Numi Organic Tea

Very good straight rooibos. No wood taste just smooth earthy vanilla note.

Certainly an earthy and pleasant green tea. Something about the scent reminds me of waking up early after camping, stepping out of the tent, and taking that first whiff of clean air with a hint of last night’s campfire. Many cups of tea from one tea flower.

I really like this for the amount of reliable tea you can make and the quality of the cups of tea. Nice for a rainy afternoon

Sipdown! No. 10 for 2014.

Four bags left, so the entire family engaged in the sipdown.

The kids really like this one and I worry it will be a hard act to follow, but I’m not unhappy to see it go. Plain honeybush is no longer my thing, if it ever was.

Found half a box of bags in the back of a cabinet and decided that they needed to be consumed. The good news is the kids really like this, and the BF, who prefers non-tea infusions is also on the bandwagon, so my own contribution need be minimal. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just, as I’ve said many times, I went overboard on the honeybush and rooibos back when I was getting my feet wet and I’ve since discovered I prefer true teas.

I will say that on a clear palate, i.e., after dinner, this had a definite, distinctive taste that is sweeter than my original note would have had me believe. It still has a bit more wood than some other honeybushes I’ve tasted, which is one of the things I dislike about non-true-teas in general.

This is the end, beautiful friend[s]. The last of the teabag notes from the initial round of overbuying when some mysterious force moved me to become a tea drinker and appreciatrix. Yay!

The only other honeybush I have had thus far is the Tazo bagged version, which I appreciate for its versatility. It’s a pretty good all purpose sweetener for too-tart fruit blends. It’s also fairly smooth and flavorful on its own.

The Numi bags smell greener and woodier than the Tazo, which smelled like apricots to me. I don’t get an apricot smell here so much as — honey! And that repeats in the aroma after steeping, with a reedy note similar to what I recall was present in the Numi Green Rooibos. This brews slightly darker than the Tazo.

It’s a greener, reedier, less sweet taste as well, which makes me wonder whether this is less oxidized than what Tazo used. But there’s no information on the Numi web site that would help determine this. The honey note is present, but it seems to move around some rather than being continuously present. Sometimes it pops with a little burst of flavor on a particular taste bud, but the overall impression is that it is less pervasive and less sweet than the Tazo.

This could make it more appealing for someone who really likes drinking honeybush plain. This describes me only very occasionally, and when I am moved to drink it plain I think I’d be likely to go for the sweeter alternative. In any case, as I’m mostly using honeybush as a natural flavor enhancer to bring out sweetness in tart fruit blends, I’d be likely to choose the Tazo for that purpose as well.

After drinking my way through a box of this, I’m going to have to reduce the rating. In my first note I mentioned I could taste the tea because I’d been primed by drinking another Numi white immediately before. Having now experienced this tea a number of different ways (on a tabula rasa palate, after various types of other teas besides white, etc.) I can say that I have a fair amount of trouble tasting the tea in this unless I have the taste of white tea already on my tongue from another source.

This blend is really about the spices, and in my view they overpower the tea and that makes this blend uninteresting to me. If I didn’t care about tasting the tea I’m sure I could find an herbal version of this general flavor profile (or make my own as my mom did for my dad when he had a cold).

Second to last of the original bagged tea splurge left to write about. Woo hoo!

I wanted to drink this after the White Nectar Osmanthus Spring because the Moonlight Spice is, as the name suggests, heavily spiced and I feared it would influence my palate if I tasted in the other direction.

The white tea in this one is identified on the packaging as Pai Mu Tan (aka white peony). In my admittedly v. limited knowledge obtained from reading books about tea, I would suspect this is the base for the White Nectar as well as it seems to be less costly than other white teas that contain only buds.

When I sniff the bags, the dominant smell is the cinnamon/orange/clove “Constant Comment” combo, followed by ginger, followed by nonspecific citrus. The liquor’s color is quite dark and orange/brown, almost like that of a standard black tea. Its aroma is mostly cinnamon and some clove. It reminds me of the smell of a spiced “tea” my mother used to make for my father when he had colds. I am fairly sure there was no tea in it at all, just cinnamon, clove and perhaps some other spices.

