TeaNerdette

What a wonderful, wonderful green tea! In my third installment of ‘Drink Teavana’s Tea of the Week’ I went and tried this today after running an errand. The leaves were nice. This one is a pure tea with nothing but the tea so help you gods of tea. The scent was a bit smokey with a lovely sweet undercurrent to the aroma.

The first sip was just lovely. E’sC&M has a flavor is smooth the aftertaste is a flavor I have a hard time describing with words? It sounds stupid to say, ‘It tastes like green tea’ because, well, DUH, it IS a green tea Nerdette! So can I say that a flavor is Green? This is the first non-flavored tea that I’ve had in a while and so accurately reviewing its taste is just so difficult. The mouth feel is also very good. The tea goes down buttery smooth and just makes my eyes cross!

I’m not sure if anyone else likes to eat things while drinking a hot tea, but I had some cinnamon flavored pretzels and I found it to compliment the lovely, light golden tea perfectly. Basically…if you like a good green tea, I can’t imagine you not liking this one.

Oh I love chai blends. I also love Oolongs! So what could be better than the two of them blended together into something delicious? I went to World Market yesterday and used some coupons to get my first cast iron tea pot! I also sprung the extra 10 bucks for the trivet and warmer. While I know I should probably use a tried and true tea to test the differences between my ‘Perfect Tea Maker’ and my new cast iron, I just was dying to taste my newest teavana acquisition, Maharaja Chai.

The scent of the tea leaves is spicy and pungent. I can pick out the cloves, cardamon and pepper. The color is a beautiful and deep brown with a golden tint and the first sip just bursts on the back of my mouth. After the warm swallow, I can taste the sweetness of the cloves. Its smooth on the tongue and sweet without adding any sugar or sweetners. I usually don’t sweeten oolongs because the leaves just add such a delicate flavor that added sweetness can mask, but I can tell this one is going to be a favorite.

It reminds me a little of Sweet Oolong Revolution, but the spices are way stronger, giving it that lovely chai flavor. I am very pleased with this one.

A delicious Jasmine Tea! This is one of my favorite oolongs of all time. I get it pretty infrequently though so I tend to brew it infrequently. Still, yesterday seemed like an Oolong type of Saturday.

Unfortunately, it didn’t get quite as strong as I usually like it to get, but that’s ok. The great thing about Oolongs is how the flavor changes based on the steep time and which infusion you’re on. I am going to make a judgement call though: This is not going to be my average morning, out the door tea and instead be reserved for sitting and enjoying the different flavors tea. It didn’t do well for a good ‘all purpose’ tea yesterday and I really think that was because I rushed through the brewing process.

Still, its got fantastic flavor and when done properly, really makes my toes curl in happiness!

So as a part of my, ‘try the Teavana Tea of the Week’ challenge I have laid out for myself, I went in to get myself a cup on Pineapple Kona Pop a few days ago. I wrote down some notes to post here for everyone. It all sums up to whether or not you enjoy and like pineapple. If you like Pineapple, you will like this tea a lot. I am not generally fond of pineapple. Sometimes though, I do really enjoy it and just because I don’t USUALLY like a flavor does not mean that I will always dislike said flavor, hence going ahead and trying the PKP from Teavana this week.

I bought the drink cold and non-sweetened so as to not let anything other than the tea shine through. The pineapple is bursting on the first sip. Its very strong and sadly, due to the strength of it, I did not like it. However as herbal cold teas go, if you are a fan of the tropical pineapple, you will love this one. Alas, for me, it was not to my taste.

So! Forgive me for posting this a day late, but I did try the Mojito Marmalade sample that Tea Forte sent out. I had some apprehensions about this tea because I’m not a huge fan of orange and mint together. It reminds me too much of a stomach med my mother used to spoon into me. However, I pushed those pre-conceived notions aside because you never know if you will love a tea based on the description. Only on the taste. So I set up my water, grabbed my infuser and then ripped this one open.

The first thing I noted was that the tea smelled more like Citron than actual oranges. I work at a spice store and we have orange peel. This orange peel didn’t smell fresh at all to my nose, but bitter. I also detected other citrus flavors underneath the aroma, sort of a lemon something.

It brewed up to a beautiful dark brown with orange tints and was much lighter in color than I’d been expecting. My first taste was of a very strong mint. On the back of the sip I could taste the orange. I did not know before this tea that I really do not like orange and mint together in a tea. AT ALL.

All the mojitos I’ve ever had were with lime, not orange. There was just something…off about the orange and the mint for me. I love mint! And I love Oranges! Just…not together. I wish there had been some cloves, or that the oranges had been swapped for limes or lemons. I wish that this tea was mint julep instead of Mojito Marmalade.

