distinctive flavour for me. That being said, I did happily sip down the whole cup and I will drink it again. I did love the colour of the tea… a lovely ghoulish green that looked great in my glass mug!

Just want to add a shout-out to Della Terra Teas here. I was putting in an order for some half-price Halloween specials, and I put a note asking if they were still offering samples with an order (the Facebook page wasn’t clear). I requested this one if they were, and they sent me a very generous, full 1 oz sample. I am very impressed by their customer service!!

This one smells EXACTLY like a Terry’s chocolate orange. Unfortunately the flavour was just a little off for me, too heavy on the chocolate and too light on the orange. It was better with cream and a touch of sugar than it was just straight. Reviewing the tea info, I see it says to steep for 2-3 minutes and I did much longer than that – maybe the taste is my own fault. I might also try blending this with another tea.

I love lemon. I love rooibos. I really liked, but did not absolutely love, this blend. Drank it straight and found it a little too sweet to my taste. It left that thick feeling you get in your mouth after you eat a piece of lemon meringue pie. This is incredible if you like and are in the mood for lemon meringue! I might save this tea for such a mood.

Smelled great in the bag and tasted almost as good as it smelled. I drank it straight and thought it was quite good, but it may even be better with milk and sugar. I brewed my cup with 1 tsp, next time I will try a little bit more – I found it a little weak. I may adjust my rating.

This tea was good, but I wasn’t blown away by it. When I drank it straight, I couldn’t really taste the strawberry. I found the tea quite sweet on its own, but I needed to add sugar to bring out the strawberry taste. That made the tea almost too sweet for me. I will drink this again, but I’m a little disappointed compared to DT’s Classic Apple Pie.

This is yummy! A perfect way to improve upon the classic Thanksgiving dessert, in my opinion, is to add chocolate. Of course, adding chocolate is my solution to everything. Chocolate makes the world a much nicer place to be, and I’m thankful for chocolate … so it seems only fitting that chocolate SHOULD be part of this Thanksgiving tradition.

What I really like about this is that the pumpkin is a very prominent flavor. It seems too often that pumpkin pie teas are nothing more than black tea with some pumpkin pie spice, rather than actual PUMPKIN taste. Pumpkin pie spice does not equal pumpkin! I like that I taste pumpkin here.

After the tea cools slightly (it is not cold or even tepid at this point, but just not piping hot), I notice a hint of buttery pie crust. The chocolate is a strong flavor too, although, it could always use more chocolate. Always. I doubt there will ever be enough chocolate. :)

The flavor of the black tea is a little obscured with the stronger flavors of pumpkin and chocolate and spice, a little less prominent than I would like for my flavored teas, but, I still find this to be quite tasty, regardless … and something I’d be happy to drink again and again.

I just got finished writing my full-length review for this tea on SororiTea Sisters (this review will publish on the eve of the 20th), and something that I mentioned there that I will also mention here, is that the way the spices and the chocolate flavoring mingle with one another here … it gives the chocolate a sort of chocolate liqueur kind of flavor that I’m really digging. I love Godiva’s Chocolate Liqueur, but, I’m not a big alcohol fan (although I probably could become an alcoholic if I were able to – read: afford to! – keep this liqueur on hand), so I love that I can kind of experience that yummy taste via TEA which I prefer and find much more affordable too.

I slept in this morning. I climbed out of my super comfy big bed…put on one of those robes that feels like you’ve been wrapped in a babies cuddly stuffed animal and made a pot of ‘Favored Tea’.

My tea journey began with ‘Flavored Tea’, and gradually wandered down other avenues that at first were mysterious.
Green, Black, Oolong and then…Pu-erh. Each tea variety grabbed my attention and taught me about what was the tea base under all the flavored tea’s that I had loved so much.

I discovered that there is a point where you either have to pull away and choose to only drink unflavored tea or keep in the loop and taste and enjoy what everyone else is raving about without discrimination.

