Teavana

I have had a fair bit of this tea already. I also really enjoy it with milk and a scootch of sugar. I prefer to drink my tea straight up for convenience sake mostly, to be honest and this tea stands on it’s own just fine.

The aroma is just delightful! The time that I spent up north with my Dutch and Scandinavian friends makes me treasure the almond in this tea and brings back many wonderful memories. The flavor is a lovely, rich and slightly sweet flavor. I love this so much it may be one of my fave teas.

Teavana’s Rooibos Chai smells spectacular, but is a little weak for a chai. However, blending it with their Masala Chai (which isn’t my favorite, but works in a pinch) made for a fuller blend with a more subtle blend of spices- a new favorite from my small collections of Chais.

Yet another rating bump. I’ve been trying to drink this pretty much every day so that I can get it out of my cabinet, since space is at a premium, and the more I play with temperatures the better it is. It is the single most overwhelmingly bake-y tea I have ever encountered, and the smell of it when brewed to the right parameters makes my mouth water the same way freshly baked goods do.

That said…

I am still not sure that I will be getting it again.

So, this is getting a major bump, but not because it’s a tremendously amazing black tea, or anything. It’s getting a bump because the last time I rated it I was recovering from having my wisdom teeth out, and definitely must have oversteeped it. I’m not getting the intense sour bitterness I’d been having during that attempt. Strangely, though, in brewing this cup with actual parameters, I’ve lost the raisin/prune sweetness typical to many blacks. Instead, that has been replaced by …

Hmm. I suppose it’s malt, but…it’s the most bake-y malt I’ve ever smelled or tasted. It reminds me of the smell and taste of the floured underside of a loaf of bread. And it’s a pretty good cup of black tea, at least when brewed for a fairly short steep time, but it’s getting a rating cut because it’s pretty darn (every time I type that word I snicker. I snicker way more when I goody-two-shoes cuss than when I let loose with an inventive blue-streak. Not-cursing is the new cursing) expensive — almost 20 bucks for 2oz. For that price there are teas that provide equal amounts of satisfaction for a great deal less per cup, and which have a hope in heck (snicker) of being resteeped without turning into a bitter mess. So…I will finish my bag of this, but I probably won’t rebuy.

I missed you, Steepster.

And really, I’m not back yet. I’m still down south, where I’ve been since the 22nd (and somehow it’s still absolutely freezing outside…why do I feel cheated?). I was totally incommunicado for the holidays, which were lovely, mellow, and full of accidentally oversteeped cups of tea brewed at random temperatures…and then I was tea free for the last week, because I had my wisdom teeth out, and hot liquids were a no-no (to say nothing of the fact that caffeine and vicodin make poor bedpartners).

Today I actually got to brew myself a half-cup of chai. It was as though the pill-filled universe I’ve been existing in flickered for a moment on a faulty circuit, and normalcy was briefly restored. I may escape the matrix yet! With a flight home Monday to look forward to, things are looking up (though I may very well be shredded into a thousand tiny pieces by two very angry, lonely cats when I walk through that front door. The possibility exists that I may not survive how glad they will be to see me).

Despite my inability to drink any tea, I did get to buy some tea the day before my extractions. There’s a Teavana nearby. I loaded upon Samurai mate and splurged on a little bit of their Golden Monkey, as I sort of like Adagio’s, and I’m a huge fan of the Golden Spring. Why not, right? Fujian tea and I seem to get along pretty well.

Take this with not just one but several grains of salt: my mouth is not completely normal right now, for one thing, and for another I have no ability to gauge temperature here, but…

I’m just not that excited about this tea. Malty, yes. Bitter? Yeah. Not just bitter but a bit sour on the aftertaste. I’m sure I can lessen this by backing the temperature off, so this rating is just tentative. It certainly seems to have the thick, brothy mouthfeel that I liked so much in my Golden Spring, but the flavor seems so forward. There are elements of that prune/raisin sweetness in there, but they’re outdone by the bitter malty flavor. I guess I’ll have to try it again another time. Glad I only bought a small amount, though.

