Numi Organic Tea

This was included as part of a mixed box so thankfully I don’t have any more – otherwise I’d be pretty pissed if I just spent money on a whole box of this tea.

The tea has a faintly sweet vanilla smell, but I noticed that it also has this weird chemical odor to it. I wonder if that was left behind by the decaffeination process? The taste isn’t much an improvement. It’s a thin, weak brew (though admittedly I didn’t steep it as along as I could have) and what little flavour that is there is artificial and harsh-tasting. Next time I’ll pass on this one.

I need to buy some more of this! I have specific rooibos cravings because the flavor is so unique. It’s not too sweet, so it’s a great break from all the fruity teas I have in my stash.

This has become one of my favourite go-to bagged black blends. The four different types of tea are well balanced which makes the flavour well rounded and satisfying. Not the most sophisticated or interesting blend out there, but it satisfies a morning tea craving extremely well.

In general, I like Numi Tea. I think they have decent quality, that tastes good, and their packaging is appealing (yes, I do judge books by their covers).

This tea is average. But I can’t say for sure, because my water is very metallic right now, and everything tastes like a hose. That doesn’t help delicate flavors one bit. I’m going to give this tea the benefit of doubt and give it a halfway decent review.

This tea is exactly what it says it is: chamomile and lemon myrtle. It smells like them and it tastes like them. The chamomile isn’t too kick-you-in-the-arse strong or bitter and it makes up the main body of the tea. There’s just enough lemon myrtle to give the tea a lemony, ever-so-slightly spicy flavour without taking away from the chamomile.

after the disappointing floral taste in the “oasis” green tea floral blend, this conventional tea bag looking tea has a nice kick of jasmine. good thing i do love jasmine tea although i was a bit disappointed with the overpowering of the more earthy flavors of the green tea…

all in all though a nice afternoon booster.

First reaction – “Ahh Gross!” The two flavors don’t go well together. Few points for mint. End of story.

With four different black teas within, I expected this to be much stronger. I expect black teas to have tons of flavor. Maybe the four different teas cancel each other out and you don’t really get to appreciate each one individually. Not a tea I’d seek out in the future but it was nice to try in my Numi sampler!

ETA: And I always leave the tea bag in until I’m completely finished drinking, so it’s not like I took the tea bag out after two seconds!

Nice refreshment after arriving home from designing newpaper today. Rich taste is an unexpected pleasure, I definately will keep this tea in stock.

This white tea blend has an intriguing scent – slightly floral, though not perfumy, and fruity, almost like stewed apricots. The flavour has a natural sweetness to it – particularly as the tea cools – this is one that would be very nice iced I think. I can picked up apricots in the taste too. Altogther it’s a nice, clean, refreshing drink.

Backlogging:

When I was making a cup of English Breakfast my boy decided to make himself a cup of this. I had a few mouthfuls and it wasn’t that bad. It didn’t taste as strong as it could have because he had a big glass of water for one little teabag. This was my first time tasting ginger tea so I’m surprised that the ginger wasn’t that strong.

I’m not sure what my impression is on this one. I would try it again but I would want to make it over at my house where I don’t have to use water from an instant coffee maker.

Most of you know that I haet red rooibos almost as much as hibiscus, so it galls me just a little to say how freakin’ good this tea is. ;)

It smells absolutely wonderfuly for one thing – cloves and cinnamon primarily, with hints of ginger and cardamom. The spices are balanced very well in the flavour of the tea – nothing is too overpowering and it all meshes nicely. I can’t barely taste the tart rooibos flavour – which suits me just fine.

Great Iced.

Nice as iced tea, but gave me a really bad caffeine headache.

This tea smells quite lemony right out of the package and not a whole lot else. There’s a herbal undertone but it’s mostly lemon.

The package directions were for steeping in boiling water for 4-6 minutes while the tag on the teabag recommended steeping in less-than-boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Thanks for clearing that up Numi. ⌐_⌐ I decided to go with the latter instructions because of the green tea in the blend, plus mate is reputed to get bitter when steeping in boiling water.

The end result is still mostly lemony though I can taste a bit of the nutty/herbal flavour of the maté midway through each sip. There’s maybe a little bit of a green tea taste if I concentrate but it’s not really adding anything significant to this blend that I can tell.

It’s nice enough but it tastes like every other lemongrass/lemon myrtal-flavoured concoction out there. It’s not maté with lemon, it’s LEMON with a hint of maté and frankly if I didn’t know there were other ingredients present I would just think that this is a herbal lemon tisane, abit a nice enough one if that’s your bend.

It’s been forever since I’ve tealogged. Between it being finals time, and my infuser getting moldy I just haven’t really gotten around to drinking so much tea. At the cafeteria this morning I grabbed a packet of this to drink, and I just made some for myself.

put a packet of equal in it. not a very strong flavor, but I do taste traces of mint. It’s not a bad tea at all. Pretty good choice for winding down. I probably wouldn’t buy this ever, but for free it’s definitely a good choice :)

Had this the day I picked up the box, but didn’t bother to write a tasting note.

Sitting down with a cup now, but please be advised that the stitches in my mouth haven’t completely clotted over yet, so everything is tinted with a bit of a coppery blood taste. Delicious. It’s my own damn fault though, the surgeon said no talking, but I thought they were fine and clotted now so I chatted away with my sister (though I clenched jaw, at least), and now they’re bleeding again, it seems. Smart.

