MsWhatsit

I have a kind of fascination with the idea of matching rooibos up with different flavors. It’s as if I’m watching a favorite bachelor dating various women and laying bets as to which one he’ll marry. This combination looked interesting so I decided to give it a try.

It smelled good during it’s five minute steep, though my big sis’s observation that rooibos tends to crumble into tiny fragments and find it’s way out of the tea strainer and into the cup was sadly evident. I really ought to pour this stuff through a coffee filter but I’m too lazy. Oh well, ce la vie…

This blend is rather nice, actually. The lavender goes well with the rooibos and the additional coconut flavor rounds it out and gives it a little something. There’s a hint of caramelized flavor as well, as if the coconut were toasted. I’m pretty sure this one would be lovely with cream or coconut milk and sugar, but it stands alone quite nicely. I’ll look forward to more of this in the future.

But next time I brew this, I’ll be using a darn coffee filter.

No notes yet.

No notes yet.

I was very curious about this tea as it is the favorite of my sister’s main squeeze. He seems like an intelligent fellow, so I imagined it would be pretty good. I was not disappointed when I smelled the raw product. My nose informed me immediately that this was the good stuff.

It smelled less wonderful after a three minute steep, less perfume-y and more…I don’t know…tea-ey? A vague hint of lemon or bergamot. That should have made it MORE perfume-y but somehow didn’t . Somewhere between the package and the hot water it seemed to have lost it’s feminine qualities and taken on a more masculine note. There was something in the way of an underlying scent, a kind of smokiness, that gave it a more manly quality. This made its appeal to the other gender understandable.

I found myself not really disliking the tea. I was just a little disappointed though, as the topnote left me expecting something more floral and perfume-y. The same thing happened when I tried Lapsang Saochang. These smoky teas, they sneak up on you.

Of course, that’s what I get when I’m trying unknown samples. When you have no labels from which to read ingredients and descriptions and are too lazy to go online and look them up for yourself, you’re bound to run into a few surprises.

This is from a sample box from my big sis, Terri Harplady. Our tastes are not always the same, but appear to coincide concerning this one. Like her, I’ll drink this when I’m in the mood and probably share it with my man. I suspect he will like it better. It’s ok, just not my favorite cup of tea.

Drinking this today, cold brewed from the fridge with nothing added. It is just awesome this way. I liked it well enough warm, but cold…well, it looks like I’ve found a new favorite. No temptation to add anything. It is pleasant, refreshing, just wonderful.

Unless you hate cardamom. Not a problem for me. I love cardamom, oranges, spices, everything in it. MMMMMM.

My big sis, Terri Harp Lady sent this to me. I was quite curious about it as she is a huge fan.

Dry it was made up of little black curly pieces with occasional light brown strands. It smelled good, kind of generic perfumey, perhaps due to being stored with so many other teas. When water was applied it unfurled into long dark strands and smelled…toasty. I like my toast a little well done and so found this rather appealing.

Harplady often refers to this brew as “chocolaty,” a description I find unsettling and intriguing at the same time. I’m sensitive to the stimulant in chocolate. Since it’s become the trendy health food, it keeps turning up everywhere including teas, so when I see a reference to chocolate or cocoa in a tea review, I’m immediately on guard, wary that I might have to avoid the stuff.

On the other hand, I miss the taste of chocolate and anything that might safely approximate it’s flavor is certainly interesting. Once assured there was no actual chocolate in this tea, I was quite curious to try it.

I didn’t detect a bit of “chocolate” in this. Nor coffee for that matter, but rather the very element coffee and chocolate have in common, a roasted flavor. It reminds me of Celestial Seasonings Roasterama, the barley and roasted herb coffee substitute we both grew up with, which my sis has admitted a fondness for.

There’s something so homey about roasted flavors. Who doesn’t love a roasted turkey for Thanksgiving, roasted veggies on a winters night, roasted marshmallows at a campout. One of my fondest holiday memories is singing with my big sis about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. So I can understand why she is so fond of this particular brew.

I rather like it too. No chocolaty flavor I can detect, but it is a lovely and comforting cup on a cold day. (MMMMM Toasty!!!)

“What shall I sample today?” I went through the collection of labeled baggies in my tea cupboard and brought out one that was filled with little round pieces the size and shape of blueberries. It emanated the scent of jasmine. “Hmmm, this looks promising,” I said.

I put a teaspoon of the little chunks in my tea strainer, heated the water, submerged it, and set the timer. Too late, it occurred to me that I ought to have simply measured them directly into the glass measuring cup, where I could have watched them unfold and strained them afterwards. “Ah well, there’s enough left to try that next time,” I said.

