Cofftea

Remember when I said that I thought this tisane would be GREAT for flavoring matcha? I was right. 1tsp of matcha whisked into 8oz of the tisane. The lemon is evident, but doesn’t over power the matcha. There’s no typical lemony “bite” so a bit of ginger would do this good. Without it, it’s more of a lemon hard candy flavor. I don’t drink tisanes by themselves… BUT I do love flavoring my matcha with tisanes (so I don’t add more caffeine). So I’m gonna take this one and buy another pouch for my friend… UGH… FRANK! =D

Bought this for my pregnant friend, but I want to experiment a bit first. Was totally expecting not having much to say other than “Yep. Lemony. Tart.” since this is a tisane of just lemony things, but I was pleasantly surprised. There’s a honey sweetness in both the aroma and the flavor and the mouth feel is even thick. Wouldn’t drink this plain, but would definitely be good mixed w/ a true tea, used for lemon aid, or to make a lemony matcha.

Mom picked up some fresh naan bread from Walmart last night… really wanted to use it for an Indian taco, but we had no hamburger made. Plan B was an Indian pizza. Spinach Artichoke Hummus as the “sauce”, pepper jack cheese, and banana peppers. Really could have used a bit of their black tea dust, but oh well. Once I got that figured out I was briefly at a loss as to what to pair it w/. I don’t have any unflavored black teas (because I don’t like them… I don’t like chai w/ milk served w/ a meal… and I didn’t want something thick like Tipu’s Instant Chai. So that left neat chai and I decided to go w/ this. It’s a wonderful and smooth blend that goes perfectly w/ a meal. If you have it on hand, just a pinch of lapsang souchong would be a nice touch. GREAT MEAL!

2/6

My review is a lot like LiberTEAS’ in some ways. Never had Guayusa either. I have had yerba mate though and I agree w/ her that this has a lot of similar qualities. Not sure if I even prepared this currectly because there were no steeping parameters on the package. Eh. It’s ok. Waiting to rate it til I find out what Guayusa is supposed to taste like.

Holy crap. 6 pouches of tea from Frank came yesterday (didn’t get the mail in til this morning). And I still have one more coming! Luckily 1 is for a friend… wait. Who am I kidding? 6 pouches is not much better than 7 lol.

I was so excited when Frank made a 3rd of my ideas come to fruition even though I was thinking using a Chinese sencha for a flavored and Chinese ode to gen mai cha. But I can definitely see this as a black tea so it’s all good.

When I open the package I can definitely tell there are at least 2 different black teas in the base. I just wish I knew what the were. But it smells… almost fruity?

Based on the steeping parameters I would have thought this would have been darker than dark, but it’s almost caramely… it even has that milky quality to it. The taste is oddly caramely too… I’m not going to rate this til I figure out what went wrong. I do know the base needs a bit of lapsang souchong and it needs salt. Several of Frank’s teas need salt. I wish he’d put it in for us.

Ya know the saying “most good things in life are illegal”? Well this should be.
1 cup warm milk
1 packet Christmas VIA
1 tsp chai
1 tsp cocoa powder
1 tsp rum extract
1 TB spiced rum creamer
1 TB marshmallow mocha creamer

YUMMMMM! Rich. Creamy. Sweet. A bit savory. Spicy. There’s so much going on here that even a coffee hater would love this. The VIA just adds depth and character, not a lot of coffee flavor. The large amount of chocolate and rum flavor also cut the spice. Perfect.

It’s funny… as much as I can’t stand matcha lattes, I love matcha peppermint hot chocolate just as much. I decided to give it an extra Christmas twist by using a candy cane instead of dried peppermint. 1 cup of heated milk, 1 candy cane, 1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tsp matcha. I also added 1TB of marshmallow mocha creamer for extra sweetness. Yummm! I did the “dump and stir” method today, but it works better if you heat the milk over the stove, melt the candy cane in, mix in the cocoa powder, then add the matcha. This way it can be over the heat as long as possible before adding the matcha giving you the hottest, most well mixed, beverage possible. If using dried peppermint, steep it in the milk first before adding the cocoa powder and matcha.

