Teavana

This is a lovely lavender tea. The white tea base is smooth but nothing to write home about for a white. That said, the lavender scent and taste is so true, so flowery and smooth that, overall, this tea is just lovely. It brews a beautiful grey-purple shade.

Naturally sweet and caffeine free, this is a great tea to have on hand. I especially like it with Teavana’s white chai but it’s good on its own, too. The vanilla is very authentic tasting; no synthetic nastiness in this one.

This smells great but I just cannot get behind it for some reason. I’ve had it iced and that was okay but it reminds me of something that always puts me off. Maybe a medicine from my childhood or something? Either way, I am not a fan.

A lovely spicy tea. Great when you need something low caffeine. I like to blend this with the Samarai Chai, or Honeybush Vanilla.

I can never really taste the chilli in this but it’s still an awesome chocolate tea. I drink it with Matevana, and it’s like hot chocolate!

This is a super strong cherry tasting tea. The smell reminds me of cough syrup, honestly. It’s okay iced and I know some people love it but it’s just way too fruit for my tastes. I’d recommend it to people who love cherry and want a really bold fruit flavoured white.

Best green tea I have ever tasted! This is naturally sweet with a great grassy bite to it and a smoothness that is just wonderful. The smell alone makes me happy! Absolutely a must for everyone. I find this tea usually makes people fall in love with the Japanese greens. Can be re-infused.

My favourite of the Teavana black teas. Maybe it’s my British heritage but I much prefer the strength and bold flavour of this tea compared to the apparently superior Golden Monkey blend, which I find far too malty for my tastes. This is rich and brusque with a soft aftertaste and the merest hint of smoke. Love it! Great on its own and handles milk well, too.

This tea is great when you’re feeling under the weather. I added it to all my tea when I was fighting off a head cold, and definitely felt a lot better for it. On its own, it has an extremely soft, slightly grassy flavour. This is a subtle tea that I mainly use for blending.

I love this tea! I drink at least two cups every morning. The flavour is wonderful; stronger than some oolongs with a good soft aftertaste. Definitely more vegetal than flowery but it does have that classic hint of orchid taste and aroma. I like this up to the fourth infusion. An absolute staple for me.

One of my “go to” teas, especially during the winter months. I love blending this with a bit of Teavana’s Rooibos Chai. I love the flavor but feel it lacks some backbone, and the Rooibos corrects that. I usually do about 1/3 Chai to 2/3 Zingiber. I’ve also taken to doing a second steep off the leaves, even though Teavana claims this one isn’t good for a rebrew. No, the overall tastes aren’t as strong, especially the coconut, but the ginger comes forward on the second steep.

Lapsang Souchong is comfort tea for me, so I was thrilled to find Teavana carrying a solid version at a reasonable price. I’m also quite peeved that it’s been discontinued. It’s rather hard to find locally without getting robbed or getting something subpar.

Theirs has the right balance of smoky scent but smooth drinking. I tend to prefer it steeped longer than they suggest, but that’s because I like a strong cuppa. I have yet to wind up with a bitter brew. I always have it with a smidgen of sweetener, preferably something brown and earthy to complement the smoky scent, and a splash of milk. Take it easy on the extras, though, or you will overwhelm the tea’s natural flavor.

Oops.
I oversteeped this one this morning – or maybe I just put too much tea in the pot – because it’s a brilliant red instead of the normal pinkish color.

Still tastes great though!

I just LOVE this tea! The combination of strawberry and mint is so refreshing and light. It’s a perfect iced tea, which is how I usually get it made by Teavana’s barista.

Several of my coworkers have commented after drinking this tea it helped ‘clean things out and purge the system’ but this was usually only after drinking 2-3 cups. I’ve never had any noticeable effects on my food processing, but then I’ve never drank that much in a single day, either.

Taken with a bit of condensed milk to give it more of that sweetness and lightness in color that I’m used to at restaurants. I’m still working out the milk to tea ratio though.

