Teavana

Very yummy. The tea flavor is not masked by the sweetness of cranberries, nor do the cranberries taste artificial.

I really enjoy how strong this tea is. it can be steeped 3-4 times and still taste amazing. Jasmine is my all-time favourite smell!

My husband and I enjoyed an afternoon at the mall and he actually let me walk into Teavana!!! (Usually ends up with me spending way too much money and not necessarily on tea but accessories… cast iron teapot, Breville, teamakers, spoons you get the idea!) This is why my husband usually wants to chaperone me if I am going to the mall LOL!! But he was in a good mood and actually went into the teavana with me…(probably just to keep a close eye on my wallet!) But I got a $5 cup of “crack” if you will. That is what I think Teavana puts in this blend ;) It is so good when they make it… and there has to be some kind of drug in it for me to spend $5 on a cup of tea!!!! It was heavenly though!
(And when my husband wasn’t paying attention I got 2 oz of Jasmine green pearls and 2 oz of strawberry lemonade. I love blending the two! :) All in all we had a great mall trip!!!

Had a great day shopping at the mall with my husband and lunch at Olive Garden! Enjoyed a cup of this while shopping. Super yummy!

I have a love/hate relationship with this tea. I really LOVE it most days, but it can be tempermental at times and sometimes does not seem strong enough. Not sure why- I make it the exact same way every time. But I really do LOVE this tea! spicy and sweet

Ginseng Shminseng this tasted ok but I don’t feel any smarter, wiser or better looking.

Warm, comforting, cinnamony, almond deliciousness. This is hard to beat. I was having a crappy morning, this tea is making it better. It tastes like a drinkable cookie. I seem to remember a commercial recently that used the phrase “tea can do that”. Turn a day around? Yes, this tea can do that. :) (Of course I could probably say that now about quite a few teas, thanks to this little site!)

Thank you Meghann M for the sample!

Just a quick note on second-steeping this tea. On the second steep, it’s very cinnamon-y (blech). It’s unfortunate that I don’t have a cinnamon-loving housemate who could enjoy the second steep. I’m going to have to remember this and stick to just the one steep from now on.

Oh, gosh. Steepster tells me that I last logged this tea almost two years ago. How can that be? Honestly, this rooibos chai is like that tattered, reliable, security bankie that’s always there for you. I’ve had quite a bit of mediocriTEA (c’mon, I had to) of late and allergies have been kicking my butt, leaving me hacking like a cat to scratch my throat. All in all, things have been just that side of miserable.

I wanted a caffeine-free, flavoured tea, preferably something with ginger in it. I’ve been making my way through the Golden Moon sampler set, and the few samples I have left are caffeinated to varying degrees and none has ginger in it. For the first time in ages, then, I looked into my stash to see what else I have, and happily discovered a pouch of this tea.

Teavana don’t, in general, blow my mind with their teas, but sometimes they come up with some really great blends. One such blend is their rooibos chai. The dry leaves smell heavenly: rooibos, ginger and other spices, and, um…okay, this is a bit strange, but…a touch of Tiger Balm. I’m not really sure where that comes from, but I swear, I get a whiff of it every time I inhale. The fragrance of the steeped tea is all that, minus the Tiger Balm, which magically disappears.

Mmmm… Every sip of this tea is just what the doctor ordered. The ginger soothes the throat without burning, the rooibos calms the nerves, and delivers warmth to every part of one’s being. If you don’t like rooibos, stay away; but if you do, and you like chai, you should love this. Both rooibos and chai can be tasted and experienced separately, but together. Each retains its individual profile but complements the other perfectly.

Hello, cinnamon. :shiftyeyes: We meet again.

I’m always leery when I see cinnamon in the ingredients because it’s such an overpowering fragrance and flavour. I also get a bit irritated when I see it in chai (which I always do) because I don’t remember people generally putting cinnamon in chai while I was growing up; our primary “masala chai” ingredient was always ginger.

My suspicion proved groundless and I was happily surprised. While the cinnamon’s fragrance is evident, its flavour does not overwhelm every other. Even better, I could clearly taste both rooibos and chai, concluding that they are two great tastes that taste great together. Yummy.

