Della Terra Teas

From Azzrian’s swap.

I’ve brewed up a cup of this this morning while packing away some clothes and other morning chores. I had a momentary panic when I realised I’d forgotten to take out the cup’s strainer, but thankfully on drinking this there was no bitterness. Quite exciting! The berry flavours are more prominent in the dry leave, in the steeped leaf they add just some sweetness to the mix. Might have to try adding some of the vanilla rock sugar Azz sent…

Thanks, I’m quite enjoying this.

Meh. This blend was good, but not great. The apple was good, but the rest just kind of faded into the background. I got this in a try me pack and this is one of the few I don’t think I’ll be ordering more of. Thank goodness, because I seem to have fallen in love with almost every blend I’ve tried so far >.<

Now this is what I call a sipdown. I’m almost sad to see it go, but not quite. I’m more excited to make more room in my cupboard!

The girls (our three cats) conferred and decided to let me out of bed to make tea. When I’m sick, all three pile into the bed with (and on) me, despite their personal issues with each other. But now Earlie (full name Earl Jean Grey) is jealously guarding me and the tea, and I’m not sure which one she’s more interested in.

This tea smells so, so good. My mouth started watering as soon as I opened the package. I had been hoping for a sipdown before I remembered we bought two try me packs of this tea…oh well.

The first sip is wonderful. Cinnamon (my favorite), vanilla, sweetness. But every sip after that is more and more of a let down. I taste no oatmeal and no raisins. Sadness. I’m greatly enjoying the cinnamon, but I have cinnamon crackle. I have no need for other cinnamon teas XD. And I feel like The Glow from DavidsTea is a much better oatmeal tea.

So it will be a pleasure to finish up this cup, but I don’t feel the need to replace it.

Seriously, this tea company is dangerous. DANGEROUS. Just about everything we’ve had from them, we’ve liked. No, not just liked, ADORED. And if we didn’t fall in love with it, it was still good enough that we had no trouble finishing the cup.

This beauty is no exception. I love cinnamon in my teas in my oatmeal raisin cookies and this blend hits that craving spot on. It’s perfect. I feel like I just ate an entire batch of my wife’s delicious homemade cookies, without all the calories. This is just…guh. Yum. Absolutely perfect. I’ve got DT’s Cookie Dough in my travel mug for work, but I don’t think it’s going to like being compared to this perfect blend.

My first Della Terra order arrived today! Everything looks lovely, certainly will not be my last. I decided to brew this one up tonight as I wanted to make sure I was going to be able to fall asleep early this evening. I was up late last night and I want to get lots of sleep before I have to get up early tomorrow.

I did not find the dry smell very attractive. But after the pungent-ness wears off, I could smell a hint of eggnog.

The brewed tea is a nice dark caramel colour. I added almond milk to enhance the experience and the flavours definitely allude to eggnoggy goodness. This is definitely a nice winter rooibos to have around. I like the flavour a lot.

Sipdown (322/304)

I was sad that I hadn’t accomplished any sipdowns today, so when I ran out of coldbrews, I made two cups of this one.

It was…okay. Just okay. The first cup I only doctored with sugar and while I got some vanilla, I mostly got astringent black tea. The second cup, I added a splash of milk hoping to up the creaminess and round off the bite, but instead it just weakened it. I’ve got too many other vanilla blacks to waste my time with a reorder of this.

Homina. Just…guh. This is amazing. I want to sink down into this for the rest of ever. I thought I had found the perfect vanilla black, but I was wrong, they all pale in comparison. Creamy vanilla that just…mmm. Dark deliciousness.

How did I not find out about this perfect tea company before? I am in love and cannot wait to order more!!

In general I love anything Della Terra makes. The tea base tastes fantastic and I did smell the mango and peach, but the peachy taste wasn’t as pronounced as I hoped. It was a good tea, but not as amazing as Eight Candles or Smores.

Finishing this one today from my fruit try me pack. I used a touch more of the tea leaves, and I think I prefer it this way. The smell of the peach from this reminds me a little of the Quaker Oats peaches and cream flavored instant oatmeal. This tea is actually much better than I remember, so if anyone else was disappointed with this one, I would recommend adding some extra leaf in your next go around. Having said that, it’s not so much better that I’d repurchase it – glad I had the chance to experiment though. Gotta love those try me packs!

