Numi Organic Tea

This white tea blend has an intriguing scent – slightly floral, though not perfumy, and fruity, almost like stewed apricots. The flavour has a natural sweetness to it – particularly as the tea cools – this is one that would be very nice iced I think. I can picked up apricots in the taste too. Altogther it’s a nice, clean, refreshing drink.

Backlogging:

When I was making a cup of English Breakfast my boy decided to make himself a cup of this. I had a few mouthfuls and it wasn’t that bad. It didn’t taste as strong as it could have because he had a big glass of water for one little teabag. This was my first time tasting ginger tea so I’m surprised that the ginger wasn’t that strong.

I’m not sure what my impression is on this one. I would try it again but I would want to make it over at my house where I don’t have to use water from an instant coffee maker.

Most of you know that I haet red rooibos almost as much as hibiscus, so it galls me just a little to say how freakin’ good this tea is. ;)

It smells absolutely wonderfuly for one thing – cloves and cinnamon primarily, with hints of ginger and cardamom. The spices are balanced very well in the flavour of the tea – nothing is too overpowering and it all meshes nicely. I can’t barely taste the tart rooibos flavour – which suits me just fine.

Great Iced.

Nice as iced tea, but gave me a really bad caffeine headache.

This tea smells quite lemony right out of the package and not a whole lot else. There’s a herbal undertone but it’s mostly lemon.

The package directions were for steeping in boiling water for 4-6 minutes while the tag on the teabag recommended steeping in less-than-boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Thanks for clearing that up Numi. ⌐_⌐ I decided to go with the latter instructions because of the green tea in the blend, plus mate is reputed to get bitter when steeping in boiling water.

The end result is still mostly lemony though I can taste a bit of the nutty/herbal flavour of the maté midway through each sip. There’s maybe a little bit of a green tea taste if I concentrate but it’s not really adding anything significant to this blend that I can tell.

It’s nice enough but it tastes like every other lemongrass/lemon myrtal-flavoured concoction out there. It’s not maté with lemon, it’s LEMON with a hint of maté and frankly if I didn’t know there were other ingredients present I would just think that this is a herbal lemon tisane, abit a nice enough one if that’s your bend.

It’s been forever since I’ve tealogged. Between it being finals time, and my infuser getting moldy I just haven’t really gotten around to drinking so much tea. At the cafeteria this morning I grabbed a packet of this to drink, and I just made some for myself.

put a packet of equal in it. not a very strong flavor, but I do taste traces of mint. It’s not a bad tea at all. Pretty good choice for winding down. I probably wouldn’t buy this ever, but for free it’s definitely a good choice :)

Had this the day I picked up the box, but didn’t bother to write a tasting note.

Sitting down with a cup now, but please be advised that the stitches in my mouth haven’t completely clotted over yet, so everything is tinted with a bit of a coppery blood taste. Delicious. It’s my own damn fault though, the surgeon said no talking, but I thought they were fine and clotted now so I chatted away with my sister (though I clenched jaw, at least), and now they’re bleeding again, it seems. Smart.

It smells deliciously of hot chocolate, with the chocolate vanilla and cinnamon. I get no tea smell, but then, I’m not sure what puerh should smell like. This’ my first, and I suppose not the best choice if I want to really explore the taste of puerh. But I was in the Organics store (the only store in my location that carries any Numi products at all besides Chapters, but that only carries their blooming teas) and saw it, and spent five minutes deciding between this, Emperor’s Puerh and Mint Puerh. Emperor’s seemed like a good choice—unflavoured—but I ultimately decided to spend ten whole dollars on this one.

The taste is dusty-earthy, with a light cocoa taste and texture overlapping it, and then a pleasant aftertaste of hot chocolate (chocolate, vanilla and cinnamon—does this actually contain cinnamon? It tastes/smells like it; possibly nutmeg too, hmm—all the proper Hot Cocoa spices). Mm nice. The earthyness is different, but I’m definitely looking forward to experimenting with more puerhs in the future.

The only rose teas I’ve had have been rose congou black teas where the rose was more of an accompanim ent rather than the main even. Here, combined with the milder white tea the rose is noticeably more prominent, although it isn’t unpalatable. This tea has a light, delicate, almost girly quality that make me think of a Victorian-style tea party in the middle of a old-fashioned rose garden. Male tea drinkers need not apply. ;)

I could see this making a nice iced tea aswell, something smooth and refreshing to drink on a hot day.

