Teavana

I was all about the white tea a few years ago, but more recently I’ve been getting into green and oolong, and my old white tea friends got somewhat left behind. I’ve been getting back into the white tea groove this week and that’s been cool.

Although this is called a white tea it’s really a white/green/oolong blend and the white tea is actually the lesser part of it. The jasmine gives it a beautiful, not-too-overdone floral aroma and the oolong dominates the flavour. If you like the greener oolongs, you should like the flavour of this tea. Overall the taste is very… clean, so it’s no real surprise that this is a detoxifying tea. It’s also just a really good cup of tea. I liked this combination a lot.

I was craving something sweet so I dipped into my reserve and made some with lots of honey and milk. It hit the spot.

I had this sweetened/iced and blended with Teavana’s Apple, Lemon Pomegranate rooibos tea which is excellent for summer! But it’s just as lovely on its own and hot on an autumn morning when you need something sweet to get your day started.

I was shocked at how delicious this tea is. It’s taste is difficult to describe but it’s intensely pleasant. I love it.

This is a lovely smooth tea, with a stronger vanilla flavour than most other vanilla teas I’ve tried. I’ve been drinking this in the evenings the past couple of days and really liking it as the last tea of the day.

Blended with Matevana for a subtle, but delicious light drink. I used about a tsp total for a cup, but could easily go for twice that and a longer steep time.

Smooth, delicious, and always relaxing.

I actually really like this. It’s more light and vanilla-y than my usual vanilla red tea, and would be good blended with something…but what…

This reminds me a lot of Feisty Jade, a green chai from teas.com.au. This is a light tea that has a really spicy sort of buzz to it, and leaves a quite complex aftertaste behind.

I’m a white tea drinker much more than an Earl Grey drinker, so that’s the perspective I’m coming from with this tea. I liked it a lot. I found the bergamot flavour to be nicely balanced with the flavour of the tea, and overall a very clean sort of taste – white tea with an added zing. I’ll be having this one again.

The colour of the brew is a pale pink rather than the really strong red of some fruit teas, and this is a clue to the sort of flavour you get from this tea. The strawberry dominates the other fruits but also doesn’t overwhelm the tea. This is a really nice light fruity white tea, a good one to keep drinking throughout the day.

I’ve just had a sadly tealess week in Chicago, but now I’m with my tea-drinking friend in Boston and we’ve made a trip to Teavana, so the tea situation is greatly improved!

This is a nice tea, but just totally not what either of us were expecting from the description, or from the aroma. I was expecting something pretty sweet and smooth and maybe a bit nutty, but this tea is actually sort of spicy, with cinnamon being the overwhelming flavour of the taste and the aftertaste. Definitely a good tea to have around during the cooler weather.

I mixed it with the new Strawberry Lemonade, it was great. It’s very good iced.

Nice floral flavor. Good resteeped as well.

So good! I love the fact that there are jasmine flowers in it, not just jasmine scent. My favorite new black tea.

Loving the new Thousand Mountain Jasmine!!

Last year, Teavana had a tent at our local farmer’s market and was selling 1 oz tea sample for a dollar. I swear I got this mango green tea from them there but I had moved the tea into a small container once I only had a few portions left so I don’t have the bag to look up the tea’s name. I search Steepster. I looked on Teavana’s website. It had to be called something else or discontinued. This is bothering me.

On to the tea, it tastes of mango and I can tell it’s a green. A bit sweet, a bit more fruit, a decent amount of vegetal bitter. A yum drink.

Deep blue pottery mug. 1 tsp. Gently steaming water. 1 minute.

Like Zach, also mixed with Samurai Chai Mate and german rock sugar. Awesome pick me up!

Easily my favorite earl grey. No need for any sweeteners or milk, though it won’t ruin it if you do go in for those sorts of things. This is my new preferred black tea.

Wonderful tea, though I haven’t yet had the new batch with the raspberries. Much cheaper than it seems due to the 5-6 steeps you can get out of it.

I didn’t get too much raspberry taste out of it, but I bought it right before they added real raspberries, so maybe it was old? Will update when i try the new stuff.

Great aroma, though the taste wasn’t anything to write home about.

I mix this in a Pyrex bowl and listen to small links of sausage sizzle in a cast iron skillet while Virginia birds announce the spring. The morning sun seems as slow to start it’s day as I am with mine. The tiny bubbles on the surface of the green tea start to pop and pop quickly. I wonder about those bubbles and then all of creation.

The matcha bender continues.

I put back a bowl of this just before going to “show tunes” night at a gay club. A friend of mine from out of town was having a bit of a reunion there. Somehow I know my life is a bit more complete after seeing a bar full of gay guys sing along with a clip of Whoopie Goldberg in Sister Act, specifically the “My God” song.

Also, I was encouraged to try and pick up “fruit flies”. Personally, I’m not one for hitting on females in a establishment that serves refreshments of a spirituous nature. Also, I’m not sure if picking up girls with a title derived from an creepy and/or crawly is a good idea, i.e. “black widow”. In fact, I’ll wager that any female that has a cool nick name is a horrible girlfriend by day two of the relationship. Day one, fantastic. Day two, you’re locked in the bathroom, on the phone with the police, hoping they get to your door before she gets through the bathroom door.

As a tea drinker, this wild life is simply not for me.

The past few days have been a matcha bender. Purchasing a traditional bamboo matcha whisk changed my matcha experience from a mixed one to an absolutely positive one. Prior to the bamboo whisk, I’d been using a standard metal kitchen whisk, and not a very flexible one at that. For tea veterans, I’m sure you can appreciate why that was a poor choice on my part.

Matcha poorly made can be particularly bitter and heavy. That’s how I’d make it before, and I’d reserve it for a time of focusing before something of significance, like meeting someone new or prayer.

Drinking it now, my mind hangs on to my old ceremony of having some sort of reverence for the task at hand during and after drinking the markedly better made bowl of matcha. Drinking matcha and thinking about the direction of my life while I listen to the Moth podcast or find some music I think is appropriate for this kind of mind, like Radiohead’s Idioteque or a live version of Tool’s Pushit.

The tea itself is different from any other tea you’re likely to taste, being the whole tea leaf dried and ground and immersed with hot water. If you’re going to take the time to try this, I’d encourage you to get the whisk, get a decent bowl, and get the water temperature right the first time. This will greatly increase your experience.

Mixing this stuff with vanilla ice cream and splash of vanilla soy milk is also fantastic.