This was the second tea that I had tried from Steeped Tea. Unfortunately, since they have recently switched from their Spring/Summer catalog to the Fall/Winter catalog, the flavor has been discontinued, but I have great hope that it, or something better will return next spring.
This grassy, mild sencha green tea is sweetened and pepped up with real pineapple flavor. It is not overly fruity. The tea is still a predominantly green tea taste, the pineapple just peps up the flavor a bit. This tea is great slightly sweetened, and both hot and iced.
Rating:
3/5 stars
This tea is no longer available, but you can buy other teas from Steeped Tea here:
Steeped Tea
I tried this tea on a whim. I have a lot of various strawberry flavored teas, and I really didn't need another one. However, I am thrilled that I tried this one as it has jumped to the edge of the pack among strawberry flavored teas.
I love this tea because the pink grapefruit and hibiscus give it a tartness that shines when the tea is sweetened. This tea is amazing iced. It tastes like a glass of summer. The apples mellow the tartness just enough, and the tea itself is a refreshing, herbal xue long green tea.
This is one of those teas that I will keep going back to for a long time. It's just lovely as a summertime drink. Try blending it with lemonade for a crowd-pleasing, refreshing picnic drink!
Rating:
5/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Strawberry Grapefruit Xue Long
Price: $12.98/2 oz
If you are looking for a tasty, caffeine free chai, Teavana's Rooibos Chai may be your answer.
Awhile back, during some colder weather, I was on a chai kick, but I wanted to cut back on caffeine. I went to Teavana, and noticed their Rooibos Chai and sampled it. It was everything you would want in a chai, lots of heady, Indian-inspired spices. I could taste the cinnamon, cardamom and ginger notes. This particular chai is a bit heavy on the spice, but I either use less tea or add some milk to counteract the strong flavor.
I like to drink this chai with a bit of sugar and some milk for a latte. I almost always drink it hot, but it makes a good iced chai latte as well.
Also, rooibos usually can be re-steeped with good results. This makes it a pretty great value.
Rating:
3/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Rooibos Chai
Price: $4.98/2 oz
I have a love/hate relationship with Teavana. They're very expensive, much like their parent company, Starbucks. However, they really do have tasty teas and quality products. I've actually been a Teavana fan since before the Starbucks acquisition, when a friend took me to one of their stores in Nashville. Even though they are expensive, I've managed to spend a few hundred dollars there in the last couple of years.
One of my most recent buys from Teavana is the Raspberry Balsamico herbal blend. They had a blend of this tea and their Limeade Twist herbal tea in their sample station. Though I'm not a huge fan of lime, I found the blend very good.
I ended up purchasing a few teas and accessories and my purchase entitled me to a free store-made beverage. I decided to try the Raspberry Balsamico by itself, iced. WOW. All I can say is amazing. SUCH a delicious beverage. After the first sip, I immediately added a 4 oz bag of the blend to my purchase.
I had heard in the past that some Teavana customers had a hard time replicating the flavor that the store's baristas make when brewing at home, so I read some tips online and gave it a whirl.
I brewed it in 208 degree water and used 1 1/2 teaspoons of tea and 1 teaspoon of rock sugar per cup. I sipped it hot and freshly brewed, but this tisane's star power comes out when it's iced. The raspberry name is kind of a misnomer. Sure there are raspberries in the tea, and the flavor definitely comes out, but it's a perfect berry blend. Blueberries, grapes, strawberries, currants, elderberries and even juniper berries feature in this blend, and they all marry wonderfully. I especially love the inclusion of currants...just enough to give that bright currant flavor, but not so much to make it sour.
As the name implies, there is also a touch of balsamic vinegar in the blend, which is outstanding. I am one of those people that shops at oil and vinegar stores to get the latest and greatest balsamic and olive oil infusions for my recipes. I love balsamic vinegar, and the slight addition of it's earthy twang just caps off this near-perfect blend.
If you hadn't realized, this is pretty much my Holy Grail of herbal teas. So delicious.
Rating:
5/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Raspberry Balsamico
Price: $9.98/2 oz
This is a tea I've had in my stash for awhile. Sadly, there's not much information on this tea online, including where to buy it. I bought it at an HEB when I was living in Texas, and two things drew me to this tea. First, the flavor...litchi (or lychee) is one of my favorite flavors. If I go to an Asian market or an Asian aisle in a supermarket, I'm looking immediately for anything lychee flavored. Second was the price. I remember purchasing this box of tea for less than $2.
