Compass Teas

thanks kaylee! This is one from my swap with kaylee and one i was excited for. I’m always looking for caffeine free blends for days when caffeine seems to be bothering me. This isn’t a bad brew but i’m not sure it’s really gingersnap cookie to me. I do like the ginger flavouring, so i may play with this one similar to what kaylee tried and add some sugar and milk. Over all though, a nice ginger cup of tea :)

Sip down! (217)

Finished this one off as a cold brew and its super tasty :) I’d get this one again. Thanks again joonsusanna! :)

Cold brewed this today and it’s delicious! I’m thinking maybe trying this out in my NEW ZOKU SLUSHIE maker tomorrow…or maybe i’ll make a chai slushie…licorice chai? hmmm i’m super excited to test this baby out!

Meanwhile in tea land..this one is a tea i prefer cold strangely…the cold brew evens out the rooibos taste and really lets the fruit flavours come out a bit more.

Also..just for cavocorax (today puts me at 224)

Another one from Junesusanna via cavocorax! This is a pretty tasty one. I’m not sure if it’s because there’s green rooibos in this one or what but it’s a really delicious fruity tea! I really want to cold brew this next to see if it’s a tea i can get behind cold as well. the berries are all hanging out in this one really nicely and there’s no bitterness. it also hasn’t devolved into that whole “generic” berry taste that i’m not fond of. happy to have this one to play with a bit more!

SIPDOWN! figured this might be a tea that would cut through the weirdness my taste buds are having today. This was decent enough and i thank joonsusanna for sharing it with me :) I’ll stick with other rooibos blends for non caffeinated teas but this was still a decent cup of cinnamon-ey/spicey tea!

This tea reminds me of another tea that i’ve had before. overall not too bad but i can taste the rooibos in this one and that woodsy taste isn’t my favourite. I don’t get much cinnamon from this either but i do get the generic “spice” flavour.

Sipdown! (235) haha i figured tonight was a good time to try this one and maybe a couple other rooibos teas to refrain from pilling up on the caffeine :) This was sent via Junesusanna and cavocorax :)

Cola teas confuse me. They’re hot but should be cold. This one is no exception. there is a definite cola taste to this tea but my mouth is totally weirded out by the heat. overall this is a good tea but i think i need to stay away from hot cola teas haha.

This tea has the most amazingly wonderfully delicious aroma. It came in the mail today and I grabbed it as we were leaving so I couldn’t brew it up right away. So instead my excitement grew and grew to try it.

At least it smells good. But the tea is not great. I’m hoping I can coax a better flavor out of this by experimenting with temps and times. I let about half my cup cool completely while I was making dinner and it actually kind of tasted like caramel corn and genmaicha. I resteeped my leaves and the second round had kind of an old butter flavor. Bleh.

I really want to like this. It has so much potential and I love flavored genmaichas. And seriously, it smells amazing.

I prefer macarons over macaroons, to the point I have an irrational hatred for macaroons for when people spell macarons like macaroons.

But I do like coconut. A lot.

So this was okay at first without sugar. It smells really nutty. But what I think must be the base tea is giving it this smoky aftertaste. It’s not offputting enough for me to dump the cup, but it just really doesn’t match the sweet cookie thing this tea has going on otherwise. I added milk and sugar and it makes it more tolerable, as does letting it cool off a bit more.

I added way more sugar than I usually do, which makes this tea taste like I’m having dessert for breakfast.

Thanks, JoonSusanna!

Mmm, there’s just something so comforting about the smell of hazelnut. Toasty, nutty, bake-y goodness. I’ve been dying to try this since I received it in a swap with TeaEqualsBliss but for some reason it got shoved to the back of my “to try” pile and I just noticed it sitting there all lonely and sad today. Well, time to remedy that!

I was about to prepare some earl grey when I dug up this beauty, so I decided why not mix them up? And of course with something as decadent as hazelnut I couldn’t have any regular old cup of tea so a stovetop latte it was—2 parts hazelnut to 1 part RoT’s Earl Greyer.

Wow, this is good! Really strong hazelnut flavor, and very natural tasting. It pairs so well with the EG, which tempers the hazelnut a bit so it’s not too strong. I have to say, the base on this is really fantastic too. That’s not normally something I notice with heavily flavored blends, but the base here is really strong and malty and definitely held up to a long steep in milk.

I won’t be rating this now since I haven’t had it on its own, but suffice to say it’s a real winner so far! I’ve been looking for a good hazelnut tea, and I think this one has just found a place in my cupboard where it will be staying for a long time.

Steeped this time for 3 minutes, and added some of the acacia honey from my Fauchon set to sweeten it. Perfect way to add a boost to this tea! Acacia is so light in flavor but has just a hint of vanilla and wow it makes the banana pop and kind of gives this the pancake flavor without me waiting for it to cool off.

I ended up finally being able to go back to sleep after I ate breakfast, so now this is cold. The pancake flavor definitely comes out even more now with the honey. I may have to cold brew the rest of this sample that I have!

I think I converted a Facebook friend to a tea drinker last night LOL

Thank you for this tea, Jackie T! I think I should have stuck with my initial thought to steep it for 3 minutes because 3 1/2 was a bit astringent.

This is definitely banana, not really cakey at all but still definitely feels like a caffeinated kick. It does have yerba mate in there too so that’ll help.