Still playing around with this one to get the right condensed milk to whole milk to tea leaves to water ratio for me. I’ve almost got it this time… just a little too much condensed milk.

I added way too much condensed milk this time so it’s much sweeter than I like.

I’m starting to figure out how much milk I like in my tea so it’s getting better!

If it seems like I’m drinking this tea a lot it’s because whenever I make a “milk” tea I always make it bulk so I can keep it in a fridge. However, I only have one pitcher which means that I can only keep one type of tea at time.

So I’m trying to finish all my Thai Tea because my Masala Chai just came in the mail from Adagio!

This has been sitting on my shelf for a while so I thought I’d make a pitcher to keep in the fridge for finals. Still working on the perfect tea to milk ratio. I’m still new to adding milk to drinks.

Nope, still don’t like it.

But it isn’t making me gag like it was before, so I’m upping the rating, at least for now. I might increase it even more than I have if it were not for the persisting fact that the smell of it is really sort of too much for me. I can actually taste the peaches in this tea this time…it’s that faintly nutty stewed-fruit babyfood flavor I pulled out of the ginger-peach tea from Tea Guys. Some people would probably find it gross, but it doesn’t really bother me. Small side note, Teavana: there are no ‘fresh’ peach pieces in this tea. There may be dried, but I’m quite sure there were no gloppy, juicy cuts of fresh fruit in the bag.

Brews up sort of cloudy. Guess that’s the fruit.

I would probably really not be drinking this if I didn’t feel a monster headache coming on, and simultaneously want something sweet and low-caf as a result. This reminds me of pretty much all of Teavana’s offerings: the ingredients seem to be pretty high-quality and harmless, viewed separately, but the result of mixing them together is a little bit like being brained to death with candied fruit. If you’re into their other stuff, this probably wouldn’t offend.

Edit: Cup cooled down and…yeahno. Not drinking this. Sigh.

Bought this one during my recent splurge at Teavana, somewhat against my better judgement. I’m not really a huge fan of heavily flavored, heavily sweet teas unless they’re strictly intended to be served over ice, and even then I don’t like them too sweet…fruity and sweet are not mutually inclusive qualities. The guy who works at my ‘local’ Teavana is friendly and helpful, but I think our tastes differ. Most of the tins he opened for me made me feel as though I was being bludgeoned to death by a hammer made of fruit-sugar…and not necessarily natural fruit (or sugar) either. All of this while I was sick and congested! It may be that some of those don’t taste as strongly as they smell, certainly, but I was too wary to find out.

I caved on this one. He seemed to believe it wasn’t as intensely fruity as it smelled, and I wanted a white tea…pears, I thought, would surely not be that strongly represented after brewing. They, like blueberries, can usually be counted on to be subtle when used in foods and the like, right?

Ehhhh. I’ve been avoiding it because of the smell since I bought it — never a good sign — and finally decided to give it a try tonight while waiting for something in the oven to finish up. It tastes more or less like it smells — less strongly, though, which is a blessing — with a stronger sense of the white tea. If you go crazy for the smell of it, then you’ll probably go crazy for it in your cup. I can see adding this to some sort of pitcher concoction destined to be served over ice, but by itself it might be a little bit boring iced, and I can think of a bunch of other iced teas I’d rather be drinking.

For the cost per cup and how utterly ‘meh’ I am about it, I should probably be rating it lower than I am…but I think in this case much of the lack of appeal has to do with what I like in a cup of tea, and not necessarily how offensive the tea itself is. Now I have to figure out what to do with the amount I have left.

Happened to travel by a Teavana yesterday and decided, on a whim, to go inside and get a cuppa of my favorite. While I was paying, I was told that it is actually being discontinued…Sad Cinoi…so I bought a pound – I will save the rest for all of you…sigh

Backlogging Yesterday.

I usually save this tea as my dessert tea because I like it with half and half – I think that the half and half adds something; a creamy, smooth, almost savory taste blended well with this sweet nutty tea. However, I ignored my usual standards yesterday and had this first thing in the morning!

No real updates about it, nothing overwhelmingly new.