Della Terra Teas

I love lemon. I love rooibos. I really liked, but did not absolutely love, this blend. Drank it straight and found it a little too sweet to my taste. It left that thick feeling you get in your mouth after you eat a piece of lemon meringue pie. This is incredible if you like and are in the mood for lemon meringue! I might save this tea for such a mood.

Smelled great in the bag and tasted almost as good as it smelled. I drank it straight and thought it was quite good, but it may even be better with milk and sugar. I brewed my cup with 1 tsp, next time I will try a little bit more – I found it a little weak. I may adjust my rating.

This tea was good, but I wasn’t blown away by it. When I drank it straight, I couldn’t really taste the strawberry. I found the tea quite sweet on its own, but I needed to add sugar to bring out the strawberry taste. That made the tea almost too sweet for me. I will drink this again, but I’m a little disappointed compared to DT’s Classic Apple Pie.

This is yummy! A perfect way to improve upon the classic Thanksgiving dessert, in my opinion, is to add chocolate. Of course, adding chocolate is my solution to everything. Chocolate makes the world a much nicer place to be, and I’m thankful for chocolate … so it seems only fitting that chocolate SHOULD be part of this Thanksgiving tradition.

What I really like about this is that the pumpkin is a very prominent flavor. It seems too often that pumpkin pie teas are nothing more than black tea with some pumpkin pie spice, rather than actual PUMPKIN taste. Pumpkin pie spice does not equal pumpkin! I like that I taste pumpkin here.

After the tea cools slightly (it is not cold or even tepid at this point, but just not piping hot), I notice a hint of buttery pie crust. The chocolate is a strong flavor too, although, it could always use more chocolate. Always. I doubt there will ever be enough chocolate. :)

The flavor of the black tea is a little obscured with the stronger flavors of pumpkin and chocolate and spice, a little less prominent than I would like for my flavored teas, but, I still find this to be quite tasty, regardless … and something I’d be happy to drink again and again.

I just got finished writing my full-length review for this tea on SororiTea Sisters (this review will publish on the eve of the 20th), and something that I mentioned there that I will also mention here, is that the way the spices and the chocolate flavoring mingle with one another here … it gives the chocolate a sort of chocolate liqueur kind of flavor that I’m really digging. I love Godiva’s Chocolate Liqueur, but, I’m not a big alcohol fan (although I probably could become an alcoholic if I were able to – read: afford to! – keep this liqueur on hand), so I love that I can kind of experience that yummy taste via TEA which I prefer and find much more affordable too.

I slept in this morning. I climbed out of my super comfy big bed…put on one of those robes that feels like you’ve been wrapped in a babies cuddly stuffed animal and made a pot of ‘Favored Tea’.

My tea journey began with ‘Flavored Tea’, and gradually wandered down other avenues that at first were mysterious.
Green, Black, Oolong and then…Pu-erh. Each tea variety grabbed my attention and taught me about what was the tea base under all the flavored tea’s that I had loved so much.

I discovered that there is a point where you either have to pull away and choose to only drink unflavored tea or keep in the loop and taste and enjoy what everyone else is raving about without discrimination.

Tea can be very serious, or it can be loads of fun. I saw the same sort of cerebral decision working at the Winery. People got so serious that they no longer fully enjoyed wine. Some refused to try a wine that they assumed they wouldn’t like. “I don’t drink Rieslings”. Well, that’s borish!

I don’t want to be borish! I love my earthy Shu Pu-erh’s, adore my dangerously chocolate Black Tea’s and swoon over dark Autumnal Oolongs.

However, give me some flavored tea’s too! They are FUN!

What was brilliant with this S’mores tea was the use of real chocolate bits and real mini marshmallows and real crushed graham crackers. Just using chocolate, marshmallow and graham flavor would have sunk the tea into a horrid artificial flavor hole.
The natural ingredients seemed to cancel any taste of artificial flavoring. (I was relieved!)

When I first tasted the tea plain I wasn’t impressed at all. It was too bland. I added Splenda and cream which made the tea delicious.
I haven’t had success tasting the chocolate in any of the Della Terra Tea’s. No idea why. A little cocoa but nothing I’d call real chocolate.

What stood out was the marshmallow flavor and graham cracker taste.
Those flavors were rich and creamy, strong enough to make you feel like you were having a satisfying dessert. I had two mugs of this yummy tea!

So far, this and the Chocolate Pumpkin Chai have been delicious and worth having on hand!

