Caribou Coffee

at the airport. this is where i always get a tea. and they make it kinda too strong but i always forget to head that off before its too late.

Grabbed a cup of this to try on the way out of the grocery store today.

Not bad. Very much milky, mildly spicy, not so much tea-ey. Not overbearingly sweet, which was good. Main spice I taste is cinnamon, followed by what is probably ginger. Not bad but nothing I’d go out of my way to get again.

I was wondering, from reading the names of the teas they had, if they used Harney & Sons tea. Asking the kid at the counter, though, he said they came in packages labeled Caribou Coffee, so he didn’t know. But “Citron Green,” “Hot Cinnamon Spice” & “Pomegranate Oolong” make me suspicious. Plenty of companies probably have those exact names, though. Just got hopeful seeing several names I associate with H&S on a local menu board. :)

No notes yet.

Sipdown! though technically this was never logged into my cupboard. I know. I’m a baddie :) Thanks to Indigobloom for the sample of this one. I had two sachets so i shared one with someone at work today because somehow i’ve had all the teas in my work stash now and this was the only thing left! gasp My hopes weren’t terribly high for this one anyway since it’s a very green oolong. I’m really not getting pomogranate from this one either. it’s more of a floral type oolong. blech.

Appreciate the sample though Indigobloom as the more I taste, the more I figure out if i like things :)

Thank you Indigobloom for sharing a sample of this with me. Unfortunately I can’t give it a good rating.
The Oolong base is lacking to the extreme and the flavor is nearly non-existant.
I appreciate getting the chance to try this blend. Hopefully some of their other blends are better.
They are a coffee company after all so its alright.

As iced tea mixers go, this one is well crafted. A little too sweet tasting at first, but it remains flavorful and balanced all the way through.

Saw this tea at my local Caribou Coffee shop about 6 months ago, and got excited — it sounded wonderful from the description. The metal tin contains 20 sachets, so at $7.99 a tin it wasn’t cheap. When I opened the tin, I was overwhelmed by the intense cinnamon and cloves smell. And not overwhelmed in a good way. It was absolutely overpowering, and I couldn’t smell any orange peel in there because it smelled like 90% cinnamon and 10% cloves. No “tea” smell whatsoever, though you can see the semi-broken leaves. The sachets are of a high quality, but when I tried to steep the tea, it came out bitter, overpoweringly cinnamon, and hot on the tongue (spicy and a bit numbing from the cloves). Again, not a good sensation. My sister tried to smell the contents of the tin and couldn’t stop sneezing, because it was too strong. I never made more than that one cup with the tea… instead, I emptied the sachets into a decorative bowl and used it as a potpourri/room freshener in our guest bathroom. That was six months ago, and I can still smell the cinnamon and cloves in the dish — I bet if I tried to make a cup from the six-month-old, dusty leaves now, it would still be too strong. Overall, nasty… bitter, way too much cinnamon and clove, NOT recommended. Possibly one of the worst teas I have ever had, in fact. (Maybe this explains why Caribou doesn’t have “Tea” in their name.)

Thank you IndigoBloom for this Sample!

I got to sleep rather late last night. Could not settle down! This morning I was up early as usual and turned on Puccini Arias (picked from my granddaughters playlist I might add!). Opera and Oolong. Why not!
This sample comes in little pillow teabags…but I decided to snip one open and pour the contents into a fine mesh steeper and brew in that manner for maximum flavor.
The oolong is bold and assertive, barely astringent and pretty evenly balanced between vegital and floral lilac scent and taste. The vegital flavor is welcome. Usually it is so far in the background with a delicate oolong that you never pay much attention to what part it can play in the enjoyment of the tea. (Still, no pomegranate flavor for me)
The creamy effect begins to increase as soon as the tea cools. I looked forward to the silkiness that I knew would come. My lips and whole mouth tingled with small sparks of peppery heat. Where the heat came from I do not know but I liked the feeling. It had begun earlier…I pushed the thought aside…but it kept coming back to me.
This is not the richest, most exotic or elegant oolong for sure. But, I am now wanting a full bodied oolong with a kick (like this one) in my cupboard. It pairs precious well with Puccini Aria’s…with love songs for breakfast.

http://youtu.be/iW1w1ryYQDw Pavarotti

Second sample, also from Indigobloom! I was feeling bad for not trying many of the samples she gave me, so I’m making an effort today :)

Eep. The dry teabag had a hint of soapy smell to it. Not a good sign! (Although now that it’s in the water, I’m smelling just oolong. Much better.)