So to rescue the cup, I added some sugar. After all, whoever liked sugarfree marmalade? And since when do Mojitos not have sweetness to play off the rum, lime and mint? I appreciate the sample and the experience. I feel like even when I drink a tea that I don’t like, I learn something more about tea and where my tastes are.

If you are a person who loves citrus and mint, you will adore this tea. Its not bad in terms of flavor, but it just wasn’t to my taste.

Earl Grey White has a musty smell right out of the tin and the Lavender in the Lavender Dream is very strong after it is opened. But when I put them together they make such a beautiful tea.

The bergamot in the Earl Grey White really compliments the lavender and since they are both white teas and have the same measurements and steeping temps and times, it makes brewing this tea in the morning a cinch. I used three tsps of each and some rock sugar for a four cup brew. (Four cups is my usual morning tea consumption) It’s important not to over steep this one, because it can turn bitter rather quickly, but when brewed at the right temperature for the right time, the reward is a fabulous flavor.

The flavor is a complex on first sip. At the beginning of the taste, the white tea’s muskiness hits the tongue and at the back of the swallow, the mouth is met with a very floral aftertaste. I used this brew as my ‘good morning’ tea. There isn’t a ton of caffeine in this blend, but just enough to get the day started off smoothly.

Most to the teas I drink in the morning are tried and true blends for me, so while this isn’t the first time that I’ve had this blend, it is the first time I’ve dipped into this month. Unlike my Dragon Phoenix Pearls with Rooibos Tropica, I store these two teas separately since they are good blenders with other teas.

Looooved this in my cup yesterday morning!

So its Tuesday and I am ready for my second go at the Tea Forte samples that I was sent. Today’s tea is the Blueberry Merlot. Opening the package, my first smell impression is the blueberry. I can also smell the rosehips and sage pretty strongly through the blend. I’m smelling something that smells a bit like currant, so that could be the merlot coming through.

Water is going to be boiling and the steep is going to be 5 minutes since that is what the package recommends.

When the tea brews, it comes out very dark purple, almost like a wine! The smell isn’t very strong in terms of blueberry, but I’m looking forward to the first sip.

But oh! It is in the first sip. My tongue exploded with that blueberry flavor…oh and the second too. Alright, so far, out of the five teas that I received from Tea Forte, this is my favorite. I am going to have to buy some more of this one.

I also really like it because it doesn’t need any sweetness added. That blueberry really just gives it exactly what it needs. The more I drink, the more I like. I can also taste something of a currant something in the aftersip. The aftertaste is also a really fruity blueberry. Its official. I want some more of this one.

I received a sample of this tea along with four other herbals that I will be reviewing this week. Since I had five of them, I decided to begin with the Apricot Amaretto. My first impression was that I really loved the smell. The aroma is sweet, and I could immediately pick out the apricot, peach and almond notes. The fruit dominated the dry leaves and I was pretty interested in how it would taste. I used my perfect tea maker to infuse it. I generally brew herbals around 208ish and the instructions on the back said to let it steep for 5 minutes. I loved out dark it got when it brewed, but the fruit smell began to fade as it steeped and the almondy flavors became much stronger.

I let it cool to about 140 degrees and took my first sip. The almondy amaretto was very strong, so much so that it really overwhelmed and took over the apricot and peach notes that I’d smelled when I first opened the packet. I drank the cup with no sweetener, because I try not to sweeten a cup of a new tea when I first tried it. However, while it wasn’t a terrible tea, I was really hoping for that fruit that the title promised, leaving me a bit disappointed. Its tasty enough and would be interesting to try iced or sweetened, but I only had enough for the one cup. By the time I’d finished my first, I wasn’t interested in trying to re-steep it and see. I might pick up a small amount on my next tea order and try it again, but at the moment, I’m not that impressed.

Still, a lovely almond flavor so if that is what you are hoping for, you’ll be satisfied.

Its like a cookie in my mouth! I love this one both for mornings and breakfast. It brews really easily and can be enjoyed with or without sugar, depending on how you’re feeling. The smell of the tea when you open it is great and sugar-cookie like. When I brewed it, it made my whole kitchen smell like I’d been baking and the taste is just addictive. Over all, a high rated tea.

This was the first Teavana tea I’ve ever tasted. Everywhere down here, they keep huge amounts of this one in sample containers and so as a first tea to try, its a pretty good one.