Before heading out to the IRS today…shudder…to discuss a tax issue…shudder again…I treated myself to Chocolate Pumpkin Pie Tea!
It smelled just like an Autumn Pumpkin Spice Yankee Candle. You know what I’m talking about. The candle that makes your home smell like you can bake even if you never turn on the oven!

I had a very nice experience sipping a small pot of this tea.

It wasn’t too pumpkiny (great new word) or too spicy…it was just right.
Except for the part about the chocolate, which was so light that I could hardly taste it, I enjoyed the pumpkin pie and added some cream and sweetened my tea to make it really tasty.

I was all ready to write a positive review on Steepster when BAM!
Steepster Crashed! Not a good omen right before going to the IRS!

FAST FORWARD
Catching up to the review after the IRS visit which went as well as it could (I had 1 person in front of me and that’s all, so hooray for small towns!).

Steepster is finally running again and all is well with the world.

The caramel scent from the dry tea on this is really strong – I almost want to describe it as dark? It’s a delicious smell though!

I got this one as a free sample along with one of my try-me packs, which I’m very glad for! It seems like I’ve loved the randomly chosen free samples even more than many of those I selected myself. I didn’t notice any of the caramel chunks in my sample, but it doesn’t seem at all hindered by that.

When brewed, it tastes noticeably sweet (though I didn’t add anything to it) and caramel-y, but the black tea is at the front. I think a single word to describe this tea, for me, would be “comforting” – especially when combined with the warm, caramel smell that this fills the room with. It probably helps that my first taste of it was a shared pot between me, my mom and my younger sister. It has something that reminds me of mornings in general. I think I’ll save my last cup of it for one of the upcoming near-freezing mornings.

I don’t remember this one having such a graham cracker/roasted smell to it the first time I tried it, but it’s definitely apparent now. And it’s a really nice smell! The smell is sweeter as well, kind of candied. Maybe because I mushed up a few of the marshmallows in it. The brewed tea brings out more of the chocolate and black tea smells, pushing the graham cracker scent to the background.

But yumm does it taste nice – a slight sweetness, lightly chocolate, black tea still apparent and an aftertaste of toasty graham cracker. I can definitely see why it’s one of Della Terra Tea’s highest rated teas on here.

Breaking into my try-me pack of this, which reminds me, I need to place an order at Della Terra sometime soon! Need more Lemon Chiffon :) but onto this tea. The dry smell is VERY raspberry, I can’t really smell anything but raspberry, quite a sweet, fruity smell. Mm, I haven’t had raspberries in ages, let alone raspberry tea!

As it steeps, the raspberry smell is mellowed, and I get maybe a hint of the ginger. I steeped for roughly 2 mins. The liquor is a nice golden yellow color. As for taste, this tea is super mild to me! Maybe I was a bit light on the leaf, or I got a bit less of the raspberry bits and more of the tea part, but it’s a very mellow, lightly raspberry flavored tea. The white and green tea blend very nicely to not be overpowering though, and the raspberry is definitely there. As it cools, I get a bit more ginger maybe? But mostly raspberry, not too tart though, which is nice! I can, however, see the likeness to the cough drops, it’s definitely a sweeter raspberry taste than sour. I can’t find the jasmine anywhere, maybe it’s just adding to the lightness? Oh, and I think I can feel a bit of ginger on my throat afterwards :), definitely feel a bit of its warming!

Overall, a pretty good cup. I would like a bit more ginger bite to it, might try a bit different steeping next time, to try to coax that out. Maybe a bit stronger raspberry taste too, I don’t know though, it’s pretty refreshing and light though. I could see myself drinking this more in the summer, hmm I wonder how it would taste iced too? I definitely won’t have trouble finishing my try me of this!

It’s a beautiful morning! I just looked outside and it’s really bright! When you live at a higher altitude, the Winter sunshine warms everything up even though the temperature might read 55 degrees. People wear shorts and a light sweater. The heater stays off in the house during the day because the house is heated by the sun.

When I first moved to Fort Collins, I was so surprised at how warm it was in this dry climate in the Fall and Winter. The jackets come out at night, and the boots when it snows (which isn’t often and melts quickly).

From the beginning of Fall through Winter, Old Town is transformed into a Fairyland of glittering lights, street performers (I love the tuba bands), and free carriage rides. There’s a small ice rink for the wee skaters. http://flic.kr/p/dtcfsy http://flic.kr/p/dtcfQA

‘Tis the Season’ for Thanksgiving in the U.S. next week and the day after is ‘Black Friday’ (a mega huge, shopping frenzy day). I don’t know about the rest of the World, but this is fun in many communities. Some cities, if you wear black you get discounts or goodies from merchants.

