Fava Tea Co.

Yeah, sample sipdown!

This time, as a latte! Hmmm.. I really think this tea would be better as a black instead of the mix of black and green. The latte came out a little weak, despite using double the leaves.

Sample of this from Rachel Sincere, yay! TY!

Very interesting tea – it’s kinda light/ slightly water, with a coconut, little creamy and little roasty almond taste. The black tea in this (or the green for all I know) is going astringent.
Appearance wise, it’s got a film on it, I’m guessing from the white chocolate. I kinda think this could be better just as a black tea, not as a mix or with more chocolate! Always more chocolate!

Hmmm, not bad but I probably need to mess with the steeping times and maybe drop the temp down to dump the astringency.

Mmmmmm. This tea lives up to its name completely. The scent of the dry leaf is of baked pumpkin with spices. The flavor when drinking is of pumpkin pie, and there is a delicious custardy finish. I’m really sleepy and am typing with only one eye open so I’m going to have to end this review right HERE.

Oh my maple!

This is another one from momo, and it’s my first maple tea. (Sorry, ozli, I didn’t try yours yet.) It smells so strongly of maple. It makes me feel like I just got out of bed and there are pancakes waiting for me. And each sip tastes or warm syrup and butter.

Sadly, the base black is a tad bitter. I’ll try it for 4 minutes next time, instead of 5.

I have an order from 52Teas of Pancake Breakfast coming in. I’m looking forward to comparing these.

Also, I think I’m going to make pancakes. Now. Idec that it’s the afternoon.

Fruity refreshment, great hot, will have to try it cold sometime! While I can smell the rose a little bit sniffing the dry tea, it really recedes into the background when brewed. This is a hibiscus-heavy tea (you can tell just by how red it gets in the cup…VERY red) which works well with plenty of sugar to cut the sourness, but I haven’t even bothered trying it without, since I know it will be too sour for me. Hibiscus provides lots of Vitamin C, so I plan to drink this a lot this winter!

Got this in a swap from Rachel Sincere.

I love Root Beer. I am a Root Beer fiend. But, it’s full of sugar and I can’t have it all too often. So, what better way than to find a tea to help satisfy my cravings?

I tried DavidTea’s Root Beer Float, and that was pretty good, but pricey. I was hoping to find a suitable and cheaper alternative. Unfortunately, this tea is not it. I tried REALLY hard to like it, too. I cold brewed it several times, but no dice. I tried to hot brew it and then let it cool (because drinking hot root beer is just weird). But I think I’ve just been spoiled by “Root Beer Float”. This does not satisfy my cravings whatsoever. It has a hint of root beer, but I think the base just isn’t right for me. The tea smells lovely, though.

I really want this tea to find a home since I have a bunch. Would anyone be interested in it? I’ll ship it free of charge, although you can swap if you want to. The tea has quite the strong scent though, so I’d hesitate to send it with anything else for fear the scent would “rub off”.

Another goodies for Azzrian – Thanks so much!

DH’s Fam has Thanksgiving the Sunday before “Actual” Thanksgiving and because I’m mostly vegan now (VS my last 18+ years of Lacto-Ovo) I decided to make 3 dishes for myself (and others if they wanted some). So…today I have leftovers. I ate a bit of Succotash which was pretty awesome if I do say so myself. It was so easy to make, too! And now I am eating a few Roasted Brussels Sprouts that I do with my WILDTREE Balsamic (and Grapeseed Oil)

Anyhow…I’m pairing this tea with the ‘sprouts. It’s darn tasty!

The Maple is perfect. The sugar is a great touch. Neither are artificial tasting or too over the top! Everything jives well with everything else. This is YUMMY!

If you like maple…try this…it’s a great flavored black tea. YUM!

This is a second tasting note. This tea is delicious. I only bought an ounce because I was short on cash that day, but this is going to be a permanent part of my stash for sure!

Ugh I am so torn. I went into the pet store tonight and this parakeet was so so so cute, when my boyfriend put his finger to the glass, he tried to pick at it instead of scurrying away. I have never felt so immediately attached to a bird. I want to go get him tomorrow but I’m just worried about my candle making stuff, apparently fragrance stuff like that is bad for birds? In all my years with pet parakeets, which includes two who reached double digit ages, I have never, ever had a problem. He’d live in my bedroom anyway so I could just close the door when I’m making stuff. HE IS JUST SO CUTE. http://instagr.am/p/R3idqDpa0p/ he is the white/blue one going in for the cuttlebone attack. It was impossible to get a picture of him because he scurries about everywhere.

