Della Terra Teas

Third tea review comes to me as a sample from Della Terra Teas, which came along with the ounce of tea I won from their Facebook page!

The aroma of this one is absolutely decadent. Brown sugar, a hint of spice, and pumpkin. It definitely smells like a pumpkin pie, and one I’d like to eat, pronto! Best aroma by far!

Wow! This tea actually does taste kind of like pumpkin pie! The spicing is definitely more muted than in DavidsTea’s Pumpkin Chai, and is more appropriate to what a pie would taste like. However, the pumpkin in this tea really stands out. It’s the first tea of the three where I feel the flavour of pumpkin is truly apparent, and it’s good!

Sweetened, my only complaint is that I’m actually feeling like I’m getting too much pumpkin, and not enough spice! Like an underspiced pie, perhaps. Not bad, though! Perhaps I’m a bit biased due to just having had some of the DavidsTea version.

Overall, this is a pretty great tea if you’re looking for something to curl up with in the fall. I do wish that there was a bit more spicing, but for someone who isn’t a chai fan, this tea would probably be the best option. I would happily drink this one again if it was easier for me to order from Della Terra! I may actually try a 50:50 blend of this and DT’s Pumpkin Chai to see if I can get the perfect balance between pumpkiny and spice. Stay tuned!

(Teas under review: Butiki – Pumpkin Creme Brulee; iHeartTeas – Creamy Pumpkin Spice; DAVIDsTEA – Pumpkin Chai; Della Terra Teas – Grandma’s Pumpkin Pie)

Sip down! I also did a brainless pour from my tea pot, missing my cup completely, pouring right on my lap. At least the tea wasn’t really hot.

Felt like trying this tea at 185F instead of the lower recommended temperature.
It came out really malty and chocolately, but with a weird, dry aftertaste. I kinda like it like this for the flavor. Alas, good bye White Chocolate. If I can sip down a few more Della Terras, I probably will do another order.

MMMMM! I was craving a white tea this morning after all that crazy jiu jitsu last night which was my first time in the blue belt class.

For this batch, I threw in a vanilla bean pod that I scraped a few days ago for a dessert. Steeped for 2.5 mins. Doh, forgot I wanted to do a shorter steep!
Very strong white chocolate taste, most white chocolate I’ve tasted in a tea, super creamy, naturally sweet, silky and slightly malty. The vanilla added some extra smoothness to the tea! Yum!

This tea hit the spot this morning, but I’m still tired! Need to switch to something more perky after this.

What, no ratings on this tea yet?! This was the tea I was most pumped to try from Della Terra! White chocolate in tea is the freaking bomb!

DRY: Mmm chocolatey – white chocolate smell. Reminds me of a kinder egg chocolate. There are cute thin squares of white chocolate (I ate one).

STEEPED: Mysteriously smells like hot cocoa, milk chocolatey. All the white chocolate appeared to dissolve into the tea, SCORE! I hate when chocolate doesn’t dissolve in my tea. I was a little worried it wouldn’t dissolve because of the cooler water temperature. Thus, a slightly spotty/cloudy golden cup of tea.

TASTE: Very Creamy! Strong malty chocolate taste, with a great white chocolate aftertaste. The white chocolate lingers in my mouth staying all creamy. I did do a longer steep time (2.5 minutes), maybe with that I’m getting some kind of slight astringency or bitterness, hard to explain, but I figure I can try a shorter steep next time. Past the creamyness, this tea is light and works well with the chocolate.

Sweetened lightly, more a mellow even malty white chocolate taste. It really does a super creamy mouth coating feel.

COMMENTS: Chocolate tea lovers, give this one a shot! I’m not sure if I like it sweetened or not, with no sweetener the maltyness was good. Sweetened, more creamy! Grrr! I drank this cup up in record time!

An impressive sip down! I had three servings left, so I just made a teapot full to have during breakfast and knitting after breakfast.

Actually came out really good – last time I drank this tea it came out meh when it usually comes out good. Nice level of spice with raisiny sweetness!

I’m busting my butt on the mystery knit along project, the new clue was released monday, and I’m 10 rows off from finishing the first clue. However, now that my tea is done, time to do some more cleaning.

Breakfast tea!

Hmmm, I swore I have had a better cup of this. Maybe I didn’t get the ultimate spread of tea bits? It was quite heavy on the black flavor with not much spice or sweet. Hmmmm, well I have another 2 or 3 cups left, hopefully they come out as good as previous cups.