In Fort Collins we don’t have "Black Friday’, we have ‘PLAID’ Friday. If you wear plaid you get free tea, cookies, prizes and discounts all around Old Town.
With the glittering lights, street performers, free tea at my Pub and Waffle Hut sandwiches, it sounds like I’ll have fun and I’m going to be there! Wish you could all join me!

Tea:
I brewed a small pot of Chocolate Chai Pu-Erh this morning hoping that this tea sample would be a redemption after the sour chocolate sample I reviewed last evening.
I do love chocolate but I don’t like too much artificial flavoring.
Thankfully This tea has no artificial flavoring listed on the package! Phew!

My steep time was 4 minutes and the scent of the wet leaves with cinnamon and mini chocolate pieces was amazing. The wafting aroma was like warm chocolate, cinnamon streusel straight from the oven.

I poured a cup of tea and was relieved that the flavor was yummy cocoa with a good amount of cinnamon pop and a bite that must have come from the clove (which you can’t taste, just feel).
The list of ingredients mentioned cardamom but I didn’t taste that spice, and the orange was very light but delicious. I don’t prefer overly orange flavored tea.
If you want Pu-erh flavor, you won’t find it in this tea. The only thing it contributes is a richness. The health benefit is important though. Too many people have a horrible fear of Pu-erh and could easily drink this and never know the Pu-erh is there at all.

My first Pu-erh tea was Davids Tea Chocolate Orange which now tastes a bit off to me because of the artificial flavoring. This Della Terra Chocolate Chai Pu-erh is a step up and away from that sour artificial taste.

This is one of the best flavored Pu-erh’s blends for people who don’t want to taste the actual Pu-erh tea.

BTW Is Black Friday just something here in the U.S. or are there versions of the same thing in Canada and Paris and the UK and Denmark and Ecuador and so on?

Hi everyone, at review 490…I finally had Steepster EAT (or DRINK) my whole review of this tea right at the end! %$#@*&!

I’m not going to try and recount the whole review. The last one took 2 hours. I can’t do that again.

Here’s the short version.

This tea reminded me of Black Chocolate by the Tea and Spice Exchange if any of you have had that one before. I liked that tea.

This is very dark chocolaty as advertised. Not creamy in a way that stands out though and I can’t understand why cream flavor was added. I personally wouldn’t drink this without sweetening it, because sweetening makes the chocolate even stronger.
I tried some tea with cream which was the best way to drink it for my taste.

What I didn’t like was the aftertaste. The tea becomes sour.
I know that up front the flavor is good and chocolaty, but after a minute you’re left with an artificial flavor sourness that comes from too much artificial flavoring. BLECH!
Chocolate makes the sourness worse in my opinion.

I’m keeping an open mind and hope the other chocolate tea’s are not as sour.

I had a great meal out with my family tonight, and this was my dessert when I got home. My first review (that Steepster gobbled up) said the same thing about the sourness so I’m not venting or writing this because of a bad mood.

There has to be a better way to flavor Chocolate tea.

The first time I tried this blend, I chai’d it up1. Yes, didn’t you know? It’s a Thing. So I chai’d it up, and it was incredible. But I hadn’t yet tried it on its own, so didn’t feel right giving it a rating. Since today is Diwali2, I wanted to try something I’ve been eagerly anticipating, so I waited for Mum to get here and chose this.

Mayan Mist’s dry leaf fragrance is very sharp. To be honest, it can be a little off-putting. But really, if you’re put off by it, just ignore it, or you’ll miss out on a pretty lovely experience. The brewed tea loses all of that sharpness and just smells really orangey. If flavours of the “orange spice” ilk are your thing, you should really enjoy this.

Except for the coconut, the taste is exactly what you might expect. I say “except” because I can’t smell or taste any coconut. Maybe it’s just there to take the edge off, provide balance, something. I dunno. But although I do like coconut, I’m fine with it not playing a starring role here; orange spice is more than good enough for me. It’s really orangey and it’s pretty spicy, but if it were just a little more spicy, I wouldn’t complain.

I have enough of the sample left for one more cup. Eep! This is definitely a blend I want to keep around all the time. As far as I can tell, it’s as versatile as Samovar’s Ocean of Wisdom3, which is awesome. If I had to choose a preparation method, it would be the chai version, which was so good all I could do was sip and “mmmmm…” until I reached the bottom of the cup. Steeped normally, it’s still really good, but it doesn’t cause the temporary loss of speech.