The tea has a slightly tart taste, probably from the combination of the citrus and hibiscus. I note that it contains dried lime, which may be the same lime from the Dry Desert Lime tisane and which is quite tart. The Moonlight Spice is much less tart than that. I can taste cinnamon and orange, and a little ginger. I can taste the tea only slightly, and I may only be able to taste it because I have the taste of the White Nectar still resident in my personal RAM from the earlier tasting.

It’s not bad, but it isn’t something I think I’d choose if I were going to choose a flavored white tea. The flavors are pretty strong for the delicacy of white tea to stand up to. And if I were going to choose tea with this spice profile, I would likely choose one with a black tea base, a tisane or chai. I wouldn’t cast that in stone, though. This could be a good medicinal choice for when a small amount of caffeine would provide a boost and when black tea is too strong or rich.

Sipdown no. 73 of the year 2014. It appears there was one bag of this left in both the home and work stash. It was really the BF who sipped this down because he didn’t want to drink the chocolate teas I made this morning. He finds the entire idea of chocolate tea “gross.”

Kewl. More for me. ;-)

I did have a couple of sips before I gave him the cup and I enjoyed this more than my original rating reflected so I’ve bumped it up some. I am sure I have other teas scented with Osmanthus in my possession and I think I had been waiting to try those to see how they compared, so I rated this on the low side. Unfortunately, I haven’t actually dug around to find those other teas and compare them. But on a non-comparative basis, this is a delicately scented tea that steeps to something with flavor and with lack of plantiness. Since I sometimes find that to be the trade off with white teas—either they’re so delicate as to require me to play find the flavor, or they have an aspect of them that’s rather like the stems of cut flowers after they’ve sat in water for a week—I give this points for being the happy in between.

Finishing up more of my “starter” tea bags and saying goodbye to this box.

My previous notes on this seem accurate even after drinking through a box of it. It’s a mild, tasty, inoffensive floral tea. Though I likely won’t buy this again, I enjoyed it enough to find myself motivated to try other white/osmanthus blends.

I do find it interesting that now as I’m closing out my original group of bagged teas, what I mostly have left are the whites. They seem the hardest to fit into the span of a day so they get drunk less frequently. Blacks are good for morning, oolongs and greens for afternoon, decafs and tisanes for evening.

Where should I fit the whites in? Late afternoon, early evening?

I find myself within reach of something of a milestone. I only have three kinds of tea from my original splurge left to write notes on! Wonder if I can finish tonight? If not tonight, I should definitely be able to tomorrow. Then on to the even more dubious milestone of finishing drinking them all. Sometimes I leap before I look, as was the case here. Had I looked, I would probably have skipped bags altogether and gone straight to loose leaf. But live and learn.

Before I started on this journey, I didn’t know there was such a thing as white tea. I knew about blacks and greens, certainly, and even oolong. But the sheer existence of white was a surprise. When I first read about it, I thought it sounded like something I’d like. And now that I’ve tried some, I do — though I have yet to figure out where it best fits into my day. It’s not an early morning tea (need heavily caffeinated teas for that) and it’s not an afternoon tea, really (oolong, or green fits there). It’s not really a dessert tea because I’m prefer strong flavors in those. And then I worry that by late evening it’s too late for even it’s reputedly small amount of caffeine. This may be the reason that of all the boxes of teabags I have in my cupboard still, the white tea boxes have the most left in them.

It could also be that I haven’t yet taken the time to perfect how to steep them, and so they intimidate me a little. At least, moreso than other teas. I seem to have more success with lower temperatures and longer steeps — the flavors seem to come out a little bit more that way. But one day I’ll set aside some time and do an organized test of various steeping temperatures and times for different kinds of whites, and then maybe I can overcome my feelings of intimidation.

This is one of the three types of bagged tea I have left to write a note about, and one of the others is also a Numi white tea. The type of white tea this one is is not identified on the bag’s packaging.

The bag has a dusky, nonspecific plant smell, with a jungle flower feel to it. The liquor has an apricot color. The aroma is dusky floral, too, with something I think, from what I have read, is usually referred to as stone fruit? In any case, I don’t find it easily identifiable as a specific fruit — it could be peach, apricot, nectarine, or a combination. There’s a sweetness to it.

It tastes very much like it smells. Heavy, dark floral notes with a suggestion of fruit. The aftertaste is surprisingly fresh, and a tiny bit sweet.

It will be interesting to try other Osmanthus white teas, now that I have a baseline. This one is reasonably tasty for a bagged tea.

