ashmanra

I have tried to like this tea, honestly I have. It is just too weak in the tea department and too tart in the strawberry department for me. That said, I DO know this is a decaf intended for children, and I served it today to two little girls aged 4 and 6 who LOVED it. Their mom tried it and she liked it. I am delighted to have a tea for children that is well-liked and that the mommies don’t mind them drinking since it won’t make them hyperactive or keep them up! But give me Marco Polo for my tea and strawberry fix!

This is indeed Extra Fancy! The leaves are large and have a nice pure tea aroma. This is my “go to” tea when I need a big pot of tea for lots of people of differing tastes to drink with a meal. It has good body, good tea flavor, and you can spice it up as you wish with milk, sugar, cinnamon, some vanilla – anything. Smooth, no bitterness at all. This went with chicken veggie soup at lunch today as we looked out on the yellow and orange leaves and the cloudy gray sky, which made for a very soothing, comforting lunch indeed! This is my hubby’s favorite tea when he drinks caffeinated.

A big THANK YOU! to MeghannM for these teas!

I had a WHOLE POT of this one during the virtual tea tasting with Sandy via Skype! THis is my last sanple of Dammann Freres tea. The dry leaves are lovely with the petals mixed in, and the aroma is very nice as well. Brewed, the aroma is as special as you would expect from a good French tea. The flavors in the tea are not as pronounced as you might think they would be, but they are not hidden. They are very well balanced with the tea flavor. I noticed the blood orange flavor most, the cherry and strawberry next, and really didn’t pick up on the peach much.

These are not my favorite flavors for teas, but for anyone who loves berry flavored teas this would be an amazing cup. It was very good (I did say I drank the whole 22 ounce pot!) but I must say The de Cigales and Coquelicot Gourmand (I think that was the name of it!) were absolutely divine and I MUST HAVE THEM!

Thank you to Sandy for this tea! This is a lime flavored green. It is very good, and the flavors are well balanced between the green tea and the lime so the lime doesn’t overpower the green tea flavor. Someone on steepster had recommended this company to us before Sandy left for New Zealand, and the teas from them have been consistently good!

Hmmm, the mysterious tea database worm must have eaten this one, because I am sure I have reviewed it before! Anyway, this is a staple in this house for hubby. He loves a big mug of tea after work, but doesn’t want too much caffeine since he has to get up so early. This is the most expensive tea on the daily tea counter at SS, and I think it is because it tastes SO GOOD. Ceylons just seem to take the process of decaffeination better than other teas.

I think this one may have even more flavor and strength than Harney and Sons Decaffeinated. It is as smooth as you expect a Ceylon tea to be. We drink it with sugar, or with milk and sugar. We also enjoy adding freshly ground cinnamon and sometimes…hanging head in SHAME and embarrassment….we add lots of Tang instead of sugar with that same cinnamon and make a Christmas tea of it. Oh, guilty pleasures are hard to admit – don’t judge me! :) (You want to try it, you know you do!)

Delicious, as always! The best English Breakfast I have ever had. I had the two ounce tin from the tea chest and bought the 8 ounce tin to refill it. I have almost cleaned that out already, so I think it is time to admit I just need to buy the pound bag of this one, too. :)

A lovely light pick me up before starting the yard work! First cup with no additions, second with a tiny bit of sugar.

I was a bad girl. I drank decaf with supper so the caffeine wouldn’t keep me awake, but when I sat down to read I really wanted some flavored tea and I really wanted something Christmas-y since we went out of town and bought my Christmas season Southern Supreme “More Nuts than Fruit” Fruitcake that I serve up until Christmas! So here I sit downing non-decaf tea…

Now, I don’t really LIKE most Christmas teas that much, but I love to smell them. Noel is so pretty I would love to display it in a glass container. There are almond bits, dried apple pieces, orange peel, flower petals….and it tastes pretty good! It is smooth, not bitter, with nice orange flavor. Unless someone tells me that it is really awful (and what Harney tea has ever been?) I am going to Barnes and Noble tomorrow to buy that special pack of their Holiday Tea with the white tea since I just got a coupon for an extra 25% off!
It is a great buy at $15.95 for the two together, and with the discounts it will be even less.

I noticed that Dammann Freres and Mariages Freres have Christmas teas and if they are anything like the other flavored French teas I have tried, I will HAVE to get some! Anyone who has tried them, let me know…..

