Teavana

I feel a little bad comparing Teavana’s sencha to vacuum-sealed, air-freighted, direct-from-Japan examples, but it’s hard not too. Once you’ve put your lips to that buttery, silken, kelpy, fishy delight, it makes more wholesale Japanese teas seem stale, weak, and poorly processed. Such is the case, with this one, I suppose. It came across as flat, a touch old and dusty right out of the bag.

Even though it’s marketed for coffee lovers, I can’t stand straight up coffee but absolutely adore this tea; it’s like it takes the smell of coffee and actually makes it taste like that, sans the bitterness. It’s smooth, has a nice nutty/slight chocolate flavor, and very rich without a hint of bitterness.

I’m trying this iced (and again unsweetened) now.

This time around, the taste is more fruity up front. The strawberry also stands out more now as opposed to the apple. Now the mint is just a really nice aftertaste. I like it better now that it is iced; this is going to be really nice come summertime.

My first time with a Teavana tea, and it’s a good one!

First off, the color grabs me right away. It’s a very nice light pink that I’ve never seen from a tea before.

The taste is mostly mint, with the fruit as an aftertaste. The strawberry is pretty prominent, but you can also taste apple. I can’t really taste much tea, just the herbal peppermint. It isn’t floral at all.

Overall, this is a very light and refreshing tea. I’ll try it iced sometime.

I’ve been drinking my way through two ounces of this over the past two months. It’s a great winter cup. There’s an awful lot of fractured pieces in the batch I received, but it still yields a juicy, fresh cup. Strawberries, honey, and oats. Soft and sweet. Steeps many times longer than I expected it to.

Smells absolutely amazing in the tin, but taste-wise, there’s not a whole lot going on. I love all things sour/tart, and this definitely hits the spot in that regard – I actually steep it for about 4 minutes (note that my cup is rather large, though) and any less than that it seems a little too watery. There’s an immediate tart flavor and a nice sweet aftertaste. Not a bad tea but I wish there was more body to it and more discernable flavors.

One of my favorite teas. Nice and fruity. Beautiful color when steeped. This tea really makes me happy. I felt one could steep this several (2 or 3) times and still find the flavor very nice adding a minute more with each steep.

I’m not too sure on this one. It does have a nice strawberry flavor. However, I haven’t decided exactly what it is that I’m not too particular about. It has a nice sweetness that you really do not need a sweetener for. Wondering if there is another tea to blend this with to better suit my liking.

Killer awesome dessert treat of a tea. Even nice the second and third steep of the tea. I enjoy a lot of the Teavana teas because of the strength of the tea. This tea’s flavor brought me back to liking rooibos teas.

Steep Information:
Amount: 5 teaspoons
Additives: none
Water: 1 teapot filtered boiling
Steep Time: a little over 5:55 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: militiajim: caramel amazonv: floral
Steeped Tea Smell: citrus, floral, vaguely fruity
Flavor: lemony, fruity, dry
Body: Light
Aftertaste: citrus for a moment
Liquor: translucent reddish brown

Thank you SoccerMom for this gift.

I have a head cold and have slept through the past two days entirely. I hate wasting vacation to sleep but I didn’t have much choice. As a result I can’t hear, smell or taste very well and I’m woozy. So take this review with that in mind. Usually we prepare this with sugar and jasmine pearls. Being sick i was not in the mood to fuss with anything, nor to have caffeine so I decided to try this plain. MilitiaJim made it for me so I didn’t sneeze on it.

The tea had a lot of particulate in it – not a bad thing, just a note, we were using a mesh wire infuser basket.

I enjoy this more with sweetener and the jasmine pearls, but I think it might just as well be improved by sweetener and iced.

Post-Steep Additives: none

Resteep: too tired to try

Rating: 2/3

Decent. This is my first real oolong at home, and so far I’m liking it. Slightly vegetal, but not as much as a pure green. The jasmine is strong, but I like it that way.

The local Teavana has Dragonwell back in stock and I, well, stocked up. It’s good to have this back in my cupboard. I’ve been drinking lots of it to make up for the lost time that I haven’t had it available.

In life, I’ve found someone new and I think that this is it this time. She drinks tea, but without the disguised snobbery about it that I do. Maybe she’ll bring some balance to me.