I enjoyed this, which I was kind of surprising. Normally I like a strong flavored tea- so I typically stay away from whites, but I was feeling adventurous and felt like my afternoon should be accompanied by something light. It didn’t have too strong of floral notes whic I can appreciate, just nice and light, all I can really say :)

Finished up the last bags of this this evening. It’s a good one, not quite up there with the Chinese Breakfast, and not as good as the loose leaf genmaichas I’ve been trying lately, but for a bagged green tea it is pretty darn good. I’ve been drinking it a lot today and it’s a pretty consistent mild, savory taste from cup to cup. It’s almost as though there’s a little salt in there with the toasty rice, though I doubt it as otherwise it would make me thirsty and it doesn’t.

I’d buy this again if I found myself needing a bagged green tea and it was available.

I feel sorry for this tea. Le pauvre.

If I’d tasted it before I tasted the Den’s and the Samovar, it would have gotten a better rating. It’s pleasant enough. Smells of toasty rice, as it should, though not as toasty as some. Tastes of toasty rice and a bucolic, green tea that is both sweet and a tad bitter just around the edges, and even has a silky, thick mouth feel.

But alas, I am fast becoming spoiled and the tea, while it isn’t unidimensional, isn’t as multi-faceted as others I’ve tried. It’s like a singer who is a tiny bit flat, almost not enough to notice except to someone who has spent a lot of time listening to really really good singing.

Looking over other reviews, I wonder if I need to use more leaf because overall this felt/tasted rather thin. It did have a nice chocolate taste as well as a dry sweet hay taste that I seem to associate with pu-erh so that was nice. It was definitely better than The Tea Spot’s Bolder Breakfast (another chocolate pu-erh blend) – the chocolate wasn’t so dry tasting – but it wasn’t as good of a chocolate tea as Lupicia’s The Au Chocolat – which still wins as the best chocolate tea I’ve had. But this one was mild, smooth and had a nice depth of flavor (Bolder Breakfast can seem a bit flat) so while the chocolate wasn’t a rich as I might have expected (though there was a nice, almost just-finished-a-milk-chocolate-candy-bar aftertaste going on), the overall experience was enjoyable.

Sipdown no. 82 of the year 2014. Two sipdowns today and neither were samples. Yay!

If I needed an easily portable jasmine green with a Chinese green tea base, I might consider buying this again. I am, however, slowly perfecting the balancing act of steeping loose leaf at work which is where I find myself in the most difficult conditions. Travel isn’t hard compared to work, though of course I don’t do any traveling that is too rustic.

Because I don’t really have the need of a bagged jasmine green I suspect I won’t buy this again. But I’m nostalgic about the sipdown because this was from my original “getting into tea” purchase and it’s tasty enough. More sipdowns of the original group on the horizon, which can only be a good thing…

I can’t call this a sipdown yet because although I drank the last of my work stash, it seems I still have about 7 bags at home.

I oversteeped because someone stopped me on my way back to my cube, but even with a longer than optimal steep time this wasn’t bitter or otherwise horrible. Like the Three Kingdoms Mao Feng I think it deserves a slightly better rating. Still not as good as some of the other jasmines I’ve had lately—the underlying tea is neither really taste-able nor does it add much to the flavor. The overall impression is heavier than the Kusmi and the jasmine isn’t as wonderful. But not a bad work tea.

The flavor of this is what I think of as “Chinese restaurant tea” as it seems to be a staple at the Chinese restaurants in this area, only this version is even more jasminy than the norm. The aroma and flavor are very, very jasminy which is a big plus as I love the smell of jasmine.

The tea base is what keeps this from being spectacular. It’s only just peeping through the flowers, and though it is pleasant and mildly sweet, it could announce itself more. Then I’d be able to tell how good this really is — either it would score points or fall down if the tea wasn’t up to at least par. The downside of the intensity of the jasmine is that it masks the tea, and I feel a little like I’m being asked to judge a photo after it’s been airbrushed to conceal all the flaws.

Lest I mislead, this is better than standard restaurant tea in my view as it is more floral and actually more flavorful (I steep mine pretty strong, and restaurants tend not to), but I’m guessing there are better jasmines with more robust bases out there.

UGH.

I got this from my local coffee shop when I went with a friend and didn’t feel like a rich latte after a big meal. It sounded like it would be refreshing, cleansing maybe, just what I needed.

