Numi Organic Tea

Sipdown no. 95 for the year 2014! It’s looking like I’ll make it to 100 this weekend. Woo hoo!

I am sorry to see this one go, so I’m bumping the rating. Another of my “starter” group, it became the commuting and toodling around tea after the Three Kingdoms Mao Feng, mostly because it was in bags and it was easy to drop into the travel contraptions, but it’s also just a nice, fairly light, tasty-without-calling-attention-to-itself tea.

No. 1 really liked it as well.

It’s one of the few in the starter group I’d consider buying again, along with Refresh and Lotus from Tazo, and Chinese Breakfast Yunnan Black and Monkey King Jasmine Green from Numi.

I have a few bags left of this in my work stash and more at home. I haven’t had it in a while, and I’m not sure why as I like it quite a bit. In fact, I’m bumping the rating up a tiny bit.

I think the main issue with this one is that the rose is the reason to drink it and I’m not always in the mood for rose. I have a bit of an idee fixe that the rose is stronger in this tea than it really proves to be when I drink it, which adds to the feeling that I need to be in the mood. It’s also one of the bagged teas I still have left that I like better than most, so I’ve been sort of hoarding it.

The rose is still the reason to drink this. It’s really quite nice for an afternoon tea. I should drink it more.

I love the fragrance of roses, both directly from the flower and in scented products such as soaps and perfumes, so I’m the perfect target customer for this tea. The perfume of this tea is indeed very rosy. It’s an old world scent; to some it brings to mind grandmothers or their blue haired luncheon companions, but it makes me think of cream colored china with pink floral designs displayed on doily-draped antique washstands. And it makes me feel calm, content, and meditative.

The color is a dusky pinkish brown, as though someone dropped a little of the color associated with the pink version of the flower known as a tea rose into a cup of standard light brown tea.

I know I’ve eaten rose petals before but I can’t call to mind their flavor. There is something sweetly floral about the taste of this tea, which must be the rose. I have only had flavored white teas, but my experience of them has been generally that tend toward sweet and fresh-tasting, and so this is (though I think I steeped it a bit too long this time around as it was more astringent than the last few times I had it when I steeped it from 3-4 minutes).

Not liking this one today. :P

Not a favorite of mine. Perhaps it is the use of green puerh? Who knows. But it mixes great with hot cocoa and once I am outof tis classic, it will not be restocked. Sorries.

Sipdown no. 39 of 2016 (no. 250 total).

I took my stash of remaining mixed teabags to work before I fully appreciated the tea availability at work. They have a good selection of Numi bagged teas available for free. Even so, if the past is any indication, my only hope of sipping down the remaining teabags is to do it at work. I just don’t reach for them at home, and I’ve given up on doing loose leaf at work. Too hard to get leaves out of the filter.

So I started a bit of a sipdown campaign, and this was the first to go. Either it became a little tastier over time or I’m just more used to puerh than I was when I wrote my first note. I didn’t get the horsiness that I mentioned before. There is a sort of a loam flavor, and the leather is smoother than I recalled.

Moving on to the other three Numi puerhs I still have, starting tomorrow, probably.

I haven’t had this in a very long time. Today we were running out of the house to go to the laser tag place and I had to grab something fast. I didn’t have time to measure or think too much about water temp and I am down to very few types of bagged tea, so I grabbed this and stuck it in the Timolino.

I think that pu-erh isn’t really the best toodling around tea. Or at least not for me.

Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy this. It was leathery and a bit brothy like it apparently was the last time I had it, judging from my previous note. I just think that it’s meant to be sipped in peace and quiet and in smaller amounts.

I never realized how rushed my life is most of the time until I started having to fight for minutes to get tea made before leaving the house. Or even getting it ready to steep on the way. Sigh.

After the Chocolate Puerh experience I thought I’d give the others a try. I’m starting with this one.

I’m rather a novice at wine-tasting but I always found it amusing when I read tasting notes for wines that describe them as having a “barnyard” or “leathery” nose or taste. And yet, that describes the smell of the bags. It’s peaty, loamy, and horsey, more on the poop side than the saddle side (though this last note is not so strong as to be unpleasant). The aroma of the steeped tea, though, reverses that and has a much more leathery scent to it along with the earthiness. The liquor is indistinguishable from black coffee.

I’d describe the flavor, too, as leathery. There’s a bit of smokiness to it as well, almost like what you find in Scotch, and an afterlingering sweetness I associate with breakfast blends containing Assam. The consistency is very similar to that of the Chocolate Puerh, smooth, slightly slick, and brothy. It’s thick, and gives the illusion of chewiness.

It will be interesting to taste for this next time I drink the Chocolate, as I imagine that under the lovely chocolate and spice additives to that tea, this is pretty much the unadulterated tea flavor. I’ve also ordered some samples of loose puehrs as I think I could become a fan.

I’m wondering if this is more of a spearmint rather than a peppermint. (Looking at the packaging it just says mint) It’s a darker taste than I expected. I think I prefer the brighter, lighter taste of peppermint. This is a nice tea, and it’s helping me get through an evening of massive overtime, but I’d rather drink a cup of Celestial Seasonings Peppermint.

But, as far as mints go, it’s pretty decent.

Having discovered that I am not the world’s biggest lemon myrtle fan, I also discovered that dropping a bit of ground cinnamon into this significantly improved the taste in my view. It cuts the soapiness of the lemon myrtle, and boosts the taste of the chamomile a bit. However, it is easy to overdo it and if you do you just get a mouth full of cinnamon.