I’ve got to branch out more! So far, my Happy Place resident teas are all Della Terra blends (save for one, Samovar’s Ocean of Wisdom).

Tea amount: 1 tsp/~4.75g
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: Fresh, grated ginger; ½ tsp/~2.4g Demerara sugar.

1 http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/137647

2 दिवाली मुबारक! Happy Diwali to my Steepster family! =) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali

3 http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/57991

No rating for this yet, because this isn’t an “out of the box” tasting note. My father, who’s visiting from Florida and underestimated how cold it’d be here and is now miserable, wanted something hot to drink. I wanted to limit his caffeine intake, but I’m reluctant to give him something I haven’t tried yet myself, so it was with a bit of trepidation that I made this tea. Meh, I thought, how bad can it be, right?

So here’s what I did: brought the tea, some sugar, and some water to a boil, then added some vanilla soy milk and grated some fresh ginger into the mix. Kept that going for “a while,” basically until I thought the colour looked good. Poured the whole thing through a strainer (which I didn’t used to own, by the way—thank you, Steepster Select! (RIP)) and divvied it up for us.

If I were to rate this concoction, I’d probably rate it somewhere in the 90s. Maybe even that elusive 100. I couldn’t taste any coconut, but the vanilla soy milk and the ginger+chili and orange and the cinnamon (and I don’t even like cinnamon)…[incoherent babbling]

Sorry, I’m back now. What I was trying to say was that the orange hit my tastebuds and made my mouth happy; the cinnamon hit my nose and gave it a pleasant little tickle and a lovely fragrance; and the ginger+chili hit the back of my throat and made me feel warm all over. So, so, so good.

Next time, I suppose I’ll try the blend on its own to see what it’s like.

Thanks to QueenofTarts I was able to procure a little more of this wonderful tea! I was out which was sad so sad but she did a trade with me for the Peach Melba (also very good stuff) that I got in my Lupicia Happy Bag.
This tea is still just so YUM to me!

Simply the best tea from Della Terra Teas to date.
I pray that this is not a seasonal only tea.
If it is going to be seasonal only then I need to really REALLY stock up as this I am in love with.
This is THE most marshmallowy tea I have ever tasted. Yet not just marshmallow but caramel marshmallow!
Full review will be posted on http://sororiteasisters.com/
but for now – GET SOME before I get it all!

Another from the travelling tea box!

I used 2 perfect teaspoons in my Travel Mug and we took it to Point Pleasant park and admired the chipmunks and big fat bluejays. It’s blizzarding where I used to live.. it’s plus 18 here today. WHOOP!

This was a great fall companion tea! The two most prominent flavours I got were sweet apple and cinnamon – it was followed by a caramel and candy taste and something a bit floral, which put me off a bit- and it was almost a bit too sweet for me! There was something strange in the aftertaste, it reminded me a stevia, but I know there is no stevia in the blend. Maybe an aftertaste from the sugar crystals? Either way it was a bit cloying.

Anyways, that’s minor, it was still a yummy blend! Not one I would purchase for myself, but one I was very happy to try!

I don’t often return to a tea this quickly, but I was just really curious about this one. The black tea base on this seemed so nonexistant that I wondered what would happen if I just added another teaspoon of black tea to the mix. I’m logging this under this tea instead of Chance Combinations because it’s really all about this tea. At first I was considering adding sometime like a Panyang Congou sample I have around, or perhaps some Laoshan Black, but then I decided, you know what? I really want some chocolate in there. So I used the Tea Spot’s Organic Chocolate “O”, which, for those of you who don’t know, is a single-estate, high quality flavored tea. I actually did 1:1 mix here, and just added more black tea to almost the normal amount of this tea that I would put in my cup, so we’ll see if it doesn’t turn out too strong.

Not too strong, but I might dial it back a bit next time because it is edging on too strong. However, it does have a nice blend of pumpkiny flavors and the rich chocolate underlying it. It’s definitely a more enjoyable cup with a base that actually is interesting, so I’ll definitely be putting some various different interesting black teas in whenever I steep this one. It will be interesting to see what might be the best one!

I really haven’t been drinking a lot of flavored teas lately, besides flavored matcha. Weird. Well I finally went to the post office during their opening hours this morning so that I could get the packages that were too big to fit in my (actually very large) PO box (although seriously, there is no reason that two ounces of tea, or a small tin of matcha, need huge cardboard boxes to ship in), and so I finally got to pick up my order from Della Terra. I’ve been curious about Della Terra teas since everyone has been talking about them on here, but never that driven to order from them. But then they had a 50% off halloween teas and I ordered two off that list since the price was right.

