Market Spice

I’m always a big fan of vanilla rooibos. This one is creamy and mellow, maybe a touch of smoke in there. And since I got it at Pike Place, drinking this always brings me back there. :) I’ll probably be resteeping a couple times on this wet cloudy night after all this springtime storming.

I made this cold-brewed because I thought it’d appeal to K. Strangely, the orange mostly disappears so it’s like a light cinnamon thing. It’s good but not my fave. K did like it, though!

Man, my kitty is really getting to me today. I’m allergic, you see. I build up an immunity to him when I’m with him every day. He’ll only rarely get to me. But since I just went on my mini-moon and was away from him for 9 days, my defenses have disintegrated. I am a sneezy, runny-nosed weakling this morning. Ugh.

I had a cup of chai tea earlier, which seemed to open my nasal passages with its spiciness. But now the cat is getting to me again, so I’m back to being stuffed up. Time for something else spicy and caffeinated! Oh, this isn’t spicy. For some reason I remember it as “Holiday Spice” not “Holiday Tea.” It’s probably because the company’s name is “Marketspice.” Oh well. I’m drinking it anyway! LOL!

This is a sample from LiberTEAS. Thanks, girly! Oh yeah, and this is a SIPDOWN!!! Wow, the aroma off this cup is great! It smells like fruity mint chocolate tea. YUM! Sadly, my nose seems to be getting worse. I can really only taste peppermint. I’m sure age also has something to do with it, as I’ve left this sample lying in my cupboard untouched for over a year. I imagine it’s divine when fresh and consumed by someone not afflicted by allergies.

Cocoa does show up in the aftertaste. And there’s maybe a hint of something fruity and berry-like. Overall, this is a good tea! It’s held up a lot better than some of these other old samples too. The mint is really helping to assuage my kitty-induced discomfort. Plus, mint and chocolate has always been a winning combo in my book. Thanks LiberTEAS!!!

At first I thought this was like the cinnamon challenge (you know, eat a tablespoon of cinnamon straight, go on, I dare you) and could not be done but.. it grows on you? I think that people who love cinnamon hearts (Lauren) should love this tea.

This tea was a gift from a colleague, and I have been pleasantly surprised by how much I like it, given how much oil covered the tea bags and how nearly overpowering the scent of spices are when the packet is opened. I find the orange oils brighten the cinnamon, without overpowering it or bringing bitterness into the mix. The tea is quite sweet, bordering on over-sweet. Makes a nice evening cup.

I decided to give this sample a go today just for fun. I’m not really into citrus-y flavors, but this one smelled so infectious- creamy, sweet, with some mellow orange undertones. I steeped the leaves for about 5 minutes and I’m surprised with how “quiet” this tea is. I was expecting juicy, bold, orange accents with a milky black base, but no. The orange flavor, while definitely present here, is much more mild, while the creaminess takes more prominence than I anticipated. I think I will have to steep a second cup to see if anything changes. I really enjoy this as is, though.

This is a VERY good mao feng green tea by anyone’s estimation. I LOVE Market Spice, they have very good tea for CHEAP! I’m excited if you can’t tell.
The dry leaf smells floral. When hot this tea smells like, well, green tea as you could imagine. After it cools off a bit I get cinnamon notes and chocolate on the finish. I love this junk and it’s only $50 a pound.

Thanks to yssah for this sample! The dry leaf of this tea smells almost exactly like SweeTarts candy, and although normall I wouldn’t be into that, today it just kind of made me want SweeTarts. There are tons of fruit bits in this tea which I assume are the pineapple “gems”, but whatever they are, yssah’s packing skills caused them to get mashed together into one massive lump that I had to break up a bit before portioning out this leaf.

The steeped tea does not smell like SweeTarts, or any other candy really. It smells kind of like a tropical juice blend where I can’t quite separate out all the flavors. That’s pretty much what it tastes like, too. I guess I get definite orange, but the pineapple and mango are somewhat muddled. It’s a decently tasty fruity tea, and if you like tropical fruity teas it definitely fits that niche. The black tea base is kind of lame in that it doesn’t add much to the overall flavor of the tea, but it isn’t bitter or astringent and that is certainly what most people look for in a flavored tea (it is definitely all I used to look for! Now I’m just picky). I bet this would make a really delicious iced tea.

Sipdown, 198. Except not really, because there are still teas from my swap with yssah that I haven’t added to my cupboard, but I am living in denial la la la la. This one also comes with from my swap with yssah, thanks!

I requested a sample of this one because I thought rose might help me enjoy rooibos more. Except I apparently didn’t look a the tea description. I tasted in and was like mint whaaaat? Yeah, there was some caramel, but mostly minty rooibos, and no rose. Then while logging this tea I noticed in the description it says mint and caramel flavor. Oh. Well. Still, if the name is Caramel Rose, I expect caramel and rose. This should really be called Caramel Mint.

IF this was Caramel Mint, it would be pretty decent. I don’t love minty teas, but it works fairly well with the rooibos overall. If you are looking for rose, look elsewhere.

SO rasberry-y! I want more of this and then to live off of it iced all summer long.

Sipdown, 186. This is a pretty decent tea, though not one I will be restocking. Almond and jasmine go remarkably well together. The oolong is definitely a kind of generic formosa oolong but it is a bit nutty and slighly roasty (not too much!) which provides a nice background note.