I actually didn’t read the ingredients (or the subtitle) of this before I tried it or I might have been scared off from my last lemon myrtle experience, the soapy memory of which I can still, unfortunately, bring to mind pretty quickly along with a strong urge to rinse my mouth and spit. But as I’d speculated, lemon myrtle seems much more suited to blending into other ingredients where it can be balanced by other flavors. I actually like chamomile, though I have to be in the mood for it, and this was a nice balance between chamomile and a lemony flavor. If I let my mind wander to the thought, I could sort of taste soap in the lemon myrtle in this, too, so I tried to steer my mind from that. It’s sad that one negative experience can have such influence, as the last thing I really want to do while sipping tea before bedtime is have to think about what not to think about….

Continuing on with the project of finishing up my earliest batch of tea splurge, I am saying goodbye to this one today.

It actually grew on me quite a bit from my initial tasting. After drinking my way through a box of it, I was used to the tartness and could get right to the berry flavor pretty quickly. It’s a cheerful flavor that doesn’t obliterate the tea, but it may be a little too strong and too weak at the same time — it reminds me a little of Kool Aid.

Hail and farewell! Thanks for the memories.

Another tea drunk at work under less than optimal brewing conditions.

The aroma is subtle, a sort of toasty/fruity melange. The color is beautiful — deep red, almost wine-like.

I agree that the hibiscus and rose hips are too heavy in this blend. They dominate and make the tea too tart. The raspberry/strawberry flavor is there, but you have to get past the hibiscus and rose hips to get to it. The darjeeling is a nice backdrop. I am really liking darjeeling and I haven’t even had a fine loose version yet.

Finished up my box of this, which was among my “starter teas.” It’s very mildly spiced when drunk with milk and sweetener, which has become my preferred method when I can’t engage in the stovetop method. Too mild for me, I discovered, when it comes to chai, though without milk it has more bite. But I thank it for helping me to hone my ever growing and evolving tastes.

A bit better with milk and sweetened up a bit, but doesn’t have the depth of flavor of the Tazo. Usually Numi’s subtlety is a plus when compared with the sometimes stark Tazo flavors that don’t blend so much as each scream independently to be noticed, but here it’s a detriment.

Trying this at work today, so no control over water temp or water quality. It comes of out a spigot that sticks out of the drip coffee maker with a little red plastic flipper doo-dah at the top that looks like it should flip back but actually flips forward. Many of you probably know of what I speak.

I don’t have a lot of chai experience to compare this to, but this is a pretty spicy, bite-the-tongue flavor that has a kick to it and stays with for a while. I’m getting a lot of cinnamon in the aroma and the flavor but not much else in the way of spices that I can distinguish. At approximately 3 minutes of steeping time I got very little tea flavor as well, but bumping it up to 5, I can detect a malty flavor competing with the cinnamon.

Had this tea this AM w/a little bit of milk and lots of sugar. This is the perfect way to start the day w/ a bold and assertive flavor and the brewing times aren’t too picky…. The tea tastes slightly spicy and slightly earthy…..It really is becoming my favorites and it is a bagged tea!

I can detect earthy notes, a very mild spicy flavor (this is no chai). The cocoa flavor was not strong at all. But like the other reviewers commented, the flavors blended together quite well.

Sipdown no. 52 of 2016 (no. 263 total).

The last of the Numi Puerhs is no more.

I have been swilling this at work like there was no tomorrow for the past week. It still reminds me more of gingerbread than chocolate. My favorite of the Numi puerhs and with the rest of them, a helpful starter puerh.

I may revisit it at some point in the future, but for now, too many other teas, too little time, so no immediate restock even though I quite like it.

Cofftea and Angrboda’s notes about this one made me really eager to break open my box and give it a try. And man, am I glad I did. This one is a delightful sensuous experience on so many levels.

The bags do have an amazing smell. It starts as gingerbready, and not the vaguely spicy smell of ginger snaps or even the bready smell of gingerbread men (or women :-)), but a really deep, rich smell, like a fresh gingerbread loaf right out of the oven. Then it moves to something more chocolatey, with a dab of vanilla dropped in; the best I can come up with to describe it is that it’s the smell of how chocolate mousse tastes.

The tea is about as dark brown as it gets and I can’t see the bottom of the cup. The aroma is not quite as striking as it was dry, but still very pleasing. The taste is unique and complex. I taste mainly the chocolate and the spices, but there’s also an almost coffee-like note that sits on the tongue.

One of the things I find most enjoyable about it is its texture. The package uses the adjective velvety. I’m not sure what part of the experience that is supposed to apply to but for me it is how it feels in my mouth — soft, a little slick, and with substance to it, almost like a broth, and quite comforting.

Overall, a very satisfying experience and one I expect I’ll go back to again and again.

I’m not a huge fan of chamomile, but I like Mighty Leaf’s citrus one and decided to give this one a try. It was okay, but didn’t finish the cup.

Blast! I have taken all my teas/tea supplies home from the office so I’ll have access to them over the summer. And then I realized I was out of paper filters. No great tea for me!

So I turned to my teabags. I really don’t have so many anymore, unless they’re for medicinal purposes, so I grabbed what I had and took them to work. This was the cup I started the day with.

It’s okay, but I’m glad to be purchasing some more paper filters tonight!