I love fresh mangoes and fresh peaches, but I have yet to find a Mango and/or peach tea that I love. For some reason these flavors keep coming up as alright but not great for me, regardless of the tea base or the brand.

There’s a pattern for most of these mango/peach teas that the overall Steepster grade tends to be higher than mine. Maybe I have an over expectation of these teas. I want the taste of a fresh fruit blended with the tea, but to me the flavor mimics more the taste of the dried fruit with a slight I don’t know…maybe hay? undertone. I can see how others would say this tea is good, there’s a nice balance between the tea base and the flavors. I just think it’s not a taste that I personally go for. I’m glad I got to sample this in my Fruit try me pack, but it won’t be making my reorder list.

This tea took me by surprise by how good it was, I could taste the marshmallow and the graham cracker without the chocolate overwhelming. All in all, an excellent cuppa.

Yum yum yum. Yuuuuum. This is awesome. I was a little worried that the chocolate would overpower the blend, but it just mixes right in. The graham gives it a nice base and the marshmallow smooths out the edges and makes everything a creamy dream. And what I love most is that the flavors don’t overshadow the flavor of the tea, rather, they work with it.

First time preparing this with my brand new gaiwan, so it may or may not throw off my taste (I have no clue about that, this is my first time using a gaiwan).

Scent
-Before Steeping: Rich caramel scent, decadently rich. Extremely rich, almost overwhelming. There is a thick cloying sweetness scent to it.

-While Steeping: The typical black tea scent, blended with a cloying sweetness and marshmallow after-scent. The caramel scent is still there, richly in the foreground, intense and sweet.

-After Steeping: There is still a faint black tea scent, but that is mostly overshadowed by the reinforced intensity of the caramel, extremely sweet and cloying.

Taste and Overview:
At first taste it’s sweet. Very sweet. Just sweet, at the beginning at least. Right afterwards the intense caramel flavor shows itself to the world, rich and powerful, and just downright delicious. This shows itself well as a desert tea, cloyingly sweet and yummy. You can just taste the marshmallow in it throughout the drinking experience, which lends that nice marshmallow gooiness flavor into the mix. It’s just so good and rich it’s not even funny. Too rich, of course, for anything but a desert tea, but that’s alright. The aftertaste is mostly a sweet caramel flavor that just kind of hangs around for a little while, which is kind of annoying. After adding a little splash of almond milk, for added taste and creaminess, the flavor just soars and astounds. The nearly flavorless almond milk adds that lovely creaminess to the tea, and the very slight, barely-there, lingering taste of almonds hits it just right. I now have a flavor more akin to a caramel crème brulee or a caramel flan. That sweet syrupy caramel intensity blended just right with burnt cream and sugar. This tea is definitely awesome. I would drink again and again as a desert tea.

I have a take it or leave it relationship with mint chocolate, depending upon my mood. I’m glad I had the chance to try this tea in my chocolate try me pack. The flavor is nice with the black tea base. It’s a good tea if you’re into the chocolate mint thing (I got 2 steeps out of the leaves); but the flavor is just not for me.

This was part of my chocolate try me pack. I enjoy mint (funny how “enjoy mint” looks like “enjoyment”), I love chocolate, but when it comes to mint chocolate, I could take it or leave it depending on my mood. How strange is that?

This tea strikes a balance between the chocolate, the mint, and the black tea base. It’s quite lovely, but it’s still something I’d have to be in the mood for.

It’s too late to be up with an angry teething baby. :| Nights like this make me wish I had to get up at 6 for work, instead of being off on maternity leave. /0\ (go to sleep baby, I’m sorry baby, I’m doing everything I can for you, stop being sad…)

Not even tea can fix this. :| Not even apple cinnamon tea.

Maybe I’ll just go to bed and cuddle her and that’ll calm her down. FIrst I need to calm down. Sip that tea down!

(Speaking of sipdowns, I’ve been sipping down like crazy! I think I’m at 85 teas or something? So I might eventually get down to that fabled 50. Just ignore the 9 I’ve got coming from Della Terra, and a few incoming swaps, and I’ll ignore the email from Zen Tea about 20-40% off teas… At least I’m making room? No more going over 100?)