Oh, and this rooibos chai is really soothing if you’ve got a bit of a sore throat or something.

Teavana’s Rooibos Rose Garden is…uneventful. It sounds far more exotic than it tastes. I suppose it’s vaguely floral, but not at all rosiferous like I thought it’d be. Roses are used a lot in South Asia: in cooking, in beverages, in incense, etc. This likely created in me the expectation of a certain fragrance and flavour, which just aren’t there. I’ve tried a variety of steep times and water temps, now, as well as varying levels of sweetener; this one just falls squarely in the “meh” region.

I know my review will go against the other reviews posted about this tea, but for me I will not be able to get to the bottom of my teacup with this tea in it! Yuck, can’t get past a papaya taste. Also leaves a fake spiced aftertaste. This tea is not for me.

I love this blend! I tried it as a sample at Teavana and bought a small amount on the spot while also having them make me a to-go cup with German Rock Sugar for the road. After using all of the tea up in a short amount of time, I bought more (a whole lot more). I drink it mostly in the morning at work from a big pot.

The tea is beautiful just to look at – all the pretty little pieces of citrus peel, spices, herbs, and tea look vibrant and fresh, almost like tea potpourri! The smell is spicy and warm, perfect for the transition into fall and winter. Adding hot water, the spices pop and the citrus starts to zing. The flavors can be intense and overwhelming at first, but I think that’s what I like most about it. I usually drink this unsweetened, but it does add depth and cut the intensity with honey, or rock sugar, or even a little agave nectar.

Yay! I’ve graduated from bags and sachets and steeped my very first cup (er, two cups) of loose tea! Of course my first cup of loose tea would have to be something that flummoxes me, because that’s my luck. The directions for white tea are different from the directions for green tea, and this has both in it! Gah. I was a bit wary, anyway, since this tea’s got red and black pepper in it (um… whut?) and I can’t have spicy-hot stuff.

You know how some people will add salt ‘n’ pepper ‘n’ other seasoning to their food without even tasting it first? Ya, that bugs me. Generally I will have a cup of tea without any fixin’s, just to see what it’s like.

So, cup 1: 2tsps of tea steeped in 185° water for five minutes. It was mostly okay. It didn’t taste as strong as I expected it to taste, and I figured I’d got the directions wrong since I was steeping in one of those travel mugs that hold way more than 8oz. My heart sank when I saw that there’s cinnamon in this tea. Cinnamon irritates me because it overpowers everything else. I was hoping for nuances, layers of complexity, and what I got was loads of cinnamon and the bite of pepper. Not the greatest of first impressions.

Cup 2: 2 tsps of tea steeped in sweetened, 185° water for, um, probably about 20 minutes. Oh, don’t look at me like that, it was an accident. I left it for 5-7 minutes (remember, I didn’t think 5 minutes was long enough for cup 1) and promptly forgot about it. Good things come to those who wait, even those who only waited accidentally. =) This cup is yummy. My mug is awesome, so the tea, instead of being cold and undrinkable (the mug was uncovered the whole time), is actually still a little too hot to drink comfortably. The tea itself is greatly improved this time around. It’s still too cinnamon-y, but I like it much better sweetened.

Having a cup of this tonight… peppermint never gets old!

Peppermint is always a staple in my tea cabinet! Teavana’s peppermint is a good strong peppermint that leaves your mouth very minty and cool afterwards.

I’ve only had bagged mates before, and I wasn’t overly impressed. I basically concluded that if the choice was between mate and actual tea, I could see no reason to choose mate. So this is definitely not something I would have bought intentionally. It arrived as part of the Teavana tea of the month club classic plan and sat on my kitchen counter staring at me for a while.

I’m still off tea. Not sure why, I just can’t get motivated. I may have had too much of a good thing for a number of months and just simply burnt out. The 100 degree heat and stress at work and home could also have something to do with it, as well as the frustration with my Brita pitcher which decided to become a fish tank for a while. I seem to have eradicated the algae for now, but it was off-putting. It’s not just tea tasting that is suffering, it’s my workouts and my writing and pretty much everything else. I keep telling myself October has to be better because the first month of school will be past and the kids will have reestablished their routines at least. (On the upside, I’ve become interested in chess because my first grader has become interested in it, so I’ve been reading chess books and practicing on the computer trying to develop a game that isn’t embarrassing so I can keep up with him. I have something of a mental block about it, though. I keep telling myself I just don’t get it, so I don’t. See the rock, hit the rock.)