Wow. Oh boy, have my tastes ever changed in the year that I have been drinking loose leaf tea!

This is still pretty good. I still like it. I haven’t had it in FOREVER but decided to make it tonight to go with chicken pot pie soup that hubby and I were having at the tea table all alone, and he only likes Ceylon tea. Since it was late I thought I should make decaf, and to go with our food I thought this one would be best.

Since I know I like my tea stronger now that I used to like it, I added five teaspoons of leaves to my 22 ounce Beehouse teapot. Even at that this tea was weak to me, but not awful horrible weak like the Decaf Assam! With sugar and paired with food, it was serviceable to me and I enjoyed having a nice cuppa and some hot soup after our long day out driving in the rolling pastures of the Piedmont of NC looking at trees! But my hubby LOVED it and remarked several times on how good the tea was. And that is what mattered tonight!

Oh, Meghann, what have you done, sending me another French tea to fall in love with?

I had a rough morning. Rough. I needed something special. Came home after lunch and made this. Ahhhhh. This is elegance in a cup. So much flavor, none of it overpowering. At first I thought, “BISCUIT FLAVOR? Are they kidding?” But this was sweet, good, had lovely body, and oh my the flavors are beautifully blended. I drank the whole 22 oz pot by myself. Sigh. I melt into a happy puddle. Thank you, Meghann. Thank you, Dammann Freres.

I bought these because they were inexpensive and I knew that Sam’s would take them back if we were not happy with them. I am keeping them because they are inexpensive, but I will say up front that these don’t touch the JoeMo!

I made tea Sunday morning and put my tea in my JoeMo and my daughter’s tea in the Cuisinart. The first sign that these were not as high quality as the JoeMo was immediate. When I picked them up to carry them out to the car my JoeMo was cool to the touch and the Cuisinart was warm, so even though it boasts double wall steel construction it was losing more heat through radiant heat loss. When I first put the lid on, some water ran out from somewhere, but it wasn’t tea so I think it was trapped in some part of the lid from where I had rinsed it.

These will be used to hold hot chocolate when we are going to drink it rather soon, but I wouldn’t trust them to keep tea hot for hours and hours like the JoeMo. One good suggestion in the instructions – have the drinking button open when you put the lid on so the pressure will be balanced. I have to do that with the JoeMo, too, but I don’t remember seeing it in their instructions.

I GOT A NEW TEAPOT! Thank you, Sandy! It came all the way from New Zealand and arrived in perfect condition. It is red, holds one litre, and has a nice big infuser. I wanted to celebrate the new pot by making a BIG pot of something.

I chose a tea JacquelineM sent to me. There was enough for a whole litre! I drank it with my student, her mom, and her little tiny sister and we all enjoyed it very much! Lovely vanilla flavor. Thank you, Jacqueline! This was a nice treat for all of us!

I am drinking the loose leaf version of this one with the lovely Ceylon Silver Tips winking at me from the cup, and loving it this morning. I wasn’t sure what I wanted – my usual teas were not calling my name and I had already been up a long time. I picked this one and it did not disappoint! This is GOOD TEA with bergamot added, and not too much bergamot. I am drinking it without additions, but my next cup will be experimental – I plan to try it as a London Fog!

Thank you to Meghann for this one! I don’t usually drink tea this late at night unless it is decaf, but I couldn’t wait to try one of my new teas that arrived today.

First on my list was Nuit A Versailles. The aroma is heavenly. This is a lovely green tea, lightly buttery-flavored and oh! the goodies they have blended with it! I don’t taste the bergamot as bergamot – this tea is far too delicate for that. And having had lavender tea that tried to hurt me, and Parma Violets candy from Ireland that tasted like I was eating a WHOLE field of flowers, I could have been afraid to try this. But I know the French do flavored teas so well, and they didn’t let us down here.

Want to feel rich and pampered? Get out your favorite pretty cup, make this tea, and sniff sniff sniff. Then slowly sip and enjoy, but don’t stop letting this aroma work its wonders on you. This is a five star flavored green.

This was very well received at tea time today! It was the favorite of the youngest ever tea time participant, who is 6 years old. Winey Keemun wasn’t quite up her alley, but she really, REALLY liked Tower of London! I think of it as “Paris- light” but it really has more than enough flavor of its own. I love it with no additions, and it goes well with a cookie plate. (Today we had homemade fudgie brownies from freshly ground wheat, fresh cookies, raspberry Pim’s, and Pepperidge Farms cookies. Oof. And yum!)

