Della Terra Teas

Thanks to QueenofTarts I was able to procure a little more of this wonderful tea! I was out which was sad so sad but she did a trade with me for the Peach Melba (also very good stuff) that I got in my Lupicia Happy Bag.
This tea is still just so YUM to me!

Simply the best tea from Della Terra Teas to date.
I pray that this is not a seasonal only tea.
If it is going to be seasonal only then I need to really REALLY stock up as this I am in love with.
This is THE most marshmallowy tea I have ever tasted. Yet not just marshmallow but caramel marshmallow!
Full review will be posted on http://sororiteasisters.com/
but for now – GET SOME before I get it all!

Another from the travelling tea box!

I used 2 perfect teaspoons in my Travel Mug and we took it to Point Pleasant park and admired the chipmunks and big fat bluejays. It’s blizzarding where I used to live.. it’s plus 18 here today. WHOOP!

This was a great fall companion tea! The two most prominent flavours I got were sweet apple and cinnamon – it was followed by a caramel and candy taste and something a bit floral, which put me off a bit- and it was almost a bit too sweet for me! There was something strange in the aftertaste, it reminded me a stevia, but I know there is no stevia in the blend. Maybe an aftertaste from the sugar crystals? Either way it was a bit cloying.

Anyways, that’s minor, it was still a yummy blend! Not one I would purchase for myself, but one I was very happy to try!

I don’t often return to a tea this quickly, but I was just really curious about this one. The black tea base on this seemed so nonexistant that I wondered what would happen if I just added another teaspoon of black tea to the mix. I’m logging this under this tea instead of Chance Combinations because it’s really all about this tea. At first I was considering adding sometime like a Panyang Congou sample I have around, or perhaps some Laoshan Black, but then I decided, you know what? I really want some chocolate in there. So I used the Tea Spot’s Organic Chocolate “O”, which, for those of you who don’t know, is a single-estate, high quality flavored tea. I actually did 1:1 mix here, and just added more black tea to almost the normal amount of this tea that I would put in my cup, so we’ll see if it doesn’t turn out too strong.

Not too strong, but I might dial it back a bit next time because it is edging on too strong. However, it does have a nice blend of pumpkiny flavors and the rich chocolate underlying it. It’s definitely a more enjoyable cup with a base that actually is interesting, so I’ll definitely be putting some various different interesting black teas in whenever I steep this one. It will be interesting to see what might be the best one!

I really haven’t been drinking a lot of flavored teas lately, besides flavored matcha. Weird. Well I finally went to the post office during their opening hours this morning so that I could get the packages that were too big to fit in my (actually very large) PO box (although seriously, there is no reason that two ounces of tea, or a small tin of matcha, need huge cardboard boxes to ship in), and so I finally got to pick up my order from Della Terra. I’ve been curious about Della Terra teas since everyone has been talking about them on here, but never that driven to order from them. But then they had a 50% off halloween teas and I ordered two off that list since the price was right.

I have not spent a lot of time looking for a perfect pumpkin tea, but am pretty certain that it is a flavor I will be fairly picky about because I love pumpkin everything. I go pumpkin crazy this time of year. The dry leaf on this one is powerfully pumpkin pie. Spiced, but not spicy in a chai way, and definitely pumpkiny. Steeped, I smell more fall-themed spices, particularly some woody cinnamon, a bit of pie crust, and what may be some pumpkin hanging out in the background.

The flavor is pretty nice, with some good levels of spices and a decent creamy pumpkin-ness. It’s just, the black tea is so weak. It’s like it has hardly any flavor at all. At one point this would never have bothered me, but now it does. I can just imagine how much more delicious this would be with a lovely, rich, black base underneath. I could try to steep it for longer, but I fear that would just bring out undesirable black tea qualities. I may actually try to add some richer black tea to this the next time I have it and see what the result is. Even so this is pretty tasty with nicely balanced pumpkin flavoring.