I had to also take this picture because these two seemed intrigued by my phone’s case: http://instagr.am/p/R3imE-Ja0z/

So now onto the tea. Thank you, Azzrian!

I have to say I did not finish my cup of this. It really didn’t really taste like maple, and it was not sweet at all. The black tea is all I can taste and it’s not very good…so in goes milk and sugar.

That made it slightly better but I still did not like the way the black tea tasted. I figured less than boiling water and steeped it for four minutes.

Bahhh it might be good for the oatmeal making, but I’m not finding it too tasty to drink.

I can’t find a good enough picture of this that’s worth posting…so you’ll have to trust me when I say it’s really pretty and colorful. Full of reds, blues and greens!

I love visiting home and shopping with my mom. We bought some delicious tea. Both of us love coconut, and the smell of this was super enticing. The salesperson said her son mixed this with Irish Breakfast tea and iced it, which sounds like a really interesting combo. I’ll have to try it in the future. Anyway, this tea tastes as good as it smells (which is always a nice surprise) and brews up really sweet and creamy. Recommended for all coconut lovers!

I guess I’m not much of a dessert tea person after all. I really don’t know why this is called White Chocolate Tiramisu, either. It contains coconut, almonds, and cocoa, and is a mix of black and green teas. The tea flavor itself is a little thin. I can taste the coconut, but not much else, although it isn’t substantial enough for this to count as a coconut tea. I really don’t get much almond or chocolate. I thought it was just OK and drank all of my cup, but I’ll probably sample it out to people I swap with, since I have less than an ounce left. :-)

I have been looking for a deep, rich, hazelnut tea ever since I ran out of my last stash of it, thinking maybe I could find something even better. Alas, this was not it. It was tasty, sure—I definitely got the flavor of the hazelnut and the cocoa nibs as I sipped. But I was missing the richness that I was looking for. I thought maybe the mate’ wasn’t roasted, but it is. Maybe I’m just used to black tea with my hazelnut rather than mate’. I do love my mate’s and it probably isn’t fair to compare this to a black tea, so I will say that it really is a tasty and healthful beverage and you could do a lot worse. I’ll be sipping it while I continue my search…

I didn’t have the highest hopes for this one. I mostly bought it for my partner. She likes citrusy, fruity teas, and when I smelled this one, I knew it was for her. When I got home I noticed it had raspberry and citrus in it, and I had just traded away a tea with the same ingredients which was too tart for me, even with sweetener. Oh, great, I thought.

Well, this was a pleasant surprise! As I sip the tea, I taste the raspberry; at the end I get a tiny bite from the citrus, but not too tart. I should admit that I always sweeten my teas. There is a complexity to this blend. It doesn’t taste like raspberry Koolaid. It would be delicious iced. Recommended!

Well, I can taste the maple in this blend, but there is also a malty undertone to it that wasn’t to my taste. I finished the cup, because it was just fine, but I have so many teas I love that this one will probably be swapped or gifted to someone else to enjoy.

When I was at Fava Tea, one of the ladies there told me that this French Breakfast was her favorite blend. I have English, Irish, and Scottish Breakfast at home, so I figured I’d give this one a sniff. Wow! It smelled amazing! I was surprised at the ingredients because I wouldn’t have guessed them at all. I was almost thinking hazelnut. Give me a break, I have a cold. :-)

Once I steeped it, the vanilla scent and flavor is definitely there, but not overpowering, and it is natural. The cherry and pineapple are there as well, but you really have to think about it to get their flavor—they aren’t taking over the black tea at all. The overall effect is quite smooth and pleasing. Recommended for a crisp fall morning.

I am a tea drinker. I drink tea. Not herbals, not rooibos…well, I make exceptions for things like guayasa and mate that have caffeine or caffeine-like substances! Anyway, both my girlfriend and I are sick and have sore throats, and I popped into my new favorite tea shop, Fava Tea, to find something medicinal. This is what was recommended to me.

When I got home and opened the bag, I was dubious. This stuff looks like the substrate from a gerbil cage. The smell reminds me vaguely of Indian food, is it cardamom? I steeped it in boiling water for the recommended 5 minutes and threw in two packets of Splenda. Hmmmm, this stuff isn’t half bad! I like it with the sweetener. It has a nice flavor and coats the throat without feeling too thick. It did work for my sore throat. Licorice haters need not worry; I didn’t get that taste at all. Highly recommended for your winter cold needs!

Hmmm. This is a nice medium-strength black tea with the exact taste of root beer mixed right in. It was a bit strange to me at first; hot root beer? But as I kept drinking, it started to grow on me. I bet this would be so good as an iced tea latte for a root beer float type of preparation.