It smells deliciously of hot chocolate, with the chocolate vanilla and cinnamon. I get no tea smell, but then, I’m not sure what puerh should smell like. This’ my first, and I suppose not the best choice if I want to really explore the taste of puerh. But I was in the Organics store (the only store in my location that carries any Numi products at all besides Chapters, but that only carries their blooming teas) and saw it, and spent five minutes deciding between this, Emperor’s Puerh and Mint Puerh. Emperor’s seemed like a good choice—unflavoured—but I ultimately decided to spend ten whole dollars on this one.

The taste is dusty-earthy, with a light cocoa taste and texture overlapping it, and then a pleasant aftertaste of hot chocolate (chocolate, vanilla and cinnamon—does this actually contain cinnamon? It tastes/smells like it; possibly nutmeg too, hmm—all the proper Hot Cocoa spices). Mm nice. The earthyness is different, but I’m definitely looking forward to experimenting with more puerhs in the future.

The only rose teas I’ve had have been rose congou black teas where the rose was more of an accompanim ent rather than the main even. Here, combined with the milder white tea the rose is noticeably more prominent, although it isn’t unpalatable. This tea has a light, delicate, almost girly quality that make me think of a Victorian-style tea party in the middle of a old-fashioned rose garden. Male tea drinkers need not apply. ;)

I could see this making a nice iced tea aswell, something smooth and refreshing to drink on a hot day.

I have spiced rooibos, cranberry rooibos, pumpkin cream rooibos… this one little teabag is the ONLY plain rooibos currently in my possession.

This seems like a decent quality, plain rooibos. Not earth-shattering, but certainly not bad. Does have natural hints of vanilla and orange (it’s all rooibos – no additives). It is naturally slightly sweet, but I think a touch of honey or agave would really give it dimension. I had it hot and cold and liked it both ways. Would consider buying, but I prefer Stash’s Red/White Fusion.

These are the voyages of the Starship Ewaprise

Dooooo doo doo doo doo doo DOOOOOOOOOOOOO dootiddy doo doo doo doo dootiddy doo, etc.

Captains Log, Stardate I have no idea.

While traveling through some kind of nebula, the ship’s supply of teabags, mysteriously disappeared. Since the ship was already low on energy, this resulted in a complete loss of power to the bridge. The ship floated aimlessly for a while, but when the crew began exhibiting signs of irritability, I decided to take action. By creating a singularity by reversing the polarity of the impulse thrusters we were able to achieve orbit around the planet Kaw Pheekart. An away team, consisting of myself, my first officer and Ensign Sodead (my sister’s boyfriend’s second cousin – I felt the lad could use some away team experience), took a shuttle down to the surface.

We landed in the country of Numi, where we learned that it’s sovereign, the Earl of Grey was temporarily out of the country, so we talked to his majordomo, Barry Black, who while a somewhat sour individual, was able to provide us with the energy we needed by converting excess rations to a cyclical nitrogenous liquid compatible with our systems. Unfortunately, Ensign Sodead was killed by a freak landslide on our way back to the shuttle.

As we left orbit, we ejected the warp core, just for giggles.

Wow, this stuff is great. I was out yesterday at the NRA show in Chicago helping out at the Adagio booth and took sometime to look around and stopped off at the Numi booth where I tasted this te black and I was blown away at the amount earthy chocolate flavor I got. I took a sample bag home and made it last night with sweetener and milk and it was like a richer slightly cinnamon and hot chocolate. Delicious, I will have to buy some for myself.

On another note. The show was a lot of fun and everyone at Adagio was so very welcoming and kind. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to help out.

Doulton’s Shakespeare: A Tasting Note in 5 Acts
Act III scene 5

Exit, pursued by the Bear.
Stage direction from A Winter’s Tale, Act III scene 3

When I was initially going through the mighty Shakespeare box and I pulled this bag out I said aloud “Oh God” both as a statement of horror and a supplication. I dislike both chocolate and Puerh: this seemed like the most unholiest of pairings. I needed to be in the right frame of mind to try this one. And today was the day.

I bravely went to my teapot and prepped. The dry leaves actually didn’t make me recoil. As I added the freshly boiled water to the leaves the scent wafted up I did recoil and said “Oh God” yet again. Dirty animal chocolate. As I poured the steeped tea and the smell came at me I started muttering “ohgodohgodohgod…” My composure totally cracked, and yet I tried a sip. I GAGGED! It was my first full-out tea gag. I calmly set the cup down and put my hand over my mouth and tried to decide what to do. It smelled like a zoo. A chocolate sprinkled zoo. Perhaps more like if you took this tea, mixed it with the mocha powder that Starbucks uses, and then stored it in the cave where a bear’s hibernating for the winter. I decided to let it sit in another room while I decided its fate. Either the cooling would be a good thing or it would go down the sink.

The cooling helped it quite a bit. I’ve only had a few Puerhs, but there seems to be a “sweet spot” of time/temp where it becomes this oddly fascinating drink to me. The window on this one was very quick. I could sort of understand why others like this: the chocolate did do a neat “flavor coat” on the roof of my mouth. The tea seemed more like a mineral-filled earth. And then it went back to being blechy. There’s about 1/3 of the cup left and it’s sink-bound.

This tea is Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. It starts off full of vengence, then does this 180 where it’s all about redemption and a statue coming to life. It really isn’t Shakespeare’s best play — the only really good part of this play is the stage direction Exit, persued by the bear. I started off vengeful with this tea, then shifted maybe 10 degrees or so in it’s favor, but that’s as far as I got. No redemption here. If I really enjoyed chocolate or Puerhs, then this would be a completely different note, but alas it is not to be. GA