Tea can be very serious, or it can be loads of fun. I saw the same sort of cerebral decision working at the Winery. People got so serious that they no longer fully enjoyed wine. Some refused to try a wine that they assumed they wouldn’t like. “I don’t drink Rieslings”. Well, that’s borish!

I don’t want to be borish! I love my earthy Shu Pu-erh’s, adore my dangerously chocolate Black Tea’s and swoon over dark Autumnal Oolongs.

However, give me some flavored tea’s too! They are FUN!

What was brilliant with this S’mores tea was the use of real chocolate bits and real mini marshmallows and real crushed graham crackers. Just using chocolate, marshmallow and graham flavor would have sunk the tea into a horrid artificial flavor hole.
The natural ingredients seemed to cancel any taste of artificial flavoring. (I was relieved!)

When I first tasted the tea plain I wasn’t impressed at all. It was too bland. I added Splenda and cream which made the tea delicious.
I haven’t had success tasting the chocolate in any of the Della Terra Tea’s. No idea why. A little cocoa but nothing I’d call real chocolate.

What stood out was the marshmallow flavor and graham cracker taste.
Those flavors were rich and creamy, strong enough to make you feel like you were having a satisfying dessert. I had two mugs of this yummy tea!

So far, this and the Chocolate Pumpkin Chai have been delicious and worth having on hand!

Before heading out to the IRS today…shudder…to discuss a tax issue…shudder again…I treated myself to Chocolate Pumpkin Pie Tea!
It smelled just like an Autumn Pumpkin Spice Yankee Candle. You know what I’m talking about. The candle that makes your home smell like you can bake even if you never turn on the oven!

I had a very nice experience sipping a small pot of this tea.

It wasn’t too pumpkiny (great new word) or too spicy…it was just right.
Except for the part about the chocolate, which was so light that I could hardly taste it, I enjoyed the pumpkin pie and added some cream and sweetened my tea to make it really tasty.

I was all ready to write a positive review on Steepster when BAM!
Steepster Crashed! Not a good omen right before going to the IRS!

FAST FORWARD
Catching up to the review after the IRS visit which went as well as it could (I had 1 person in front of me and that’s all, so hooray for small towns!).

Steepster is finally running again and all is well with the world.

The caramel scent from the dry tea on this is really strong – I almost want to describe it as dark? It’s a delicious smell though!

I got this one as a free sample along with one of my try-me packs, which I’m very glad for! It seems like I’ve loved the randomly chosen free samples even more than many of those I selected myself. I didn’t notice any of the caramel chunks in my sample, but it doesn’t seem at all hindered by that.

When brewed, it tastes noticeably sweet (though I didn’t add anything to it) and caramel-y, but the black tea is at the front. I think a single word to describe this tea, for me, would be “comforting” – especially when combined with the warm, caramel smell that this fills the room with. It probably helps that my first taste of it was a shared pot between me, my mom and my younger sister. It has something that reminds me of mornings in general. I think I’ll save my last cup of it for one of the upcoming near-freezing mornings.

I don’t remember this one having such a graham cracker/roasted smell to it the first time I tried it, but it’s definitely apparent now. And it’s a really nice smell! The smell is sweeter as well, kind of candied. Maybe because I mushed up a few of the marshmallows in it. The brewed tea brings out more of the chocolate and black tea smells, pushing the graham cracker scent to the background.

But yumm does it taste nice – a slight sweetness, lightly chocolate, black tea still apparent and an aftertaste of toasty graham cracker. I can definitely see why it’s one of Della Terra Tea’s highest rated teas on here.

Breaking into my try-me pack of this, which reminds me, I need to place an order at Della Terra sometime soon! Need more Lemon Chiffon :) but onto this tea. The dry smell is VERY raspberry, I can’t really smell anything but raspberry, quite a sweet, fruity smell. Mm, I haven’t had raspberries in ages, let alone raspberry tea!