I seriously stood in front of my tea stash area for 15 minutes trying to pick out a tea. My steepster cupboard says I have like 150+ teas, so you think I could easily find something to drink. Sigh.

I wanted something spicy, but not too spicy, and something I’ve had before. I was almost going to go with a few other spicey teas, but I feel too lazy to add milk and sugar to my tea, so it had to be sweet on its own.

Found this tea and yum! Very good! I like the cinnamon, sweetness and cookieness of this tea. It’s like snuggling in fall with a blanket and eating warm cookies.
Man… does southern california ever get fall? It was 30c yesterday!

Woot a Della Terra Teas order! OOH YEAH! So much fun looking teas!

I thought I’d share my fav oatmeal cookie recipe http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Oatmeal-Raisin-Toffee-Cookies/Detail.aspx

DRY: Ultra spicy cinnamon smell! WHoa! Lots of raisins and bits of oatmeal.
Weird oatmeal isn’t inthe ingredients list.

STEEPED: MMmmm smells just like an oatmeal cookie! Good amount of cinnamon, buttery, sweet! Light brown colour.

TASTE: Cinnamony spicey hitting the tongue, buttery, brown sugar. Raisin is slightly present but not too strong.
Sweetened, the flavors aren’t as strong, but sweet. I prefer the unsweetened version, but might be interesting sweetened with brown sugar crystals instead.

COMMENTS: Very good and unique! I’m impressed how close to cookie this tea is! I totally recommend giving this tea a shot, I’m going to enjoy each cup!

Lemon-y goodness, yum!

I picked this as another thing to try from Della Terra recently. Rooibos & Honeybush blends can be very “iffy” but I do tend to like lemon flavored things.

I steeped this for around 5 minutes and added soymilk, perhaps I am weird but I drink practically all my rooibos and honeybush tisanes this way. This really reminds me of a lemon bar, it’s slightly sweet, lemony and tart and with a nice “creamy” quality which is certainly helped along by the soymilk. I’m actually puckering up a bit… ha ha

This is good, I’m enjoying it! It’s better than I thought it would be and will probably help me kill some after lunch/dinner dessert cravings. Another nice offering from Della Terra.

Tea of the morning here…
well why not have oatmeal cookies for breakfast?

see previous notes for more information

MMmMm… this is yummy

I smell a lot of cookie flavor, like cinnamon, when I open the bag. I also get a lot of vanilla and brown sugar here. The raisin flavor is slightly subdued, but present. I wasn’t expecting to like this much but it is good. Definitely on the sweet side and perfect with a splash of soymilk. I like it!

Hmm. I forgot about this and had it steeping for around 2 hours with evidently not too much negative effect. :)

Done with this package, I really liked this rooibos…. strong and gingery! See previous notes for more details.

This is a great evening time tisane… it was very good after I went to the movies tonight and then had a huge bowl of vegetarian ramen. Just the right amount of ginger but not overwhelming. I really love this with some soymilk. :)

This is part of a recent order from Della Terra, my new source for dessert teas. :)

I only got 1 oz. of this but I wish I had gotten more! I like ginger a lot and I let this steep for over 5 minutes (can’t remember exactly how long). It is pretty strong on the ginger side but also sweet and fruity. I might try to use slightly less tea next time because it came out very strong… I like it though! This would be great as a latte, I drank mine with soymilk. yum!

Oh my goodness!

I love coconut and this smells really good… and yes I see a bunch of coconut flakes in the package. After reading Nicole’s note I was a little bummed, but was hoping that I would like this more than she did.

I agree the color is a bit light with this tea and I’m not getting a ton of “tea” flavor from the black tea but with a bit of soymilk and turbinado sugar this is a nice after lunch/dessert sort of drink. Plain, it leaves something to be desired. I may try mixing this with some straight black tea to see what happens. Overall, okay but not one of my favorites from the company so far.

I can’t recall who I received this samples from…maybe Azzrian I’m sorry i forgot but i totally appreciate it!!

I’m going to have to go with the others on this one. The scent of the tea is amaaaazing. However, after steeping it, I am underwhelmed. The cinnamon flavour goes away….and it’s a very blah apple type flavour. Not one I’d opt for unless the blend gets tweaked. The grandma’s pumpkin tea i had earlier tonight was much better.