I like jasmine tea. I was introduced to it while dating the man I am now married to. In the winter, whenever he took me out for Chinese food, he would order hot tea to go with his meals and I sometimes followed suit. They served a lovely jasmine tea and I became very fond of it.

These days, I don’t get out much, having moved to an area where good Chinese food is something of a rarity, so if I want jasmine tea, usually I have to buy it myself. Happily, this one came to me, courtesy of Terri Harplady, my big sis.

I chose this sample because it was an icky wintery day. I was missing the sun and feeling the need for a bit of self indulgence. Once upon a time, I would have asked my husband to bring me flowers, but we have a cat who eats them, so it’s not really a viable option. Maybe that’s why I like cooking with rosewater, dried marigolds, lavender, and saffron. I guess if you really like flowers, you get them in whatever form you can.

The tea sample smelled awesome. “Oh yeah,” I said as I sampled the first cup. “That’s the stuff. I am totally resteeping after this is done.” And yes, I did heat up a second cup of water and gave the leaves another bath. They yielded a second cup that was a tiny bit astringent but still very good.

Good stuff, this. It cold brews well too. Thanks, Harplady, for an awesome sample.

Maharaja Chai Oolong —Teavana

This was my son’s pick when he went to the Teavana store in Little Rock, Arkansas. He brought a large tin along when he came to visit me over the holidays and allowed me to bag a generous sample for my own collection. Dry, it is fragrant with lots of nice chunky bits and pieces, cardamom pods, cloves, and stuff.

After brewing some of this up hot, I must admit my son’s tastes are similar to my own. I love a chai that has lots of variety and isn’t overly heavy on the cinnamon. This one has a lot of parallels with my all time favorite, Numi’s Golden Chai. I’m enjoying the nice balance of flavors, good enough that it doesn’t need any “help” from cream or sugar, though I’m sure they would be fine additions.

As my kids go out in the world to make lives of their own, I find myself occasionally reflecting sadly upon the vacancies of my nest. It’s nice to be reminded that they are discovering a whole new world out there and can introduce me to some of their new experiences. Having my son come home to visit is awesome. Getting a sample of a new tea just makes it that much better. I liked this one. Thanks dude, ya done good.

No notes yet.

I cold brewed my first batch. I could taste the strawberry and the vanilla. There is something similar in the rooibos and strawberry flavors, a kinship of sorts. They stack well.
The combination makes me think of bubblegum, which I don’t much care for. This ought to be a reason for me to dislike this blend, but I don’t. Strangely enough, I really like it. It’s good to see a combination in which the rooibos actually works.

My sister in law gifted me with two portions of this tea, so I tried the second one hot. Bad idea. It just wasn’t as good. I tried adding sweetener, which usually helps. Much to my surprise, it did not improve things. Hot, this just isn’t my cup of tea. (Wow, I never thought I’d be using that expression quite so literally!) This is one of those teas that’s at it’s best when cold brewed and served straight out of the refrigerator.

I may have to get some more of this for summer though. It’s an interesting variation on Rooibos, and I’m always on the lookout for something different in my Rooibos collection.

Savoy Pomegranate Grape Green

One thing I’ll say for this tea, it does smell grape-y. Like green grapes, very distinctively. Yeah, I know, the first ingredient in the name is Pomegranate, but that’s not really the flavor I get from it. To me, it
tastes a little like green tea and a lot like grapes.

A better tea snob than I might be able to distinguish the various dried fruits and elements. I’m nowhere near that discerning, but can say it’s a pleasant tea to start my day, mild and amiable. With pomegranates, red currents and raspberries on the ingredient list, I would expect this to be a bit tart. Instead, they blend together to give the whole thing an underlying sweetness.

It’s an unusual tea, not one I would choose to have every day. It isn’t that I OBJECT to it’s grape-y goodness. The flavor is amiable enough, but grapes don’t readily come to mind when I’m thinking of tea. There are times when this flavor is just not something I’m craving at teatime.

I line my tea boxes and packets up in the cupboard and when it’s time to have a cup, they each get their turn. (It’s my method of making sure nothing gets forgotten and pines away for the next twenty years.) Admittedly, there are days when this particular blend gets banished to the back of the cue because I’m just not in the mood for it. Some teas are very assertive in their flavors, like a friend with a big personality that can be great fun on some occasions and terribly annoying on others. There have been days when I’ve greeted this tea with great enthusiasm and others when my response was “not that one again!”

