Meghann M

Another sample from LauraR. Thanks for sending all of these wonderful samples my way.

This tea tastes exactly like it’s name. Caramel Popcorn. It’s so buttery and sweet, like a kettle corn. Unfortunately my taste buds don’t like drinking liquid sweet butter. But it smells very nice and tastes very accurate. No rating at this time.

Tastes like a good green tea. A really good green tea. I don’t really know how to describe the taste…light and refreshing. Thankfully not as hay and spinach tasting as green teas I despise. Not quite as sweet as sencha, but very tasty.

This is byfar the truest honeydew flavored tea, honeydew flavored anything, I have tried. A gold star to Teas Etc for hitting this right on the mark. The white tea is the perfect pairing for the light honeydew flavor. I enjoy the lightness this tea has.

I’ve really been falling in love with strawberry teas lately. And most recently flavored sencha’s have been in my top teas as well. This tea makes the list. Such a sweet succulent berry flavor. I will definitely be checking out more teas from Culinary teas…as soon as I make room in my cupboard. A friend at work purchased 8-10 different teas for me for my birthday, plus the recent Teavana and Harney’s orders, plus hubby took me to Teavana for more teas….I’ve got some time before I can decupboard anything. Glad I got a chance to try this tea, thanks again to LauraR and her wonderful sample package!

I love love love the cranberry flavor in this tea! It is wonderfully bright, zesty and just tart enough to be the perfect cranberry flavor. It mingles with hints of orange and a great black tea base.

In the leaves their are whole dried cranberries! I was impressed to see the dried fruit in there…I wanted to eat them. I’m not sure if they add to the taste but they made the brewing experience enjoyable. This may be my go to morning cuppa for the rest of the month…or at least the week. Very good cuppa.

backlogging from last night.

My Harney order arrived yesterday:) I didn’t get home until after 9 pm and really wanted to try one of my new teas, so this was the winner. I wanted to hit the hay after enjoying my cup of tea.

The aroma from this tea smelled like sweet cookies baking, lots of caramel goodness with wafts of rich vanilla. The liquor steeped up as dark as a caffeinated black tea, a nice amber. The taste was impressive. Sweet, but not overly fake and artificial, just a nice vanilla bean and caramel with a smooth and malty black tea taste. Very impressed by my first black tea from Harney. I am glad this tea lives up to what everyone has said about it! I found a new night time favorite.

I’ve been liking mint teas less and less lately, but this one seems to be sweet and light and very chocolatey. I received a sample from LauraR with the big sample box she sent my way. It’s very tasty and I could see purchasing this to get through dessert cravings this winter. I bet it would be good with a few chocolate marshmallows mixed in. Very chocolatey and not in a fake chocolate way. Milk chocolate and mint goodness, covers up the rooibos nicely!

Wow is this tea spicy in a cinnamon goodness way. The green tea is hardly noticeable in this blend, but that is okay because there is so much sweet spicyness going on. I made this without additives to try it out. Pretty powerful for a green tea chai blend. Impressive. Thanks LauraR for the opportunity to sample this tea!

Made a second steep from last nights leaves. Much more citrus came through in this steep and I actually tasted some of the lovely white tea. The spices were still present and I loved it.

After reading Jacqueline’s note about how delicious this was with milk and sugar, I decided I just had to have it that way today. The cream really smoothes out the taste and brings out the sweetness of the coconut and the spices are more refined in taste. Think I may need another cup, as this was gone before the note was finished!

Finally got around to brewing a sample of this tea. Wow…the cinnamon in this is quite strong…phew! The plum is sweet and a bit tart. Not sure I enjoy this one but will finish the cup. It tastes too much like a liquid potpourri and the fall scented candles I’m burning around aren’t helping the cause.

For our one year anniversary my husband and I spent the weekend in the town we met for the first time. We went to dinner and a movie and spent the weekend at a hotel. While killing time before our dinner reservations we wandered the large mall. Low and behold, it had a Teavana in it. We stopped in to try the samples, and I wanted to smell some of the new teas I hadn’t ordered (yumberry oolong was one). My husband really liked this in samples, and has each time he’s tried it. Since he’s not much of a tea drinker, and I was so happy to find something he liked unsweetened, we got 4 oz of this blend to take home.

I brewed up a 24 oz pot with 4.5 tsp of leaves, 170F water and 3 minutes steep time. These leaves made me happy as they are similar to the colors and smell present in Frank’s Apple-Vanilla white chai. I know the taste won’t be the same, as there is citrus in this mix and no apple, but it may be my replacement for when Frank’s stock/my cupboard is cleared of the white chai. Very pretty blend this mate/white tea mix is from Teavana. It smells delicious too.

