Tea Desire

Tea Desire opened a new store in Kelowna which I’m glad of as it’s close to me and I visit there a fair bit. It’s in the same mall as the Teavana *shudder * store and I’m not sure how they’ll fare in such direct competition with such a big chain but I’m happy to have an alternative.

I picked up a bunch of one-cup samples to try and this is the one I got when I picked one out at random to try today. It’s essentially a spice tea with added cocoa nibs and orange peel, but it has a nicely-balanced simplicity to it and despite being all spice it doesn’t taste harsh or overwhelming at all. The cocoa notes stand out the most as well as the licorice flavour of the star anise – although the latter might just be because my sample had a whole big ‘star’ in it. It also re-steeps very nicely too without losing much of its flavour.

While I do find that I’m missing the body that a black tea base gives a chai, I’m still pretty happy with this one.

One of my favorite teas. Rooibos, chocolate and nuts. What’s not to love?

I actually own the rooibos version of this tea. It is quite good.

The BEST cream of earl grey I have ever tasted. Really amazing!

SIPDOWN! Yay for smacking small dents a little at a time. I’m working from home today so I’m hoping I can get through a few more of my samples today as well as enjoy some old favourites :)

Enjoyed this one while I had it, though there are other chais out there I now prefer :)

Sample from kittena or indigbloom. This is a nice. I was hoping for something a little stronger, but while it doesn’t satisfy that need, it still has a really nice blend of spices.

There’s nothing more soothing than a nice cup of chai on a chilly autumn day when you have a report to write up for class. This tea has that sort of comfortable familiarity when I drink it – it isn’t anything unusual or extraordinary but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good cup of tea. The spices are nicely balanced, though the cardamom stands out a little bit – which I enjoy. I could see myself stocking this as a staple in my cupboard.

…Huh. Could have sworn I’d written up a tasting note for this.

Well, long story short, this was one of the two teas my aunt sent to me while I was working up north. I found the base rather bitter, and thus wasn’t much a fan of this.

However, I’ve been using it to make London Fogs with since I got home. Milk /mostly/ tempers the bitterness, although it still makes its way through. It’s just a really cheap black tea base, I suppose.

Used this one up with one last tea latte today.

I love the smell of this tea, it’s raspberry but more of a confectionary flavoured with raspberries than the fruit itself. That sounds like it should come across as being artifical but it doesn’t for some reason – at least to me. The green oolong gave the blend a nice, sweet base that complimented the fruit flavour nicely. The tea is very smooth with a creamy vanilla note that together with the raspberry makes me think of raspberry truffles or something. Very yummy.

Thanks to Kittenna for this interesting chai! At first I thought it was a tea-less blend, there are so many giant chunks of spice in there, but indeed a few gunpowder leaves unfurled in my infuser.

The weirdest thing about this blend is how it’s quite light in some aspects—the green tea is almost ethereal, barely there. The apricot is faint and adds a nice background fruitiness, though I don’t know if I would identify it as apricot if I didn’t know what it was. The spices, however, are quite strong. Mostly the pepper, and there’s quite a bit of clove as well.

I decided to add a splash of cream once I was down to about a third of my mug (hey, it’s a chai!) and man was THAT a mistake. It tastes like pizza. No joke, straight up cheese pizza in my cup. This should be good for a second infusion, so it’s not a total disaster!

This is a lovely light tea. I’ve tried it a few times now, both iced and hot and I think I can say that I prefer it iced with a little bit of sugar.

It’s a sweet tea with a bit of a nutty flavour. Really makes for a lovely drink.

Sipdown! Pretty light in flavour now, but still noticeably smoky. I’m not as into straight smoky teas as I once was, so this is probably for the best!

Ahaha, apparently I’ve also tried this one previously! Pretty much the same comments as last time; it’s smoky but a bit sweet, and quite nice to drink without additions.

