bibliophile

My family has been buying this tea for nearly as long as I can remember. We originally bought it for my sister, who was in the Nutcracker, and somehow it became a family holiday tradition. I pretty much turn this into a dessert with the amount of milk and sugar I put in it! (Also not bad with a little bit of rum.)

For me, this tea cannot be separated from all the wonderful memories associated with it. This has been my “studying” tea ever since I was 12, and whenever I get stressed having a cup of this calms me down. I steep it longer than recommended, maybe 4-5 minutes and then add a little bit of sugar.

This is probably my favourite tea. It is certainly a staple of my tea drawer and I buy it in large enough quantities that my tea guy assumed I was buying more to give to people. The bergamot compliments the green tea perfectly, and it manages to hold up to several steepings. It’s perfect with a just a small dollop of honey in the cup. I’ll drink it just about any time of day – it’s one of those teas that I can totally lose myself in.

Everyone I know loves this tea and tries to give it to me. “I remembered that you like tea, and I just LOOOOVE this, so Merry Christmas/Happy Birthday/etc.” So I always think, “I’ll give it one more try” and then remember everything I hate about it. The thing about this tea is that it takes away from the actual tea experience for me. It tastes like a red hot. If I had any sugar or honey, it tastes like a sweet red hot. It doesn’t go with milk. I cannot influence the tasting experience of this tea in any positive way. While I like red hots, I don’t want to drink them.

kind of middle range green tea. Good for when I don’t have the time to pay as much attention to my tea as I’d like to. So this is a great tea to take to work with me for during the day.

Definitely biased about this tea. To me, this is the tea that introduced me to tea. Even though I intellectually know that it is not as “good” as some teas, I still love it so much! I steep the heck out of it and then put in plenty of milk and sugar. Years of having it before dance competitions has conditioned me to want it whenever I am going into a stressful situation.

I was given this as a gift, and I am still not sure how I feel about it. I wasn’t blown away by it, but it is also the only tea from Teavana I wasn’t flat out disappointed by. I think I actually enjoy the way it smells better than I like the tea itself. It was pretty good the first go around, but you can’t really re-steep it even though it’s a white tea because of the fruits in it.

I got this at a very discounted price a couple of weeks ago, so I’m betting this was an older batch of tea. It was okay, but I found it to be a little bitter even after I played with the steeping times. It didn’t make me a sudden convert to Teavana, and I certainly would never pay the full price for this tea. I definitely have just been drinking it for the caffeine boost in the morning. Not a tea I can lose myself in drinking.