Still best drank from a guywan, or decanted from… The worst part is the fourth steeping… The one that follows the third AKA Should Be Last Steeping. The fourth one is a ghost and only encourages a person to find fresh leaves and start the process all over again.

I tried to think of a drug analogy for this one, but, I guess I’m out of the drug loop. Insert your own, this stuff is fantastic.

Reading Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” sitting on the linoleum floor of my parents’ kitchen at 1am drinking Dragonwell from one of their tea cups after decanting it from my guywan. The guywan is one of my surviving tea instruments. Most of them were left behind as the detritus that serves as material collateral damage in a sudden breakup.

I’d had enough of her behavior and enough of my own self-deceit that she’d live up to her promises that she’d get better. Be better. More reliable.

So a thousand miles behind me and just shy of all of my personal belongings shed during the last four months, I block her phone number and only communicate with her through e-mail. I pay her rent, partially as a sort of non-legally-mandated alimony, partially because my name is still on the lease, and I work at forgetting that those months even happened. E-mails from her have, in only days, started to feel like waking up from a strange, confusing dream only to find that one of the characters had left a note in the waking world.

It’s good to be home.

This morning I allowed myself to doze in bed for an extra half hour, citing the Real Good work out I had at the gym and the habañeros I had for lunch as my excuse. Once up, for breakfast a bit of Dragonwell and a can of chili that I think the only difference between it and Alpo is the label. Then I listened to a good bit of my favorite album- The Who’s Tommy. This should shape up to be a pretty decent day.

Used the last of this today as a strong brewed iced tea. Love the tart berry flavor and the energy it gives me. I will miss you RL Mate, I don’t think I’ll be rushing to buy more just yet.

Drinking a cold brew infusion I left steeping in my fridge overnight and WOW is this so much better than hot brew over ice!

The flavor is so much smoother, it lost some of the tartness of the berries and is now a delicate, sweet berry on my tongue. Lemon plays around with the Raspberry quite nicely. I didn’t think this tea could improve from it’s previously high status, but it has. I must have more of this tea!

Having this Iced again. Used 3 teaspoons to 12 oz water (boiling) and steeped for 9 minutes. Then poured immediately over ice.

I love how potent the raspberry and lemon are in this mate. I usually add splenda to my iced teas, but this one is so sweet on its own that there is no need for it. Delicious citrus berry flavor with a hint of mate, this was a great way to start my morning.

I love the tart Raspberry flavor of this tea when iced. It definitely gave me the boost I needed to jump start my morning. I love that the caffeine in this doesn’t hurt my stomach, as coffee does.

I blended with this tea with equal parts of Sour Cherry Serenade to get a Cherry Chocolate effect. This time I used 2 teaspoons to 10oz boiling water. Steeped for 3 minutes. Liquor brownish with a bit of what I assume was chocolate floating near the top. Smells like strawberries and cocoa, not much cherry. Tastes like sour cherry with a chocolate after taste. This time I’m not getting much of the chili burn.

Not sure what it is, but something in this makes it curdle when I add milk, even non dairy creamer. Maybe the cherry? I brewed it as is this time.

I think I like this better as Azteca Fire by itself. Not much of a sour cherry fan.

Edit: a few more sips in and wow am I getting chili flavor. It cooled down a few degrees and I do like this tea a bit more.

I like this tea blended with Sour Cherry Serenade. Alone I didn’t taste much strawberry, but blended the cherry really pops and you get a chocolate covered cherry with a chile burn. This blend had noticeable flavor but wasn’t remarkable enough for me. Make sure the water is hot enough so the chocolate peices melt!

Drinking this right now, without sweetener. Love the appley-peary taste.

Started with this tea this morning. Picked it up on the suggestion of the tea guy behind the counter as it was the best way to “kick coffee”. He also told me to steep it for at least 6 minutes, which is way longer than any other tea I have ever made. I don’t think that was a bad choice at all. I added 3 tsp of the tea along with 2 tsp of rock sugar. This tea is amazing! Very rich and full of chocolate flavor, but not in a sweet way but more of a dark and smoky kind. There is a sharpness that lingers on the my tongue that I just can’t place. I can’t wait to find out what this is. The guy behind the counter also suggested trying it with about 1 part water and 1 part milk to give the tea an even richer taste. I will have to give this a try to see if he is right about this one as well.