I think I’m finally getting tired of this blend, it appears 2oz is a bit much for me to drink my way through before I am done with drinking a blend from della terra. However, this is a nice blend and is one of my happy teas from della terra, given that I don’t love a lot of them. They’re decent average teas though, with this one being one of my higher rated teas :)

so nice to be back with all my tea. Even if it is a little overwhelming. PIcked thie one out this morning since once the weather warms up, I can see myself wanting other flavours. Pumpkin and Chai’s tend to be winter teas for me.

I’m still enjoying this one quite a bit, though I’ll take a break from it once my 2oz’s are gone.

Mobile phone sucks for tasting notes. Had this while out with my better half.

Het his tonight with our Christmas get together with friends. We do it every year with everyone bringing something and our friends taking care of the turkey and (roast or ham). For this year I attempted a guiness chocolate cake with cream cheese caramel matcha icing….and yes that is as delicious as it sounds. The cake isn’t overly sweet and has a really nice dark taste to it, which complements the icing nicely. Adding the caramel matcha to it was sheer genius on the part of my better half and everyone loved it. I brought the extra icing in a container and it was going on to all the other desserts lol

But I digress…this tea was perfect for sipping on me while everyone around me had their drinks and cheer. I’m still sick so I got to relax from my corner while drinking my tea and enjoying being in everyone’s company. It was wonderful.

Even slightly cold this tea is pretty darn good. I picked up 2oz of it when it was on sale and that should about do me for the next while. Apparently this fall/winter was the year of trying out pumpkin teas. Prior to this i pretty much refused all things pumpkin. Yay for samplers that let me try this first!

This might be my favorite Della terra tea at the moment…. Really nice fall tea for those colder evenings. Enjoying this one tonight while I relax. Rally exhausted from the gym today, think I may be fighting getting sick.

I have to say this might be ones of my favourite teas from Della Terra. I would definately call this a fall tea. I don’t really taste the pumpkin, which is fine by me since i’m really not a fan of pumpkin. This is however a really nice spiced tea.

Edit: Also thanks to the magic person who gave me this sample…i think? it was Azzrian but i’m honestly totally not sure.

The ingredients on this one seem a little perplexing, so I got a sample size only in my Try Me pack. I mean, a green walnut tea I can get behind, but with coconut and pineapple?! Uhh it sounds good, but very tropical and not at all like walnut brittle or reminiscent of English forests as the description claims. So I ordered this with skepticism, hoping for the best but expecting something… weird. Holy cow, I was wrong! I opened up the bag and the dry leaves smell like walnut candy. No tropical scent to be found, though there’s a good bit of coconut and pineapple in my sample. Curious!

There was one huuuge walnut in my bag, but I broke it up into little pieces just to evenly distribute the nutty goodness. The whole time I was preparing this tea (cooling the water, adding the leaves to the teapot, brewing it, etc) I was blown away by the smell. I want to eat these leaves, it’s just SO good! And the flavor… it’s even better. I honestly think some kind of magic must have gone into this tea, it is so very much walnut candy in a cup. Rich, buttery walnut! I think the green tea was a really good choice, it adds a flowery lightness and a buttery quality without overpowering the walnut: I think as a black tea this would be very different and not nearly as good.

Now, about the pineapple and coconut… I can’t taste them! Well, not as individual elements. There’s an almost-fruitiness, a creaminess possibly from the coconut, and a honey-sweetness I suppose is also coming from them. But damn, I would never in a million years guess the ingredients here! The more I drink, the more I am so in love with this. It really has almost cake-y notes, a strong vanilla taste and it really is like a baked cake with walnut brittle on top. Like… a vanilla cupcake, with a creamy frosting and then sprinkled with walnut brittle! It might seem crazy but I swear it is JUST what this tea tastes like. It’s so addictive, I am already on my second cup and think I can get 3 brews out of these leaves easy.

Thankfully my sample has enough for about 3 goes, but I know I need more of this in my life. It is SO good, I really want to try it iced now! Or make ice cream out of it… or buttercream frosting. Real, 6 stick of butter style buttercream, not wussy 1-stick frosting with tons of powdered sugar. Oh god the idea of baking with this tea is making my mouth water… if you are wondering what teas to start with from Della Terra (since they have a huge selection!) I would say this and Mother of Pearl: both are very, very special teas that I must always have on hand!