As it steeps, the raspberry smell is mellowed, and I get maybe a hint of the ginger. I steeped for roughly 2 mins. The liquor is a nice golden yellow color. As for taste, this tea is super mild to me! Maybe I was a bit light on the leaf, or I got a bit less of the raspberry bits and more of the tea part, but it’s a very mellow, lightly raspberry flavored tea. The white and green tea blend very nicely to not be overpowering though, and the raspberry is definitely there. As it cools, I get a bit more ginger maybe? But mostly raspberry, not too tart though, which is nice! I can, however, see the likeness to the cough drops, it’s definitely a sweeter raspberry taste than sour. I can’t find the jasmine anywhere, maybe it’s just adding to the lightness? Oh, and I think I can feel a bit of ginger on my throat afterwards :), definitely feel a bit of its warming!

Overall, a pretty good cup. I would like a bit more ginger bite to it, might try a bit different steeping next time, to try to coax that out. Maybe a bit stronger raspberry taste too, I don’t know though, it’s pretty refreshing and light though. I could see myself drinking this more in the summer, hmm I wonder how it would taste iced too? I definitely won’t have trouble finishing my try me of this!

It’s a beautiful morning! I just looked outside and it’s really bright! When you live at a higher altitude, the Winter sunshine warms everything up even though the temperature might read 55 degrees. People wear shorts and a light sweater. The heater stays off in the house during the day because the house is heated by the sun.

When I first moved to Fort Collins, I was so surprised at how warm it was in this dry climate in the Fall and Winter. The jackets come out at night, and the boots when it snows (which isn’t often and melts quickly).

From the beginning of Fall through Winter, Old Town is transformed into a Fairyland of glittering lights, street performers (I love the tuba bands), and free carriage rides. There’s a small ice rink for the wee skaters. http://flic.kr/p/dtcfsy http://flic.kr/p/dtcfQA

‘Tis the Season’ for Thanksgiving in the U.S. next week and the day after is ‘Black Friday’ (a mega huge, shopping frenzy day). I don’t know about the rest of the World, but this is fun in many communities. Some cities, if you wear black you get discounts or goodies from merchants.

In Fort Collins we don’t have "Black Friday’, we have ‘PLAID’ Friday. If you wear plaid you get free tea, cookies, prizes and discounts all around Old Town.
With the glittering lights, street performers, free tea at my Pub and Waffle Hut sandwiches, it sounds like I’ll have fun and I’m going to be there! Wish you could all join me!

Tea:
I brewed a small pot of Chocolate Chai Pu-Erh this morning hoping that this tea sample would be a redemption after the sour chocolate sample I reviewed last evening.
I do love chocolate but I don’t like too much artificial flavoring.
Thankfully This tea has no artificial flavoring listed on the package! Phew!

My steep time was 4 minutes and the scent of the wet leaves with cinnamon and mini chocolate pieces was amazing. The wafting aroma was like warm chocolate, cinnamon streusel straight from the oven.

I poured a cup of tea and was relieved that the flavor was yummy cocoa with a good amount of cinnamon pop and a bite that must have come from the clove (which you can’t taste, just feel).
The list of ingredients mentioned cardamom but I didn’t taste that spice, and the orange was very light but delicious. I don’t prefer overly orange flavored tea.
If you want Pu-erh flavor, you won’t find it in this tea. The only thing it contributes is a richness. The health benefit is important though. Too many people have a horrible fear of Pu-erh and could easily drink this and never know the Pu-erh is there at all.

My first Pu-erh tea was Davids Tea Chocolate Orange which now tastes a bit off to me because of the artificial flavoring. This Della Terra Chocolate Chai Pu-erh is a step up and away from that sour artificial taste.

This is one of the best flavored Pu-erh’s blends for people who don’t want to taste the actual Pu-erh tea.

BTW Is Black Friday just something here in the U.S. or are there versions of the same thing in Canada and Paris and the UK and Denmark and Ecuador and so on?

Hi everyone, at review 490…I finally had Steepster EAT (or DRINK) my whole review of this tea right at the end! %$#@*&!

I’m not going to try and recount the whole review. The last one took 2 hours. I can’t do that again.

Here’s the short version.

This tea reminded me of Black Chocolate by the Tea and Spice Exchange if any of you have had that one before. I liked that tea.