This was a tea time treat today! It amazes me how my tastes are changing. I used to think of this as one of my stronger teas, now it is one of my milder teas! And I still love it!
I am better at identifying the flavors and nuances in teas now, and I finally detect that muscatel flavor they mention. This is indeed a refined tea. They refer to it as an English Breakfast and indeed it is keemun, but it is milder than MY breakfast choices and I love it as an afternoon tea.

This is my second morning opting for this one. Sometimes I am on a Queen Catherine streak, sometimes an English Breakfast one. I was so disappointed, but not with my tea! I arrived at work this morning and found myself seated beside a REAL LIVE BRITISH PERSON complete with accent. She was drinking a diet coke. At 8 am. And didn’t bat an eye when I ummm’ed and ahh’ed over my HOT TEA thinking we would stike up a conversation and become tea buddies. Oh Brit! You have betrayed both your countrymen and my hopes!!!

Tired. Sore. Usually have Queen Catherine but in the mood for something different today. English Breakfast. Aaahhhhhh. Nice, 100% keemun. I am going to the living room alone and pretend I have shrunk myself r-e-a-l-l-y small so I can get in my teacup and sniff the lovely aroma and soak away my cares….

Setup last night at 8 pm. No one told us the room was being renovated and we would have to move piles of dismantled bookshelves.

Up at 3:45 am to get ready. Call at 4:00 am that one of my judges is unable to come due to illness. At 4:05 am have pulled records and appointed new judge for the day. Who do YOU think is in my cup? I’ll be off work in just 17 more hours…..

I needed something bright and happy to drink today as I try to both complete school with the kids AND get everything ready for tomorrow at the polls. This one was just the ticket! I love the sweetness. It is lightly fruity and has nice honey aroma as well.

I really want to learn to like assam teas. I read the reviews about how wonderful and malty they are and I want to join in, but so far Chinese black camellia sinensis teas are still my favorites! Even Chinese camellia assamicas do not thrill me the same way.

But I do enjoy Irish Breakfast blends, and this one happens to be 100% assam. I take it with milk and sugar ALWAYS. Why do assam teas make me rumbly in my tumbly when Chinese teas do not?

I took Catherine canoeing yesterday! We had a very good time, and thanks to my JoeMo XL she was still hot four hours after being poured in. A good bracing cup of tea!

I finally got to taste this tea, which was sent to me by Lori! Thank you, Lori! It took this long for me to get it to my friend in New Zealand so we could have a virtual tea tasting on Skype and then to arrange a time we could do this.

The funny thing is that I am in the States getting this in a swap from someone and I mailed a portion to someone who is two hours away from the plantation where it is grown! They have just opened a tea room there called the Camellia House.

The dry leaves smell really good. The wet leaves smell REALLY smokey! The tea is very smooth, not bitter or astringent at all, nutty, nice planty and not nasty planty. First steep was two minutes and I was generous with the leaves. WOW! They really open up!

The second steep was dark DARK yellow and full bodied, and there was a creaminess I hadn’t noticed in the first steep. I only added an extra 30 seconds.

I actually made this one twice – once last night to share a quiet cuppa with my hubby, and again this morning.

Last week I found out that one of my favorite teachers – fifth grade – had breast cancer and is about to undergo radiation. She has been working with me at the polls. She noticed my tea by my side every day and told me that she had never liked coffee, loves iced tea, and feels cold all the time so she thought, “Say, why not try HOT tea?” She bought some decaf Earl Grey at the grocery store and loved it. Her doctor says she is not allowed to have caffeine. She was so excited to tell me that she found out she loves hot tea. I was even more excited because now I have a NEW TEA PADAWAN! And it is one of my favorite people!

So this morning I took a thermos full of Vanilla Comoro to work, brewed fresh at home from loose leaf. SHE LOVES IT! Hooray! I gave her a good diffuser, some loose leaf, and a sample of decaf Irish Breakfast. Soon we are getting together for tea. I love what tea has done for friendships in my life!

As JacquelineM does, I add lots of extra leaf on this one. When I first started drinking tea it was plenty strong enough for me. Now I can tell it is decaf but still prefer it to almost any other night time alternative! Extra leaves makes it a bit stronger, and the aroma is always just heavenly.