Tiesta Tea

They say it’s spring as of 12:07 EST today. I’m going by what outside says and it says cold. So I’m by the fireplace with a cup of this and it’s delicious. Many thanks to Dexter3657 for this one. I’ve avoided it because it’s rooibos and also because although I’ve been drinking a pot of tea each night, we’ve been drinking chocolate teas. My partner has gotten into the habit of nightly tea — a lovely habit, don’t you agree? — but she is not adventurous when it comes to her nightly tea. She wants comfort, not surprises, so I never ever make new-to-me tea at night. Kinda like when company is coming for dinner: you make your tried and and true recipes, you don’t subject your guests to something that you just came up with that might be, but most often isn’t, fabulous :)

But she’s not home right now and something about the white chocolate was calling my name. I love this tea. It is quite minty but with some raw sugar and vanilla creamer it is yumm-o! Rooibos only a little at the back and only if you’ve had rooibos before and you know what to look for. Maybe rooibos will come out more later on as it cools but I’m likely not going to see it for this ain’t gonna be cooling!

PS. You all will think i’m NUTS but I can feel the mint in my right ear. (probably from the throat… you know, ENT and all). Dude. I’m nuts

I got a travel mug with a built-in infuser. Because screw not being able to enjoy my teas because of my busy schedule and harrowing commute (a problem that will soon be remedied once I move into my first apartment! Ahhhh so excited!!!!)

I’d forgotten how good loose black tea tastes. This one has strong raspberry and pomegranate notes, and the base is earthy and burnt tasting. It’s very nice, and it kept my eyes open while I was hanging out with my man tonight at his house. (Raiding of his tea stash was deemed totally necessary.)

Gotta get me some of this for my own collection! Or maybe I’ll just keep stealing his…

Only tried a sip of this one from my boyfriend’s cup, but I liked it! I mostly tasted the black tea base at first, with just a dash of the raspberry. But after I swallowed it, the other berry and floral notes came to life! It brought a smile to my face. Must steal some from him the next opportunity I get.

Great Canadian TTB

Now most of you know I am not a lover of oolongs but this one just sounded and smelled so good that I had to try a cup. However, once again, I am only really getting the oolong base and thus I am finding myself rather disappointed. Thank you Jeweled Thumb for including it and enabling me to try it but this one is just not for me.

This was fairly unimpressive. I was hoping that the white chocolate would set this tea apart from other mint chocolate rooibos teas, but it fell short. I couldn’t see or taste any white chocolate, so it was basically just a mint rooibos. No thanks!

Sipdown! This has hibiscus and rosehip in it, so I was a little wary, but the description sounded so good I had to try it.

It brews up the dark reddish-pink I’ve come to dread, but it actually smells more like ginger than anything else. Sadly, the taste is hibiscus. After one sip of it hot I iced the cup and it’s much better this way. There’s a strong ginger flavor (but not too much), although I’m getting mostly hibiscus other than that. There’s some peach but not nearly enough to call it as such, in my opinion. It’s not bad but I’m really not a hibiscus fan so this won’t be a restock.

Classic Tiesta blend. I’ve had this tin for ages though (like, to the tune of almost three years) and it’s still drinkable. It’s on the weak side, but still workable in a pinch.

This company’s packaging gets an A+++, as does their branding. I wonder why they don’t get more attention.

This is a nice fruit green blend. Smells a bit on the fake side when it brews, but once you sip, you can taste the candied pineapple and mango without being overpowered. I can tell that it’s base-heavy, but overall pretty well blended.

The leaves are whole and open up nicely as it steeps.

Pretty solid and reliable green tea. Drank it before and after my workout this morning. Burn them cals!

It’s hard to mess this one up, it really is. My stash of it is rather old, so I overleafed and it still tasted like its usual fruity, woodsy, fragrant self.

This one has a surprisingly long shelf life. I’ve had it for a year and it still tastes good.

Buttery green base, bite of tartness from the strawberry and pineapple. Doesn’t taste medicinal or like a punishment, which is good for a diet. Also, thank God it doesn’t taste like the actual Fruity Pebbles cereal, because I would gag and then throw it out if it did.

I still maintain that Tiesta has the best deal going in loose tea. 4 oz of tea for $9? That’s crazy, considering that the quality is better than decent. Not too shabby for an American grocery store purchase.

Days off = loose leaf tea time. A coworker gave me half a canister of this because she doesn’t like it. She says it has a weird aftertaste.

Needless to say, I totally disagree! And now I am extremely wealthy in Fruity Pebbles, because now I have an extra half canister in addition to my almost-full canister. Phew.

I steeped this perfectly! 3 minutes at 176 degrees F. It has all of my favorite fruits in it- strawberry, pineapple, papaya. The leaves are HUGE! They look like spinach after they’ve been steeped, and they pack a lot of flavor. You can’t really overleaf this one either-the more the merrier!

I hope it helps me lose my post-surgery weight…!

This is the tea that introduced me to longjing, which is now my very favorite type of green tea. Soooo buttery and delicious.

I’ve never really gotten much in the way of “fruityness” from this Tiesta concoction; the base is clearly the dominant part of the blend. But that is A-OK with me, because fruityness can be easily overdone, in my opinion.

I also love that one scoop of leaves can be good for up to three cups of tea.