I finally had a chance to brew some, and I think it was a good value. Since it was a black tea, I steeped it at 212 degrees for about 3 minutes and added a teaspoon of rock sugar. I had a few sips of it hot, and the lychee flavor was delicate, not as strong as I normally like, but still very pleasant. I saved the rest to drink cold, and I am enjoying it now. The flavor is more subtle when it is cold, which is normal for teas...heat helps enhance the flavor of most teas. It's lovely, refreshing, and tasting. I might steep a bag of this along with one of my Tangerine Orange Zinger bags at some point...I think the blend of those two would be tasty.
Rating:
3/5 stars
Purchasing information is unknown. This flavor is currently unavailable on Amazon.
Price: approx. $2/box of 25 bags
Oh my gosh, it's a SUPERMARKET TEA! *gasp!*
To tea snobs...I mean tea aficionados, supermarket tea bags are just not worth drinking. And in a way, they're right. Compared to quality, loose-leaf teas from respected tea sourcers, supermarket teas are the bottom of the barrel. Lipton, Celestial Seasonings, Bigelow and the like are dirty words to tea connoisseurs. Generally, I'd agree. These teas are like a McDonald's burger compared to a Kobe steak, or like Boone's Farm compared to Dom Perignon. But you know what, even though they're poor quality and bad for you, sometimes a Big Mac and a Solo cup of Strawberry Hill just tastes good.
So it is with that, that I say that this tea is a guilty pleasure of mine. A big iced glass of this stuff is just zippy, tangy, fruity, citrusy heaven. The ingredients aren't too bad...the typical fare you often see in fruity tisanes, such as hibiscus, rosehips and fruit, but the ingredients do list "other natural flavors", which leads me to believe that this tea has more in common with Kool-Aid than quality looseleaf teas.
No matter, I'm still going to savor this whole glass. Then maybe another one.
Rating:
4/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Tangerine Orange Zinger
Price: $3.39/box of 20 bags
I purchased this tea in a sampler set of four mini tins of flavored black teas from Zhena's. I brewed it hot in 212 degree water for 3 minutes with a teaspoon of rock sugar.
The peach flavor was subtle and the ginger was a bit more pronounced, but both flavors were not represented strongly in this tea. I like my tea to be really bold and flavorful, and this tea missed the mark by quite a bit. However, if you are the type of person who likes more subtle flavors emerging in your tea, this may be more your style.
Rating:
2/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Peach Ginger (Black Tea Stackable Set)
Price: $8.99/set of four tins of different flavors, 4 sachets per tin
Steeped Tea is a direct sales company that specializes in teas, tea accessories, and snack mixes that go well with teas and tea parties.
I stumbled upon the Steeped Tea website and immediately contacted a consultant in my area. My consultant, Tracy, was quick to drop a catalog and brochures in the mail, and with those, she included TEA SAMPLES! Yay!
The Toasted Almond black tea was the first sample I tried. All of the samples Tracy sent were loose leaf (a few varieties that Steeped Tea sells are available in pre-packed triangle bags), but she also sent a fillable bag with each sample. I decided to go ahead and use the bag, as my single-cup ball is missing at the moment.
I brewed the black tea hot in 212 degree water with 1 teaspoon of rock sugar. I took my first couple of sips like that, and was impressed by the nuttiness of the tea. The almond flavor was neither too subtle nor too overpowering. It was like adding a drizzle of amaretto to a basic black tea without the alcohol taste. I added some vanilla almond milk to finish my cup, and the addition of the vanilla almond milk just further enhanced the almond flavor. I really savored this cup of tea! Divine! I honestly didn't think I would like this tea that much, but I was thoroughly impressed.
Rating:
4/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Toasted Almond
Price: $8.50/1.76 oz
I stumbled upon this tea in my local grocery store's bulk section, and decided to give it a whirl. I noticed the nice berry aroma, and thought it would be a good tea to try.
Cameron's website states that it has the aroma and taste of passion fruit and raspberry. I could not find a list of ingredients on Cameron's website, and the bulk tag on my package does not list ingredients, so I could not tell exactly what is in the tea, or if there are any added flavoring agents in it.
I brewed the tea my usual way, approximately 1 teaspoon per 8 oz of water and a teaspoonful of sugar per 8 oz cup. When I sweeten teas, I usually use raw sugar or rock sugar, never refined sugar.
The tea smelled delightful as I brewed it, bright and fruity. I took a taste and had to spit out my first sip. It was incredibly sour, like biting into a lemon. I highly suspect that there was less passion fruit and raspberry in the tea and more cranberry. I kept adding sugar and by 4 teaspoons of sugar in my cup, it was still too sour to drink. I was very disappointed, and disappointed that I had bought a full 5.5 ounces of this stuff. I might add a bit of it to teas that are flavorless or too sweet tasting. This one is just not good by itself.
Rating:
1/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Passionberry Tisane
Price: $1.29/1 oz
