One of the marks of a good tea is having a great aroma...an aroma that invites you to taste it. This week's tea of the week from 52Teas is one of those teas.
I have mentioned before that I often find green teas "grassy" in flavor. This is not one of those teas. The green tea in this blend serves as a background for the beautiful blend of apple, mint and cardamom to come alive. The cardamom is subtle, which is nice, because too much cardamom ends up smelling like a curry house. The predominant flavors are the apple and the mint, and they blend wonderfully. It actually gives me ideas for creating tea blends with some of my peppermint teas.
I've also previously mentioned that I like strongly flavored teas, and this, like most green teas, is pretty subtle in flavor, due to the short steeping time. However, this is a great tea for times when I want a lighter flavor. I'm very impressed with this one.
Rating:
3/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Apple Mint Cardamom
Price: $12.00/2 oz
I realized that since I launched this blog, all I have posted are tea reviews. Which is great, I mean, that's my main intent of this site. However, I haven't posted anything yet about the manufacture of tea, or the lifestyle of tea, or anything related to tea that isn't a review, aside from my disclosure post.
So this evening, I decided that I would write a little bit about my journey to the world of tea.
Like most kids in middle America, my first experience with tea was iced tea, Lipton, of course. My family in Texas mostly drank it sweet. REALLY sweet. Southern style sweet tea usually involves adding sugar until it stops dissolving...and I'm only sort of kidding. My uncle here in Missouri also liked his Lipton iced tea, but he drank it unsweetened. And so, for many many years, I thought that the only two teas in the world were "sweet" and "unsweet".
Sometime around age 11 or 12, this once very picky eater started to be more adventurous with food, and so, I decided to go along with my mom and my aunt to a Chinese restaurant, and actually order food with them this time.
My mom and my aunt always got "hot tea" along with their meals at the Chinese place, and I decided I would try some too...my first taste of jasmine green tea. I loved the aroma, but found the flavor sort of lacking. I didn't order it again.
I spent many years more or less avoiding tea. There were a few occasions where my choice of drink was limited to tea or water, so on those occasions, I would opt for some iced tea. Other than that, I was not a tea drinker.
Fast forward many many many years into my adulthood. I took a trip to my friend's house in Nashville. I had driven all day to get there, and it was late in the evening when I arrived. My friend was a big tea drinker herself, and offered me a hot cup of caffeine free herbal tea to unwind. I accepted, so long as it wasn't chamomile. She gave me a cup of the (now discontinued) Vanilla Hazelnut tea from Celestial Seasonings. I was wowed. I didn't know that tea could be so delicious. I tried several other delicious teas at her house during my stay, and hit up the supermarket for all kinds of delicious-sounding flavored teas, to mixed results. Most of them ended up collecting dust in the cupboard.
My next encounter with tea was while I was a student in Austin. I went to the local Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf to study. I walked in and walked up to the counter to order a drink to accompany my studies. It was my intention to order some sort of latte or white mocha, like I generally do in such places, but as i approached the counter, I was hit with a delightful scent of creamy strawberry. i asked the barista what it was that I was smelling. He said, "oh it's a latte made with our Strawberry Cream green tea." I replied, I want THAT!
My next trip to the counter involved the purchase of a tin of the Strawberry Cream tea. I opened it up in the car before I left the store and inhaled the delicious fragrance.
After that, tea was still not my go-to drink (I was still suffering from a hardore Dr Pepper addiction, coupled with a Starbucks White Mocha habit), but I branched out and tried tea beverages every now and then. A Passion Tea Lemonade here, an apple chai infusion there.
The real addiction when I visited my friend in Nashville again, and she took me to her local Teavana. I tried every sample in the store and fell in love. When I got back to Texas, I discovered that there was a Teavana in the ritzy mall on the other side of town. I went and bought a few teas and a couple of infusers. My addiction was born.
Since then, I have realized that loose-leaf teas are so much better quality than the tea dust on the supermarket shelf. I've also branched out to loose-leaf tea providers beyond Teavana and the Republic of Tea selections that I was buying at Whole Foods.
Now, I treat teas as a wonderful journey of new flavors. My stash grows exponentially every week, because I love to try new teas as much as I love to drink my favorites. Tea drinking is really my zen. It's my meditation. Sipping thoughtfully over tea has actually helped to calm me so that I can better deal with all of the rough stuff and tragedies going on in my life lately. I now know why the stereotype of a tea-sipping yogi exists...tea is meditation too.
As my favorite mug says, Keep Calm and Drink Tea!
Full disclosure:
I'm not much of a fan of the flavor of green tea by itself. It tastes sort of grassy. There are flavors of green tea that I love, but by itself, it's a little hard to take. Matcha is even grassier tasting, because you consume the whole leaf.
Well, this matcha, blended with strawberries, is definitely a lot easier to take. It's delicious in the traditional form, whisked with hot water, but I especially like to drink this blended in my Nutribullet with orange juice or vanilla almond milk. This is a tasty tasty way to get my antioxidants! If you aren't making matcha part of your daily routine, you really should. It has lots of great health benefits!