Green tea also helps with hunger. According to the canister, this one is a Slenderizer, which means that it suppresses appetite and boosts metabolism. Perfect!

Also, now that I’ve scooped the top layer of leaves out and used them before, I now am getting more and more of the fruity part of it. It tastes sweet and tropical during the first steep, and then during the second steep it tastes just like strong green tea.

Yum yum. Excellent dieting tea!

Always delicious. I just wish there was more fruit in it. I like that I can get multiple steepings from it without any trouble.

My first Sencha! It also contains Lung Ching and Pai Mu Tan white teas, which I have also never tried. However, I can tell that these are really high-quality tea leaves that the Tiesta guys use. And they definitely don’t rip you off- this 4 oz tin is literally full to the brim. For $9, this is a really great buy!

I like the image that Tiesta presents as a company- they’re a small group of laid-back young men who are creative and also want to make loose tea accessible to the average shopper. Their teas are very cost-effective, high-quality, and delicious. They also provide a lot of good information on their packaging, such as caffeine content, the purpose of the tea (this one is to support weight loss, so they’ve categorized it as a Slenderizer. I have another blend by them called Fireberry, which is an Immunity blend. They also have Energizer, Relaxer, and Eternity blends) how many cups you should get out of the tin, and which temperatures and amounts to use. Plus, the tins themselves are very attractive.

The dry leaves smell fantastic- green, earthy, and lightly fruity.

Easy to steep- (although somehow my tea ball came unlatched in the water and spilled all the leaves into the mug, forcing me to get a big strainer and dirty another mug… Grrrrr…) The leaves opened up really big.

Sipping… I don’t taste much fruit. When I scooped it, I didn’t get many fruit pieces though, so perhaps they’ve sunk toward the bottom of the tin. In any event, this is a wonderful green-white blend. Very smooth and rich.

I hope my next few steeps go a little more smoothly in terms of operator errors, but even though I goofed up a little, I still enjoyed this cup! The sign of a truly fantastic tea!

I’m finishing this off as an iced tea today. As an iced tea, it’s pretty good. I think I like it better this way than hot. Still, I won’t be too sad that this is gone. Tastes more of green tea and apple, pretty difficult to pick up the kiwi.

I’m not sure why the eff it’s so hot here today, but this is a good tea when it’s made strong and then poured over ice, refreshing!

I decided I was going to try the Amazon fresh delivery service for my groceries since I’m not able to do a lot of grocery shopping with my injury. The service was great aside from the fact that the frozen food and even produce came inside styrofoam boxes, which I then had to dismantle. I’m not a big fan of sytrofoam for environmental reasons.

Anyway they did have quite a few teas by Tiesta (and others), which is a company I’ve never tried. This sounded good to me and I brewed it up this afternoon.

I was really hoping for more of a kiwi flavor in this. I’m getting more apple than kiwi but I’m finding it there when the cup cools. I see dried apple and lemon bits in the brewed tea but I think the kiwi might be flavoring only. I like the green tea base in this blend which is very refreshing and I’m getting a bit of tartness in the overall finish. I will have to experiment a bit with the brewing parameters of this to see if I can do anything to make the kiwi come through. This is ok but not really what I was expecting. Will have to try cold brewing this.

I got this sample courtesy of Moraiwe. Thanks!

It smells minty and creamy, but I’m really perplexed by the taste. It is minty, but there is something else and I’m not sure how I feel about it. One second i think I might like it and then the next I view it suspiciously. It almost tastes like there is dairy in there. I’m going to have to read the ingredients and see if I can figure out what I’m tasting.

Sipdown!

An Amoda box repeat from last year that I wasn’t overly thrilled about. Used it all up today to make some minty iced tea. Not terrible, but I don’t need to have this again.

How interesting. I just discovered that this tea is the same tea that was in one of Amoda’s boxes last year. How incredibly disappointing. I knew the name sounded familiar (and the flavour was fairly standard), but hadn’t put it together until I came to log it… Not impressed at all.

As the tea goes, I’m fairly meh about it… reasonably standard minty rooibos. I don’t recall it being bad, but it also wasn’t anything special.

I enjoyed the heck out of this last night, evokes cooling sweet holiday peppermint bark, but I don’t know that I’d need to stock it ever because the truth is I just love peppermint tea and any decent one can put a smile on my face. That said, I was impressed the white chocolate didn’t make it oily. A good winter treat.

Ok, goodbye to this! I think that is the last of my Amoda teas, which is good because the new box will be out in a week or so! And if I end up with more Amoda teas than I can drink, I should unsub. I might anyway though. It’s really not worth $12 a month. Probably not. But it is great getting something in the mail and I have discovered some good companies, like the Devotea, through them!

I like this tea. I get a little bit of creaminiess and lots of mint. The rooibos is still there – you can’t hide it, but it’s not too woodsy or anything.

Yep. This is a pretty relaxing cup. It’s probably good that I’ve switched to something without caffeine after all the tea I had today (a lot of them were resteeped)

I brew this at a lower temperature, not because I want to, but because that’s as hot as the water gets from the dispenser at work!

I love the color of this tea! It’s a pretty berry-pink when brewed, which I just love to look at. The flavor is fruity – I notice the apple notes more than the nuttiness. Overall, it’s very smooth. The nuts add a pleasant body to it.

This is one of my favorite teas. I could drink it all day.