But by golly, if I’m in the mood for something grape-y, this is definitely my go to. It’s good hot or cold and stands alone just fine without any sweeter, an unusual quality in a fruity tea like this one.

I chatted with one of the owners at the Savoy Tea Co store about cold brewing and this came highly recommended. “It gets better the longer it brews,” he said. Since I like my teas cold brewed and am apt to leave the jar steeping in the fridge till I get around to drinking it, (which can sometimes be as long as a few days) this sounded like my kind of tea. I put a generous measure in a quart jar of water and tried it after a few hours. It smelled great, very tropical and fruity. Since I’m allergic to pineapple, it’s nice to have a tropical blend without this ingredient for a change.

This tea is very mango-ey. Enough to stand alone as a good, solid, fruity tea. I’m sure it would be great with coconut milk and sweetener (I doubt a splash of rum would hurt it any either), but it’s a tea that doesn’t need “help” to be good, which is the sort I’m most inclined to drink. All by itself this is pleasantly fruity and just the thing if you like mangoes (If you hate mangoes, maybe not so much.) Since the weather here is a bit wintry, I’ve taken a few cups of this cold brew out of the fridge and heated it in the microwave, and can say it’s quite good warm too.

There’s supposed to be rooibos in this one, but I’m not tasting it. I’m not sure I mind, though. The fact that a blend contains rooibos and I can taste ANYTHING ELSE seems a tentative step in the right direction… :)

Good stuff, especially for those of us in the middle of the country experiencing winter and beginning to tire of cold weather. It’s making me dream of tropical vacations.

I think Jamaica in the moonlight. . .

I decided to try this on Christmas day. It tastes. . .well. . . it tastes like. . . Rooibos. . .sigh. And maybe it should but I’m growing bored with rooibos blends. Regardless of how they are made, they all seem to be tasting more or less the same to me lately. I think the roibos tends to overpower every ingredient added.

This has vanilla, almond, and walnut added, but all I seem to notice is rooibos. So I tried it with coconut milk and sweetener and it’s a lovely dessert tea . . . Just like all the other rooibos combinations.

I want to say this tastes like cookies but it doesn’t. It tastes like rooibos and vanilla. I’m not catching any of the almond or walnut at all. It’s nice as a dessert tea and amiable enough if you like rooibos and don’t mind pouring it through a coffee filter to get all the tiny bits out of it. As far as cookies, though, I think they missed the mark.

I used to do a lot of whole grain baking. The flour I used featured a recipe on the label for orange cardamom cookies. It’s one of those recipes I always intended to try and never got around to but it sounded good. I always imagined it would taste like . . . Well . . . Like this tea.

This is good. Nice mild orange flavor with no nasty acidity, pleasant cardamom, and a hint of vanilla. My only complaint is I am strongly tempted to add cream and sweetener, cause I know they’d be awesome.

I guess I’m just a sucker for a good dessert tea.

A postscript to my previous review: This tea is good cold brewed as well. I had only a rounded teaspoon left, so I put it in a quart jar of water and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Yum! Sadly though, now it’s all gone. One of these days I’ll have to visit my sis in Saint Louis and have a shopping spree at the London Tea Room. That was some good stuff, Maynard!

This is another one of the samples Harplady sent me. I love roses so much I named my own daughter Rosie and white roses are on my coat of arms in the medieval re-enactment groups in which I play, so of course, rose blends are of special interest to me.

The tea had green leaves and pretty pink petals, not quite so pretty tan ones, and little purple bits that looked like lavender. The scent of the dry tea was lovely, and it was no less so once I had added hot water. The smell was so good and I found it hard to be patient while it was cooling.

One aspect of the scent really tugged at my memory until I pulled it’s identity from my memory—Orange blossom. I used to cook with orange flower water. It seemed odd to find that flavor in a rose tea, but the two do harmonize well together. Of course, I would have named it Orange Blossom Melange, but that’s just me…

When I finally could taste it without scalding my tongue, this tea was pretty much what the scent indicated. I rather like it, and yes, it is a melange. I can pick out the rose, the lavender, and the orange blossom which makes the topnote. They do blend well though and there’s probably more. It’s a good harmonious mix. I’ll bet it’s good with sugar, but it is fine straight, which puts this among the sorts of teas I particularly like. I also was able to brew a good strong cup from one teaspoon, which speaks well for the quality.

I was a little sad when it was gone. This tea is nice and I’ll be happy when it’s time to have it again.

Ah, more goodies from my big sis.