Hopefully it at least fuels me through reading the insane amount of updates from you guys that I now have to parse through! I’m excited to see what everybody was trying over the holidays, and I cannot wait to get home…home, where my Samovar and Teafrog orders from pre-Christmas are patiently waiting for me to pick them up from the front desk…

I liked this one quite a bit! Shared it with my dad, who doesn’t really go for fruity/flowery teas. He took his plain, and I added a bit of suger/creamer to mine.
His review was that it had a good essence flavor of strawberry, but it wasn’t overpowering the tea. The fruit left a nice aftertaste and he enjoyed it greatly.
My review is that with my add-ins, it tasted more like strawberries and cream, and I liked it a lot. I agree that it isn’t an overpowering strawberry, but thats what lets it stand out from other fruity teas. It’s very laid back and calming, a sweet dessert.
Not for someone looking to get knocked on their bum by strawberry flavor.

This tastes a lot like coffee. (I think that Teavana tries to blend tea to taste like coffee to convert people.) The first time a tried it, I hated it. This time, I made sure the water was boiling and gave it a long time to infuse. That made it taste more like coffee. I added creamer since I like that in my coffee. I kind of like it this way. Maybe it will be a good sub for coffee.

Have to use sugar to get the most of it.

Truly a great Earl Grey!

This is the first of several teas I have finished off in the last week. I mention that because it was that good…it went first. This being a Nepal tea, I don’t know where it fits in the spectrum of India teas vs China teas. Based purely on taste and probably incorrect sterotypes of tea regions, I’d say its more of a Chinese tea…. Regardless, its lightness in body and flavor makes it a good sipping tea; the kind I like when I need something to occupy my hands and not my brain. Book reading tea.

I’d have to put this tea amongst my favorites at the moment. I normally like a fine Ceylon, but don’t have any at work. This tea is a wonderful substitute. It is only lightly oxidized and is noticably light colored when dry; the leaves have a brown and green color when brewed. Its flavor is not as clean or crisp? as a good Ceylon…more in line with Indian teas, but lighter weight…a medium strength tea. It has excellent complexity. It brews a light color, don’t let it fool you into going to long.

Good Morning! tea

Resteep…tea time with Girl Scout Thin mints. The tea is a bit weak, but the cookies are magic ;-)

backlogging this morning’s cup. I’m blown away by this tea…its like a very high quality Ceylon…with just a hint of something more robust behind it, like a very good China black tea and not as harsh as some India teas can be.

Interesting…The dry tea smells like dry leaves, ironic isn’t it. It reminds me of raking dry leaves in the fall and jumping into the pile. Luckily, the taste is anything but dry. Think green tea’s freshness with a finish more like a dajeeling. Just a hint of tannin’s to let you know that something was there for a long finish. I believe one other reviewer called the taste “complex” and I second that opinion! There is a lot going on here and you want to just hold a mouthful to savor the differnt flavors.

Finished the bag off today…finally. Don’t read the negative into that statement; its more a testament to how many of those little pearls it actually takes to make a half pound of tea. I’m sure you can read about the woodsy cocoa flavors elsewhere, I’ll just say that this is a nice bold tea that you won’t confuse with a flower shop. Good stuff.

Restocked this a little while ago as a side benefit to a business trip to Atlanta. Still as good as I remember from a few years ago, perhaps better. I don’t know if their supplier changed the weight of the balls, but I’m using 3 per 16oz mug now. The “burnt” edge is not present in this batch. Strong flavor but not a heavy tea. Its smooth, slurpable (is that a word?). A very good wake up tea. ratings bump over a few years ago for consistency in goodness.
Needs boiling water, I think, to get the balls well-saturated quickly.

Finished the last two pearls. I’ve found 2 pearls, 4 minutes, boiling water makes a good 16oz mug for me. 3 pearls and a bit shorter time if I want to have a resteep available. Woody and bold come to mind as descriptions. Still has a slight burnt/hardwood smoke edge to it. It adds a bit of complexity.