The banana flavor is pretty subtle, and a little sweet. I left a bit in my cup and now it’s cooled off. At first it diddn’t taste like banana at all but it’s very sweet in the aftertaste, and almost tastes more like pancakes this way.

This is the first tea that I’m trying from the Traveling Tea Box! It actually came on Saturday, but we had a friend staying with us over the weekend and I didn’t check the mail until late Sunday afternoon. Needless to say, I’ve been excitedly waiting and barely containing myself until everyone left and I had a quiet house all to myself to dig into this huge box of tea!

The dry leaf of this tea smells heavenly. I can detect a rich black tea smell with a lot of sweet and nutty baked cookie aromas swirling around. I followed the instructions on the package and only steeped this tea for two minutes, and am surprised at just how darkly colored the tea itself is. To me, the flavor is more malty and almost smokey black tea than anything else. I did add some milk and sugar, and it brought out a little more of the sweet coconut, but there is still a lingering smokiness. Even though I love coconut and macaroons, and this tea has only a faint hint of those two flavors, I am really enjoying this cup! The black tea base is really wonderful, and it takes milk well and becomes almost creamy. I’m glad this first tea from the Traveling Tea Box was a hit!

-Dry blend has medium black tea leaves and twigs.
-Dry leaves smell like rich black tea with a hint of sweet and nutty baked cookies. Tea liquor aroma is of black tea and sweet coconut.
-Tea liquor is a clear very dark brown color.
-Deep malty flavor with a lightly sweet finish. Very faint coconut aftertaste with some smokiness.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Good tea. Very light coconut cookie flavor. Strong black tea base takes milk and sugar well.

Backlog:

Thank you TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this Chai! I liked it!

I was kind of surprised to find this chai didn’t have any ginger. However, I think the omission works well with this blend, because I think the strong, peppery flavor of ginger would have overwhelmed the cup. As it is, there’s a really nice balance of flavors.

The green tea is sweet and creamy, and this brings out the tones of almond. A nice balance between sweet and spice. The cinnamon is the strongest flavor of the cup – it’s a sweet-spicy cinnamon though … not overly spicy.

This isn’t a spicy chai … but it does certainly have a certain zesty appeal to it. I liked it. Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/03/27/chai-green-tea-from-compass-teas/

Backlog:

Thank you TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this chai … when I first saw you write a tasting note on it, I wanted to try it … I mean … Spiced Doughnut Chai? UM … YUMMMMMM!

Unfortunately, I just didn’t get a “spiced doughnut chai” taste out of it … at least, not the way I was expecting it. I expected more of a sweet, dessert-y kind of taste … you know, some, sweet, cake-y, doughnut-y kind of flavor there … but it just wasn’t there the way I had anticipated.

It is STILL yummy chai. VERY yummy! It just doesn’t live up to the Spiced Doughnut as promised in the name of the Chai. You know? So, I’ll still rate it fairly high because I liked what I tasted, I just didn’t get what I thought I would … or what I hoped for with a name like Spiced Doughnut Chai.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/03/20/spiced-doughnut-chai-black-tea-blend-from-compass-teas/

Backlog:

Thank you TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this tea! I love watermelon so I was confident I’d like this.

This tea greatly benefits from a few minutes of cool time after it’s been brewed. When served piping hot from the teapot hot … the watermelon flavor is a bit muted, but, once it cools slightly (still hot, just not piping hot), the flavor shines through nicely. This makes an EXCELLENT iced tea.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/03/18/watermelon-black-tea-from-compass-teas/

Backlog:

Yum! This is a tea that benefits from a few moments cooling time … to allow the flavors to develop. The coconut flavors are prominent, with a nice nutty undertone that doesn’t necessarily scream out to me that it’s a macadamia nut flavor but, it’s still quite a nice, warm, nutty flavor. The bake-y quality of the black tea lends a cookie-ish note to the cup and ties it all together. It’s really tasty.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/03/08/coconut-macaroon-black-tea-blend-from-compass-teas/

oh god. this is gross. just. no. no strawberry, no lemonade…no good taste in here.

Okay. Iced…not so much.

I made a gallon of this (took a leap of faith, whoops!) in my usual iced method (30 g. leaf and 1 minute 45 second steep since it was astringent at 2 minutes when hot) and something about that cherry just turned medicinal once cold.

It’s only really noticeable if you’re not eating anything else with it, so I’ve been making sure to have it with meals, but still…I wish that the cherry flavor that came through when it was hot would be the same as when it was iced.

Eh. Still looking for a good cherry black, then…

This was a backlog from a few days ago.

Okay, 2 minutes really made a strong, bordering on astringent, brew!

It seemed to get less astringent as it cooled, and the cherry and black tea went really well together.. reminded me of a maraschino cherry taste, which was pretty good. I like fruity teas when they are iced so I gave that a try today too – my next note will be on that version!

No. Just, no. This isn’t for me.
Maybe it’s the green rooibos? There’s some notes running underneath that I don’t like at all.

Sipdown! (276) Yes..that’s 2 higher than yesterday but i found a couple of teas i hadn’t logged in my cupboard and since my verdant cups arrive today, so did the sample that i tucked into that order to get free shipping lol.

I still like the taste of this one. Vanilla and cinnamon…this is a really smooth blend.