If a good tea is a marriage of fine ingredients, rooibos is like a favorite bachelor friend. I hope he finds a worthy mate someday, but regardless of who he hooks up with, no matter how good an idea it seems, it’s never quite a match. This one looked promising, though. I like apricots, I like rooibos, and it sounds like a good idea to put them together. How nice too, that somebody came up with a blend with something other than vanilla. Don’t get me wrong, I like that combo in moderation, but have been steadily collecting vanilla-rooibos blends and getting a little frustrated with their similarities. It was nice to encounter something different for a change.
Following my sisters advice, I used a whole tablespoon of tea in my strainer, added hot water and set the timer for a full five minutes. Then I got busy with the housework and forgot completely for another 5 minutes or so. Rooibos is generally pretty forgiving of long steeps, so no big deal, and I figured it would give the flavors a chance to develop.

It was … ok. I wanted to like it. I even added a little sweetener to “bring out” the apricot flavor. Sadly, it just didn’t float my boat. I could taste the apricot and the rooibos, but they were just not getting on. It wasn’t BAD, but there was no chemistry, no spark. I was very disappointed.

“It’s better iced,” said my big sis. I resolved to try again, but wasn’t expecting much the second time around. Fortunately, a day came in which I looked at the snow falling outside and out of pure contrariness decided to make some into iced tea. Surprise, Surprise! Cold brewed, the apricot was refreshing in more than one sense and managed to harmonize with and not be overpowered by the rooibos. I didn’t need to add anything this time. Good stuff.

In conclusion, Apricot Escape is aptly named. It certainly is an escape from my other rooibos combos, which were all starting to taste the same to me. And it’s really good cold. Just not hot. I think I’ll label the rest of this sample “Iced only.”

I am familiar with how stingy this company is with the content of their tea bags, so I put three of them in my mason jar to cold brew and gave them several hours to steep. The result was both unusual and pleasant. Can’t say I taste the ginger, but there’s a pleasantly fragrant bite reminiscent of orange peel that goes well with the sweetness of the anise. The mint is a bit wild and weedy but works well with the other flavors.

This came to me free in a sample box from my big sis, HarpLady. I probably won’t take out a second mortgage to buy another tin of this variety but it’s an unusual blend and a surprising change of pace.

Eat an almond, then go try something flavored with almond extract. They’re both nice, but they aren’t the same. The scent of this tea is kind of a parallel to this phenomenon. I like pistachio nuts and I like this extract but it’s a different animal, more like someone’s fantasy of what pistachio ought to taste like than the real deal.

This tea has a lovely scent, but no real flavor. It would make a lovely bubble bath or extract for cookies (where all that sugar would no doubt “bring out” the flavor), but I take my tea without cream or sugar most of the time and expect it to stand on it’s own. It does not. As a stand alone tea, it lacks something and doesn’t really meet my standards. I love the fragrance that comes out of the bag when I open it, but this tea always disappoints me.

Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all.

Now if you like a dessert tea with cream and sugar, you’re in luck. These “bring out” the flavor. Indeed, I’ll likely be finishing this batch that way, and will no doubt enjoy every drop. However, I probably won’t be buying it again because I cannot afford the calories necessary to make this tea worth my time.

Your mileage may vary. J

Like Bengal Spice, the box for Madagascar Vanilla Red has a big cat on the front. This one is a more fanciful picture of a lion taking a break from pursuing zebras to enjoy a cup of tea.

Madagascar Vanilla Red contains Rooibos, which is what prompted me to buy it. Though I didn’t want to admit it, I was curious about the stuff. Being out here in the sticks, I tend to make fun of the latest thing from the coasts. It‘s kind of a pre-emptive move since those who live there get to try anything trendy (which is usually available there first). Then, when they prattle on about it and people from the middle of the country don’t know what they’re talking about, they sneer at the ignorant hillbillies and our backward ways. Pardon us if we get a little defensive.

So I’d been rolling my eyes for a month while my Facebook friends in CA posted about all the rooibos blends they were sampling. “Well hoity toity,” I muttered. “How do you pronounce it anyway?”

It’s Roy boss, but by the time I had the box with it’s pronunciation guide, I was already mangling it my own way. This is a common form of entertainment in my family. I called it Rue ee booze. Then I was told that my nephew in St Louis was pronouncing it like the half giant’s name in Harry Potter, Rubeus. I have since adopted this practice. Yeah, I know how it’s SUPPOSED to be pronounced, but being an Arkansan and doomed to be perceived as a backward hillbilly no matter how edjumacated I become, I might as well have a little fun mispronouncing it.

Rooibos is to me a sort of African answer to sassafras. I’m not saying it tastes like sassafras, but it has a kind of unique sweetness that parallels it in my mind. It is fun to try different blends to see what goes with it, now that it’s available here.

