Teavana

Enjoying my first cup today with the third steeping of these leaves. Slowly I am getting the hang of preparing oolong correctly.

This being my first oolong I am enjoying it. I think however I would like it better without the Jasmine aspect. I’m not sure. I think I need to sample other oolongs to really understand the profile of this tea.

Good aroma, good taste, but the aftertaste is like SOAP! Only good if you like overly floral teas.

This is drinkable when mixed with Teavana’s Rooibos Tropica.

This is a very tangy tart tea without sugar. I love it! It’s even better iced; it’s raspberry lemonade with a kick!

I love the wine/fruit undertone of this tea. Nice and bold flavor, that holds up well in milk, but is just as good without.

Eh, it’s ok. I bought it and now I have to drink it

Again, I have no basis for comparison with this tisane. But, compared to its flavored counterparts, I muchly prefer my rooibos plain. And iced.
Though it’s somehow cold down here in Southern California, I still drink it cold. I mean, it’s nice warm, but it’s really spectacular iced. I know I’m going in circles here, but… iced. This is a tisane to have iced.
It’s absolutely refreshing – more thirst-quenching than water. If I could have a pitcher of this constantly in the refrigerator, I could give up soda easily. But, unfortunately, I’m just too lazy to keep brewing and icing the tea… I need a tea slave.
This is also the only drink I’ll pay for at Teavana bars. Even though it’s way over-priced. But, if you know the people who are managers, or just old cards, you can generally coerce a free drink out of them through negotiation – “I’ll buy four ounces of this, if you hook me up with a free drink”. The trick here is that Teavana employees work on commission, and only make money for the product they sell, but not on the drinks they make. Sometimes you can spend less money on the leaf than you’d be paying for the drink.

In any case, this is a great herbal to ice up if you haven’t tried it before, though you might want to wait until the warmer months. Or, if you want to get some now, it’s also great hot, or even room temperature -a very versatile drink.

This was one of the first teas I got when I was getting into tea. That was…I don’t even know how many years ago. Since then I’ve bought this one a couple more times, but since I started drinking teas from other places like Adagio and Tea Forte and Samovar, I have become increasingly unimpressed with this one.

I got it because an employee at Teavana recommended it to me, and then she did that little wavy thing they do with the lid to waft the aroma into your face. Even to this day, I will tell you straight off that it smells like heaven.

It’s not that it tastes bad. It doesn’t. It just doesn’t…taste. At all. In a little experiment I let it sit for 6 minutes, and still? Nothing. Or at least not enough for me to enjoy the experience. I don’t feel like I should have to actively search my tea for flavor.

I hate to say it, but this is a big part of why it took me so long to really get into tea. I’d had some of the watered down stuff that they give you at restaurants from time to time, and the bagged stuff that isn’t exactly bursting with flavor, and then I decided to try some loose tea because I’d heard it was so much better. This one smelled a AMAZINGLY delicious, but the taste just didn’t live up to the hype [you know, in that it wasn’t present].

I figured that maybe all tea, even the “good stuff” just didn’t have much of a taste at all. Or that it was just too subtle for me to do anything other than smell it to appreciate it. [Obviously, this was before I tried Lapsang Souchong.] Now I know that this isn’t true, and so I can’t recommend this tea to anyone.

Since he said it better than I probably did in the above paragraphs, I leave you with a quote Uncle Iroh, one of my favorite characters from Avatar [yes, the cartoon – don’t judge, it’s phenomenal], “THIS IS NOTHING BUT HOT LEAF JUICE!”

Though, it may make for some nice potpourri.

Had this as my morning tea and it was fantastic.

Mine had no berries in it, unlike what is currently pictured on line – did they add flavoring before?

I didn’t get berries, but I did get a scent of Swiss flowers and a sweet floral taste with a little chalk and maybe a hint of mint. Very nice.

Oh, I have discovered Teavana! Went there yesterday great place, nice staff :)
I tried several samples but had a whole cup of this … peachy notes with an end flourish of light jasmine. Very tasty. Also, I like how the taste changed as it cooled.

Very tasty…definitely an acquired taste, but doesn’t take more than 8-10 cups to acquire. A very unique flavor, the leaves smell a bit like those of the tobacco plant, and they create a very smokey infusion. I would recommend this also with cinnamon or cloves…

Pretty good tea. Like Teavana says, it’s wonderful for after dinner. It really goes well with their rock sugar, and, while it doesn’t have such a prevalent taste of tea itself, the mint and chocolate really blend well. The leaves smell pretty sickening, but don’t let that fool you. Once brewed, it tastes quite good!

Terrible tea! I bought it just to try it (2 oz) because it was on sale at Teavana, and now I can see why! I’m not usually one to give such negative reviews, but this one deserves it. It is overly sickening in both taste and smell, and almost makes me want to vomit simply by smelling it. It is Teavana’s one tea that I didn’t like ever, even after experimenting with it.

