Capital Teas

Another blend I tried at the Coffee & Tea Festival. The flavor was just almond cookie goodness. Alas, there’s a bit too much hibiscus in here. It really lingers on the palate, too. Blegh. I probably would have bought a small quantity of this blend anyway, but they only had it in 1-lb tins. I’m not about to buy a pound of any tea!

I sampled this blend at this year’s NYC Coffee & Tea Festival. It smelled ok, but the taste was… weird. It took me a few sips to realize it, but this tastes precisely like cherry-flavored cough syrup. Just… no.

This is the first tea I am drinking from the Coffee and Tea Expo NYC. It is tasty, sweet with notes of cherry and rose. But you can also taste the green tea base. Its pretty good. I am too tired for a long review.

I brewed this once in an 16oz Teavana Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 175 degree water for 3 min.

This is one strong smelling and tasting tea. Heavily roasted mate with a small hint of mango. This has been a nice drink as a wake up tea. Overall it does what I want it to do but the taste is just too strong to drink throughout the day.

This tea sounds awesome but the taste doesn’t match up it seems. I was looking forward to drinking this with a friend because a creamy rum tea sounds fun. The smell is off putting, but that doesn’t always mean taste so I was waiting for a surprise. Unfortunately this tea doesn’t taste good enough for me to even finish a cup. The first two ounces were decent but after that it was a struggle to drink.

Repelling smell but there is a taste that compels me to drink over and over.
This brews a cup of tea that pours onto my taste buds like a work of art and I like art being formed on or out of my taste buds.

Important note: This is the only Pu erh I have ever had.

The tea looks pretty and smells strongly of oranges. It makes me want to drink it so bad. Almost in a naughty way.

The taste does not live up to the scent, which I find to be the case for every blood orange tea I’ve ever had. For some reason, I don’t ever learn my lesson.

Thing is, it’s not a bad tea in any way. There is a very pleasant tangy orange flavor that makes me want more. There’s a rather strong earthy note that is probably present in every Pu erh tea and I just don’t know it. The earthy note reminds me quite a bit of spring and fall. Things growing, dying, going to sleep, waking up, transitions and all that.

I enjoy it more way hot than iced, but I’m happy to drink it either way.

I got a tin of this in October for the holiday season and ran through it way faster than I would have expected. It’s a great pumpkin tea. Highly recommended!

I really wish that I wasn’t made to buy 4 oz of it in order to have it…because I’m never going to finish it. It has a really medicinal flavor. Even sweetened.

Allergies are in full swing, and messing with everything, so I went with a stronger flavor, but not chai, tea this morning.

I also went with a shorter steep time, and that seems to have benefited this tea. Although this tea can taste medicinal, the shorter steep time helped with that. It now tastes more like how I thought it would. Still not sure about the fig…the only fig I know is from a Fig Newton, but it has that sort of note somewhere. Mostly cherry, though.

I taste a lot more cherry than fig. It’s like the tea is almost medicinal tasting, but just shy of that line.

It tastes a lot better to me cold (and I don’t mean iced tea…just hot tea that’s gotten cold). Which is good, because I HAD to buy 4 oz of it, and I rarely buy that much of ANYTHING! I was more than miffed by that.

I have a couple of green/black tea blends, and they have a similar flavor underneath the main flavor, but I don’t know what it is…a cherry sort of flavor?

Nice tea to wake up with…can taste the orange and almond. Very warming, and I can imagine watching the sunrise on the water with this tea in hand (hey, I USED to live near water…just now in the desert!)

Very nice tea! Nice and fruity, with the green/black tea base. I have another one that has a green/black base, and it has a similar flavor profile. I think this would be good hot or iced (drinking it hot).

The cherry, fig, and almond flavors in this tea are downright delicious. I can’t say that this tea reminds me of Christmas, but I like drinking it at this time of year just because of the name. It kinda makes me laugh. The name of the tea brings the holidays to mind. However, cherry and fig are some of my favorite summer fruits, so when I drink this I think of summer. I guess I get the best of both seasons this way!

I messed this one up by using water that was too hot instead of the recommended 197° F. The resulting tea was all cherry all the way. It wasn’t bitter or astringent, but plain it did have a bit of a cherry medicine flavor. I added sugar and cream which brought this back to the cherry cream flavor I tasted the first time I drank this tea. It was still nice, but I definitely prefer steeping this with cooler water so that the fig notes can be tasted.

Another tea from earlier this evening. I’m liking the fig/cherry flavor more and more. It’s fun and different from most of the teas in my cupboard. It reminds me more of summer than Christmastime, but I’m ok with that.

I noticed that Capital Teas recommends that the water be 195°F for this tea. Last time I made this the water was closer to boiling, so I lowered the water temp, and it made a difference. Now I taste fig. Yum, yum, yum. There is still the cherry note, but the fig has equal footing, and the two play very well together. I like.

There’s no way I’ll get through all four ounces of this the during the holiday season, but I’m ok with that since I think this will make an equally lovely spring/summer tea. I’m also curious to try it iced. Me thinks it’ll mighty tasty that way, too.

I bought this at the Coffee and Tea Festival with the idea of it being one of the teas at my holiday party. I set it aside, but I wanted to drink Christmas-y type teas today, so I brewed a cup.

I should say that I’ve never had fig pudding. I have no idea what it taste like. This tea, however, taste like cherry cream. I do get more of a fig note every now and then, but mostly I get fruity cherry and sweet cream. It’s not what I was expecting, but it is really good!

Nice mild green tea.

PTS TTB

This is a mediocre generic oolong. Might be a good introduction to oolongs, but its not good for much more.

Philadelphia Coffee & Tea Festival #5

My first thought when I tasted this tea is that it reminded me a lot of Enchanted Forest – mainly because of the almond. I love almond; adore it, and if a tea has a nice almond flavor I am inclined to love it.

This tea is no exception. Unlike the fruity sweetness of Enchanted Forest, this tea is more savory and heavy. A perfect tea to curl up under a blanket with while the temperature’s dropping outside. I didn’t pick up some of this at the show but I’m second-guessing myself now.

Good thing there are several stores near me.

Philadelphia Coffee & Tea Festival #4

This was lovely. It is exactly as advertised: peppermint black tea. I think I would have liked it slightly sweetened, but even without any sweetener, the peppermint came through strong without being overwhelming. I may have to swing by my local Capital Teas and pick up some of this once it gets colder.

Philadelphia Coffee & Tea Festival #3

After playing at MajaTei, I crossed the expo floor and visited Capital Teas. They had a very nice and large set up with multiple tasting stations. I personally have very fond feelings about Capital Teas since they are my home tea company, having started in Maryland and with many locations in the DC area. Turns out they just expanded to Philadelphia!

As much as I like their teas, this tea, unfortunately, is not for me. I expected this tea to be spicy and it was, pleasantly (or unpleasantly depending on your nature, I suppose) burning the back of my throat. However, I didn’t taste much depth to this, and definitely no mango. I wonder if I would have liked it better sweetened?