I was kind of ho hum about this tea at first because it has no caffeine and seemed a bit boring, but it has grown on me. I like the vanilla and enjoy this hot or cold, plain or as a dessert tea with sweetener and coconut milk. Madagascar Vanilla Red has become like a dear friend. I‘ve developed fond regards for this tea, very much like those I have for the character I like to pretend this tea’s ingredient is named for. It may not be the most exciting thing in my cupboard, but it has a welcome place there. Sometimes the warm and familiar are just what I need.

This was another gift from HarpLady, my big sis. I love the name. It conjures up images of a well guarded by dragons or some such. Just the thing for the imagination of an aspiring fantasy writer like me. My thoughts overflowed with images of water guarding, fire breathing reptiles as I measured a teaspoon of this variety into the tea strainer. When dry, it smelled grassy.

In the water, it gave off a green scent—Like. . .oh, I don’t know, maybe GREEN tea ? Yeah, that would be it. Seriously, though, it did smell very green and tea-y and also very plain. Not sure how happy I was about that. I’m partial to flavored teas. Still, it seemed only fair to give it a try.
It tasted…green. Very green-The essence of green tea, I suppose. A little astringent but just a touch, and not at all bitter to me. To my surprise, I rather liked it. I guess even an uncultured barbarian such as myself can learn to appreciate the subtler teas.
Actually, it did get a little bitter and a bit more astringent as it cooled, but not unpleasantly so. I’ve been told in retrospect that you have to watch the temperatures in some of these green teas as they can do that. My general approach is pretty basic— Boil the water, stick the tea in it, and set the timer for three minutes, so I may have to experiment with a subtler approach. But even with my course methods, this tea was not bad. I found it a nice change of pace.

P.S. My husband- the man who dumps tons of sugar in his tea, found this too bitter. It’s interesting how people’s tastes can differ.

My big sis called and asked me what was up. As always, she’d been harping, I’d been writing and we both were drinking tea. Actually, I was poking through my cupboard deciding what to have next. She asked if I’d tried the samples she’d sent and recommended The Naughty Vicar. “You’ll like it,” she assured me.

Boy, does she know me. The minute the water hit this tea, I knew she was right. That fruity,
vanilla-y scent was just the thing after my morning of Chi obsession. I’d been sampling all sorts of chais with coconut milk and sweetener and this was just what I needed to cleanse my palate.

The Naughty Vicar reminded me a bit of Paris Morning (insert love sonnets here) but with a different sort of fruity twist. It was a little astringent but not excessively so, a touch tart but still quite good. Since I was feeling naughty, I added coconut milk and a bit of sweetening, which brought out the fruitiness a bit more. I like my fruit flavors a little more assertive, but over all it was a delightful change of pace. It was good, very good, and the name conjured up all manner of amusing ideas.

Thank you Harplady for this wonderful sample. I’m looking forward to indulging in more naughtiness soon.

Coconut Oolong- The London Tea Room

I couldn’t find a proper teaspoon so I probably used more of this than the standard measure. The dark little snaky pieces unfurled into lovely green leaves. Following the three minute brewing period, I strained them out and found myself studying the leaves with great interest. They actually looked very fresh and an experimental nibble confirmed this. They were like cooked green veggies I could much down with a bit of butter, salt, and pepper. I don’t often do this, but hey, those steepings looked and smelled so good, I actually did exactly that. They were a tad bitter but mostly delicious. Hopefully nutritious too.

After finishing my little mess of boiled tea greens, I turned to the tea itself. The scent from the cup was pleasant, perfum-y and coconutty. I didn’t have much experience with oolong but found it quite nice. Fragrant seems such a mundane word for it—I do a lot of flower cookery and rather enjoy a flowery scent in my mouth and it was a little like that. The coconut scent tops it beautifully, harmonizing with the rest as if it belongs there, as maybe in this case it does.

I liked it. A lovely tea I look forward to having again.

PS Since I liked this A LOT, when my husband came into the room, I urged him to sample it. “Kind of bland…” he commented and proceeded to brew up some mainstream variety and dump a ton of sugar into it. I guess there’s no accounting for taste.

It’s my Birthday and, as promised, I had Paris Morning dessert style (with sweetener and coconut milk) for the first time. It was as awesome as I imagined it would be and a great tea to have on my birthday.

Since I was in doing so depleting my tea supply a little, I just had to stop by Savoy Tea Company to replenish my supply and see what was new. While there, I couldn’t resist having one of their bacon cupcakes. OMG Om nom nom…