Rating:
4/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Sweet Strawberry Matcha
Price: $35.00/3.52 oz
Oh wow!
I never thought that I would drink a tea that actually tastes like cotton candy, but this one does. It is like a cup of sweet, perfectly-spun fairy floss. It even had little sprinkles in the blend. I gave a cup to my stepdaughter, and she absolutely loved it, and she hates anything that can be called tea (even fruit teas). This tea is a perfect dessert tea, and great for anyone who loves sweets. And since it's a rooibos, it's caffeine free.
Sadly, I went to the DAVIDsTEA site to order more right after I received my bag, and they were out. :( I hope they bring it back next summer! It is currently available as one of five .88 oz teas in the Old Timey Treats Collection, but not individually.
Rating:
5/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Old Timey Treats Collection
Price: $15.00/4.4 oz of tea (five .88 oz flavors)
It's no secret that I love fruit teas, and this one is no exception. Like most fruit teas, this is best iced, with a bit of sugar to bring out the flavors. It's citrusy without being too tart. In fact, it tastes like a classy sangria that I would expect to be served at a party. This is also a great tea for kids. It tastes like fruit juice, but even if you add a bit of sugar, it'll still have a lot less sugar than juices and Kool-Aid.
If you like fruity, refreshing drinks, this one is for you!
Rating:
4/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Pineapple Orange Cooler
Price: $8.00/1.76 oz
Here is this week's featured tea from 52Teas. It's a black tea and honeybush blend. I had high hopes for this one, and it fell a little flat. The description of this tea made it sound like it was a smokier evolution from a chai, however, this didn't taste like a chai to me at all. Nor did it taste like tea. It tasted like I steeped my spice cabinet. It tasted heavily of cloves and cumin, and I am taking serious consideration to taking the rest of the sample and using it as a meat rub.
I know a lot of people that like their teas really savory, so if you're one of those people, give this one a try. And if you don't like it, it will probably go great on the barbecue!
Rating:
2/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Smoky Spice
Price: $12.00/2 oz
This is another tea that I received in my Steeped kit. I've never been much of a straight up Earl Grey fan, but I heard great things about this tea, so I was anxious to try it.
Supposedly this is the tea that Steeped founder Tonia Jahshan tasted that inspired her to start the company. Powerful tea!
I steeped it just below boiling for 3 minutes. I decided to give it a few sips before sweetening or adding anything to it. It had a nice, mellow, creamy flavor. I then added a little sugar and a little milk to it, for the classic English cuppa. The milk and sugar really brought out the mellow flavors. It's not one of those teas that makes me say, "yay!", but it's one I will go to when I want a simple, hot cup of tea.
Rating:
3/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Earl Grey de la Creme
Price: $7.00/1.76 oz
This is the first of my reviews of 52Teas' teas of the week. This is a great little tea site that has all kinds of interesting tea blends and also features a tea of the week. They offer a subscription plan in which you can get the four teas of the week for the month at the beginning of the month. Since I'm all about trying and rating teas, I subscribed!
This week's tea is a honeybush tea. I don't know a whole lot about honeybush except that it is similar to rooibos and native to South Africa. Like rooibos, it's naturally caffeine free, and has a bit of a sweet flavor to it. Some would say that honeybush is a little sweeter than rooibos.
I was excited to try this tea, because I like pears a lot, but I'm not the biggest fan of maple. I was hoping that the pear flavor would be the predominant flavor. Unfortunately, I was wrong. As I opened the package, I only got a slight sniff of pear, but it was sickly sweet with the maple aroma. As I brewed it, the maple scent only got stronger. When I drank it, it tasted like I had just heated water and stirred maple syrup into it.
If you like maple, you will probably love this. I just didn't like it at all, though.
Rating:
1/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Maple Baked Pears Honeybush
Price: $4.00/.5 oz taster
This was another one of my recent Teavana acquisitions. I had high hopes for this tea, as it smelled delightful when I looked at it in the store.
However, I took it home and noticed when I brewed it, that it was weak and had an artificial grape flavor. Upon researching, I realized that it is indeed, an artificial grape flavor added. And it's not a very good one. It tasted more like unsweetened grape Kool-Aid than a real grape. If it had tasted more realistic, I probably would not have minded the artificial flavor. Basically, this tea was disappointing. I tried it both hot and cold, and it kept tasting like unsweetened Kool-Aid...even when I added sugar.
Rating:
2/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Grape Wulong
Price: $12.98/2 oz
I received this tea as part of my Steeped Tea starter kit. I was intrigued by the name...After Eight, like an After Eight dinner mint. I like dinner mints! So, I gave this one a whirl.
I steeped it for 3 minutes at 200 degrees. I sweetened it a bit with some rock sugar. Verdict: WOW. It really does taste like an after-dinner mint! I've been drinking a lot of this stuff ever since, and this is one of those teas that I need to make sure that I always keep on hand. I have started adding a touch of sweetened condensed milk for some creaminess, and it's delicious that way. This tea is a must-try if you like minty things.
Rating:
5/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
After Eight
Price: $7.50/1.76 oz