I have spiced rooibos, cranberry rooibos, pumpkin cream rooibos… this one little teabag is the ONLY plain rooibos currently in my possession.

This seems like a decent quality, plain rooibos. Not earth-shattering, but certainly not bad. Does have natural hints of vanilla and orange (it’s all rooibos – no additives). It is naturally slightly sweet, but I think a touch of honey or agave would really give it dimension. I had it hot and cold and liked it both ways. Would consider buying, but I prefer Stash’s Red/White Fusion.

These are the voyages of the Starship Ewaprise

Dooooo doo doo doo doo doo DOOOOOOOOOOOOO dootiddy doo doo doo doo dootiddy doo, etc.

Captains Log, Stardate I have no idea.

While traveling through some kind of nebula, the ship’s supply of teabags, mysteriously disappeared. Since the ship was already low on energy, this resulted in a complete loss of power to the bridge. The ship floated aimlessly for a while, but when the crew began exhibiting signs of irritability, I decided to take action. By creating a singularity by reversing the polarity of the impulse thrusters we were able to achieve orbit around the planet Kaw Pheekart. An away team, consisting of myself, my first officer and Ensign Sodead (my sister’s boyfriend’s second cousin – I felt the lad could use some away team experience), took a shuttle down to the surface.

We landed in the country of Numi, where we learned that it’s sovereign, the Earl of Grey was temporarily out of the country, so we talked to his majordomo, Barry Black, who while a somewhat sour individual, was able to provide us with the energy we needed by converting excess rations to a cyclical nitrogenous liquid compatible with our systems. Unfortunately, Ensign Sodead was killed by a freak landslide on our way back to the shuttle.

As we left orbit, we ejected the warp core, just for giggles.

Wow, this stuff is great. I was out yesterday at the NRA show in Chicago helping out at the Adagio booth and took sometime to look around and stopped off at the Numi booth where I tasted this te black and I was blown away at the amount earthy chocolate flavor I got. I took a sample bag home and made it last night with sweetener and milk and it was like a richer slightly cinnamon and hot chocolate. Delicious, I will have to buy some for myself.

On another note. The show was a lot of fun and everyone at Adagio was so very welcoming and kind. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to help out.

Doulton’s Shakespeare: A Tasting Note in 5 Acts
Act III scene 5

Exit, pursued by the Bear.
Stage direction from A Winter’s Tale, Act III scene 3

When I was initially going through the mighty Shakespeare box and I pulled this bag out I said aloud “Oh God” both as a statement of horror and a supplication. I dislike both chocolate and Puerh: this seemed like the most unholiest of pairings. I needed to be in the right frame of mind to try this one. And today was the day.

I bravely went to my teapot and prepped. The dry leaves actually didn’t make me recoil. As I added the freshly boiled water to the leaves the scent wafted up I did recoil and said “Oh God” yet again. Dirty animal chocolate. As I poured the steeped tea and the smell came at me I started muttering “ohgodohgodohgod…” My composure totally cracked, and yet I tried a sip. I GAGGED! It was my first full-out tea gag. I calmly set the cup down and put my hand over my mouth and tried to decide what to do. It smelled like a zoo. A chocolate sprinkled zoo. Perhaps more like if you took this tea, mixed it with the mocha powder that Starbucks uses, and then stored it in the cave where a bear’s hibernating for the winter. I decided to let it sit in another room while I decided its fate. Either the cooling would be a good thing or it would go down the sink.

The cooling helped it quite a bit. I’ve only had a few Puerhs, but there seems to be a “sweet spot” of time/temp where it becomes this oddly fascinating drink to me. The window on this one was very quick. I could sort of understand why others like this: the chocolate did do a neat “flavor coat” on the roof of my mouth. The tea seemed more like a mineral-filled earth. And then it went back to being blechy. There’s about 1/3 of the cup left and it’s sink-bound.

This tea is Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. It starts off full of vengence, then does this 180 where it’s all about redemption and a statue coming to life. It really isn’t Shakespeare’s best play — the only really good part of this play is the stage direction Exit, persued by the bear. I started off vengeful with this tea, then shifted maybe 10 degrees or so in it’s favor, but that’s as far as I got. No redemption here. If I really enjoyed chocolate or Puerhs, then this would be a completely different note, but alas it is not to be. GA

Very good straight rooibos. No wood taste just smooth earthy vanilla note.