Quite tasty! A little weak, but more leaves of course yield more flavor. Plenty of fruit, and for me, it is good for as many as 4 to 5 infusions without losing flavor. It also really exacerbates that fruity, sweet aftertaste known to tea connoisseurs after having a sip. Great for casual drinking, like sitting down with a good book and sipping it intermittently.

Slurpaslurp. I brewed it better this time.
I made it, because I felt like drinking a “bulk” tea, and I had just transferred it to a tin that was appropriately titled “Lapsang Souchong.” Ignoring their tea quality, Peet’s makes pleasing tins – though they are a bit hard to open if you can’t get leverage.
Actually, I really brewed this because I wanted to post about it. I brewed it better this time, but that’s besides the point. I skipped both my classes today, and drank this tea. I’m going to keep going like this until a direction forms…

After I transferred it from the Teavana tin, I noticed there was a good amount of dust left over. I wish I had a bag to brew it in. Oh well. Teavana tins are too tall and thin. My hand barely fit in there. I say this because I had to whip it out – don’t want my next tea smelling like smoked meats.
I felt like writing literature, but I feel uninspired so I’m writing this, instead. I could write a story about this, yes, but my audience isn’t very tea-literate. I could also be doing the essay that was due today. Hah.

I wish we could leave reviews on the companies themselves. I’d have a thing or two to say about Teavana. That’s f’sho. Teavana doesn’t even deserve the proper spelling out of “for sure.”

I want to forget school forever, and drown myself in tea. I think I might try tonight. I need more clean water, though, for my nice teas. That means I have to bike down to 7-eleven. Or up to the supermarket. (When I say up and down, I mean it. This is a city built on slopes.)

The point of all this? I need a woman. I’m sick of school, sick of roommates, sick of looking at pretty, shallow girls scattered across the campus, sick of dealing with one of the few people I care about, who’s 300 miles away, hating me, sick of using tobacco as a substitute muse for lack of lover (I REALLY hate smoking), and sick Southern California in general. I’m also sick of making up for my lack of social life/tolerance of my peers, by writing reviews about tea.

I’m sorry. Really, I am.

Well, this tea had a somewhat smokey taste…
I kid, I kid.

It was alright. I got it at Teavana, because they were selling the tea, and the tin it was in, at 30% off. It was a tempting combination of price reduction, my lack of Lapsang Souchong back in my dorm, and the fact that I always have room for another tin. Always.

Lapsang is always a good tea for the day-to-day, and a nice (and inexpensive) trick for inexperienced tea guests, to whom you can play the resident alchemist. Despite its characteristic scent, it’s not really much of a “special” tea in my book of tastes. Very distinct, yes, and probably the easiest black tea you could ever distinguish by scent, but the taste isn’t absolutely enthralling.

Evading classes today, mostly because I didn’t redraft my essay or annotate an article for English. Also, I need to catch up on sleep, because I failed to do that on my usual friday afternoon through monday break. So, I made a pot of this for myself and my roommate, who’s working on his second essay, something about relating a book to the philosophy of Nietzsche and some other guy, for class today.

Tea’s a little sour this morning. No fault of Teavana’s, just my own – I think the water was a bit under temp. What I will call teavana out on, is calling this “superior grade.” I’ve tasted some fine black teas in my time, and this is no SFTGFOP1, my friends. Not that I trust much of what Teavana says, anyway…

Fortunately for me, my roommate’s only tea experience really comes from me, so he won’t notice the poor brew. On that same note, the tea holds nothing enticing for him – he has no sense of smell. This time, I don’t kid.

In any case, this tea generally isn’t anything too exciting, once you get past the smell (which I, personally, like). I like the color, and the taste is pretty smooth for me. A good any-time tea, and Teavana can’t mess this one up TOO bad. One of the few teas I don’t have too many qualms with buying from them. On the other hand, maybe someday I’ll taste some absolutely astounding Lapsang, and have another reason to look down on this company.

In any case, I guess I didn’t talk much about the tea here. Oh well. Ignorant sippings away!

Great as an iced tea! Nice tangy citrus flavor :) The smell reminds me of orange flavored hard candies :) My mom loves this one :D

Great evening tea! Lovely iced or hot. Delicious lforal notes, a bit stronger than jasmine teas. Love eating the Candied Violet Flowers :) I mix it with Honeybush Vanilla (Teavana) for a relaxing iced tea

A great flavored green! Delicious as and iced or hot tea. The jasmine and the peach complement each-other well so that the tea is a perfect blend of fruity and floral flavors. Great balance

Every few weeks I’ll spot this in my tea cupboard and think, “That was rather expensive, I’d better give it a go and see if I can prepare it better this time.”

It never works. It’s always a bitter tea, no matter how carefully I watch the clock and fuss with the temperature. I tried following the instructions suggested by johnquix, two minutes @ 175 degree, and still bitter. Ugh. I really ought to swap this one away.