Got enough for a cup of this from someone in a trade. Delicious. Tasted like a creamy caramel with a bit of apple. It had little red candy bits in it. The stuff you actually get on a real candied apple. The teas so pretty to. It tasted really good. Sweet and the caramel flavor and apple is there shining through. I did it at 3 minutes on a suggestion.

Additional notes: I wanted to try this one again with Della Terra’s suggested brew time of four minutes… but I think it went to five. It still has an odd flavor while I am sipping it hot, but it does taste better as it cools. Maybe cold brewing would be better? Somehow it tastes sweeter when cold, but not as sweet as it should will the candy thingies and sugar crystals in it. I had at least one fruit chunk in my infuser – it was apricot and I ate it. :D I’ll up the rating, but it still isn’t my favorite from DT. (Original rating 71)

This isn’t my favorite from Della Terra.. there isn’t much flavor here. I didn’t see many actual fruit pieces fall in my tea, so the mild flavor must be that, the “flavor”… I’d say from the peach, pineapple and apricot flavors that should be here, I taste peach the most. I saw more candy pieces than fruit fall into my infuser, but oddly I don’t taste much sugar. I’m also eating donuts so maybe the sugar from the tea is hiding. It’s reminding me of The Fiery Furnaces song ’I’m Gonna Run’ where it says “Ate twelve dozen donuts for lunch”.. but that’s from the donuts, not the tea. Not much else to say about this one, which is why I’m typing about donut songs.

I’ve been so busy lately! That probably won’t change until Thanksgiving, but thankfully there is tea and chocolate, and sometimes even chocolate tea.

I forgot to log this the first time I drank it, last week. I had just made a cup when a friend stopped by on her way home from work, we chatted for a long time, I made her some tea (peppermint), and then I made dinner for everyone. Somewhere in there I forgot about posting a review!

I was a little wary when I saw the tiny pumpkin candies; usually when I see candies in tea it means I will soon be thinking “holy sugar overload, Batman”. But like everything else I’ve tried from DellaTerra, this is really great. The chocolate flavor is rich, dark, and creamy. The pumpkin flavor isn’t strong for me, but still there mingled with the chocolate. I can also taste the cinnamon and nutmeg blending with the pumpkin and chocolate. And best of all, it isn’t too sweet!

Dessert tea is definitely not an every day thing for me, but DellaTerra is winning me over as a good choice when I do want some flavored tea!

I don’t want to be the first to write a tasting note for this one… especially if I say it reminds me of raspberry cough drops.. or what those might actually taste like if I ever had raspberry cough drops. It must be the ginger, which I’m not normally a fan of. I might not like cough drops, but they always remind me of my grandpa for some reason, so they can’t be too bad. The steep color is a pale yellow. I’m also not getting much jasmine here, but I’m starting to think jasmine is very elusive and sensitive to temperature. I’m not sure why anise is in the picture for the tea, since that isn’t listed in the ingredients. The white/green tea combo tastes very fresh. The white tea isn’t drying my mouth at all, which it sometimes likes to do (when I don’t like it to). This isn’t one of my favorites from Della Terra but I have MANY favorites from Della Terra. But give this one a try for yourself! It may be it just isn’t for me, or I didn’t steep it right.

This is delicious! I got 3 good 16 oz. mugs from a single steep of approximately 2.5 teaspoons of tea — which is a lot more than I usually get; I was surprised. (The last steep was noticeably weaker, but still flavorful.) Sweetened with stevia and served hot, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I won a Facebook draw for a “Try Me” size of any tea. I picked this one and WOW, it totally blew my mind! It tastes a lot like apple cider, but much lighter. My first thought was to make a hot toddy with this tea… aaand I probably will on my next cup. Heh.

I have to apologize for the significant backlog of notes I’ll be posting shortly (although I may not write too much about everything) – I’ve been drinking plenty of tea but have been so swamped with work I haven’t had the time to write anything! At least I’m almost done one annoying part of my project now… after putting in about 20 hours this weekend in an attempt to get it over with.

