Numi Organic Tea

oh this chai isn’t mega chai!
as far as straight chai’s go, it’s probably the most drinkable chai i’ve ever had.
granted i did steep it on the light side, but still. also after half a cup i added some agave and a creamer from the office break room. (hah i feel so clever)
i’m sure a large part of the fun i’m having with this cup is because my expectations were so low. but this moment has persuaded me to try more chais. which i think is a good lesson for the day. :)
thanks TastyBrew!! thank you thank you!

so, do we have any Steely Dan fans in the audience tonight?
Steely Dan – Only A Fool Would Say That
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTt-URVOYos

A reliable bitter tea if I do not have any Lemon juice with me. I usually purchase this from coffee shops I happen to be in.

I definitely finish it all, and like Tavo, I order it in a small cup with two tea bags for extra flavor. I would not purchase for home, however.

Had my first cup of this at Bonefish Grill tonight and it was a delightful end to a good meal. A perfect earl grey. Well balanced flavor and I must say one of the better earl greys our there…and I love most earl greys so that’s saying something. Gonna have to buy a box soon to add to my tea cupboard.

I finished breakfast with a cup of this, because that’s the only thing worthy in the selection at the restaurant. The other options were (all by Numi) Rooibos, decaf vanilla black, & gunpowder green (which I wasn’t in the mood for). Their aged earl grey isn’t bad with stevia added. The Bergamot is nicely mellow.

btw so totally getting all the dried herbs to make/improve that blend of herbs for a cold. Felt soooo good after that.

So since I can’t really taste I have no idea why I went for this. I just knew I wanted puerh and well this doesn’t seem like a waste on useless taste buds.

First I just have to laugh again at the packaging of this tea. TEMPT your water to a boil. Whatever.

I tempted my water to a boil by subjecting it to heat in a closed container and steeped it for three minutes.

While really this was just hey maybe puerh helps get rid of colds, I was hoping for chocolate. I could taste chocolate. And just a bit of hay, I was worried this was actually going to be terrible and I’d be able to taste fishiness since I didn’t give it a little rinse off first.

I don’t understand puerh in a tea bag but I guess when you want it really conveniently, it works. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go cry because of hockey.

I woke up yesterday with a cold. I kept drinking teas I couldn’t taste. I wasted a good one on that. So I decided I’d go to the Numi sampler and this one sounded like it’d be fine.

Except I don’t care for chamomile…I could still taste it. The lemon myrtle part was nice and soothing though. I think I may have just steeped this too long, I was probably distracted by sneezing my face off.

Anyone have a good idea for what I can drink? Hot drinks feel so good. I’m thinking I should stick with herbals or even fruit tisanes? I have no idea what’s good for colds but I’m guessing I tend not to have a lot of it. Would grabbing some lemon balm from my patio make a good option too? I’m too sad to use teas I really like.

I got Indian food today so it’d be spicy and make my nose run even more and they include soup and it was full of cilantro and I didn’t even notice D: And it’s so nice outside but I just want to lay here. Wahhh.

I purchased this yesterday at Walgreens on a whim. Part of my plan to wean myself off caffeine in the afternoon time.

For a decaf tea this is okay. Lemongrass and ginger are both healthy herbals but I can’t help but wonder how much better this would be without the green tea which imparts kind of a bitter taste. I may need to adjust my steeping parameters or try cold brewing this, I left it sitting way too long. It might be better with a little sugar.

It’s a solid “meh” for me I will probably finish off the box.

My very health-conscious and very kind coworker gave me three different Numi Savory Teas, saying that she was excited about what a healthy new kind of tea this is. I was certainly skeptical about the very idea of savory teas, but the Spinach Chive blend is actually hitting the spot for me this morning. It smells like a lovely soup, and i thought i’d be tempted to put salt in it and think of it as a broth, but it’s actually quite nice to sip without anything added to it. It isn’t nearly as weird as some of the chamomile blends i’ve tried, and i’m really looking forward to trying the other two flavors i was given.

Still reviewing tea from breakfast:
I also drank a cup of this. For an earl grey, it’s ok. Not too heavy on the bergamot. I used 2 bags, because the Assam is kind of weak.

Tony & I went to breakfast at our usual haunt, with his 2 kids (both adults). This restaurant has the brown Numi box, & the selection is getting pretty thin. I tried a cup of this, sweetened with stevia. It was ok, definitely got the berry flavors in there, very bright tasting. It actually reminds me of berry flavored koolaid. Not something I’d buy.

I think everyone else hit it with their reviews. This is my go-to tea bag black tea that I carry with me to weekend breakfast out. (hot tea isn’t very popular in my neck of the woods). This was the tea that made me want to try new teas.

No. Just no. Neocitron-y.

No notes yet.

So, we took this week off for our anniversary, and we did a day trip to Carmel and Monterey yesterday. I was a little sad to be away from all my teas, but we stopped in at a little place in Carmel for breakfast, who are known for their famous french toast, and I had some of this tea. The French toast was amazing…battered and fried like a funnel cake and served with homemade cinnamon maple syrup! Yum! I had some fresh fruit to help offset the heaviness.

I asked for tea and she brought out a basket piled high with mostly Numi tea bags. I decided to try the chocolate puerh, and it was pretty good! Does anyone know if they sell this tea loose leaf? The teabag, though, would be great to take on travel. Anyway, the tea reminded me of the bready quality puerh in sTEAp shoppe’s cinnamon swirl bread tea. Very nice, with added chocolate flavor. Not bad when you’re away from the stash!!

Thank you adagio breeze for two samples of this tea.

Black vanilla based tea always makes me think latte so I might as well steep this into latte form. :) Gives me a good excuse to use up the milk before we go on holiday.