First, the smell. I ignored the Teavana sales person when he told me not to store my pearls with my rooibos because I love the way it smells blended. I can see their point in that if you keep them separated, you can blend your pearls and rooibos, yada yada. Whatever for them. If I want some pearls to brew with something else, I’ll go buy some. Nope. I keep my r/p in the same tin and man, I am not sorry I did.

When you store some teas together, especially teas that compliment each other as much as these two do, they take on a lovely blended flavor. I love to smell them together before I brew them.

Today I used my kettle for brewing since I’m at the boy’s house and I found that the Rooibos bits have traveled a bit more than they do when I’m at home and use a finer mesh strainer, but its ok. A few tea leaves never hurt me.

Over all this is a high 80s tea for me. Its one I use as an old standby and usually the one I bring with me when I’m introducing a new tea-drinker to the wonders of loose tea. But also, its a good ‘Hello Day! I am gonna kick your butt!" tea. It has a great jasmine flavor at the first of the sip with the Rooibos just filling out the back of the sip. I brew it at the temperature for Roobios, but I don’t let it steep too long at risk of making the pearls bitter. I have tried this tea sweetened and unsweetened and I prefer it sweet. (But that’s not a real surprise for me!) I use all sorts of sweetners so I really don’t care how it gets sweet, though I do prefer the brown rock sugar. However white sugar cubes do well when you’re using it for an English Style tea ceremony. :D

Anyway, if you’re looking at this tea and wondering if you should get it, I’d definitely recommend it. Its full and delicious and just right for new people coming into loose teas and blending.

Mmmmh. I had forgotten that I had this tea until I was doing some tin-cycling. Skinny Chai Pu-erh has a very spicy smell to it and the flavor is fabulous. I didn’t have to sweeten it at all, it was so flavorful. It has a really good tartness to the flavor and a sweetness to the beginning of the sip.

I don’t think it makes you lose weight but it tastes pretty awesome and is a good tea to start the day with.

Hmmm! Made a quart of this yesterday after the boycreature cut my G-ma’s class. I stuck some of our fresh strawberry slices and lemon wedges into it for flavor! Sooooo goooooood.

So this tea is pretty much my favorite tea ever. Like, when I woke up feeling all ‘Blerg’ this morning, I made this.

I don’t know why its my favorite. I generally do not like Earl Grey anything. But this I adore.

ADORE.

I made it this morning for me and the boy who came over to chop off the top of my lawn with a big machine. As I was brewing I said, “Oh, and this is my Earl Grey Creme” and he said, through a mouthful of whatever the heck I made this morning, “I know. I can smell it.”

….y’all. This boy knows only about three types of tea. “Sweet Tea” “Sweet Tea with Lemon” and “The Froo-froo stuff you’re drinking.” So if that tells you how often I brew this bad boy, then you know that I love it.

So I totally intended to write this last night when I made this tea.

I bought it because I wanted to see what it tasted like after reading some reviews for it here. since it’s been on my list due to the fabulous smell, I just went ahead and got some last time I was at Teavana.

Well…I got three sips in and promptly dropped the entirety of it on my floor and had to panic clean up my computer, ipod, and purse.

You guys. That was pretty fail.
So while I really liked the three sips I took, I don’t think it was enough to give a good review. So for now, this tea has an 80 score with me because I barely got to TASTE any of it.

But it smelled so good and I do remember the chocolaty notes.

At the end of this rambling, there will be a tea note. Skip past the stars if you want to ignore said rambling.
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So when I was first introduced to tea, it was World Market’s brand of bagged teas. I loved jasmine as my first ever non-Red Diamond or Brisk tea. It led me to explore many more teas of the herbal variety and finally, after about a year in college, my sister introduced me to Teavana. My opinions about the company are for some discussion thread somewhere else, as teas go, they were my first experience with loose leaf tea and brewing a tea based on temperature and steep time instead of, “Just stick the bag in some boiling water until the water turns dark.”

Its taken a lot of years of practice, tasting, drinking and exploring to just get to know the difference between what I like and what I don’t like.

And that is where Garden Aria comes in.

While its not a straight white tea such as silver needle, it is very delicate. It was also the first white tea I ever bought.

Sadly, I bought this when it went on its 50% sale of retirement about a year ago. I still have about 1/2 of my tin left, but when it goes, I shall be a very sad panda.
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I really recommend being careful with your water temperature when brewing this one because it has a temperament to it. I love the taste of it sweetened or not, but generally, I prefer it with a sweetener. This morning I used honey. Plain ol’ in the bear-shaped bottle honey.

When you first sip this tea, it comes to the tongue with a warm tartness. I can taste the raspberry and cherry notes, but the white comes through very well. I know there is some strawberry in here, but the raspberry really is stronger.