Anyhow, I won this from Della Terra from their Facebook page! Thanks! I’m not sure it’s necessarily a tea I’d have picked out myself, but I’m eager to purchase a bunch of Try Me packs, so it’s great to eliminate one more tea from the possible bunch I haven’t tried (pretty much everything).

Based on the description of this tea, I was pretty much expecting an earl grey, and was not disappointed. As this looked to be a CTC tea, I stuck to the recommended 2 minute infusion to prevent bitterness, however I’ll admit that I loaded my first thermos-ful with milk and sugar as that’s how I prefer my earl greys (well… I prefer straight earl grey creams over sweetened earl grey with milk, but I felt it would do). Anyhow, I appeared to be correct in my assumption. This pretty much tastes like a decent earl grey, not too heavy on the bergamot, and with a fairly nice base (or at least, it did its job well and wasn’t astringent/bitter). I’m not sure if the orange bits really add anything (I wish they had!)

I managed to make quite a nice second infusion of this one as well, steeped for 2 or 2.5 minutes (can’t recall), but discarded the leaves after that.

Thanks for the chance to sample this tea, Della Terra! Now pretty please put an awesome special on so I can go crazy ordering teas? :D

Another amazing tea from Della Terra! I’ve tried a bunch of them now… there was only one I wouldn’t buy. The steep color here is slightly deeper than the golden raisin’s color that fell into my infuser. I thought that was a bit odd.. the black tea should have a deeper color. But it’s the perfect black tea to showcase these flavors. It definitely tastes like a cookie! If there was more oatmeal included in the blend, I think it may have tasted more like an OATMEAL cookie. But wow is this one delicious. Vanilla, cinnamon, raisins and a bit of oatmeal are the perfect combination in this blend to make it great!

Excellent flavors, blended perfectly, so nothing is overpowering. Tastes exactly like an Oatmeal Raisin cookie.

The smell of this tea is so intoxicating!
Brewed a pot of this this morning since I woke up early because of daylight savings. I must say, this tea is FANTASTIC! This is the first Earl Grey tea I’ve tried and the creme flavor compliments this tea and adds to its perfection.

One of my FAVORITE dessert teas! As posted in my testimony for DellaTerra and the review on their website, this tea allows me to “hang glide down the Andes Mountains”! I love this tea and when I have it for dessert I add 2 teaspoons of sugar into it. (which may be TOO sweet for some people, but I use this tea just like an after dinner dessert so I add a lot of sugar!) :) I love DellaTerra and this is one of my personal favorites, along with a couple others that I’ll post tasting notes for soon.

Another home run from Della Terra!

The first thing I noticed after I brewed this is that it SPARKLES. And I was so excited about it that I had to go over to Rayn and go “Rayn, Rayn! Look at this tea! It sparkles!!!” And he confirmed that yes, it was in fact sparkling. It looks like little glitter is just dancing around in the tea! So cool!

Then I smelled the tea: ripe strawberries and a little bit of rose. No pu-erh smell. After a few seconds, it was time to taste. I taste earthy pu-erh with no hint of fishyness. Then the juicy strawberry flavor, like strawberry candies. I taste just a hint of mango.

I’ll be honest, I was expecting this not to work. At all. But it totally does! And seriously, tea that sparkles? Della Terra just keeps impressing me.

Got this one from jess and I love honeybush!!! I’m already tired and its only 9 pm but I have been all day and tonight I think I will sleep soundly thanks to this tea. You can just taste that wonderful maple flavor! I never new I liked maple so much lol. Thank you jess for this wonderful tea!!!!

This is another “Oh noes, I haz eated mah tea!” Della Terra Teas blend, by which I mean that you open the packet and you want to eat the tea. It smells like lemon cookies, maybe even lemon sandwich cookies, with the vanilla notes ‘n’ all. I don’t even know how I didn’t eat this one. Cookie Monster’s sitting in a corner, sulking.