The teabag smells spicy and sweet like a vanilla chai. Also a little dry.

Once steeped this tea is sweet and vanilla scented with a dark and dry under tone. As expected the tea soup is dark brown in colour.

My milk froth looks good and the chocolate powder star on the top has promise so here we go sip sip sip Taste is rather dry but sweet and vanilla, very similar to the smell. The vanilla is more sweet than creamy and has an edge that makes me think it could be artificial. The black tea is very dry and rather dull, reminds me of leaves in autumn that are so dry they crunch in your hand.

I couldn’t tell it’s decaf and neither could my husband. He did however say that it’s very plain and I have to agree. This would not be anything that I would re stock or crave. Some sweetener would be better in this if I ever receive any more samples.

Ps…my throat is so dry I had to have a cup of water after drinking this tea.

I loved it the first time I had it – a tea bag in the Numi Collection box. I’ve since purchased the loose leaf. I like it, but there’s a flavor that sometimes hits me the wrong way – nutmeg? Maybe it’s picky about time/temperature, and I haven’t been very scientific about it?

I was quite pleased to receive a sample of this at the Coffee & Tea Festival. I am really intrigued by this new Savory Tea line. I don’t know what to expect. Will it basically be a light soup? A flavored tea with prominent notes of vegetable and spice?

It smells like minty tomato soup. The tomato smell is strong and spicy. It tastes like a very light tomato broth, with an aftertaste of mint. After a few sips, the aftertaste becomes more peppery. I originally brewed this in boiling water for 10 minutes, per package instructions. Putting the teabag back into the mug to see what happens if I brew it longer…

Brewed longer, pepper and lemon flavors come forward. This is an interesting drink. There is a black tea base, but I can’t taste it at all. I’m not sure this should properly be categorized as tea at all. Yet it’s too thin for a broth. I still don’t know what to make of it. This might be put to best use in cooking – I think rice especially would take kindly to it.

As a drink, I’m not really enjoying this. I am not going to rate it because I can’t even figure out what standards to apply. I doubt I’ll be drinking it again, though.

Carrot curry today.

Ingredients include carrot, curry, cilantro, onion, ginger, turmeric, and decaf green tea.

This one is quite brothy, strongly resembling bouillon. I suspect it’s the turmeric. There’s a strong cilantro odor, moderate cilantro flavor.

I wonder what the ‘curry’ in the ingredients really means. It could mean a blend of curry spices, or it could mean Murraya koenigi, or Helichrysum italicum. Whichever is intended, it does have a mild curry-ish flavor, but nothing spicy.

I kind of like this, and would use it as a lower sodium bouillon substitute or a nice hot winter drink. I might also use it as a chicken broth substitute for a vegan recipe – it has more umami and less ‘green’ than canned vegetable broth.

Tried this again tonight. Bumping down my rating because I definitely got a cardboard-y taste this time. I still don’t dislike it, but I’m sure there are nicer vanilla teas out there – not getting this one again.

I’m trying the spinach chive right now. This is more broth than tea, and of course I’m sure I could just as easily make some broth without paying the hefty fee. Sometimes on cold days, I like to make a kettle of green stuff and drink the broth throughout the day.

It’s not bad, but do the extra ingredients add anything? In addition to the obvious, this one has dried lime, dill, onion, decaf green tea, coriander, turmeric, and garlic. Mostly, it tastes chive-y, with a note that reminds me a little of a sour cream chive baked potato. Perhaps the lime adds a brightness/sourness that contributes to that.

I’m certainly enjoying drinking it; a broth made from scratch would be better and cheaper, but is a little harder to carry around in your pocket.

I would drink again. I’m not sure if I’d pay as much as they want for the privilege.

I’m trying to create a new tea for the Spinach Chive, but it keeps bringing me to that “kettle was left on” page. Argh!

Anyways, I got this as a sample from the NYC Coffee and Tea Festival. I was really intrigued and hopeful about this since I do love soup and the idea of having soup whenever I want sounds pretty awesome. Unfortunately, I don’t much like this. There’s a reason why I rarely cook with dried herbs. They don’t taste good to me. The concoction here actually does taste like a soup made from bouillon cubes, but it also has that bitter medicinal quality dried herbs have.

Anyway, I definitely taste the chive. The spinach is a milder flavor. I think I would be pretty interesting to use in cooking, maybe. But I wouldn’t drink it straight. Maybe good as a base for a potato soup?

I received a tea bag as a sample when I went to the Coffee and Tea Festival. I was disappointed that I didn’t get another kind because I don’t like beets. Well, I’ve never actually eaten any, they just look icky. I gave it a try anyway. Why not?

A quick note on the color of the liquor: what a red! The “bright crimson” is such a gorgeous color. While I waited for the tea to cool, I took the time to admire it.

The tea bag smells heavily of the spices. The aroma of the infusion is less intense, with the beets standing out more. Smells like soup. It also tastes like soup, albeit watery soup (obviously). The flavor is full-bodied and strong, but not overtly so, and the beets and spices are well-balanced. Also, good combination of spices. What I like most about the flavor is that it leaves a long-lasting aftertaste.

This tea is appropriately “savory.” I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. Makes me want to try the others. Yay coupons!

I just ran out of this tea, and I’m going to have to go pick up more. It’s perfect for the gloomy mornings I’ve been having. It’s sweet and amazing with a little bit of milk and sugar. Perks me up so I can make it to lunch.

I’m not usually a fan of sweet teas, as you can probably tell from some of my other reviews, but I really like this one. It’s like hot chocolate and puerh tea had a delicious chocolatey tea baby.

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