Certainly an earthy and pleasant green tea. Something about the scent reminds me of waking up early after camping, stepping out of the tent, and taking that first whiff of clean air with a hint of last night’s campfire. Many cups of tea from one tea flower.

I really like this for the amount of reliable tea you can make and the quality of the cups of tea. Nice for a rainy afternoon

Sipdown! No. 10 for 2014.

Four bags left, so the entire family engaged in the sipdown.

The kids really like this one and I worry it will be a hard act to follow, but I’m not unhappy to see it go. Plain honeybush is no longer my thing, if it ever was.

Found half a box of bags in the back of a cabinet and decided that they needed to be consumed. The good news is the kids really like this, and the BF, who prefers non-tea infusions is also on the bandwagon, so my own contribution need be minimal. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just, as I’ve said many times, I went overboard on the honeybush and rooibos back when I was getting my feet wet and I’ve since discovered I prefer true teas.

I will say that on a clear palate, i.e., after dinner, this had a definite, distinctive taste that is sweeter than my original note would have had me believe. It still has a bit more wood than some other honeybushes I’ve tasted, which is one of the things I dislike about non-true-teas in general.

This is the end, beautiful friend[s]. The last of the teabag notes from the initial round of overbuying when some mysterious force moved me to become a tea drinker and appreciatrix. Yay!

The only other honeybush I have had thus far is the Tazo bagged version, which I appreciate for its versatility. It’s a pretty good all purpose sweetener for too-tart fruit blends. It’s also fairly smooth and flavorful on its own.

The Numi bags smell greener and woodier than the Tazo, which smelled like apricots to me. I don’t get an apricot smell here so much as — honey! And that repeats in the aroma after steeping, with a reedy note similar to what I recall was present in the Numi Green Rooibos. This brews slightly darker than the Tazo.

It’s a greener, reedier, less sweet taste as well, which makes me wonder whether this is less oxidized than what Tazo used. But there’s no information on the Numi web site that would help determine this. The honey note is present, but it seems to move around some rather than being continuously present. Sometimes it pops with a little burst of flavor on a particular taste bud, but the overall impression is that it is less pervasive and less sweet than the Tazo.

This could make it more appealing for someone who really likes drinking honeybush plain. This describes me only very occasionally, and when I am moved to drink it plain I think I’d be likely to go for the sweeter alternative. In any case, as I’m mostly using honeybush as a natural flavor enhancer to bring out sweetness in tart fruit blends, I’d be likely to choose the Tazo for that purpose as well.

After drinking my way through a box of this, I’m going to have to reduce the rating. In my first note I mentioned I could taste the tea because I’d been primed by drinking another Numi white immediately before. Having now experienced this tea a number of different ways (on a tabula rasa palate, after various types of other teas besides white, etc.) I can say that I have a fair amount of trouble tasting the tea in this unless I have the taste of white tea already on my tongue from another source.

This blend is really about the spices, and in my view they overpower the tea and that makes this blend uninteresting to me. If I didn’t care about tasting the tea I’m sure I could find an herbal version of this general flavor profile (or make my own as my mom did for my dad when he had a cold).

Second to last of the original bagged tea splurge left to write about. Woo hoo!

I wanted to drink this after the White Nectar Osmanthus Spring because the Moonlight Spice is, as the name suggests, heavily spiced and I feared it would influence my palate if I tasted in the other direction.

The white tea in this one is identified on the packaging as Pai Mu Tan (aka white peony). In my admittedly v. limited knowledge obtained from reading books about tea, I would suspect this is the base for the White Nectar as well as it seems to be less costly than other white teas that contain only buds.

When I sniff the bags, the dominant smell is the cinnamon/orange/clove “Constant Comment” combo, followed by ginger, followed by nonspecific citrus. The liquor’s color is quite dark and orange/brown, almost like that of a standard black tea. Its aroma is mostly cinnamon and some clove. It reminds me of the smell of a spiced “tea” my mother used to make for my father when he had colds. I am fairly sure there was no tea in it at all, just cinnamon, clove and perhaps some other spices.