I have not spent a lot of time looking for a perfect pumpkin tea, but am pretty certain that it is a flavor I will be fairly picky about because I love pumpkin everything. I go pumpkin crazy this time of year. The dry leaf on this one is powerfully pumpkin pie. Spiced, but not spicy in a chai way, and definitely pumpkiny. Steeped, I smell more fall-themed spices, particularly some woody cinnamon, a bit of pie crust, and what may be some pumpkin hanging out in the background.

The flavor is pretty nice, with some good levels of spices and a decent creamy pumpkin-ness. It’s just, the black tea is so weak. It’s like it has hardly any flavor at all. At one point this would never have bothered me, but now it does. I can just imagine how much more delicious this would be with a lovely, rich, black base underneath. I could try to steep it for longer, but I fear that would just bring out undesirable black tea qualities. I may actually try to add some richer black tea to this the next time I have it and see what the result is. Even so this is pretty tasty with nicely balanced pumpkin flavoring.

Got enough for a cup of this from someone in a trade. Delicious. Tasted like a creamy caramel with a bit of apple. It had little red candy bits in it. The stuff you actually get on a real candied apple. The teas so pretty to. It tasted really good. Sweet and the caramel flavor and apple is there shining through. I did it at 3 minutes on a suggestion.

Additional notes: I wanted to try this one again with Della Terra’s suggested brew time of four minutes… but I think it went to five. It still has an odd flavor while I am sipping it hot, but it does taste better as it cools. Maybe cold brewing would be better? Somehow it tastes sweeter when cold, but not as sweet as it should will the candy thingies and sugar crystals in it. I had at least one fruit chunk in my infuser – it was apricot and I ate it. :D I’ll up the rating, but it still isn’t my favorite from DT. (Original rating 71)

This isn’t my favorite from Della Terra.. there isn’t much flavor here. I didn’t see many actual fruit pieces fall in my tea, so the mild flavor must be that, the “flavor”… I’d say from the peach, pineapple and apricot flavors that should be here, I taste peach the most. I saw more candy pieces than fruit fall into my infuser, but oddly I don’t taste much sugar. I’m also eating donuts so maybe the sugar from the tea is hiding. It’s reminding me of The Fiery Furnaces song ’I’m Gonna Run’ where it says “Ate twelve dozen donuts for lunch”.. but that’s from the donuts, not the tea. Not much else to say about this one, which is why I’m typing about donut songs.

I’ve been so busy lately! That probably won’t change until Thanksgiving, but thankfully there is tea and chocolate, and sometimes even chocolate tea.

I forgot to log this the first time I drank it, last week. I had just made a cup when a friend stopped by on her way home from work, we chatted for a long time, I made her some tea (peppermint), and then I made dinner for everyone. Somewhere in there I forgot about posting a review!

I was a little wary when I saw the tiny pumpkin candies; usually when I see candies in tea it means I will soon be thinking “holy sugar overload, Batman”. But like everything else I’ve tried from DellaTerra, this is really great. The chocolate flavor is rich, dark, and creamy. The pumpkin flavor isn’t strong for me, but still there mingled with the chocolate. I can also taste the cinnamon and nutmeg blending with the pumpkin and chocolate. And best of all, it isn’t too sweet!

Dessert tea is definitely not an every day thing for me, but DellaTerra is winning me over as a good choice when I do want some flavored tea!

I don’t want to be the first to write a tasting note for this one… especially if I say it reminds me of raspberry cough drops.. or what those might actually taste like if I ever had raspberry cough drops. It must be the ginger, which I’m not normally a fan of. I might not like cough drops, but they always remind me of my grandpa for some reason, so they can’t be too bad. The steep color is a pale yellow. I’m also not getting much jasmine here, but I’m starting to think jasmine is very elusive and sensitive to temperature. I’m not sure why anise is in the picture for the tea, since that isn’t listed in the ingredients. The white/green tea combo tastes very fresh. The white tea isn’t drying my mouth at all, which it sometimes likes to do (when I don’t like it to). This isn’t one of my favorites from Della Terra but I have MANY favorites from Della Terra. But give this one a try for yourself! It may be it just isn’t for me, or I didn’t steep it right.

This is delicious! I got 3 good 16 oz. mugs from a single steep of approximately 2.5 teaspoons of tea — which is a lot more than I usually get; I was surprised. (The last steep was noticeably weaker, but still flavorful.) Sweetened with stevia and served hot, I enjoyed it thoroughly.