Made my mom a tea latte- used 2% milk. She enjoyed it, but wasn’t as thrilled as I was.

Love the variety of flavors in the sampler, love the tins, hate that they’re bags. Decided to make this in latte form- 2 bags, 8oz water, steeped 7min 40 sec., added 8oz milk and reheated.

Before I add the milk, I admit the tea itself looks kinda scary… I steeped it so conentrated for long that there’s a ring of tea schtuff around the water line. I can’t imagine what it would look like if I made it concentrated enough for a gallon of tea…

Once I add the milk, it looks much more normal. Kinda like chocolate milk actually. Not a whole lot of aroma (due to the milk I’m sure), but I am getting a faint wiff of mint.

WHOA This is abso-freakin-lutely amazing! The candy cane is much lighter than I expected, but there is definitely a minty flavor as well as a sweetness. I doubt this would need any sugar even if you normally sweeten your tea lattes. And the black tea base… almost gives it a chocolatey quality… which is good cuz I like my candy cane/mint best when mixed w/ chocolate. Not something that screams “THIS IS TEA!” …but INCREDIBLY good. …and don’t be scared by the steeping time I used, it definitely needs it.

FINALLY reviewing this! There are several reasons it took me so long. For one, I didn’t order any so I had to wait til I got to WA. 2nd, I wanted to make sure we had enough (ended up NOT being a problem… there was 3/2 pounds and we didn’t even use half of it lol) 3rd, after seeing and smelling that much of one tea I needed a break. 4th, I really wasn’t in a location to have good control on my water til I got home. 5th, I’ve been suffering serious jet lag/post vacation depression and just not feeling well in general since getting home on Tues. And last- the Beckners get home from their honeymoon tonight so I thought it would be good to save it and celebrate:)

Ok… on to the tea. Served as packaged: 1tsp/teabag (there were 2/favor) plus one honeystick (again, 2/favor)

The tea itself is, as someone said, very Christmasy in appearance. The aroma; however, is off. Almost… potpouri-ish…? But that could be just from smelling such a large amount of it.

When people think “white chai” most automatically assume the spices will overwelm the tea… but from the appearance of the steeped liquor, I doubt that will be the problem. The aroma is of apple and vanilla and a darker and more dull brown than I expected. The flavor is much like the aroma. The apple hits me first. It’s; however, the most authentic apple flavor I’ve encountered w/o it being candy-ish. The vanilla lends a sweetness that isn’t artificial either. The added honey makes it a bit too sweet for me. Honey is one of those flavors that I only like as an added flavor in tea. (Anyone else have flavors like that, or is it just me?). Unfortunately the best things I can say about the spices is that they prevent the tea from being bland. The base (specifically the shou mei I’m thinking) prevent this from tasting like an apple chai or even an apple cider tea. I’m rating this pretty low, but I think I might be able to boost the rating if I had more to tinker w/. I need to e-mail Irina and see what happened to the rest of the tea. Hopefully she can send me some. I’m just not satisfied at how unsatisfied I am w/ this yet.

Tall NF NC NW +2M +2P GLT w/ Whip + choc sprinkles… or so my cup says. In other words: tall non fat no classic no water 2 pump mocha 2 pump pepermint green tea latte w/ whip and chocolate sprinkles. I’ve actually had 3 of them since Sunday… yay! One of the girls I stayed w/ this week is a barista so she even made me one free. She tried it (due to allergies, the soy version), but said it was too sweet. But then again the soy milk is sweeter and she doesn’t even do mochas.

2nd infusion… due to the short steeping, no need to increase the steeping time.

Ok, I said I’d post a tasting note, so here it goes!

I love jasmine teas… but when it comes to pearls I like them cool, light, and short. Light on leaf, cool water, and short steeping times.

1 tsp/140 degree water (8oz)/10 sec.

