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
My first introduction to this tea was the Passion Tea Lemonade that Starbucks used to serve in the days prior to the company acquiring Teavana. I remember the drink being just the right amount of tart, and refreshing. So when I saw the Tazo Passion tea in the store, I decided to buy it to try on it's own.
Big mistake.
First of all, it's supposed to have a passionfruit flavor. I don't taste it at all. All I taste is tart hibiscus, and if that wasn't enough, there's added citric acid to make it even more tart. It's so tart that I doubled my usual amount of sugar, and it was still too tart. So I added more sugar...still not drinkable. I might keep it around to try to blend with other teas, but I honestly think that I can find much better teas to blend with more subtle teas.
Just...gross.
Rating:
1/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Passion
Price: $2.98/box of 20 bags
Price: $2.98/20 bags
On my most recent trip to Teavana, this particular tea caught my eye. I love dragonfruit, though it is a subtly flavored fruit, and I wondered how it would work in a tea. The aroma of the dried leaves from the can was sweet and tropical. I smelled notes of mango and lemongrass along with the dragonfruit.
I decided to brew this up strong for a pitcher of it iced. At first, I didn't like it. The tartness of the hibiscus was all I could taste, but after a few more sips, it grew on me and I could taste more of the dragonfruit flavor. I don't love it, but I no longer hate it like I did at first.
Rating:
2/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Dragonfruit Devotion
Price: $7.98/2 oz
I have been drinking this tea periodically for years. I’m not the hugest fan of black teas, but the aroma of this tea is inviting. I love blackberry, and the tartness of the blackberry and the grassiness of the sage bring out the tannins in the tea without it becoming too bitter (unless you oversteep, of course). This is one of the few teas that I just do not enjoy iced. I always drink it hot. It becomes a bit more bitter when iced.
I steeped 1.5 teaspoons of it in 200 degree water for 3 minutes. I added a teaspoon of sugar to sweeten it up a bit.
I do have this tea in loose-leaf, which is a little harder to find than the tea sachets. The good thing about Republic of Tea is that their teas taste pretty consistent between loose-leaf and sachets, so it's all a matter of preference or convenience.
Rating: 3/5 stars
Price: $10.00/3.5 oz loose-leaf
Buy this tea here:
Blackberry Sage
I am one of those people that loves the flavor of elderberries. I was excited to sample this tea, which consists mostly of elderberries and grapes (raisins) and manages to have a fresh, fall berry taste. I usually prefer to drink berry flavored herbal teas cold, but I sampled this one hot and it was lovely.
If you're looking for a berry herbal tea but are tired of the usual strawberry or cranberry heavy teas, this is definitely one to try. In my opinion,it's also more of a fall berry flavor, rather than the usual spring and summer berries.
Rating:
4/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Berry Mania
Price: $8.00/1.76 oz
This is another one of those grocery store herbal teas that I actually really like. It has a strong peachy flavor, but unfortunately some of that flavor is artificial. Also, like a lot of cheaper fruit teas tend to do, they use hibiscus to add a tangy flavor. Aside from all of that, it's peachy and refreshing. This tea is great blended with a non-flavored green tea for the flavor punch while getting the health benefits from green tea.
Rating:
3/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Perfect Peach
Price: $17.75/6 box case, 20 teabags per box
This tea had potential,but it didn't quite live up to it.
As the name implies, this tea is full of wonderful, fruity aromas, however, the peach, papaya and apples that lend their sweet, tropical notes to the brewing fragrance, but the flavor falls a little short. That said, I have found that the notes come out a bit brighter if it is cold steeped for several hours.
This is not a bad tea at all, just a little disappointing. One great quality of it is that it blends well with other fruity teas.
Rating:
3/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Fruta Bomba
Price: $6.98/2 oz
It actually got chilly the other night (only briefly, it's back in the 90s again today), so I thought that would be the perfect time to try the Winter Sangria herbal tea from Steeped. All I can say is WOW! I love this stuff. It's like the best of all winter drinks combined...hot apple cider, wassail, holiday punch...all of it.
The predominant flavors are apple and cinnamon, but there are also hints of tropical and citrus fruits, and a nuttiness from the almonds. This tea is great hot or cold, and makes a great mulled wine type drink by steeping it in wine. I will be sharing this drink with all of my friends this holiday season. Fantastic!
Rating:
5/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Winter Sangria
Price: $9.50/1.76 oz.
If you have never had a yerba mate drink, it seems a little closer to coffee in flavor than most other teas. In fact, it's a good introduction to tea for coffee drinkers, even though it is not a true tea.
This Yerba Mate Latte from Republic of Tea is what I like to drink when I'm craving a coffee drink, but I don't want the heartburn that coffee gives me. There is a creaminess to this tea, and a subtle chocolate and almond aroma. With milk or milk substitute, it tastes just like a coffeehouse latte.
This was one of my first introductions to tea, and it's one that I always go to. Try this if you are a latte fiend looking for something a little different.
Rating:
4/5 stars
Buy this tea here:
Yerba Mate Latte
Price: $10.75/3.5 oz tin
I had high hopes for this tea. It smells divine, both dry and while steeping. But it really is all smell.
The aroma is what you'd guess, a creamy strawberry fragrance, reminiscent of strawberry ice cream or strawberries and whipped cream. But both the strawberry flavor and creamy flavor ar absent in the brewed tea. Instead, there is a strong tart flavor of hibiscus, and not much else. It becomes a little more palatable with some sugar and vanilla almond milk, but it still doesn't taste nearly as good as I had hoped. The tart hibiscus makes it taste like a green, unripe strawberry, instead of a sweet and ripe one. Since the tea leaves still smell good, maybe I'll use this one as a potpourri.
Rating:
2/5 stars
This tea is no longer available from Teavana.
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