Mmm, smoky tea! Probably a bad idea to have a black tea at night, but oh well. Thanks Lynne-tea for sending me a sample of this one so I don’t have to buy 2 oz. to try it out!

The aroma is fairly generically smoky, like a nice campfire. Nothing unexpected. Perhaps not as strong as the straight lapsang souchong Indigobloom sent me, but still fairly potent. The flavour is much less smoky though, and actually quite pleasant! I’m getting a bit of sweetness at the end of the sip, which is surprising, along with some delicious maltiness. I don’t think I’d previously encountered a smoky tea that was actually enjoyable to drink straight, but this one is! The smokiness is just so light in the flavour, not sharp and biting and scratchy down my throat, that I’m quite enjoying this. A tea to keep on the shortlist for a time when I run out of smoky teas and want to pick one up!

Sipdown! Thanks Lynne-tea!

This mostly tasted like a light, pleasant jasmine to me last night. Sometimes, I do quite like jasmine, and it really worked for me yesterday. I wish I could taste a bit more of… anything, though. Couldn’t really taste the oolong, and although there was definitely at least one goji berry in there, I couldn’t taste it either. Oh well! One more tea down, over 800 to go…

I have been painfully absent from Steepster lately, and really miss everyone/need to catch up on tasting notes! Yet I am so busy. :( On the plus side, had a date on Friday night and it went well (I think)! :P

Anyways, time to launch into my samples from Lynne-tea! I’m so sorry it took so long for me to get to them – things just kept arriving, and since I took the envelopes on vacation, they ended up at the bottom of the tea stash I took with me and have yet to unpack. Good lord I have a lot of tea O.o This is the first one up tonight/this morning! I’m in an oolong mood, and jasmine seemed appropriate as well, so I went for it!

I can’t really tell what the dry tea smells like – the exterior of the baggie has been contaminated with other smells, so it’s kind of flavoured-tea-ish. The tea, however, once brewed smells like a toasty sort of jasmine. I know there are goji berries in there, but I’m not really getting any aroma from them.

I must say, this is definitely an interesting take on a jasmine tea, as the darker oolong lends some really interesting toasty notes that mix with the jasmine flavour, grounding it a bit moreso than with a lighter green/white tea which I’m more accustomed to tasting jasmine in. (Are there jasmine blacks??) Actually, what it reminds me most of is the jasmine tea that is served at my favourite Chinese restaurant, when the tea has been sitting and oversteeping for a while. Although this brew is only verging on being oversteeped. As well, I can taste just a hint of sour-fruity goji berry, but it’s not a prominent flavour.

Though interesting, I don’t think this is a tea I’d purchase for myself. I rarely select jasmine teas to drink, and I found that the pairing of white tea and jasmine is what really works for me, so I’d probably choose that if given the choice! The inclusion of goji berries here, though interesting, didn’t have enough impact for me. Anyhow, thanks for the sample, lynne-tea!

I visted the Tea Desire store in Vernon last week and I picked up a bunch of little two-cup samples that they were selling quite cheaply. This one smells like an Italian spice mix – appropriate since tulsi is in the same genus as the sweet basil many of us cook with. It has that same basil flavour but mixed with some peppery notes. I’m not sure the "lemon’ part of the name is entire deserved as it isn’t very noticable, though what’s there meshes well with the basil. Very interesting – it makes me curious about trying other tulsi teas.

Thank you Kittenna for sending this sample! I do have a special place in my heart for chai. It’s one of my first tea loves.
This particular chai is pretty mild. I usually prefer my chai to be strong on the spice since I pretty much always dilute it with milk and sugar. That’s just how chai was meant to be had! Though the spicing is light, the flavors are all there. cinnamon, cardamom, cloves. yum! The black base is smooth and mellow. Very tasty indeed.

I’ve prepared this tea in two ways: hot and cold-steeped.

First off, the dry leaf is pretty. Colourful from the various dried blossoms and petals. The aroma is deliciously dark, like black currant jam.