Not sure of water temp and I just left the bag in the cup. The smell was exactly like that NeoCitran lemon drink you make when you have a cold, which for me is a good thing as I always thought that hot-lemonade taste was great.

With high hopes I take my first sip and initially it’s fine. I get a nice tart lime flavour that gives my taste buds a tingle. And then I swallow and I get…chemical? Like serious, metallic, tastes-and-feels-like-its-got-to-be-poisonous chemical flavour on the back and sides of my tongue. It sort of makes me think of when you’ve touched coins and then put your fingers in your mouth, that sort of tongue-puckering metallic taste. In a hot cup of tea. Yeah…not so good.

Because I didn’t make this myself I can’t say whether something went wrong in the preparation but I certainly hope so. Otherwise this tea is supposed to taste like this.

UGH. UGH. UGH.

I’m going to go brush my teeth now.

Finishing the last of this this morning. Oh, the clean, fresh feeling of more room in the tea cupboard! O joy! The rating and description is as I recalled from my previous note. Not something I will seek out now that I have been spoiled by some terrific loose leaf breakfast blends, but I appreciate its role in my continuing evolution in tea appreciation and admiration!

I thought it would be interesting to try this side by side with the Numi Chinese Breakfast. And it was.

I like black tea, this much I know. But I haven’t yet spent a lot of time analyzing whether I like some black teas better than others. I do like the malty, sugary flavor of some blacks but I’m still too early in my journey toward (what I hope will be) eventual sophistication to be able to tell a Yunnan from an Assam from a Ceylon from a Keemun without reading what I’m drinking on the container it came in. I can sort of tell Darjeeling most of the time, but found it interesting when I was reading about Darjeelings that they’re sort of in their own category as they generally aren’t fully oxidized though they are considered blacks. Hmm.

Anyway, this is a blend of Assam, Ceylon, Keemun and Darjeeling, while the Chinese Breakfast is pure Yunnan. The Chinese Breakfast steeps up the more aromatic of the two, with a sweet, brown sugary smell. The Breakfast Blend has some sweetness too, but it is a paler, and less sweet aroma.

Compared to the Chinese Breakfast, this has a less robust flavor, which wasn’t at all what I expected. I was expecting that between the Assam and the Darjeeling, the Morning Rise would be more intense. Morning Rise is pretty ordinary and so there’s not a lot to say about it. It doesn’t stand out, even among other bagged black teas. I didn’t love Awake, but it had more flavor than this even though it wasn’t as smooth and well-blended. I’d pick Chinese Breakfast over this given the choice.

Hat trick! The third from my original group of “starter tea” boxes I’m saying goodbye to in one day. Woot!

This is not one I will likely revisit, now that I have a better idea of what I like in chai, even decaf versions.

I had high hopes for tea notes this evening but they were dashed. My kindergartener’s homework (!) was to write a story about his week with the class mascot (a stuffed Clifford the big red dog) and illustrate it with photographs of the two of them, and of course we left it till the last night. Partly this was because we barely have time to do his other homework as it is, what with both parents working and all, but mostly it was because I got a new camera and couldn’t get the printer to work with it. Ugh. Anyway, I finally figured it out, story is now done and child is in bed. Whew.

So I’m backtracking to another bagged hanger on that I haven’t yet written about.

This is a serviceable spiced rooibos, but I’m not sure it’s a very good chai. I haven’t had a lot of chai, so what do I know. All I can say is I’ve had a really good one. Part of what made it so good was the richness the milk imparted. This doesn’t stand up to milk. Another thing that made it really good was the black pepper kick. There’s no black pepper in this. And another thing that made it really good was a really luscious blend of spices that gave it a lot of character and depth. This has a sort of generic cinnamon-spicy thing going on.

I would have the Tazo Decaf Chai over this if I was looking for a caffeine free chai in a teabag. It stands up to milk, it has black pepper. Two out of three ain’t all bad.

Sipdown no. 86 of the year 2014. Four bags left. Four people in the house. Breakfast!

This is one of my “starter” teas that I’m really going to miss. It’s a Numi I’d consider stocking.

A few months ago I was at a pizza place near work and ordered iced tea to drink. The tea was incredibly tasty and asked what it was. It was this.

Wonderful, deep, malty, sweet flavor. Yum. Bumping the rating.