[Edit] I forgot to mention that this tea is really pretty! I didn’t remember the photo, which showcases its beauty quite well, so I was surprised when I opened the packet and got a good look. Black tea with these blue highlights and flecks of gold. I rarely notice how a tea looks, so it basically has to bat its eyelashes at me and be all, hey, look at me, I’m pretty! Such a little tart, this one.

I wasn’t able to coax the flavour I wanted out of the blend, sadly. It was so frustrating, like dropping your keys in the car, between the center console and the bucket seat, and then being able to almost-but-not-quite reach them. The flavour I got out was that of a nice black tea, good but not great. The bergamot was present but really not bold enough, especially given the heady fragrance. I steeped three minutes because I recently got schooled on the dangers of over-steeping black tea, but I think maybe the DT black tea base is more forgiving than the 52T one…? Next time, I’m going to try my usual five minutes for this one and see how it works out, because I really, I really want to taste the taste that the fragrance promises.

[Edit again] Sorry, I also forgot to mention that, like 52t’s Gingerbread Chai (which I also had today), the aftertaste is perfect. Perfect lemon cookie! I would love to get the formula right for getting the taste to be just as perfect. I mean, who wants to sit there, aggressively exhaling, just to get the perfect aftertaste, ya? Even living alone I feel silly doing it.

Tea amount: 1 level tsp/~4.75g
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: About ¾ tsp Demerara sugar

Drinking the last of my sample of this tonight, and I’m sad to see it go! I noticed tonight that if I sip on this right away it tastes a bit odd to me, almost kind of bitter, but as it cools it develops the velvety chocolate I loved last time.

I’m doing homework at 10:15 on a Saturday because all my professors decided to be “nice” and make everything due the week before Thanksgiving break instead of after. What is there to do except sip chocolate tea while writing literary analysis?

A terrible thing happened today: my dark chocolate went missing. But never fear! After reading Nik’s wonderful review today I knew there was a solution, since DellaTerra so kindly sent me a sample of this with my order.

This tea smells absolutely divine, and I’m not just saying that because I’m tired and just studied for my philosophy of religion class tomorrow. It really smells amazing, like shoving one’s nose into a bag of cocoa. I put an extra teaspoon into my steeper because I wanted lots of chocolate flavor today.

And mmm, completely delicious. This is so close to the flavor of sipping on a cup of cocoa, and I’m sure it would be just like that with a little milk. I really like the teas from DellaTerra and this hits my dark chocolate spot!

I closed my eyes and pointed and ended up with another Della Terra Teas blend. I gotta say, I’m getting really spoiled here. I also kind of feel like I’m starting to sound like a broken record with my unbridled glee. Every time I feel like a blend couldn’t be better, couldn’t be more accurate, I get one that is. This is such a blend.

For the third time in two days, I wanted to eat the tea. It just smells so much like those chocolate oranges that it’s hard to resist the temptation. I haven’t had one of those chocolate oranges in years, either, which makes it even harder! But I resisted and patiently brewed my tea. The balance was way off in the blend’s fragrance, and this worried me: where the dry tea smelled just like a chocolate orange, the brew smelled mostly (maybe entirely, now that I think about it) like chocolate. I was worried that the orange would be absent from the flavour, as well.

My experience is that DT blends don’t re-steep well. At least, the past two black tea blends that I’ve tried to steep for a second time (Oatmeal Raisin Cookie1 and Dubbele Chocolade2) were both really weak, even after steeping for 10 minutes. My experience is also that the recommended 3-minute steep time really doesn’t pack the flavourful punch I expect. Therefore, I’ve decided to steep just once for about 5 minutes and call it a day.

The chocolate-orange balance was restored in the flavour (and actually appeared in the brew’s fragrance, too, after it’d cooled a bit). It’s quite good unsweetened (my sweet tooth prevents me from thinking any tea can be “amazing” unsweetened, but this is really pretty good), but it’s delicious after being sweetened a bit. I’m going to be thinking about it until tomorrow, when I can next have more caffeinated tea.

Tea amount: 1 level tsp/~4.75g
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: ¾ tsp demerara sugar

1 http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/137359

2 http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/137472