The result is an extremely light liquored cuppa that still has lots of floral flavor, a light tea base, and is not only smooth and crisp- but also thirst quenching! I personally do not find hot beverages thirst quenching and probably could count the times I’ve thought that on one hand if this isn’t the 1st. The only bad thing I can say about this tea is that you get so many infusions you’re likely to waste them because you want to move on to another tea.

If you haven’t caved on Rishi’s sale today, you should.

Got a text from my friend Helen yesterday afternoon asking if I wanted to go to an Asian vegan dinner night w/ some of her friends. I like my poultry as well as dairy products so I’ve never had a completely vegetarian, much less vegan, meal but I decided to jump in. My head started to spin… I was still in my pjs and needed to be completely ready in 2 hrs… what to bring? I didn’t have means or even the time to go grocery shopping… Tea! So I went to my tea stash trying to figure out what to bring. Didn’t want tea bags (didn’t have any anyway). I have no paper filters. That means I need to take my ingenuity. But I didn’t want to limit everyone to once choice and I didn’t want to dump leaves after just one use to give people a choice… hmmm… Then It hit me. DUH! This is asian night! Matcha! I brought all the matcha I have Lupicia’s, and 52teas cranberry, strawberry, apple, banana, and mandarin. Yes it went with the theme, but I admit I was nervous about bringing matcha. I bring tea to EVERY party I go to and mostly it gets left un touched. I admit that I take that more personally than I really should and matcha is even more off the wall than your average tea so my worries increased. Luckily, this is a very amazing and unusual conglomeration of people and the matcha went over REALLY well! I’m not sure what everyone had, but I heard cranberry and mandarin a couple times- a couple of the guys even had 2 mugs! The preparation was less than authentic- 1tsp in 8oz of hot water served in coffee mugs… but some of us did stir the matcha w/ chop sticks instead of a western utensil so I think that made up for it. I had the cranberry which is why I’m logging it here. Oh, and the food was wonderful and I didn’t leave hungry- it definitely wasn’t a “here, have a salad” type of night!

It’s been forever since I had this sans milk/creamer, but I’m not feeling well so I decided to add a tsp of rum extract. Whoa, I forgot how spicy this is. The rum extract doesn’t deter from it, but does add an extra layer of flavor. Very good! I just wish I could find a good rum flavored syrup.

Mom takes these to work- she’s the manager of a retail store that was not left in good condition by the previous manager (hence why she has the job) and isn’t given enough pay roll hours to get everything done so she barely has time to drink tea much less make any- even bagged. I added 2tsp of matcha to this in attempt to make it taste better.

Wow. Still INSANELY sweet. The flavor profile is nice and fresh and sweet (in a good, natural fruity kinda way)- but it’s too over the top. I get really frustrated when sweetener (even a natural and calorie free one like stevia- although that’s the lesser of evils) ruins an otherwise wonderful tea. But that’s just me. If you like sweet teas, consider using these to flavor matchas… not sure how they’d work hot though… may need to experiment w/ that…

Tried to make a s’more latTEA by using 1 1/4 TB leaf, 1 cup each Fat Free Smart Balance milk and water, and 2TB marshmellow mocha creamer. I love my s’mores ozzing chocolate, but for a drink this was really good inspite of a pretty weak chocolate flavor. The nuts and spices of the tea really bring out the toastyness of the marshmellow and even a graham cracker type taste. It’s REALLY good.

Sample 2/7

Wow! This hasn’t even been put in the data base til now. I’m really getting anxious for my December vacation for my best friend’s wedding (37 days!) so I reached for this for my daily milk consumption.

The dry leaf smells very strongly of spice and just a hint of fruitiness.

16oz cuppa: 2.5tsp, 8oz water, 8oz Smart Balance Milk

Ok… I’m worried. I steeped in in only half the total liquid it calls for and the liquor is really light. Here goes nothing.