It was my morning tea today, and since I had to work, I made a 2-cup travel cup AND 2 cups to put in my briefcase thermos. (I really love these things. Its a Thermos brand I got on sale at Target ages ago and it perfectly keeps my tea hot. When I have finished what’s in the travel mug, I can just refill it! Huzzah for a quart of tea!) When my day was getting annoying or stressful, I’d zip back to the back of the store and get a mouthful of happiness.

If anyone has tried this before, can you suggest anything similar to it? I’ve probably got at least 24 to 20 more cups left in the tin, but since I usually brew 4 cups at a time…well. Replacements are going to be searched for soon!

So the description calls this a ‘Dinner Tea’ which is not an opinion I share AT ALL. For me, this is a breakfast tea.

Today I made this before I headed out the door to meet a friend for some shopping. I brewed it in my ‘Perfect Tea Maker’ infuser and kept it in my travel mug for the day. It took me several delicious hours to drink my CM, but I have learned something that I didn’t really think about before.

One: Do not, and I really do repeat this, DO NOT drink this lovely, piping hot cuppa with your food that you got from the food court. Because as delicious as this tea is, it does not do a good job of washing down the spicy potatoes from the Manchu Wok at the mall’s food court.

When I first drank it this morning, I tasted a lot of the mint. But the aroma of the chocolate gave the tea the cocoa undertones. It was so smooth and yummy. I sweetened it with rock sugar and really tasted that great chocolate flavor after I got to the bottom of the cup. Its a comfort tea and a great one to start your day with.

Just…maybe not if you are going to eat spicy food.

So I found this tea via Teavana’s ‘Tea of the Week’ in their newsletter. I usually ignore those due to not having one close by, but since the store finally opened in my area, I was able to go and being what I hope will be a tradition of getting a cup of the ‘Tea of the Week’.

This week it was the Yuan Dynasty Golden Tips. What a mouthful! My first impression of the tea was brewed a little too hot but had, at first sip, a really spicy sort of bite to it. After it cooled just a bit though, I found its flavor to be VERY similar to the ‘Snowy Peak Downy Tips’, which while a good tea, is one I already had.

I don’t think I will be buying this tea until my Snowy Peak runs out.

Alright so this is a tasting note not just on the tea but on the brewing process. So first of all, I usually brew tea in my ‘Perfect Tea Maker’ infuser from Teavana, but since I found myself over at the boy’s house for the weekend and he didn’t HAVE an infuser, I had to improvise. Teavana and other tea places try and convince us that we NEED their extra fancy equipment to make a delicious cuppa, but I find that this isn’t true. So, since I was going to make this tea into a cold brew, first I decided how much to make. Since I wanted to share it and make use of it for a couple of days, I made a 12 cup batch. I boiled up 6 cups of water in his dinged up old kettle and when the water got to the 208 temp (I guessed. I’ve been brewing tea long enough to guesstamate the right heat level) I just took that bad boy off the heat, tossed in four tablespoons of tea and then let it brew.

The great thing about the kettle method is that while his kettle isn’t the newest or the fanciest, it keeps heat really well. Plus, it holds more than my 32 oz perfect tea maker, making life a bit easier in terms of brewing up a big pitcher.

Something I’ve had to learn by trial and error is the perfect concentration of tea and water when brewing a cold tea. I used to think it was silly to add two teaspoons or whatever the doubled amount was, but really…weak cold tea doesn’t taste as good as a strong iced brew. At least in my opinion.

Anyway, after that little beastie was all nice and steeped, I just held a hand strainer the pitcher and added 6 cups of icy cold water to the brew then stuck it in my fridge. I chose to sweeten it with white sugar but you could use any method you want for that. I also add my sugar while the tea is hot so that it dissolves easier.

This ended up making 12 cups of Strawberry Lemonade Tea and I am going to enjoy drinking it for the next few days instead of my usual black sweet tea blend!

Well Birmingham finally got a Teavana today! It’s really hard to get quality tea in the area since Mrs. Rosemarie’s closed last year and I was thrilled. Since it’s been very hot outside, I ordered the Strawberry Lemonade tea iced. I am still getting the trick of brewing iced teas from leaves, but my Teavana barrister Sam did a fab job. I love the tangy fruitiness of this tea and adding the Teavana rock sugar really brings out the notes of strawberry. Over all, it’s my favorite tea this summer.

So I like this tea a lot. Its got sort of an earthy taste to me. I usually add some white honey or regular honey as a sweetener instead of a sugar because the taste can be really delicate, what with it being a white tea and all. Its really sad that Teavana doesn’t sell it anymore, but maybe they will bring it back. Over all one of my favorite white teas.