Uh oh! Minus points – I just tried to remove the teabag and the string came off!! An extra minute of steeping followed. Hopefully it can take it. I have to note that the little pyramid teabag is like a poofy pillow with the expansion of the tea leaves! Kind of neat :)

The steeped tea smells mostly of oolong. That’s actually quite promising, because a lot of tea blends are short on tea flavour. I don’t smell pomegranate at all though.

Hmm, ok. The oolong is a bit buttery, but there’s also a bit of astringency. If I try really hard, I can taste the pomegranate weakly in the background. Ok, didn’t even taste it at all that time.

Well, that’s kind of disappointing. The base here was actually pretty promising, but the pomegranate flavour is horribly lacking :( Maybe it’ll show up more when I try the other teabag? As an straight oolong, this is rather mediocre, so the rating will reflect that.

Oh well. Thanks for the sample, Indigobloom!

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sharing this tea with me.

I taste cinnamon, but it isn’t as strong as I expected it to be, and I taste a vanilla note to this, but the vanilla doesn’t taste authentic. It almost tastes like artificial vanilla extract. The black tea is a strong background note. This is just kind of “meh” to me, not something I’d hunt down to have again, but not horrible, either.

Very good. Just enough spice to liven it up without going overboard.

Today’s my one year steepster birthday!!! Whoo hoo!

This tea came in a package of Christmas goodies from the boyfriend’s mom. Mint is more his thing than mine, so they’ll probably be going with him to work, but I wanted to give it a try first.

Preparation notes: Steeped in 500 ml. water in the Breville at the below parameters. No additives used.

Dry leaf: The leaf was relatively small, and packaged in sachets. It smelled like a typical mint tea. It reminded me a lot of a mint gum, actually.

Steeped tea: The steeped tea is yellowish and the mint is as strong as you would expect. Which is to say – STRONG. There’s supposed to be some floral notes in there somewhere too (I think that’s what Tilleul is) but I’m not getting it.

In short, a solid mint tea – but nothing new. The boyfriend will love having it at work, I’m sure.

Was surprisingly pleased with this tea. Ended up buying a tin of it, since it’s only out during October.

Where Yogi Tea’s redbush chai has too much spice overload, the hints of cinnamon and cardamom in Caribou Coffee’s Amy’s blend are carefully balanced against the vanilla-like sweetness of the rooibos. What a treat! Meadowfoam honey pairs especially well with this tea.

I had this last night, and it disappointed me. I could really only taste the black tea and a hint of cinnamon. I still have some bags left though, so I’m going to try again sometime soon. Maybe it was just a bad bag?

No notes yet.

Tried this again today (with syrup—I keep forgetting to get one without it), and it’s definitely my favourite out of the Caribou tea latte blends. The pomegranate flavour was more noticeable this time and I quite enjoyed it.

A nice suprise from QueenOfTarts! Thanks!

This smells very spicy and I pick up a hint of coffee (coffee frightens me, unfortunately) so I had my apprehensions when taking my first sip but…

It’s suprisingly good! Sweet and spicy, I can pick out all the spices and although it probably isn’t as good as my homemade chai, it’s stronger than I expected.

No notes yet.

I have had this a couple of times and I prefer it over the Black Thai tea latte. I’m not huge on syrups in my tea, so generally when I get a latte I just get the skim or soy milk and skip the sugary syrup. I’ll have to try this blend with just milk added next time. The oolong isn’t very strong so maybe I’ll be able to taste it more without syrup.

I really really believe Caribou uses Harney and Sons tea. They have so many similar blends, and even carry repackaged hot cinnamon spice. Anyhoo, this tea looks exactly like the sachet of Harney’s Holiday Spice and is just as disappointing. I used two sachets for 10 oz and just am not getting much flavor out of this.

I’m not sure about the ingredients in this bagged tea but it’s pretty darned tasty. I couldn’t find it anywhere else on steepster so I am adding it and I couldn’t find it on their website! Ek! Anyhow…this tastes like a combo of Black Tea, Chocolate, Coffee Beans, something fruity…maybe grenadine, and something creamy either caramel or vanilla or both…not sure.

This is pretty good for a bagged tea – quite flavorful! A nice surprise from FrenchVanilla.

Got this the other day going through the drive through and I thought it was delicious the first time I had it……this time not so much but it might be that it was too strong?? But it tasted kinda nasty to me.

For some reason this drink was less sweet today (yay!), so it was much tastier. I was pleasantly surprised by the nutritional content after I looked it up this morning as well… not as bad as I’d thought. I think I like the Pomegranate Oolong a little better than this latte overall, but I try to switch it up every so often!