Hot, I steeped this for not quite three minutes at approximately 70°C. The smell of the steeped tea is full on black currant. When it comes to the taste, it’s simple, yet elegant. Mostly black currant, but the delicate white tea base comes through a bit. The whole experience of this tea, from the first sip to the last, is great. It leaves a delicate aftertaste of black currant, sweetened blackcurrant. I’m sure the cornflowers are lending a sweetened touch to the currants here. The smell and the taste bring me back to my favourite beverage while I was living in Sweden: black currant sparkling mineral water. Do I ever miss that stuff.

Cold-steeped, this smells way more heavy on the white tea than the blackcurrant. I can barely (I seriously just subconsciously wrote “berry” and was about to add the “ly” to it) smell the currants at all. My previous experience with cold-steeping white teas hasn’t been so swell. They tend to turn a little bitter for me, so the aroma here kind of scared me.

But, it tastes fantastically cold-steeped as well. A perfect balance between the white tea base and the currants. Very refreshing for the hot weather we’ve been experiencing over here. Oh dear, I’m sure if I added some club soda to this, it would make a reasonable facsimile for the Ramlösa mineral water.

Another from Krystaleyn! I got a ton of chais in our swap which has me all excited, since chai is pretty much my #1 tea love. I decided to start with a basic one and work my way up to fancy flavors. It’s a wet, cloudy day and I’m home alone, pretty much perfect for some warming & spicy tea.

I made this with honey and almond coconut milk, and oh my! This is an excellently balanced chai: there’s a little bit of everything going on, and no spice really takes over. Clove, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and peppercorn are all there, playing nicely with the black base. This isn’t one of those POW spicy blends, but it’s not mild… I think it falls nicely between bland and overwhelming. Nothing fancy, but a solid and delicious basic chai.

Thanks for the sample Kristaleyn!
What an interesting chai. I quite like it. The first cup anyhow. The second one… well it was missing something, though I’m not sure what.
The green and chai spices mixed well together, into a surprisingly warming mix. I assumed that it would be on the lighter side. Not that I mind!
There is a mild apricot like taste, so mild that I can barely taste it.
Pretty good overall! Only… I wouldn’t want this every day. Just once in awhile.

So this is… interesting.

The apricot in this tea is definitely the foremost flavor that I can taste. Following that trails in just the wisps of pepper and clover, with ginger and a hint of fennel coming in at the end.

A unique and flavorful take on a chai blend. It isn’t my favorite by any means, but they definitely get two points for a bold take on new flavors. If you like fruitier teas, and a little less cinnamon in your chai… this could be for you.

I on the other hand, want cinnamonstrosity ;)

This is a very interesting chai. Thank you for the sample Krystaleyn!

This is the first time I’ve had a Smokey green. The smoke flavor is delicate and plays against sweet apricot and pepper nicely. Ginger and clove are well balanced in this cup. I’m getting a bit of fennel at the end. A very nice cup.

I’ve really been craving a minty tea lately and this is all I really have. I’d love to find a fabulous chocolate mint tea, preferably black. Any suggestions?

Mate Mint is a great choice if you want something with a spearmint punch and gives you energy. The dry leaf smells strongly of spearmint, but not in a medicinal way at all.

When it comes to taste, it’s also very straightforward: spearmint. There is a bit of mate in the background but I’ve personally always liked the taste of it. To me, it’s almost not even there.

Let me tell you, when it comes to function, this stuff really works. My last semester of undergrad was quite rough. Between finishing up courses for my honours double major, writing a thesis, working part-time, and being the VP of an on-campus club, those eyes needed to stay open. I sadly needed to turn to a certain drug: caffeine. I resorted to caffeine pills for a while but those only worked like the first two times, so then I turned to this. And I’m so glad that I tried this. It gives you a real buzz, but a healthy one, if that makes sense. So mate in general for the win!