I had to buy this because long, long ago I bought Sweet Cranberry Black from Teavana (before I stopped shopping there) and it was one of my go-to teas. This tea from Fava Teas is beyond comparison.

I don’t get the taste of dried cranberries. Not at all. The taste I get is fresh, fruity cranberries with a flavorful black tea. Whenever I drink a tea from Fava I tend to use the word “fresh” at least once but that seems to be the first thing I think when I take a sip. Highly recommended, and I bet it would be wonderful iced.

Ohhh, this is good. The citrus, ginger, and mint are perfectly blended so that none of the flavors overwhelm the other. The citrus flavor grabs you in the beginning of the sip, the fresh ginger comes out in the middle, and there is a lovely mint aftertaste. Ginger and mint are both recommended for upset stomach. Since I had a yucky tummy today, I chose this tea for the evening and I’m glad I did. A fresh, tasty tea.

Nice iced, too, and to share with a friend…so that’s what I am going to do :) Who’ll get it? Time will tell!

It doesn’t seem like there would be much here to be a strong tea. And there is an off scent here too. I’m not sure what it is. This tea needs more to it. The slight cinnamon flavor is nice.

I guess Fava doesn’t carry this one anymore—it’s not on their website. Too bad, because it’s tasty. It reminds me of the “house tea” at Russian Teatime, a restaurant I used to visit near the Art Institute in Chicago. (I so love the classic Russian tea glass in its elegant silver holder…) In general, though, I don’t have much liking for Russian teas—just the black currant flavored ones. So I was excited to find this at Fava awhile back.

And yet I didn’t drink it much because I have only recently become less timid with caffeine. So this is my first logging of this tea.

Smell in the bag is fruity, maybe mango or peach, with the black tea hanging back and not adding much to the scent. In the brew you definitely get the black currant flavor, but not overwhelmingly and not an artificial smell. Neither does it taste artificial. The medium brown brew is clean-tasting, a “basic black” with a friendly layer of currant laid on top. I added rock sugar because it is always sweetened at Russian Teatime, but that’s not to say it has to be sweetened, just that it takes well to sweetener.

Strangely, after a night of sitting on my nightstand, the remainder of this tea was slightly concentrated (=bitter) but still drinkable. I am not one of those people obsessed with temperature in my tea. I stirred up the sugar and finished the mug!

Oh my gosh… what’s in this stuff? As soon as finished my half bowl 5 hrs ago I was craving it again- intensely. I have a lot of matcha on a daily basis, but I very rarely crave it like this. I lasted as long as I could (and intentionally til my craving died down) to have a second half bowl because I was afraid I’d be craving a 3rd. Sooo good.

Grumble…Grumble…Sigh…Grumble…Grumble…Grrr…Grumble…Grumble… OK, let me explain. The theme for this week’s Vegan Dinner Night with my friends was smoothies. I instantly thought to bring matcha (I often do and it goes over very well!), but that required a trip to my local tea store since I was almost out. I arrived fully prepared to buy Rishi’s single serve matcha, but I was pleasantly surprised to see bulk matcha (it’s been almost 2 years since I’ve been there)! I grabbed my matcha (and some Tea on Tap for me and my mom). I arrived at my friends’ Nathan and Ben and smoothies were soon in the works, but… CRAP! The matcha is sitting in my mom’s car. Not a big deal in reality, but I was craving a matcha fruit smoothie so I thru a silent internal temper tantrum and went on with the evening. I’m sure this matcha is good, but it’s SO expensive compared to what I drink on a daily basis ($1.05/g compared to 16 cents/g which is even ceremonial grade), so I called the store and asked about their refund policy because I really can’t afford this when there are better and cheaper alternatives out there. Unfortunately, because I used a gift card, my refund would just be reloaded onto the card vs. a cash refund so I just decided to suck it up and keep it. Oh well.

When I open the tin I notice that, while it’s not nearly as dull in color as some of the flavored matchas I’ve had or even Lupicia’s 100g matcha, it’s not as vibrant (like the smiley on the far right) as I’d like it to be. It’s also quite clumpy. This will definitely need to be sifted. After a sift and a whisk, a substantial froth formed. While the whisked color was again paler than I’d hoped, it actually had a pretty substantial flavor. The flavor was sweet and smooth, just like the mouth feel. It reminded me of my first match experience which was Rishi’s individually packed matcha which makes me think this may be Rishi. Not bad, but way too expensive. For as much of a tea addict (matcha specifically) I am, I really have learned to find great bargains so I don’t have to sacrifice flavor, volume, or frequency. If you’re not on as tight of a budget as I am (which doesn’t take much lol!) definitely give this a try. It’s a good one.