Yummm! What a wonderful suprise! I love how my brain works though. My immediate reaction when I took my 1st sip was “Hmm… it’s like a nutty, spicy, hot egg nog without the eggyness”. Anyway, it’s insanely good. It’s not chai like, but I could see myself switching to this for the month of December. And the orange is light enough that it does NOT taste like a hot creamsicle which is a major plus for me. I’ll wait to rate it til I try it clean.

Since this is decaf I decided to make myself another 16oz cuppa, this time steeping it the normal 5min I do for blacks. A bit darker lquor, brown w/ orange notes. The 1st steeping was so flavorful I was a bit concerned what would happen if the fruity notes became stronger, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the base really develops in ths infusion. A tea that is great when prepared 2 different ways scores extra points with me.

Sample 1/7

My 1st Praise Tea! The Praise Tea people were kind enough to send me 7 very generously sized sample. Not gonna get into the whole religion thing, but suffice it to say the name of the company has my heart. But… will the teas? I saw this one review a while ago and was instantly interested. I love peaches and have never had an orchid flavored tea. The fact that it was a decaf also interested me since they can be hit and miss. The only thing that concerned me was the base as I’m not normally a fruity black person er… a person that likes fruity black teas… but even I’m becoming surprised w/ them.

They suggest 1tsp/6oz water so I made a 16oz cuppa w/ 1TB of leaf. Steeped for 3 min.

Wow! The raw leaf smells amazing. A bit peach jello-ish w/ floral notes.

The liquor isn’t dark, but not lighter by any means than some other blacks I’ve made. The aroma is pretty much identical to the raw leaf. This is promising! Whoa. Yes! Score one for Praise Tea! Peachy w/ hints of floral w/o tasting like perfume and a smooth, slight crisp base. Definitely gonna purchase this in the summer when I make iced tea a gallon at a time (this doesn’t need sweetener). I’m normally not affected by caffeine, but when I was chugging 8 cups of 1st infusion black tea for days on end I felt pretty crappy after a few days. This tea is definitely an answered to a prayer.

Decided to have this… GASP!… sweetened today (1 packet stevia per 16oz serving, 2tsp chai, 1 cup each milk and water). Hmmm… it is not sickeningly sweet like concentrates as I feared it would be. There’s no real flavor change, but the spices are dumbed down considerably… too much in my opinon. But then again I like my chai so strong that you’d get a wake up call from the spices alone. If you like your spices more muted, sweeten it. As for me I think I’ll leave the sweetener to chai mixes containing powdered/milk dairy (which I absolutely love… yes, I know my taste buds are a bit skitzo).

Marshmellow turtle latTEA!
1TB leaf
1 cup water
1 cup smart balance milk
2TB marshmellow mocha creamer

Yummm! Smooth, very sweet, and creamy. Not enough chocolate though- I’d make this w/ chocolate milk:) Definitely helps keep me warm even though the winds have kinda died down. Gusts are only 35mph instead of 60 lol.

My last bag. They say chili is a pain killer so I thought I’d try this to get rid of “the bends” that I’m feeling. It also clears out the sinuses and since the pressure is all in my head now, I need it.

1 bag, 8oz water, 16 min.

Wow. I’m really surprised, and disappointed, at how not strong this is. There’s really no difference between it being steeped 5, 8, 10, or 16 min… Sad. Still a very good tea though.

HOLY FREAKIN WIND BATMAN! This is the 2nd day in a row gusts will get up to 60mph- there was even a tornado touch down 45 min south of us. The pressure is so bad I feel like I have the bends. I feel like someone has piled cement bricks on top of my entire body and even crammed some inside of me. I’m not sure if caffeine is good or bad for this feeling, but we’ll see.

I added a bag of their apple chai to this in hopes to get rid of the artificiality of the french vanilla. 2 bags total, 16oz water, steeped for 8 min.

Unfortunately the artificiality is the 1st thing I taste when I take a sip, but it isn’t nearly as strong as when I have this plain. The apple is not strong either, but gives it a light sweetness w/o adding more artificiality. A strong, but yet smooth and comforting, cuppa.