Thanks Yssah for the sample. Princess Grey is really different than most of my bergamot teas, partly due to the strong floral. Surprisingly, I think the floral and bergamot seemed to compliment each other really well. I ended up using cream with this one and I think it really worked with the citrus and floral.

This is the cup I made for the bf! He adores cinnamon teas, as does my dad. It seems to be a trait in the men in my life—for example, I think Smaug is probably both of their favorite teas. I like cinnamon in moderation, but strong cinnamon teas aren’t usually my thing, but I grabbed some of this one from the Traveling Tea Box (B) for my boys!

This is…. holy cow, strong cinnamon! Tongue-numbing, mouth-tingling cinnamon. Hot and spicy cinnamon! The orange is a nice background for it, but oh man is this a strongly flavored tea. But if cinnamon is your thing, this is the tea for you!

I actually liked this tea, but, it’s bad. Very bad. A very bad, naughty, tea. It has destroyed my ingenuitea. I probably should have known, or been wiser, or something. The only warning on the package says that it should be stored in a glass container. I probably shoul d have inferred something was up from this, but I did not. I steeped it for 5 minutes in a 16 oz Ingenuitea, it’s all cloudy and etched from the oils in the tea and I’ve had a heck of a time getting the cinnamon smell out of the pot. I’m not even really sure it’s safe to drink tea made out of my pot anymore with the damage this tea did.

That being said, a tasting note should be a note on the tea, not how destructive it. I find it to be pretty delicious, just disappointed that it’s possibly cost me a teapot.

I don’t know why but this tea is synonymous with late-night sipping. Even though it tastes artificially sweet and orangy, i still crave it. I guess it’s like when I crave Big Macs or something like that. :P

Once I’m done drinking the 2 oz I have left, I have 2 oz of this Three Cinnamon Tea my mom brough me from the interior. :D

Another from the traveling tea box! Thanks for including it, Alphakitty! This one is such a different mixture! Oolong, jasmine and almond! Honestly, I think these flavors combine to make its own flavor. I couldn’t really pick the elements out of this one. It’s very different from any other tea I’ve had! The nearest thing it reminds me of is probably darjeeling, even though they are two very different types of tea.

Backlog:

This tea was very surprising. I expected an overwhelmingly minty taste, and while the mint was strong, it didn’t overpower the cup. The cranberry was tangy-tart, and in the case of this rooibos blend, I was happy I could taste the sweetness from the rooibos because it melded quite nicely with the tart taste of the cranberry, curbing it just enough.

Here is my full-length review of this tea: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/01/28/cranberry-mint-african-redbush-tea-from-marketspice/

Another from the traveling teabox! TeaEqualsBliss included this one, thanks! The leaves here are so DARK. But somehow the flavor of the black tea isn’t. It doesn’t steal the spotlight from the cinnamon. It’s a lot like Harney’s Hot Cinnamon Sunset. The cinnamon is super sweet but the Harney’s has three types of cinnamon or something, so it’s a cinnamon triple threat. Like the Harney’s it’s almost tough to tell that it is a black tea. The cinnamon kind of overpowers it, but I love it that way. I was also smelling a hint of orange in the dry leaves, but there wasn’t much in the taste. I think I’ll take a bit of this out of the tea box to add to my stash and add Harney’s for comparison! I really like both of them!

This is one of my favorites. I keep this in my freezer – the tea bags strongly smell like cinnamon and and have an oil to them. This tea I drink hot and add a shot of zwack liquor to it for a bedtime toddy. It does stand out in my tea collection due to the cinnamon smell and taste.

:) yummy.

Yummy! Nice chilled or hot, the mango flavor is mild and the green tea grassiness shines through. Makes me want to try other flavored greens.

Another fun sample from Cavocorax! This one is interesting because it has a lot of sugary white powder in with the tea leaves. Not surprisingly, the smell is very sugary sweet also. I am not sensing much orange in the aroma, but a lot of creamsicle flavors are more vanillaish than orangey. Wow, the orange flavor in this one is definitely unexpected, but really juicy. It’s almost like biting into a fresh piece of orange. With just sweetener it tastes like orange, but if you add milk in it really brings out more of the vanilla flavors and becomes a little creamy. Thanks for sending this one, Cavocorax!

-Dry blend has small tea leaves with white sugary powder and pieces of orange rind.
-Dry leaves smell very sugary sweet. Tea liquor aroma is of vanilla and a little orange.
-Tea liquor is a medium brown color.
-Juicy orange flavor with a light vanilla finish.
-Best with milk and sweetener or just sweetener.
-Good tea. Ripe orange flavor toned down with vanilla sugar.

Thanks Yssah for this sample. I brewed a pot of this when I came home early from class today. It smells like a flowery (especially the lavender) EG – very lovely. The bergamot comes through in smell mostly as I do not notice must of the bergamot astringency in the brewed product. A milder EG nice for an early afternoon pick me up.

I was surprised by this! I was worried about the artificial flavours, but it’s not bad. It really tastes like cinnamon hearts with a splash of orange. I have 4 oz of it and don’t imagine I’ll have any trouble drinking this all down!