So I made this tea about two hours ago, and then was completely distracted with the baby and helping a friend with a business idea.

WHOOPS.

I gotta say though that this tea is very forgiving. It’s room temperature and it is still very VERY good. It’s a pleasant swirl of apple and cinnamon with a touch of creaminiess to wrap it all together.

I have been so impressed with Della Terra Teas when it comes to their honeybush/rooibos blends. Wow. Thank you.

I finally got around to trying this. It was part of my black Friday order.

This smells very rooibos like in the leaves. Rooibos can be so hit or miss, I can smell the ginger mostly & kind of some fruityness.
Once steeped this smells bakey & cookie like, and mostly like ginger. This is really yummy. I don’t really think it tastes like a ginger snap. I expect a ginger snap to he spicy, gingeree & cinnamonee. I remember sucking on ginger snaps until they would melt. Yum.

Although not at all what I expected this is really delicious & cookie like, just not a ginger snap.

I looooooooove!!! First of all, it’s such a beautiful tea in the bag. The sprinkles and marshmallows make me smile. Then I take a sip. Yum!!! It’s so marshmallowy and awesome. I love it. I just downed a cup…glad I made this my first non davidstea to try :) next up is s’mores and cinnamon crackle. Can’t wait!!! I wish I ordered 40000oz instead of just 2. Haha!

This is so very blah. It’s not nearly fruity enough to sate any berry cravings and it’s got kind of a meh aftertaste. It’s also old so that might be contributing. Not enjoying but this was kind of a sipdown. I’ve finished the big packet at work with this pot (one cup left in the pot, half of my mug still left to go). Reading my previous tasting note, I have 2 more small packets at home, so I can’t mark this as gone quite yet.

I’m not quite sure what to do about this tea. I went through my tea this weekend and came up with a more complete (though still not fully, I haven’t cleaned out the boxes in the spare room and I KNOW that there’s at least one Verdant and Amoda box in there hiding) list of my teas. 487 for those who don’t want to check. But this one…in addition to the mostly full packet I have at work, I have two sample packets at home…those will go in my swap tub I think. I stand by my previous note about how this just tastes muddled though I’m getting a weird taste in the middle of the sip and the back of my throat that is putting me off. I put the normal amount of sugar I usually do for a black tea these days and it’s coming off almost sickly sweet. I have one more cup of this in the pot so I’ll try that one with less sweetener.

In other news, I need some recommendations for a good hand cream because my building is SO DRY, 22% humidity according to my desk thing and I keep putting lotion on and it isn’t helping. Not to mention that I’m having an allergic reaction to something that manifests itself as lumps along my joints that make them hurt to bend. The dryness doesn’t help. Arg.

A note about smell first, I guess. The dry tea leaves have a slightly fruity smell, but the brewed tea doesn’t smell like much of anything. Doesn’t really bode well for the taste, but I could be wrong.

Tasting it really hot, it doesn’t taste like much of anything either. It’s got a slight berry flavour, but I think it’s more from the leaves of the plant than the fruit, it’s got that sort of taste to it. I really wish it were a stronger fruit flavour, it’s bearable but not really much of anything as it is. I’m going to wait for it to cool off a little bit and taste again and maybe the flavour will be stronger. Mostly it just tastes like mediocre black tea right now.

Cooled down, the flavour is slightly stronger, but still nothing to write home about. This one might be better sweetened and iced, for those who like iced tea (I don’t). The berry taste seems to stand out more the cooler it gets. Still not as strong as I would like though, and the leaves carry more strongly than the berry flavouring.

Now this is really quite good, especially for being a tea with hibiscus in it. The orange flavour comes through clearly and it is only the smallest bit tart, easily taken care of by a bit of sugar or honey if you like that (which I do). I’ve liked quite a few of the teas I’ve gotten in this most recent Della Terra order. A good start to a relationship with this company, which seems to get good reviews all around.

Back to the tea, this is the best blood orange tea I’ve tried so far, much better than my previous try of the Adagio tea, though I’ve still got an entire 2 oz of that left. If I am in the mood for orange tea the next time I’m ordering, this will definitely be on my list.