The tea has a slightly tart taste, probably from the combination of the citrus and hibiscus. I note that it contains dried lime, which may be the same lime from the Dry Desert Lime tisane and which is quite tart. The Moonlight Spice is much less tart than that. I can taste cinnamon and orange, and a little ginger. I can taste the tea only slightly, and I may only be able to taste it because I have the taste of the White Nectar still resident in my personal RAM from the earlier tasting.

It’s not bad, but it isn’t something I think I’d choose if I were going to choose a flavored white tea. The flavors are pretty strong for the delicacy of white tea to stand up to. And if I were going to choose tea with this spice profile, I would likely choose one with a black tea base, a tisane or chai. I wouldn’t cast that in stone, though. This could be a good medicinal choice for when a small amount of caffeine would provide a boost and when black tea is too strong or rich.

Sipdown no. 73 of the year 2014. It appears there was one bag of this left in both the home and work stash. It was really the BF who sipped this down because he didn’t want to drink the chocolate teas I made this morning. He finds the entire idea of chocolate tea “gross.”

Kewl. More for me. ;-)

I did have a couple of sips before I gave him the cup and I enjoyed this more than my original rating reflected so I’ve bumped it up some. I am sure I have other teas scented with Osmanthus in my possession and I think I had been waiting to try those to see how they compared, so I rated this on the low side. Unfortunately, I haven’t actually dug around to find those other teas and compare them. But on a non-comparative basis, this is a delicately scented tea that steeps to something with flavor and with lack of plantiness. Since I sometimes find that to be the trade off with white teas—either they’re so delicate as to require me to play find the flavor, or they have an aspect of them that’s rather like the stems of cut flowers after they’ve sat in water for a week—I give this points for being the happy in between.

Finishing up more of my “starter” tea bags and saying goodbye to this box.

My previous notes on this seem accurate even after drinking through a box of it. It’s a mild, tasty, inoffensive floral tea. Though I likely won’t buy this again, I enjoyed it enough to find myself motivated to try other white/osmanthus blends.

I do find it interesting that now as I’m closing out my original group of bagged teas, what I mostly have left are the whites. They seem the hardest to fit into the span of a day so they get drunk less frequently. Blacks are good for morning, oolongs and greens for afternoon, decafs and tisanes for evening.

Where should I fit the whites in? Late afternoon, early evening?

I find myself within reach of something of a milestone. I only have three kinds of tea from my original splurge left to write notes on! Wonder if I can finish tonight? If not tonight, I should definitely be able to tomorrow. Then on to the even more dubious milestone of finishing drinking them all. Sometimes I leap before I look, as was the case here. Had I looked, I would probably have skipped bags altogether and gone straight to loose leaf. But live and learn.

Before I started on this journey, I didn’t know there was such a thing as white tea. I knew about blacks and greens, certainly, and even oolong. But the sheer existence of white was a surprise. When I first read about it, I thought it sounded like something I’d like. And now that I’ve tried some, I do — though I have yet to figure out where it best fits into my day. It’s not an early morning tea (need heavily caffeinated teas for that) and it’s not an afternoon tea, really (oolong, or green fits there). It’s not really a dessert tea because I’m prefer strong flavors in those. And then I worry that by late evening it’s too late for even it’s reputedly small amount of caffeine. This may be the reason that of all the boxes of teabags I have in my cupboard still, the white tea boxes have the most left in them.

It could also be that I haven’t yet taken the time to perfect how to steep them, and so they intimidate me a little. At least, moreso than other teas. I seem to have more success with lower temperatures and longer steeps — the flavors seem to come out a little bit more that way. But one day I’ll set aside some time and do an organized test of various steeping temperatures and times for different kinds of whites, and then maybe I can overcome my feelings of intimidation.

This is one of the three types of bagged tea I have left to write a note about, and one of the others is also a Numi white tea. The type of white tea this one is is not identified on the bag’s packaging.

The bag has a dusky, nonspecific plant smell, with a jungle flower feel to it. The liquor has an apricot color. The aroma is dusky floral, too, with something I think, from what I have read, is usually referred to as stone fruit? In any case, I don’t find it easily identifiable as a specific fruit — it could be peach, apricot, nectarine, or a combination. There’s a sweetness to it.

It tastes very much like it smells. Heavy, dark floral notes with a suggestion of fruit. The aftertaste is surprisingly fresh, and a tiny bit sweet.

It will be interesting to try other Osmanthus white teas, now that I have a baseline. This one is reasonably tasty for a bagged tea.