The taste is pleasant, but after tasting the sample in the store I know I’m missing something. It’s not as sweet, so I added half a teaspoon of rock sugar to my cup. A little better with the sugar, but I wonder if I need to brew at a hotter temperature or longer steep to get it to taste more thick and spicy like the sample at Teavana. I’ve heard that they use white honey to sweeten their tea samples, anyone know where one can purchase that? I’ll have to do some research and see if that might help. I do like this, but I know it can taste better.

Decent cup of Minty goodness. A simple mint tea.

Enjoying the fact that the hotel room I’m staying in has something other than Lipton. If it was for more than a day, I would have brought some tea tools, but I new I’d be near a teavana and caribou and would survive a day with out my own teas.

This is a lighter Assam. It holds up to a splash of cream and packet of sugar to be just what I need to clear my hea this morning. They also have a peppermint which I will have next to help with the sniffles I have.

Tried this latte style after robotics dinner out. Some simple syrup was added and soymilk and this is my new favorite latte. Noticed that caribou now carries a Hot Cinnamon Spice black tea in sachets in a tin and also they have Pomegranate Oolong. I am curious to find out if Harney and Sons may supply teas to them through wholesale. They have such similar teas.

I really enjoyed the sweet candy cinnamon the tea latte had. Will definitely be trying some of the other blends.

Finished up the last of the bags Jaime sent me to try. I hope they still have this at World Market, as I know it isn’t available anywhere else, and I want more. This is a favorite evening cup. I think I may like it better than the Pineapple Lychee…but that could just be because I decupboarded the Pineapple Lychee over a month ago and haven’t replaced it. This is so naturally sweet and fruity that it is amazing hot, and just as amazing iced. Can’t wait to get more!

Having a pot of this so late in the night is not a standard practice for me, but when I saw I still had a few teaspoons left from what Jaime had sent me, I knew it was what I wanted this evening.

I can’t say much that hasn’t already been said, but I certainly enjoy this dessert-y treat of strawberries and cream (more creamy because I added milk and sugar to it). YUM.

Finishing off the last of the sample oOTeaOo sent my way with a bit of added rock sugar in the teapot. This is even more vanilla-y with some added sweetener. I will have to pick up some of this blend once I’ve cleared some space in the cupboard. Another stop at Adagio’s retail store is inevitable…when does the Skokie location open?

I think I’ve found my little cup of heaven. I brewed this up (a bit longer than I meant to, around 5 minutes instead of 3:30). Then I added 1 T of Coffeemate’s Pumpkin Spice creamer. OMG…..this is better than sex chai. I love pumpkin spice latte’s, pumpkin spice coffee, pumpkin spice tea, and now, pumpkin spice mayan chocolate chai. This creamer plus the heat of the cayenne and the chocolate is AMAZING! I have only enough Mayan Chocolate Chai to last another pot, I will have to place an order for another pouch now that I have tried this. Wow…yummy.

Will have to try with the last tsp of Matador’s kiss from Jaime to see if it gets the same results:) So spicy, but so good!

Art of Tea Sampler 13/24

Yummmy in my tummy…this tea is very good! I never thought I’d enjoy a rooibos that wasn’t heavily flavored/blended/covered in sugar, but this is right up my alley. The blueberry is light and sweet and the cheesecake flavor is really in there. It is so good. I’m happy to have this tea to try courtesy of Jaime. Can’t wait to try the rest of the dessert teas. This is going on the shopping list for sure! I would love more of this blend around for my evening consumption!

This is one delicious mojito-tea MojiTea? It doesn’t have the rum flavor, but I bet it would be great with a splash of rum, especially if one wants to imbibe on a chilly fall evening and still enjoy a summery drink.

The blackberry flavor is well done, the spearmint is noticeable (although I may try it with a little more for added flavor) and I think I’m getting a bit of plum and apple to show through as well. This is a nice softly fruit (in Teavana terms) green tea.

Yipeee! Wahooooo! I love getting tea packages in the mail! My wonderful UPS delivery man dropped off my new Teavana teas while I was at work this morning. What a delight to come home and have new teas to play with. Being it a very early morning, I’m 12 hours into the day already, I debated between the Assam Breeze and the JavaVana Mate. The fruityness in this tea won out.

Upon opening the plastic pouch of tea, I was surrounded in a tropical explosion of pineapple and coconut and something with a sour note to it, maybe the lemongrass?

I steeped up a pot of this with boiling water for 3 minutes. The scent of the pineapple and lemongrass grew stronger. The sour note turned to sweet.

In taste, this is quite a light tea, the fruit flavor melds into one sweet pineapple lemon tart flavor with a subtle black tea base. The coconut and ginger are very mild, but there is a slight warming feeling upon drinking this tea that I am holding the ginger accountable for.

Next time I will steep this for longer than 3 minutes and use more leaf. It needs more oomph.

Very Monty. This will probably be the last pot of the night as I have a very early morning tomorrow.

Having another pot of this lightly sweetened with dinner. Thinking I may finish this tin tonight. More room in the cupboard plus empty tins for new teas makes Meghann a happy girl.