This is very dark chocolaty as advertised. Not creamy in a way that stands out though and I can’t understand why cream flavor was added. I personally wouldn’t drink this without sweetening it, because sweetening makes the chocolate even stronger.
I tried some tea with cream which was the best way to drink it for my taste.

What I didn’t like was the aftertaste. The tea becomes sour.
I know that up front the flavor is good and chocolaty, but after a minute you’re left with an artificial flavor sourness that comes from too much artificial flavoring. BLECH!
Chocolate makes the sourness worse in my opinion.

I’m keeping an open mind and hope the other chocolate tea’s are not as sour.

I had a great meal out with my family tonight, and this was my dessert when I got home. My first review (that Steepster gobbled up) said the same thing about the sourness so I’m not venting or writing this because of a bad mood.

There has to be a better way to flavor Chocolate tea.

The first time I tried this blend, I chai’d it up1. Yes, didn’t you know? It’s a Thing. So I chai’d it up, and it was incredible. But I hadn’t yet tried it on its own, so didn’t feel right giving it a rating. Since today is Diwali2, I wanted to try something I’ve been eagerly anticipating, so I waited for Mum to get here and chose this.

Mayan Mist’s dry leaf fragrance is very sharp. To be honest, it can be a little off-putting. But really, if you’re put off by it, just ignore it, or you’ll miss out on a pretty lovely experience. The brewed tea loses all of that sharpness and just smells really orangey. If flavours of the “orange spice” ilk are your thing, you should really enjoy this.

Except for the coconut, the taste is exactly what you might expect. I say “except” because I can’t smell or taste any coconut. Maybe it’s just there to take the edge off, provide balance, something. I dunno. But although I do like coconut, I’m fine with it not playing a starring role here; orange spice is more than good enough for me. It’s really orangey and it’s pretty spicy, but if it were just a little more spicy, I wouldn’t complain.

I have enough of the sample left for one more cup. Eep! This is definitely a blend I want to keep around all the time. As far as I can tell, it’s as versatile as Samovar’s Ocean of Wisdom3, which is awesome. If I had to choose a preparation method, it would be the chai version, which was so good all I could do was sip and “mmmmm…” until I reached the bottom of the cup. Steeped normally, it’s still really good, but it doesn’t cause the temporary loss of speech.

I’ve got to branch out more! So far, my Happy Place resident teas are all Della Terra blends (save for one, Samovar’s Ocean of Wisdom).

Tea amount: 1 tsp/~4.75g
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: Fresh, grated ginger; ½ tsp/~2.4g Demerara sugar.

1 http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/137647

2 दिवाली मुबारक! Happy Diwali to my Steepster family! =) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali

3 http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/57991

No rating for this yet, because this isn’t an “out of the box” tasting note. My father, who’s visiting from Florida and underestimated how cold it’d be here and is now miserable, wanted something hot to drink. I wanted to limit his caffeine intake, but I’m reluctant to give him something I haven’t tried yet myself, so it was with a bit of trepidation that I made this tea. Meh, I thought, how bad can it be, right?

So here’s what I did: brought the tea, some sugar, and some water to a boil, then added some vanilla soy milk and grated some fresh ginger into the mix. Kept that going for “a while,” basically until I thought the colour looked good. Poured the whole thing through a strainer (which I didn’t used to own, by the way—thank you, Steepster Select! (RIP)) and divvied it up for us.

If I were to rate this concoction, I’d probably rate it somewhere in the 90s. Maybe even that elusive 100. I couldn’t taste any coconut, but the vanilla soy milk and the ginger+chili and orange and the cinnamon (and I don’t even like cinnamon)…[incoherent babbling]

Sorry, I’m back now. What I was trying to say was that the orange hit my tastebuds and made my mouth happy; the cinnamon hit my nose and gave it a pleasant little tickle and a lovely fragrance; and the ginger+chili hit the back of my throat and made me feel warm all over. So, so, so good.

Next time, I suppose I’ll try the blend on its own to see what it’s like.