But back to this mate. I finally gave up and cracked it open.

The good thing about it is that you can’t taste the mate. Which if you like mate, is probably also the bad thing. It’s got chunky fruit pieces and blades of lemongrass and basically looks just like a fruit blend. Smells like one too, in the bag. It has a berry-ish, raisiny-ish smell. If there’s a mate smell I can’t detect it. I expected something sort of earthy, but it’s buried under the fruit.

It looks like a fruit blend after it steeps, too. It has that hibiscusy red color. I didn’t pile in the spoonfuls like I do with fruit blends because I didn’t want the mate to be too dense, so I get a Hawaiian punch colored liquor. It doesn’t have a lot of aroma, but what it does has a fruity edge. (Mostly it just smells hot to me, with maybe a disturbing twinge of overheated plastic. I’m using a glass cup so this is mysterious.)

Taste wise, it is basically a fruit blend. I don’t get anything that makes it taste like anything else. Which is a good thing, as far as I’m concerned, because if I could taste the mate I probably wouldn’t like it. As it is, it’s on a par with the average fruit blends I’ve had. Nothing that makes it unusual or unique, and at this point being an average fruit blend isn’t enough to elevate something like this to my shopping list. Particularly since I’m most likely to drink them at night and having the mate in this, albeit rather silent in its participation, takes it out of the running as an evening candidate.

I’m not really feeling caffeine as I drink this. But maybe I’ve overwhelmed myself with increased coffee and Diet Coke consumption while I’ve been off tea and it isn’t making a dent.

No matter what I do I just can’t get a rich, strong out of this one. I added more leaves and steeped longer with a slight increase in flavor but still not enough for me. I will try this again and hope for better results.

very relaxing. Tried it at Teavana blended with Strawberry Lemonade herbal and it was such a calming tea, I bought some to bring home and have been drinking a cup in the evenings. Will refill the tin when it is finished.

Having trouble deciding whether I want to buy more of this one, or Matevana instead when I run out. This is very tasty, I would drink it all day if I didn’t think the caffeine would keep me awake at night. Either my palate isn’t sophisticated enough, though, or the extra flavors just don’t shine through at all (i.e. cornflower petals and safflower). Regardless, this is a must-have for my morning routine, I drink it iced (along with my coffee, which I just can’t give up).

Thank you Doulton for a huge serving of this tea! This is my first official tea from Teavana. I have been eyeing their white chai for a long time. This chai wasn’t spciy enough for me. I prefer the spices and tea separate for chais, because I think the spices need a longer time to brew to bring them out. Plus, fresh ginger in chai is essential! Aside from that, this chai was just ok, nothing stands out from it. The chocolate is nice, but very quiet.

I brewed this tea in a 4 oz gaiwan. I then poured it into a 12 oz cup. I steeped it 3 times and mixed each steeping together. I sipped each steeping and thought the first 2 together were the best. Putting multiple steepings into one cup kinda gives it a more full round flavor. Now, onto what the final product was (the 3 steepings together):
I enjoyed the aroma of the steeped leaves. It was sweet, yet not as sweet as the the smell of it dry. It had a sweet barbecue/roasted vegetal taste to it. Delicious if brewed properly. A good green tea.

I bought this with the intent to drink it iced at work in the morning. The leaves have a very roasty, chocolately smell. Once made, I could also smell and taste the rooibos in the tea, but the chocolate didn’t come through as much as I was expecting. It’s not a very pretty cup, sort of a muddy brown color. I sweetened it with honey but I don’t know that it really needed it, I will have to try it without sweetener next time. It seems like the sugar already present in the chocolate bits could have carried the day. I can see why this is recommended as a coffee substitute, it seems very thick for tea (or “hearty” as my boyfriend described it). Overall it went down very smooth and I think it will make a great morning cup.